Markus Andrews

Boris Johnson is under growing pressure over his decision to give Chris Pincher a ministerial role amid claims he knew about allegations against the Conservative MP years before appointing to a government job.The prime minister is said to have referred to the MP as “handsy” and joked about him being “Pincher by name, pincher by nature” as early as 2020.Mr Pincher quit as Conservative deputy chief whip after he was accused of drunkenly groping two men at a private members’ club in London this week.One of the MP for Tamworth’s latest accusers has said he was “shell-shocked” by prime minister delaying kicking him out of the parliamentary party.Mr Johnson only bowed to pressure to remove the whip from his ally, meaning he is now sitting in the Commons as an independent, after an official investigation was launched.Mr Johnson was also facing questions over how much he knew about Mr Pincher’s behaviour when he made him deputy chief whip in February.Former adviser Dominic Cummings said the prime minister had referred to the MP “laughingly in No 10 as ‘Pincher by name, pincher by nature’ long before appointing him”.A string of fresh allegations emerged as Mr Pincher said he is seeking “professional medical support” and hopes to return to represent his constituents in Staffordshire “as soon as possible”.A Conservative MP told The Independent he had been groped on two occasions by Mr Pincher, first in December 2021 and again last month.The Mail on Sunday reported that the former deputy chief aide he threatened to report a parliamentary researcher to her boss after she tried to stop his “lecherous” advances to a young man at a Tory party conference.And The Sunday Times alleged he made unwanted passes at two Conservative MPs in 2017 and 2018, after his first resignation as a whip over claims he made unwanted advances to Olympic rower and Conservative candidate Alex Story.According to the Sunday Telegraph, the PM’s decision in February to appoint Mr Pincher to help oversee party discipline led to protestations in the whips’ office and prompted resignation of another senior whip, Craig Whittaker.One of the latest alleged victims shared his anger at Mr Johnson over his handling of the incident at the exclusive Carlton Club on Wednesday.The man told The Sunday Times that he initially did not want to report the incident, thinking “this is something that happens in Westminster”.“But I am angered by the fact that I should feel like that, and even more angry by the way No 10 have dealt with it . . . I am furious. I know it sounds really silly but I felt shell-shocked when I found out they were initially going to let him keep the whip,” he added.Mr Pincher did not respond to requests for comment on the latest allegations, but the newspapers behind them said he denied the claims.Downing Street did not deny that there had been concerns about Mr Pincher before his appointment, but insisted Mr Johnson “was not aware of any specific allegations”.Mr Johnson initially resisted calls to remove the whip until Parliament’s Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme launched an investigation on Friday.The latest allegations came after the Conservative Party was hit by a series of scandals relating to sexual misconduct.In May, Neil Parish quit as MP for Tiverton and Honiton after admitting viewing pornography in the Commons chamber.A month earlier then-Wakefield MP Imran Ahmad Khan was jailed for 18 months for sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy.In both cases, the Conservatives lost the ensuing by-elections.A third unnamed Tory MP has been told by whips to stay away from Parliament after being arrested on suspicion of rape and other offences. More

Pensioners are being warned that the taxman will take his “chunk” of their increasing state benefit as analysis shows thousands of over 65’s will be forced to pay income tax this year.Some 400,000 pensioners will pay income tax this year because of the government pausing thresholds, according to analysis by the LCP consultancy firm.Figures released by the firm show that 1.2 million pensioners have been taken above the personal tax-free allowance threshold – which has been frozen for five years – since Boris Johnson won the 2019 general election.More than 7.7 million of them are now paying tax on their pensions and earnings, LCP says.It comes just months after the prime minister pledged to reinstate the “triple lock” on pensions next year, coming out of the Covid pandemic.The triple lock ensures that pensions increases by the highest of inflation, wage growth or 2.5 per cent, with the decision taken in September. Inflation is currently highest, running at 10 per cent and expected to remain there by September, meaning pensioners are set to see the benefit rise by 10 per cent in April next year.Sir Steve Webb, the ex-Liberal Democrat pensions minister now a partner at LCP, said the over-65s are going to face a higher tax burden.