Boris Johnson is safe in his job because he is human and like all humans, he makes mistakes, a Government Minister has said.
The Prime Minister has been facing a storm of outrage after details of parties at Downing Street were revealed, with calls for him to resign from Opposition MPs and from his own Conservative ranks.
But Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi said he believes Mr Johnson is safe in his job as PM.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Mr Zahawi said – after being asked three times – that the Prime Minister will stay in his position.
He said: “Yes, he is, because he’s human and we make mistakes.
“And, actually, he came to the despatch box and apologised and said he will absolutely submit himself to Parliament, because that’s our parliamentary democracy.”
Earlier, Mr Zahawi said Boris Johnson “is focused on dealing with the big issues”.
The Education Secretary told Times Radio: “If you think again about the big calls, whether it’s Brexit, the vaccine programme which the Prime Minister very much focused on and I led the deployment, and of course the call on Omicron pre-Christmas… on the big decisions, he’s made the right call.
“Of course, we’re all human, we make mistakes. And when he made a mistake, he came to Parliament and apologised for it.”
Mr Zahawi said he would have acted differently and told staff to “get back to your desk” if he had discovered a party.
He also told Sky News it was not true that Boris Johnson had known about a party held at Downing Street on May 20, 2020.
He said: “It’s not true that the Prime Minister knew about this. He implicitly thought this was a work event.”
He said senior official Sue Gray must be allowed to carry out her inquiry into reports of coronavirus restriction-breaching events in Westminster, and he said the Prime Minister had “submitted himself to that investigation”.
Mr Zahawi said he shared the anger of the public over the issue, adding: “I can absolutely say to you that the Prime Minister feels the pain.”
He said: “All I would say is we have to allow the investigation to take place. Why? Because that’s the fair thing to do – you don’t condemn a man without a thorough investigation.”
