Ian Hislop has delivered a blistering attack on Boris Johnson over the Partygate scandal.
Speaking on Have I Got News for You, the journalist expressed doubts over the sincerity of Johnson’s apology that he issued after being fined for breaking lockdown rules in June 2020 and called on the whole Tory party to resign.
He said: “He’s done a fulsome apology. The world ‘fulsome’ means insincere, over the top, not meant.
“We’ve been told by the prime minister: ‘It’s too soon, we haven’t had the Sue Gray report’. And then we had to wait for the police report. The police report comes ‘oh it’s too late, it’s a long time ago’.
“And he thinks that everyone has forgotten about it they don’t care anymore.
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“Maybe by the time we go out, the party will have come to its senses and he will have resigned,” he said with an exasperated grimace suggesting he very much doubts this will happen, as the audience laughed.
It comes, of course, after Johnson made history in the worst way by becoming the first prime minister to be sanctioned by the police for breaking the law in office. Chancellor Rishi Sunak also received a £50 fine, as did Johnson’s wife Carrie Johnson, because they all attended an event in Downing Street in June 2020 to celebrate the PM’s birthday – and were ambushed with a cake – when it was illegal for households to mix for social reasons.
Johnson apologised and said he didn’t believe at the time he was breaking the rules but the police operation into 12 events alleged to have broken the rules in Downing Street continues so there could be more controversy to come.
Hislop added: “We’ve got another six parties to go. All the attentions’ on this one and everyone’s going, ‘Oh god, woke BBC lefties, can’t you get over it?’
“And I’m thinking, ‘Yeah woke BBC lefty Lord Wolfson, the Tory justice minister who’s just resigned. I mean, there’s a snowflake. Tory QC, member of the House of Lords, pathetic.’”
Justice minister Lord Wolfson quit the government in protest at the prime minister’s failure to resign over breaking the law, saying the “repeated rule-breaking and breaches of the criminal law” in Downing Street could not be allowed to be treated with “constitutional impunity”.
Hislop continued: “He’s resigned. Why hasn’t Boris? Why hasn’t Rishi? Why hasn’t Carrie? Are you allowed to resign as his wife?
“And why hasn’t the entire Tory party resigned, all of them? They supported him, why don’t they leave now? They’re the party of law and order.”
Good question.
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