Markus Andrews

Downing Street staff were advised to “clean up” their phones by removing information that could suggest lockdown parties were held at No 10, The Independent has been told.Two sources claim a senior member of staff told them it would be a “good idea” to remove any messages implying they had attended or were even aware of anything that could “look like a party”. Boris Johnson is facing an internal investigation into lockdown-breaching parties, being carried out by senior civil servant Sue Gray, and fury at revelations that 100 Downing Street workers were invited by email to a drinks event on 20 May 2020, when Britons were allowed to meet only one other person outdoors.Deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner said it raised “yet more questions for a prime minister who seems to have no answers”.The “clean-up” suggestion was made early last month after the first reports emerged of parties at Downing Street, the sources allege.One said they were “told to clean up their phone just in case” they had to hand it in to the investigation.A second said: “I was being leant on [during the discussion with a senior colleague] and told to get rid of anything that could look bad.”Both sources told The Independent they felt under pressure to delete communications and images. The claims that a senior member of staff directed junior colleagues to remove potential evidence contradicts an email, also sent in December, that instructed staff not to destroy any material that could prove pertinent to an investigation, criminal or otherwise. This was meant to refer to emails, WhatsApp messages, and calendar invitations, but it was allegedly not observed by some staff, many of whom conducted discussions via WhatsApp on their personal phones as well as work devices.Personal phones cannot be accessed by Ms Gray’s investigation unless staff volunteer them. However, staff can be forced to hand over workplace handsets.With many staff who attended lockdown-busting events no longer working at No 10, and others having wiped messages from their phones, it will be hard for Ms Gray to gather all available evidence of wrongdoing, sources claim. Emails at No 10 are automatically deleted after 90 days for security reasons. This is also the case in some other sensitive government departments but not all. Ultimately, deleted emails can be recovered from servers, but this is far more challenging than accessing historic messages in some other departments, according to people familiar with the process. Lord Evans of Weardale, chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, said civil servants should remember that all messages that are relevant to government business ought to be retained and recorded. A No 10 spokesperson told The Independent that they did not recognise the claims. “Staff were given clear guidance to retain any relevant information. As set out in the terms of reference, all staff are expected to fully co-operate with the investigation,” the spokesperson said.Ms Rayner said: “The latest revelations about this scandal raise yet more questions for a prime minister who seems to have no answers.“From missing minutes to secret WhatsApp messages, a culture of cover-up is endemic in Boris Johnson’s No 10 and the rot starts at the top.“The prime minister has a habit of trying to dodge scrutiny, but the consequences are catching up with him. The public deserve to know the truth about what went on while they were making so many sacrifices to obey the rules.”Liberal Democrat Home Affairs spokesperson Alistair Carmichael said: “Destroying evidence for what may soon be a police investigation is an incredibly serious offence. “No wonder the public has lost all faith in Boris Johnson’s Downing Street. This would be a new low, even for his government. “Sue Gray must ask all those involved if they have been pressured or ordered to delete messages and emails relating to any parties. If a cover-up took place, then it must be exposed and all details made public. There should be no more hiding or lying from this prime minister.” More

Leading Conservatives in northern England say Boris Johnson must resign if he attended a Downing Street garden party at the height of the 2020 lockdown.Senior Red Wall Tories voiced anger on Tuesday at finding themselves once again having to placate voters furious about allegations the prime minister broke his own coronavirus rules.They fear that Mr Johnson may now be so toxic it will lose the party both parliamentary and council seats at future elections.“If he is found to have attended this gathering, as they call it, he has no option but to resign,” Alan Marshall, a cabinet member with Darlington council, told The Independent. “I stress that caveat: ‘if’. But if he went [to the party], absolutely he has to go. Being prime minister does not put you above the rules or the law.”Mr Johnson has refused to say whether he attended a drinks event in the garden of 10 Downing Street on 20 May 2020, a time when Britons were only allowed to meet one other person outdoors.An email inviting roughly 100 staff to the “BYOB” event was sent out by the PM’s principal private secretary, Martin Reynolds.Mr Johnson has refused to comment until an inquiry into several alleged parties said to have been held in Downing Street has been concluded by senior civil servant Sue Gray, but witnesses have said he attended the event.Antony Mullen, the Conservative leader on Sunderland City Council, said: “Martin Reynolds should have been sacked, and I think Boris Johnson will inevitably have to follow him”.Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s World At One programme, he added: “I think this is such an atrocity, I can’t see how he can survive… It is now a question of the scale of the wrongdoing rather than whether there has been any.”The criticism from within the PM’s own party came as a poll showed two-thirds of voters believe he should resign in the wake of the latest No 10 party allegations, which follow claims of other Downing Street gatherings during strict Covid restrictions in the winter of 2020.Councillor Marshall, who sits on the first Tory council in Darlington for 40 years, told The Independent: “I’ll reserve my full judgement until the investigation comes out but, if the s*** hits the fan, we [in the north] will have to deal with that.”Darlington is widely considered one of the jewels in the Conservatives’ take-over of the north’s old Labour heartlands, and the Tory council victory in May 2019 foretold that year’s general election landslide.“At a local level, we are making good progress and people are recognising that,” Councillor Marshall said. “But these constant controversies from Westminster – it makes the job harder and it will certainly make winning elections harder.”Douglas Ross, the Scottish Conservative leader, has also called on the PM to resign, and other northern Tory leaders have voiced fears Mr Johnson’s comments will hurt them locally.Adrian De La Mare, the leader of the Conservative group on Lancaster city council, told The Independent: “Put it like this: there is a feeling among people here that there has been a dual standard, and that doesn’t sit well with them.”Although he declined to comment on the PM’s future, he said: “I believe that anyone who goes into public service has to abide by the rules and the laws in place and, if they don’t … there needs to be a way of moving forward.”He pointedly added that he would not have attended an invitation to drinks on that date “because the rules were very clear”.Speaking on condition of anonymity, other Conservatives were less diplomatic.“The crucial thing about Boris was that he could win elections by appealing to voters who weren’t traditionally Conservative,” said one council cabinet member. “That’s gone now. So you have to ask: what does he bring to the table as leader?”Perhaps just as telling about the feeling towards Mr Johnson within the party were the number of Conservatives across the region who declined to defend him.Ben Houchen, the mayor of the Tees Valley, refused to comment, while the party’s intake of 2019 young northern MPs, including Jacob Young and Dehenna Davison, remained silent on the issue. More

Senior Conservatives have turned on Boris Johnson over the “partygate” scandal, as the prime minister dodged demands to reveal whether he attended a Downing Street drinks event at the height of the Covid lockdown.The leader of Tories in Scotland, Douglas Ross, called on the prime minister to come clean, and warned that he would have to resign if he had broken the rules. Meanwhile another former minister branded the situation “humiliating”, while a senior Tory backbencher told The Independent that Mr Johnson’s position would be “difficult” if a probe by Whitehall mandarin Sue Gray found against him.Mr Johnson dodged a House of Commons debate on the row, sending a junior minister to answer an urgent question from Labour on his behalf. But he will be dependent on supportive Tory MPs to rally behind him when he faces a hostile grilling at the weekly session of prime minister’s questions on Wednesday.An overwhelming two-thirds (66 per cent) of voters – including 42 per cent of those who backed Tories in the 2019 election – polled by Savanta ComRes said that Johnson should resign over the issue, up 12 points on a similar survey in December. Fewer than a quarter (24 per cent) said he should stay.Downing Street and a succession of ministers insisted that the government could not comment on the “bring your own booze” party in the No 10 garden on 20 May 2020 until Ms Gray’s investigation is concluded.But Ruth Davidson, the former leader of Scottish Conservatives, responded: “This line won’t survive 48 hours. Nobody needs an official to tell them if they were at a boozy shindig in their own garden.