Argumentative, angry and arm-waving: The old Boris Johnson was back

Boris Johnson spent much of Thursday apologising again, but the one time he actually looked embarrassed was when it was revealed he told a meeting: “F*** YOU Daily Mail”. Never mind 220,000 excess deaths, what would he tell the editor of his tabloid employer?

“I am sorry to have said this about the Daily Mail,” croaked the overpaid columnist when his words appeared on the big screen. It was his umpteenth saying of sorry, but this time, as the movies say, he meant it.

You knew this was going to be a tough day for Johnson because he started being nice to “hard worker” Matt Hancock. If a drowning man clutches at Hancock, he must be desperate. The former health secretary is more of a dead weight than a lifebelt these days but, crucially for Johnson’s legal case, he had backed the PM on rejecting a circuit breaker lockdown in October 2020, perhaps one of the worst blunders of the pandemic.

It was a decision that he “agonised over”, Johnson assured us. Because he cared so much. From the public seating came an audible rumble. Bereaved relatives were more restless than on Wednesday, wondering why Lady Hallett was listening to this criminal instead of handing him to the mob.

Lead counsel Hugo Keith suggested Johnson had “secretly held views” that the virus should “let rip”. Didn’t he think the elderly had “had a good innings”. Someone in the public seats hissed out: “Shame on you!” Keith continued probing, citing evidence from Sir Patrick Vallance’s diary. Hadn’t Johnson been “obsessed with older people accepting their fate”? Another voice from the back called out: “How do you sleep at night, Boris?”

Johnson perched on the edge of his swivel chair, eyes locked, his body language betraying the mental effort to keep his words in check. Keith continued: “Hadn’t he thought old folk had ‘reached their time anyway’”. “No,” said Johnson, straining his leash. You went against the advice, accused Keith. No,” growled Johnson. “Shame!” came a voice from the back. You left it until the last moment, said the KC. “No,” said Johnson. “Yes you did,” muttered a victim. The murmer of the public gallery was getting louder and less polite. Lady Hallett looked alarmed. She really didn’t want to throw anyone out.

Things got more heated when the Partygate scandals came up. Johnson apologised “for the offence caused” but claimed the popular impression of high jinks was “a travesty of the truth”. Lady Hallett tersely interjected that No 10 rule-breaking had clearly reduced public trust. For some reason Keith didn’t ask him about the karaoke, suitcases of wine and vomiting – all listed in an official report. But the KC was struggling to get under Johnson’s skin.

Johnson did get emotional again, this time about his own near-fatal dose of Covid. “I haven’t spoken about this before,” he fibbed. He lay in intensive care surrounded by middle-aged men like him. “Some of us were going to make it,” he said, voice husky and eyes rheumy. “Some of us weren’t.”

A woman silently held up a photo of a dead relative in breach of the inquiry rules, perhaps hoping she would be thrown out and be excused from listening to any more of this. Some gaps appeared in the public seating. Protest fatigue? Or fatigue with a hearing that was simply failing to nail the elusive, slippery man in the dock?

Johnson was sticking to the script assiduously. His first priority was saving lives, he reminded us repeatedly. Tick. The expert advice was mixed. Tick. He only said those appalling things about old people because he was playing devil’s advocate. Tick. He asked stupid questions about letting rip because he was “the only lay person in the room” and was testing the replies on behalf of others. Tick. Those who doubt Johnson’s ability to be tediously on-message have never interviewed him on an election campaign train, when he clings to his folder of Lynton Crosby approved lines. With his back to the wall, Johnson is no clown.

We saw the old Boris re-emerge after Keith sat down and the next KC, Pete Weatherby, stood up. Mr Weatherby, who has represented Reggie Kray, has a regional accent and a rather imperious manner. Johnson naturally despised him immediately. Weatherby flourished a graph of excess deaths. “I’m putting to you some cold steel of evidence,” he announced. “I don’t believe your evidence stands up,” snorted Johnson, leaning forwards now, hands karate chopping the desk. This was the Boris we saw at the privileges committee: argumentative, angry and arm-waving. Weatherby put his dukes up and they sparred entertainingly, but no fatality ensued.

It was another long day, but I did not detect a killer blow being landed. So I caution those who hope the final Hallett Report will vilify Johnson in the terms they yearn to see: don’t get your hopes up.

Some of you may perhaps recall a previous public inquiry where it seemed a prime minister could fall, where the F-word appeared (shockingly!) in a No 10 chief’s diary, where ministers were humiliated and where their dodgy dossiers were demolished.

Yet when the Hutton Inquiry finally reported in 2004 on the fairytale that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, ready to fire in 45 minutes, his conclusions were an insipid shade of magnolia. Such is the way inquiries work when the cameras are turned off and the silks gather in private to negotiate what was actually proven.