Thread by @IanDunt

Report is available here committees.parliament.uk/committee/289/…

This is quite right. But it is also true more broadly. Free speech and the open society only function where there is an agreed set of facts. Johnson, like all populists, attempted to sabotage that principle - through his own lies and the undermining of institutions.

They're absolutely nailing him to the mast here. Going out of their way to show due process followed, which makes his crybaby attacks even more pernicious.

The full list of ways in which Johnson misled the House. It's devastating. Just absolutely ruinous.

A reminder of how silly this all is. No-one who lived through lockdown was under the impression that you could opt for 'imperfect' social distancing if that's more convenient.

Johnson's comments on the report when it was passed to him under condition of confidentially was itself another act of contempt for the House.

And it's this final act of contempt which seems to have pushed the committee to recommend the extraordinary 90-day sanction and possibly the block on a parliamentary pass.

That shit is explosive: formal, thorough, closely argued, with a water-tight evidence base. They brought a sniper rifle to a knife fight.

This is the end of a story which began with Johnson's prorogation of parliament. It ends here, with another final act of contempt. He finally, belated, got his comeuppance.

"There has been a sustained attempt... to undermine the Committee’s credibility"

Report states that there will now be a second report to deal with the attempt to undermine it. That could embroil several other Conservative MPs, who acted as Johnson's advance guard, undermining its work and questioning the motives of its members.

I'm probably too blissed-out on a sunny Thursday morning, but could that include Dorries? Be hilarious if she ended up suspended for all her nonsense.

Johnson in a nutshell. Committees are only legitimate if they exonerate him.

.@JasonHazeley texts....

The report really is a delightful combination of brutality and thoroughness. It's like watching someone be surgically disembowelled.

Johnson's first argument for why he did not break - basically that words like "usually and "wherever possible" mean they could be bent as desired. Then the committee response. If this was true, businesses could ignore all the guidance if it was hard to achieve.

When Johnson said he has received assurances rules had been followed at all time, he was predominantly talking about two Daily Mail journalists he had hired for press work, both of whom had been at the party.

More from Johnson's PPS on that really thorough advice Johnson sought on whether rules were broken.

"You wouldn't know her, she goes to a different school".

It's funny, We got so used to Johnson lying, that it felt almost like a starting assumption for whatever he said. But it's fascinating to see all the bullshit laid bare in front of you.

On the issue of whether Johnson intended to mislead the House, which his supporters have made so much of recently. The report's conclusion is, needless to say, merciless.

At this point they are effectively machine gunning a corpse.

So this is truly extraordinary. The initial conclusion was that Johnson's suspension should be, at a minimum, enough to trigger recall - ie ten days. Maybe it would have been ten days, or perhaps 20.

But that report would have been put to the Commons as a motion, which could be amended. You can easily imagine No.10 trying to massage it down to a nine day suspension and avoiding the byelection.

There was a still, I suspect, a potential way out for Johnson. But then this happened....

This constituted a secondary act of contempt.

And that secondary contempt triggers a tertiary contempt, because it suggests that Johnson even lied to the committee about whether he had lied about the committee.

It's like a whole new specialist field of science. The quantum of contempt.