“People are rightly furious. They sacrificed so much – visiting sick or grieving relatives, funerals. What tf were any of these people thinking?”Mr Johnson’s official spokesperson refused to say whether the PM had approved an invitation to “socially distanced drinks” sent to 100 No 10 staffers by his principal private secretary Martin Reynolds – or whether Mr Johnson had himself initiated the plan. There was no official denial of claims that Mr Johnson and his wife Carrie were present at the event, where around 40 members of staff are understood to have eaten picnic food and drunk wine set out on a long table in the warm sunshine.But former Downing Street officials who spoke to The Independent said there was “zero chance” that the invite could have been sent without the prime minister or his senior political advisers being consulted.At the least, it was likely that Mr Johnson would have given verbal approval, said one.And another said such a plan would never have been hatched under his predecessors Theresa May or David Cameron.“The tone is definitely set from the top,” said the former insider. “From what I’ve heard from people still in the building, there was very much an attitude that it was OK for them to be doing that kind of thing – the justification being that they were all working very hard and needed to keep morale up.”Mr Ross said he was “furious” over the Reynolds email, which put rocket boosters under the row over parties which Mr Johnson hoped had been defused over the Christmas break.“I can understand that feeling of fury, anger and rage that people across the UK are feeling right now,” the Scottish Tory leader said.“’It’s not pre-judging Sue Gray’s inquiry for the prime minister to come forward and say if he was at the party or not… We should hear the answer right now.“If he has breached his own guidance, if he has not been truthful, then that is an extremely important issue. And I’ve said previously, if the prime minister has misled parliament, then he must resign.”And the former No 10 chief of staff to Theresa May, Tory peer Lord Barwell, said it was “not entirely clear why the prime minister needs to wait for Sue Gray’s report to find out if he went to a party in his own garden”.At the time of the alleged party, Britons were permitted to meet with only one person out of doors.In the House of Commons, a string of MPs told how they and their constituents had been unable to support loved ones, with DUP MP Jim Shannon overcome with emotion as he described how his mother-in-law died alone as relatives obeyed lockdown rules.Manchester Gorton MP Afzal Khan told the Commons: “My mum died of Covid in March 2020. She died alone in hospital while I sat in the car outside trying to be as close to her as I could. Even burdened with our grief, my family obeyed the rules.”Labour MP Jo Stevens said Welsh first minister Mark Drakeford had moved into a hut in his garden to protect his shielding wife and mother-in-law.Only a handful of Tory MPs turned out to hear cabinet office minister Michael Ellis respond that there was “absolutely no indication” that the prime minister knowingly misled parliament when he said that lockdown rules had been observed in Downing Street.Asked if Mr Johnson would resign if he was shown to have broken the law, Mr Ellis replied: “It is an entirely hypothetical position. The prime minister is going nowhere.Campaign group Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice wrote to Mr Johnson urging him to “do the right thing” and say whether he attended the garden party and calling on him to apologise for “smirking” when asked about it during a TV interview.Group member Hannah Brady said her father’s death certificate was being signed on the day of the Number 10 gathering.“You can only imagine the pain, anguish and anger this news has brought to me and those of us lost a loved one to Covid-19,” she told the PM.Former defence minister Johnny Mercer apologised for the situation in a message to a constituent “I’m sorry. It’s humiliating, and does not reflect the majority of my colleagues who at least try and lead by example.”And a senior Tory backbencher told The Independent that the party’s MPs were ”p***ed off” after thinking the Christmas break had given them the chance of a fresh start.The MP said that there was “no avalanche” of letters being sent to 1922 Committee chair Sir Graham Brady, who must order a no-confidence vote if 55 MPs demand it.But the MP added: “If (Ms Gray) concludes the prime minister was wrong in quite a hard-hitting way, his position becomes difficult. When there’s so much about bending the rules, ignoring the rules – you can only go on for so long.”One loyal Tory said that MPs were “getting flak” from constituents because of Mr Johnson’s refusal to clarify if he attended the party.The former minister told The Independent: “It would be far better if he were to fess up. I think that a clean breast approach would take quite a bit of heat out of the situation.”Major Conservative donor John Caudwell issued an ultimatum to Mr Johnson: “Sort it out, Boris, or step aside and let someone else sort it out so that the Tories aren’t wiped out at the next election.”And Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said: “Boris Johnson, your deflections and distractions are absurd. Not only did you know about the parties in Downing Street, you attended them.“Stop lying to the British public. It’s time to finally come clean.” More

