Category Archives: Party funding

Boris Johnson backs Robert Jenrick despite planning row

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Senior MP says questions remain over links between housing secretary and Richard Desmond

Boris Johnson has full confidence in the housing secretary, Robert Jenrick, Downing Street has insisted, despite fresh revelations about his relationship with the billionaire property developer Richard Desmond, in documents published this week.

Pressed about Jenrick’s role in rushing through a decision on the development, allowing Desmond to avoid a £45m payment under the community infrastructure levy, Johnson’s official spokesman signalled that No 10 had no concerns.

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Russia report: UK MPs condemn ‘utterly reprehensible’ delay

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Failure to establish key scrutiny committee is also criticised as ‘unprecedented underhand behaviour’

The government’s apparent refusal to release a report into Russian infiltration in the UK and to delay establishing a key scrutiny committee has been condemned as unprecedented and “utterly reprehensible”.

The Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) has not met since before the general election in December – – its longest break since it was established in 1994 – and critics say the government has sat on the committee’s report into Russian interference for nine months.

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Revealed: Cameron and May lobbied Bahrain royals for Tory donor’s oil firm

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Former PMs asked princes to support bid for $5bn contract by Ayman Asfari’s firm Petrofac

Two former Conservative prime ministers lobbied a Middle Eastern royal family to award a multi-billion dollar oil contract to a company headed by a major Tory donor, the Guardian has established.

In March 2017, while in Downing Street, Theresa May wrote to the Bahraini prime minister to support the oil firm Petrofac while it was bidding to win the contract from the Gulf state.

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