After 16 months, Boris Johnson was finally forensically cross-examined over Partygate – live on TV and for nearly four hours. Previous attempts to do so in brief media interviews or through questions posed in the Commons chamber allowed him to obfuscate or run down the clock. But in front of the cross-party privileges committee on Wednesday, there was nowhere to hide. His explanations were earnest, but did they stack up to scrutiny? Johnson said pictures showed him working at events Displayed on screens around the committee room were photos, showing Johnson at some of the rule-breaking events. As MPs on the privileges committee talked about the strict lockdown rules in place at the time, images beamed out of the then-prime minister surrounded by colleagues. “It is clear in No 10 we had real difficulties … in maintaining social distancing,” Johnson said, seemingly acknowledging he could not deny what everyone in the room could see with their own eyes. But he stressed “we had no choice but to meet” – and that it would have been impossible to place a “forcefield” around each person in No 10. In his defence, Johnson said the 2-metre rule could be reduced to one – with mitigations: screens, masks and the like. Inevitable questions arose about why he was less than 2 metres away from colleagues without such mitigations. The reply he mustered was: “You don’t see Perspex screens there, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t sanitiser and efforts to restrict the spread of Covid.” There was no clearcut explanation of how the social distancing rules had been complied with, given the abject lack of other measures, as seen in the pictures. Johnson also seemed to stand by his insistence that the events were work-related. “I will believe until the day I die that it was my job to thank staff for what they had done,” he said of a leaving do. Given many workplaces felt they had to forgo leaving dos during lockdown, it was an explanation the committee are unlikely to find convincing. The Tory MP Bernard Jenkin pressed him on whether he would have said at a press conference in front of the famous “hands, face, space” podium that “unsocially distanced farewell gatherings could be held in the workplace”. Johnson replied: “I would have said that it’s up to organisations, as the guidance says, to decide how they’re going to implement the guidance.” The idea that all the gatherings were work events was further undermined when Johnson confirmed his wife, Carrie, their son and his interior designer, Lulu Lytle, were present for his birthday celebration in the cabinet room in May 2020.
Many of the people there were “very largely the same officials” due to hold a meeting immediately after, said Johnson. A quick reply that undercut that argument came from the Labour MP Yvonne Fovargue. “Presumably your wife and the contractor were not attending that meeting,” she said. Another situation in which Johnson found himself stuck was when Lee Cain, his media chief, put in writing that he had concerns about a “BYOB” garden party in May 2020. While the former prime minister said he had “no hand” in organising the event and was told about it just before he headed to join the 40 or so members of staff outside, Cain was said to have called it a purely social function. Johnson denied that, and said he could understand why anyone who might have seen the event could have thought the rules were being broken – but insisted that would have been a mistake.
Different approaches were taken to naming officials Johnson was unable to name senior advisers who told him that no Covid rules were broken in No 10. Jack Doyle, his former head of communications, had suggested that was the case – but only for one specific event, the Christmas party on 18 December 2020. And a reference was deleted by Martin Reynolds, the prime minister’s principal private secretary, from the 8 December PMQs prep file that referred to “guidance” – separate from legal obligations – being followed at all times. Johnson referred vaguely to officials who did give him the broader assurance he later repeated in parliament. But asked who they were, the answer came: “I can’t name these officials. I don’t know if I can. I think that most of them have indicated they don’t want themselves to be named.” An agreement was made that Johnson would write to the committee privately, to give further details. But he took a more laissez-faire approach to naming other officials. Unprompted, when a disagreement broke out about how many people were at a leaving do for two civil servants in No 10 on January 2021, Johnson named them. “Sorry, forgive me, I shouldn’t mention the names,” he said, prompting those around him to sink their head into their hands. Why Johnson did not correct himself sooner To judge how seriously Johnson treats the fact he misled parliament, a major part of the questioning was about why he failed to correct the record sooner. Having told MPs on 1 December 2021 that all guidance was followed in No 10, it took him until 25 May 2022 – more than five months – to admit just how wrong that statement had been. Johnson claimed the long wait was because he wanted investigations by Scotland Yard and the senior civil servant Sue Gray to conclude. He said he had not wanted to give an “inevitably incomplete account” while active inquiries were under way. Validity of Sue Gray’s report doubted by Johnson – in parts After his allies spent weeks suggesting Sue Gray’s report had been fatally undermined by the announcement earlier this month she had been offered a job with Labour, it was still relied on plenty by Johnson. In a moment of frustration when he was told the privileges committee was not relying on her report, he sighed: “It seems quite incredible to me that we now can’t adduce what she had to say after extensively interviewing people.” He relied on her report twice in his defence. Johnson pointed to having been told by her she did not think the threshold of criminality had been reached, and that she estimated there were 15-20 people at an event where it had been otherwise suggested more than 20 attended. But elsewhere, he seemed to cast doubt on Gray’s findings. “I don’t know what value we now attach to it,” he sniped.