That former PM secretly secured a loan of up to £800k no surprise as financial reliance on others stretches back many years
Boris Johnson is deeply protective of his personal life – but one thing almost universally acknowledged by those who know him is that he has a tricky relationship with money.
It came as little surprise to them, therefore, that he was alleged to have secretly secured an up to £800,000 loan guarantee while prime minister.
Continue reading...Labour MP asks whether Zahawi statement in the summer was untrue, with Cabinet Office minister saying he does not know the answer
Nadhim Zahawi, the Conservative party chair, has welcomed the decision by Rishi Sunak to ask the No 10 ethics adviser to investigate his case. “I am confident I acted properly throughout,” Zahawi said.
Zahawi seems to be using a narrow definition of “properly”. In the statement he issued yesterday, he accepted that his original decision not to pay the tax that HM Revenue and Customs subsequently concluded he should have paid was down to a careless error. He said:
Following discussions with HMRC, they agreed that my father was entitled to founder shares in YouGov, though they disagreed about the exact allocation. They concluded that this was a ‘careless and not deliberate’ error.
Integrity and accountability is really important to me and clearly in this case there are questions that need answering …
That’s why the independent adviser has been asked to fully investigate this matter and provide advice to me on Nadhim Zahawi’s compliance with the ministerial code, and on the basis of that we’ll decide on the appropriate next steps.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Forecasts predict exports will fall to £707bn next year and target will not be reached until 2035
Ministers have been accused of leaving a “record of failure and broken promises” as internal forecasts show Britain will be 15 years late in achieving its £1tn annual export target after being hit by Brexit.
Projections from the Department for International Trade (DIT) show the value of UK exports will not reach £1tn until 2035, based on current trends, with the total due to fall to £707bn next year.
Continue reading...All-party group including peers backs campaign by victims’ group, saying Cape ‘knowingly put people in danger’
MPs and peers have written to one of the biggest manufacturers of asbestos, calling on it to make a £10m donation towards mesothelioma research “for knowingly putting people in danger”.
In a letter to Altrad, parent company of Cape, the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on occupational safety and health says that documents released after a long-running court battle show that Cape historically “provided misleading reassurance about the dangers of asbestos”.
Continue reading...Angela Rayner says Rishi Sunak should come clean about any concerns raised with No 10 about ex-chancellor and HMRC penalty
Nadhim Zahawi’s political future appeared under increasing threat on Sunday night, after Labour pushed hard for answers about his tax issues and government colleagues offered little support for his plight.
After a weekend dominated by questions over the Conservative party chair’s tax position, Labour signalled its intention to pin the controversy on to Rishi Sunak, demanding the prime minister explain if he knew about the issue when he appointed Zahawi to his cabinet.
Continue reading...Immigration experts scathing about Home Office plans to tighten access to services for people without legal status
Home Office plans to reheat “thoroughly discredited” hostile environment policies show the government has not learned lessons from the Windrush scandal, immigration experts have said.
A taskforce to crack down on illegal immigration is being set up, the Home Office announced on Sunday. As well as blocking access to banking for those without immigration status, it intends to find new ways of checking individuals’ immigration status when they use schools or the NHS.
Continue reading...Reports Richard Sharp helped ex-PM arrange guarantee on £800,000 loan before he was recommended for job
Labour is calling for an investigation after claims that the BBC chair helped Boris Johnson arrange a guarantee on a loan of up to £800,000 weeks before he was recommended for the job by the then prime minister.
The party has written to the parliamentary commissioner for standards, Daniel Greenberg, after a report in the Sunday Times that Tory donor Richard Sharp was involved in talks about financing Johnson when he found himself in financial difficulty in late 2020.
Continue reading...Comments follow reports that Tory party chairman paid HMRC a penalty as part of a multimillion-pound tax settlement
Tory party chair Nadhim Zahawi has released a statement to “address some of the confusion about my finances” after reports that he paid a penalty as part of a multimillion-pound tax settlement.
He said: “As a senior politician I know that scrutiny and propriety are important parts of public life. Twenty-two years ago I co-founded a company called YouGov. I’m incredibly proud of what we achieved. It is an amazing business that has employed thousands of people and provides a world-beating service.
Continue reading...Party member lodges a complaint about the security services ignoring attempt of Russian infiltration into the Conservatives
MI5 repeatedly refused to investigate evidence that an alleged Russian spy was attempting to cultivate influence with senior Conservative politicians and channel illegal Russian funds into the party, a Tory member has alleged in a new complaint lodged with the investigatory powers tribunal (IPT).
Sergei Cristo, a Conservative party activist and a former journalist with the BBC World Service, has lodged a complaint with the investigatory powers tribunal, filing the case after corresponding with the chair of parliament’s intelligence and security committee, Conservative MP Julian Lewis, who recommended he take the information to the authorities.
Continue reading...Angela Rayner calls for explanation after it emerged former chancellor paid 30% penalty to settle tax bill
Nadhim Zahawi’s position as Conservative party chair is “untenable” after reports he paid a penalty as part of a seven-figure tax settlement, Labour has said.
The former chancellor, who attends cabinet meetings, has faced pressure in parliament and the media after it emerged he agreed to pay millions to HMRC in December after a settlement with the tax agency.
Continue reading...Radical reforms needed to tackle waiting times, says former health secretary
Patients should be charged for GP appointments and A&E visits, Sajid Javid has said, as he called the present model of the NHS “unsustainable”.
The former health secretary said “extending the contributory principle” should be part of radical reforms to tackle growing waiting times.
