Markus Andrews

Boris Johnson is being investigated for a possible breach of Commons rules over a luxury £15,000 Christmas holiday in the Caribbean.The parliamentary commissioner for standards has powers that can trigger suspensions of MPs – or even byelections – if serious breaches have occurred.The list of MPs under investigation had been kept under wraps during the campaign for the May elections, but has now been revealed by Kathryn Stone, the independent commissioner.Her list reveals she is looking into the mystery of who funded the prime minister’s luxury Caribbean holiday on the island of Mustique, back at Christmas 2019.At the time, Mr Johnson claimed the £15,000 cost of the villa he stayed in was paid for by David Ross, a Tory party donor and former deputy chairman of Carphone Warehouse, who owns a property on the island.But Mr Ross then denied he had paid for the holiday and said he did not own the villa where Mr Johnson and his fiancée, Carrie Symonds, stayed.However, the commissioner does not appear to be acting on a complaint submitted by the Labour MP Margaret Hodge, over who originally paid for Mr Johnson’s expensive flat renovations.Mr Johnson has repeatedly failed to deny that the Conservative Party, or multiple Tory donors, paid out for works that could have cost up to £200,000.And the Electoral Commission also launched an investigation, saying “an offence or offences may have occurred”.It is the first time a serving prime minister has been investigated by the commissioner, who is responsible for regulating MPs’ conduct and adherence to Parliamentary rules.Ms Stone is also investigating seven other Conservative MPs – former Cabinet ministers Owen Paterson and Theresa Villiers, plus Adam Holloway, Bob Stewart, Natalie Elphicke, Roger Gale and Jonathan Gullis.Claudia Webbe, elected as a Labour MP in 2019 but suspended from the party in September 2020 after being charged with harassment of a woman, is also under investigation.Labour seized on the probe into the prime minister’s holiday, deputy leader Angela Rayner saying: “Another day, another investigation into Boris Johnson for more sleaze and dodgy dealings.“The public have a right to know who paid for Boris Johnson’s luxury Caribbean holiday and the renovation of his flat. Most importantly, we need to know what these donors were promised or expected in return for their generosity.”However, Labour’s attempts to puncture Tory support at last week’s elections by focusing on “sleaze” are acknowledged to have failed by all sides.The announcement says Mr Johnson is being investigated under “Paragraph 14 of the Code of Conduct” relating to “Registration of interest under Category 4 of the Guide to the rules [Visits outside the UK] in 2020”A spokesman for Mr Ross said:“Mr Ross facilitated accommodation for Mr Johnson on Mustique valued at £15,000.“Therefore this is a benefit in kind from Mr Ross to Mr Johnson, and Mr Johnson’s declaration to the House of Commons is correct.”Mr Johnson’s spokesman said: “The prime minister transparently declared the benefit in kind in the Commons register of interests.“Clearly the rules are set out and it’s important that everyone abides by them, as the prime minister has done throughout.” More

Nicola Sturgeon’s government will put legislation for another referendum on Scottish independence once the coronavirus is suppressed and “stable”, Scotland’s deputy first minister has said.The SNP’s John Swinney said it was the Scottish government’s “aspiration” for the virus to be consistently suppressed by the end of 2021, before pushing on with plans for another vote on separation.Ms Sturgeon said on Sunday she “wouldn’t rule out” bringing her indyref2 legislation in the Scottish parliament early next year. She wants the referendum ballot to be held by the end of 2023.Mr Swinney said on Monday the party would be able to consider “the whole question of the timing” once the Covid crisis is over.Asked by the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland how the end of the crisis would be determined, Mr Swinney said it would be when Covid cases were consistently suppressed, and vaccine and testing systems were operating effectively.“We judge it by a combination of things – the actions that we’ve got to take to suppress the prevalence of the virus, and to make sure that we are in a stable position,” said the MSP. “That we’ve got the necessary infrastructure in place to ensure that the virus is suppressed.”Scotland returned a small-but-increased majority of pro-independence MSPs at last week’s Holyrood elections, with 64 SNP representatives and eight from the Scottish Greens.The SNP manifesto said another vote on independence should be held before the end of 2023, if the Covid crisis was over.Ms Sturgeon told Boris Johnson on Sunday that another referendum was a matter of “when, not if” after her party’s election victory. But she will be wary of pushing for a vote on independence too quickly.A new Survation poll, carried out for the Scotland in Union organisation, found that only 12 per cent of Scots believe independence is a priority issue for the new SNP government. It also found only 37 per cent of Scots want a referendum before the end of 2023. More

