Tory MP's defence of Boris Johnson called 'painful' as he's scolded on live TV

The defence of Boris Johnson by a Conservative MP after the PM broke his own government’s lockdown rules and was fined by the police has been described as “painful”.

On Politics Live, conversation unsurprisingly turned to Boris Johnson and the fact that he was found to have broken the law.

Ahead of the PM’s address to parliament this afternoon, Conservative MP Tom Hunt peddled the excuse that Johnson did not mean to attend a party at Downing Street, but was instead given a “surprise greeting” by his staff.

But, the MP for Ipswich was almost immediately ridiculed for his inference that Johnson breached Covid rules unintentionally.

Fellow panellist, Ellie Mae O'Hagan, director of the Centre for Labour and Social Studies, called out the MP for defending Johnson.

O’Hagan told Hunt: “What I watched then was really painful, listening to you talk about this. It was really painful watching you slip from excuse to excuse when actually the people watching this are not stupid.

“We know what happened – they had lots of parties, they lied about it, they got fined, that's what's happened.

“They need to now take responsibility for that and it's not because Labour should win or score points it's because actually, people need to believe that the people in power are honest and have their best interests and I'm afraid everything that you just said will make people doubt that even more.

“And the fact that Tory MPs do not want to get rid of Boris Johnson because they're looking after their own backs, I'm afraid will damage trust even further and pretty much everybody pays when trust in politics is shattered.”

Sign up to our new free Indy100 weekly newsletter

During O'Hagan's response, Hunt sat with a petulant look on his face before he was able to respond, saying: “I'm sure she finds a lot of what I say painful, I'm sure I'll find a lot of what she says painful. If you let me finish that'd be great.”

One person on Twitter wrote: “Not an easy task to face such bold arrogant lies and take them down with an eloquent a** whipping argument and on a debate forum like that.

“You say the words I’m screaming in my head everyday.”

Someone else added: “You didn't like that did you @tomhunt1988 your face is a picture.”

Johnson is due to address parliament this afternoon and is expected to apologise for breaking the rules.

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.