Defiant Boris Johnson tells MPs his political career has ‘barely begun’

Beleaguered prime minister asked to ‘explain if 148 of his own backbenchers don’t trust him, why on earth should the country?’

A defiant Boris Johnson has told MPs he will fight to stay in power, joking that his political career has “barely begun”

Facing the Commons for the first time since surviving a bruising no-confidence vote by his own MPs, the prime minister was told he is “loathed” by many of them.

But Mr Johnson insisted that nothing is “going to stop us with getting on delivering for the British people”.

Angela Eagle, a senior Labour MP told him: “This week’s events have demonstrated just how loathed this prime minister is – and that’s only in his own party.

“As his administration is too distracted by its internal divisions to deal with the challenges we face, can the prime minister explain if 148 of his own backbenchers don’t trust him why on earth should the country?”

Hitting back, Mr Johnson told her: “I can assure her in a long political career so far – barely begun – I’ve of course picked up political opponents all over.

“And that is because this government has done some very big and very remarkable things which they didn’t necessarily approve of.

“And what I want her to know is that absolutely nothing and no-one, least of all her, is going to stop us with getting on delivering for the British people.”

But the prime minister struggled for backing in the Commons, receiving only muted cheers from his own MPs and no early supportive interventions.

Ian Blackford, the SNP Westminster leader, also mocked Mr Johnson, pointing out that for weeks he has called for his resignation – only to be met with a “wall of noise” from Tory MPs.

“All this time, 41 per cent of them have been cheering me on!” he joked, noting the proportion which voted against the prime minister in Monday’s vote.

Keir Starmer seized on the admission by the culture secretary Nadine Dorries that the government had been unprepared for the Covid pandemic.

“Why did his culture secretary – I think she is hiding along the bench – say that successive Conservative governments left our health service wanting and inadequate when the pandemic hit?” the Labour leader asked.

Mr Johnson did not deny the allegation, which is likely to form a key part of the public inquiry into Covid which he has long delayed.

Instead, he replied: “Everybody knows that when the pandemic hit it was an entirely novel virus for which the whole world was unprepared.

“Nobody at that stage, nobody knew how to test for it, nobody knew what the right quarantine rules should be.

“But as it happened, the UK government and our amazing NHS not only approved the first vaccine anywhere in the world, we were the first to get it into anybody’s arms and we had the fastest rollout anywhere in Europe.”

Mr Johnson also sought to give the impression of a government acting on key problems, by “expanding home ownership for millions of people” and “cutting the costs of business”.

A major speech this week is expected to extend the Right to Buy to housing association residents and pave the way for quick-build “flatpack” homes,