Is this the end?

Boris Johnson’s lame ‘partygate’ excuses have been mocked by quiz show hosts and sports pundits. But while the UK prime minister is accustomed to ridicule , the deep anger of families who suff ered in the pandemic while obeying the rules will not go away. It’s now just a question of how long he survives …

- Toby Helm

After another dreadful week for Boris Johnson that was dominated by news of yet more rule-breaking parties at No 10, the comedian Andy Zaltzman opened BBC Radio 4’s News Quiz last Friday by announcing his two teams. One he named “team apologise” and the other “team pack of lies”.

Zaltzman added: “This show is best listened to when not at work. If you are unsure whether you are at work or not at work, please check whether anyone you normally work with has turned up with a bottle of wine and is getting hammered.”

What followed was 20 minutes of relentless ridicule of the prime minister for trying to pass off a lockdown-busting bring-your-own-booze gathering for dozens of people in the garden of No 10 in May 2020 (which he attended with his wife), as a work event.

Half an hour later, over on Sky Sports’s Friday Night Football show, the pundits Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher were also getting in on the act. Asked about the rivalry between Brighton and Hove Albion and Crystal Palace, who were about to face each other on the pitch, Neville replied with a straight face that such derby games often seemed like a “massive party”.

His somewhat awkward – though clearly prepared – an allusion to political events in answer to a question about football allowed Carragher to carry on the gag. “This is not a party tonight. This is about work,” he said. “They’ve got to know the difference between work and a party,” he said.

Johnson, the politician once known for making the jokes, has become a national laughing stock.