I listened to the Prime Minister’s apology today, and I think what was clear is that he was sorry – sorry that he was caught. Do I think that he was genuinely sorry for what he had done? No, because if he was, he would have resigned. And that wasn’t an option on the table today for him.

This undermines people’s confidence in the leadership of our country at a critical time. We have a crisis of the cost of living, where people are struggling with bills and with how they’re going to afford their food. We have a war raging in Ukraine and the constant threat of climate crisis. And we have, frankly, this clown and liar as our Prime Minister.

I think this shows really clearly to the British people that we don’t live in a democracy, that Parliament doesn’t have sovereignty. The Crown has sovereignty and the representative of the crown is the Prime Minister. He in effect, wields that power.

The boss won’t fire himself, and he doesn’t want to resign, and Tory MPs want to keep him in power because they think that he’s an electoral asset. We’ll see how that plays out in the coming weeks or months. It doesn’t make a difference if the Prime Minister lies to us, makes mugs of us. It just simply doesn’t count. He can do what he wants.

That means that people increasingly understand that our democracy needs a radical overhaul in how it operates, and where power and accountability is located. Clearly at the moment, that power and accountability is located with one man, the Prime Minister – a person who isn’t fit to wield the office and the power that he does.

I also told the EDP:

“He’s clung on to power, as long as he remains an electoral asset he won’t resign,”

“This shows that there is something wrong with our democracy.

“We were told we were taking back control of our sovereignty [in Brexit] but that was a lie because the majority of the power rests with him and he knows that.

“Our democracy is in need of an overhaul, not just a new face.”