“Where pensioners have income apart from the state pension they are likely to be paying a much higher rate of tax today than a decade ago,” he told The Daily Telegraph.”This tax rate will rise still further in coming years because of the freezing of tax allowances until the mid 2020s”. Last month Downing Street defended its decision to reinstate the triple lock while insisting that public sector workers receiving pay rises in line with inflation would further stoke rising costs.Asked why state pensions will rise with inflation but not public sector pay, the prime minister’s official spokesperson said: “Pensioners, particularly those who receive state pensions, are disproportionately impacted by high energy costs.He noted the government took “difficult decisions with regards to the triple lock, a temporary one-year suspension”.Downing Street also denied its support for those hardest hit by the cost of living crisis will drive up soaring prices.Asked if the PM is worried that any upcoming tax cuts and increasing national insurance thresholds are still the right way forward, if the government wants to avoid inflationary factors, his spokesperson said: “Generally we think this is not something that will be inflationary. The thresholds, obviously, do provide an uplift to people’s salary but again, it will help those most vulnerable the most.“The measures we’ve introduced on cost of living, those who benefit most will be those who are hardest hit. So in those instances, we don’t think that helping those most in need during sort of a unique period is something that will drive up inflation.” More

Boris Johnson’s election pledge to build 40 new hospitals by 2030 is facing a review by the government’s official spending watchdog.The National Audit Office (NAO) is planning a “value for money review” that could consider increasing costs due to spiralling inflation and whether the hospitals will in fact be new.The investigation emerged in a letter to shadow health secretary Wes Streeting from NAO comptroller Gareth Davies after the Labour MP warned of a waste of taxpayers’ money. More

A Conservative MP has claimed he was groped on two occasions by Chris Pincher, who was suspended from the party on Friday after sexual misconduct allegations.Speaking exclusively to The Independent on the condition of anonymity, the man claims he was targeted twice by Mr Pincher, first in December 2021 and again last month.One alleged assault took place within the parliamentary estate in June, when the man claims Mr Pincher deliberately touched his genitals through his clothing and refused to remove his hand when asked. “He put his hand on my crotch and moved it around,” the MP said. “I shook my head and said no, I don’t want that, but he [Mr Pincher] just smiled… he carried on until I was able to move away.”During the first alleged incident, on an evening in December 2021 near the Tory-linked private members’ club the Carlton Club, the man said he was groped repeatedly, with Mr Pincher’s hand placed “firmly” on his backside.“It was really late and I’d worked stupid hours for days. I’d been drinking with a range of Westminster colleagues and it got very hazy. I remember suddenly being sharply aware of being touched in a sexual way,” the MP said.On both occasions, the touching was prolonged and sexually intimate, the man claimed, and he said he was limited in his capacity to resist after drinking.Mr Pincher firmly denies the allegations.The MP’s account comes amid a slew of claims about Mr Pincher’s behaviour since his resignation as deputy chief whip on Friday morning, following allegations that he had groped two men while drunk on Wednesday evening.Speaking for the first time since he stood down from his government job, Mr Pincher announced that he was seeking “professional medical support”. He would cooperate fully with the inquiry, he said, adding that the stresses of the last few days “on top of those over the last several months, have made me accept that I will benefit from professional medical support.“I am in the process of seeking that now, and I hope to be able to return to my constituency duties as soon as possible.”The prime minister suspended Mr Pincher from the party, but only after a call from a Tory MP who gave a “disturbing” account of his behaviour, a Downing Street source told the PA news agency. The events on 29 June allegedly took place at the Carlton Club, a private members club in central London, often frequented by Tory MPs, aides and activists.In May, news site Politico reported that an MP, later revealed to be Mr Pincher, had been given a minder to try to prevent him from drinking too much and getting into trouble.In his resignation letter to the prime minister, Mr Pincher wrote that he was standing down from the role because he “drank far too much” and had “embarrassed” himself and others.Earlier today, he said he was “truly sorry”, adding that he was seeking medical support and would cooperate fully with the parliamentary inquiry into the allegations. The MP who has made the latest allegations said he felt now was the right time to speak out about Mr Pincher’s alleged behaviour because there might be other victims, and because there was a wider problem of people turning “a blind eye to the abuse of younger men by older men” within parliament.He said: “We’re quite rightly more alert to the abuse of young women working in Westminster. We are starting to learn to spot the signs of older men targeting them. We’re blind, even more uncomfortable, with the idea that men target men.