Johnson will win this vote, but what about the next one? His days are numbered | Martin Kettle

Partygate and the cost of living crisis have sealed the prime minister’s fate. This is the beginning of the end

One way or another, Boris Johnson will survive the Commons vote tomorrow on whether he misled parliament over the lockdown parties in Downing Street. That bit’s a certainty. But it’s also, very importantly, not the real point of the exercise. The point of Labour’s motion is to get Conservative MPs to dip their hands in the blood.

Most Tory MPs, we can be confident, think that Johnson did in fact lie to parliament. Labour’s motion is drafted in as unprovocative a way as possible, in the hope of capitalising on this truth. Johnson is not accused in the motion of deliberately misleading MPs; instead it lists a number of statements to MPs that “appear to amount to misleading the house”. Nor would the inquiry by the privileges committee start until the police investigation is over.

Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist

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