Brazen Boris Johnson tonight got laughs and took an apparent swipe at Justin Welby in a private meeting with his MPs on Partygate.
The "bullish" Prime Minister boomed “would you rather have Labour!” - just hours after he said sorry for being fined by police around 90 times in a House of Commons statement.
But once in private he brushed quickly past his apology, attendees said, moving onto “doorstep issues” like the cost of living, Ukraine, jobs and childcare.
A source close to the PM claimed the 35-minute behind-closed-doors meeting - packed with his supporters - was more “bullish” than his appearance before MPs today.
Several rounds of laughter and banging of tables from his supporters could be heard through the doors of the oak-panelled committee room, after a more sombre approach in public.
The source said the PM told Tory MPs his plan to send unwanted asylum seekers to Rwanda was a "good policy" despite some "criticism on the BBC and from senior members of the clergy”.
And he complained clergymen had “coincidentally had been less vociferous in their condemnation on Easter Sunday of Putin than they were of our policy on illegal immigrants”, the source claimed.
The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby branded the plan ungodly in his Easter message, and the Archbishop of York used his sermon to criticise it too.
Two MPs who attended the meeting said they did not recall hearing this comment.
But Tory MP Jonathan Gullis told the Mirror afterwards that the Archbishop should “butt his nose out of it”, adding: “I think bishops should not be in the House of Lords.”
The meeting had been billed as a “clear-the-air” showdown, and tensions heightened when ex-Chief Whip Mark Harper told the PM to go - saying he was not “worthy” of No10.
But attendees said if any MPs were plotting the PM’s downfall, they didn’t express it in the meeting with their colleagues.
One attendee said around 20 MPs asked questions during the meeting of which only two were “sceptical”, and both were known critics of the Prime Minister.
A source close to the PM claimed one MP, Jason McCartney, even brought up Jo Cox’s murder while slamming Keir Starmer.
The source said: “He said Starmer was whipping up hysteria - to remind everyone two MPs were killed - there’s potential here for visceral hatred.
“You saw a lot of that on the opposition benches today.
“The Prime Minister was more restrained in his response but said there was a coarsening of debate that does our politics no favours.”
The Prime Minister was said to have distanced himself from that comment “a bit” - but agreed there had been a “coarsening of the debate”
Another MP, Craig Whittaker, got cheers when saying Partygate was “an incredibly wet blanket smothering all the good news”, a source said.
The meeting was largely made up of supportive MPs, with some who exited insisting Partygate "did not come up on the doors".
Sources were keen to stress that the PM also backed Chancellor Rishi Sunak, who is also under fire over getting fined, asking them "who would you rather run the economy, Rishi or Rachel Reeves ".
