Boris Johnson is a star in India but a Partygate hangover throbs away at home
“I WOULDN’T get that everywhere,” quipped Boris Johnson after being greeted by a sea of Union Jacks and cheering crowds in India.
Touching down for a bells and whistles visit to the superpower, the bemused PM was welcomed by hundreds of giant posters of his face lining the road from Ahmedabad airport in Gujarat.
But his self-reflective comment came after his own MPs blew up his landmark trade trip with yet another round of plotting to oust him over the endless Partygate saga.
While a troupe of Gujarati dancing girls and boys were throwing a street carnival in his honour, Westminster was again baying for the PM’s head.
Boris left for India on Wednesday, bullish that Partygate was over. But he returns today facing a THIRD probe into the saga.
For once, Labour turned up to a fight well-armed and well-organised as they bid to launch a fresh Commons inquiry into lockdown-breaking in No 10.
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It comes on top of the ongoing police probe and the yet-to-be-published Whitehall investigation.
Even Labour MPs privately admit it is unlikely to produce any new bombshell evidence, but that is not the point.
The PM’s enemies are now simply desperate to keep this wounding story alive.
Boris’s rock-star arrival in India makes it obvious why Sir Keir Starmer does not want to face this vote-winning global celeb at the ballot box.
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But Downing Street insiders now fear that Tory MPs are all too willing to do Starmer’s dirty work — whether they realise it or not.
Chaotic handling of another U-turn
As key Johnson ally Conor Burns, the Northern Ireland minister, warned yesterday, some Tories have never got over Mr Johnson seizing the keys to No 10 and will never stop until he is gone.
“If the Prime Minister stepped off Westminster Bridge and walked on top of the water, they would say he couldn’t swim, that is a fact,” he raged.
The fear now is: Will it ever stop? The PM apologised more than 40 times in the Commons on Monday, but still it was not enough.
Has a tipping point been reached? What happens if there are more fines?
Tory MP and leading Boris critic Tobias Ellwood believes a challenge to Mr Johnson’s leadership is now “inevitable”.
But given the PM is said to refer to him affectionately as “that c*** Ellwood”, it is unlikely to be the killer blow.
Seasoned Westminster watchers however are now not so sure about his survival.
Yet another investigation opens up a whole new avenue of pain, especially given the new probe could now see Boris hauled before MPs to give embarrassing evidence about his own behaviour.
To the delight of the Opposition, the story risks dragging on into another year — dangerously close to the General Election expected in 2023 or 2024.
Tory MPs are never more jumpy than when their own re-election is in doubt. Might enough of them panic?
But it is not yet clear if the PM realises the trouble he is in.
On the plane to India on Wednesday it was plain he thought that paying his £50 fine had put the row to bed.
He repeatedly told hacks that it was time for them to start focusing on “issues that really matter to voters” instead of endless questions about cake.
He was even relaxed enough to dangle tantalising snippets of Westminster intrigue about a June reshuffle and why he would not be sacking Chancellor Rishi Sunak.
But by Thursday he was being asked whether he would even be the one in charge by the next Budget.
Earlier that morning, things were clearly going to plan when the PM slipped his aides for a dip in the hotel pool.
And he was not losing any sleep by lunchtime when he took a long nap in a Chinook helicopter during a business tour. But fast-forward a few hours and once again Boris and his whips back home were battling a mounting rebellion.
As London woke five hours later, it was clear the Government did not have the numbers to defeat lawyerly Starmer’s tightly drafted Commons motion calling for the new Partygate inquiry.
The distance added to the chaotic handling of yet another spectacular government U-turn. In the face of an MPs’ rebellion, it was decided to allow the Labour demand to pass.
Despite his 80-seat majority, the PM was not able to force his own MPs to squash it.
On top of that dangerous precedent for the rest of his time in office, another two MPs put their heads above the parapet to warn him the “gig was up”.
By Friday, the PM’s slightly pathetic insistence that he had nothing to hide from an inquiry might have washed if he had not spent the first half of this week ordering his side to block it.
The prospect of the new inquiry deflated the PM’s mood, and he was quick to snap during broadcast interviews that focused on the saga.
“Ask me about the trip,” he pleaded, wearily and in vain.
Boris was yesterday still clearly irked by the developments.
At his Press conference to close the tour, he refused to talk any more about Partygate. Asked if he was a cat running out of lives, he grumpily replied that “the cat had been kicked enough already” before having to hastily clarify he had never actually kicked a real cat.
After being serenaded by a military band at the grand Rashtrapati Bhavan — once the Viceroy of India’s palace — the PM reflected on his trip last night. “I had an amazing reception, absolutely amazing, I felt like Sachin Tendulkar,” he said, in reference to the legendary Indian cricketer.
“I was everywhere to be seen and it was fantastic.”
But he landed to news that more fines have been issued to No10 staff — this time for the “bring your own bottle” garden party which he himself attended in summer 2020.
The PM’s Tory enemies would love India to be his swansong. But he is confident of survival. In Boris’s favour, his own MPs are not remotely close to a consensus on who should replace him.
And, despite everything, he is only single digits behind Labour in the polls, with the public displaying no burning appetite for an insipid Keir Starmer.
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But when it comes to the question of how and when Partygate ends?
No10 will have to accept that, after a week as chaotic as this one, they are not the ones controlling events.
