Markus Andrews

Business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng has apologised to parliament’s standards commissioner for suggesting she should lose her job.Mr Kwarteng sparked outrage in a series of broadcast interviews on 4 November, when he defended Boris Johnson’s attempt to overturn Kathryn Stone’s sleaze verdict on Owen Paterson, and suggested the commissioner should “decide her position”.Within hours of the interviews, the prime minister conducted a humiliating U-turn, withdrawing plans to appoint a Tory-dominated committee to rewrite the House of Commons standards rules amid a furious backlash from public opinion and opposition parties.Labour demanded an investigation by the PM’s ethics adviser Lord Geidt into Mr Kwarteng’s comments, which the party’s deputy leader Angela Rayner suggested could amount to an attempt to bully an independent official.Now Mr Kwarteng has written to Ms Stone to say that he “should have chosen my words more carefully”.“I did not mean to express doubt about your ability to discharge your role and I apologise for any upset or distress my choice of words may have caused,” wrote the business secretary.“I recognise that it is incumbent on ministers to adhere to the high standards of the Ministerial Code, including ensuring that our words are carefully chosen and that we treat others with consideration and respect.“I therefore regret if the words I used on this occasion have given the impression of having fallen short of these high standards.”Mr Johnson’s botched attempt to save former Brexit ally Paterson from a proposed 30-day suspension was widely seen as an effort to undermine Ms Stone.The independent commissioner has sparked Tory anger with a number of investigations, including a finding that Mr Johnson had breached Commons rules by failing to establish how a luxury Caribbean holiday he and wife Carrie took in 2019 was funded.Ms Stone is also set to announce shortly whether she will launch an investigation into the refurbishment of Mr Johnson’s flat above 11 Downing Street.Speaking the morning after Tory MPs voted to set aside the Commons Standards Committee sanction against Mr Paterson until the completion of a review of the rulebook, Mr Kwarteng suggested that Ms Stone should consider resigning.“I think it’s difficult to see what the future of the commissioner is, given the fact that we’re reviewing the process and we’re overturning and trying to reform this whole process,” the business secretary told Sky News.“But it’s up to the commissioner to decide her position.”Pushed on what he meant by “decide her position”, the MP for Spelthorne in Surrey said: “It’s up to her to do that.“I mean, it’s up to anyone where they’ve made a judgment and people have sought to change that, to consider their position, that’s a natural thing, but I’m not saying she should resign.” More

Boris Johnson has defended his record on wearing face coverings, insisting: “I wear a mask wherever the rules say that I should”.The prime minister has come under attack recently for appearing without a mask when sat alongside 95-year-old Sir David Attenborough at the Cop26 climate change conference in Glasgow and when visiting a Northumberland hospital.Health officials said the PM had worn a mask for “the majority” of his visit to Hexham General Hospital earlier this month, but confirmed he had to be reminded to put it back on.Challenged over the incidents during a Downing Street press conference today, Mr Johnson denied flouting the rules.“I wear a mask wherever the rules say that I should and I urge everybody else to do the same,” said the PM.“People will actually have seen me wearing face coverings quite a bit more regularly recently, as we’ve seen the the numbers ticking up in in the UK. I think that’s the responsible thing to do and I’m going to continue to do that.”But he stressed that, under the government’s Plan A on dealing with coronavirus during the autumn and winter months, mask-wearing is now a matter of personal responsibility rather than a legal requirement.“We’re going to continue with our approach, which is to rely on people’s common sense, people’s sense of personal responsibility to themselves and to others,” he said.“But clearly, in confined spaces where you’re meeting people that you don’t normally meet, you should wear a face covering. That’s the advice we’re giving.”Mr Johnson has previously described his decision not to wear a covering when sat by the masked Attenborough as a “judgement call” of the kind which people have to take on whether they are at a reasonable distance from others and whether they are with people they don’t normally meet. More

