To survive, Boris Johnson must do more than pose as a war leader

Attending an impromptu birthday party in the office is not the most heinous of crimes, and of course Britain’s fixation on Downing Street’s breaches of lockdown rules looks rather perverse against the crimes being committed by Vladimir Putin’s troops in Ukraine. But there is little point in the Prime Minister or any member of his government attempting to argue that point.

It is very clear that there is considerable anger among the British public that a government which imposed highly prescriptive Covid rules failed to live by the letter of those rules itself. Whatever excuses Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak or anyone else attempts to make, they will not be compared to current events in Ukraine but to the sacrifices made by millions of Britons between March 2020 and the final abolition of those restrictions in February this year. Whenever a defence is raised, it will be countered by the voice of someone who lost a family member during the pandemic and who was forbidden even to say goodbye to them.

The Prime Minister belatedly appears to realise this, and has given up his attempt to persuade the country that no wrongdoing took place, or that if it did he wasn’t involved. But his position remains bleak. The police investigation is ongoing and it is entirely possible that further fines could come his way. There is also the equally serious question of whether he knowingly misled the House of Commons on several occasions when the story of illicit Downing Street parties first broke. Keir Starmer, ever the lawyer, has asserted that Johnson has become the first serving Prime Minister to have been penalised for breaking the law, and that that alone should justify his resignation. Whether you accept Starmer’s case or not, knowingly misleading the House of Commons certainly is a resigning offence, and there will be plenty of analysis of the Prime Minister’s Commons statements in the coming days.