Watch: Not a single Question Time audience member believes Boris Johnson told truth to Partygate hearing

Not a single person in a majority Tory BBC Question Time audience thought Boris Johnson was telling the truth at his partygate hearing.

The 120-strong studio audience in Newcastle-under-Lyme was asked by the host Fiona Bruce to raise their hand if they "believed" the former Prime Minister was speaking truthfully on Wednesday when he appeared before MPs on the privileges committee.

But in an excruciating moment on the BBC One show, nobody put their hand up.

Mr Johnson had told the committee in a live TV grilling that “hand on heart” he had not meant to deceive Parliament about lockdown-breaking events in Downing Street and it would have been “utterly insane” to issue blanket denials he knew to be false.

When Bruce then asked if anyone "believes there is a way back for Boris Johnson now", one person at the back raised their hand.

When asked to explain why, the man in the audience told viewers: "It's like those saucepans isn't it, nothing sticks to him so he's probably going to come back anyway isn't he."

The unanimous verdict from the audience on the truthfulness came despite Bruce telling viewers before the poll that "there are more people in this audience who voted for Boris Johnson, for the Conservative Party, than for any other single party here".

During his long-awaited partygate grilling before seven cross-party MPs, Mr Johnson was defiant but well aware that they have the power to recommend that he is suspended from the Commons.

If a suspension of 10 days or more is proposed by the committee and voted through by MPs, a by-election could be triggered in Mr Johnson’s Uxbridge and South Ruislip seat, potentially ending his parliamentary career.

He repeatedly insisted that he had not wilfully misled the Commons, arguing that he believed at the time that Covid guidance was followed on all occasions, as members of the committee, led by Harriet Harman, questioned his version of events.

In one of the most heated moments, Mr Johnson pushed back against the suggestion that he should have sought assurances about whether rules were broken from more senior officials in Downing Street.

“This is complete nonsense, I mean, complete nonsense. I asked the relevant people. They were senior people. They had been working very hard,” he said about one event.

The televised hearing was the culmination of an inquiry lasting almost a year into whether Mr Johnson wilfully misled MPs when denying Covid rules were broken at Partygate events.