The word “sleaze” summed up a series of scandals that afflicted John Major’s government, allowing journalists to link financial corruption with personal infidelity. Now, something similar is happening to Boris Johnson’s government. This time, the emphasis is more on financial impropriety, as Owen Paterson, the Conservative former cabinet minister, has resigned as an MP after being found to have engaged in paid lobbying.But the prime minister’s private life has also been dragged into the story, with new revelations over the weekend from Jennifer Arcuri, his lover when he was mayor of London, who claims he asked her how he could help her “as you make your career”.Since the prime minister tried to block Paterson’s punishment and then backtracked when he realised the scale of the outcry, the headlines have been filled with stories about MPs’ second jobs and potential conflicts of interest in government.It turned out that Sir Geoffrey Cox, the former attorney general, has been earning large sums of money as a barrister based in the Caribbean, claiming his Torridge and West Devon constituents didn’t mind. The Metropolitan Police turned down a request from a Scottish National Party MP that it should investigate whether peerages had been sold for Tory party donations. And a string of Tory MPs have attracted attention for being paid by companies that won public sector contracts.That has revived interest in the way in which emergency coronavirus contracts were awarded, while another group of Tory MPs seem to have advocated policies in parliament without declaring their interest in companies that might benefit.The opposition has not escaped the storm, with Keir Starmer’s declarations of payments for legal work before he became leader coming under scrutiny, and questions asked about why he even thought about taking a consultancy role of the kind that the Labour Party wants to ban. Sir Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat leader, has two advisory roles with a law firm and an energy company, which he defends as the money is used to benefit his disabled son.The whole furore started because Paterson and many of his allies among Tory MPs felt that the system for enforcing standards rules on MPs was flawed, mainly because it did not allow MPs any further right of appeal after Kathryn Stone, the standards commissioner, and the standards committee, made up half of MPs and half non-MPs, had decided against them. (Except, of course, for an appeal to the whole House of Commons, which has to approve or change the committee’s decision, which is where the trouble started in Paterson’s case.)Chris Bryant, the Labour chair of the standards committee, has asked a “senior judicial figure” to advise on whether the system ought to be changed. Meanwhile, the Labour Party wants to ban MPs from taking consultancy jobs and paid directorships – while allowing them to carry on being doctors and other jobs of which public opinion approves.If you have questions about ethical standards in public life, I will be on hand on Tuesday lunchtime to answer as many as I can. You can ask me anything about the prime minister’s sex life, but I can’t guarantee that I’ll give much of an answer – I’ll try to focus on questions about how to protect the public interest when MPs take second jobs or former ministers take subsequent ones.If you have a question, submit it now, or when I join you live at 1pm on Tuesday 16 November for an “Ask Me Anything” event.To get involved all you have to do is register to submit your question in the comments below.If you’re not already a member, click “sign up” in the comments box to leave your question. Don’t worry if you can’t see your question – they may be hidden until I join the conversation to answer them. Then join us live on this page at 1pm as I tackle as many questions as I can. More

Watch live as Jonathan Van-Tam leads briefing on Covid booster jabsBrexit has led to UK firms paying tariffs on up to £9.5bn of exports – despite Boris Johnson’s claims of a “tariff-free” deal, an investigation has revealed. In other news, MPs are set to vote on whether to scrap the controversial standards reforms that sparked Westminster’s sleaze row.A motion to rescind the so-called Leadsom amendment, which looked to establish a review of the MPs standards investigation process and delay Owen Paterson’s suspension for breaking lobbying rules, has been tabled by Commons Leader Jacob Rees-Mogg for Monday.It comes as the prime minister admitted for the first time that he could have handled the Paterson affair “better”.Show latest update

