‘Stick that up your kangaroo court, Boris!’: What the committee really meant in its excoriating report

Our chief political commentator reads between the lines of the report of the privileges committee: what it said – and what it really meant

Boris Johnson has totally failed to show the committee, and specifically the four Conservative MPs who constitute a majority on the committee, the respect, deference and grovelling that they so rightly deserve (PA Wire)

What the Committee of Privileges said: This inquiry goes to the very heart of our democracy. Misleading the House is not a technical issue, but a matter of great importance. Our democracy depends on MPs being able to trust that what ministers tell them in the House of Commons is the truth.

And what it really meant: We take ourselves very, very seriously. You would not have argued with us if you knew what is good for you, Boris.

What the committee said: The committee has at all times followed the law and customs of parliament.

What it meant: We are not a kangaroo court and we are spitting tacks at the suggestion that our report is a “hitjob”.

What the committee said: Neither the government nor any member has proposed to the House that the procedure should be altered or set out how this would be done

What it meant: Boris should have put up or shut up. He is not just a liar, he is a whingey whiner.

What the committee said: In deliberately misleading the House Mr Johnson committed a serious contempt. The contempt was all the more serious because it was committed by the prime minister, the most senior member of the government.

What it meant: We find it hard to believe that this reprobate was ever allowed to hold the highest office in the land. The people who put him in 10 Downing Street must have been out of their minds.

What the committee said: He declined our invitation to reconsider his assertions that what he said to the House was truthful.

What it meant: He refused to look at his shoes and mumble something contrite about letting us down, letting parliament down but above all letting himself down.

What the committee said: We came to the view that some of Mr Johnson’s denials and explanations were so disingenuous that they were by their very nature deliberate attempts to mislead the committee and the House.

What it meant: He is a liar who lies that he is not a liar. We cannot understand why he didn’t just put his hands up and say, “You have found me out; I am bang to rights; I will come quietly.”

What the committee said: On 9 June 2023, before the committee had completed its deliberations and delivered its report to the House, Mr Johnson made a public statement responding to and criticising the inquiry and the committee’s provisional conclusions. That was in breach of the express requirements of confidentiality imposed by the committee.

What it meant: He has totally failed to show the committee, and specifically the four Conservative MPs who constitute a majority on the committee, the respect, deference and grovelling that they so rightly deserve. The four Tory members are shocked to their core and say that they had no idea that he was like this.

What the committee said: This attack on a committee carrying out its remit from the democratically elected House itself amounts to an attack on our democratic institutions.

What it meant: We are not self-important or pompous in any way. If anything, our only fault is that we love democracy so much.

What the committee said: It is for the House to decide whether it agrees with the committee.

What it meant: The Conservatives have a majority of 64 in the Commons, and a majority of four to three on the committee. Stick that up your “kangaroo court”, Boris.

What the committee said: The committee is entitled to conclude on all the evidence that Mr Johnson did not honestly believe what he said he believed or that he deliberately closed his mind to the obvious or to his own knowledge.

What it meant: Don’t give us any of that Oxford philosophy woo about us not being able to see into your mind. We know exactly what you are up to and you haven’t got away with it.

What the committee said: Motions arising from reports from this committee are debatable and amendable.

What it meant: If Johnson is so sure that the committee has exceeded its authority, he or his supporters could have tabled an amendment to modify the findings and reduce the penalty, but he knows perfectly well that most Tory MPs can’t wait to see the back of him.

What the committee said: The committee had provisionally concluded that Mr Johnson deliberately misled the House and should be sanctioned for it by being suspended for a period that would trigger the provisions of the Recall of MPs Act 2015.

What it meant: We had already decided to hand down a suspension of 10 days or more, enough to trigger a by-election in Uxbridge.

What the committee said: In light of Mr Johnson’s conduct in committing a further contempt on 9 June 2023, the committee now considers that if Mr Johnson were still a member he should be suspended from the service of the House for 90 days.

What it meant: If he hadn’t run away like the snivelling coward that he is, we would have suspended him for a million days, made him run round the cross-country course 4,000 times and write out 100,000 times: “I am the worst liar there ever was.”

What the committee said: We recommend that he should not be entitled to a former member’s pass.

What it meant: As it is, this is the only punishment we are able to propose, so we’ll do that, but he should really be sent to the Tower and not allowed out until he apologises in person, with flowers, to all seven members of the committee.