Just when we thought we had seen the last of the Privileges Committee, their haughtiness rears its righteous head!
A new report from that illustrious supergroup has accused critics of their work of a “co-ordinated campaign to interfere with the work of the committee”.
The new report points to “disturbing” comments made by high-profile Conservative MPs such as Nadine Dorries and Jacob Rees-Mogg who criticised the committee’s previous report into Boris Johnson’s misleading of parliament over gatherings at Number 10 during lockdown.
The committee’s fresh report accuses its critics of attempting to “impugn the integrity” of the Johnson report and raises the question of whether the criticisms from Johnson’s die-hard supporters – “lobby[ing] or intimidat[ing]” committee members – amounts to a contempt of parliament.
Among the seven MPs and three peers mentioned in the report is the former Home Secretary Priti Patel and current minister at the Foreign Office, Lord Zac Goldsmith. Others included were Sir Michael Fabricant, Brendan Clarke-Smith, Mark Jenkinson, Dame Andrea Jenkyns, Lord Cruddas and Lord Greenhalgh.
Pretty much all of the accused had called the committee a “kangaroo court” at one point or another, either on Twitter, in newspapers or on TV.
All of the criticisms were, of course, merely party political jibes – many of which often veered into melodrama and exaggeration. As Mark Jenksinon tweeted: “When the witch hunt has been forgotten future generations will look back in astonishment.”
Dorries said on her Talk TV show: “I don’t think there was ever a world in which this committee was going to find Boris innocent.”
All of the accused MPs and peers definitely did question the integrity of the committee, and TV may not be the right platform for such a move. But this new report from the committee is unnecessary and makes it look weak in the face of criticism.
Of course there was going to be some pushback. Of course there were going to be some low blows. They knew who they were incriminating and they knew the hold he had on his supporters.
The committee should have anticipated such criticism and shrugged it off. Surely they should have risen above it rather than bore us all with their indignation? Isn’t this the rough and tumble of democratic life?
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