Boris Johnson’s three-hour grilling from MPs over whether he lied about partygate dominates Metro’s front page on Thursday. The paper describes the former prime minister as growing increasingly bad-tempered during his exchanges with the seven-strong panel, even snapping at one point: “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
The i says My Johnson’s political future is in peril following his angry clashes with the panel as committee members believe they have found holes in his defence. The paper reminds readers he faces possible suspension from the House of Commons.
Mr Johnson is described as “defiant” by the Daily Telegraph, which focuses on the ex-PM’s attack on the “complete nonsense” partygate inquiry and his hints that he could refuse to accept the inquiry’s verdict if it finds he misled MPs.
Prince William steals the headlines from Boris Johnson on the Sun’s front page which tells how the Prince of Wales made a secret trip to Poland to meet British troops fighting in the Ukraine war. There is a large picture of the future king joking with smiling soldiers. The paper reports he told them they were “defending our freedoms” from Putin’s Russia.
The Daily Star takes a cartoonish approach to the partygate inquiry. As it did on Wednesday the paper gives Mr Johnson a Pinocchio nose, but now he has also been transformed into the Vicky Pollard character from the mid-2000s BBC TV show Little Britain, with the paper suggesting that like Pollard, Mr Johnson “blamed everyone but himself”.
The Boris Johnson grilling is demoted to a small section on the front page of the FT which instead focuses on incumbent prime minister Rishi Sunak releasing his tax returns. The paper notes he published them at 4.30pm on Wednesday – when attention was focused on Mr Johnson’s evidence to the inquiry. There is also a story about how the Federal Reserve is pressing ahead with a quarter-point rate rise despite recent turmoil in the banking sector.
