Boris Johnson’s ‘Old Etonian arrogance’ was said to have come unstuck as he was found to have deliberately misled parliament about the Partygate saga.
The former prime minister was also judged to have misled the Privileges Committee, which this morning published an excoriating report about his conduct in office.
Mr Johnson, who resigned as an MP last week, was further said to have breached confidence and ‘been complicit in the campaign of abuse and attempted intimidation of the committee’.
The report concluded that if he was still a member he should be suspended from the House of Commons for 90 days for ‘repeated contempts and for seeking to undermine the parliamentary process’.
In the 30,000-word document, the committee also recommended Mr Johnson should not be entitled to a former member’s pass.
Reacting to the report this morning, he dubbed it ‘deranged’ and a ‘lie’.
However political commentators drew wider implications for a political system which they say is electing leaders who are ‘not fit for purpose’.
Sam Bright, author of Bullingdon Club Britain, has traced a line between the infamous Oxford fraternity and the behaviour of those in power.
Mr Johnson attended Eton College and then studied classics at Balliol College, Oxford, before a career in journalism and then politics.
‘This report spells out Boris Johnson’s cynical, self-interested approach to politics, showing how he lied to Parliament and to the nation about his Partygate transgressions,’ Bright said. ‘Throughout his career it has always been one rule for Johnson and another for everyone else. At long last, this Old Etonian arrogance has caught up with him.’
The inquiry was undertaken over comments Mr Johnson made to the House of Commons about gatherings at 10 Downing Street and the Cabinet Office when the country was under Covid regulations in 2020.
He received a fixed penalty notice from the police for attending one of the gatherings, which took place in the Cabinet Room on his birthday.
MORE : Follow Metro.co.uk’s live rolling coverage of the report
Darren Lilleker, professor of political communications at Bournemouth University, told Metro.co.uk that Mr Johnson’s foes will view the 108-page report as a ‘fitting end’ to his Westminster career.
‘The report perhaps corroborates what many believed from the point that the Partygate issue emerged,’ Mr Lilleker said.
‘He knew that rules were broken because he was there, saw what happened, was aware of what was said and that the purpose of the gathering was inappropriate given the rules.
‘For those who support Johnson it will probably have little impact.
‘His maverick, libertarian style is at the centre of why some like him and they will probably see him as someone trapped by doomsayers but personally not wedded to the rules he was having to impose.
‘For those who see the parties as evidence of his double standards and believe him to have lied about them, this is complete vindication.
‘Along with the recommendation to remove him from the house for 90 days if he was still a member, it’s interesting they also recommend he should not be entitled to a former member’s pass. This effectively puts him as a persona non grata. For all those over many years who have viewed him as unfit to be in parliament, never mind prime minister, due to his inability to be honest, this is a fitting end to his career.’
Marianna Fotaki, professor of business ethics at the University of Warwick, Warwick Business School, identified a wider breakdown in leadership from Mr Johnson’s time as prime minister.
‘Abuse of power and evading responsibility when such abuse is uncovered lies at the heart of Boris Johnson’s leadership,’ she said.
‘While Johnson is an epitome of this style, such leadership promotes the survival of the fittest – which he demonstrated when referencing “the wonderful Darwinian system that produces Tory leaders” in his non-resignation speech as prime minister last July.
‘There are too many instances when Johnson’s behaviour in office demonstrates his disrespect for any norms of decency and contempt for caring for others as a weakness.
‘Perhaps the most telling is the alleged comment on “let the bodies pile high in their thousands” during the Covid-19 pandemic. This raises the question of our expectations of our leaders and what we value about them in reality.
“His is precisely the type of leadership that prioritises attaining and staying in power rather than what power is used for, which produces destructiveness and loss of trust in the institutions we experience in the UK and elsewhere.
‘Unless we reconsider leadership as a relational practice involving a leader’s affective engagement and genuine concern for the interests of others, we will continue promoting leaders that are not fit for purpose.’
In a bullish response to the report, Mr Johnson issued a 1,700-word statement, where he said: “The committee now says that I deliberately misled the House, and at the moment I spoke I was consciously concealing from the House my knowledge of illicit events.
‘This is rubbish. It is a lie. In order to reach this deranged conclusion, the committee is obliged to say a series of things that are patently absurd, or contradicted by the facts.
‘First, they say that I must have known that the farewell events I attended were not authorised workplace events because – wait for it – NO SUCH EVENT could lawfully have taken place, anywhere in this country, under the committee’s interpretation of covid rules.
‘This is transparently wrong. I believed, correctly, that these events were reasonably necessary for work purposes. We were managing a pandemic. We had hundreds of staff engaged in what was sometimes a round-the-clock struggle against Covid. Their morale mattered for that fight. It was important for me to thank them.’
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MORE : ‘Deranged and a lie’: Boris Johnson lashes out at damning Partygate report