Starmer delivers pitch-perfect speech on parties – but Tory MPs allow PM to go on

The police are investigating 12 out of 16 gatherings that took place in government during lockdown, Sue Gray has revealed. These are the events that have reached the threshold for criminal investigation. The Metropolitan Police has received “well over 500 pieces of paper” and “over 300 photos”. Gray’s published update was “extremely limited”, as she described it, because the police advised her only to make “minimal reference” to the gatherings being investigated by them. But her 12-page document managed to say a lot with few words. Gray has concluded that there were “failures of leadership and judgment” and “a number of these gatherings should not have been allowed to take place or to develop in the way that they did”. Her ‘update’ certainly hasn’t settled anything. While the Daily Mail was telling readers to get a sense of proportion last week, its latest front page demands full publication of the Gray report.

After a quick “sorry” and a long explanation of reforms that don’t interest most people and would have done little to prevent such a personal failure of leadership, Boris Johnson reached for Brexit, free ports and the still vague aim to “level up”. He gave us the bare minimum in terms of apology and mostly directed his comments at Conservative MPs. Then Keir Starmer responded. The Labour leader got the tone wrong at PMQs last week, when he laughed at Boris Johnson’s ridiculous excuses and deflections. While the absurdity of the situation and the way in which the Prime Minister looks down on us is kind of funny, in a small and dark way, it is far more satisfying to see our anger reflected by the opposition leader. Yesterday Starmer delivered.

In probably his best House of Commons speech so far, the Labour leader channelled a controlled rage into a carefully considered statement that acted as both a defence of the British public and an appeal to Tory MPs. He first communicated how patronised and belittled we feel, adding that we “aren’t fools”, “never believed a word of it” and want Johnson to resign, all of which polling shows. He spoke of “darkest moments”, “rage”, “grief” and “guilt”. Of Johnson, he said cuttingly: “He is a man without shame. And just as he has done throughout his life, he is damaging everyone and everything around him along the way.” This was deeply personal. It also very much reflects the view of the lobby, and of many Labour MPs, on the resignation of Allegra Stratton.

Then Starmer quoted Margaret Thatcher on the rule of law, talked explicitly of patriotism and warned Johnson’s backbenchers that they are sacrificing their reputations. “It is only they who can end this farce. The eyes of the country are upon them,” he declared. Starmer’s withering remarks were swiftly backed up by Theresa May’s question on whether they didn’t understand the rules or didn’t think they applied to No 10, and later by MPs such as Andrew Mitchell and Caroline Nokes. But more Tory MPs stood to express their support than to criticise, and by the end of the day commentators found that Conservatives in parliament were, overall, more reassured.

Johnson had come out fighting, in campaign mode. This is his most effective mode (everyone can probably agree by now that it isn’t governing). He took it too far with a lie, a meme propagated by the far right, about Starmer failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile (Dominic Raab this morning could not repeat or substantiate it but pathetically said it was “the cut and thrust of parliamentary debates”), and an odd comment about the Labour frontbench and drug-taking. But the Prime Minister has so far succeeded in preventing 54 letters of no confidence from going in.

As this government has done since the start, it is pushing our constitution, democracy and standards in public life to their limits, seeing what depths they can plumb while remaining in power. Will we get the final Sue Gray report in full? The Prime Minister refused to confirm it in the chamber. Later No 10 said it would be released in full. Then Raab appeared to backtrack again. This is all a game to them. A man acting as schoolboy who takes nothing seriously is at the helm, and most Tory MPs seem willing to continue being dragged down by him. At least, that is the case for now. Up ahead are the police investigation outcome, the final Sue Gray report, of which Labour could force disclosure if necessary, and the May elections. And the public is no longer on their side.