lie your way through crises, you've got to tell the truth. someone who was a senior minister until a few days ago at least told me you could argue that the mess around chris pincher was sordid but not disastrous — yet it confirmed a view for most people round here that the downing street operation just wasn't working. and it riled them because it wasn't the first time that no 10 had responded to a problem with a version of events that ministers were instructed to repeat on tv that a few days later turned out not to be true. downing street's version of events had unravelled. borisjohnson had to admit it was wrong. day after day after day, people speaking on your behalf were talking rubbish. i think, well, i don't know, i wasn't... i, i... i was i'm afraid focusing on other things at the time but what i'm telling you now is my recollection of events. what i was being told, i whether it was on parties