Partygate dominates the agenda after another difficult day for Boris Johnson, who got hit with the news that at least one more no confidence letter has gone in to the 1922 Committee.
The PM's behaviour during the affair was also highly criticised by Andrea Leadsom, a former cabinet minister and until yesterday, someone viewed as an ally to Johnson. Leadsom did not specifically call for the PM to quit or admit that she had been in contact with Sir Graham Brady, but the message in her statement was as clear as day.
The most damaging intervention yesterday, however, came from Lord Geidt, his adviser on ministerial interests, who in his annual report told the PM that there was a "legitimate question" over whether or not he breached the code with his Partygate antics.
Geidt said that he repeatedly told Johnson to address in public why he felt he had not broken said code but that his advice was not "heeded" by Downing Street. No 10 responded with a letter from Johnson saying that he had "no intent to break the regulations" and that he had been "fully accountable to parliament and the British people".
The intervention of Geidt, who is supposed to advise the PM on whether ministers have breached the code (Johnson changed it last week), is highly significant and damaging for Johnson for four key reasons. The first is simply that it gives more oxygen to the story and flies in the face of attempts by the PM to move on from the sorry saga following the publication of Sue Gray's report. Several newspapers and websites splash on Geidt's remarks this morning, including some of those usually supportive of Johnson.
Second is the comments in the report suggest that Geidt, who was hired by Johnson, is not fully convinced that his boss has been telling the truth, highlighted by the fact that he had to be persuaded himself not to quit. This is an incredibly bad look for a PM who is already facing calls from colleagues to resign and staring down the barrel of a vote on his leadership, although it is still not clear that he would lose that ballot.
The third and fourth reasons are interlinked. Much of the reporting on the Partygate scandal has centered around whether or not Johnson misled, or knowingly misled, MPs in the Commons when he told them that all rules were followed in Downing Street during Covid lockdowns. But in his report, Geidt says the fact that Johnson was fined by the police raises questions about whether "those facts alone might have constituted a breach of the overarching duty within the ministerial code of complying with the law".
All of this gives further legitimacy to the privileges committee which is investigating if Johnson did in fact break the code. Tory MPs supportive of the PM will now find it more difficult to describe that probe as nothing more than a witch hunt by opposition parties.
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