Theresa May led a chorus of angry Tory MPs by delivering a stinging attack on Boris Johnson’s leadership, suggesting the Prime Minister did not think the Covid rules applied to those inside No10.
The former Prime Minister tore into her successor’s response to the Sue Gray report, insisting it showed that he and his staff inside Downing St had ignored rules they had placed on the rest of the country.
During a bruising two hours in the Commons chamber, Mr Johnson came under fire from a raft of his own backbenchers who warned they could no longer support him over his handling of “partygate”.
Leading the charge, Mrs May said the public “had a right” to expect their Prime Minister to have read, understood and followed the rules and “to have set an example in following those rules”.
She added: “What the Gray report does show is that Number 10 Downing Street was not observing the regulations they had imposed on members of the public, so either my right honourable friend had not read the rules or didn’t understand what they meant and others around him, or they didn’t think the rules applied to Number 10. Which was it?”
Mr Johnson rejected the question, insisting the Gray report did not come to that conclusion, and called on his predecessor to wait for the full report to be published.
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Former Cabinet minister Andrew Mitchell said he was “deeply concerned” by the scandal and by the comments he had made at the Despatch Box, adding: “I have to tell him he no longer enjoys my support.”
But the most damning criticism came from Aaron Bell, a member of the 2019 intake representing the Red Wall, who suggested the Prime Minister was making him out to be a “fool”.
Mr Bell told MPs that during May 2020, when one of the gatherings that is subject to a police investigation took place, he attended his grandmother’s funeral that was subject of Covid restrictions.
He said: “I didn’t hug my siblings, I didn’t hug my parents, I gave the eulogy and then afterwards I didn’t even go to her house for a cup of tea. I drove back three hours from Kent to Staffordshire. Does the Prime Minister think I’m a fool?”
Mr Johnson replied: “No, and I want to thank [him] and I want to say how deeply I sympathise with him and his family for their loss, and all I can say is again that I’m very, very sorry for misjudgments that may have been made.”
