Cross-party committee says ex-PM would have faced 90-day suspension had he not quit in rage at findings last week
Boris Johnson deliberately misled parliament over Partygate and was part of a campaign to abuse and intimidate MPs investigating him, a long-awaited report by the privileges committee has found.
In an unprecedented move, the cross-party group said he would have faced a 90-day suspension from the Commons had he not quit in rage at its findings last week.
Continue reading...No 10 says constituents in Mid Bedfordshire deserve certainty as it piles pressure on ex-minister to stand down
Downing Street is heaping pressure on Nadine Dorries to stand down as soon as possible, saying her constituents in Mid Bedfordshire deserve certainty.
The former culture secretary said last Friday she would “immediately” step down, after she was denied a peerage in Boris Johnson’s resignation honours.
Continue reading...PM’s office says Mid Bedfordshire deserves ‘proper representation’ and delay to resignation ‘obviously unusual’
Fell put it to Braverman that customers were not learning to protect themselves from online fraud because, if they are cheated, they tend to get their money back from banks. He suggested that people were being “coddled”. It was as if they were leaving their front door open, leaving themselves vulnerable to burglary, he said.
Braverman said Fell had a point. She told him:
I think that’s a really important point and I’m passionate about increasing awareness - much like practice changed when it came to wearing a seatbelt …
I think we need a step change when it comes to online activity. We are far more vulnerable than we appreciate and I think people’s lives are lived so politically online that they forget that there are fraudsters operating in that online world.
Continue reading...Anglesey deputy leader apologises for comment condemned as ‘appalling’ by area’s Conservative MP
The deputy leader of a Welsh council has stepped down after saying during a meeting that “all Tories should be shot”.
Ieuan Williams, an independent councillor in Anglesey, north Wales, has apologised since making the comment on Monday morning and referred himself to the council’s standards committee.
Continue reading...PM has clashed publicly with predecessor over failed attempts to elevate several close allies to Lords
Rishi Sunak would block Boris Johnson from standing again as a Conservative MP before the next election, sources have told the Guardian, as the two men engaged in an extraordinary war of words.
The prime minister clashed publicly with Johnson over his failed attempts to elevate several close allies to the House of Lords, accusing him of having lobbied to overturn due process to appoint the three Tory MPs. Johnson dismissed his claims as “rubbish”.
Continue reading...Boris Johnson accepts post of crown steward and bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds after accusing PM of talking ‘rubbish’. This live blog is now closed
Full story: Boris Johnson formally steps down as MP
The EU has dashed UK hopes of an early review of the Brexit trade deal saying is unlikely to re-open talks until 2026.
European commission vice-president Maroš Šefčovič, who leads for the EU on Brexit matters, said the deal was only in force for two years and it would be pointless re-opening it until its full potential was realised.
If the decision is just to simply go for more divergence … some of the fundamentals of the withdrawal agreement and the TCA would be thrown into the shredder.
Rishi secretly blocked the peerages for Nadine and others. He refused to ask for them to undergo basic checks that could have taken only a few weeks or even days. That is how he kept them off the list – without telling Boris Johnson.
Continue reading...Opposition finds fallout of Liz Truss mini-budget has raised average mortgage interest payments by £150 a week in two years
Homeowners are being hit with a “Tory mortgage penalty” of £7,000 a year with interest rates triple what they were two years ago, according to Labour.
Pat McFadden, shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, blamed what he called the “reckless economic gamble” taken by the Conservatives during September’s mini-budget when Liz Truss was prime minister.
Continue reading...Angela Rayner says former PM has no respect for voters, as Keir Starmer and Ed Davey turn focus to winning new seat
We’ve got a bit more from Ed Davey, who has accused Boris Johnson of having “a track record of deceit and lies”.
I never thought he was fit to be an MP, let alone prime minister. He has a track record of deceit and lies.
But I hope today is not just about Boris Johnson. I think it’s about the whole Conservative party who put him there in the first place.
I think there should actually be a general election.
I think the chaos and division in the Conservative party, the fact that they’re so out of touch on the cost of living, on the NHS, it means we’ve got to put the country out of its misery with these Conservatives.
Continue reading...Leader Ed Davey says party will fight for both seats after resignations of Boris Johnson and Nadine Dorries
Sir Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, has ruled out a formal pact with Labour to encourage tactical voting in order to beat the Conservatives in the byelections triggered by Boris Johnson and Nadine Dorries’ shock resignations.
Dorries, one of Johnson’s fiercest cheerleaders, quit parliament on Friday after being told she would not be elevated to the House of Lords in Johnson’s resignation honours list. Johnson followed suit hours later, ditching his outer-London seat with a bitter resignation statement accusing Rishi Sunak of leading a government that is “not properly Conservative” and attacking the Partygate investigation.