A Labour motion seeking to force a cut in VAT on energy bills amid concerns over a looming cost-of-living crisis has been defeated in the Commons by Tory MPs.MPs voted by 319 to 229 — a majority of 90 — against the proposal, with Anne Marie Morris the only Conservative MP to rebel and support the measure.If the motion had passed the Commons it would have forced government ministers to guarantee time for legislation on a VAT cut to energy bills ahead of an expected hike this spring.Labour has previously said it would tax North Sea oil and gas companies to pay for the reduction in VAT, which the party said could “save households £200 off their bills, with up to £600 in total for those who need it most”.After the motion was defeated, Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, said Conservative MP had been given the “opportunity to put families, pensioners and struggling businesses first, with a VAT cut on energy bills”.“They voted against it,” he added. “Instead of providing security for those who need it the most, the Conservatives are abandoning them”.Speaking in the Commons, the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, who accused the chancellor Rishi Sunak of being in “hiding”, said the companies had “profited massively because of exploding prices”.Boris Johnson, whose government is scrambling for a solution over concerns of the cost-of-living, has previously dismissed the option of cutting VAT, describing it as a “blunt instrument” — despite parading the option to scrap the “unfair and damaging tax” during the Brexit referendum.Earlier this week, however, he admitted more must be done to protect families, especially those on low incomes, from an imminent hike in energy bills, with an extension to the winter homes discount reportedly under consideration.The increase in consumers’ bills will also coincide with a manifesto-busting hike in national insurance, leading to major concerns, including in Conservative circles, over the cost-of-living.Echoing the prime minister’s comments in the Commons on Tuesday, Simon Clarke, the chief secretary to the Treasury, said: “No-one in this government is under any illusion about the challenges families are facing with their household finances and we will of course continue to look closely at all the options that exist.”He told MPs: “The government recognises the pressure that people are facing on their household finances including on their energy bills and we have taken steps already to ease those pressures where and when we can and we will of course continue to look at other things that we can do.“The reality is that the higher inflation that we’ve seen is primarily due to global factors relating to a large degree to the fallout from the pandemic and to a global spike in energy costs.” More

Boris Johnson should resign if it is shown he broke lockdown rules, the leader of Conservatives in Scotland has said.Douglas Ross said the prime minister should make clear immediately whether he attended a drinks event in the garden of 10 Downing Street on 20 May 2020, at a time when Britons were allowed to meet only one other person outdoors.Describing the situation as “a complete mess”, Mr Ross told Sky News: “This is a complete mess. It undermines everything that the government is doing.”“People are rightly furious about these revelations because they followed the rules, they sacrificed all these things back in May 2020 and it looks like some of the very top government didn’t.” Downing Street has insisted that it will not comment on allegations relating to the event while an inquiry is under way by Whitehall mandarin Sue Gray into a number of alleged parties.But Mr Ross said there was no need for the PM to wait for Ms Gray to report – or even to remain quiet until he faces MPs at prime minister’s questions in the Commons on Wednesday.“I’m furious, people across Scotland and across the United Kingdom are furious,” he told said.“I can understand that feeling of fury, anger and rage that people across the UK are feeling right now.”Mr Ross said there was no reason why the PM could not break his silence on whether he attended the 20 May party.“’It’s not pre-judging Sue Gray’s inquiry for the prime minister to come forward and say if he was at the party or not.“That’s a crucial question that won’t in any way undermine Sue Gray’s investigation. It will let the public know right now if he was there or not.“That’s a crucial question that shouldn’t have to wait for prime minister’s questions tomorrow. We should hear the answer right now.”Mr Ross added: “If he has breached his own guidance, if he has not been truthful, then that is an extremely important issue. And I’ve said previously, if the prime minister has misled parliament, then he must resign.“If there’s nothing to hide here, if there’s no issue, then just answer the question.“And if there is, then that is an acceptance that he himself breached the guidance that his government were putting in place – the guidance  that stopped people going to family members’ funerals, that stopped people grieving together.“Doctors and nurses were working flat out to get this virus under control, and people across the country were following some of the strictest guidance we’ve ever seen.“If the prime minister and others in No 10 breached that guidance, when earlier that afternoon a cabinet minister had told people what they’re expected to do, yet out the back of No 10 there were people enjoying the sunshine in the garden, I think that is utterly despicable.”Mr Ross said Mr Johnson could “absolutely not” stay on if he was found to have broken the law.“This is a law … that constituents up and down the country have suffered as a result of. They have been fined, they have been punished for breaking the rules that the UK government put in place.“If the UK government and the prime minister have broken those rules, then they must be punished too.” More

