Boris Johnson appeared damaged but disobedient on Wednesday after publishing a humiliating report on the culture of drinking and breaking the law on Downing Street during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Johnson took full responsibility for the parties and drunken behavior that took place under his own roof at 10 Downing Street, but insisted he would not give up. “I am humble and I have learned,” he told lawmakers.
The prime minister on Thursday will try to move from the scandal surrounding the party, when Rishi Sunak exposed a package of several billion pounds to protect households from rising energy prices.
Johnson’s fiercest critics have acknowledged that a long-awaited report on the party scandal by senior official Sue Gray, while ominous in detail, has failed to inflict a deadly wound on the prime minister.
“Most of us have come to terms with the fact that he will not go, but we have lost the next general election,” said a Tory MP. “This is due to a combination of the cost of living and Boris Johnson.
A Savanta ComRes poll found that 65 percent of voters believe Johnson should resign, and 76 percent say the prime minister has misled parliament over the party affair.
Another rebel Tory MP complains that the mood among colleagues to remove Johnson “is not feverish enough”. Another said the appetite for a coup against the prime minister was currently weak.
Loyal lawmakers said Gray had found nothing new about the affair, which resulted in 126 fines imposed on eight separate parties on Downing Street and Whitehall, including one by Johnson.
Boris Johnson and Simon Case at the Downing Street Cabinet Meeting on 19 June 2020 © United Kingdom Government
But Gray’s 37-page report, plus photos, was an indictment for the conduct of 10 Downing Street in the midst of a national crisis as the rest of the country watched the Covid blockade.
It spoke of Downing Street employees drinking excessively in the early hours, citing vomiting, fighting, spilling red wine on walls and “a lack of respect and mistreatment by security and cleaning staff.”
Pointing to both Johnson and Simon Case, the head of the civil service, she concluded: “The top leadership at the center, both politically and officially, must be responsible for this culture.
Johnson’s claim that “the entire top leadership has changed” in No. 10 has provoked ridicule from opposition Labor MPs. Both Johnson and Case remain in office, while more junior employees have been fired or resigned.
In a statement to lawmakers, the prime minister said he was “taking responsibility for everything that happened on my watch”, but then added that number 10 was a large building and he could not know everything that was happening.
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Johnson insisted he had not lied to MPs about Downing Street parties, saying he either thought he was attending business events or had not been to parties that went out of control.
Labor leader Sir Keir Starmer has called on Tory MPs to remove Johnson, saying Gray’s report “reveals the rot that has spread to Prime Minister number 10”. He said Tory MPs had set the bar for Johnson’s behavior “lower than a snake’s belly”.
Starmer later told colleagues that he was pleased that Johnson remained in place and that voters would begin to confuse the government’s handling of the economic crisis with the idea of an undisciplined No. 10 party.
Gray concluded in his report: “Many will be afraid that this kind of behavior has taken place on such a scale in the heart of government. The public has a right to expect the highest standards of behavior in such places, and what has obviously happened is not in line with that. ”
Johnson’s allies are confident that the prime minister will not face a no-confidence vote – letters of request are required from 54 Tory MPs to provoke such a race – despite recent revelations.
The police investigation ended last week. Johnson was fined for attending an impromptu birthday party in the office.
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