Boris Johnson’s disrespect over exams undermines PMQs and exposes his U-turns – The Yorkshire Post says

Yet the same charge has to be levelled against Mr Johnson after his serial use of flippancy, and obfuscation, demeaned Parliament, his office and his reputation.

Rebuked by Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker, for not answering the questions put to him, Mr Johnson should have been called out of order for a personal attack on the integrity of Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, in exchanges over exams before accusing him of not doing enough to support the reopening of schools in what became an argument about semantics.

And the fact that the PM floundered to such an extent was his inability to answer a question which he, and his aides, should have foreseen – when did he first know that there was a problem with the algorithm used to determine exam results. His evasiveness only has two explanations – either the PM knew about the problem and failed to act, or he didn’t know there was an issue when he should have done.

Either way, it does not inspire confidence in Mr Johnson when this PMQs coincided with yet another U-turn; this time the Government’s decision not to lift lockdown restrictions in parts of the North West having earlier indicated the precise opposite.

As well as making a mockery of PMQs, the one occasion when MPs can hold Mr Johnson to account, his disregard of the concerns of others on many issues risks undermining his efforts to persuade the country to return to work. No one under-estimates the scale of the difficulties facing the PM, not least this newspaper, but there are occasions when Mr Johnson does himself few favours with a disrespectful and tin-eared approach and this, regrettably, was one of them.

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Thank you

James Mitchinson