To look at the House of Commons this morning, you’d have thought Labour won the last election. The green benches on the government side were bereft of the usual Tory hordes, while the opposition was crammed with jeering Labour backbenchers. The reason? The Speaker Lindsay Hoyle had granted an Urgent Question on the subject of No. 10’s parties in May 2020, following yesterday’s revelations by ITV.
Boris Johnson was busy elsewhere so the call went out for the Paymaster-General. Poor Michael Ellis was sent out for the most thankless task since the Charge of the Light Brigade, armed only with his legal training in dodging, ducking, deflecting and evading difficult questions.
After a predictable tirade from Angela Rayner in full Elizabethan Gloriana mode, up came the bowling thick and fast in a performance more pitiful than England’s efforts in the Ashes series.
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