Continue reading...Deputy Labour leader says former PM has ‘no respect’ for Tory voters and ‘knows he is in the wrong’
Boris Johnson is a “coward” who has “no respect” for the 2019 Conservative voters who put their faith in him, Labour’s deputy leader has said, after he dramatically quit parliament before the findings of a cross-party investigation into whether he lied to the Commons had been published.,
The former prime minister resigned on Friday night after learning that an investigation into the Partygate scandal found he misled parliament, and he was likely to face a lengthy suspension from the Commons.
Continue reading...As ever with the former PM there was plenty of barely hidden subtext as he took aim at perceived enemies
Boris Johnson’s statement announcing he will quit the Commons is not brief – more than 1,000 words – and, as ever with the former prime minister’s pronouncements, there is a lot of often barely hidden subtext:
I have received a letter from the privileges committee making it clear – much to my amazement – that they are determined to use the proceedings against me to drive me out of parliament.
They have still not produced a shred of evidence that I knowingly or recklessly misled the Commons.
They know perfectly well that when I spoke in the Commons I was saying what I believed sincerely to be true and what I had been briefed to say, like any other minister.
They know that I corrected the record as soon as possible; and they know that I and every other senior official and minister – including the current prime minister and then occupant of the same building, Rishi Sunak – believed that we were working lawfully together.
Most members of the committee – especially the chair – had already expressed deeply prejudicial remarks about my guilt before they had even seen the evidence. They should have recused themselves.
In retrospect it was naive and trusting of me to think that these proceedings could be remotely useful or fair. But I was determined to believe in the system, and in justice, and to vindicate what I knew to be the truth.
It was the same faith in the impartiality of our systems that led me to commission Sue Gray. It is clear that my faith has been misplaced. Of course, it suits the Labour party, the Liberal Democrats, and the SNP to do whatever they can to remove me from parliament.
Sadly, as we saw in July last year, there are currently some Tory MPs who share that view. I am not alone in thinking that there is a witch-hunt under way, to take revenge for Brexit and ultimately to reverse the 2016 referendum result.
My removal is the necessary first step, and I believe there has been a concerted attempt to bring it about. I am afraid I no longer believe that it is any coincidence that Sue Gray – who investigated gatherings in No 10 – is now the chief of staff designate of the Labour leader.
Nor do I believe that it is any coincidence that her supposedly impartial chief counsel, Daniel Stilitz KC, turned out to be a strong Labour supporter who repeatedly tweeted personal attacks on me and the government.
When I left office last year the government was only a handful of points behind in the polls. That gap has now massively widened.
Just a few years after winning the biggest majority in almost half a century, that majority is now clearly at risk.
Our party needs urgently to recapture its sense of momentum and its belief in what this country can do.
We need to deliver on the 2019 manifesto, which was endorsed by 14 million people. We should remember that more than 17 million voted for Brexit.
I am now being forced out of parliament by a tiny handful of people, with no evidence to back up their assertions, and without the approval even of Conservative party members let alone the wider electorate.
The Conservative party has the time to recover its mojo and its ambition and to win the next election.
I had looked forward to providing enthusiastic support as a backbench MP. Harriet Harman’s committee has set out to make that objective completely untenable.
The committee’s report is riddled with inaccuracies and reeks of prejudice but under their absurd and unjust process I have no formal ability to challenge anything they say.
The privileges committee is there to protect the privileges of parliament. That is a very important job. They should not be using their powers – which have only been very recently designed – to mount what is plainly a political hit-job on someone they oppose.
I am very sorry to leave my wonderful constituency. It has been a huge honour to serve them, both as mayor and MP.
But I am proud that after what is cumulatively a 15-year stint I have helped to deliver among other things a vast new railway in the Elizabeth line and full funding for a wonderful new state of the art hospital for Hillingdon, where enabling works have already begun.
Continue reading...Former prime minister to be suspended for 10 days and will not stand again in Uxbridge and South Ruislip
Responding to Rachel Reeves’s comments about Labour’s green investment on the Today programme (see also 9.24am and 9.45am) Rebecca Newsom, Greenpeace UK’s head of politics, said:
Any U-turn would be a huge mistake. Without the necessary immediate investment, we will lose out on the creation of thousands of jobs needed as we phase out fossil fuels, and we will lose out on the opportunity to put green tech industries at the centre of our economy.
Rachel Reeves rightly cites the opportunities of green growth, but this prevarication on confirming the scale of investment needed from the start of a new Labour government risks throwing in the towel on the global race in green tech, with the US, China and the EU already far ahead.
Should this letter be ignored, and negotiations are not in place by the 17 June the NEU national executive will be discussing our next steps. This will include the consideration of NEU teacher members in England taking further strike action in the week beginning 3 July.
