partygate has been one of those stories where you hear a lot about it for a long time and then it
goes quiet and nothing comes up for a while and if you're listening to Boris Johnson's allies
they would like you to think that nothing is ever going to come up about it again the Prime Minister
has had is fine and everything is over not quite there's been a couple more developments that could
be quite Troublesome for the Prime Minister but first he's likely to brush off because it's from
a group called The Good law project that took a lot of legal actions over Kobe but they've gone to
the high court taking legal action against the met for the fact that as the mirror revealed the Prime
Minister was only sent questionnaires by police for two out of the six lockdown rule busting
events that he attended in Downing Street probably more crucial for the Prime Minister however is
what's happened from the Privileges Committee of parliament now this is the parliament that's
able to investigate and find MPS in contempt of parliament something that only happens very very
very rarely if they are found to have deliberately misled the House of Commons now if you remember
this probe was ordered two months ago into claims that Boris Johnson lied to MPS over partygate when
he said that no rules were broken when he said that no party took place in number 10 on the 13th
of November 2020. if you remember there was then a leaving due for an aid called Lee Kane on that
night where people though not the Prime Minister himself because he didn't get a questionnaire
about it were fined what's happened now is that the Privileges committee has appointed a chair
it's Harriet Harman the mother of the house very long-serving MP and quite well respected
cross-party and they are going to start their call for evidence so they're asking for anyone who has
any evidence of whether the Prime Minister lied that could include civil servants in 10 Downing
Street to come forward by the end of July and give some evidence to them they can do this anonymously
or they could do it in a session before the MPS and be named in a final report there will be more
meetings to come on whether those hearings are going to be held in public or in private and we
can expect a lot more from the committee in its final report but this will only come much later
in the year we're talking about in the Autumn and probably late in the Autumn because as soon
as this call for evidence ends there's going to be the summer recess of parliament MPS are only back
in September hearings can't start until kind of at least really the middle of September and we think
there's not going to be a final report until maybe the end of October beginning of November however
the committee is clearly going to Great Lengths to make this as respectable as they possibly can
they've appointed a former Lord justice of appeal sir Ernest Ryder to be an independent
sort of advisor to the committee and this is essentially to prejudge if someone for
example Boris Johnson or one of his allies tries to say of the result of whatever the
investigation finds that it's not valid in some way this is trying to sort of preempt that and
say that uh actually we've done things properly and we've done that rigorously into the rule of
law so what could happen if he is found guilty of lying to Parliament technically the answer
is not a huge amount the committee could sort of recommend that people are suspended from
Parliament suspension of a certain length could even lead to a recall petition where voters had
the chance to boot in P out but usually it's less than that what would really be more important
is the political effect if a report was coming back in November it would be almost six months
since the last no confidence voting to Boris Johnson and that would mean the Tory MPS who
are looking to change the rules to have another vote after six months instead of 12 months would
have a win window at that point to try and ask the Prime Minister again so it's definitely a
moment of danger for him but that moment is not now it's coming up at some point in the future