Jacob Rees-Mogg tried to compare Partygate to cricket and it went as well as you'd expect

Jacob Rees-Mogg likes cricket. Of course he does. You could tell that just by looking at him.

He likes cricket so much, in fact, that he tried to compare cricket to Partygate – and it went about as well as you’d expect.

Rees-Mogg has been one of Johnson’s most vocal defenders over recent days, playing down the impact of Partygate and even telling Andrew Marr “to get perspective" after speaking of his "intense anger" over his father's death which happened at the same time as the alleged Downing Street parties.

It comes, of course, after Johnson apologised to parliament for the rule-breaking that took place while the UK was under Covid lockdown restrictions.

Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter

His apology failed to appease Conservative critics calling for his resignation, and was dismissed as a “joke” by Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer. The PM again denied that he had deliberately misled parliament.

Rees-Mogg was asked about the situation, and if things were difficult for the PM by Nick Watt of Newsnight outside the Houses of Parliament.

“No it isn’t,” Ress-Mogg replied.

“No, I think you misunderstand what’s happened. The prime minister thought that what he was doing was within the rules and the police thought otherwise. And this is just like the DRS system in cricket,” he went on to say.

If you’ve never watched cricket, the DRS (Decision Review System) allows players to refer decisions made by the on-field umpire to the third umpire, who is able to take more time and consult replays away from the field. Decisions are often overturned as a result.

Delivering his strained analogy, Rees-Mogg went on to say: “Sometimes the batsman, in good faith, thinks he’s not out LBW, sometimes the umpire thinks he’s not out in good faith.

“It goes upstairs to the third umpire who says it’s out and then the batsman accepts the decision. It’s exactly what happened to the prime minister.”

If Rees-Mogg hopes to win people over by referencing the laws of cricket, he might have a tougher job on his hands than he thought.

Besides, the analogy doesn’t work anyway. In reality, Partygate is actually more like someone introducing a new LBW law, giving others out for it and then refusing to comply with the law themselves.

It's not the first time Rees-Mogg has brushed off the Partygate scandal, as he previously described it as "disproportionate" and "not serious politics" when he appeared on the Telegraph's Choppers Politics podcast last month.

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.