No 10 says PM unable to attend sleaze debate because he’s returning from north-east visit by train
The Downing Street lobby briefing is over, and the prime minister’s spokesman has confirmed that Boris Johnson will not be speaking in, or attending, the sleaze/standards/corruption debate in the Commons this afternoon.
And he won’t be watching it on the TV in his office afterwards; he is on a visit to a hospital in the north-east. No 10 signalled that he would not be able to be able to return to London in time for the debate because the rail timetable did not allow this.
When journalists pointed out that last week Johnson took a private jet so that he could return from the Cop26 conference in Glasgow for a private reunion dinner with former Daily Telegraph leader writers, the spokesman claimed that that was different and that last week other factors applied.
It is all slightly reminiscent of when Johnson, as foreign secretary, flew off to Afghanistan so that he could conveniently miss a Commons vote on the Heathrow third runway which the government was implementing but which he had always vowed to oppose.
In a further effort to downgrade the significance of the debate, No 10 announced that Stephen Barclay, the Cabinet Office minister, will be responding from the government. Barclay is the news equivalent of a fire blanket; he could make an announcement about the end of the world sound dull. If No 10 want to push the debate down the news agenda for tonight’s TV bulletins, Barclay’s the man for the job.
Bj will, of course, be back in time for dinner … 
Keir Starmer starts his speech reminding MPs that he used to face Barclay often when they both had the Brexit portfolio. He says Boris Johnson damaged himself and his party last week. He says democracy requires voters to trust politicians. He goes on:
But when the prime minister gets the green light to corruption, he corrodes that trust. When he says that the rules to stop vested interest don’t apply to his friends, he corrodes that trust. And when he deliberately undermines those charged with stopping corruption, he corrodes that trust, and that is exactly what the prime minister did last week.
Starmer’s peroration.
Last week the prime minister damaged himself, he damaged his party and he damaged our democracy. He led his party through the sewers and the stench lingers. This week he had the chance to clean up, apologise to the country and finally accept the rules apply to him and his friends. But instead of stepping up he has hidden away. Instead of clearing his mess he has left his side knee deep in it. Instead of leading from the front he has cowered away. He is not a serious leader and the joke isn’t funny anymore.
nice line.
