Boris Johnson told during grilling by MPs that assurances he relied on during Partygate scandal were ‘flimsy’ – live | Politics

Conservative deputy chairman Lee Anderson has revealed he will be paid £100,000 a year for hosting a show on GB News, PA Media reports. PA says:

The annual fee, declared in an update to the MPs’ register of interests published on Wednesday, is a significant increase on the £200 weekly payment he received for appearing as a regular on Dan Wootton’s show.

The controversial MP for Ashfield, in Nottinghamshire, became the fifth Tory MP to host a GB News show when his deal with the channel was announced on 7 March.

He joins fellow Conservatives Jacob Rees-Mogg, Esther McVey and Philip Davies, who all currently host shows. Bishop Auckland MP Dehenna Davison previously hosted a show but left when she was made a levelling up minister.

In its report earlier this month the privileges committee said that it would consider whether Boris Johnson misled the house and, if so, it would consider “whether that was inadvertent, reckless or intentional”. On the basis of that evidence session, and all the written evidence that has been released, it seems likely that Johnson will go down on recklessness.

That will be enough to trigger a sanction. But it does not have to be a suspension of 10-days or more, and it is not hard to see why the committee might opt for a lesser punishment. There has been little or no evidence to back up claims there was a conspiracy to lie to MPs. The committee will want to produce a report and recommendation acceptable to as much as the Commons as possible. And any sanction at all on a former PM like this would be unprecedented. That would serve as warning to ministers in future that they need to take their obligations to parliament a lot more seriously than Johnson.

On the whole, the committee did a good job. It is still not clear why the committee did not ask about the Abba party, but it ran to time, the questions were robust, it never became partisan and the Conservatives on the committee gave the impression that they are not minded to be intimidated by a write-in campaign organised by grassroots Johnsonite extremists.

We did not learn any great new facts. But the MPs were good at testing the robustness of Johnson’s arguments, and two exchanges were particularly revealing. First, Sir Bernard Jenkin established quite effectively that Johnson’s understanding of what the guidance actually meant was so elastic as to cover not taking any notice of the guidance at all. (See 3.08pm.) And his question about what Johnson would have said if asked at a press conference if a crowded drinks do was allowed in a workplace under the Covid guidance was one of the best of the day. Johnson’s reply was wholly unconvincing. (See 3.33pm.)

The other key exchange came when Harriet Harman expressed dismay at Johnson telling MPs all rules and guidance were followed on the basis of such “flimsy” evidence. (See 4.54pm.) If you want to locate the gravamen of the committee’s final report, it is probably in that exchange.

Johnson was curt and abrupt. He did not quite lose his temper, but it was probably a mistake to take a swipe at Harman’s integrity and it should not have taken him as long as it did to disown the “kangaroo court” smears cast out by his supporters. Normally, in circumstances like this, unabashed humility goes down best. And honesty. One of the revealing lines from him came when he said that perhaps he should have been a bit more candid with the Commons last December when asked to explain to what extent guidance was followed in Number 10. (See 4.28pm.)

Even commentators well disposed towards Johnson (like the Telegraph’s Christopher Hope) are finding it hard to pretend that was a triumph. Johnson lost his job partly as a result of partygate, and the Brexiter Tory faction he now leads has, on the basis of today’s vote (see 3.20pm), been reduced to oddball rump of 22. When the committee has to decide what punishment is appropriate, it will take into account mitigating factors, and one reason not to trigger the recall process might be that a return to frontline politics for him seems increasingly unlikely anyway.

Sir Charles Walker (Con) goes next.

He asks about Conservative Post, the pro-Johnson website. The website has run a campaign against the privileges committee inquiry. Yet when the Commons voted to hold this inquiry, the government, led by Johnson at the time, did not oppose it.

Johnson confirms that.

Q: So it is misleading for Conservative Post to criticise Tory MPs for not opposing the inquiry.

Johnson accepts that.

Q: On 14 June 2022 there was a motion to add Harriet Harman to the committee. When the motion was put, not a single MP objected? Is that right?

Of course, says Johnson.

Q: So if MPs did have concerns about the committee, someone would have objected?

Johnson says he has said what he has said about the concern about Harman being impartial. He says he has come to the committee confident it will be impartial.

Q: Your supporters seem to want it both ways. They are hoping the committee will exonerate you. But just in case it doesn’t, they want to delegitimise us. Do you see us as a kangaroo court?

Johnson says the committee can tell from the respect he has shown it how he views it. This is the body that decides these matters. He does not think the committee can find he wittingly misled parliament.

Q: Do you regret your supporters have called the committee a kangaroo court?

Johnson says there should be no attempt to intimidate the committee.

Q: So do you regret that?

Johnson says he deprecates that term. (It is one used by Jacob Rees-Mogg just today – see 1.57am.)

Alberto Costa intervenes.

Q: Do you think the committee could be wrong, but still fair?

Johnson says it would have been “insane” for him to lie to the Commons. He says he is sure the committee will find in its favour.

Asked if he will accept it is acting in good faith if it doesn’t, Johnson says he will wait to see what it concludes.

UPDATE: Johnson said:

I think if this committee were to find me in contempt of parliament – having come and done something so utterly insane and contrary to my beliefs and my principles as to come here, to come to parliament and wittingly lie – I think that would be not only unfair, I think it would be wrong.

Turning away from the hearing for a moment, ITV’s Robert Peston has the headline figures from Rishi Sunak’s tax return.

Harriet Harman says she was in the Commons at the time when she heard him talk about his assurances. MPs thought they were serious assurances.

Yet they were from political advisers, not civil servants; the advisers had their own doubts; the assurances covered rules, not guidance; and they only covered one event.

So can you see why MPs are dismayed about the “flimsy nature” of these assurance, she asks.

Johnson disputes this. He says Jack Doyle and James Slack had both given assurances about Christmas drinks event.

Johnson says Doyle did not tell him that he (Doyle) had doubts about the event.

He says if the committee tells him he cannot rely on advice from people like Doyle and Slack, it would be difficult for government to carry on.

Q: Is it right that you received no assurances that the event on 18 December 2020 complied with Covid guidance? Jack Doyle made this point in written evidence. (See 11.31am.)

Johnson says that was correct. But nobody had said anything “adverse about the guidance”, he says. (In other words, he says he was not told it was against the guidance either.)