Labour MP Dr Rosena Allin-Khan praised for powerful takedown of partygate on Question Time

A Labour MP who worked on the frontline during the pandemic said she had to give dying people iPads so they could say goodbye to their loved ones as Number 10 partied.

Speaking on last night’s episode of Question Time, MP Rosena Allin-Khan provided the emotional account in response to Conservative Crispin Blunt MP attempting to compare Number 10’s partygate apology to Keir Starmer’s CPS apology in 2013.

They initially spoke about the energy price cap hike, but naturally, the conversation quickly turned to partygate.

After the news broke that four of the prime minister’s key aides quit within hours of each other, host Fiona Bruce asked Conservative Crispin Blunt MP for his thoughts.

He said although he didn’t have a chance to read former aide Munira Mirza’s resignation letter, he said she was “mistaken” to ask Johnson to apologise to Keir Starmer over his Jimmy Savile comment.

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Johnson yesterday backed down on the false claim that Labour leader Starmer, when he was director of public prosecutions, failed to prosecute Savile.

Blunt went on to say Starmer’s 2013 apology over CPS’s failure to prosecute Savile parallels Number 10’s partygate apology. He said: “You’ve got people taking responsibility for the organisations.”

Rosena Allin-Khan MP said: “It beggars belief that we have Crispin trying to defend the indefensible and to actually liken the horrible smearing of Keir Starmer and involve Jimmy Savile’s victims’ families in all of this mess that is quite frankly, of the prime minister’s making.

“He lied to parliament, he lied to the country, he has taken the country for fools. He was at parties.

“His staff were packing suitcases full of alcohol, working out which SPAD was going to be the DJ while people in this room were probably burying their families.”

Blunt tried to interject, but Allin-Khan continued.

She said: “When I worked in the NHS frontline… and I took iPads to the bedsides of dying people so their three children under six could say goodbye, there is absolutely no justification for the pain that they have felt that could possibly be explained away by a cheap apology, an insincere cheap apology, by the prime minister.”

Her comments were met with claps from the audience and people took to Twitter to praise the MP.

Responding, Blunt said it sounds “incredibly moving” to hear the allegations about partygate juxtaposed with stories of NHS staff on the frontline. But he said you “can’t fairly put those circumstances alongside each other if you’re really being fair about the conduct of Number 10”.

He waffled about the “circumstances” of Number 10, but Allin-Khan shook her head and said she doesn’t buy it.

He then made the rather patronising remark that he’s “only too well aware” that there will be “very few people out there who will be able to put this in the context that I would, and then actually come to my balanced judgement about the prime minister.”

Bruce interjected and asked: “So they’re wrong and you’re right?”

“People will come to their own conclusions but I’ve come to mine based on what I understand of the situation those decision-makers would have faced,” he replied.

I don’t know, Blunt. It seems pretty clear-cut to us…

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