UK Politics

Cabinet minister Sajid Javid has admitted a vote of no confidence in Boris Johnson’s leadership is “possible” amid speculation one could be triggered as soon as today.The health secretary said he was unaware whether the required rebel threshold had been reached, but highlighted a number of colleagues who had gone public.Under the party’s rules, 54 MPs must submit a letter of no confidence in Mr Johnson’s leadership to the chairman of the Conservatives’ 1922 Committee, Sir Graham Brady.If the the threshold is reached, the prime minister will have to secure the backing of 50 per cent of his MPs in a secret ballot in order to remain Tory leader.Speaking on Sky News, Mr Javid said: “If 54 letters are reached I’m sure a vote will be called. I do think it’s possible, but I don’t know”.He added: “This country doesn’t need a vote of confidence in the prime minister. What we need to be doing as a country is looking ahead to the challenges that exist.“If this threshold of 54 letters is reached there will be a confidence vote and in that case there should be. There may well be one.“If there is, the prime minister will stand and fight his corner with a very, very strong case. So let’s just wait and see what happens.”His remarks came after Steve Barclay, the Cabinet Office minister and chief-of-staff to the prime minister, told Tory MPs the next election would not be decided by the Sue Gray report into the Partygate scandal.Mr Barclay urged MPs not to “waste time and energy looking backwards and inwards, talking to ourselves about ourselves”.“The parliamentary majority we hold is incredibly rare. To waste time now on continued internal factionalisaton would be indefensible to many of our party members – given how hard they worked to secure that majority,” he said.“The problems we face aren’t easy to solve. Democracies around the world are all currently facing similar challenges.He added: “But under Boris Johnson’s leadership, our plan for jobs shows how we are navigated through these global challenges.“To disrupt that progress now would be inexcusable to many who lent their vote to us for the first time at the last general election, and who want to see our Prime Minister deliver the changes promised for their communities.” More

Boris Johnson says no-confidence vote win ‘decisive’ despite mass Tory rebellionBoris Johnson has hailed the “decisive” result of a vote of no-confidence into his leadership and said the government can now “move on” – despite a mass Tory rebellion against him.Shortly after the ballot – which Mr Johnson won by a margin of 211 to 148 – the prime minister told broadcasters he had a “far bigger mandate” than he did when voted in as leader in 2019, adding he was “happy with that”. Labour leader Keir Starmer said the British public was “fed up” with a prime minister that promised big and failed to deliver and who had “presided over a culture of lies and law breaking in parliament”.Despite the victory on Monday night, Mr Johnson faces an uncertain political future. A steady stream of Tory MPs have called publicly for him to stand down in the wake of Sue Gray’s report into breaches of the Covid-19 regulations in No 10 and Whitehall.And Tory concerns go far wider, covering his policies, which have seen the tax burden reach the highest in 70 years, and concerns about his leadership style.Show latest update

1654568100Tory MPs demand cabinet cull after deeply wounded Boris Johnson scrapes through confidence voteBoris Johnson is facing demands for a wholesale cull of his cabinet after scraping through a vote of no confidence in his leadership by 211 votes to 148.The PM’s victory in the ballot of Tory MPs spared him the humiliation of ejection from 10 Downing Street by his own party, but left him deeply wounded as he faces two by-elections later this month and a general election less than two years away.The tally of 41.2 per cent of Tory MPs opposing the leader was far worse than expected by Mr Johnson’s allies and significantly higher than the 36.9 per cent voting no confidence in Theresa May six months before she was forced from office.Joe Middleton7 June 2022 03:151654565423Who could replace Boris Johnson? Latest oddsDespite winning Monday’s no-confidence vote, Boris Johnson is facing speculation over his long-term future after 148 Tory MPs voted against him.Even before the no-confidence vote, he was odds-on at 4/9 to leave No 10 according to Betfair.The list of runners and riders to replace Mr Johnson has lengthened in recent months, but there are several contenders should he eventually be forced out of Downing Street.Matt Mathers reports.Joe Middleton7 June 2022 02:301654562723Boris Johnson is holed below the waterlineOur chief political commentator John Rentoul writes: Worse than Theresa May. That is not a comparison Boris Johnson wanted made, but his confidence vote was worse than hers, which she also “won”, in 2018. Johnson has lost the majority of his backbenchers and more than 40 per cent of the whole parliamentary party. For all the bravado beforehand about a one vote being enough, he knew he had to win by an emphatic margin, and he knows now that this is not it.Winning by 211 votes to 148 is in the middle of the grey zone of neither winning decisively nor losing. This is the result that Keir Starmer wanted: keeping Johnson afloat, but holed below the waterline and sinking slowly. Who knows how much more damage