Excerpt
If it had been left to Starmer, we would still be in lockdown now.
Nadine Dorries defended Boris Johnson after his Partygate fine, arguing that Britain would still be in lockdown if Keir Starmer had been in charge.
Why it mattered
Dorries, then culture secretary, was among Johnson’s earliest public defenders after the fine. Her response tried to shift attention from the Downing Street gathering to the parties’ wider record on the pandemic.