Nearly half of voters associate Boris Johnson with dishonesty and greed, according to a new poll, which found significant levels of concern over recent allegations of “sleaze” against the prime minister.But the Savanta ComRes survey for The Independent found that doubts over Mr Johnson’s character may not harm Conservatives’ chances at the ballot box, with anger over sleaze heavily concentrated among opposition voters, while just 14 per cent of Tory supporters said they were less likely to back the party as a result.The poll contradicts Mr Johnson’s repeated claims that voters are not interested in stories about his private contacts with businessmen and the renovation of his Downing Street flat.Large majorities said they were aware of allegations that he tried to get wealthy donors to pay for the lavish redecoration of the flat he shares with fiancee Carrie Symonds (75 per cent) and claims that he privately said he was ready to see “bodies pile up in their thousands” rather than impose a third lockdown (71 per cent).Some 58 per cent found his reported comment concerning – 35 per cent “very concerning” and 23 per cent “quite concerning” – against just 37 per cent who said it was not. And 54 per cent were concerned by reports of the No 11 flat refurbishment, compared to 41 per cent who said they were not. More than half (52 per cent) were concerned about former prime minister David Cameron’s private lobbying of ministers on behalf of failed finance company Greensill Capital.But there were lower levels of unease about Mr Johnson’s text messages promising to “fix” tax problems for inventor James Dyson (48 per cent concerned, 44 unconcerned), a donor’s gift of a holiday in Mustique for Johnson and Symonds (46-46) and the PM’s private exchanges with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman about a bid for Newcastle United football club (42-49).Savanta ComRes asked whether Mr Johnson and other senior politicians lived up to the so-called Nolan principles for ethical conduct in public life – selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership – or embodied the negative characteristics of dishonesty, greed, sleaze and corruption.Strikingly, the most-chosen character traits for Mr Johnson were dishonesty (48 per cent, against 34 per cent saying it did not apply to him), greed (48-35), leadership (46-41), sleaze (46-35) and corruption (44-36).Leadership was the only Nolan principle which a majority of voters – excluding don’t knows – believed was applicable to the prime minister.The poll suggested that voters think Mr Johnson is falling short on all the other attributes which everyone in public life is supposed to display.His lowest ratings were for honesty (33-49) and integrity (33-49), followed by openness (33-50), selflessness (34-47), accountability (38-45) and objectivity (39-42).By comparison, the characteristics most often applied to Labour leader Keir Starmer were accountability (37-32), honesty (37-32), leadership (36-38) and integrity (36-34).Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s most-cited attributes were accountability (46-26), integrity (45-27), honesty (44-28) and openness (44-28), with just 22 per cent considering him sleazy and 24 per cent dishonest.And the damage done to Mr Cameron’s reputation by his private business dealings since leaving 10 Downing Street was reflected in the top character traits attributed to him – greed (50-27), dishonesty (50-27), sleaze (47-29) and corruption (46-28)Some 32 per cent of voters said that they were less likely to vote Conservative as a result of the rash of sleaze claims in recent weeks.But on closer examination, it became clear that the allegations are cutting through most strongly with voters who are already pre-disposed to oppose the Tories.Some 58 per cent of those who voted Labour in the 2019 general election, 68 per cent of SNP supporters and 50 per cent of Lib Dem voters said the sleaze stories made them less likely to consider voting Conservative.By contrast, the poll suggested that Mr Johnson has little reason to fear an exodus of Tory voters due to sleaze claims, with just 14 per cent saying they were less likely to back the party as a result, 52 per cent saying it made no difference and 30 per cent saying it made them more determined to back the Conservatives.Savanta ComRes associate director Chris Hopkins explained the apparently contradictory findings of the survey: “On the one hand this poll