Category Archives: Conservatives

UK to slash funding for overseas water and sanitation projects by 80%

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Scale of aid cut emerges in leaked FCDO memo, prompting experts to describe it as ‘a national shame’

The UK is to slash funding for lifesaving water, sanitation and hygiene projects in developing nations by more than 80%, according to a leaked memo.

The cuts have been described as “savage”, “incredible” and “a national shame” by experts highlighting that sanitation and handwashing is a key line of defence during the coronavirus pandemic. The reduction to the bilateral aid budget was revealed as details emerged of cuts in the foreign aid budget.

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Senior Tories urge PM to come clean on funding of Downing Street refurb

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Johnson faces growing disquiet after allegations he was loaned £58,000 from party funds while being seen to personally foot the bill

Boris Johnson is being urged by senior Tories to come clean about the funding of his flat refurbishment as it emerged that a former Labour chancellor refused to join a trust overseeing Downing Street upkeep out of concerns it could lead to a cash-for-access scandal.

The prime minister faced growing disquiet from within his own party on Tuesday over allegations that he was loaned £58,000 from Conservative party funds while being seen to personally foot the bill for renovations of his Downing Street residence.

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Partner in Saudi bid to buy Newcastle United is major Tory donor

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Jamie Reuben’s involvement in bid supported by Boris Johnson raises more cronyism questions

An investor in the planned takeover of Newcastle United that received high-level support from Boris Johnson last year is a major Conservative party donor who has personally funded the prime minister’s constituency office and leadership campaign.

Jamie Reuben, 34, his father, David, and uncle Simon, who own the Reuben Brothers property development empire, were co-investors with the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (PIF), and the financier Amanda Staveley, in the £300m bid to buy the Premier League club from Mike Ashley.

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Minister seeks to play down growing accusations of Tory sleaze

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Thérèse Coffey says public does not care about makeover of Boris Johnson’s Downing Street flat

Soon-to-be-published annual accounts will “tidy up” the controversy over the funding of the refurbishment of the prime minister’s Downing Street flat, according to a government minister.

In an interview with Sky News, the work and pensions secretary, Thérèse Coffey, sought to play down growing accusations of sleaze, and claimed the public did not care about the makeover of the apartment after the prime minister said he would foot the £58,000 bill himself.

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Labour calls for Electoral Commission inquiry into PM’s flat refurbishment

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Party says Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings must be summoned to give evidence on how works were paid for

The Electoral Commission must legally summon Boris Johnson, Dominic Cummings and Conservative officials to give evidence on how the prime minister paid for refurbishments to his Downing Street flat, Labour has said.

Calling on the commission to launch a formal investigation, lawyers for the party said the matter was “incontrovertibly in the public interest”.

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Outrage as No 10 rules out urgent inquiry into Covid mistakes

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Exclusive: bereaved families are told that ‘people who would need to give evidence’ are ‘working round clock’

The government has caused anger among bereaved families by telling them it will be too busy to start an inquiry into the UK’s handling of the Covid pandemic for months.

In a six-page letter to lawyers for thousands of families calling for an immediate statutory public inquiry, the government said “an inquiry now is not appropriate” and “the very people who would need to give evidence to an inquiry are working round the clock”. It said “it is not anticipated that the government’s workload will ease in the coming months”.

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Johnson faces MPs’ fury over Downing Street sleaze claims

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Labour urge Speaker to summon senior minister as poll reveals 40% of voters think Tories are corrupt

Labour is aiming to force a senior minister before parliament this week to account for the growing sleaze crisis engulfing No 10 – amid growing cross-party uproar over a collapse in standards at the heart of government.

The Observer understands the opposition is hoping to persuade Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker, to grant an urgent question on Monday that would mean a senior minister – most likely the Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove – being summoned to the Commons to account for the crisis, explain steps being taken to end it, and take questions from MPs.

