Get ready for another 48 hours of Boris drama. The Privileges Committee is expected to publish its findings tomorrow into whether Johnson knowingly misled the House, some 14 months after the Commons voted for an inquiry into his statements on Partygate. The former PM claimed that he was advised by senior officials that both Covid rules and guidance had been complied with at all times in No. 10 during the pandemic. But according to the Times, the seven-strong panel of MPs has concluded that staff did not in fact advise this, despite his repeated insistences in the Commons. Whoops…
In fact, Martin Reynolds – Johnson’s infamous Private Secretary of BYOB ‘party Marty’ fame – warned him against making such a claim on the basis it was ‘unrealistic’. In written evidence to the Privileges Committee, published in March, Reynolds said that he advised Johnson in December 2021 to remove a claim from a statement to the Commons that ‘all guidance had been followed at all times’.
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