Harman’s face was thunder. Boris was as agile as a cat. Pure box office but, after four nit-picking hours, had a single mind been changed? SARAH VINE reviews ex-PM’s battle to clear his name and salvage his career over Partygate
Not since Johnny Depp took on Amber Heard has a courtroom drama been so hotly anticipated.
The Captain Jack Sparrow of British politics, buccaneer and charming rogue Boris Johnson, in the dock in front of his peers, fighting not just to clear his name but also to salvage his career.
If politics is showbiz for ugly people, then this was pure Westminster box office. Ostensibly about whether or not Johnson knew that he was misleading parliament in relation to Partygate, in reality yesterday’s hearing was about so much more.
It was about the whole psychodrama of the past few years, about gold wallpaper and Dominic Cummings, about late-night red wine rows and the Red Wall, about feuds and counterfeuds and, of course, about Brexit. His enemies were bullish. Gary Lineker, that beacon of BBC impartiality, tweeted darkly about ‘folks who constantly tell fibs’ shortly after Boris’s defence dossier was released on Tuesday.
The airways were alive with pundits debating the relative depth of his imminent demise. This was payback time.
The Captain Jack Sparrow of British politics, buccaneer and charming rogue Boris Johnson, in the dock in front of his peers, fighting not just to clear his name but also to salvage his career
Next to the Commons privileges committee members – slow, ponderous, over-fond of their own voices – Mr Johnson seemed as agile as a cat
Sadly for them, any hope that the setbacks of the last few months might have taken the wind out of Johnson’s sails were dashed from the outset. He was passionate, persistent, absolutely determined to fight his corner. There was no bluster or obfuscation – indeed the whole interminable four hours were a reminder of how sharp this man’s mind can be.
Johnson may occasionally be lazy – but he is certainly not stupid. Next to the Commons privileges committee members – slow, ponderous, over-fond of their own voices – he seemed as agile as a cat.
Proceedings were due to start at 2pm promptly, and indeed the panel was duly assembled, Lever arch files and Post-it notes neatly in place. Committee chairman Harriet Harman, framed by a criminal piece of municipal wall art, sported an impressive statement necklace.
READ MORE: The Battle of Boris: Johnson defiant as he faces four-hour Partygate grilling TODAY after dismissing ‘partisan’ claims he deliberately misled MPs
If it wasn’t already obvious from her thunderous face how she felt about the defendant, then the giant chain link motif left little doubt. Three minutes past the appointed hour, and a determined looking Johnson took his seat, alongside his adviser.
‘We are not looking at the rights and wrongs of Covid – but whether Mr Johnson told the truth to parliament to the best of his knowledge,’ intoned Harman. Keenly, and with all the ponderous self-importance for which she is well known in parliament, she stressed her absolute impartiality (the lady doth protest too much?), while Johnson, clearly chomping on his inner bit, twiddled his thumbs impatiently.
Finally, having been instructed to swear on the Bible (not, as far as I know, normal practice in committee hearings), he was invited to make his opening statement.
Addressing the chair, he wondered whether there was much point at this juncture, since the division bell announcing the vote on the Prime Minister’s Brexit deal was scheduled to sound at any moment, requiring proceedings to be suspended. Harman replied with a robotic statement – and so, with a shrug, off he went.
If he was nervous, there was no sign of it. This was not the hair-ruffling, ‘uhm-uhmming’, eye-shifting Johnson forced out by his own party just a few months ago, but a smart, refreshed, confident and distinctly punchy version, very much on the offensive.
Committee chairman Harriet Harman, framed by a criminal piece of municipal wall art, sported an impressive statement necklace
Having been instructed to swear on the Bible, Mr Johnson was invited to make his opening statement
He was just getting into his stride when, as predicted, the bell sounded and off everyone scuttled, Johnson included
In essence, his defence was as follows: the committee found nothing to show that he was warned that events in No 10 were illegal; Dominic Cummings is an unreliable witness (‘he has every motive to lie’); they had withheld important testimonies on which his case relied; the best and fairest course now would be for them to publish all the evidence so the public and parliament could judge for itself’; but they won’t – this is ‘manifestly unfair’.
He appealed to the panel’s common sense. Why, he asked, if he knew events in Downing Street were illicit and unauthorised, would he have allowed an official photographer to be present – the resulting pictures forming much of the ‘evidence’ against him?
He was just getting into his stride when, as predicted, the bell sounded and off everyone scuttled, Johnson included. Ten minutes later he was back, having voted against the Windsor Framework (as he said he would).
If the timing had been engineered to scupper him, it failed. Johnson doubled down. Hand on heart he had not lied; he said what he said in good faith based on what he knew at the time; if he’s lying then so are all the civil servants and advisers who told him the guidelines were being properly observed.
There was real passion here – and real anger. There was an element of astonishment too: this is clearly a man who truly believes he did his absolute best to guide the nation through the Covid crisis, who worked as hard as he possibly could in the interests of everyone and who almost can’t quite believe that he is the one now called to defend his actions.
Nevertheless, defend them he did. Pedantic questions from Sir Bernard Jenkin, so pleased with the cleverness of his line of enquiry he barely seemed to pay any attention to the answers.
Harman, interfering occasionally to scold Johnson for taking too long or veering off topic. Flashes of tightly contained frustration at having to explain the same point over and over again. Another division bell, then another.
A ridiculous question from Yvonne Fovargue MP about why Carrie and their baby were in the infamous birthday cake picture, as neither were work colleagues. How on earth he resisted the urge to yell ‘Because I had nearly died of Covid and we didn’t think I would ever see another birthday and besides don’t you know that No 10 is also the Prime Minister’s home and therefore why would my wife not be there, goddam it’ I don’t know, but he didn’t.
Boris Johnson said Dominic Cummings is an unreliable witness (‘he has every motive to lie’)
Pedantic questions from Sir Bernard Jenkin, so pleased with the cleverness of his line of enquiry he barely seemed to pay any attention to the answers
Why, Mr Johnson asked, if he knew events in Downing Street were illicit and unauthorised, would he have allowed an official photographer to be present
Instead, he just ploughed on, answering the same questions over and over again. It was a spectacle of pedantry and nit-pickery, in which it became increasingly apparent that the committee seemed to think that all Johnson should have been doing all day long, day in day out, was patrolling the corridors of No 10 with a ruler checking that people were observing social distancing.
There were some nice Johnson flourishes. On social distancing: ‘You can’t expect human beings in an environment like No 10 to have an electrified fence around them.’
Stressing the use of the ‘operative conditional’ – in this case the use of ‘where possible’ – in guidance: he was always a stickler for good grammar.
In the end though, it was all just a bit farcical. The truth about Boris is that those who love him will forgive him almost anything, while those who don’t will seize on the tiniest thing to condemn him. And the problem with this whole Partygate thing – and with the Covid inquiry in general – is that there are huge grey areas which no amount of committee meetings or bloodless MPs will ever truly resolve.
Whatever mistakes were made, whatever rules were broken, and however justified – and it is justified – public anger about lockdown and the heavy-handed way ordinary members of the public were treated by the authorities, I don’t think – from the evidence of this testimony – that Johnson deliberately or maliciously set out to flaunt the rules.
As so often in life, this is a cock-up, not a conspiracy.
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