Boris Johnson news – live: Senior Tory says PM unfit for office after Partygate fine

Boris Johnson is urging minsiters to return the number of officials working in Whitehall to pre-pandemic levels.

“Clearly the prime minister feels that it is important that we make best use of taxpayer-funded departments which are not returning, currently, to the levels we saw before the pandemic,” his spokesperson said.

“This is not simply just about value-for-money for taxpayer-funded buildings, but also it’s a benefit to the staff - particularly junior staff who benefit from face-to-face working - and obviously we know there are benefits that can help, therefore, delivery for the public as well.

“So, it’s right that we continue to push for a return to pre-pandemic levels.”

The spokesman acknowledged there was not enough desk space for all civil servants to be in the office permanently.

“We do want to see the buildings being used at full occupancy,” the spokesman said.

Conservative and Brexit supporters want the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen to become president of France in this weekend’s election, a poll shows.

The National Rally (RN) – formerly National Front – leader is backed by 37 per cent of Tory voters at the last election, while just 24 per cent support the centrist Emmanuel Macron, writes our deputy political editor Rob Merrick.

The margin is even greater among Leave voters at the 2016 Brexit referendum, who prefer Ms Le Pen over the current president by 35 per cent to 19 per cent.

The two will go head-to-head in a critical run-off on Sunday, with polls putting Mr Macron as little as six points ahead of his rival.

The PM is looking to provide countries like India with alternative sources for their energy supplies and defence equipment in a bid to break the Russian monopoly, No 10 has said.

Boris Johnson’s official spokesperson said the Cabinet were briefed on the matter, which he hopes to set in motion with the help of other Western allies, ahead of his imminent visit to India to meet prime minister Narendra Modi.

“When it comes to India and other democratically-elected countries we think the best approach is to engage with them constructively, to try to broaden the alliance of democratic states against Russia,” the spokesman said.

“We want to provide alternative options to countries which are perhaps more dependent on energy and security. That is the approach we think will be most effective.

“We do not think that pointing fingers or shouting from the sidelines are effective ways of engaging with democratically-elected countries.”

The war in Ukraine has entered an “attritional” phase which could span several months, ministers have been warned.

At this morning’s weekly meeting of the Cabinet, the prime minsiter told those present that Ukraine still holds a “perilous” position, while president Putin has been “angered by defeats but determined to claim some sort of victory regardless of the human cost”.

Boris Johnson’s spokesperson said they were also briefed by a senior national security official, who said that Moscow would aim to exploit its troop number advantage but “Ukraine had already shown that this was unlikely to be decisive on its own”.

He said there were some signs that Russia had not learned lessons from previous setbacks in northern Ukraine and there was evidence of troops being committed in a piecemeal fashion.

Reports of poor Russian morale were also relayed to ministers, “with claims of some Russian troops and even units refusing to fight”, he added.

A mass meeting of Tory backbenchers has been called for 8pm tonight in the Commons, reports The Telegraph’s political editor.

The gathering will follow the the prime minister’s address to MPs, expected to take place at around 3.30pm this afternoon.

There has been lots of conversation today around the UK’s local elections - taking place on 5 May - amid suggestions some Tories may use the party’s performance to decide if they will back Boris Johnson through the ongoing Partygate saga.

People wanting to vote by post in the elections have been warned today they only have a few hours left to apply.

Contests are being held on 5 May in each of the four nations, with every council seat in Scotland, Wales, London and many parts of England up for grabs, along with the election of a new Northern Ireland assembly.

It is too late to register to vote, but people in England, Wales and Scotland still have a few hours to apply for a postal vote ahead of the deadline at 5pm on 19 April. The deadline in Northern Ireland has already passed.

Postal votes are available to anyone eligible to vote in the 5 May elections who knows they will not be able to get to a polling station in person.

An application form to apply for a postal vote can be downloaded from the Electoral Commission website.

Most of the seats up for election were last contested in 2018, when the UK was still part of the EU, the PM was Theresa May, Labour was led by Jeremy Corbyn and the Liberal Democrat leader was Vince Cable.

Safe to say, a lot has changed.

It is looking increasingly likely that MPs could get the opportunity to vote on whether to refer Boris Johnson to the Commons privileges committee, to investigate if he misled parliament over Partygate, reports suggest.

“Tories likely to treat it as confidence matter and whip MPs - meaning plan is doomed - but bet your bottom dollar Opposition parties will be printing leaflets plastered with pics of Tory MPs they say are backing PM over Partygate row,” the Daily Mirror’s Pippa Crerar tweeted.

It comes after Labour’s Emily Thornberry on Tuesday implored Tory MPs to “vote the right way” if such a situation arose.

Echoing Ms Crerar’s assessment that the Conservative majority means the move will likely fail, Ms Thornberry, the shadow attorney general, said earlier: “Unless Conservative MPs can look at their consciences and vote the right way, we are not going to get the sort of result that we should get.”

Stepping away from Partygate, unions have hit out at the government after its efficiency minister, Jacob Rees-Mogg, called for the “rapid return” of civil servants to their Whitehall desks.

In a letter to cabinet ministers, Mr Rees-Mogg said they needed to issue a “clear message” to their departments that with the end of Covid restrictions in England, officials should be back in the office.

He argued that ending working from home would bring the benefits of “face-to-face, collaborative working” as well as delivering wider benefits for the economy.

With up to three-quarters of staff still reportedly working from home, Mr Rees-Mogg accompanied his letter with a league table showing how many staff in each government department were attending the office on an average day. A Whitehall source was quoted by The Telegraph as saying there was a minority of “hard-working officials” who were in the office “all the time” while “a silent majority of people aren’t pulling their weight”.

But the move was branded “vindictive” by Dave Penman, the general secretary of the FDA, which represents senior civil servants, who said ministers were out of step with practice in the private sector. He said:

“There is no rationale for this. Ministers can’t point to productivity losses, which is why it’s always anonymous sources making the insulting accusations. Ministers’ obsession with ending flexible working and micro-managing the Civil Service increasingly just looks vindictive.”

A government spokesman said of the situation: “Ministers have been clear that departments should make maximum use of office space and progress is being monitored.”