ON the day that Boris Johnson finally faced the music over revelations about a BYOB party on Downing Street, Prime Minister’s Questions was suitably rowdy.
The Tory leader was pummelled with demands to resign from opposition benches, while MPs on his own side had spent the morning publicly speculating about his job security.
Labour MP Toby Perkins rose to condemn the PM for “debasing” the office of Prime Minister.
“We all know the Prime Minister was sacked from two previous jobs for lying,” he said. “So can he explain to the House why he believes that the great office of Prime Minister can be held to a lower standard than those previous jobs that he was sacked from?”
Johnson did little to dampen the fury has he trotted out his now robotic response, urging MPs to wait for the conclusion of his own government’s inquiry into partygate.
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With the atmosphere reaching boiling point, Conservative MP Alberto Costa took the floor.
Proceedings quickly descended into farce, however, when the Scot began his response with these fateful words: “Washing machine…”
It turns out the Tory MP thought this was the perfect opportunity to lobby for all new washing machines to be fitted with filters to catch plastic microfibres.
MPs, many of whom howled with laughter, were not too impressed.
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After the Speaker intervened and the hilarity subsided, the South Leicestershire MP condemned those who were “laughing at plastic pollution”.
Yet many suspected the Conservative of a desperate attempt to deflect attention from the Prime Minister.
SNP MP Carol Monaghan tweeted: “As Alberto Costa asks a question on washing machines, the chamber erupts. Inadvertent (and unintentionally funny) reference to dirty linen and public!”
It seems not everyone was buying Costa’s spin…
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