“I think people are scared that calling out abusive behaviour will be seen as homophobic,” he added.The MP said he previously mentioned that he was groped by Mr Pincher to a fellow Tory MP but it was “shrugged off” because “he was a known quantity”.He said he had not pursued a complaint through the Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme (ICGS) or the police to avoid the harm of being personally exposed.The MP added that Mr Pincher was a “disgrace to the party” and it was “unacceptable for him [Mr Pincher] to stay” in parliament.A formal complaint about Mr Pincher’s conduct was made on Friday to the ICGS, which is investigating his conduct.In what appears to be a separate claim, a young Conservative activist told The Times that Mr Pincher put his hand on his knee and told him he would “go far in the party” at an event during the Conservative Party conference in Manchester.Mr Pincher’s lawyers have said that he firmly denies the allegation, according to The Times’ report. More

Parliament is not a safe environment for staff MPs have warned following growing controversy over Boris Johnson’s delay in suspending a senior politician facing groping allegations. Chris Pincher, the former deputy chief whip, resigned from his government job on Thursday night. But he remained a Conservative MP for another 24 hours until the prime minister finally bowed to pressure from furious Tory MPs to remove the party whip. As “pestminster” allegations engulf Westminster for the third time in five years, shadow armed forces minister Luke Pollard warned that Parliament was “not a safe place to work” and that “higher standards” were needed in politics, in an interview with Sky News. Meanwhile, a Conservative MP told The Independent he did not bring interns in to parliament and would let them work only in his constituency office. “Staffers and other people who work in the House of Commons should be able to expect a minimum standard of behaviour,” he said. “But they can’t.”Meanwhile, pressure is growing on Boris Johnson to say what he knew and when about allegations around Mr Pincher. His former chief of staff Dominic Cummings, a persistent thorn in the prime minister’s side, tweeted: “If [Johnson] didn’t know about Pincher as he’s claiming, why did he repeatedly refer to him laughingly in No 10 as ‘pincher by name pincher by nature’ long before appointing him.” Tory Andrew Bridgen accused Downing Street of “double standards” and suggested that because Mr Pincher was an “arch loyalist” he was treated differently from Neil Parish, the MP forced to stand down after he admitted watching pornography in the Commons. Mr Pincher dramatically resigned as deputy chief whip after claims emerged that he had groped two men in a private members’ club. A parliamentary watchdog will now examine allegations against him. Today he said he was seeking “professional medical support” and suggested he would take time away from some of his duties as an MP. In a statement, Mr Pincher, who now sits as an independent, said: “I respect the prime minister’s decision to suspend the whip whilst an inquiry is underway, and I will cooperate fully with it.“As I told the prime minister, I drank far too much on Wednesday night, embarrassing myself and others, and I am truly sorry for the upset I caused.“The stresses of the last few days, coming on top of those over the last several months, have made me accept that I will benefit from professional medical support.“I am in the process of seeking that now, and I hope to be able to return to my constituency duties as soon as possible.”Since the first allegations emerged, further claims have been made. The Times reported a young Tory activist said he had received an unwanted sexual advance last year. The activist said the MP put his hand on his knee and told him he would “go far in the party” at last year’s party conference. Mr Pincher’s lawyers told the paper he firmly denied the allegation. In 2017 Mr Pincher also resigned from the whips office after ex-Olympic rower and Conservative candidate Alex Story alleged he touched him while making an unwanted pass.Mr Pincher said at the time: “I do not recognise either the events or the interpretation placed on them … if Mr Story has ever felt offended by anything I said then I can only apologise to him.”He was later cleared of breaching his party’s code of conduct over the allegations. More