should be bad news for the Conservatives; contrary to the government’s assessment, there is some evidence to suggest that the sleaze stories have cut through, voters do find them concerning and Boris Johnson is not seen to embody the characteristics of someone in public life. “However, very few 2019 Conservative voters say that the stories make them less likely to vote Conservative. So, possibly without an electoral alternative, Conservative voters will continue to support the party who, on recent evidence, do not let such stories bother them and continue to be electorally successful.”SNP MP Kirsten Oswald – the party’s depute leader at Westminster – pointed to the 42 per cent of Scottish voters who said the allegations made them less likely to back the Tories, compared to just 31 per cent in England.“The stench of sleaze surrounding this UK Tory government is overpowering – and clearly cutting through in Scotland,” said Ms Oswald.“Whether it is contracts for cronies, donations for decorating or text messages for tax breaks it is time for the Tories to put all their dealings into the public domain and let them be properly investigated.“There are very serious allegations being levelled at Boris Johnson and his government, including by people who worked closely inside it. SNP MPs have led calls for a full comprehensive public inquiry and that must happen immediately.”Responding to the findings of the poll, a 10 Downing Street spokesperson said: “This government is delivering on the priorities that matter to the people it serves and focused on building back better from the pandemic.“We’ve already recruited almost 9,000 of our 20,000 extra police officers to tackle crime, launched a New Plan for Immigration to control our borders and are boosting school funding by £14 billion over three years to improve education for every child.”Savanta ComRes questioned 2,242 British adults between 30 April and 2 May. More

We’ll start the week with a bit of family drama. Prince William and Prince Harry have reportedly “insisted” they give separate speeches when they unveil the Diana memorial statue this summer. “They won’t present a united front,” one royal source told the tabloids. The disunited Labour family are back at each other’s throats. You think they would have learned how to fight well by now. But no – they’re fighting ugly over the disastrous local elections and Keir Starmer’s chaotic reshuffle. Meanwhile, Boris Johnson is struggling to keep our disunited “family of nations” together. He has appealed to Nicola Sturgeon to work with him through the Covid crisis in the “spirit of unity”. But in truth, the spirit of unity doesn’t exist anymore.Inside the bubblePolicy correspondent Jon Stone on what to look out for today: More

Easing lockdown restrictions may increase the number of Covid-19 cases and variants of the virus in the UK, a minister has warned. Health minister Nadine Dorries said that Brits must remain “cautious” after the third stage of the prime minister’s roadmap out of lockdown is reached later this month because the UK is “still in the tail end of the pandemic”. From 17 May, small groups of people will be allowed to meet inside their homes as well as in pubs, cafés, restaurants and other businesses and some international travel for leisure will resume. Boris Johnson is expected to announce that this stage of lockdown easing will go ahead as planned at a press conference this afternoon. Ms Dorries told BBC Breakfast: “The important thing is that we are all aware that as we move into each step of easement that there may be an increase in the variants or there may be an increase in the virus. “Our objective is to nail that virus to make sure that we are never as a country in the position we were last year again and that we move out of this cautiously and safely.” But met with the suggestion that people should “cautiously cuddle” when social distancing restrictions are relaxed for close friends and family next week, Ms Dorries said with a laugh that she doesn’t believe such a thing is possible. “I don’t think you can cautiously cuddle. We’re incredibly aware that everybody wants to get together, people want to hug each other, people want to entertain in their own homes,” she said. “That’s why we have a roadmap that people can follow.” The best way to prevent variants from scuppering the the UK’s progress in fighting Covid-19 is to help speed up the global vaccine rollout, according to an Oxford University immunologist. “Tactically the most important thing for us to do is to make sure that other bits of the world get vaccines faster – the state of global vaccination is pretty lamentable at the moment and I think we need to really push to help that happen much more effectively,” Professor John Bell told Good Morning Britain. “Because, in the end, we’re vulnerable, not