Continue reading...Frontbencher to call for more help with energy bills for householders and to promise massive green power programme
Rachel Reeves has said she wants to be “Britain’s first green chancellor” ahead of a speech in which she will call on ministers to extend relief on energy bills and promise that Labour will reduce these in the longer term with a massive green power programme.
Addressing the Fabian Society conference on Saturday, the shadow chancellor is to argue that investment in renewable energies, plus a huge programme to retrofit insulation to homes – part of Labour’s flagship £28bn-a-year investment in climate measures – could save households up to £1,400 off annual bills each year.
Continue reading...‘Brief error of judgment’ captured while PM was recording Instagram video in back of moving car
Rishi Sunak has become the second sitting prime minister in history – and in the last 12 months – to be fined by the police after he received a fixed-penalty notice for not wearing his seatbelt.
Lancashire constabulary announced on Friday it was fining the prime minister, who filmed a social media video earlier this week while travelling in the back of a car without his belt on.
Continue reading...WUC claimed UK unlawfully failed or refused to investigate cotton imports from Xinjiang
The World Uyghur Congress has said it is disappointed to have lost a legal challenge against UK authorities for not launching a criminal investigation into the importation of cotton products manufactured by forced labour in China’s Xinjiang province but would continue to fight for accountability.
The WUC took the home secretary, HM Revenue and Customs and the National Crime Agency (NCA), to the high court, claiming an unlawful failure or refusal to investigate imports from Xinjiang, allegedly home to 380 internment camps used to detain Uyghurs and people from other Muslim minorities.
Continue reading...Trip to examine country’s rights record derailed as meetings with government officials also cancelled
A high-profile trip by two senior UK parliamentarians to Kazakhstan to examine its human rights record has almost immediately run into trouble as they were denied access to a jailed opposition leader who is the focus of the visit.
The former director of public prosecutions Ken Macdonald and the former justice secretary Robert Buckland were not permitted to meet the head of the unregistered Democratic party of Kazakhstan, Zhanbolat Mamai, or senior Kazakh diplomats.
Continue reading...Latest updates: YouGov survey finds there is almost nowhere in Britain where people think their community has got better
Keir Starmer has held a meeting with Leo Varadkar, the taoiseach (Irish PM), at Davos this morning. According to a readout of the meeting from the Labour party, Starmer and Varadkar “discussed the importance of strengthening British-Irish relations, their mutual commitment to that enduring relationship, and talked about areas both countries could work together on in the future”.
They also talked about the need “to proceed at pace in finding agreement over the Northern Ireland protocol,” Labour said.
I know I’m not the only MP in the party who thinks this — I’m just the only one who feels I have nothing to lose by speaking out. After all, there’s no front-bench job offer for the only Labour MP in my county. Many of us know that self-identifying as a woman does not make a person a biological woman who shares our lived experience. But for obvious reasons, these views are not voiced outside of closed rooms or private and secret WhatsApp groups. Even there, the most senior MPs often do not post a single word; they know exactly what’s at stake and not many of them want to be me. So for now, they mostly remain silent.
One of the traits of being in an abusive relationship is “stonewalling”. The abuser will go quiet for days on end. They will stew, not speak to you, turn their back on you. Trust me when I say I don’t take this lightly: but what I feel now, after six years of being cold-shouldered by the Labour party, conjures memories of how I felt in that abusive relationship. When I come home at night, I feel low-level trauma at my political isolation.
In 2019, it was hard enough trying to convince my constituents that Labour wasn’t antisemitic. In the next election, when they inevitably ask whether Labour is sexist, I’m not sure I’ll be able to do the same.
Continue reading...Jim Auld, 72, was one of 14 ‘hooded men’ subjected to interrogation methods since ruled as torture
Jim Auld was so tortured by British army interrogators during the Troubles that he tried to kill himself. He survived but has never seen a counsellor or psychologist or psychiatrist, and never will.
“I don’t trust them that it wouldn’t end up in a paper somewhere. I don’t want the torturers learning from me so they can improve their techniques,” he said last week.
Continue reading...First minister says Alister Jack’s block on gender law marks ‘new and more dangerous phase for devolution’
Nicola Sturgeon has accused the Scotland secretary of acting “like a governor general” in a further escalation of hostilities between the Westminster and Holyrood governments.
Scotland’s first minister said Alister Jack’s decision to block her government’s gender recognition law marked “a new and more dangerous phase for devolution”, hours after he refused an invitation from the Holyrood equalities committee to discuss the move.
Continue reading...Ireland’s taoiseach regrets Brexit arrangement imposed without agreement of unionists and nationalists
Ireland’s taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, has said he regrets that the Northern Ireland protocol he agreed with Boris Johnson to end a Brexit impasse was signed without the agreement of unionists and nationalists.
The admission came as the latest deadline to restore powersharing in Northern Ireland passed with the Democratic Unionist party continuing to refuse to take part in protest against the protocol.
Continue reading...Latest updates: West Midlands mayor Andy Street says it should be for local decision-makers to determine where money is spent
Rishi Sunak has defended the distribution of levelling up funds, saying that the north of England has received more per head than the south.
Speaking on a visit to Accrington, in Lancashire, he said:
The region that has done the best in the amount of funding per person is the north. That’s why we’re here talking to you in Accrington market, these are the places that are benefiting from the funding.
If you look at the overall funding in the levelling-up funds that we’ve done, about two-thirds of all that funding has gone to the most deprived part of our country.
With regard to Catterick Garrison, the thing you need to know is that’s home to our largest army base and it’s home to actually thousands of serving personnel who are often away from their own families serving our country.
Continue reading...