Chris Pincher, the former deputy chief whip who resigned after he was accused of groping two men, has said he is seeking “professional medical support”. He also said he was “truly sorry” and would co-operate fully with the inquiry into his alleged behaviour at a private members’ club in London. He dramatically resigned from his government job on Thursday night after claims he groped two men in a private members’ club. But he remained a Conservative MP for another 24 hours until Boris Johnson finally bowed to pressure to remove the party whip.Now sitting as an independent, Mr Pincher is battling to remain in the House of Commons in the face of opposition from those who say his position is untenable.In a statement, he said: “I respect the Prime Minister’s decision to suspend the whip whilst an inquiry is underway, and I will co-operate fully with it.”As I told the Prime Minister, I drank far too much on Wednesday night, embarrassing myself and others, and I am truly sorry for the upset I caused.”The stresses of the last few days, coming on top of those over the last several months, have made me accept that I will benefit from professional medical support.”I am in the process of seeking that now, and I hope to be able to return to my constituency duties as soon as possible.” More

A “badly wounded” Boris Johnson is prepared to risk a recession to shore up support from his party’s right, a top union chief has warned, amid signs the UK is heading for months of industrial unrest.Frances O’Grady, the leader of the TUC, also called on red-wall Tory MPs in former Labour-held seats to rise up and demand better pay rises for workers, or face the consequences at the ballot box. As inflation soars, the list of groups striking or threatening to strike is growing daily and already includes teachers, junior doctors, barristers and rail workers, as well as airport staff and Royal Mail managers.Ministers have guaranteed pensions and benefits claimants will receive rises of up to 10 per cent to keep up with inflation, while preparing to offer much smaller sums to public sector workers. The prime minister has said public pay cannot increase sharply, for fear of fuelling a further rise in inflation.But a new poll for The Independent shows significant support for strikes by public sector workers. It found 59 per cent of the public would back a strike by nurses, 48 per cent doctors, 46 per cent postal workers and 45 per cent railway staff, although just 24 per cent supported walkouts by barristers.Ms O’Grady told The Independent she believed the prime minister was “badly wounded” and “jerking around” to court favour with the likes of the European Research Group of Eurosceptic MPs, who she said “don’t care about the living standards of working people”, after nearly 150 of his own backbenchers tried to oust him from Downing Street last month. She said: “I think the truth is that the government is staring in the face of a recession [and] they are figuring out the story for that. They believe recession is a necessary price, and that it’s working people who will pay it rather than trying to get the economy back on its feet and recognising that to do that you’ve got to boost demand and … you’ve got to boost people’s pay packets.” The swathe of red-wall MPs who won former Labour strongholds at the last election with a message of getting Brexit done should warn the prime minister that workers need fair pay rises if they don’t want to be punished by voters, she added. MPs in newly Tory seats in the north “should be raising their voices”, she said. “Working people in their constituencies want stronger rights and they want a fair deal in their pay packets,” she said. When it comes to the next election, she said: “I’m sure their own constituents are asking what they’re doing, and holding them to account.” Ms O’Grady also suggested the Partygate scandal has eroded trust in government pleas for wage restraint. Workers “just don’t trust them any more”, she said. They could also be forgiven for being cynical having heard “we’re all in it together before” under the austerity years of David Cameron. She also said ministers should realise workers are at their “wits’ end” and called on Mr Johnson to look a nurse in the eye and explain how she is going to manage with a real-terms cut to her income when she is already struggling.Downing Street has been approached for comment. More