Allegations that Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s staff held a “bring your own booze” garden party while Britain was in lockdown are just the latest claims of wrongdoing to rattle the leader.Cases of rule-bending and dishonesty have followed Johnson through his twin careers as journalist and politician. He was once fired from a newspaper for making up a quote, and later ousted from a Conservative Party post for lying about an extramarital affair. He has always bounced back. But now discontent is growing inside Johnson’s own Conservative Party over a leader often accused of acting as if rules don’t apply to him.Here’s a look at the scandals Johnson is currently facing.CASH FOR CURTAINSJohnson has faced months of allegations over refurbishment of the Downing Street apartment that prime ministers use as their official residence. Leaders are granted 30,000 pounds ($41,000) a year for upkeep, but after Johnson and his now-wife, Carrie, took up residence in 2019, they undertook a much more expensive overhaul, complete with designer wallpaper and pricey furniture.Johnson’s office initially said he had paid for the redecoration himself, but it was later disclosed that it had been funded by a wealthy Conservative Party donor, David Brownlow.Christopher Geidt, an ethics adviser appointed by Johnson, said the prime minister did not know where the money came from until the media reported it in early 2021, after which he paid it back.“I have covered the costs. I have met the requirements I am obliged to meet in full,” Johnson said in April.Geidt cleared the prime minister of wrongdoing in May.After the media published WhatsApp exchanges between Johnson and Brownlow suggesting the prime minister did know where the money came from, Geidt last week expressed “grave concern” that information had been withheld from him. But he did not overturn his earlier ruling.Separately, Britain’s political regulator, the Electoral Commission, fined the Conservative Party 17,800 pounds ($24,000) in December for failing properly to disclose details of the refurbishment money.___LAX LOBBYING RULESIn November, the House of Commons’ standards committee said Conservative lawmaker Owen Paterson should be suspended for a month after he was found to have broken lobbying rules by advocating on behalf of two companies that were paying him.Instead of backing the suspension — as has happened in all previous cases — Johnson’s government ordered Conservative lawmakers to block it and instead overhaul the entire standards procedure.That sparked a furious outcry — from Conservatives as well as the opposition — and the government reversed course the next day. Paterson resigned, and in a special election to replace him the Liberal Democrats ousted the Conservatives in a district that had long been a party stronghold.Johnson insisted at the time that “the U.K. is not remotely a corrupt country.” But the Paterson affair prompted calls to tighten Britain’s loose rules on lobbying and lawmakers’ second jobs. That effort gathered steam after the revelation that one legislator had earned 400,000 pounds ($545,000) a year as a lawyer while also serving as a member of Parliament. So far, no formal investigation into the rules has been called.___ILLICIT PARTIESAmong the most damaging allegations are that Johnson and his staff repeatedly flouted the strict restrictions the government imposed on the nation during the pandemic.It started with the revelation that Johnson’s then-top aide, Dominic Cummings, drove 250 miles (400 kilometers) across England to his parents’ house in March 2020 while the country was under a “stay-at-home” order.Johnson resisted calls to fire Cummings, but later fell out with his adviser, who left the government and has become a fierce critic. Cummings is among those alleging that government staff held a series of lockdown-breaching gatherings at the prime minister’s Downing Street office and residence, including Christmas parties in November and December 2020 and a garden party in May 2020 to which almost 100 people were invited. British media are reporting that the May party was attended by the prime minister and his wife.Johnson and his spokespeople have refused to comment on the latest party allegations, citing an ongoing inquiry by a senior civil servant — but he has previously said he broke no rules. Asked about the garden party on Monday, Johnson said: “All that, as you know, is the subject of a proper investigation by Sue Gray.”Gray is expected to report her findings by the end of the month. More

