Boris Johnson news - live: Rayner condemns ‘perverted’ Tory smear as PM hits out at anonymous ‘misogyny’

Good afternoon. We are pausing our live politics updates for the day, but will be back bright and early tomorrow morning to bring you all the latest from Whitehall and beyond.

For now, join my colleague Rory Sullivan over on our live Ukraine blog:

And follow our coverage of the French presidential election with Zoe Tidman:

Keir Starmer has criticised the Metropolitan Police for failing to reveal the number of Partygatefines being issued ahead of local elections.

It comes after the force announced they would not be providing an update on fixed-penalty notices ahead of the local polls next month.

The Labour leader said the Met “should continue to take their decisions and make those decisions public as they were before”.

“And the PM must disclose if he gets further fines. The Met police should not have changed their practice,” the ex-director of public prosecutions added in an interview with the Sunday Mirror.

“Criminal charges are brought all the time, elections or no elections. It’s in the public interest to know who has received fines, particularly those high up in Government.”

According to reports, fine notices have started landing in the email inboxes of officials who attended a “bring your own bottle” drinks do in the No 10 garden on 20 May 2020 during England’s first lockdown.

The Rwanda migrant plans are concerned with trying to “empower” asylum seekers, home secretary Priti Patel has claimed.

“It’s always been a partnership based on resettlement, rebuilding lives. Investing in people,” she told The Times.

“We empower people through how we invest in them.”

She had earlier defended the government’s controversial agreement to send asylum seekers for processing to Rwanda as being “very unique” and “not like a trade deal”.

“It’s not like a trade deal ... We brought migration and economic development together for a migration and economic development partnership with Rwanda,” Ms Patel told The Sunday Telegraph.

“It is so different to Australia’s model, for example, with how they have outsourced, so to speak. It’s not like-for-like, this is a very, very unique model.”

Boris Johnson cost his magazine £4,000 in parking tickets while he was a motoring correspondent, his former editor claims.

Dylan Jones, who employed Mr Johnson at the fashion and lifestyle magazine GQ in 1999, wrote in The Sunday Times: “There soon appeared to be something of a problem, however, as the managing editor started to get sent rather a lot of parking tickets.

“And when I say a lot, I mean a lot; in Boris’s own words, they started accumulating ‘like drifting snow on the windshield’.

Mr Jones added: “I once worked out that, over the decade he worked for GQ, Boris had cost us about £4,000 in parking tickets.

“But then he’d also written more than a hundred incredibly funny motoring columns, so I figured it was worth it.”

Mr Jones said that “interestingly” Mr Johnson never received any speeding tickets.

“And I’ve got a pretty good idea why,” Mr Jones added.

“When the cars were delivered to his house in Islington, the car company always made a note of the mileage, something that is standard practice. The mileage would also be noted when they came to pick them up again. And on more than one occasion - OK, on many, many, many occasions - the mileage was precisely the same. So I leave you to draw your own conclusions.”

Cabinet minister Oliver Dowden has said that he said he does not believe the prime minister has misled parliament over Partygate.

When asked if he thought Boris Johnson should resign if he is found to have misled MPs over his involvement in the series of lockdown-breaking parties, Mr Dowden told Sky News he did not believe “that scenario will arise.”

He went on to praise the PM’s progress in brokering a trade deal during his visit to India this week, saying his efforts posed a “strong case for prime minister staying in office.”

Mr Dowden also said he did not think he was being put in front of the media to “defend the indefensible,” but acknowledged the public’s “legitimate hurt” caused by Partygate.

Cabinet minister Oliver Dowden has said that he does not believe criticism of the government’s Rwanda migrant plans can be classed as “xenophobic” - a label used by home secretary Priti Patel, who also described disapproval of the plans as “offensive.”

France and Germany could be doing more to support Ukraine in its battle against Russia, the Conservative Party chairman has said.

Oliver Dowden told Sky News’ Sophy Ridge On Sunday programme: “I would like to see more, but the prime minister is engaging on precisely that point.

“So, earlier this week he had a call not just with president Biden but also president Macron and the leaders of other countries such as Germany.

“There is a desire for us all to do it but it would be good to see more from France and Germany as well.”

Claims that Conservative MPs have accused Angela Rayner of deliberately distracting Boris Johnson by crossing and uncrossing her legs in the Commons are “ludicrous”, the party chair says.

Anger is growing over an extraordinary newspaper story that Tories liken the deputy Labour leader’s tactics to a fully-clothed equivalent of Sharon Stone’s infamous scene in the film Basic Instinct.

It has been widely condemned as blatant sexism – while also reflecting badly on Mr Johnson himself, if he cannot focus when confronted with a woman’s legs.

But Oliver Dowden dismissed the claims, in The Mail on Sunday, while carefully stopping short of a denial that certain Conservatives may have made the allegation.

Our deputy political editor Rob Merrick reports:

Deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner has hit out at a story in the Mail on Sunday this morning which suggested she had been using a Basic Instinct “ploy” to distract Boris Johnson.

The paper claimed that Ms Rayner had been accused by her Tory colleagues of putting the PM “off his stride” in the Commons by crossing and uncrossing her legs.

Tweeting today, she said: “Women in politics face sexism and misogyny every day - and I’m no different. This morning’s is the latest dose of gutter journalism courtesy of @MoS_Politics.

“I stand accused of a “ploy” to “distract” the helpless PM - by being a woman, having legs and wearing clothes. I am conspiring to “put him off his stride”. The rest I won’t repeat - but you get the picture.”

She later added: “I hope this experience doesn’t put off a single person like me, with a background like mine from aspiring to participate in public life. That would break my heart.”

Her thread is available to read in full here: