Privilege: Conduct of Right Hon. Boris Johnson

Adam Holloway Excerpts

Monday 19th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Bridgen]

Well, I think the behaviour of No. 10 was—

[Adam Holloway (Gravesham) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Andrew Bridgen]

I will give way.

[Adam Holloway]

Look, while it is very exciting to see what is going on and to remove a Prime Minister with an 80-seat majority, can we not just think about what happened here or did not happen here? What did the police and Sue Gray actually come up with? The guy was delivered a piece of cake. I would have been the first person, if Boris had had parties in the flat or whatever else, to stand up here and whinge about it, but the reality is that what we know is that he accepted a piece of cake. So can people not accept that, just possibly, the guy stood there and really did not believe he was misleading the House?

[Andrew Bridgen]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question and I think his misplaced loyalty to Boris Johnson is laudable. However, the behaviour in Downing Street bore a closer resemblance to the set of “Love Island” than to a collection of our country’s top minds and high performers working tirelessly to steer us through dangerous waters. This was at the same time as they went further than any other British Government have gone before them to take more and more powers under the wing of the state.

The question is: are internal parliamentary Committees and state inquiries agenda-driven? Well, who can fault the public for thinking that they probably are, because when we look at the covid inquiry that has now started, it is requiring all participants to take lateral flow tests in 2023. Yes, the bubble surrounding the Westminster political elite has become absolutely opaque. The public cannot understand it and it cannot understand the public. I am afraid that the bubble has well and truly burst. The consensus still about the lockdowns is that they were sensible, practical and acceptable for the public. The only discussion ever allowed in this place was how long the lockdowns should be. But lockdowns and restrictions were not for anybody at No. 10; they were only for the little people.

If the data had really indicated that the virus was

“the most vicious threat this country has faced in my lifetime”—

they are the words of the former Prime Minister himself—then why were those who were seeing the data at first hand and were privy to all the later briefings continually breaching their own rules? While they locked us in our houses, they went to parties. When they forced us to wear masks, they broke out the party hats. They closed our schools and they opened the bottles. Well, I’m glad they had such a good time.

[Adam Holloway]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?