who s got loads to say. it s thangam debbonaire, shadow leader of the house of commons. hello, hello, hello. and thank you so much for mentioning us in the house of commons last week. this is how it went. the leader famously once reassured this house that another prime minister wasn t hiding under a desk. words immortalised on the bbc s newscast intro. now i hear from the parliamentary press gallery reception news that she s a big fan of the podcasts. so, mr speaker, i ll end by tempting her to update newscast and update this house. is that where the prime minister really was on monday evening, hiding under a desk? so this is a great way for our politicians to get on the podcast. just name check us in parliament, put us in the historic record forever for historians to read about. and then you can come on. yeah, but i m the first, i was the first to put newscast in hansard and that was very exciting moment. i mean, if this starts an arms race, it will be amazing. who knows? bu
having to follow up with mp5. thangam, what s your view? well, it s interesting. i mean, chris mentions the free speech angle, which i know quite a lot of mps have made, and the committee takes it head on and they say in point 18. you have a highlighted copy! i m not going to read aloud because you ve got listeners and viewers to entertain. but i mean, serious point here. the point they are trying to make is that free speech is at the heart of our democracy. and at the same time, this was a procedure which all of us had agreed upon. we d all vote. well, we didn t need to vote, we were unanimous in our support for the membership of the committee, which we knew from the start. we knew that it was a majority tory mps, four tory, one snp and two labour. we knew who was going to be the chair. and all along there was a steady stream of criticism and undermining. the power of the court of law is misleading. it s a parliamentary committee set
conservative mps, two labour, one snp, the former chair chris bryant stepped back from his role, having made plenty of public criticism of borisjohnson, he recused himself from this inquiry, and is now beginning its work. they have a very important and i think a very difficultjob to do because they are looking into whether borisjohnson misled parliament and in doing that they need to establish whether he deliberately misled parliament with his statements about no rules having been broken and guidance and was being followed at all times in downing street during the pandemic, thatis downing street during the pandemic, that is a tricky thing to do but, if it does end up being the case, then the expectation would be on boris johnson to resign. this the expectation would be on boris johnson to resign. johnson to resign. this witness information johnson to resign. this witness information evidence, - johnson to resign. this witness information evidence, are - johnson to resign. this witne