Good morning. A 14-month-long parliamentary investigation into whether Boris Johnson lied to parliament over lockdown-breaking gatherings during the pandemic – which took place while the rest of the country was forced to stay inside and away from friends and family – has finally published its report. It is 30,000 words long and the culmination of months of rigorous evidence gathering.
Brace yourself: it found that the former prime minister did indeed lie. Again. What a shocker.
Though many expected a bad outcome for Johnson, the report is still astonishingly damning. It lays out (in excruciating detail) how he repeatedly and deliberately misled parliament when he claimed he had no knowledge of rule-breaking in and around Downing Street. And it seems as though his indignant response last week, after he resigned in anticipation of the publication of this report, made things worse for him. Initially, the recommended punishment was going to be a 20-day suspension – that number more than quadrupled to 90 days because of his attempts to “intimidate” the committee.
The mudslinging can be entertaining to watch but it obscures the seriousness of what this report shows: the then prime minister was flouting the rules that he had set, while outside No 10 the Covid death toll rose. For more detail on this, read this brilliant Guardian timeline.
While Johnson would like to frame this inquiry as a time wasting exercise, the issues at hand cut to “the very heart of our democracy”, the committee said. Today’s newsletter parses the report and takes a look at what might happen next. That’s right after the headlines.
Five big stories
Nottingham | The suspect in the Nottingham triple knife killings is a former student at the university named Valdo Amissão Mendes Calocane, sources have said. The university said it was devastated by the news that the suspect was a former student.
Health | Abortion law in England and Wales has been settled by parliament and the government does not intend to change it, a justice minister has told MPs, after a woman was jailed for taking abortion pills after the legal limit.
Greece | Survivors from an overcrowded fishing boat that capsized and sank on Wednesday off the Greek coast have told doctors and police that women and children were travelling in the hold of the vessel. 78 people have been confirmed dead, but there are fears the number of victims could run into the hundreds.
UK news | A mother has been jailed for 27 years for the manslaughter of her nine-year-old son, Alfie Steele, who was repeatedly beaten and held down in a cold bath. Her partner will serve at least 32 years for the boy’s murder.
Obituary | Two-time Oscar-winning actor and former Labour MP Glenda Jackson has died at the age of 87 after “a brief illness”.
In depth: How Johnson ‘committed a serious contempt’ of parliament
For the duration of this scandal, Boris Johnson’s main defence has been that he was advised by others that these gatherings were within the rules. The committee did not find this argument convincing, to say the least: it found that the only people who gave Johnson these assurances were Jack Doyle and James Slack, former Daily Mail journalists who worked as Johnson’s head of communications. “Both men were concerned chiefly with media-handling and both were, at different times, political appointees of Mr Johnson in that role,” the report says.
Once he realised this excuse was not going to wash, Johnson turned to his tried and true playbook and began to disparage the privileges committee and its findings. Unfortunately for Johnson, the investigation was meticulous. All the evidence gathered was first-hand: emails, WhatsApp messages and photographs. No matter how many adjectives he throws at it, the findings are hard to dispute.
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What he’s been found guilty of
In its lengthy 106-page report (pdf), the committee found that Johnson had:
1. Deliberately misled parliament when he repeatedly said that either no Covid rules were broken, or that he had been assured none were broken.
2. Deliberately misled the committee by repeating those lies.
3. Breached confidence by leaking parts of the report in advance when he resigned on Friday.
4. Impugned the committee and by extension undermined the democratic process of parliament.
5. Was complicit in the “campaign of abuse and attempted intimidation of the committee”.
The report eviscerated Johnson’s character and conduct, condemning his inflammatory response to the committee as an “attack on our democratic institutions”. It found that the former prime minister had deliberately misled parliament over Partygate four times, twice in December 2021, once the next month and then again in May 2022. By doing this he “committed a serious contempt” which was made only more serious by the fact that he was the prime minister and therefore should have been the person most diligently following the rules he was setting out for everyone else. The committee also published additional evidence yesterday morning establishing that Downing Street had a “culture of not adhering to any rules” during Covid.
If Johnson was still an MP, he would have been suspended for 90 days, the second longest suspension since 1979, bested only by former Labour MP Keith Vaz’s six-month suspension for offering to buy drugs for sex workers and failing to cooperate with an investigation. The committee added that Johnson should not be given the pass that allows him access to parliament as is standard for an ex-MP. For some on the committee, this was not enough. The SNP MP Allan Dorans and Labour MP Yvonne Fovargue unsuccessfully pushed for Johnson’s permanent expulsion from parliament.
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What he and allies said in response
As expected, Johnson has fiercely attacked the committee, claiming that those leading the inquiry had reached a “deranged conclusion” that was “contradicted by the facts”. He went on to say that the committee brought about “what is intended to be the final knife-thrust in a protracted political assassination”. He called the report “preposterous”, a “charade” and added that he was “wrong to believe in the committee or its good faith”.
His allies, from Jacob Rees-Mogg to Nadine Dorries, have added to the chorus of umbrage and anger, portraying Johnson as some kind of martyr that has fallen victim to a witch-hunt and threatening any Tory MPs that support it with deselection at the next general election.
