30/04/2021
There are now a number of issues stacking up on the Brexit front which demand attention. Not least is yesterday's dire
Efra Committee Report, building on its
shallow work of 2018, where MPs actually described the EU's "official controls" as Customs checks.
As regards Johnson's "Cash for curtains" though, it's a case of "I've started, so I'll finish". It is difficult to leave the issue while it is still an active controversy without, as yet, any resolution. And the very fact that there is strong pressure from multiple sources to play the whole thing down is a powerful incentive to keep picking at it.
Top of the league of those who would have you believe that this is a storm in a teacup is Johnson himself. In a press briefing
yesterday, he insisted that there was "nothing to see here, or to worry about",
describing questions about the funding of his Downing Street flat refurbishment as a "farrago of nonsense".
In many respect, this is classic Johnson: when in trouble his basic tactic is to brazen it out with, dare one say, a farrago of lies. It is redolent of his response in 2004 when he denied having an affair with colleague Petronella Wyatt. Dismissing allegations as an "inverted pyramid of piffle", he went on to say: "It is all completely untrue and ludicrous conjecture. I am amazed people can write this drivel".
He then went on, through an intermediary, to assure his then boss, Tory leader Michael Howard, that the allegations were untrue. And, as
history records, this did not end well.
Some commentators, at the time, thought that this was the end of Johnson's political career, and it certainly prevented him from running in the
2005 Tory leadership campaign. This ended up in the appointment of David Cameron. How different history might have been had Johnson assumed the leadership at that point.
However, now that he has a more firmly-established reputation as a serial liar, and a rather predictable propensity to bluster when under pressure, Johnson's current protestations about his "Cash for curtains" predicament are likely to have less effect then he might hope.
Coming up fast on the outside track is Dame Margaret Hodge, former chair of the public accounts committee and no fan of Johnson.
In a
series of tweets she explains that she has submitted a complaint about Johnson's conduct to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards.
The PM, she writes, has repeatedly failed to be honest, open or transparent about the donations and gifts he receives. And, in this instance, has likely failed to declare donations he benefited from, how much he received or how he paid it back.
The Electoral Commission inquiry, Hodge writes, will investigate the Conservative Party, not the PM. Criticising his complete disregard for the rules, she argues that this "cannot go unchecked". Any cronyism, sleaze or rule-breaking on his part, she says, "must be fully investigated".
This is picked up by
The Times, where we are reminded that Johnson has "form" on such matters and had "repeatedly broken" rules that require MPs to declare their financial interests.
His previous transgressions were investigated by the House of Commons Committee on Standards which
reported on 6 December 2018 on an aggregate of nine separate failings to register remuneration within the required deadline. Kathryn Stone, then (and currently) Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, found that Johnson had acted in breach of the House's rules, referring him to the Standards Committee.
But that was not the only reference. In April 2019, the Committee was again
in action criticising Johnson for failure to declare on time a 20 percent share of a property in Somerset.
After Johnson had pleaded that he had "misunderstood" the rules, the standards commissioner had tartly remarked that, "he should have checked more carefully what was required of him". She concluded that:
Mr Johnson has co-operated fully with my inquiry, but his failure to check properly that he brought his Register entry up to date during the last inquiry might be regarded as showing a lack of respect for the House's rules and for the standards system. That does not demonstrate the leadership which one would expect of a long-standing and senior Member of the House, nor compliance with the general principles of conduct.
In response, the committee had expressed its concern that the two investigations by the Commissioner in rapid succession demonstrated "a pattern of behaviour by Mr Johnson", adding that: "Mr Johnson is a senior and experienced Member of the House, who could reasonably be expected both to understand the basic rules relating to registration of financial interests, and to set a good example to other Members in obeying the rules".
"While there is no suggestion that he has at any time tried deliberately to conceal the extent of his interests", its report said, "this latest breach reinforces the view which we expressed in our previous Report, that he has displayed 'an over-casual attitude towards obeying the rules of the House', in conjunction with 'a lack of effective organisation within [his] office'".
It went on to say: "We find it particularly regrettable that Mr Johnson gave an assurance to the Commissioner that his registration of financial interests was up to date, and within a very short period it proved not to be". And laying down a marker that the committee may shortly be calling in, the report stated: "Should we conclude in future that Mr Johnson has committed any further breaches of the rules on registration, we will regard this as a matter which may call for more serious sanction".
This, effectively, placed Johnson firmly in the "last chance saloon", where he is already under investigation for failing to declare the correct details of who paid for his luxury New Year's holiday to Mustique, that was later declared as coming from the Tory donor David Ross.
There is more to this, though, with "Senior Conservatives" understood to be concerned that Johnson could be reprimanded over his failure to register the involvement of the Mustique Company, which owns the exclusive island resort.
Hodge is now very much on the case, citing a case where the Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey had been told to declare a political donation of £1,500 to buy a suit last year. "Surely similar standards should have been upheld in this case and a similar declaration should have been made, and made within the timeframe agreed by parliament and monitored by your office", she has written to Kathryn Stone. She also states: "The lack of openness, honesty and transparency falls well short of the code of conduct".
Should the commissioner find against Johnson, and the case is referred back to the standards committee, it can impose a penalty which could include suspension from the House. For a serving prime minister to be thus excluded is unprecedented, and would surely lead to demands for his resignation, as being unable to fulfil the basic functions of his office.
Not only that, if the committee finds that Johnson has breached the declaration rules intentionally it could result in the Electoral Commission expanding its investigation to include the prime minister, possibly leading to criminal charges.
One can understand, therefore, why the prime minister
and his allies are keen to play down his part in the "cash for curtains" affair, but this now has a momentum of its own, and will not go away easily. Johnson is in far more trouble than he would have us believe.
The only winner, at the moment, seems to be John Lewis.
Also published on
Turbulent Times.
