Boris Johnson’s Daily Mail column is breach of Ministerial Code
Boris Johnson: if I was feeling uncharitable, I might suggest he’s checking the Daily Mail’s website to see what he has written.
Can he do anything right?
Here’s the Artist Taxi Driver to brighten your day with the latest silliness from Boris Johnson:
A quick trip to the Guardian website (others are available; this was simply the first mentioned in the clip above) confirms the facts:
Boris Johnson committed a “clear breach” of rules on former ministers taking up new jobs by telling an appointments body he was becoming a Daily Mail columnist only half an hour before the public announcement, the watchdog has said.
The former prime minister was unveiled as a new writer for the newspaper, a platform he is expected to use to be a thorn in the side of Rishi Sunak.
However, Johnson has become embroiled in a fresh breach of the ministerial code after it emerged that he had waited until almost the last moment before the public announcement to inform the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba).
A spokesperson said: “The ministerial code states that ministers must ensure that no new appointments are announced, or taken up, before the committee has been able to provide its advice. An application received 30 minutes before an appointment is announced is a clear breach.
“We have written to Mr Johnson for an explanation and will publish correspondence in due course, in line with our policy of transparency.”
There seems to be a mistake in there, as Johnson isn’t a minister any more and hasn’t been one for around nine months now, but I think we’re safe to conclude that the restriction applies to former ministers as well.
Did Johnson intend to break the rules? I doubt it. He’s just not particularly bothered about them.
It’s what being a moneyed, privileged rich kid who was born with his head up his own proverbial rectum will do for a person.
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Trying to do anything about this or even investigating it may not be entirely in line with previous precedent. I’m thinking of when Alistair Carmichael was a government minister in the coalition and he spread the rumour that Nicola Sturgeon had said to a French diplomat that she would prefer a Tory government in Westminster (this being an absolute vote loser to say) He denied he spread the rumour and was caught out. There was a private prosecution (where he got away with it on the grounds that politicians are ALLOWED to knowingly lie) and he actually stated in evidence that he had lied about spreading the story to papers and that there was no truth to it either. It had been done expressly to win votes away from SNP and this was the crux of the case. When the standards committee were challenged to do something about his admitted lies they declined stating that the Ministerial Code could not be enforced as he was no longer a Minister.
So, if that’s true then Boris, as someone who’s no longer an MP, can’t in any way be chastised. Of course if he IS then it would mean that the then Tory govt lead by Cameron colluded knowingly to lie to the electorate in order to prevent SNP from forming a government or winning seats – albeit unsuccessfully. Of course it was known at the time that this WAS the case as another government minister (Tory) David Mundell had colluded with Carmichael to spread this falsehood although this was not able to be proven..
Rules, Johnson, hahahaha, OK