This wasn’t the fun and cocky Boris Johnson the people who voted him in seem to love at today’s PMQs.
The mask slipped on his carefully choreographed image of rustled hair, pompous Latin phrases and bumbling lines as the Emperor was declothed.
Johnson has spent his political career using his charm to get out of every situation, relatively unscathed, often leaving a trail of destruction in his wake.
But this was his A Few Good Men moment. Jack Nicholson’s Col Nathan R Jessep became Major Sleaze. Starmer looked to land blows as he cruised through.
Before the session had even started the Electoral Commission announced it would look into whether transactions related to the works on the Prime Minister’s flat, above 11 Downing Street, were properly reported.
John Lewis isn’t posh enough for his refurb, which pushed his mask even further down as man of the people. Most folk, myself included, struggle to think of a store that is more alluring.
He did find some support for his hundreds of thousands of taxpayers/his/rich donor/party (delete as the truth is revealed) spent on his grand designs, from Michael Gove’s wife Sarah Vine, who said the PM can’t be expected to live in a skip. Unless Theresa May took time away from pounding through fields of wheat it is doubtful she found time to trash the place.
The Labour leader needed the PM to simply answer No or Yes to a few key questions, that could land him in the hot water. Nothing you’ve said in the heat of the moment ever sounds funny when it is read out in court especially if the words are ‘let the bodies pile high.’
Keir reminded the PM that ministers who have knowingly misled Parliament are expected to resign. In response, the PM slammed Labour’s Council Tax prices. The fact the PM got his flat done up in no time at all, while people still live in buildings with unsafe cladding, is probably of more importance.
The PM then used his journalistic experience to demand that Stamer names the sources behind the story to ensure they were not made up. If only he had done this when he worked for a newspaper himself.
Johnson tried to brushed away each allegation, but in the same way he fiddles with his hair, the mess is still there, in fact it looked worse.
The PM’s defence appears to be that because he has taken the work of the NHS mass vaccination programme’s as his own, it gives him the right to do whatever he wants.
He claimed he was laser-focused on the pandemic. But as Starmer pointed out, he still found time to chose wallpaper at £840 a roll, a figure that would make even the most ardent John Lewis customer blush. He also personally called newspaper editors to slag off Dominic Cummings.
The wheels had come off and he couldn’t handle the truth.
If the PM didn’t see this coming, maybe like his ex-pal Dom, he needs his eyes tested?
Related: PMQs 24th March – Greed is good as the lunatics turn their backs on asylum
