Boris crack gags about Partygate letters as he buries the hatchet with Tory MPs who wanted him gone
Boris Johnson cracked gags about Partygate letters as he buries the hatchet with the rebellious Tory MPs who were plotting to oust him
The Prime Minister attempted to repair ties with Tories with a lavish dinnerThe event at a hotel in central London was attended by several former rebelsIt is the latest attempt by the Prime Minister to put the Partygate scandal behind his Government
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The Prime Minister buried the hatchet with rebellious Tories by joking about their plots against him.
He told a team-bonding dinner on Tuesday night that his detractors were ‘some of the greatest epistolatory letter writers since St Paul’.
Boris Johnson received a standing ovation at the gathering in a central London hotel attended by critics including former chief whip Mark Harper.
Boris Johnson received a standing ovation at the gathering in a central London hotel attended by critics including former chief whip Mark Harper and allies like Priti Patel (pictured arriving)
A string of disgruntled MPs put in letters of no confidence in the PM at the height of the Partygate scandal in January.
Noting that some critics had withdrawn their letters since war broke out in Ukraine, he joked that they were ‘elastic – they go in and you can pull them out’.
He added: ‘One of reasons that Putin is deluded and isolated is because he has no cabinet of equals, no 1922 committee and nobody to write 54 letters to Sir Graham Brady.’
The PM admitted he is currently ‘more popular in parts of Kyiv than in parts of Kensington,’ but he vowed he would ‘turn it around’.
In a sign of growing confidence in No 10 about Mr Johnson’s position, leading critics, including Mr Harper, were seated at his table.
Backbenchers Aaron Bell and Anthony Mangnall, who both submitted letters to Sir Graham, were spotted at the event, with the latter even joining a standing ovation for the PM.
One MP later noted that the dinner’s warm atmosphere would have been ‘unthinkable’ a month earlier.
Mr Johnson also mocked Sir Keir Starmer’s agonies over trans issues by opening his speech with the greeting: ‘Good evening ladies and gentleman, or as Keir Starmer would put it, people who are assigned female or male at birth..’ MPs also sang happy birthday to Home Secretary Priti Patel, who turned 50 on Tuesday.