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No 10 refurb row: Grieve calls Boris Johnson ‘vacuum of integrity’

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Former Tory attorney general piles pressure on PM demanding to know how residence revamp was funded

The former attorney general Dominic Grieve has described Boris Johnson as a “vacuum of integrity” as the prime minister came under pressure to explain how the refurbishment of the Downing Street flat was paid for following an explosive attack by his former chief adviser Dominic Cummings.

The government has said Johnson paid for the refurbishment, reportedly costed at £58,000, but in a blogpost Cummings claimed the prime minister had sought outside funding from Conservative supporters.

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‘Mad and totally unethical’: Dominic Cummings hits out at Boris Johnson

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Ex-aide alleges PM tried to quash leak inquiry that implicated ally and wanted donors to fund work on flat

Dominic Cummings has launched an unprecedented and extraordinary attack on Boris Johnson, alleging that the prime minister tried to quash a leak inquiry as it implicated an ally, and hatched a “possibly illegal” plan for donors to pay to renovate his flat.

The outburst by Cummings, a day after anonymous No 10 sources claimed that he had leaked private text messages between Johnson and the billionaire James Dyson, prompted Labour to accuse the government of “fighting each other like rats in a sack”.

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‘No country immune’ from UK’s aid cuts, says Raab

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Foreign secretary denies that aid organisations are scared to speak out or people are going hungry

The UK foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, has told MPs that “no country is immune” from the impending aid cuts, but failed to clarify when specific plans would be made public.

Speaking after the release of the first details of the £4bn cuts to international aid, which have been widely criticised as “draconian” and opaque, the minister confirmed “no stand-alone” impact assessment had been carried out in individual countries but that “we identify risks we see across the board”.

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DRC aid agencies appeal to UK Foreign Office to suspend ‘disastrous’ cuts

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Fears of 60% reduction in budget for country where 27.3m said to be experiencing acute food insecurity

A consortium of 19 aid agencies operating in the Democratic Republic of Congo has issued a last-minute appeal to the UK Foreign Office to suspend planned aid cuts to the country, where a third of the population faces acute food insecurity.

The Foreign Office, the second largest provider of aid to the war-torn country, has told aid agencies that cuts are very likely. Although the size of them is not yet agreed, one report has suggested a 60% reduction in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office budget for the country. The FCDO’s aid programme for Congo was worth £180m in 2019.

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Sturgeon blasts decision to refer Holyrood bills to UK supreme court

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Scottish first minister calls UK government decision ‘morally repugnant’ as bills were passed unanimously

Nicola Sturgeon has condemned the UK government’s decision to refer two bills passed by Holyrood unanimously to the supreme court as “morally repugnant” amid an outcry from MSPs.

The Scottish parliament passed the United Nations convention on the rights of the child bill and the European charter of local self-government bill in the weeks before it went into recess.

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David Cameron faces unprecedented formal inquiry into Greensill scandal

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Boris Johnson orders independent investigation into former prime minister’s lobbying on behalf of collapsed finance firm

David Cameron is at the centre of an unprecedented formal inquiry after Boris Johnson ordered a probe into lobbying by the former prime minister on behalf of the collapsed company Greensill Capital.

The independent investigation will examine the firm’s role in government, supply chain financing and communications by employees, including Cameron, who joined Greensill as an adviser in 2018, two years after resigning as prime minister, and who stood to make millions of pounds from his role.

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Union in peril as PM ‘speaks for England alone’, former civil servant warns

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Philip Rycroft says PM’s ‘muscular brand of unionism’ has deepened divisions between four nations

The pandemic has seeded the idea of a prime minister “who speaks for England alone” as relations between the four nations of the UK deteriorate amid “deep-rooted complacency”, a senior former civil servant has warned.

There is widespread ignorance towards the union, meaning ministers can be kept in the dark about major reforms with little consideration for the four nations, Philip Rycroft, the permanent secretary to the Brexit department until 2019, says in a report.

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‘Out of Trump playbook’: UK accused of ‘abandoning’ women with cuts to aid

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Charity warns of 22,000 additional deaths in poorest countries if Wish reproductive health programme ends

The director of a leading sexual and reproductive health charity has accused the government of “abandoning” women and girls it promised to help, as aid cuts derail a leading Tory programme to reduce maternal deaths and prevent unsafe abortions in poor countries.

