Boris Johnson’s mantra could be “never apologise, never explain.” So the fact that he chose to “apologise unreservedly” at the start of Prime Minister’s Questions for the offence caused by the film of his staff joking about a Downing Street Christmas party shows that he knows this is serious. “I understand and share the anger up and down the country at seeing Number 10 staff seeming to make light of lockdown measures,” he told MPs today as he announced that he had asked the cabinet secretary to investigate.
But instead of showing true contrition he tried to pass the buck and blame his staff, insisting that he had “repeatedly been assured” that no party had taken place and no rules had been broken. That Allegra Stratton has already resigned is proof that the prime minister is not really taking responsibility for what happened under his leadership in the building where he lives and works.
Johnson is right to be concerned about the political and practical fallout from this furore. At one level, the story about whether or not Downing Street officials had a Christmas party last December is utterly trivial. It was almost a year ago and there is still uncertainty about exactly what happened or who precisely was involved.
The important thing right now is the clear and present danger of the Omicron variant, which is spreading rapidly through the population. You could hear the exasperation in the voice of Matthew Taylor, the head of the NHS Confederation, as he told Radio 4’s Today programme that he wished the government could just concentrate on the clarity of its current message on the new pandemic threat rather than the ambiguity about who did or did not party by the tree in No 10. Yet the row over the Downing Street festivities is not just a distraction, it is a totemic issue that has the potential to cut through to the voters and could even determine the trajectory of the pandemic.
In this case, the trivial and the significant interact. In a sense it is absurd that Prime Minister’s Questions has been dominated for two weeks in a row by the events of a single evening last December. It is even more ridiculous that the government was unable to put up any ministers to take part in the daily morning media round when the country is facing a new health emergency, as Covid-19 morphs and evolves. Sajid Javid, the health secretary who has the crucial role of keeping the public informed about the coronavirus crisis, pulled out of broadcast interviews, presumably because he had no answer for the difficult questions about the No 10 party.
More worryingly, the row threatens to undermine public support for restrictions just as additional measures are required. At the very moment when the government is embarking on the difficult task of persuading people to start behaving more cautiously again in the run-up to Christmas, footage has emerged of senior figures in Downing Street joking about doing precisely the opposite this time last year.
There are heartbreaking messages on Twitter from people who lost a parent, having been unable to visit them, on the day that Stratton, then the prime minister’s spokeswoman, was laughing about the alleged Downing Street party. Discussing how to respond to questions, she mused: “Is cheese and wine all right? It was a business meeting… This fictional party was a business meeting… It was not socially distanced.” It is excruciating to watch.
The gathering—whether fictional or not—may be in the past, but it has implications for the future. The vast majority of people made sacrifices last December, having been instructed to do so by Johnson. They are unlikely to be as willing this year if they believe that the prime minister’s advisers were at the same time flouting the rules and bantering about it. The row about the party therefore has the potential to influence public behaviour at a critical moment for the management of the pandemic. It goes beyond gossip and tittle tattle because there will be consequences in the real world.
That is not all. Trust matters in politics, particularly at a time of national crisis, when voters have to believe that their leaders have the country’s best interests at heart. The prime minister and his team have undermined that priceless commodity with their lack of transparency and openness. Although Johnson is still insisting that he had no knowledge of any party, he is ultimately accountable for what goes on in Number 10.
The furore only adds to the sense that there is one rule for the elite and another for the rest of the country. Dominic Cummings’s notorious trip to Barnard Castle to test his eyesight infuriated voters who had dutifully followed the lockdown rules, and the row over the apparent No 10 party is likely to further anger an exhausted electorate. Even Ant and Dec referenced it, opening I’m a Celebrity with the jibe thatthe contestants “weren’t celebrating. They didn’t have a party… Good evening prime minister! For now…”
Tory MPs are understandably furious at the latest own goal from Number 10. One senior backbencher told me recently: “I give Boris six months to get his act together—if he doesn’t sort out No 10 by then, I think people will start to move against him.” That was before the story about the Downing Street party broke.
The real problem for the prime minister is not the mood in parliament but the frustration in the country. Voters—particularly the former Labour supporters in so-called “red wall” constituencies—backed Johnson because they thought he was on their side. He may have been a rogue who broke the rules, but he was a “lovable rogue,” who was taking on the establishment on behalf of the people to “get Brexit done.” Now, though, it looks increasingly as if Johnson believes that rules are for “little people”—which, I understand, is what one of his closest allies was going around saying at the height of the lockdown. The perception of hypocrisy is politically toxic for any leader.
The prime minister has always had an uneasy relationship with the truth. He was sacked from the Times for making up a quote, and fired from the Conservative frontbench for misleading the then-leader Michael Howard about an affair. Public tolerance of the rule-breaking is running out. If the impression sticks that Johnson has lied over a breach of the lockdown rules, then he may yet be removed from his post by the British people.
