Good evening! The latest edition of The Worst of Westminster is out now and you can get it straight in your inbox every Friday by clicking the link above.
This week has been packed with Westminster news, but one story in particular concerning a former prime minister has dominated the headlines.
So, without further ado, allow me to take you through everything that has happened with Boris Johnson this week in our first (and maybe not the last…let’s be real) Boris Special.
Damning report from Privileges Committee
After Johnson resigned as an MP with immediate effect last Friday upon receiving advance sight of a long-awaited report into his conduct, everyone knew what was about to be published would be extremely bad news for him.
When the 30,000-word report was published on Thursday of this week, journalists were bowled over reading that the committee would have recommended Johnson be suspended for 90 days from the Commons for deliberately misleading Parliament over lockdown parties at Number 10 in five separate ways, had he not already shown himself the door.
The group of MPs on the committee found Johnson in contempt of the Commons and accused him of an “attack on our democratic institutions”.
To drive home the seriousness of what Johnson had done, the report said: “There is no precedent for a Prime Minister having been found to have deliberately misled the House.
“He misled the House on an issue of the greatest importance to the House and to the public, and did so repeatedly.”
Notably, the report also complained of a "sustained attempt, seemingly co-ordinated, to undermine the committee’s credibility and, more worryingly, that of those members serving on it".
Ahead of the release of the report, Johnson said of the committee: "Their purpose from the beginning has been to find me guilty, regardless of the facts."
Although the committee cannot now recommend the three-month suspension, it has recommended Johnson not be given a former members’ pass. This would bar him from the Houses of Parliament.
The next important stage in this saga will be on Monday when MPs are to be given the chance to vote on the recommendations. They are expected to be endorsed by the Government but there are noises some Tory MPs may choose to side with Boris.
There is continuing pressure coming on Rishi Sunak to block Boris Johnson’s honours list. Hundreds of thousands of people signed a petition calling for this even before the report was published.
We have become accustomed to scandals and Johnson being closely associated, so the obscene entitlement of the man now documented in this report may not have come as a surprise to some. It is what we have come to expect.
But I invite you to take a step back and just reflect on the magnitude of these findings. A former prime minister has been found to have lied on purpose to the House of Commons SEVERAL times about parties he attended during a global pandemic while thousands of people across the UK lost loved ones to the virus and in many cases could not even see them for a final time.
On top of that, he has been found to have severely undermined the committee investigating his lies, a committee which contains a majority of Conservative MPs and a Brexiteer in Bernard Jenkin. He may never be welcomed into Westminster ever again.
Just let that sink in.
Oh, and if you’re looking for some icing on this already sickening cake, Johnson is going to be a columnist for the Daily Mail which he has failed to get permission for from the appointments watchdog Acoba. Vintage.
Douglas Ross shies away from questions
One man that stood by Johnson’s side several times during his tenure as PM was Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross, who is an MP and MSP let’s not forget.
And this week a clip came back to haunt him where he called Johnson an “honest man” on Radio Scotland back in April last year.
We simply had to ask the man himself about this following the release of hard proof Johnson had lied to Parliament. It was just too awkward not to.
In his classic flip-flopping style, he declined to say if he regretted his comment when approached at Holyrood by our political reporter Abbi Garton-Crosbie. He also did not respond when asked if he would miss Johnson.
Ross said he would vote for the committee’s recommendations, but First Minister Humza Yousaf said in the Holyrood chamber the public would never forget Ross “backed Johnson to the hilt”.
How do you solve a problem like Nadine Dorries?
We couldn’t leave this be without a special wee section for Johnson’s best mate Dorries.
There has been a whirlwind of news around the Mid Bedfordshire MP who resigned and then unresigned….basically anyway.
She decided to step down with immediate effect on Friday – shortly before Johnson – after she was not included in his resignation honours list to receive a peerage.
But since then, she has vowed to remain in her job until she gets answers as to why she did not get a seat in the Lords.
Dorries is yet to formally tender her resignation to Chancellor Jeremy Hunt despite saying she would go immediately.
In a scathing column earlier in the week, she insisted “sinister forces” were behind her Lords snub. She believes she was deliberately blocked from receiving a peerage by “posh boys” working for Rishi Sunak.
Much like the Johnson saga, this is set to rumble on for some time yet.
