Can Johnson Escape Unhurt From The Partygate Inquiry?

Boris Johnson is addicted to getting himself into trouble. The former Tory leader has made a strange habit of tripping up and falling into avoidable scandals throughout his political career.

- Adam Forrest

He even appeared to self-diagnose the addiction in his 2004 novel Seventy-Two Virgins, which featured a charming, if somewhat disheveled chancer (guess who?) as its Tory MP hero. "There was something prurient about the way he wanted to read about his own destruction," the author wrote.

If Johnson is not careful on Wednesday, he could be reading about his own destruction in Thursday's newspapers. The former prime minister is up against it as he prepares for his public grilling at the hands of the privileges committee.

The eight MPs on the cross-party committee - who are trying to establish whether Mr Johnson lied to parliament about his knowledge of rule-breaking events at No 10 - have made it pretty clear they believe he is on a very sticky wicket. They released a 20-page interim report earlier this month, which said it would have been "obvious" to Mr Johnson that events he personally attended broke Covid rules.

Team Johnson fired back with a "bombshell" yesterday, claiming to have "detailed and compelling" evidence showing that he "did not knowingly mislead" the Commons when he claimed all events followed the rules.