There are still unanswered questions over how the refurbishment of Boris Johnson’s Downing Street flat was funded. As Labour demands an investigation into the prime minister by the Metropolitan police, here is what we know so far. Why was there such clamour over PM’s flat renovation?It is not uncommon for new prime ministers to want to renovate their grace-and-favour Downing Street flat. A...
A petition to revoke the knighthood recently awarded to Tony Blair has reached 1m signatures in just six days. Blair was made a Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, the oldest and most senior British order of chivalry, in the new year honours list. On Friday afternoon, the Labour MP Richard Burgon tweeted: “It says a lot about what is wrong with our system when, after being one...
Boris Johnson was accused on Monday night of an “utterly outrageous” breach of lockdown rules as a leaked email showed one of his top officials invited more than 100 Downing Street staff to a “bring your own booze” party during the first lockdown. The police are now investigating. The prime minister is believed to have attended the No 10 garden party on 20 May 2020 along with Carrie Johnson, then...
The Tory MP Christian Wakeford has defected to Labour, piling more pressure on Boris Johnson as growing numbers within his own party call on the prime minister to resign. Just minutes before prime minister’s questions, Wakeford – elected as the MP for Bury South in 2019 – crossed the floor to sit with Keir Starmer’s party, declaring in a letter to Johnson resigning the Conservative whip that he...
About a dozen Tory MPs have made similar allegations in the last few days to a colleague who claims the party’s whips have engaged in blackmail, the chair of the Commons standards committee has said. Chris Bryant’s remarks come as William Wragg, the senior Tory backbencher who accused No 10 of trying to blackmail MPs seeking to oust Boris Johnson, prepares to meet the police over his allegations...
Dominic Cummings has said it is his “duty to get rid” of Boris Johnson as prime minister, describing it as “sort of like fixing the drains”. The prime minister’s former chief adviser called his former boss a “complete fuckwit” whose only preoccupations were “Big Ben’s bongs” and “looking at maps” to “order the building of things” in his honour. Cummings, who has sent evidence to the Cabinet...
The government’s social mobility tsar has said she does not think Boris Johnson is a good role model for children. Katharine Birbalsingh, who was appointed chair of the Social Mobility Commission (SMC) in 2021, told Sky News that while she liked the prime minister she did not think he was “professional enough”, adding his personal life makes her “raise an eyebrow”. Birbalsingh, the head of...
The former Tory leader Michael Howard has called on Boris Johnson to quit and on cabinet members to consider their positions after a double byelection defeat and the resignation of a Conservative party co-chair. Johnson, who is in Rwanda at a Commonwealth summit, said on Friday that he would keep going as prime minister despite losing the former Tory stronghold of Tiverton and Honiton to the...
Boris Johnson has awarded a knighthood to Gavin Williamson, despite a ministerial record that includes the Covid exams debacle as education secretary and being sacked as defence secretary for allegedly leaking secure information. The news prompted anger from opposition parties, with Labour calling Williamson’s record “disgraceful”. The Liberal Democrats called the knighthood “an insult to every...
Keir Starmer has called on the Conservatives to sack their co-chair, Ben Elliot, for being “at the heart” of links between the party and Russian money. The Labour leader said Elliot should step back from his role or be removed after revelations about his firm’s Russian business and the Tories accepting donations from wealthy Russians or companies linked to Russia. Elliot has been chair of the...