Why No. 10 fears Boris’s banishment

Even now, months after he was forced to resign, Boris Johnson has a potency that no other British politician can match. Everything he says still catches the attention of Westminster and the media. Like Donald Trump, he enrages his enemies so much that they can seem obsessed. And rumours of a Boris restoration will not go away. ‘If he was six feet under in a coffin,’ says one minister, ‘he’d still have ambitions of a comeback.’ Some MPs do want to see his return to Downing Street, of course. ‘They may be noisy,’ says a member of government. ‘But they’re also small in number.’

Some of Johnson’s critics believe he will only stop being a threat to the government once he is out of parliament. Thanks to the investigation by the House of Commons Privileges Committee, their wish could come true.

By now the whole country knows that during lockdown 10 Downing Street staff were having the sort of social gatherings that had been outlawed for everyone else. The public also knows that Johnson denied any wrongdoing to parliament – it’s one of the main reasons that he is an ex-prime minister. He has already paid a considerable price.

‘If he was six feet under in a coffin, he’d still have ambitions of a comeback’

Johnson now admits that he misled parliament but insists he did not do so ‘knowingly or recklessly’. He has sworn to it on the King James Bible. In his 52-page evidence, Johnson says his first reaction to reports about No. 10 parties was that they were ‘some kind of try-on’. Can the committee prove otherwise? Given that Johnson loved to work in a cloud of confusion – it was a strategy to avoid being pinned down – it’s a hard task. Any verdict will be controversial.

Johnson’s supporters have been quick to accuse MPs on the committee of presiding over a show trial.