Boris Johnson's fall guy apologised for standards vote but PM unlikely to show any regret

What a difference 24 hours makes. In a crass, insensitive remark on Trevor Phillips on Sunday on Sky News, Cabinet minister George Eustice dismissed the Owen Paterson row as a “storm in a teacup”.

Yet in the emergency Commons debate on standards and sleaze, the hapless Steve Barclay – sent into the Commons chamber to defend what many MPs claim was indefensible – could not have been more contrite.

The Cabinet Office minister, rather sheepishly, said the government regretted the mistake it made last week when Tory MPs were bludgeoned into voting to reprieve Mr Paterson and scrap the system for investigating complaints. Really?

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Mr Barclay might regret it. But there’s not much evidence that Boris Johnson regrets what happened. The prime minister conveniently found a pressing engagement at a hospital in Hexham, more than 250 miles from London.

Last week the PM chose to fly back from the COP26 summit in a private jet – hardly environmentally friendly – to attend a claret and pheasant dinner at the men-only Garrick Club with his Brexiteer chums from The Daily Telegraph.

Yet he made no effort to dash back to the Commons from Northumberland for this emergency debate. The private jet must have been left on the runway this time.

“Frankly, I don’t think there’s much more to be said about the Owen Paterson case, I really don’t,” he said dismissively during his Hexham visit, where he didn’t wear a mask, incidentally. It sounded like he doesn’t care about this row and that’s why he didn’t turn up.

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No apology from the PM, then. But the prime minister doesn’t really do apologies. Perhaps he should think about that. A new Ipsos MORI poll suggests Labour has edged ahead of the Tories and now leads by 36% to 35%.

The PM’s own ratings are becoming dire, too. Only 34% are satisfied with the way he’s doing his job and 61% dissatisfied, a net rating of -27, a new low for the prime minister and confirmation of a trend in recent polls.

The Speaker – who appealed to MPs to tone down “party political sniping” (good luck with that, Sir Lindsay!) – may have said he accepted the prime minister’s non-appearance in this debate. But Labour’s Sir Keir was having none of it.

The Labour leader likened cricket-loving Mr Barclay to a nightwatchman in a Test Match: “Defiantly defending against hostile bowling on a sticky wicket.” And to be fair to Mr Barclay, he didn’t drop the ball.

Sir Keir’s serious point was to accuse the PM of corruption. He used the words “corrupt” and “corruption” several times during a speech that was more pugnacious and much better than some of his more lacklustre efforts.

The former director of public prosecutions was in his element leading for the prosecution, of course. But it was an easy brief, even after Mr Barclay got his apology in early.

The SNP’s Pete Wishart, the cheeky chappie of the tartan tendency, said poor Mr Barclay had drawn the short straw by having to answer for the government. His leader, Ian Blackford, was missing too, however, at COP26, we were told.

Mr Wishart revealed that the SNP has asked the Metropolitan Police to investigate peerages given to Tory treasurers and donors, as reported by The Sunday Times at the weekend. Good luck with that, too!

The prime minister has form, of course, for dodging awkward debates. When he was foreign secretary he chose to go to Afghanistan to avoid a debate and vote on a third runway at Heathrow, a policy he had pledged to oppose.

Midway through the debate, there was a powerful attack on the current procedures from Tory MP and solicitor Alberto Costa, a member of the Standards Committee, who claimed it’s not compatible with natural justice.

But Labour MP Chris Bryant, who chairs the Standards Committee, hit back, insisting that it gave Mr Paterson “a very fair hearing”, despite some of the now ex-MP’s supporters challenging him.

He conceded that he was open to appeals against his committee’s rulings, however.

Could there be a deal after the rows of the past week? The PM may have been 250 miles away but there’s little sign that, whatever his ministers say, he’s in a mood to compromise.

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