Anyone who knowingly misleads Parliament should resign. So why hasn’t Johnson gone?
The double-standards in this story are atrocious.
On one side, we see Nicola Sturgeon. The First Minister of Scotland has been found to have misled Parliament by giving an inaccurate account of meetings with Alex Salmond in 2018.
If an inquiry finds that she knowingly uttered falsehoods, then that is a resignation offence for an elected minister of any government, according to the Ministerial Code, and she should go – without question.
On the other side, we see Boris Johnson. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom has been accused of having misled Parliament by failing to provide details of funding for renovations to his official Downing Street flat.
The allegation is that private donations to the Conservative Party totalling £60,000 have been used as part of £200,000 worth of refurbishments to the flat.
If so, it should have been reported to the Electoral Commission, because the Ministerial Code demands that “a statement covering relevant Ministers’ interests will be published twice yearly”. The last such statement appeared last July, eight months ago.
It seems clear that Johnson has knowingly breached the Code in failing to declare the sources of funding for the flat.
So he should resign – right?
But within Parliament there has been no pressure for him to do so, while Tory calls for Sturgeon to take a hike have been punitive in their decibel level.
Labour’s Keir Starmer, despite being a lawyer, has claimed Sturgeon should go whether she knowingly misled Parliament or not – which is another indication that he should not be in politics, let alone running a political party.
10 Downing Street says all appropriate codes were followed, but this rings hollow. What does Allegra Stratton, Johnson’s press secretary, mean by “appropriate”? Something different from the dictionary definition, one would guess.
That’s how Downing Street has explained the other ways Johnson has recently misled Parliament, as I mentioned in a previous article:
After he said there would be no funding cut for the body tasked with improving transport in the north (he’s taking away 40 per cent of its funding), Downing Street tried to suggest he had been talking about transport generally for the north of England.
And after he claimed all Covid-19 contracts had been published and were “on the record” – only to be contradicted by the High Court – a minister said all CANs – Contract Award Notices – had been published. They are not the same thing.
Today’s howler was his claim, in Prime Minister’s Questions, that Keir Starmer had voted against a promise of a 2.1 per cent pay rise for nurses – that his own government is breaking.
The plan was in the NHS Funding Bill last year – which passed without a formal vote because all the main parties supported it. Starmer didn’t need to vote, but if he had, he would have supported the Bill.
Johnson (or rather, Stratton – he’d done his usual runner) eventually came out with a claim that he had been saying Starmer voted against the Queen’s Speech – but the plan wasn’t mentioned in it.
The document Starmer had been waving around at PMQs – and to which he had been referring – was the NHS long-term plan, which was a policy document and not a piece of legislation on which he could have voted.
So it seems clear that Johnson had knowingly misled Parliament but the issue also seems to have gone away because nobody is calling for his resignation over it.
If you’re wondering who did fund the renovation, here‘s openDemocracy:
The Daily Mail has reported that Downing Street allegedly sought to plug the gap in the six-figure refurbishment of the prime ministerial flat using Conservative Party funds. After the party initially paid for part of the refurb, the Mail reports, Conservative Party donor Lord Brownlow gave it £60,000 last autumn to make up the difference.
The Mail also claims that party officials have since been looking for ways to keep the donation anonymous by returning it, and then repeating it through a new ‘Downing Street Trust’ that would conceal the original source.
Lord Brownlow, who served as vice-chairman of the Tory party in 2017-20 and was made a peer in 2019 by Theresa May, is expected to head up this new non-charitable trust.
So the person who allegedly provided this dodgy donation is set to head the organisation dedicated to hushing it up. More corrupt cronyism?
Let’s face it: nobody involved in this is going to come out smelling of roses.
It’s just that Boris Johnson, more than anybody else, is going to be smelling of faeces.
And it will take more than a Union Flag to wipe them away.
Source: Election watchdog quizzes Tory party over funding of PM’s flat makeover – BBC News
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You don’t really expect that to happen do you? Here in Australia we have a similarly elected despot. A marketing man with a quasi religious conection, who’s mob of ministers seem to be intent on pillage and rape. Historians say it is the end of Capitalism but it is unpleasant to behold.
Little fascist dictator dick johnson has the support of his 80+ plus tory MPs plus he also has the support of powerful fascist tory donors so he won’t be charged with misleading Parliament because he is a man and secondly a very powerful man!
However, Nicola Sturgeon is a woman and hell hath no fury like a man held to account by a woman! Alex Salmond is the vengeful male who is determined to extract his revenge against a woman because she is a woman. Scottish fascist tories are using this to try and force Ms. Sturgeon out of political power because the fascist tory boys are terrified of Ms. Sturgeon! She is a real threat to little fascist airhead dictator dick johnson!!
Another fact is men excuse other men’s crimes but men always demonise women’s ‘crimes!’
What do you think, folks? Is this another manifestation of the battle of the sexes or are there good reasons?
So chief lier of the Tory scum Bozo has broken the ministerial code yet again how many time is it now?
Will he resign like he is meant to? Bet not and will the sheeple electorate that put his worthless backside in this job. Will they be hearing about this? I bet not on the Tory control propaganda channels. Sorry, I meant BBC & ITV news.
At best we will get some nice story about how he made a mistake or forgot or some wonk forgot to do the paperwork, or the dog ate the paperwork or whatever BS they think they can get away with!
So why have rules if they are just ignored? They lie and deceive on a daily basis and nothing is done there is no honesty of honour in these MP’s…