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What’s next
Although Johnson’s suggested suspension is still theoretical, MPs get the chance to vote on it on Monday. As of now it seems likely that they will approve it – on his 59th birthday of all days. What a lovely gift.
No sitting or former prime minister has been found guilty of deliberately misleading the Commons or given such a serious sanction after an investigation. The severity of the response from the committee now gives Rishi Sunak the political cover to block Johnson from running as a Conservative candidate any time soon. But the bitterness with which this saga has ended has left the Conservative party extremely divided.
While Johnson would like to paint the picture that this is a political drama in which his foes have used technicalities to bring him down, the reality is that this is about the way the government was being run during the biggest peacetime crisis it has faced. Trust in government is already at an all-time low – what happens next could damage that further.
What else we’ve been reading
Sport
Football | Leicester are poised to appoint Enzo Maresca, Pep Guardiola’s assistant at Manchester City, as their new manager. The club were reportedly impressed by Maresca (pictured above) during talks, and he is now set to lead the club’s rebuild in the Championship.
Cricket | From “Bazball” to series-swinging injuries to whose ashes they even are anyway, Rob Smyth’s bluffer’s guide will have you ready for the 73rd edition of the Ashes, which starts today at Edgbaston.
Golf | Rickie Fowler and Xander Schauffele joined the hallowed ranks of golfing greats by posting 62 at a US Open. The two players delivered the magic number within an hour of each other, becoming just the second and third in history to do so, after Branden Grace.
The front pages
The Guardian outlines “The verdict on Johnson”, on a day that national front pages are dominated by the House of Commons privileges committee report into Partygate. The Times characterises it as the “End of the road for Johnson”, while the Mirror simply leads with “Liar”.
The Telegraph reports “Johnson allies vow to oust MPs who vote for his censure”. The Mail claims there is a “Tory revolt over ‘vindictive’ bid to banish Boris”.
The i says that the former-PM would have faced a 90-day suspension, under the headline “He lied and lied and lied”. The Financial Times says “Johnson’s repeated lies to MPs condemned in searing report”.
Something for the weekend
Our critics’ roundup of the best things to watch, read and listen to right now
TV
Black Mirror (Netflix)
Charlie Brooker’s tech dystopia magnum opus returns, with season six opening in an avatar-based nightmare. Joan, a mild-mannered, mildly depressed HR manager (Schitt’s Creek’s Annie Murphy) watches a series that is, in fact, a dramatisation of her life, starring Salma Hayek Pinault as an awful version of her. In that patented Black Mirror way, it ruthlessly mines our latent existential dread. Lucy Mangan
Music
Asake – Work of Art
As a man who appeared on nine singles over the course of 2022, Asake is nothing if not productive. However, this second album from the Nigerian star doesn’t sound like it has been hastily thrown together, the palette of supporting sounds broad enough to encompass everything from a country-ish fiddle weaving through Mogbe, to dancehall-influenced interjections and the rather Dire Straits-evoking guitar that opens Sunshine. Alexis Petridis
Film
Pretty Red Dress
There’s warmth, humour, sadness and tenderness in this big-hearted feature debut from writer-director Dionne Edwards. It’s a movie about masculinity that could have been solemn; instead it’s pulsing with humanity, thanks in great part to tremendous performances from Natey Jones, Alexandra Burke and Temilola Olatunbosun. Burke (pictured above) plays Candice, a singer about to land the role of a lifetime playing Tina Turner on stage – but there are problems brewing. Peter Bradshaw
Podcast
The 13th Step
Widely available, episodes weekly
What starts as a troubling show alleging that the founder of New Hampshire’s largest addiction treatment network sexually harassed patients soon becomes something far wilder. We hear that previous attempt to report on it were followed by mysterious violence; interviewees are hit with legal threats; the host is sued; and a picture of attempts to silence free speech emerges. Alexi Duggins
Today in Focus
Boris Johnson: the damning verdict
As Peter Walker tells Hannah Moore, over the course of more than 100 pages, a privileges committee report details the parties that Boris Johnson attended during lockdown. It contrasts his behaviour with his statements to the Commons and concludes that he repeatedly and deliberately misled parliament.
The punishment they recommend for him is the harshest ever to be meted out to a former prime minister. Johnson and his dwindling group of allies are furious. But is this now the end of the road for a politician who seemed to defy gravity for so long?
Cartoon of the day | Ben Jennings
The Upside
A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
For the latest edition of the Guardian’s How we met column, Neo, who lives in Cardiff and Becky, from Oxfordshire, told Lizzie Cernik about their friendship, which began in 2017 when they met at a festival. The pair bonded over a love of fancy dress; when they met, Becky was dressed as Beyoncé, while Neo was wearing 6ft wings and “an ostrich feather headdress that made me about 7ft tall”. Becky was instantly taken with her new acquaintance. “It was as if we shared this instant connection,” she said.
Their friendship continued, mostly online, but intensified following the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, when they found common ground speaking about their experience of growing up mixed race in predominantly white environments. “It was like the universe had put us together so we could evolve, individually and as friends,” says Neo.
Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday
Bored at work?
And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day – with plenty more on the Guardian’s Puzzles app for iOS and Android. Until Monday.