because we haven’t vaccinated our population, but if more variants come onshore from overseas – which they will naturally as people start to travel – we’re potentially going to be in trouble and that’s why we have a real interest in making sure everyone else is vaccinated. That plus the humanitarian importance of making sure that people don’t die unnecessarily.”One third of adults in the UK have now been fully vaccinated against Covid-19 and two thirds have received their first jab. But in India, for instance, where the B.1.617.2 variant – recently named a variant of concern by Public Health England – originated, fewer than one in ten adults have received even a single vaccine doses, official figures show. Cases of B.1.617.2 in the UK doubled last week from 202 to 520, according to health officials, with the majority identified in northwest England – mainly Bolton – and London. But foreign travel for leisure purposes will remain heavily restricted even from 17 May, with just 12 destinations on the UK’s ‘green list’ of countries to which relatively restriction-free travel is possible. More

Voters at the Hartlepool by-election didn’t know what Keir Starmer stood for, the party’s candidate in the seat has said.Paul Williams, who was handpicked for the role by the Labour leader’s office, said “few people knew much about” Sir Keir.His comments come after a chaotic weekend shadow cabinet reshuffle, and briefing in which the leader’s allies appeared to point the finger at his deputy Angela Rayner for the loss.Writing on the Times Red Box website Mr Williams, an ex-MP who lost his old seat at the 2019 election, said the leader “attracted little negativity on the doorstep but few people knew much about him or what he stood for”.He also claimed Labour “didn’t lose the Hartlepool by-election during this campaign, or during this year of Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership” despite the party holding the seat twice in 2017 and 2019.”People told me they had lost confidence in ‘brand Labour’ years ago,” he wrote.The results of the by-election largely overshadowed Labour successes elsewhere including in the Welsh Parliament where the party gained seats, and in London and Manchester where Sadiq Khan and Andy Burnham consolidated their mayoralties.But the results of the Hartlepool contest raised concerns that the party is going backwards under Sir Keir, in contrast with the leader’s line that he is making progress but that voters are not yet convinced.The handling of the fall-out from the defeat – a rare by-election gain for a government from the opposition – has sparked consternation among Labour MPs, with shadow ministers threatening to quit if they were moved or demoted limiting the scope of the eventual reshuffle.Early briefing that Lisa Nandy would be dropped from shadow foreign secretary turned out not to materialise – Sir Keir demoted shadow chancellor Anneliese Dodds, a totemic figure for the party’s soft left.Yet he was forced after 24 hours of negotiations to give deputy leader Ms Rayner a new wide-ranging portfolio after ditching her as campaign chief. Figures from the party’s right such as Rachel Reeves and Wes Streeting were also brought in. Speaking on Monday veteran left-wing MP Diane Abbott said there was a “problem with strategy” as she urged party leader Sir Keir to abandon the rightward drift and return to policies he had pledged during the leadership election such as scrapping universal credit.”What we want is a strategy for winning from this leadership, because it’s clear from what happened over the weekend, particularly what happened in Hartlepool, there’s a problem with the strategy,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.”It does seem as if, certainly the people around [Sir Keir], don’t understand how the party works,” the former shadow home secretary told the broadcaster.”They tried to sack Angela Rayner in order to make her carry the can for the poor results at the weekend.”They didn’t seem to realise that because she’s an elected deputy leader, you can fiddle around with her title, but you can’t sack her, she remains a senior person in the shadow cabinet.”When asked if it was the view of deputy leader Ms Rayner that Sir Keir wanted to sack her, Ms Abbott said: “Yes, that’s what all the briefing was about.”It was a foolish thing to even think about and he has had to walk it back – you can’t sack an elected deputy leader.””I would like to see Keir Starmer return to the ten policy pledges that he promised when he ran for the leadership, including abolishing universal credit, putting up taxes on the top 5 per cent.”She added that this would “unify the party”. More

