Partygate: Boris Johnson cannot duck responsibility - Andrew Vine

Guffaws all round, no doubt. But to the public outside a roomful of MPs being wined and dined by a leader on a charm offensive, there is nothing remotely funny about this.

For millions, the last two years were the worst of their lives. Loved ones have been lost, as have livelihoods. Children have been left traumatised and their futures jeopardised by the disruption to schools.

Loneliness, isolation and worry became the norm for many, who would dearly have liked to meet friends for a drink as they poured out their troubles and forgot how awful it all was, at least for a while.

But they didn’t, because the law said they couldn’t. So the notion of a Prime Minister regarding high jinks under his own roof as a jolly jape to be giggled over isn’t just inappropriate. It is offensive.

Fixed penalty notices have been issued to people who broke lockdown rules to hold booze-ups in Government buildings on the eve of Prince Philip’s funeral last year – at which, let’s remember, the Queen was scrupulous about obeying Covid restrictions, sitting alone as she mourned her husband of 73 years.

This first batch of £50 fines have a significance much greater than the relatively small penalties being imposed on wrongdoers.

They expose a culture of lawbreaking at the heart of Government, and a contempt for the rest of the country.

Laws were for all the little people, and not for the exalted ones who viewed themselves as not being subject to them.

And the most exalted of all of them, Boris Johnson, still has some awkward questions to answer about his own conduct, what he knew and whether he lied to Parliament.

War in Ukraine has, of course, diverted Britain’s attention away from shenanigans in Downing Street.

Mr Johnson has quite rightly been praised for his support of the brave people fighting Russian aggressors, and apart from a crass comparison of their struggle to the tussle over Brexit, has acted in a sensible and statesmanlike fashion.

But that doesn’t negate the questions over his conduct over lockdown-busting parties. The reckoning over what he did and knew has only been deferred.

If Mr Johnson thinks the public has forgotten what happened, or believes its outrage at the one-rule-for-us mentality has abated, he is very much mistaken. A probable poor showing by the

Conservatives in next month’s local elections will come as a sharp reminder of that. His former aide, Dominic Cummings, returned to the attack at the weekend, branding Mr Johnson a “sociopathic narcissist” who would try to shift blame for the party culture at Downing Street onto junior officials.

Mr Cummings has an axe to grind, so what he says needs to be treated with a degree of caution, but nevertheless he has a point about the mindset at the top of Government.

The culture in any workplace is set by the person or people in charge, and in Downing Street that means Mr Johnson and his most senior aides.

There is no escaping the conclusion that the people enjoying their chilled sauvignon blanc and nibbles inside Number 10 or in the garden believed they had tacit permission to do so, whatever the law said. The Prime Minister cannot duck responsibility for this.

We do not yet know whether he, or his wife, will receive fixed penalty notices over illegal gatherings. If he does, his position is surely untenable because he told the Commons he had done nothing illegal.

Even if no penalty is issued to Mr Johnson, joking about the whole issue looks as if he is simply shrugging off law-breaking at the heart of Government as something that does not matter.

That’s concerning. It is an undermining of the rule of law by the holder of an office which should uphold it against all challenges.

If we cannot have faith in the Prime Minister and those around him to behave properly, then how is it possible for the country to trust them on the issues besetting Britain, including the cost of living crisis and securing energy supplies without relying on hostile states like Russia? Mr Johnson somehow doesn’t seem to get this.

For all his intelligence, he appears to have a blind spot about how angry people are at what went on under his own roof. Ukraine won’t change that. The public will forgive genuine blunders by a Prime Minister, provided contrition is shown, but not deception or dishonesty.

Still less will they forgive being taken for fools by a politician who seems to treat lawbreaking as a joke.