Boris: I am honest

BORIS Johnson has insisted he is an honest politician who inadvertently misled MPs about the Downing Street party scandal.

In a television interview yesterday, the Prime Minister said he was “getting on with the job I was elected to do” and should not have to quit over Covid lockdown breaches at No 10.

He accepted he blundered by telling the Commons no laws were broken in administration while maintaining that he had “faithfully and accurately” set out his understanding of the situation.

Mr Johnson spoke about the row in an interview with Susanna Reid on ITV’s Good Morning Britain.

Apologised

Opposition MPs’ calls for him to resign continue, but on being asked if he was “honest”, the PM said: “Yes.”

He added: “The best way to judge that is to look at what this Government says it’s going to do and what it does. I do my best to represent faithfully and accurately what I believe, and sometimes it’s controversial and sometimes it offends people, but that’s what I do.”

Challenged that some voters believe he is a liar, Mr Johnson, right, replied: “If you are talking about statements I have made in the House of Commons, I was inadvertently... I was wrong. I’ve apologised for that. I’ve apologised for things we got wrong during the pandemic.” Further pressed on it, he said: “With great respect, I’m going to have to ask you to wait until the end of the investigation.” But Mr Johnson did promise the conclusions of the report into the scandal by senior civil servant Sue Gray will “not remain secret”.

Meanwhile, following a fine for attending a gathering to mark his birthday, the Prime Minister has confirmed he has not received a second Metropolitan Police questionnaire over a leaving party for his former communications director Lee Cain.

Mr Johnson told Times Radio: “I am not commenting on this stuff generally, but the answer to that is no, not so far, or certainly not to my knowledge.”