Former Labour prime minister Gordon Brown has challenged Boris Johnson to “change” course and bring in major reforms to prevent the SNP boosting support for Scottish independence.Mr Brown urged Mr Johnson to set up a constitutional inquiry, create a new forum for leaders of the four devolved nations, and consider greater powers for the Scottish government.Launching a new campaign appealing to “middle Scotland,” the former PM claimed most Scots were focused on greater cooperation between Scotland and the UK right now, rather than another referendum on independence.“Can you make the United Kingdom work better? We need a review of the whole constitution,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “Boris Johnson has got to change. [You need] better relations between the nations.”Mr Brown claimed middle Scotland was “certainly more Scottish than British, certainly prefer Nicola Sturgeon to Boris Johnson, [but] they actually want cooperation between Scotland and the rest of the UK.”It comes as new Survation poll showed that only 12 per cent of Scots believe the incoming SNP government should prioritise another referendum in the short-term.Nicola Sturgeon’s new government intends to hold an independence referendum before the end of 2023, SNP deputy leader Keith Brown said on Monday, after the for SNP and Scottish Greens won a small majority in the Scottish parliament.“The intention to have that referendum in the first half of this parliament,” he told the Today programme.The SNP deputy leader also claimed the UK government would not dare attempt to block any referendum legislation passed by the Scottish parliament by taking the matter to the Supreme Court.“From what I saw yesterday when I was in the studios with Michael Gove, the UK government has no intention of taking legal action,” he said. “It would have been absurd for it to have done so.”He added: “There are people in the Conservative party, whether in Edinburgh or Westminster, that know perfectly well it’s going to happen. Let’s agree it going to happen at the appropriate time.”Asked by the BBC on Sunday if the UK government would block referendum legislation, Mr Gove initially answered “no”. But he later made clear it thought it was too early to consider such issues. “We’re not even going there at the moment.”Michael Gove repeatedly dodges questions over government blocking Scottish referendum in courtThe 2014 independence referendum was agreed when the UK government granted a section 30 order (a provision in the Scotland Act of 1998) so the Scottish government could legally stage a vote on separation.Any attempt to pass an independence referendum bill in the Scottish parliament would likely spark a legal challenge from Mr Johnson’s government.Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross said on Sunday that Ms Sturgeon’s most senior legal adviser, the Lord Advocate, should block any indyref2 legislation – claiming it was not in the power of Scottish government to hold a vote on separation.Mr Brown also challenged Ms Sturgeon to publish “all the legal advice” on a referendum bid from the Lord Advocate and her senior law officers. The former Labour PM predicted the advice would “tell her she’s in danger of having a Catalonia-style wildcat referendum”.Mr Brown also urged Ms Sturgeon to answer questions on what independence for Scotland means on big issues like border arrangements. “The big issue is not the referendum, the big issue is independence,” he said.“I would challenge Nicola Sturgeon, she’s had years to think about this, tell us what independence means – the benefits, tell us the costs, tell us about the pound, tell us about the pension, tell us about the border, tell us about quantitative easing.“None of these questions have been answered and every time you ask her she says she is going to produce a plan some time. We actually should have answers to these questions by now.”On Sunday the SNP’s deputy leader said Ms Sturgeon would put forward a “detailed white paper” on independence in due course. However, Mr Brown conceded that the contents of the document “doesn’t necessarily mean that’s what will happen in an independent Scotland”. More

Unveiling the government’s agenda for the coming year from a golden throne situated in the House of Lords, the Queen will this week deliver a short speech – prepared for her by No 10 – which will touch on Boris Johnson’s key priorities.While no stranger to the pomp and ceremony of the event — it will be the 67th occasion on which the Queen has opened parliament since November 1952 — the monarch will find a scaled-down affair compared to previous years due to the Covid restrictions, with guests banned and social distancing measures in force.Expect the speech itself to be littered with rhetoric on the government’s “levelling up” agenda and how the prime minister, buoyed by the local election results in England and the Conservatives’ victory at the Hartlepool by-election, intends to spread opportunities across Britain. More