1636987490Boris Johnson hails ‘incredible bravery’ of taxi driver caught in Liverpool hospital bombBoris Johnson has hailed the “incredible bravery” of a taxi driver caught up in the terrorist bombing outside Liverpool Women’s Hospital.Speaking to reporters while on a visit to a medical centre in London, the prime minister said he could not comment on specific details because the investigation is ongoing but praised the taxi driver, who has been named locally as David Perry.Watch and read his comments here:Chiara Giordano15 November 2021 14:441636985742Boris Johnson accused of diluting Northern Powerhouse Rail plansBoris Johnson’s government has been accused of watering down proposals to upgrade train services in the north of England and the Midlands viewed as key to “levelling up” the country outside London.The Independent revealed last month that the Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) plans were to be scaled back as the Treasury tightened its purse strings, with local transport chiefs warning that Liverpool, Manchester, West Yorkshire and the North East could miss out on improvements.Matt Mathers has the full story:Chiara Giordano15 November 2021 14:151636984369‘Intensified talks’ over Northern Ireland protocolGoing back to Brexit, Downing Street said “intensified talks” will continue over Northern Ireland Protocol issues.The prime minister’s official spokesperson would not put a deadline on when talks would continue until but insisted the UK side was still keen to reach a “consensual solution”.He said: “There are significant gaps between our positions and as we set out in the July command paper, we believe the conditions for Article 16 have been met.“But again, we are going to be continuing talks, intensified talks, between the two teams to try and find a consensual solution.”Additional reporting by PAZoe Tidman15 November 2021 13:521636981739UK can ‘lobby and encourage’ other countries on climate commitments – No10 Downing Street said the UK can “lobby and encourage” but cannot force other nations to commit to climate promises.The prime minister’s official spokesperson said: “But we will continue to keep the pressure on, that’s something that Alok Sharma will continue to do as his role as Cop President this year, to ensure those countries who have made commitments stand by them and those where we feel can do more, we will keep the pressure on to encourage them to come forward with further action.”Zoe Tidman15 November 2021 13:081636979907Boris Johnson to hold Covid press conference at 3pmBoris Johnson is to hold a Covid-19 press conference with the government’s chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance and England’s chief medical officer Professor Chris
Whitty at 3pm, Downing Street has said.Chiara Giordano15 November 2021 12:381636978855Tariffs paid on £9.5bn of UK exports to EU despite Boris Johnson’s claim of ‘tariff-free’ dealBrexit has forced UK firms to pay tariffs on up to £9.5bn of exports to the EU despite Boris Johnson claiming he struck a “tariff-free” deal, an investigation has found.More than one in eight traders say they have lost business since it came into force in January – some reporting their exports have disappeared completely, a TV documentary reveals.Our deputy political editor Rob Merrick has the full story:Chiara Giordano15 November 2021 12:201636977619Airlines still imposing wrong passport rules post-BrexitA woman attempting to travel from the Wirral to Cyprus with her husband was reportedly denied access to an easyJet flight by staff imposing the wrong passport rules.Our travel correspondent Simon Calder has the exclusive story:Chiara Giordano15 November 2021 12:001636974811Boris Johnson praises bravery of Liverpool taxi blast driverThe prime minister has praised the taxi driver caught up in the Liverpool explosion for acting with “incredible presence of mind and bravery”.Speaking at a medical centre in east London on Monday, Boris Johnson echoed the city’s mayor Joanne Anderson in crediting the driver, named locally as David Perry, for his conduct when his car exploded on Remembrance Sunday.Mr Johnson said: “It does look as though the taxi driver in question did behave with incredible presence of mind and bravery.”Three men have been arrested under the Terrorism Act after the blast involving the taxi at Liverpool Women’s Hospital at 10.59am, around a mile away from the city’s cathedral where a large Remembrance service was taking place.Chiara Giordano15 November 2021 11:131636973864Boris Johnson refuses to be drawn on row over MPs’ standards during medical centre visitBoris Johnson has refused to be drawn on the continuing row over MPs’ standards, following the controversy over the report into former cabinet minister Owen Paterson.Speaking during a visit to a medical centre in Forest Gate, east London, he said: “I just want to salute you and the media for keeping going on this.”I’m here to talk about boosters and urge people to come forward and get their boosters.”Asked about reports that transport secretary Grant Shapps set up a group to lobby against housebuilding on airfields, Mr Johnson said: “If there are things to be investigated, then of course, that should take place.”Chiara Giordano15 November 2021 10:571636971815Boris Johnson mocked for saying Glasgow’s Cop26 took place in EdinburghBoris Johnson has been mocked for mistakenly referring to the Cop26 climate summit “in Edinburgh” rather than Glasgow where it was actually held.The prime minister was speaking at a Downing Street press conference on Sunday as he defended a pledge by countries to start “phasing down” coal.Matt Mathers has more on this story:Chiara Giordano15 November 2021 10:23 More