the prime minister can inflict on the Tory party’s reputation before he goes?Never mind all the mythology about the Conservative Party’s ruthlessness. It is not easy to be ruthless when you cannot be sure what your fellow conspirators are doing. A secret letter-writing campaign to trigger a secret ballot is a difficult system to organise, for or against the leader. If MPs had known what the result was going to be, they might have voted differently. Then, they might have been ruthless and decided to get rid of the prime minister straight away.Joe Middleton7 June 2022 01:451654560023Keir Starmer hits out at Tory MPs for supporting Johnson’s ‘law-breaking’ leadershipKeir Starmer hits out at Tory MPs for supporting Johnson’s ‘law-breaking’ leadershipJoe Middleton7 June 2022 01:001654557323ICYMI: Government aide quits as Scottish Tory MPs turn against Boris Johnson in confidence voteOne of the few Scots in Boris Johnson’s government quit his post to join the majority of Conservative MPs from north of the border who voted against the prime minister in Monday’s confidence vote.John Lamont stood down as parliamentary private secretary in the Foreign Office, saying that he had received thousands of messages from constituents who were “rightly deeply angered” by lockdown-breaching parties in Downing Street.At least four of the six Scottish Conservatives in the House of Commons voted to remove Mr Johnson, including Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross and former Scotland secretary David Mundell.Andrew Woodcock reports.Joe Middleton7 June 2022 00:151654554590Tory MPs demand cabinet cull after deeply wounded Boris Johnson scrapes through confidence voteBoris Johnson is facing demands for a wholesale cull of his cabinet after scraping through a vote of no confidence in his leadership by 211 votes to 148.The PM’s victory in the ballot of Tory MPs spared him the humiliation of ejection from 10 Downing Street by his own party, but left him deeply wounded as he faces two by-elections later this month and a general election less than two years away.The tally of 41.2 per cent of Tory MPs opposing the leader was far worse than expected by Mr Johnson’s allies and significantly higher than the 36.9 per cent voting no confidence in Theresa May six months before she was forced from office.Kate Devlin, Andrew Woodcock, Rob Merrick and Anna Isaac have the details.Joe Middleton6 June 2022 23:291654553702Confidence vote result ‘worst of all worlds for the Tories’, claims SturgeonScotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon said the confidence vote result of Boris Johnson’s leadership is the “worst of all worlds for the Tories.She added that it “saddles the UK with an utterly lame duck PM” and added that for Scotland “it just underlines the democratic deficit” with just 2 of 59 MPs having confidence in Mr Johnson.Joe Middleton6 June 2022 23:151654553421‘Major reshuffle’ coming and PM should promote Red Wall intake, says MPCamilla Turner, chief political correspondent at The Daily Telegraph, is reporting that an MP thinks Boris Johnson will embark on a big reshuffle.The MP said: “The PM needs to get some people from the Red Wall into Number 10. He’s got time to turn it around. He’s got four or five more years now.”Joe Middleton6 June 2022 23:101654553040Tory MP says PM won ‘massive majority’ in confidence voteConservative MP Peter Bone says Boris Johnson won a “massive majority” in the confidence vote on Monday evening.The Tory MP for Wellingborough told the PA: “I was very pleased with the vote today, I supported the Prime Minister, we had to deal with this issue.“The last time there was an election by MPs in the House of Commons on the leadership Boris Johnson only got 51 per cent of Conservative MPs voting for him, he got 60 per cent so he has improved his position relating to MPs.“Obviously, two thirds of the party members voted for him in the subsequent poll and then of course he won a big general election victory so the only people that should be removing the Prime Minister of the Conservative Party is the electorate, and in two years time they will have that chance.“I hope what we have done we will prove to the British public that we deserve another term.“But it is not for a few dissident backbench MPs to try and get rid of the Prime Minister, it is up to the British public and that is what the vote tonight, I mean, what was it? 211 to 148? Massive majority for the Prime Minister.”Joe Middleton6 June 2022 23:041654552443Move over Mystic Meg, there is a new psychic in townEnergy minister Greg Hands shared picture of a Wesminster bus stop that displayed the exact result of the vote of no-confidence won by Boris Johnson on Monday night.In the lighhearted Twitter post, Mr Hands praised the predictive abilities of the Westminster bus stop. He said: “The Parliament Square bus stop had the result long before anyone else did”.Mr Johnson won by a margin of 211 to 148.Joe Middleton6 June 2022 22:54 More

