London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Wednesday, Sep 24, 2025

Starmer calls Johnson ‘a man without shame’ as PM gives Partygate apology

Labour leader accuses prime minister of dishonesty, as senior Tory joins those urging him to quit
Keir Starmer called the prime minister “a man without shame” during furious exchanges in parliament as MPs prepared to vote on whether Boris Johnson should be investigated for lying about the Partygate scandal.

Addressing MPs for the first time since receiving a fixed-penalty notice for attending a party thrown for his birthday in June 2020, Boris Johnson spoke of his humility but said it had not occurred to him that the gathering was a breach of Covid rules.

In a fierce response, the Labour leader accused the prime minister of dishonesty and said he did not “respect the sacrifice of the British public”.

The senior Tory MP Mark Harper became the latest backbencher to call for Johnson to go, after hearing his apology, saying: “I no longer think he is worthy of the great office that he holds.”

MPs will vote on Thursday on a Labour motion that would trigger an investigation by the House of Commons privileges committee into whether Johnson misled parliament over a string of lockdown-busting parties in Downing Street.

Starmer urged Conservative MPs to seize the opportunity to get rid of Johnson and “bring decency, honesty and integrity back into our politics”.

In his statement to parliament, Johnson said he had broken the rules unwittingly. “It did not occur to me then or subsequently that a gathering in the cabinet room, just before a vital meeting on Covid strategy, could amount to a breach of the rules. That was my mistake and I apologise for it unreservedly,” he said.

Johnson added that the “hurt and anger” prompted by the row had given him “an even greater sense of obligation to deliver on the priorities of the British people, and to respond in the best traditions of our country to Putin’s barbaric onslaught on Ukraine”.

He said that he had been discussing the Ukraine conflict on Tuesday on a call with fellow world leaders, including presidents Joe Biden and Emmanuel Macron.

But Starmer called the apology “mealy mouthed”, and accused Johnson of being “dishonest”. When asked by the Speaker to withdraw that as unparliamentary language, Starmer said: “The prime minister knows what he is.”

Harper also rejected Johnson’s apology, saying: “I regret to say that we have a PM who broke the laws that he told the country to follow, hasn’t been straight about it, and is now going to ask the decent men and women on these benches to defend what I think is indefensible.”

Harper subsequently tweeted that he had already sent a letter of no confidence in Johnson to the chair of the 1922 Committee, Sir Graham Brady.

On Tuesday evening Craig Whittaker, a Conservative MP who has previously called for Johnson to resign, urged the prime minister to refer himself to the privileges committee to prevent taking Tories “to the brink”, in comments made to BBC Newsnight.

Despite calling for the PM to quit, Whittaker said he has not sent a letter to the 1922 Committee calling for a no-confidence vote.

However, other Tory MPs who have private reservations about Johnson said neither the apology nor move for a vote on an investigation by the privileges committee had shifted their view.

They remain in a “holding pattern”, waiting to see if any further fines are issued and hopeful the facts will come out in Sue Gray’s long-awaited report. One Tory backbencher said they were considering voting for the privileges committee investigation but that it would probably be treated as a confidence vote, meaning they would lose the whip and probably their seat at the next election for doing so.

Starmer cited the story of John Robinson, who wrote to the Guardian last week to say he could not hold the hand of his wife as she died, or hold a proper funeral for her, adding of Johnson: “Anger doesn’t even touch the sides of how I feel about this pathetic excuse for a man.”

Starmer told a subdued House of Commons: “If the prime minister had any respect for John and the millions like him who sacrificed everything to follow the rules he’d resign. But he won’t. Because he doesn’t respect John. He doesn’t respect the sacrifice of the British public. He is a man without shame.”

Labour sources said Starmer had returned from an Easter break with his family freshly enraged about the prime minister’s attempts to wriggle out of Partygate.

Johnson will be on a trade visit to India when Thursday’s vote is held, as he seeks to demonstrate to colleagues that he is getting on with the job of running the country.

In a signal that the Conservatives will whip their MPs firmly against the motion, the Cabinet Office minister Jacob Rees-Mogg cast doubt on the privilege committee’s suitability to investigate Johnson’s conduct.

He said it was a “distinguished body of the House of Commons but it’s chaired by a Labour party politician”, and added: “I’d bear that in mind.” The committee is always chaired by an opposition politician.

According to the ministerial code, ministers who “knowingly mislead parliament” are expected to offer their resignation.

The prime minister reassured MPs in December that “all guidance was followed” in Downing Street during the pandemic – a statement apparently contradicted by the Metropolitan police’s decision to impose a fixed-penalty notice.

Johnson has since argued that he did not knowingly mislead MPs because he had not believed rules were broken. Asked by the Tory MP Peter Bone: “Did you deliberately mislead the house at the dispatch box?” Johnson replied: “No.”