Two-thirds of voters believe Boris Johnson should resign as prime minister amid outcry over the latest reports of a rule-breaking drinks party in the No 10 rose garden.The survey will come as a blow to Mr Johnson as he faces growing questions over his own involvement in the gathering — after a leaked email showed over 100 Downing Street staff were invited to “bring your own booze” event on 20 May, 2020.At the time, England was still emerging from the first strict national lockdown to contain the spread of Covid, with members of the public banned from meeting more than one other person outdoors.According to the pollsters Savanta ComRes, a clear majority (66 per cent) said the prime minister should now resign, including 42 per cent of those who cast their vote for the Conservatives at the 2019 winter election.It represents a 12-point increase on a previous snap poll by the organisation in December in the wake of separate allegations of a party held at No 10 during the winter of 2020 when London faced tough Covid restrictions.Of the 1,040 UK adults surveyed, Savanta ComRes added that under a quarter (24 per cent) said the prime minister should not resign.When asked whether Mr Johnson was still an “asset” to the Tory party, those who voted for the party in 2019 were equally divided, with 45 per cent saying he was no longer an asset and 45 per cent suggesting he remained and asset.A further 65 per cent of those polled said Martin Reynolds, a senior civil servant and the prime minister’s principal private secretary who sent the email to No 10 staff ahead of the 20 May event, should also resign.Chris Hopkins, the political research director at Savanta ComRes, said: “A 12pt increase in those saying he should resign compared to Christmas party-gate is is significant, but ultimately it’s not the court of public opinion that Johnson will be tried in; it’s his own party”.He added: “If, as in December, the scandal leads to the Conservative vote share collapsing in the opinion polls, the doubts among among those who used to see Johnson’s electoral successes as his saving grace will no doubt increase, and the major difference between now and early December is that the Tories do not have a poll lead to act as a cushion to break the PM’s fall.“Increased Labour leads that point to Keir Starmer in No.10 really could see Tory backbenchers get tetchy, and they may start the wheels in motion to replace Johnson as prime minister.”The poll coincided with a separate survey from YouGov, which also found 56 per cent of people thought the prime minister should resign, with 27 per cent saying he should remain in post and 17 per cent saying they did not know.When a similar question about whether Mr Johnson should remain as leader of the Conservative Party was posed by YouGov on November 22, 48 per cent said he should stand down, piling pressure on the prime minister. More

An MP has broken down in tears while questioning a Tory minister about allegations of a lockdown-breaking Downing Street party.Northern Irish politician Jim Shannon struggled to contain his emotion as he revealed his mother-in-law died alone during the coronavirus pandemic.He told the Commons: “In Northern Ireland we reached the milestone of 3,000 deaths due to Covid just last week.“Including my mother-in-law, who died alone.”Mr Shannon, DUP MP for Strangford, paused to compose himself before trying to continue with his question, though visibly upset.Asking for “full and complete disclosure”, the MP asked whether the results of an inquiry into allegations a party was held at Number 10 during the height of the pandemic would be made public. He ended his remarks saying “sorry” to the Speaker.Paymaster general Michael Ellis said he was “very sorry” for Mr Shannon’s loss as he confirmed they would be made public. It comes after a leaked email revealed more than 100 Downing Street staff were invited to a party in the No 10 garden and told to “bring your own booze”.Follow our live UK politics blogBoris Johnson has refused to say whether he attended – but a source told The Independent the prime minister had “hung out” with staff for at least an hour as they knocked back drinks.The party took place on 20 May 2020, as England was still emerging from the strict first national lockdown and meetings with more than one other person outdoors were still banned.Angela Rayner, the deputy Labour leader, demanded Mr Johnson respond to an urgent question in the Commons on Tuesday.But Mr Ellis was dispatched to answer questions from MPs instead, with the prime minister’s spokesperson insisting it was “not uncommon for government ministers to answer these sorts of questions”.The Liberal Democrats accused Mr Johnson of “running scared” and “hiding behind the smokescreen” of an inquiry spearheaded by senior civil servant Sue Gray, who has been tasked with investigating allegations of rule breaking in government buildings. More