The threat to the women’s integrated sexual health (Wish) programme could mean 7.5m additional unintended pregnancies, 2.7m unsafe abortions and 22,000 maternal deaths over the next year, said Dr Alvaro Bermejo, director general of International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF).

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A year on, Keir Starmer’s grand vision is still in question | Letters

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Dr Anthony Isaacs thinks the Labour leader must unite the party and restore the whip to Jeremy Corbyn, but Bruce Sawford has lost hope

No new opposition leader could have been expected to gain much media attention in their first year against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the government has clearly benefited from the vaccine rollout. But after a promising start, Keir Starmer’s declining poll ratings (Keir Starmer: one year in, Labour leader’s popularity has plunged, 2 April) indicate that his cautious style and lack of defined policies have failed to gain traction. The pandemic has, paradoxically, opened the way to an alternative agenda that plays to Labour’s strengths of promoting social solidarity and investment in public services. Starmer must embrace the opportunity of the waning infection rates to move the fight away from equivocation and abstention over Tory culture wars to ground of Labour’s own choosing.

Your editorial (2 April) points to Labour’s need for a transformative agenda that both rallies the party and speaks to the wider public. To bring this about, Starmer must first unite the party. Restoring the whip to Jeremy Corbyn would be an important symbolic gesture, opening the way for the party’s factions to work together in devising popular policies to combat the corruption and market failures epitomised by our current government. The second task is to unite opposition parties around an electoral strategy as the only hope of preventing continued Tory dominance. That will be a true test of leadership.
Dr Anthony Isaacs
London

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Labour calls for changes to lobbying law after Greensill row

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Party says rules should be widened to include ‘in-house’ roles such as that carried out by David Cameron

The law must be changed to prevent the type of lobbying undertaken by David Cameron on behalf of the financier Lex Greensill, Labour has argued, after more details emerged about the extent of Greensill’s influence inside Cameron’s government.

Only external lobbyists who deal with the government are required to be on a formal industry register, and not so-called “in-house” lobbyists like Cameron, who took an advocacy role for Greensill Capital after leaving Downing Street.

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Historian David Olusoga joins academic criticism of No 10’s race report

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Broadcaster says report seems to want to brush history under the carpet, as others attack ‘distorted’ use of research

One of Britain’s foremost historians of slavery has accused the authors of a controversial racial disparities report commissioned by Downing Street of giving the impression they would prefer “history to be swept under the carpet”.

Broadcaster David Olusoga, professor of public history at Manchester University, made the comments in an article for the Guardian, as hundreds of experts on race, education, health and economics joined the criticism of the report for brazenly misrepresenting evidence of racism.

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Carrie Symonds, a network of family wealth and a charity investigation

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Behind the Aspinall Foundation is a history of power, riches and links to the Tory party

When Carrie Symonds was welcomed to her job at the wildlife conservation charity the Aspinall Foundation in January, her new boss gushed that she had arrived at an “exciting time” for the organisation. Symonds, said Damian Aspinall, would be a “huge asset to us”.

Coverage of Boris Johnson’s fiancee’s appointment as head of communications focused on her well-publicised love of animals – useful, given the foundation’s charitable mission. It oversees Howletts and Port Lympne wildlife parks in Kent, home to exotic threatened species including rhinos, elephants, gorillas and cheetahs, which are prepared for a return to the wild in Africa.

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Tory MPs warn Johnson not to extend Covid curbs

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The prime minister is under pressure to resist an ‘excess of caution’ as a third wave of infections grips Europe

Boris Johnson faces mounting pressure from senior Tories to resist attempts to extend the blanket ban on overseas travel or delay the loosening of UK restrictions, amid new warnings over rising Covid cases in Europe.

With scientific advisers warning of the risks of overseas holidays in the late spring and summer, figures from across the Conservative party demanded that the prime minister reject an “excess of caution” in reacting to an apparent third Covid wave across the continent.

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