Johnson’s partygate apology ploy

Boris Johnson bundled his Commons apology for breaking Covid laws together with an update on Ukraine because he wanted to try to draw a line under the matter. He spent a couple of minutes reiterating his apology that he’d already given in response to his fixed penalty notice, before performing a handbrake turn and saying:

And it is precisely because I know that so many people are angry and disappointed, that I feel an even greater sense of obligation to deliver on the priorities of the British people, and to respond in the best traditions of our country to Putin’s barbaric onslaught against Ukraine.

Sir Keir Starmer barely touched on Ukraine in his response, dismissing it as though it was merely being used in this instance to distract from the Prime Minister’s personal situation. This meant Johnson ended up complaining that Starmer had focused on ‘personal attacks’, as though saying sorry meant that no one could be mean to him.