What an odd afternoon. Boris Johnson fulfilled a long-standing engagement to spend two hours in the Boothroyd Room taking questions from the Liaison Committee, while outside his administration dissolved.
His arrival was heralded by a shout from the passage outside: “Are you going to resign, Prime Minister?”
The question of the hour, but not immediately repeated inside the room, where Tom Tugendhat, Chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee (the Liaison Committee being formed from Select Committee Chairs), instead inquired: “What are you doing to make sure food is getting out from the Black Sea?”
And, he added, what peace terms might be reached in Ukraine? What would constitute victory?
“We can’t be more Ukrainian than the Ukrainians,” Johnson replied. “That’s for them to decide.”
Here was a Prime Minister who in foreign affairs has become assured, while in domestic affairs his position has collapsed.
“We’ve had the Fertiliser Round Table,” Johnson said, taking questions about the world food shortage. “There are far too few African fertiliser plants.”
In repose, when listening to some MP holding forth, the Prime Minister looked bleak. As he spoke, he recovered his brio. Angus MacNeil, a Scottish Nationalist, tried, in a genial way, to rough him up: “Will you be Prime Minister tomorrow?”
Johnson: “Of course, Mr MacNeil.”
Darren Jones (Lab, Bristol North West): “How’s your week going?”
Johnson said it was going “like many others”.
Jones: “Did Michael Gove come and tell you to resign today?”
Johnson: “I’m not going to give a running commentary on political events.”
That old standby of the embarrassed politician, but the Prime Minister did not sound greatly embarrassed. He was equal to this ordeal. If his future depended on his abilities as a performer, it would be assured.
William Wragg (Con, Hazel Grove), a long-term rebel, said the occasion did “not quite resemble a Moscow show trial”, but must be painful for the Prime Minister.
Johnson insisted with ironical politeness, but characteristic fortitude: “I wouldn’t dream of being anywhere else.”
When Wragg suggested it would be difficult to fill the gaps which were appearing in the Government, Johnson replied: “I really think, William, you’re underestimating the talent, energy and sheer ambition of Members of Parliament.”
At this point the PM became heated, and said most MPs “are actuated by the highest motives” – a point difficult for his inquisitors to dispute.
Many of them were actuated by a desire to score points off Johnson, but in our glorious adversarial system, this can be represented as one of the highest motives, for it is called holding the Government to account.
Wragg tried another thrust: “Are you familiar with the Lascelles Principles?”
Johnson fenced warily. He caught the reference to Tommy Lascelles, a courtier who advised successive monarchs, but was not prepared on the spur of the moment to endorse the man’s principles.
Wragg explained that these concerned the cases in which the Queen would be entitled to refuse a request from the PM to dissolve Parliament.
Johnson replied, “You’re asking about something that’s not going to happen.” The last thing the country needed was a general election. It wanted the Government to go on governing. He would not be calling an election.
Chris Bryant (Lab, Rhondda) tried another tack: “Did you say, ‘All the sex pests are supporting me,’ or words to that effect?”
Johnson declined to confirm he had said this, and remarked that all sorts of expressions had been attributed to him. He was supposed to have used the word “handsy”, with reference to Chris Pincher, the former Deputy Chief Whip, but that term is not one the PM employs.
The PM had reluctantly come to the conclusion that “there’s a problem with alcohol” at Westminster, for “some people simply can’t take their drink”.
Bryant: “You’re not going to learn any lessons and not change. You’ll be doing this time and time again.”
Johnson, wilfully misinterpreting the prediction: “Coming to this Committee, yes.”
He added later that he was “getting on with the job”, even though there were “plenty of people who want to throw me off course.”
Sir Bernard Jenkin, Chair of the Liaison Committee, attempting to wind things up on a consensual note: “I hope you will accept that in the end we’re all dispensable.”
Johnson, accepting the offer: “That’s certainly true. All flesh is grass.”