Boris Johnson suspension would have been twice as long as Liz Truss was PM

A cross-party investigation has found that Boris Johnson committed “repeated contempts” of Parliament.

He was found to have deliberately misled MPs with his partygate denials before being complicit in a campaign of abuse and intimidation.

The damning findings concluded with the committee accusing Johnson of launching “an attack on our democratic institutions”.

Had he not resigned last week in anticipation of the findings, the Privileges Committee would have recommended a 90-day suspension.

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For context, that’s almost twice as long as Liz Truss was in Number 10 for. The former PM was there for a grand total of 49 days. She spent that time driving up interest rates with unfunded tax cuts, before being outlived by a lettuce.

She made a big impact during her short time in charge, albeit for the wrong reasons. But Truss’s entire premiership was just over half the length of time that the investigation recommended Johnson be suspended for.

If there’s one stat that sums up the turbulence of this Conservative government over recent years, it’s that.

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Johnson has hit out at the findings. He called it a “deranged conclusion”, accusing the Tory-majority group of MPs of lying.

He called the committee led by Labour veteran Harriet Harman “beneath contempt” and claimed its 14-month investigation had delivered “what is intended to be the final knife-thrust in a protracted political assassination”.

“There is no precedent for a Prime Minister having been found to have deliberately misled the House," the MPs wrote. “He misled the House on an issue of the greatest importance to the House and to the public, and did so repeatedly.

“He declined our invitation to reconsider his assertions that what he said to the House was truthful. His defence to the allegation that he misled was an ex post facto justification and no more than an artifice. He misled the Committee in the presentation of his evidence.”

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