The Prime Minister will not have been looking forward to his weekly half hour of questions in the House of Commons this Wednesday. There has been intense media interest in his participation in an apparent drinks party in the Downing Street garden in May 2020, at a time when the country was locked down and people were under strict instructions not to gather in numbers for fear of spreading Covid-19. It did not take a soothsayer to foresee that this would be the main subject at PMQs.

Nor does Boris Johnson enjoy being put under the spotlight like this. He is not a man who takes criticism well: it makes him defensive and petulant, rarely showing him at his best. His advisers will have worked long hours devising the most effective and disarming response. The House’s blood was up, and Sir Keir Starmer, the leader of the opposition, was well-placed to deploy his famed forensic abilities honed in years as a barrister.

The abject semi-apology — abject for Boris — came from between gritted teeth. The Prime Minister admitted sorrowfully that people were angry, and he understood why; while he could not anticipate the results of the Cabinet Office investigation, he confessed that going along to a “work event” was the wrong thing to do, out of step with the country’s beleaguered, locked-down mood.

In truth, PMQs was over as soon as the Prime Minister had made his apology. However inadequate many may find it, it took the wind out of Labour’s sails. Starmer, rarely light on his oratorical feet, matched Johnson’s tribute to Jack Dromey, the Labour MP for Birmingham Erdington who died unexpectedly late last week, waited for a couple of beats which seemed to last forever, then launched into his obviously prepared attack.

“And there we have it…” he began.

Too late. Too wooden, too unresponsive. If Starmer had expected some kind of contrition from the Prime Minister, he gave no sign of it, and ploughed on with responses which seemed leaden and out of kilter. For whatever reason, Sir Keir does not shine at the despatch box. That rarely matters: remember how deft and agile William Hague was, and how seldom he landed a blow on Tony Blair (sorry, Sir Tony Blair KG). But I imagine Johnson breathed a sigh of relief.

The danger has not quite passed for the Prime Minister. He must face his own backbenchers at the 1922 Committee on Wednesday afternoon, and they are, in the first instance, the ones who can do him real harm. One Conservative knight of the shires spoke to officials of having to go and sharpen his knife, and Tory MPs, especially those in marginal Red Wall seats, are incandescent at the unnecessary damage that Johnson did to their cause by his lack of wisdom 20 months ago.

Yet something tells me the worst of the crisis has passed. Sue Gray will report next week, but, really, what do we expect? Hers is an investigation of fact, and the Prime Minister has already admitted he was there, in the garden, as people enjoyed the bottles they had been told to bring (20 May must have been a red-letter day for wine sales in Westminster Tesco). She is unlikely to deliver a lethal blow to Boris Johnson: she will not say whether he should or shouldn’t have been there, nor whether the party, if it was a party, should or shouldn’t have happened. So we have all the information we need.

So what will Conservative MPs do? For all their anger, for their fury at their careless and cavalier leader for causing embarrassment that could so easily have been avoided, is this really the tipping point? Will 54 of them be so incensed that they will submit letters demanding a leadership contest? Likely contenders are behaving very carefully: Liz Truss, the Foreign Secretary, was at Johnson’s left hand in the chamber (although Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak decided he would rather be hundreds of miles away for a photo opportunity).

I could be wrong, but I think this storm will pass. The PM is damaged, but anyone who voted for him seeking integrity and trustworthiness was sold a pup. Boris is Boris, as a former prime minister so nearly said. Today’s sound and fury may signify nothing at all.