Inside Politics: ‘Legitimate question’

Boris Johnson’s own ethics adviser calls on him to set out publicly how he did not break the ministerial code, writes Matt Mathers

(REUTERS)

Parts of the UK were lashed with rain and thunder yesterday and the picture going into the Jubilee weekend looks rather bleak. The political weather is also darkening for the two main political parties as Boris Johnson is criticised by his own ethics adviser and police questionnaires are given to Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner over Beergate.

Inside the bubble

Our politics commentator Andrew Grice on what to look out for today:

The switch of the media spotlight to the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee cannot come a millisecond too soon for Boris Johnson, who hopes the event will divert attention from the growing number of Tory MPs who want him to resign. The Queen’s birthday honours list of 1,000 names will be announced earlier than usual to kick off the celebrations.

The Commons transport select committee will publish a report about supply chain problems in the road freight industry, including the shortage of drivers.

Daily Briefing

Advice not heeded

Partygate dominates the agenda after another difficult day for Boris Johnson, who got hit with the news that at least one more no confidence letter has gone in to the 1922 Committee.

The PM’s behaviour during the affair was also highly criticised by Andrea Leadsom, a former cabinet minister and until yesterday, someone viewed as an ally to Johnson. Leadsom did not specifically call for the PM to quit or admit that she had been in contact with Sir Graham Brady, but the message in her statement was as clear as day.

The most damaging intervention yesterday, however, came from Lord Geidt, his adviser on ministerial interests, who in his annual report told the PM that there was a “legitimate question” over whether or not he breached the code with his Partygate antics.

Geidt said that he repeatedly told Johnson to address in public why he felt he had not broken said code but that his advice was not “heeded” by Downing Street. No 10 responded with a letter from Johnson saying that he had “no intent to break the regulations” and that he had been “fully accountable to parliament and the British people”.

The intervention of Geidt, who is supposed to advise the PM on whether ministers have breached the code (Johnson changed it last week), is highly significant and damaging for Johnson for four key reasons. The first is simply that it gives more oxygen to the story and flies in the face of attempts by the PM to move on from the sorry saga following the publication of Sue Gray’s report. Several newspapers and websites splash on Geidt’s remarks this morning, including some of those usually supportive of Johnson.

Second is the comments in the report suggest that Geidt, who was hired by Johnson, is not fully convinced that his boss has been telling the truth, highlighted by the fact that he had to be persuaded himself not to quit. This is an incredibly bad look for a PM who is already facing calls from colleagues to resign and staring down the barrel of a vote on his leadership, although it is still not clear that he would lose that ballot.

The third and fourth reasons are interlinked. Much of the reporting on the Partygate scandal has centred around whether or not Johnson misled, or knowingly misled, MPs in the Commons when he told them that all rules were followed in Downing Street during Covid lockdowns. But in his report, Geidt says the fact that Johnson was fined by the police raises questions about whether “those facts alone might have constituted a breach of the overarching duty within the ministerial code of complying with the law”.

All of this gives further legitimacy to the privileges committee which is investigating if Johnson did in fact break the code. Tory MPs supportive of the PM will now find it more difficult to describe that probe as nothing more than a witch hunt by opposition parties.

(REUTERS)

Beergate

Literally a matter of minutes after Lord Geidt published his report, Durham Police announced that it had sent questionnaires to Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner over the ‘Beergate’ gathering at a local constituency office in the city last year.

The party confirmed the leader and deputy leader had been asked by officers in Durham to explain their attendance at the 30 April gathering, at which beer and curry was consumed.

If Durham is taking the same approach to investigating potential Covid law-breaking as the Met did then this potentially spells trouble for Labour’s top two.

Scotland Yard only sent surveys to people in Downing Street and Whitehall who they had reasonable grounds to suspect had broken the law.

There was better news for Labour in the form of a Savanta ComRes poll, which put the party 11 points ahead of the Tories. It had Labour on 42 per cent – up two points from the firm’s last poll, and Johnson’s party down three on 31 per cent.

It marks the biggest Labour lead in voting intention seen by the company since the end of January, when the scandal over lockdown parties reached fever pitch.

(Dave Brown / The Independent)

On the record

“I have taken full responsibility for everything that took place on my watch, and reiterated my apologise to the House and to the whole country.”

PM claims he has taken ‘full responsibility’ for Partygate in his response to Lord Geidt report.

From the Twitterati

“Two sources have told me that Lord Geidt was considering his future as PM’s ethics advisor – but No 10 has denied he had offered his resignation. One source told me Downing Street had “spent all day trying to talk him round.”

Daily Mirror politics editor Pippa Crerar hears Geidt had to be persuaded not to resign over Partygate.

Essential reading

• John Rentoul, The Independent: Johnson’s defences are crumbling – but one thing might still save him
• May Bulman, The Independent: How do we deal with the increasing politicisation of migration?
• Marina Hyde, The Guardian: Pounds, ounces, pints! Johnson is offering a whole bushel worth of phoned-in gibberish
• Tom McTague, The Atlantic: ‘It’s extremely important that we don’t forget that brutality’

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