Can the Paterson Tory sleaze row continue to damage Boris?

After a bruising week for Boris Johnson over the Owen Paterson lobbying row, the government U-turned on its plan to rewrite MP standards rules and Paterson quit the Commons. Yet the whole saga is far from over: the Prime Minister is likely to spend the next week dealing with the fallout from his botched plan to spare the Tory MP a one-month suspension over a breach of lobbying rules. Although Johnson’s environment secretary George Eustice declared on Sunday that the row amounts to a ‘storm in a teacup’, Tory MPs are furious and raising concerns over the No. 10 operation. To make matters worse, the government is now facing a spate of Tory sleaze stories from peerages for donors to lobbying over Covid contracts. 

Given the Tory poll lead slipped over the weekend, both Labour and the Liberal Democrats have an interest in keeping the row going. The two parties are spying an opportunity in the North Shropshire by-election that will be held after Paterson decided to step down.