This morning, some allies of Boris Johnson were very worried about the Dominic Cummings section of the PM’s appearance before the liaison committee. They were concerned it’d produce some news line that would keep this story, which has been so damaging for the government, in lights for another day. But in the end, that section was not actually that bad for Boris Johnson.
Several of the select committee chairs chose to deliver speeches rather than asking sharp questions. The one exception to this was Meg Hillier who pressed Boris Johnson on whether he had seen the evidence Dominic Cummings referred to at his press conference on Monday. Johnson said he had, at which point Hillier asked him if he had shared it with the Cabinet Secretary. Johnson said he had not.
He was more reluctant to admit to mistakes made directly on his watch
The rest of the session, though, was trickier for Boris Johnson than he had expected. He seemed genuinely surprised when Stephen Timms asked him about people who have leave to remain in this country on the proviso that they do not access public funds. Boris Johnson’s reaction to this news suggests that a U-turn might be on the way.
There was also a rather tricky exchange with Caroline Nokes, who he took the whip away from in the last parliament, about whether enough women had been involved in the decision making about coronavirus.
In this session, Boris Johnson did admit that the UK had failed to learn the lessons of Sars and Mers and that was one of the reasons why the UK had been so hard hit by coronavirus. But he was more reluctant to admit to mistakes made directly on his watch.
Huw Merriman, chair of the transport committee, asked how quarantine for air passengers could be the right policy from 8 June if it wasn’t the right policy back in February when community transmission had started. Johnson did not have a proper answer to this and, I expect, that when the Commons comes to vote on the quarantine policy, there’ll be a not insignificant Tory rebellion.
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