Boris Caught Lying - Now The Spin

No longer helped along by the mass of baying and partisan back benchers at his back, alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson is finding Prime Minister’s Questions an increasingly tricky affair. He turns up without bothering to prepare, expecting to wing it once more, only to find Keir Starmer ready to deliver his cross-examination and skewer the clueless SOB. The waffle and bluster isn’t covering his deficiencies.

This was particularly apparent yesterday when the Labour leader questioned Bozo about Government guidance to care homes, and especially the assertion in that guidance that “It remains very unlikely that people receiving care in a care home or the community will become infected”. Bozo claimed this was “incorrect”. So Starmer followed up his questions later with a letter effectively telling Johnson that he had misled the House.

Or, put more directly, he had lied. Back came Bozo to assert “I am disappointed that in the House today you chose to quote Public Health England advice selectively and misleadingly, and I stand by my comments. You neglected to provide the critical context at the start of the guidance”. He was then obediently backed up by the usual suspects.

That meant a slavish endorsement from the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog, who first conceded that Bozo fouled up - “there’s no wriggle room, prosecutor Starmer’s got him bang to rights” - then claimed “Turns out there is wriggle room, Keir Starmer didn’t take the time to read the small print. Which is a bad failing in a lawyer”, then wavered before seeing Bozo’s letter and claiming their man won.

This was echoed by Tory back bencher Lucy Allan, who sniffed “Well said [Boris Johnson] - no one is going to look kindly on those putting politics before people”. Sadly, the people at Full Fact sided with Starmer, Tweeting “At PMQs, Keir Starmer claimed that, until 12 March, government guidance had said people in care homes were ‘very unlikely’ to be infected with Covid-19. Boris Johnson said this was incorrect, but Mr Starmer was correct and previous guidance did say this”. Observers tended to agree.

Former Newsnight man Chris Cook looked at Bozo’s letter and concluded “This is conceding the point: the advice was as [Keir Starmer] said it was”. Ian Fraser went with the Full Fact finding. “So Boris Johnson lied. The UK government's guidance, until, 12 March 2020, *was* that people in care homes were ‘very unlikely’ to be infected with Covid-19”.

Then it got worse for Bozo, as the Guardian’s Andrew Sparrow told: “It turns out that, when No 10 claimed Sir Keir Starmer selectively quoted from government guidance on care homes, it was highlighting the wrong quote … At a subsequent briefing No 10 claimed Starmer had quoted selectively from the document, because he had added ‘remains’ and missed out a ‘therefore’ … No 10 was referring to [a] passage … in section 1”.

Sadly for the 10 Downing Street spinners, they had read the wrong section of the document. Starmer was quoting from a passage in section 7. And he had not quoted it selectively, or indeed misleadingly. He had done his prep, and Bozo had not.

We have a Prime Minister and backup team who can’t figure out their own guidance documents. What you will not read in most of the press today.

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