The UK is to boost Ukraine’s fightback against Russian invaders in the eastern Donbas region by supplying highly accurate long-range rocket launchers, defence secretary Ben Wallace has announced.Mr Wallace’s decision to supply the cutting-edge M270 multiple-launch rocket system (MLRS) was co-ordinated with US president Joe Biden’s gift to Ukraine last week of the similar High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS).The M270 can strike targets up to 80km away with pinpoint accuracy, said the Ministry of Defence. Today’s announcement follows an appeal from Kyiv for longer-range precision weapons to defend Ukrainian forces against the heavy artillery deployed by Russia to devastating effect in the Donbas.Prime minister Boris Johnson said last month that MLRS weapons were the key to helping Ukraine respond to the “very brutal” artillery assault which has allowed Russia to gain ground in the east of the country over recent weeks.The Ministry of Defence refused to reveal how many M270s would be sent to Ukraine, citing the need to avoid giving Moscow information which might be useful to president Vladimir Putin’s troops.The UK will also be providing M31A1 rockets “at scale”, said a spokesperson.Ukrainian troops will come to the UK for training to use the rocket launcher, which is understood to take several weeks.Mr Wallace said: “The UK stands with Ukraine in this fight and is taking a leading role in supplying its heroic troops with the vital weapons they need to defend their country from unprovoked invasion. If the international community continues its support, I believe Ukraine can win.“As Russia’s tactics change, so must our support to Ukraine. These highly capable multiple-launch rocket systems will enable our Ukrainian friends to better protect themselves against the brutal use of long-range artillery, which Putin’s forces have used indiscriminately to flatten cities.”The UK was the first European country to supply lethal aid to Ukraine, and has since provided thousands of anti-tank missiles, anti-air systems and armoured vehicles to Ukrainian forces.Mr Putin insisted that the provision of MLRS weapons to Ukraine would not change the course of the war, but may provoke Russia to attack new targets.“We understand that this supply from the United States and some other countries is meant to make up for the losses of this military equipment,” he told state TV channel Rossiya-1.“This is nothing new. It doesn’t change anything in essence.”If the weapons systems are deployed, he said, “we will strike at those targets which we have not yet been hitting.”His comments followed reports of multiple explosions hitting “infrastructure” targets in Kyiv early on Sunday, in the first assault on the Ukrainian capital in several weeks. More

Labour is demanding an investigation into claims that government infighting is delaying a programme to refurbish, extend or build 40 NHS hospitals.Boris Johnson announced plans in 2019 to build “40 new hospitals” by 2030, though it later emerged that many of the plans were in fact only renovations of existing facilities.But NHS bosses have complained that trusts are unable to proceed with the work because they are waiting for sign-off from government ministers, with the Treasury reported to be concerned about spiralling costs.NHS Confederation chief executive Matthew Taylor said: “The government launched these flagship new builds with much fanfare, but NHS leaders are becoming increasingly frustrated that the money isn’t following through. The fear now is that some of these schemes may never see the light of day.”The Sunday Times reported that only six projects that predate Mr Johnson’s premiership have so far started construction, and just one – a £35m cancer centre in Cumbria – has been completed.Ten smaller schemes are due to start before September 2024, but eight “pathfinder” schemes that were supposed to be completed no later than 2028 have yet to be given a start date.Saffron Cordery, of NHS Providers, told the paper: “Trusts are unable to get the shovel in the ground, and they fear being on the receiving end of local reputational damage, because it looks as though they’re unable to manage … The reality is that [they] are ready to push ahead, and are waiting for the green light from the programme.”Now shadow health secretary Wes Streeting has written to the National Audit Office to call for an inquiry into the delays.Mr Streeting said it was “concerning that rows between government ministers are causing delays to the programme to deliver on the government’s commitment to build 40 new hospitals”.And he added: “NHS trusts are still waiting to be allocated funds to begin construction, two and a half years on from the general election. This is despite many of these planned building works only being alterations or refurbishments, not in fact ‘new hospitals’.“I am concerned that unnecessary delays will result in significant waste of taxpayers’ money, given the increase in prices for construction materials in the past year.”Mr Streeting noted that the New Hospitals Programme was reported last year to have been given a “red” rating by the government’s own Infrastructure and Projects Authority, which warned that it “appears to be unachievable”. More

