God, Mine eyes have seen the glory, how long has this agony got to go on for, the geezer was at a couple of parties, just admit it. 
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I haven’t read all the comments and I haven’t really been following this story but I did see some clips on the news this evening and was amazed to see old Labour luvvie Harriet Harman chairing it!
How did she get the job? Hardly going to be fair is it?
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Meanwhile, Tory luvvie, Boris Johnson was not performing well - looking shifty in his chair and lying through his teeth - he is trying to put on an innocent act but he can’t hide his lying eyes.
His strategy seems to have been “If I waffle on long enough, people will get sick of listening to me and they’ll give up asking me questions and I’ll get away with it - it’s worked for me loads of times before … waffle, deflect and obfuscate, then waffle a bit more …”
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That, as you seem to have missed the point, is not the point. The point is that this nasty little liar decided to lie to parliament, badly and pathetically and obviously lie, and now is trying to defend his lying. The attendance at “a couple of parties” becomes the side show. If you think that is what the debate is about then please read a bit more on this issue.
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Well, Conservatives are in the majority on the Committee:
The privileges committee is made up of seven MPs - four Conservatives, two from Labour and one from the SNP.
The MPs are voted onto the committee by their colleagues and reflect the political make-up of the House.
Labour’s Sir Chris Bryant usually chairs the committee, but recused himself from this investigation as he had already made a number of public comments about the matter.
Instead, senior Labour backbencher and Mother of the House (1) Harriet Harman will take his place.
Technically, the only powers the committee has is to issue that report to the Commons for MPs to consider.
In its findings, it can conclude that an individual has been found to have “committed a contempt” in misleading the House and it can recommend sanctions, ranging from an oral or written apology through to suspension for a specified period or even expulsion from the Commons.
But it will fall to MPs to decide whether to accept the findings of the report and to follow through with any sanction.
(1) Mother of the House
Father of the House is a title that has been traditionally bestowed, unofficially, on certain members of some legislatures, most notably the House of Commons in the United Kingdom. In some legislatures the title refers to the longest continuously-serving member, while in others it refers to the oldest member. Recently, the title Mother of the House or Mother of Parliament has also been used, although the usage varies between countries; it is either the female alternative to Father of the House, being applied when the relevant member is a woman, or refers to the oldest or longest-serving woman without reference to male members.
On 13 June 2017, Harriet Harman was dubbed “Mother of the House” by Prime Minister Theresa May, in recognition of her status as the longest-continuously-serving woman MP.
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The Privileges Committee now needs to work out if the former prime minister was recklessly misleading or intentionally misleading. Proving intent, that he lied, is a high bar.
Recklessness is more subjective and so, perhaps, an easier conclusion for the committee to reach and agree upon.
Being branded by parliament as either are labels Mr Johnson is desperate to avoid. And from either will come a recommended censure.
Here is the timeframe: the committee will meet again formally next week:
Once it has received all the evidence it is ever going to, which it hasn’t yet, work on writing up the conclusions will begin.
Boris Johnson will then be given two weeks to read and reply to their completed report, and only then will it see the light of day so the rest of us can read it.
It looks like that will happen in late spring or early summer.
IMO, the committee’s conclusion will be that BJ’s behaviour was reckless, i.e. indifferent as to consequence, because, as we all know, that is BJ’s predilection, since he is a law unto himself … 
Intentional would imply planning and, as we all know, BJ flies by the seat of his (often flaming) pants …
The funny thing about bojo is that he’s one of the tories biggest assets AND liabilities 
so it will be interesting seeing how all this pans out 
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Seems to me the only way nowadays to get closure on a big and important issue is to go round in circles ad infinitum till folks are bored to back teeth, and will agree to anything, obviously a deliberate ploy, trouble with getting older is there is less time available to be “Ployed With”. 
Haven’t watched it in full but I agree with his assessment of rees-mogg (who I can’t stand!!) 48% stupid and 52% dishonest - same goes for pretty much all that party really 
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Mmm, I think that’s too kind
I think Johnson hid behind his “buffoon” image and played on it to get away with things
And that he’s an intelligent but manipulative man with no integrity or moral compass
Not stupid at all, just dishonest, a liar, and self-serving to his core
0% stupid
100% dishonest
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Wow even I’m surprised!
For those who can’t watch the vid, when asked whether anyone in the audience believed whether Boris was telling the truth yesterday - nobody raised their hand
Not every single member of the audience would have voted for Boris.
The QT audience is meant to be “representative” of the voting public, so the whole audience didn’t vote Conservative but more of the audience would have voted Conservative than any other single party.
