Is that how you spell it? he won’t resign as any decent human being who had made such a crass statement would. He is confident that he has surrounded himself with such incompetence that there is no one who could readily replace him. Rumours that the Daily Mail is plotting to get Gove seem unlikely.
Did he say it? Probably as it fits his character, engaging brain before speaking is not his forte! there a lot of people who are anti the lockdowns, so maybe the damage is not so bad? In some ways the meeting about the ESL is more damaging voter wise? Especially in the northern former labour seats. Basically the red wall voters do not care about sleaze as it is sort of expected from politicians, and Johnson sort of gets away with it through humour. Climate change will see him having to adopt a much more intelligent role.