'Misled' appears more times in the Boris Johnson report than 'truth'

The privileges committee has published its long-awaited investigation into whether Boris Johnson lied to parliament over the Partygate scandal – and its found that he committed “repeated contempts” of Parliament.

Johnson was found to have deliberately misled MPs with his partygate denials before being complicit in a campaign of abuse and intimidation.

The findings were published in a lengthy 30,000 word report, and some of the wording used was particularly revealing.

Notably, in the entire report, there were more uses of the word “misled” than the word “truth”.

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“Misled” features 42 times, while “truth” is in there 41 times.

The report also sees the committee accuse Johnson of launching “an attack on our democratic institutions”.

Had he not resigned last week in anticipation of the findings, the Privileges Committee recommended a 90-day suspension - which would have been twice as long as Liz Truss's entire premiership.

Brandon Bell/Getty Images

“There is no precedent for a Prime Minister having been found to have deliberately misled the House," the MPs wrote. “He misled the House on an issue of the greatest importance to the House and to the public, and did so repeatedly.

“He declined our invitation to reconsider his assertions that what he said to the House was truthful. His defence to the allegation that he misled was an ex post facto justification and no more than an artifice. He misled the Committee in the presentation of his evidence.”

The report finds that not only did Johnson mislead parliament, but that he had done so on an unprecedented scale from the highest office in the land.

“There is no precedent for a Prime Minister having been found to have deliberately misled the House," the MPs wrote. “He misled the House on an issue of the greatest importance to the House and to the public, and did so repeatedly.

Johnson has hit out at the findings. He called it a “deranged conclusion”, accusing the Tory-majority group of MPs of lying.

He called the committee led by Labour veteran Harriet Harman “beneath contempt” and claimed its 14-month investigation had delivered “what is intended to be the final knife-thrust in a protracted political assassination”.

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