The Prime Minister has said he “of course” welcomes tough questions over his involvement in the ‘partygate’ saga, stating such probing would not be allowed in Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
In an interview on the BBC’s Newsnight programme, Boris Johnson was asked what it meant that his position had been saved by the invasion.
He said: “I think what it says is that we’re very lucky to live in a country where journalists can quite properly go hard on this sort of question, this sort of issue, because I can tell you, Nick, that is not what happens in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, and it’s certainly something that we want to make sure continues to happen in Ukraine.”
Asked if he would therefore welcome tough questions about ‘partygate’, where numerous parties were allegedly held across Whitehall during Covid restrictions, the Prime Minister laughed and then said: “Yes, of course. That is what it’s all about. I mean it quite seriously.”
He added: “I think what people understand is that if Vladimir Putin lived in a democracy, and if Vladimir Putin had Newsnight on his case, and people asking him really penetrating questions about what he really thought he was doing in in Ukraine and whether he really understood what kind of people the Ukrainians were, and if he’d really thought it through, I don’t think he would have made the catastrophic mistake that he’s made.
“And in a way, what he has done – this appalling invasion – is paradoxically an advertisement for the importance of the very system that he’s trying to destroy in Ukraine. That’s what we’re trying to protect.”