It was still a very telling response from the audience, though - none of them believed Boris was telling the truth!
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Sorry I misheard - she said there are more people in this audience that voted for Boris Johnson/the conservative party than any other single party 
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The presenter said the survey was not scientific, but more people at the Staffordshire venue had voted Conservative than for any other party.
Hi
We will have to see what the Committee decides in it’s written judgement.
It could result in a by election that Boris would have to fight.
According to some his support amongst the Tory MPs is now down to less than 30 hard core supporters.
He was leading the promised revolt against Sunak on the new EU agreement, which failed to materialise.
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Boris Johnson has made light of his police fine for the Partygate scandal during a speech in Nigeria (1), joking that he was criminalised for standing up and eating lunch at his desk for 20 minutes.
The former prime minister dismissed his fine from police for breaking Covid laws as “bizarre” at a conference in Lagos on “rehumanising human experience”.
He got laughs from the audience in Lagos for telling them: “A couple of years ago, the Met actually fined me, in circumstances I still find almost too painful to describe, simply for standing at my desk in the Cabinet room and eating lunch.”
Johnson was actually fined less than a year ago in April 2022, in relation to an event in June 2020 for his birthday.
As ever, BJ opens his mouth and “distorts” the truth … he just can’t break the habit of a lifetime … 
(1)
Former UK Prime Minister and Member of Parliament, Boris Johnson, will address the 16th session of the Osigwe Anyiam-Osigwe annual lecture series.
The former UK leader will address the august gathering in Lagos on 27 March.
The last edition was addressed by the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari
While announcing the 2023 event, the Acting Coordinator-General of Osigwe Anyiam-Osigwe Foundation, George Anyiam-Osigwe, noted that the former UK Prime Minister joins the rank of global statesmen and women that had addressed the lecture’s eminent audience in the past.
Mr Johnson, according to the statement, will bring to bear his experiential knowledge as one of the significant international statesmen of the 21st century to examine the central theme of the lecture, “Rehumanising Human Experience: A Synopsis of Anyiam-Osigwe’s treatises.”
Let me guess … BJ’s “experience” will be costing the Osigwe Anyiam-Osigwe Foundation a packet … 
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He really is a smarmy, hypocritical twonk
All those humble apologies were just two faced then, he doesn’t give a damn about the people he hurt by partying while they couldn’t visit dying loved ones or have a proper funeral?
This speech is the real Johnson, putting two fingers up to the U.K. public and the laws he thinks he’s above and thinking he’s clever. He’s slime
Still, he’s not shaming our country as PM any more, got to be an improvement
May karma catch up with him soon
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Covid inquiry demands release of Boris Johnson WhatsApps
The official Covid inquiry has threatened the government with legal action if it does not release former PM Boris Johnson’s unredacted WhatsApp messages and diary entries.
But the Cabinet Office has argued some of the material is “unambiguously irrelevant” to the inquiry. Downing Street insisted the government was supplying “all relevant material”.
Crossbench peer Baroness Hallett, the inquiry’s chairwoman, has said a failure to hand over the unredacted material, which also includes Mr’s Johnson’s notebooks containing contemporaneous notes, would be a criminal offence.
The prime minister’s official spokesman said the issue related to some documents which were “clearly irrelevant”, such as personal WhatsApp messages. “It’s our position that the inquiry does not have the power to compel the government to disclose unambiguously irrelevant material, given the precedent that this would set and its potential adverse impact on policy formulation in the future,” he added.
However, Broness Hallett said passages initially assessed by the Cabinet Office to be irrelevant included discussions between the prime minister and his advisers about the enforcement of Covid regulations by the Metropolitan Police during protests following the murder of Sarah Everard. She said those redactions had now been removed but “it was not a promising start”.
Obviously, it’s ludicrous that the holder of evidence determines what evidence is to be passed on to an official inquiry … but that’s the Tories for you - they make the rules for others, they bend (or even break) the rules themselves …
There is a row right now between the public inquiry into Covid and the government. At its core is a question about disclosure.
How much, if any, black marker pen should be put through various messages written by and sent between senior figures in government at the time, so we can’t read them properly? It is what Westminster calls “redactions”.
Covid victims’ groups say it is outrageous and a cover-up (1).
There has been a flurry of letters back and forth published by the Covid inquiry which highlight this tussle.
The inquiry wants to see the unredacted WhatsApp messages between Mr Johnson and 40 people. You can see the full list here.
(1) Conservative cover-up - surely not … 