Michel Barnier has said he will not apologise for France’s “great” colonial history if he becomes president.The EU’s former chief Brexit negotiator is running for head of state in his home country – and has tacked hard to the political right during the course of his campaign. In a debate with other candidates on Sunday night Mr Barnier was asked about France’s place in the world, and mounted a spirited defence of colonialism.”Our country is a great country, with a great history. I am not in repentance, I will not apologise for our history,” he said.”We have a presence all over the world thanks to the French Overseas Territories. France is a great power and will remain so!”The intervention may raise eyebrows back in the UK, where Mr Barnier enjoyed the admiration of some liberals for his role negotiating against Theresa May and Boris Johnson’s governments. But back in France Mr Barnier, who has always identified as a Gaullist from France’s centre-right conservative establishment, has presented a very different image.In his push to win the centre-right nomination for the Les Républicains party Mr Barnier has sounded increasingly like the Brexiteer British government he once presented himself as the antithesis of.The former chief negotiator, who enjoys less fame in his home country hand is seen as an outside contender, kicked off the campaign by calling for a blanket ban on most immigration from outside the EU, with exceptions for students.And in separate comments that could have come from a Tory minister he called for restrictions on the jurisdiction of EU courts in France.His approach has led to original Brexiteer Nigel Farage branding the “the biggest hypocrite ever born”, while Clément Beaune, France’s Europe minister, said Mr Barnier had “destroyed the image that he himself created”.France’s presidential election will be held in April next year, and with Emmanuel Macron the favourite to retain the office. His main challengers are perennial far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, and insurgent far-right candidate Éric Zemmour, who has surged in the polls in recent months but remains in second place behind Mr Macron. More

A second Christmas lockdown should be unnecessary if people take up the coronavirus booster vaccine, a minister has said, despite Boris Johnson warning of a “blizzard” of infections on Britain’s doorstep.Oliver Dowden said festive freedom was “in our hands” and that vaccines would create a “wall” to protect the country this winter.Mr Johnson has insisted that government data does not show his Covid-19 “plan B” is needed, even as he admitted rising infections in Europe posed a threat to the UK.Urging people to take up the offer of a booster jab – now open to the over-40s – the PM said on Monday: “We don’t see anything in the data at the moment to suggest that we need to go to ‘plan B’, we’re sticking with ‘plan A’.“But what we certainly have got to recognise is there is a storm of infection out there in parts of Europe, you can see those numbers ticking up very sharply in some of our continental friends.“We’ve just got to recognise that there is always a risk that a blizzard could come from the east again.”In the World Health Organisation’s most recent weekly epidemiological update for Europe, experts said the UK had the second-highest tally of new coronavirus infections after Russia, with 252,104 – or 371.4 new cases per 100,000.Mr Dowden, the Conservative Party chair, said the government did not intend to cancel Christmas the way it did last year. He told Sky News the booster campaign was “the biggest wall of defence that we have”.He added: “I am confident that if we stick the course, people take the boosters when they are asked to do so, that vaccine wall will hold up and we will be able to have a decent Christmas this year.”The tacit suggestion that a new lockdown might become necessary if booster take-up is low follows weeks of government insistence that there are no plans for one.Meanwhile, England’s deputy chief medical officer set out the possible benefits of a third vaccine dose.Jonathan Van-Tam told a press briefing on Monday: “They’re showing that in people aged over 60 in Israel, after a messenger RNA booster, and compared with simply having received the first two doses of Pfizer – in the case of Israel three to four weeks apart – they are observing a tenfold reduction against all Covid infections, an 18.7-fold reduction against hospitalisations, and a 14.7-fold reduction against mortality, and that’s on top of the initial course of Pfizer.“So I believe therefore that if the booster programme is successful, and with very high uptake, we can massively reduce the worry about hospitalisation and death due to Covid at Christmas, and for the rest of this winter.”However, Prof Van-Tam warned Britain had “a bumpy few months ahead” thanks to coronavirus and other respiratory diseases like flu. He added: “Everyone has a key role to play in achieving as safe and disruption-free a winter as possible.” More

