The fall of the Tory party

What’s the score with proving he recklessly mislead Parliament.

If you mislead and quickly correct Parliament isn't that bothered, it happens quite often (for example civil servants do their best to make sure answers to Parliamentary Questions are accurate, but often they have very little time to put an answer together for a Minister and struggle to get accurate info).

If you look at the terms of the motion passed by the Commons authorising the committee’s inquiry, the committee is investigating whether:

1. The Commons was misled
   
2. If the Commons was misled, whether that constituted a contempt of parliament (the definition of which being whether the functioning of the Commons was impeded)
   
3. If the Commons was misled, how serious the potential contempt was.
   
   

In the interim report published by the Privileges Committee earlier this month setting out the issues they wanted to raise with Johnson, the committee said that it is investigating whether, if a statement made by Johnson to the Commons is found to have been misleading, it was “inadvertent, reckless, or intentional.” This includes looking at “how quickly and comprehensively any misleading statement to the House was corrected.”

I think this is the key part really - if he'd quickly corrected instead of standing up at PMQs arguing black was white week after week he wouldn't be in so much trouble.

From what I heard yesterday the political correspondents seem to think the Committee will conclude that he recklessly mislead - the question is whether they'll conclude it was intentional.