Another senior backbencher, Steve Baker, who has repeatedly criticised government Covid policy, suggested Johnson should be forgiven, stressing the need for “justice, and mercy, and humility” – though he asked Johnson for reassurance something similar could not happen again.

The prime minister and senior government officials could face further sanctions in the coming weeks as the Met continues its investigation into lockdown gatherings.

Once the Met has completed its work, the government has committed to publish the full report by Gray, a senior civil servant.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Big Banks Rebuild in Hong Kong as Deal Volume Surges
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Arnault Denounces Proposed Wealth Tax as Threat to French Economy
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Denmark Investigates Drone Incursion, Does Not Rule Out Russian Involvement
Lilly CEO Warns UK Is ‘Worst Country in Europe’ for Drug Prices, Pulls Back Investment
Nigel Farage Emerges as Central Force in British Politics with Reform UK Surge
Disney Reinstates ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ after Six-Day Suspension over Charlie Kirk Comments
U.S. Prosecutors Move to Break Up Google’s Advertising Monopoly
Nvidia Pledges Up to $100 Billion Investment in OpenAI to Power Massive AI Data Center Build-Out
U.S. Signals ‘Large and Forceful’ Support for Argentina Amid Market Turmoil
Nvidia and Abu Dhabi’s TII Launch First AI-&-Robotics Lab in the Middle East
Vietnam Faces Up to $25 Billion Export Loss as U.S. Tariffs Bite
Europe Signals Stronger Support for Taiwan at Major Taipei Defence Show
Indonesia Court Upholds Military Law Amid Concerns Over Expanded Civilian Role
Larry Ellison, Michael Dell and Rupert Murdoch Join Trump-Backed Bid to Take Over TikTok
Trump and Musk Reunite Publicly for First Time Since Fallout at Kirk Memorial
Vietnam Closes 86 Million Untouched Bank Accounts Over Biometric ID Rules
Explosive Email Shows Sarah Ferguson Begged Forgiveness from Jeffrey Epstein After Taking His Money
Corrupt UK Politician Ed Davey Demands Elon Musk’s Arrest for Supporting Democracy
UK, Canada, and Australia Officially Recognise Palestine in Historic Shift
Alibaba Debuts Open-Source Deep Research Agent with Benchmarks Rivaling OpenAI
Marcos Faces Legacy-Defining Crisis as Flood Projects Scandal Sparks Massive Tide of Protests
China’s Micro-Drama Boom Turns Stalled Real Estate Projects into Lavish Film Sets
New Eye Drops Show Promise in Replacing Reading Glasses for Presbyopia
'Company Got 5,189 H-1B Visas, Then Laid Off 16,000 Americans': US Defends New $100,000 H-1B Visa Fee
Golf legend tells Omar she should be 'sent back to Somalia' after her Kirk comments
EU Set to Bar Big Tech from New Financial Data Access Scheme
China Bans Livestreaming and AI in Religion Amid Crackdown on Shaolin Temple Scandal
Documents Reveal Mandelson Failed to Declare Epstein-Funded Flights as MP in 2003
Dubai Property Boom Shows Strain as Flippers Get Buyer’s Remorse
Harris Memoir Sparks Backlash from Democrats for Blunt Critiques in ‘107 Days’
Germany Weighs Excluding France from Key European Fighter Jet Programme
Cyberattack Disrupts Check-in and Boarding Systems at Major European Airports
Japan’s ‘Death-Tainted’ Homes Gain Appeal as Prices Soar in Tokyo
Massive Attack Withdraws from Spotify Over Daniel Ek’s €600M Defence-AI Investment
Björn Borg Breaks Silence: Memoir Reveals Addiction, Shame and Cancer Battle
When Extremism Hijacks Idealism: How the Baader-Meinhof Gang Emerged and Fell
Top AI Researchers Are Heading Back to China as U.S. Struggles to Keep Pace
JWST Data Brings TRAPPIST-1e Closer to Earth-Like Habitability
Trump Orders Third Lethal Strike on Drug-Trafficking Vessel as U.S. Expands Maritime Counter-Narcotics Operations
Trump Orders $100,000 Fee on H-1B Visas and Launches ‘Gold Card’ Immigration Pathway
Why Google Search Is Fading and AI Is Taking Its Place
UAE-US Stargate Project Poised to Make Abu Dhabi a Global AI Powerhouse
Federal Judge Dismisses Trump’s Fifteen-Billion-Dollar Suit Against New York Times, Orders Refile
France’s Looming Budget Crisis and Political Fracture Raise Fears of Becoming Europe’s “Sick Man”
Three Russian MiG-31 Jets Breach Estonian Airspace in ‘Unprecedentedly Brazen’ NATO Incident
×