Boris Johnson’s government has been accused of watering down proposals to upgrade train services in the North of England and the Midlands viewed as key to “levelling up” the country outside London.Grant Schapps, the transport secretary, is expected to set out the integrated rail plan later this week, which will include proposals for the Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) scheme.The Independent revealed last month that the NPR plans were to be scaled back as the Treasury tightened its purse strings, with local transport chiefs warning that Liverpool, Manchester, West Yorkshire and the North East could miss out on improvements.As the announcement looms, a report said the government would scale back ambitions by pursuing track upgrades rather than building a new line.Naz Shah, the Labour MP for Bradford West, told the i newspaper: “This is Boris pulling the whole damn rug from under our feet and ripping up the floor behind him!”Mr Johnson pledged his “commitment to Northern Powerhouse Rail” shortly after entering Downing Street in 2019.And as recently as the Conservative Party conference in Manchester last month, Mr Johnson said in his speech that the government “will do Northern Powerhouse Rail, we will link up the cities of the Midlands and the north.”Conservative MP Kevin Hollinrake, who represents Thirsk and Malton in North Yorkshire, said the trimmed-back plans indicated the party was “not willing to put our money where our mouth is.”“If we lose key elements alongside losing the final phase of HS2 we are missing the point here,” he said.Jim McMahon, Labour’s shadow transport secretary, said: “It’s laughable that the government expects people in the north to be grateful for some half-baked and repackaged plans, as they attempt to quietly back out of promises made on the vital major infrastructure projects those communities need so badly.“Failure to deliver on HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail – schemes ministers have committed to dozens of times – is not only insulting, it is actively holding back investment and opportunity that could benefit millions of people.”A Department for Transport spokeswoman said: “Work is continuing on the integrated rail plan. We will publish it shortly and do not comment on speculation.”The government is also expected to rule out Bradford’s inclusion on the direct route of Northern Powerhouse Rail on cost grounds, despite the city having a population of more than half a million people and being situated between Manchester and Leeds.And Liverpool, too, was expected to be let down on its demands for a short 20-mile section of high-speed line linking the city to HS2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail. In the northeast, the Treasury is understood to have resisted demands for improving the Leamside line, an old freight route that planners want to use to run more passenger trains per hour on the mainline. More

Brexit has forced UK firms to pay tariffs on up to £9.5bn of exports to the EU despite Boris Johnson claiming he struck a “tariff-free” deal, an investigation has found.More than one in eight traders say they have lost business since it came into force in January – some reporting their exports have disappeared completely, a TV documentary reveals.More than a quarter of small firms say they are now considering moving some of their European operations out of Britain, while 16 per cent have already done so, Channel 4’s Dispatches programme will report.The revelations come after the Treasury’s watchdog, the Office for Budget Responsibility, warned the Brexit trade deal will cut GDP by 4 per cent, swiping £80bn a year from the UK economy.Ministers were also forced to concede that EU withdrawal was a key cause behind the autumn food and fuel shortages – which have put Christmas deliveries at risk.Last Christmas, Mr Johnson said his deal would “allow UK goods and components to be sold without tariffs and without quotas in the EU market” and that “we will trade as much as ever before, if not more”.But firms have been hit by complex rules-of-origin requirements, which trigger tariffs if exporters are unable to prove most of the components of goods come from the UK or EU.Emily Thornberry, Labour’s shadow trade secretary, said: “The government can no longer bury its head in the sand and ignore the impact their botched Brexit deal is having on British business.”Dispatches will reveal new analysis, from the UK Trade Policy Observatory at the University of Sussex, that:* Imports from the EU plunged by a quarter in the first 6 months of 2021 (worth £32.5bn) – while exports fell by 13 per cent (£11bn).* A quarter of all good exports covered by the trade agreement ended up paying tariffs over the first seven months – on trade worth £7.1bn to £9.5bn.The programme will feature the online retailer British Corner Shop, based in Bristol, which did export 6,000 supermarket products to customers in the EU, representing nearly 50 per cent of its business.Post-Brexit red tape has forced it to stop selling two thirds of those products – because, as a third-party supplier, it is unable to trace the origins of, for example, the milk that goes into a packet of cheese and onion crisps.After losing a quarter of a million pounds in just three months, British Corner Shop is moving its entire European operation into the EU, cutting 60 UK jobs and taxes paid.Mark Callaghan, its managing director, has told Dispatches: “I estimate that, next year, we’ll be employing 100-150 people from within the EU. We have moved jobs over to the EU.“It is a shame that that we can’t fulfil that business from here. It was never part of our plans to do that. But being an entrepreneurial business, we will find a solution and that’s the only solution that was available to us.”But a government spokesperson told the programme: “The zero-tariff zero-quota deal we have secured with the EU means we can now regulate in a way that suits the UK economy and UK businesses.” More