City bonuses are rising six times faster than wages, according to new analysis released today by the TUC.The trade union organisation’s general secretary Frances O’Grady said that “obscene” payouts in the financial and insurance industries had returned to the levels of before the 2008 crash, with bonuses totalling £5.9bn paid out in March alone.Ms O’Grady called for the introduction of maximum pay ratios to limit bonuses to 10 per cent of total pay, as well as the appointment of workers to company boards to give them a say on remuneration decisions.Bonuses paid in March were 27.9 per cent up on the same period in 2021, compared to a rise in average wages over the year of just 4.2 per cent.And the average City bonus of £6,327 that month – paid on top of often generous salaries – was 2.4 times the size of the average worker’s £2,665 monthly pay packet, according to TUC analysis of figures from the Office for National Statistics.Meanwhile, the value of average wages is being eroded as pay fails to keep pace with inflation running at more than 9 per cent. After inflation is taken into account, the real value of the average wage is down by £68 a month – or £131 in the public sector – compared to a year ago.“There is no justification for such obscene City bonuses at the best of times – let alone during a cost of living crisis,” said Ms O’Grady. “While City executives rake it in, millions are struggling to keep their heads above water.”She added: “Ministers have no hesitation in calling for public sector pay restraint, but turn a blind eye to shocking City excess. It’s time to hold down bonuses at the top – not wages for everyone else.“The government needs to clamp down on greedy bonus culture by putting workers on company pay boards and introducing maximum pay ratios.“And it’s time for the government to get wages rising across the economy by boosting the minimum wage immediately, funding decent pay rises for all public sector workers and introducing fair pay agreements for whole industries.”The TUC research also uncovered a trend in sectors outside the City for businesses to offer one-off bonuses to key staff, though of a much smaller size than the bumper payouts in the finance and insurance world.The organisation believes that bonuses are being used as a way to retain staff in areas of the economy like construction, real estate or accommodation instead of offering permanent pay rises to match inflation.The TUC warned that this was a “sticking plaster approach”, which would not fix the fundamental problems in the labour market causing worker shortages. More

A secret rebellion by disgruntled government ministers could finish off Boris Johnson as Conservative leader, Tory MPs plotting his ejection believe.The prime minister could face a no-confidence vote as early as this week, in which he would need the support of 180 Tory MPs – half of the current total of 359 – in order to hold on to his job.Backers have suggested that he is all but certain to win any ballot, as the “payroll vote” of 173 ministers and parliamentary aides is almost enough to get him past the threshold.But one backbencher, who has called for Mr Johnson’s resignation, told The Independent that the PM cannot take the votes of members of his own government for granted. Two parliamentary private secretaries (PPS) have already quit over Partygate, and rebels believe that other government figures are privately ready to join the drive to unseat him.“It is a secret ballot, and in the privacy of the polling booth it is far from certain that all of his ministers will vote to keep him in office,” said the MP.“Some of them have very small majorities and will be worried for their seats. Some of them may think they would prosper better under another leader. And some of them just don’t like what he is doing to the party.“It’s obvious that the majority of backbenchers will vote to remove him, but the secret to getting over the line will be how many ministers and PPSs – who of course have said nothing in public, because it would cost them their jobs – will join them.”Mr Johnson’s critics have been circulating a briefing paper among Tory MPs over the bank holiday weekend, warning that 160 or more of them could lose their seats in a “landslide” defeat if he leads them into the next election.“The only way to end this misery, earn a hearing from the British public and restore Conservative fortunes to a point where we can win the next general election is to remove Boris Johnson as prime minister,” the note said.One MP said the result of a confidence vote was likely to be “very close”, and predicted that even if Mr Johnson scrapes home by a narrow margin, he will be terminally wounded.“At that point, I think it is ‘men in grey suits’ time, and members of the cabinet will be telling him it is time to go,” said the backbencher. “Any normal person would resign.”Some Tory rebels believe that the chair of the backbench 1922 Committee, Sir Graham Brady, has already received the 54 letters required to trigger a no-confidence ballot, with one source suggesting the tally could be as high as 67.Sir Graham always maintains a scrupulous silence over the true figure, and some in Westminster believe he may have been waiting for the end of the platinum jubilee weekend to tot up the total, after he said that counting letters was “not a regular pastime” for him.If the threshold is passed on Monday, he will be expected to inform the prime minister before calling a vote as early as Tuesday or Wednesday.If it is not, many MPs expect it to be passed after the by-elections in Wakefield and Tiverton & Honiton on 23 June, when polls suggest Conservatives will face a torrid night.A survey by JL Partners for The Sunday Times gave Labour a 20-point lead over Tories in the West Yorkshire seat, one of the highly symbolic red wall constituencies that fell to Mr Johnson in the 2019 election.James Johnson, co-founder of JL Partners, said the Tories could also face defeat in Devon, with focus groups suggesting that even Leave voters are now ready to help the Liberal Democrats overturn a 24,000 majority in a by-election triggered by MP Neil Parish’s resignation after he admitted watching pornography in the Commons.