There are six school term weeks until the summer holiday. Up and down the country, head teachers are trying to plan their school budgets for next year and trying to cope with the rapidly growing problem of recruiting enough teachers to fill their classrooms.
By not publishing the STRB report, your department is withholding vital information about what proposals that body has made on teacher pay, which may or may not help with the recruitment difficulties. It is also withholding vital information about the funding of pay rises.
Continue reading...Committee found former prime minister had misled the House of Commons and recommended lengthy suspension
Boris Johnson is standing down immediately as a Conservative MP after an investigation into the Partygate scandal found he misled parliament and recommended a lengthy suspension from the House of Commons.
The former prime minister angrily accused the investigation of trying to drive him out, and claimed there was a “witch-hunt under way, to take revenge for Brexit and ultimately to reverse the 2016 referendum result”.
Continue reading...The ex-prime minister’s surprise resignation as an MP followed a collapse in his popularity that is likely to be terminal
When Boris Johnson sat down to draft his resignation statement after learning the privileges committee had concluded that he lied to MPs over Partygate, he was determined to leave his enemies – on both sides of the Commons – a clear message.
“It is very sad to be leaving parliament,” he wrote. “At least for now …” That he still harbours hopes of a comeback – despite the damage that he has done to his own reputation, the Conservative party brand and to the country more widely – should surprise nobody.
Continue reading...PM gives green light to list that also includes knighthood for Jacob Rees-Mogg and damehood for Priti Patel
Rishi Sunak has been accused of allowing Boris Johnson to hand out rewards to those involved in the Partygate scandal, including more than 40 honours and peerages for his closest allies at the time.
The prime minister faced criticism for approving the list despite police looking at fresh potential evidence of rule-breaking in Downing Street and Chequers during lockdown, as well as an ongoing parliamentary inquiry into whether Johnson misled the Commons.
Continue reading...Ex-PM also awards knighthood to Jacob Rees-Mogg and OBE to head of parliament’s hair salon
Priti Patel, who was home secretary in Johnson’s cabinet and widely seen as a fierce ally of the former prime minister, has been made a dame commander.
Keen Brexiter Jacob Rees-Mogg has received a knighthood alongside Michael Fabricant who often went on the airwaves to defend Johnson during Partygate.
Continue reading...Newspaper retains considerable influence among those who will shape the direction of Conservatives
Whoever buys the Daily Telegraph is not just purchasing a historic and profitable newspaper – they are acquiring direct access to Tory party members who will control the future direction of the Conservatives.
Paul Goodman, the editor of ConservativeHome, said the newspaper retained “considerable” influence among the approximately 160,000 card-carrying members of the party’s rank and file who vote in leadership elections and MP selections.
Continue reading...Lord Butler says there is ‘strong public interest in the inquiry being carried out constructively’
The North Sea oil and gas industry is in decline, the shadow business minister Seema Malhotra said, as she defended plans to block new drilling licences, a move criticised by trade unions. Aubrey Allegretti has the story here.
MPs will hold a debate on Monday on proposals to ban members from the parliamentary estate if they are being investigated for a criminal offence and are deemed to pose a risk to other people.
Last night the government was debating whether to hold a vote on Monday on proposals to ban MPs accused of violent or sexual offences from the estate — after backlash from some Tory backbenchers. One senior Tory MP told Playbook they opposed the plan because it would overturn “common practice that you are innocent until proven guilty”.
Continue reading...Residents will no doubt have to pay a price for their authority’s risk taking and subsequent bankruptcy
Winning in the rollercoaster business of commercial property development is hard. Look at the share prices of the two FTSE 100 titans, regarded as the most diversified and solid operators in the sector. Since the financial crisis of 2008-09, which caused commercial property prices to crater, Landsec’s shares have been as low as 350p and as high as £13 and are currently 626p. British Land’s trajectory is similar.
Their investors collect dividends (most of the time), largely funded from rental income, but they also know that the value of the assets can be volatile. Less diversified firms have done much worse. Intu, a former shopping centre giant, collapsed in 2020 and an air of financial crisis has hovered over Hammerson for years. This is territory for conservative financing and strong risk-management safeguards.
Continue reading...Mohamed Amersi criticised by high court judge for his conduct in proceedings against Charlotte Leslie
A major Conservative party donor has had his defamation claim against a former Tory MP struck out by a high court judge, who criticised his conduct.
The telecoms businessman Mohamed Amersi, who has donated more than £500,000 to the party since 2018, sued Charlotte Leslie – the director of the Conservative Middle East Council (CMEC), which was also a defendant – claiming several documents that were circulated to influential individuals between late December 2020 and early January 2021were defamatory of him.
Continue reading...