Boris Johnson news – live: Sturgeon says ‘overpowering stench of sleaze’ as PM deemed ‘integrity vacuum’
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Your support makes all the difference.Nicola Sturgeon said there was a “stench of sleaze” surrounding the government that was “becoming quite overpowering” as Boris Johnson faced fresh allegations of cronyism.
Dominic Cummings said the prime minister planned to fund a refurbishment of his Downing Street flat through Tory party donors, drawing accusations from Labour that Mr Johnson was acting like the head of a “tin-pot dictatorship”.
Former attorney general Dominic Grieve said it was quite clear the prime minister had received “a significant gift” towards the job and accused him of running No 10 as a “cronyistic cabal”.
In an explosive blog post, Mr Cummings, the prime minister’s former top aide, also claimed Mr Johnson sought to block an inquiry into the leak of plans for a second coronavirus lockdown in England.
Downing Street has denied the move, which Mr Cummings said came after Mr Johnson discovered the inquiry would implicate a close friend of his fiancee Carrie Symonds.
Mr Cummings, who the prime minister had a day earlier accused of "systematic leaking", said Mr Johnson had fallen "far below the standards of competence and integrity the country deserves".
Ms Sturgeon called for an inquiry into the numerous allegations of sleaze that have hit the government in recent weeks.
Scenes from the local election campaign trail
Politicians of all stripes are out campaigning in the sun today. Local elections are now less than a fortnight away.
Steve Rotheram, current mayor of Liverpool city region who is standing again, has been out in Cressington.
David Mundell, former Scottish secretary for the Conservatives, is on the trail up in Dumfrieshire.
And there is Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar, with local candidates out by the Falkirk Wheel, which is inexplicably not the UK’s most famous landmark.
Remember Vote Leave?
Carole Cadwalladr from The Observer taking the opportunity to recall the warring pair's history with dodgy money.
Vote Leave, the successful campaign to leave the European Union which Boris Johnson fronted and Dominic Cummings directed, was fined £61,000 for breaking the law on election spending limits.
There was a £7m limit set on the referendum. But Vote Leave funnelled £675,000 through a separate pro-leave group in the campaign's final days to ensure they did not go over the official limit.
Cummings active on Twitter
Dominic Cummings has welcomed the weekend with some Twitter activity. Several retweets on topics including Covid vaccines, Nasa and border closures. No mention of the elephant in everyone else’s room.
Grieve: Boris Johnson is ‘integrity vacuum’ who turned No.10 into a ‘cronyistic cabal’
More on Dominic Grieve’s comments earlier from Policy Correspsondent Jon Stone here:
Boris Johnson is an ‘integrity vacuum’ who turned No.10 into a ‘cronyistic cabal’ says former Tory legal chief
Cummings ushered in secretive ‘boys club’ style to Downing Street, say former Whitehall insiders
Claims of “government by WhatsApp” have been fuelled by former Whitehall insiders who told The Independent that the arrival in power of Boris Johnson and Vote Leave supremo Dominic Cummings brought a new more secretive style to Downing Street.
Overnight, communications which had previously been put on paper or in emails were moved to the encrypted WhatsApp message system, while some veterans of the Brexit campaign favoured the high-security Signal messaging app or Proton email, said one former insider.
“Things were done in a much more cryptic way,” said a former insider speaking on condition of anonymity, “There was an effort to make sure that conversations weren’t traceable as much as possible, unless there was a deliberate reason to make them traceable. Where they were quite clever was that if there was something they were OK with being leaked, that would go on email.”
Read the full report from Political Editor Andrew Woodcock here:
Cummings ushered in secretive WhatsApp-encrypted ‘boys club’ style to government communications, say former Whitehall insiders
Labour calls for full investigation of Downing Street revamp
Labour frontbencher Rachel Reeves has written to Boris Johnson calling for an investigation into the Downing Street flat refurbishment.
"Given we know it only takes a text message from a friend to get the full attention at the top of your government, many people will wonder what personal goodwill could be generated by a secret donation to the redecoration of your living quarters," the shadow chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster asked.
Ms Reeves includes 14 questions for the prime minister, asking for full details of the money spent and who provided it, and whether he breached the Ministerial Code.
It doesn’t matter if the texts were leaked by Dominic Cummings | Sketch
During the paragraphs that follow, I would like you to try and keep saying to yourself, over and over again, just in a little whispered voice in your head, the following words: “These are the people running the country.”
... If you’re able to add in “during a pandemic in which 150,000 people died” then feel free, but I appreciate it’s really not easy.
Tom Peck’s take on the bitter row engulfing, that’s right, the people running the country, can be found here:
It doesn’t matter if the texts were leaked by Dominic Cummings – these are the people running our country | Tom Peck
PM ‘personally briefed’ newspapers on alleged Cummings leak
Sam Coates from SkyNews said Boris Johnson personally called newspaper editors to brief that Dominic Cummings had leaked his text exchange with James Dyson.
There have also been murmurs on Twitter about Michael Gove’s place in all this given his close relationship with Mr Cummings. Others asking why the prime minister would spark all of this bitterness now by accusing Cummings, who, if nothing else, can be relied on to respond damagingly.
Dominic Grieve says it’s 'clear’ Boris Johnson ‘received significant gift’ for flat revamp
Former attorney general Dominic Grieve has called on Boris Johnson to explain where the money came from for his Downing Street flat refurbishment.
Mr Grieve said the prime minister was a "vacuum of integrity" who must now come clean.
"It is all smoke and mirrors. He hasn't said when he decided to repay it or whether he has now repaid it," he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.
"The fact is that he did get, I think it has become quite clear, a significant gift towards the refurbishment of the flat.
"If a minister goes abroad and gets given a gold watch by a foreign diplomat he has to hand it back to the government or he has to buy it back. He doesn't end up with £58,000 - if that's figure - for refurbishing your private flat in Downing Street.
"My impression is there has been constant wriggling about the source of the money for this refurbishment."
Mr Grieve has called the prime minister's integrity into account on several prior occasions and was one of the 21 Tory MPs expelled from the party by Mr Johnson in 2019 after rebelling in an attempt to avoid a no-deal Brexit.
London mayor Sadiq Khan says ‘zero murder’ target is ‘not realistic’
London mayor Sadiq Khan has ruled out committing to a target of “zero murders“ in the capital within 10 years if he is elected for a second term.
The proposal was put forward by the Green Party candidate Sian Berry earlier this month during the contest to elect the capital’s next leader.
“I’m also keen not to give people false hope,” Mr Khan added. “We are a global city. On an average day, we have more than 10 million people in London.”
Mr Khan maintains a big lead on the London mayoral ticket ahead of polling day on 6 May.
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