The Home Office has admitted a policy which campaigners warn could cause thousands of people, including the vulnerable, to lose their jobs or homes risks comparisons with the Windrush scandal.  The government requires employers and private landlords to check the immigration status of potential tenants and workers before offering them housing or employment. But changes to the rules, introduced in April, outlaw the use of paper documents – even those dated until 2030 – held by many people eligible to stay in the UK after Brexit.The Home Office was heavily criticised in 2018 after it emerged that hundreds of people welcomed to the UK decades before had been denied access to basic rights such as housing and work, with some even deported, due to a lack of official documentation. The government had destroyed thousands of paper landing cards recording the dates Windrush immigrants arrived in the UK, despite warnings the move would make it difficult for older Caribbean nationals to prove how long they had been in the country. Ministers subsequently apologised and pledged to “learn lessons” from what had happened to ensure that the problems would not repeat themselves. Four years on, in its own equality impact assessment for the new rules to digitalise rent and work checks, quietly published only after pressure from peers, the Home Office admits vulnerable people who are eligible for EU settled status but do not realise they have to apply risk being affected.  The document states that some individuals wrongly believe they can rely on Home Office-issued documents that don’t expire until well into the future.“There may be vulnerable people in this cohort,” it warns, “and whilst these individuals do not have lawful status, unlike the Windrush generation who were in the UK lawfully, comparisons might be drawn by the media if they are denied access to work and accommodation”.  Yvette Cooper, Labour’s shadow home secretary, said: “The Home Office has totally failed to learn the lessons of the Windrush scandal. Once again they are putting people’s homes, jobs and livelihoods at risk. “Requiring landlords and employers only to do online checks when many of them either can’t or won’t will create even more risk of unfair discrimination and hostile treatment. This is the opposite of the approach Wendy Williams recommended in the Windrush Review. “It is shocking that Home Office ministers have done this and is a betrayal of the commitments made both to EU citizens who have lived here for years and to the Windrush generation.”Luke Piper, legal director at charity the3million, said thousands of people eligible for EU settlement but who do not realise they need to apply will be affected by the move. “They had legal status before Brexit happened, then Brexit happened and took their rights away,” he added. “The Home Office said they had to apply and were saying at that time, very loudly, that not everybody is going to apply in time and they will feel the consequences of it. This is exactly that cohort.”“These people were living here lawfully, they had a legitimate expectation that they were allowed to stay, they didn’t follow an administrative process, and they’re now losing out on work, rent and other things that they would otherwise be entitled to. That’s pretty much identical to Windrush.”The assessment, written last October before the policy came into force, but only published last week, also admits that some people have not applied for EU settlement because they believe they can rely on physical documents, such as a biometric residence card (BRC), to prove their leave to remain.Employers or landlords can now be liable for a civil penalty if they accept the card as proof.“Some individuals believe they can rely on Home Office-issued documents that don’t expire until well into the future, such as an unexpired BRC (up to 2030) as evidence of lawful status,” the document states.“Posts on the Home Office Facebook page prior to the end of the grace period confirmed some believe they do not need to make an application until their BRC expires.”The assessment warns that by last June, 51,000 eligible people had not yet applied. The Home Office has declined to provide an updated figure.The ban on physical documents has come about because ministers want to make the entire border and immigration system “digital by default” by 2024.Zehrah Hasan, advocacy director at the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, said: “Instead of learning lessons from Windrush, this government has decided to entrench and expand the hostile environment which was at the root of the scandal. “We warned them that keeping this dangerous set of policies would push thousands more people into destitution and risk of deportation, including many EU nationals post-Brexit. Sadly for many, those fears are now becoming a reality.”A Home Office spokesperson said: “There have already been more than 5.8 million grants of status under the hugely successful EU settlement scheme, which we developed to ensure our EU citizen friends and neighbours could secure the status they need to stay here, rent and work.“Extensive information has been published to advise non-EU citizen family members of the need to apply to the scheme and we have put support in place for those who need help applying.” More