Nicola Sturgeon says ‘there is corruption at the heart of Westminster’
Scotland’s first minister has accused the UK government of being “corrupt” at its core, saying ongoing allegations of sleaze against the Tories may have been a “distraction” at Cop26 – but they at least “shone a light on issues that need to be resolved in Westminster politics”.
“There is particular concern, and I don’t use this word lightly, that there is corruption at the heart of the Westminster system,” Nicola Sturgeon told Sky News on Thursday, “and that has to be rooted out.”
The SNP leader made her views on the Conservative Party’s disastrous two weeks in parliament less than 24 hours after Boris Johnson stood up in Glasgow and told the world’s media the UK was “not remotely a corrupt country”.
Pressure is continuing to build on the prime minister and his Cabinet colleagues over ongoing “sleaze” allegations, with the former attorney general Sir Geoffrey Cox at the centre of the row over his work for the British Virgin Islands.
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PM risks Thatcher-style felling by own MPs over sleaze, Tory grandee warns
Boris Johnson is in danger of becoming “a liability” to the Conservatives and of being toppled by his own MPs as Margaret Thatcher was, a party grandee has said.
Malcolm Rifkind – a Cabinet minister during those dramatic events in 1990 – said the Tories are notoriously ruthless when “prime ministers are deemed to have outlived their usefulness”.
The former foreign secretary told our deputy political editor Rob Merrick there is a growing mood that Mr Johnson is failing to show proper leadership, after the failed bid to rip up anti-sleaze rules to save Owen Paterson.
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Ex-advisor married to Tory MP to help pick media regulator
Some news from Downing Street now. A former Conservative advisor who is married to a Tory MP will help choose the UK’s next media regulator, the government has confirmed.
Michael Simmonds, husband of former schools minister Nick Gibb and brother-in-law of former No 10 communications chief Robbie Gibb, will be on the interview panel who will chose the next chair of Ofcom.
Downing Street is widely reported to want former Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre to take the job and has already rebooted the recruitment process once after the right-winger unexpectedly failed his final interview and was deemed “not appointable,” reports our policy correspondent Jon Stone.
‘I wouldn’t be here if govt doing enough,’ Ratcliffe says on day 19 of hunger strike
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s husband has said he “wouldn’t be” on day 19 of a hunger strike, outside the Foreign Office, “if the government was doing enough”.
Speaking to reporters, Richard Ratcliffe said ministers have continues to ignore the £400m debt the government owes to Iran, and that the obvious solution to secure his wife’s release was to “settle that dispute”.
Asked when he planned to end his demonstration, the father-of-one said while he couldn’t give an exact date, “we’re not going to be able to do it for much longer because my body is saying so”.
Mr Ratcliffe added a doctor had just checked him over and that he was in good condition.
It comes ahead of Foreign Office officials’ meeting with Ali Bagheri Kani, Iran’s deputy foreign minister, on Thursday where the UK has said it will push to secure the release of detained Britons in the Middle Eastern country.
“Part of the tension in previous years was that the government had one position and the Revolutionary Guard – the ones holding Nazanin – had a different one,” Mr Ratcliffe told PA. “I would suspect there’s less shadow foreign police.”
He is due to be given an update on his wife’s case shortly after the meeting takes place.
Sturgeon condemns ‘corruption at heart of Westminster’
Social media users continue to rally against Cox
The actress and author goes on to ponder the Tory MP’s position on Universal Credit.
“Wonder how he voted on denying people on UC their £20 uplift,” she tweeted.
35-year-old member of far-right wing group arrested
A police update now, as a 35-year-old man is arrested on suspicion of being a member of a banned far-right wing group.
The suspect was detained on Wednesday in north London, as part of an investigation by officers from the Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command, the force said.
His home was searched and the man was questioned before being bailed to mid-December.
The force said in a statement: “The 35-year-old man was arrested on the morning of 10 November at an address in north London on suspicion of membership to a proscribed organisation (contrary to Section 11 of the Terrorism Act 2000).
“The address was searched. The man was detained under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, and taken to a London police station. He has since been bailed to a date in mid-December.
“The arrest relates to suspected membership to an extreme right-wing group. Enquiries continue.”
Timeline of how Geoffrey Cox became embroiled in second jobs scandal
The sleaze scandal surrounding Boris Johnson’s government is continuing to dog the PM a week on from the row that erupted over his decision to order MPs to save ex-Northern Ireland secretary Owen Paterson from a six-week suspension after the Commons Standards Committee found him guilty of breaking a centuries-old ban on parliamentary lobbying.
Now the spotlight is trained on Sir Geoffrey Cox, Conservative MP for Torridge and West Devon since 5 May 2005 and the former UK attorney general.
But, how did Sir Geoffrey, a practising barrister since 1982 and Queen’s Counsel since 2003, become the centre of the latest controversy? Joe Sommerlad takes a look.
Tory MP calls for tightening of lobbying rules
Writing for Times Red Box on Thursday, Peterborough MP Paul Bristow, has called for a tightening of the rules in the wake of the lobbying row.
Mr Bristow, who has a majority of 2,580 compared to Sir Geoffrey’s 24,992, defied the party whip to vote against the government last week and added: “We are now faced with the task of restoring public confidence.”
He wrote: “There’s nothing wrong with lobbying, done right. In fact, those involved can have much to be proud of, advising charities, businesses and campaigns on how to get their voices heard.
“I’m proud of my role in the campaign to get the Sepsis 6 pathway adopted in the NHS. I’m proud of helping to organise a petition for funding research into brain tumours, which led to a report and a debate in parliament.
“There’s a lot wrong with lobbying, done badly. At its most unethical, it can veer to corruption. The professional parts of the industry have no truck with that, not least because it would put them out of work, when almost inevitably exposed.”
What was Geoffrey Cox doing in the British Virgin Islands?
Sir Geoffrey Cox, the MP for Torridge and West Devon, has since come under scrutiny for earning hundreds of thousands of pounds as a top QC while also an MP, including representing the British Virgin Islands in a corruption probe brought by the UK government.
But what was he doing in the BVI?
The Independent’s associate editor, Sean O’Grady, explains:
