The PM can only muster a hollow apology for party

Boris Johnson came to the House of Commons yesterday armed with nothing better than a non-apology apology, a promise to get to the bottom of any mistakes that were made, and an insistence that if any of these events actually happened a year ago they were nothing to do with him.

- JOHN RENTOUL  

Keir Starmer was almost regretful, as if he had hoped that the prime minister would put up more of a fight: “That’s so desperate, and even his own side can see it.”

The prime minister tried to take the question of the Downing Street Christmas party head-on, before it was asked, and to absorb public anger by saying he shared it. He sounded like a disappointed parent, saying he was “furious” when he saw the video of his staff “seeming to make light of lockdown rules”.

But the effect was immediately spoiled by an insincere apology for the “offence” that the video “has caused”, and “for the impression that it gives”. In plain English, he was saddened, as a mere observer, that offence had been caused – as fine an example as one will find in British politics of what Colin Powell, the US secretary of state, once called the “third person passive once removed”. And after all, he was sorry only for the “impression” the video gave, he said, implying that the impression was not accurate.