To say that Michael Ellis had drawn the short straw on Thursday would be an understatement. It had fallen to the Cabinet Office to answer Labour MP Fleur Anderson’s “Urgent Question about Number 10 parties”. 

And the role of representing the department in this unenviable gig had evidently trickled down the official rolodex, past such luminaries as Steve Barclay and Oliver Dowden, all the way to the luckless Ellis.

Paymaster General may be his technical role, but on Thursday it seemed closer to that of “last Praetorian Guardsman left standing”. These were the Emperor’s personal bodyguards, his final line of defence against assassins, honour bound to defend his neck even as the lesser troops melted away, switched sides or deserted en masse.

Unlike the well-remunerated Praetorians, however, serving in the PM’s household army is a favour offering no conceivable reward beyond the glory of battle. Pity the minister who decides to do Downing Street a favour. For their efforts, they can expect a truly execrable task, with little prospect of return. 

At the height of public indignation over Barnard Castle, the hapless Robert Jenrick was dispatched to go and encourage people to “draw the line” under the incident – and got the sack anyway.

Fearless in the face of fury

Nevertheless, the Paymaster General stood on the burning deck, whence all but he had fled. He read out his statement in clipped RP, impassive amidst a volley of howls and shrieks from the opposition benches. Even as the hooting threatened to drown him out, he stuck rigidly to his message.

“The Prime Minister has been repeatedly assured… that there was no party, and that no Covid rules were broken,” he said. The purpose of the Cabinet Secretary’s investigation was, he added, “to establish swiftly a general understanding of the gatherings”. At this, the Commons erupted into heckles.

What exactly was the difference between a “party” and a “gathering”, Labour’s Angela Eagle wanted to know – but not before commiserating with Ellis on his unpleasant job. MPs recorded their own lockdown tragedies and those of their constituents; we heard of fathers kept away from the bedside of wives in labour; a constituent’s elderly mother dying alone on Christmas Day, unable to receive visitors.

“I’m sorry for their loss,” Ellis would say, in the manner of a long-suffering call centre worker. “We are going to investigate”. But when Labour’s Afzal Khan recalled losing both his mother and father-in-law within days of each other around the same time as the alleged Downing Street knees-up, the Praetorian one threw aside his shield for a moment. “It was grossly inappropriate – and frankly, inexcusable, and I can say no more than that.”