DEFENCES

Boris Johnson , The UK's former Prime Minister , has faced a grilling from a committee or MPs on whether he intentionally misled Parliament over lockdown parties.

Our political correspondent Ione Wells had a ringside seat in The Committee room, and political editor Chris Mason was on The Edge of his seat all afternoon.

From handwritten notes to wry smiles and tense exchanges, here's what They made of it.

Boris Johnson is always someone who has used - or attempted to use - humour in his speeches, even when he is trying to Get Out of The stickiest of situations.

He defends his view that his attendance at gatherings was in The Rules , saying that during The Birthday gathering for Him - which The Police gave Him a fine for - The cake was put in a Tupperware box and later eaten by his private secretaries.

The Comment gets a few wry smiles in The Room from spectators. But he's clearly trying to keep his tone more serious than usual, given what's At Stake for his political career.

As The Questions come thick and fast, Mr Johnson is being pretty defiant.

He's arguing that a leaving do he was photographed at - which shows a lack of social distancing - " had to happen" and was " necessary" because two senior members of staff had left in acrimonious circumstances and he needed to give reassurance, and it was " essential" for work purposes.

He seems to be hammering this point about " necessity" As One of his key Defences - The question will be whether that washes with The Committee , who will be aware other key workers who still had to go to physical workplaces did not consider in-person leaving dos " necessary".

Remember though, The Committee is not reopening The Inquiry into whether these events were in The Rules or not. They 're trying to Work Out if he should have known They were not - and told Parliament as much.

Through The Course of The afternoon, Mr Johnson is Getting More rattled by suggestions he has misrepresented his own social distancing rules.

He talked about No 10 maintaining social distancing " wherever possible" despite photographs showing people standing close together.

He appeared The tensest yet when They quoted back to Him his " hands, face, space" mantra from The Time , and reminded Him that The Rules at The Time required people to stay 2m Apart - or 1m with mitigations.

The tricky thing for Him here is there's nothing from The Photograph to suggest mitigations were in place at that photographed leaving do.

And Mr Johnson needs to Be Careful what he says - Remember he's sworn an oath to tell The Truth , meaning if he doesn't, he could be accused of perjury - a criminal offence.

When asked whether He Said , at one gathering, it was The " most unsocially distanced event" in The UK, he couldn't deny He Said it.

Instead, he just said he didn't Remember saying those words, and thinks it's unlikely he would have said them.

From where I'm sitting - directly behind Mr Johnson, it's quite fascinating watching this all play out.

His legal adviser is periodically handing Him some notes and pointing to sections of his written submission to The Committee outlining his defence, which was published on Tuesday.

Mr Johnson has got a big stack of A4 sheets of paper with Him too - Many covered in handwritten scribbled notes.

When The Committee put to Him that attendees at his birthday gathering in The Cabinet room included his wife and his interior designer, Mr Johnson was quick to try to correct them - Calling Lulu Lytle a " contractor who was working in The building".

He is keen to use language that grounds all these gatherings in a " work" - not social - setting.

This birthday gathering did take place before a meeting. But he's been challenged on why people like Carrie Johnson and Lulu Lytle needed to be there, given They weren't going to attend The Meeting afterwards.

Johnson's defence here relies on No 10 being unusual because The Prime Minister lives and works in The same building. He repeated his prior defence that it wasn't obvious to Him rules were broken because The Celebration was briefed to The Times newspaper at The Time .

We knew Mr Johnson was going to hammer The Point that it wouldn't have been " obvious" to Him that events were against The Rules .

But what's a little more surprising is how strongly he is disputing The idea that these gatherings were " not essential".

The Committee are keeping pretty straight-faced, but I've detected a few raised eyebrows at these comments.

Mr Johnson seems more confident arguing that he might not have realised it was against The Rules . He seems on shakier ground trying to convince The MPs that these events were absolutely essential for work.

What we're Seeing - both with The Images that Boris Johnson is being shown where he has to look himself in The Eye , looking at either those contributions in The House of Commons or those still Images - is The Interrogation .

How does his argument actually match up to The reality of what he was saying at The Time ?

We know his pushback As Far as these gatherings and leaving dos were concerned, that he regarded them as necessary in terms of retaining The morale of his team in The Height of a pandemic.

But clearly As Is Happening - and we saw it in his testimony and The questioning from Sir Bernard Jenkin - They 're able to say to Him , 'well hang on a minute, look at what The Rules were at The Time , look at what The guidance was then and to what extent were They in keeping'.

On a personal level he can say there was only that one occasion he was fined by The Metropolitan Police .

In The Others , therefore, he can say his behaviour wasn't unlawful at The Time he was at those parties even if The People at those gatherings ended up being fined for whatever went on after he had went.

Source of news: bbc.com