ANNA MIKHAILOVA: Arriving with pearly whites on display and knives behind their backs – the Class of 1997 Tory MPs were the ‘smiling assassins’ at PM’s latest No10 party
‘Assassins come with smiles, when you’re at your weakest and most in need,’ so said Henry Hill, the turncoat mobster in Goodfellas.
And on Tuesday, nowhere was a more dangerous group of smiling assassins than those gathered in Downing Street at the invitation of the boss of bosses.
Boris Johnson was hosting a legal – and booze-free – shindig in honour of all Tory MPs who have served 25 years in Parliament.
The guests arrived for afternoon tea with pearly whites on display and knives behind their backs.
Among them, Sir Graham Brady, keeper of the letters of no confidence in the PM.
Also in this so-called Class of 1997 was Theresa May, who’s well used to hostile environments and has given Johnson both barrels over Partygate, lockdowns and the Rwanda deportation plan.
ANNA MIKHAILOVA: ‘Assassins come with smiles, when you’re at your weakest and most in need,’ so said Henry Hill, and on Tuesday, nowhere was a more dangerous group of smiling assassins than those gathered in Downing Street at the invitation of the boss of bosses (Boris Johnson pictured at Burnley College Sixth Form this week)
But there was no mention of the many elephants in the room. ‘It was all very English – a genteel affair,’ said one MP present.
The reason? All these Tory grandees are waiting the results of Thursday’s local elections before making clear where their loyalties lie – no doubt at the same time as sending Boris a thank you for a most pleasant party.
Meanwhile, Tory MPs are nervous about the Metropolitan Police’s verdict on the party held in the Downing Street flat during lockdown when Abba songs blared after Dominic Cummings’ departure.
It risks being BoJo’s Waterloo. For the PM denied to Parliament that a party had been held, as he also told backbenchers on the 1922 Committee who had specifically asked him to confirm it was a ‘work event’.
Allies of Boris have since said he was only in the flat to conduct a job interview with Henry Newman, a Tory adviser and friend of his wife Carrie.
However, sources tell me that Boris has privately given a different account of why he and some No 10 staffers were in the flat after the departure of Cummings and his colleague Lee Cain.
It went like this: ‘You’ve got to understand, we’d just lost Dom and Lee. We didn’t know who we could trust. So some of us went up to the flat to work out what to do next – for a council of war.’
Naturally, every council of war should be accompanied by the sound of Abba’s ‘Can you hear the drums, Fernando?’.
Porngate… a job for ‘Better Call Paul’ Scully?
‘Do you feel doomed? Have opponents of freedom wrongly intimidated you? Maybe they’ve said you’re in serious trouble and there’s nothing you can do about it.
I’m here to tell you, they’re wrong… No charge is too big for me. I’ll give you the defence you deserve. Better Call Saul.’
This ad for shifty US lawyer Saul Goodman’s spin-off from the US drama Breaking Bad has been compared to how Tory MP Paul Scully is wheeled out as a human shield whenever the proverbial hits the fan.
Whether the issue is non-doms, PPE or Partygate, the Small Business Minister appears on the airwaves taking one for Team Boris.
Now mischievous colleagues shared this mocked-up advert ahead of Thursday’s local elections. But surely even Saul Goodman would draw the line at defending Neil ‘Porn’ Parish MP.
Allegra Stratton, whose career as the Tory Government’s mouthpiece ended in tears when she was caught on video laughing about Downing Street lockdown parties, is about to be hired as a columnist by the New York-based media giant Bloomberg, I hear.
We look forward to more classic Allegra tips, such as her infamous advice that, to help combat global warming, we should not rinse plates before putting them in the dishwasher.
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