Distraction tactics are the order of the day for Boris Johnson and company

Priti Patel is the latest to suggest rebel Tories should ‘forget’ about writing letters amid the jubilee, writes Chris Stevenson

Priti has suggested we should all be concentrating on the platinum jubilee (AP)

Earlier this week, arts minister Lord Stephen Parkinson suggested that speculation over the future of Boris Johnson was “pretty pointless” and a “distraction from the work of government”.

“There was an awful lot for us in government to be getting on with then just as there is now,” he told Sky News. “The cost of living, making sure that we’re providing the leadership we need in the face of the war in Ukraine – it’s pointless speculating about something unless or until it happens.”

That word distraction is interesting, as I would suggest it is exactly what the home secretary, Priti Patel has also engaged in – in advocating for those pushing for Johnson to resign to “forget it”. She has also warned that writing letters against him in the wake of Sue Gray's report into Partygate – with 54 required to trigger a confidence vote in the PM – was a “sideshow”.

She told the Daily Mail: “This weekend is going to be all about the longstanding dedicated service that Her Majesty the Queen has given that nation. Everyone should rally behind that.

“This isn’t about a parade [of leadership candidates] or a contest of letters. We need to concentrate on doing our jobs. Our job is to deliver on the people’s priorities. They won’t thank the Conservative party for talking about itself at a time when people have anxieties, concerns, apprehensions.”

Notice the similarities between what Lord Parkinson and Patel have had to say? With the home secretary adding the extra element of the jubilee. A distraction from a supposed distraction?

When it comes to the cost of living crisis, which Lord Parkinson pointed towards, the chancellor Rishi Sunak had to deny suggestions that the announcement of billions of pounds worth of support was not a distraction from lockdown events in Downing Street – with the measures being set out just a day after the publication of Gray's report. Jacob Rees-Mogg's recent trotting out of his favourite “Brexit opportunities” suggested by the public could be seen in the same light. As for other government priorities like the “levelling up” agenda, things are not exactly moving swiftly.

Ministers and Tory MP supporters of Johnson have spent days saying that we should “move on” from Partygate, but it’s clear that other members of the party feel that there is still plenty of public anger around Partygate and that the Conservatives need to be seen to act upon that – not just acknowledge it weakly and then move past it.

Ministers clearly hold a different view. Distraction? What distraction?