“Partygate has changed everything, and that trust has now completely gone in Boris Johnson,” said Mr Johnson. “Also that feeling that he is strong and can get things done has gone. I think these by-elections, and the polls, and the local election results show that Boris Johnson is no longer the asset he once was.”With voters showing little enthusiasm for Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, the Conservatives could recover their lead in the national polls “quite quickly” with a new face at the helm, said James Johnson.One former major donor to the Conservatives predicted that the party was heading for “obliteration” in the general election and a decade in the wilderness unless Boris Johnson is ditched.Financier Michael Tory, who has given more than £300,000 to the party since 2010, said: “I was a loyal and long-standing donor, but can only resume donating if there is an immediate change of leadership.“And it has to be now, before it’s too late to avoid a richly deserved obliteration at the next election, followed probably by a decade in opposition.”Meanwhile, there was anger from some backbenchers at what they regard as “macho” briefing from the prime minister’s supporters.Loyalists are reported to have been characterising the drive to remove the PM as a plot to reverse Brexit, after prominent Johnson critic Tobias Ellwood published an article calling for a return to the single market.Other signatories of no-confidence letters have been branded “childish” and “turncoats” in anonymous briefings to Tory-backing newspapers.“It is madness,” said one MP. “Nasty stuff of this kind is the opposite of what they should be doing. They ought to be reaching out to people.”Transport secretary Grant Shapps said that he did not expect a vote to take place in the coming week, and that he believed Mr Johnson would survive if it came.Mr Shapps played down the significance of the booing directed at the prime minister by crowds at the platinum jubilee thanksgiving service on Friday.Recalling the jeers faced by George Osborne at the Paralympics in 2012, he told BBC1’s Sunday Morning: “I remember booing going on at the Olympic Games in 2012, and it didn’t mean that the election wasn’t won in 2015.”Mr Shapps added: “Politicians by their very nature … will of course divide opinion. That’s what politicians do. That’s because we argue about different sides of issues.“You will always get people who approve, and people who disapprove. That’s the point of a free and democratic society. It’s also the point of having a monarchy, where everyone can join together and support the Queen regardless of their politics. Frankly, I think that demonstrates one of the beauties of our system.”Elections guru Professor Sir John Curtice, of Strathclyde University, said there was no sign of public anger abating over the lockdown-breaching parties at 10 Downing Street.Recent polling showed that around three quarters of voters – including half of those who voted Conservative in 2019 – believe Mr Johnson lied about Partygate, said Prof Curtice. The same polling found that a quarter or more of Tory supporters want the PM to quit.“It is now very, very unlikely that the public are ever going to come to the conclusion that what the prime minister did during lockdown with the various gatherings was reasonable, let alone within the law,” he told Times Radio.“If you lose a quarter of the people who voted for you last time, then you’re in trouble.” More

Brexit is to blame for the chaos at Britain’s airports, which has seen hundreds of flights cancelled and thousands of people’s half-term travel plans disrupted, London mayor Sadiq Khan has said.Mr Khan called on the government to relax immigration rules to allow airport and airline workers who returned to their EU countries of origin following Brexit to come back to the UK, where the travel industry has been hit by staff shortages.But transport secretary Grant Shapps denied that the problems were caused by the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, and rejected calls for aviation workers to be added to the list of shortage occupations, which would mean that those wishing to work in the industry would be subject to lighter immigration controls.Steve Heapy, the CEO of airline Jet2, confronted Mr Shapps over the impact of Brexit at an emergency meeting on Friday, telling him that EU withdrawal had taken “hundreds of thousands, if not millions” of people out of the jobs market.But Mr Shapps today insisted that the shortages were due to the aviation industry cutting staff numbers “too deep” during the Covid pandemic, and said it was up to companies to attract home-grown workers by offering higher pay.Mr Khan said that the crisis was a “self-inflicted” problem caused by the government.“The government should recognise that there are shortages in this occupation, of those who work in aviation,” the mayor told BBC1’s Sunday Morning. “What you can do very easily is to make sure those who were in those jobs before, who’ve gone back to their country of origin in the EU, are encouraged to come back.