The prime minister was enraged by the forensic questioning of the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, during Wednesday’s PMQs. By the end of the session Boris Johnson was fulminating: but did he provide any answers? Here’s what he was asked on Wednesday – and what he said: Question: “Did the prime minister say he would rather have ‘bodies pile high, than implement another lockdown’ in late October? No, Mr Speaker. And the right honourable gentleman is a lawyer, I’m given to understand, and I think that, if he’s going to repeat allegations like that, he should come to this house and substantiate those allegations and say, and say, where he heard them and who exactly is supposed to have said those things. Question: “Somebody here isn’t telling the truth. I’ll leave it there for now … Who initially – and ‘initially’ is the key word here – paid for the redecoration of his Downing Street flat?” Mr Speaker, when it comes to misleading parliament, he may recollect it was only a few weeks ago that he said he didn’t oppose this country leaving the European Medicines Agency; a fact that he was then forced to retract. And leaving the European Medicines Agency was absolutely invaluable for our vaccine rollout … Question: “Normally when people don’t want to incriminate themselves, they go: ‘no comment’. Either the taxpayer paid the initial invoice, or it was the Conservative party, or it was a private donor or it was the prime minister. Who paid the initial invoice?” Mr Speaker, I’ve given him the answer. And the answer is: I have, I have, covered the cost. And, of course, [the] Electoral Commission [is] investigating this and I can tell him I conformed in full with the ministerial code and officials who have been advising me throughout this whole thing. But I think people will think it absolutely bizarre that he is focusing on this issue, when what people want to know is: what plans a Labour government might have to improve the life of people in this country … Question: “It has been widely reported that Lord Brownlow was asked to donate £58,000 to help pay for the cost of this refurbishment. Can the prime minister confirm ... Did Lord Brownlow make that payment for that purpose?” Mr Speaker, I think I’ve answered this question several times now. And the answer is that I have covered the cost. I have met the requirements that I’ve been advised to meet in full. And, when it comes to the taxpayer and the costs of 10 Downing Street, it was the previous Labour government – I think Tony Blair racked up a bill of £350,000… And I think what the people of this country want to see is minimising taxpayer expense …
Question: “The Electoral Commission now thinks that there are reasonable grounds to suspect that an offence or offences may have occurred. That’s incredibly serious. Can the prime minister tell the house: does he believe that any rules or laws have been broken in relation to the refurbishment of the prime minister’s flat?” Mr Speaker, what I believe has been strained to breaking point is the credulity of the public. He has half an hour every week to put serious and sensible questions to me about the state of the pandemic, about the vaccine rollout, about what we’re doing to support our NHS, about what we’re doing to fight crime, about what we’re doing to bounce back from this pandemic, about economic recovery, about jobs for the people of this country. And he goes on and on, Mr Speaker, about wallpaper when, as I’ve told him umpteen times now, I paid for it …