good evening and welcome to bbc news. borisjohnson has insisted that questions over his leadership have been settled and that he will lead the conservative party into the next general election. his comments follow the tories defeat in two by elections this week. speaking to the bbc from rwanda, where he s attending a commonwealth meeting, he said people were heartily sick of questions about his conduct and that a psychological transformation of his character would not happen. earlier, i spoke to lucy fisher, who s chief political commentator at times radio. she told me she thinks mrjohnson is trying to distance himself from the byelection results. in the immediate wake of these two rather disastrous by election defeats, we had the prime minister try and link the discontent of tory voters or voters in those seats to the cost of living crisis. this weekend, he has moved the narrative on slightly, almost suggesting it s his mps, possibly the media, at part to blame with what he
this weekend, he has moved the narrative on slightly, almost suggesting it s his mps, possibly the media, at part to blame with what he called the endless churn of allegations against him. he said that people were heartily sick of hearing about things he is alleged to have done wrong. well, many things that have upset his backbenchers aren t just allegations, of course they stem from the ethics rows that has besieged his government for months and that he has been found to have done wrong, particularly pa rtygate, where he received and accepted a criminal sanction for his role in taking part in an illegal gathering. so, i m interested that he is trying to distance himself in this way. i don t think it is going to cut the mustard with those critics among his backbenchers and indeed some wavering tory mps who really want to see him take responsibility for his role in these by election defeats and signal that something will change, it won tjust be, to quote oliver dowden in his resignation