Johnson Must Not Receive Any Special Treatment

There are two sides, at least, to any story. As such, it is right and proper for Boris Johnson to publish his defence to the allegations that he lied to parliament. When he appears before the House of Commons committee of privileges to offer his testimony and answer questions, he will have around four hours to account for his actions and explain how he came to mislead parliament; something he now admits to.

That should be ample time for him to make his case. With some £220,000 of taxpayers' money spent on helping him prepare for the hearing, and the assistance of the distinguished barrister Lord Pannick who will be by his side, Mr Johnson cannot plausibly claim that he's been treated unfairly.

Yet he and his allies persist with this argument. The defence document that's now been published invites the committee and the public, not for the first time, to believe that Mr Johnson is a mere victim of circumstance, if not a conspiracy to defame him.

As a shrewd legal/political tactic he has conceded the most obvious and indefensible ground - that he did indeed mislead parliament - the better to defend the more debatable territory of whether it was done knowingly, consciously, recklessly or in any other way.

As he puts it, "when the statements were made, they were made in good faith and on the basis of what I honestly knew and believed at the time" and he "did not intentionally or recklessly mislead the house" and would "never have dreamed of doing so".

That last quip reads a little like a private joke to himself. At times in his statement Mr Johnson sounds hurt, angry and aggrieved; but this may be performative.