This was meant to be Boris Johnson’s week of reckoning, but after more twists and turns than a Formula One grand prix, he ended the week closeted away in his country retreat of Chequers, his premiership safe – for now.
Scores of Tory MPs have been awaiting the verdict of Sue Gray, the senior civil servant investigating alleged lockdown-busting parties in Downing Street, before deciding whether to press for a vote of no confidence in the prime minister.
With her report now apparently entangled with a police investigation, Conservative backbenchers have been left to draw their own conclusions, and Johnson’s allies believe many will opt to let him fight on.
“I think there’s a 55% chance that he’ll survive,” said one backer, though they called for a clearout of staff in No 10 so Johnson can start afresh.
That’s not how it looked on Tuesday morning when the Metropolitan police commissioner, Cressida Dick, electrified Westminster during an appearance at the London assembly.
Having repeatedly declined to get her force involved in this most toxic of political scandals, Dick confirmed her force would now launch an investigation into the Downing Street parties.
Johnson had been forewarned, but chose not to mention it to his cabinet at their weekly Tuesday meeting. Trapped in the cabinet room without their phones, ministers were among the last people to hear the news as they emerged.
There followed an unedifying and confusing 72 hours, which began with the Met suggesting it had no objections to Gray publishing her report in full, and a frenzy of speculation that the report was to be published imminently, but ended on Friday with no sign of the report, and a formal statement conceding the police had asked her to make “minimal reference” to the eight events they are investigating.
And in the vacuum, Johnson and his allies have spent their time fighting back hard. He has been meeting wavering MPs to hear their political demands, and Downing Street’s planning “grid” is being filled up with trips and announcements designed to show him getting on with delivering “the people’s priorities”.
At prime minister’s questions on Wednesday, Johnson was boisterous and defiant, insisting he couldn’t pre-empt the Met inquiry and highlighting his achievements in government.
Tory MPs roared their approval, several times yelling “More!” at deafening volume. Johnson came up with a new attack line on the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, accusing him of being “a lawyer, not a leader”.
A Westminster veteran pointed out afterwards that the Conservative party continued cheering on Margaret Thatcher in the final days of her premiership, almost right up until the moment they chucked her out of office.
But some of Johnson’s ragtag band of supporters have been lobbying their colleagues by sharing a grainy Daily Express front page from 1990 lamenting Thatcher’s downfall with the headline “What have they done?” (apparently forgetting that by ditching a deeply unpopular leader, the Tories managed to win a fourth general election in 1992 under John Major.)
In a line that appeared to be aimed at his own MPs, Johnson claimed Starmer “wants me out of the way” – a nod to those backbenchers fretting about their prospects for re-election.
Labour MPs later hit back on Twitter, calling Johnson, “a liar, not a leader” – language they are prevented by convention from using in the House of Commons.
Starmer contrasted Johnson’s statement to MPs that Covid guidance “was followed completely in No 10” – and that he had been “repeatedly assured” there were no parties – with the facts that had since emerged. He once again called on Johnson to resign.
At the same time as Johnson’s honesty over partygate was being questioned, fresh evidence emerged about his alleged role in authorising the evacuation of animals from Afghanistan by the Nowzad charity.
Emails published by the foreign affairs committee showed Foreign Office officials suggesting the prime minister had approved the controversial airlift, at a time when life-or-death decisions were being made about who British troops should help to leave Kabul.
The prime minister has dismissed the claims as “total rhubarb”, but the committee’s chair, Tom Tugendhat – who has been burnishing his credentials as a potential leadership candidate – is unlikely to let the issue drop.
As Gray continued to wrangle with lawyers and the Met about what could be published, Johnson donned hi-vis on Thursday for a visit to Wales. The resulting photos were reminiscent of carefully curated shots from the 2019 general election campaign: a bullish prime minister surrounded by smiling workers in hard hats.
This will be Johnson’s approach in the coming days: look busy – preferably far away from No 10 – sound serious and switch the focus to pressing political issues, such as the war in Ukraine.
The publication of Michael Gove’s levelling up white paper, now expected next week, will allow the government to point to its domestic reform agenda, largely shelved since partygate.
The question for Conservative MPs will be whether Johnson should now be allowed time to try to claw back his reputation and rebuild their party’s standing in the polls, or whether he is irrevocably damaged.
One MP ridiculed colleagues claiming to be awaiting Gray’s verdict. “What’s she going to say? Three words: ‘It’s a shitshow.’ Why do you need to wait for that?” they said.
Johnson’s supporters hope that with every day that goes by, the shocking details of lockdown-busting parties will fade from the public’s minds – helped by the backing of the rightwing papers. Wednesday’s Daily Mail front page, after the news broke of a birthday party for Johnson in 2020, railed against “a nation that’s lost all sense of proportion”.
This week’s disclosure that Johnson had a birthday celebration in Downing Street in June 2020, with up to 30 people singing around the cabinet table, didn’t change the dial for his supporters in the media.
Nor did the much-mocked attempts by the Northern Ireland minister, Conor Burns, to defend what had happened. “It was not a premeditated, organised party,” said Burns. “He was, in a sense, ambushed with a cake.”
But one disillusioned Conservative MP, who once supported the prime minister, suggested no shift of policy or personnel in No 10 was likely to win over the public, however much time was allowed to pass.
They pointed to a widely shared, heartbreaking Sky News clip of a man called Richard Macvicar, who lost his parents and his sister to Covid, saying: “I would have loved 10 minutes to say ‘ta ra’ to my family members.”
“Some people might be willing to forget,” the MP said. “But those people who have terribly suffered feel very differently.”