“What the government’s got to do is get around the table with the aviation sector, the airports, those who run the airlines, to see what exactly their problems are. If there is a shortage, change the list to make sure those [workers] can come easier than other occupations.“This is self-inflicted from the government. It isn’t about Covid. This is about Brexit plus Covid.”But asked if the government would relax post-Brexit immigration rules for aviation workers, as it did in response to shortages of HGV drivers and butchers, Mr Shapps said: “The answer can’t always be to reach for the lever marked ‘More immigration’.”He told interviewer Sophie Raworth: “We are seeing the same problems across Europe. If it were only to do with Brexit, then there wouldn’t be a problem at Schiphol [airport in Amsterdam] or elsewhere. So that clearly can’t be true.“If anybody’s solution is that all we need to do is employ cheap labour from somewhere else – I didn’t vote for Brexit, but the country did and we made our choice.“We want a high-wage, high-skill economy. That means the aviation sector, like all other sectors – as the HGV lorry-driver sector has now done – must train people domestically.“Airports across Europe have also had the same queues, so if it was just a Brexit issue, then that wouldn’t be the case.“As with lorry drivers, we found the solutions were actually in making sure decent salaries were paid, that people were trained here in this country, that people were attracted to a job not just by better salaries, but also better conditions as well.“That’s the sort of economy we want to run in this country, that’s what the country voted for, and that’s what we’re delivering.”Mr Shapps said he had introduced changes to make it quicker for new airport recruits to get security clearance and start training, but insisted it was “principally” the responsibility of the industry to sort out problems in time for the summer holidays.He dismissed a call from Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary for the army to be called in to speed up operations in airports. And he said he would take action to speed up compensation claims from passengers.The transport secretary said he wanted a “proper dispute resolution, a proper charter for passengers”, to make sure that they have access to a quick and straightforward system for claiming compensation, or can be put on alternative flights.“It can’t be acceptable that it’s so complicated sometimes to get a flight rearranged, to get your money back,” he said. “I want it to be more like ‘delay repay’ works on trains, where it’s an automatic process.” More

The Metropolitan Police is facing “real problems” of systemic sexism, racism and homophobia within the service, London mayor Sadiq Khan has said.Mr Khan said that the force’s new commissioner must have a plan to address these challenges in the wake of the murder of Sarah Everard by a serving police officer, the botched investigation of Stephen Port’s killing of gay men and misogynistic behaviour at Charing Cross police station and elsewhere.And he said the Met’s new leader must show that he or she is able to win back the trust and confidence that many Londoners have lost in the capital’s police force.The mayor, who forced former commissioner Dame Cressida Dick out in February by declaring he had lost confidence in her, was asked on BBC1’s Sunday Morning whether the Met was “a failing police force”.He replied: “We’re losing trust and confidence. So if that’s the criteria of measurement, then you could say so.”Mr Khan added: “I think it has real challenges.“It’s possible to recognise the dedicated, decent, brave officers we have in the police service but to also say we’ve got real problems – real problems that have been shown recently in relation to evidence of overt systemic sexism, racism, homophobia, discrimination, misogyny – which need to be addressed.“What’s really important is that the new commissioner appointed by the home secretary (Priti Patel) – and she’ll be consulting me – understands the challenges we have as a police service and takes steps to address those challenges, but also to win back the trust and confidence of too many Londoners that has been lost.”He added: “One of the reasons why I lost confidence in the previous commissioner was my lack of confidence in her plans to address the two big issues – addressing the systemic racism, sexism, homophobia and misogyny, but also the trust and confidence required from our public when you police by consent.“That’s one of the things that we’ll be checking the new commissioner for, does he have a plan to address those two issues at the same time as continuing to make further progress in bringing down crime?”Mr Khan said he had not been given detailed explanations by the Met over why they fined some people involved in lockdown-breaching parties at 10 Downing Street, or why prime minister Boris Johnson was fined in relation to one event but not others.Asked whether it was the case that the police investigated Partygate allegations less thoroughly than they might have done because they did not want to upset No 10, he replied: “I don’t know whether it’s true, but that perception has got to be addressed. Why? Because the police must police without fear or favour.”He said he hoped the issue would be addressed in a court case being brought by former Met deputy assistant commissioner Lord Paddick, who alleges that the force’s Operation Hillman team acted “irrationally” in their decisions on fixed penalty notices for lockdown breaches. More