WHAT’S NEXT?

PLAYING the fool to avoid admitting he’s a liar, Boris Johnson is grievously wounded.

The cynical lawbreaker lives to fight another day and could yet be toppled by Tory MPS if he loses Red Wall Wakefield and Blue Wall Tiverton at the end of next month.

Labour want his blond scalp but Keir Starmer’s best bet is hobbled Johnson leads the tarnished Tories into the next election.

The toxic mix of a cost of living crisis and sleaze brand the tainted chancer a vote loser.

Johnson lied to Parliament about parties and Tory MPS will be dragged down by the fraud unless they sack him. Sue Gray found

Downing Street was turned into a frat house. Vomiting, excessive boozing, karaoke, sitting on laps, fisticuffs, and partying until 4.20am before Prince Philip’s funeral.

All taking place when the rest of Britain was locked down, people unable to visit parents in care homes or hug dying family.

“We seem to have got away with [it]”, said Johnson’s right-hand man Martin Reynolds.

Perhaps the most disturbing behaviour of all was the bullying of cleaners and security staff. The haughty Old Etonian’s regime looks down its nose on ordinary people.

Come the election, they’ll remember that and punish Conservative MPS who don’t care.

Johnson blaming everybody else, claiming to be humbled and taking full responsibility is undermined by an absence of remorse, chucking into the public’s face the wine in glasses he held aloft for toasts.

Should Conservative MPS fail to remove him, angry voters will take their revenge.

BORIS Johnson will try to shake off his Partygate hangover after Sue Gray’s long-awaited report.

The top civil servant warned the PM must “bear responsibility” for the culture in No10 and Whitehall during the pandemic.

Mr Johnson is trying to brazen it out by offering a half-hearted apology for getting fined for his surprise birthday bash and trying to shift blame on to his staff by claiming the extent of rule-breaking was “news to me”.

But there are still bumps in the road ahead. MPS on the Privileges Committee are investigating whether he misled Parliament by repeatedly denying that Covid rules had been broken in Downing Street. The committee has the power to demand photographs and documents – and to summon witnesses.

Misleading Parliament is a serious offence, and in line with the ministerial code, politicians who do so knowingly are expected to resign.

Mr Johnson must also fight two critical by-elections next month, where the Tories are facing a Red Wall battle against Labour in Wakefield and a Liberal Democrat threat in

Tiverton and Honiton. The results will be crucial to proving to his party that he is still an electoral asset – and can hold on to the gains the Tories made from Labour in 2019 while retaining their southern heartlands.

His other challenge is wooing back Tory MPS. Partygate headlines and cost-of-living pressures have left some feeling mutinous.

Conservative MPS are the ones who keep the PM in power – and the ones who can take that power away.