Are some partisan newspapers harming our democracy?

As long as enough quarters of the press keep behaving like active political agents, there will be little impetus for politicians to willingly submit themselves to scrutiny, writes Marie Le Conte

Boris Johnson has not been popular with the public for a long time now, and his supporters in both parliament and Fleet Street must reckon with that (Getty)

On Sunday, cabinet minister Nadine Dorries tweeted about parliament’s Partygate probe, calling it a “witch hunt” and “the most egregious abuse of power witnessed in Westminster”. Rarely one for understatement, she said the investigation, conducted by a group of MPs, “will cast serious doubt not only on the reputation of individual MPs sitting on the committee, but on the processes of parliament and democracy itself”.

Fellow minister and MP-turned-peer Zac Goldsmith, meanwhile, called the probe “clearly rigged” and “an obscene abuse of power”. If only they would tell us how they really feel.

As a reminder, the investigation will be conducted by the Commons privileges committee, which is made up of seven MPs, including four Conservative ones. The House of Commons passed a motion in April asking for them to look into whether Boris Johnson had misled parliament over Partygate allegations.