Saturday 28 May 2022

Johnson rewrites ministerial code

Boris Johnson is now totally out of control. Yesterday he published a new watered down ministerial code while he is still under investigation by the committee for standards and privileges for breaking the very same code by misleading the House over partygate , something he’s actually done on more or less a weekly basis since he became prime minister. But rewriting his own code is the sort of thing you might expect from Vladimir Putin, not from a British prime minister.

On Newsnight last night it was claimed the changes were recommended by the committee for standards in public life, which I had a quick look for this morning. As far as I can see this comes from a report issued last November - before partygate - and has a foreword written by Sir John Major. It has 34 recommendation and No 6 says this:

"The Ministerial Code should detail a range of sanctions the Prime Minister may issue, including, but not limited to, apologies, fines, and asking for a minister’s resignation."

So, it seems to be true and Johnson has accepted that. However, it also says (recommendation 8) that:

"The Independent Adviser should be able to initiate investigations into breaches of the Ministerial Code."

Which Johnson hasn't accepted. The 'independent adviser' isn't really independent at all! He or she must wait for the PM to suggest an investigation or one to be initiated.

This is typical cakeism from Johnson. He has cherry picked the bits he likes and ignored anything he doesn't like. I am not at all sure the committee would have come up with the same report and recommendations had it been sitting now. They have underestimated the extent to which he is prepared to ride roughshod over convention.

And I can't see where the standards committee recommended that the words, "integrity, objectivity, accountability, transparency, honesty and leadership in the public interest – must be honoured at all times; as must the political impartiality of our much admired civil service" should be removed altogether as the BBC's Lewis Goodall pointed out in a tweet:

Labour's deputy leader Angela Rayner tweeted:

Every time he gets away with something he’s emboldened to go a bit further - and does.. 

There are suggestions that the changes are not significant because ministers don’t resign anyway, mainly because Johnson doesn’t ask any of them to, regardless of what they might have done. This may be so, but if he doesn’t follow the code as it was, what is the point of weakening it?

It simply means they will ignore the weakened code. Nobody is going to resign under even more egregious circumstances, including Johnson himself.

Surely this latest step will prompt more MPs to send a letter of no confidence to Sir Graham Brady, chair of the powerful 1922 committee. We can only hope. They are the only ones standing between us and anarchy.

Of all people who should sit in judgment over what amounts to ministerial wrongdoings, Boris Johnson is the last person you would choose.  Liar, cheat, moral bankrupt, philanderer and serially untrustworthy it’s hard to imagine who could be worse.

Nobody should ever forget that Boris Johnson works for Boris Johnson PLC. He is the sole shareholder, Chairman and CEO and is only interested in promoting himself. Nothing else matters, not me or you or anyone else.  He is a megalomaniac. He doesn’t even see himself as PM anymore but as President with unlimited powers. 

The former Justice Secretary, David Gauke, has a good article in The New Statesman where he urges Downing Street staff to "stand up to Boris Johnson, not appease him."  On the quandary of Tory MPs he has this perceptive comment:

"There is a growing sense among Tory MPs that they are heading towards defeat at the next general election. The cost-of-living crisis, administrative incompetence and the collapse in trust in the Prime Minister mean that Conservatives feel they need a miracle to win next time around. But when assessing which of the possible candidates to lead the party into a general election has the potential to be a miracle-worker, they come up with a shortlist of one: Boris Johnson. He might be responsible for getting them into a mess but he might just get them out of it. It has happened before."

Once they recognise he is not going to get them out of the mess he has created, let's hope they come to their senses and dump him.

It’s not as if he’s driving some great liberating policy against vested interests which needs him to acquire untrammelled power and is supported by a majority of Tory MPs.  He isn’t. In fact the government is lurching from one policy mistake to another. The latest being the windfall tax.  David Davis, MP for Howden & Haltemprice, was on Radio 4 this very morning laying into the latest policy reversal on taxation.

Tory MPs are very unhappy after they were whipped to vote against a windfall tax a few days ago only to find Johnson has U-turned because he needed something big to deflect from partygate and the Gray report. Hence £15 billion of public money is suddenly found down the back of one of the elegant sofas in No 11 and MPs are soon to appear on TV supporting what they opposed the week before last. As one said, “We look like prats."

He is not out of the woods by any means. He faces the committee on standards and privileges shortly, the GLA are still investigating a misconduct in public office charge over his alleged affair with Jennifer Arcuri and there are growing rumours that he interfered with Gray's report by asking her to drop it in a secret meeting a few weeks ago.

It seems Johnson has also stepped in to prevent a committee appointing someone he doesn't like to head up the National Crime Agency instead of his mate and admirer, Bernard Hogan-Howe, opening up the government to legal action by the successful candidate Neil Basus.

One anonymous frontbencher is quoted in The Guardian saying, “I fear a slow and painful death of this government. He’s caused so many problems, we can’t even talk about the real issues of the day to begin to tackle them.” They described the situation as “depressing and embarrassing."

The amazing thing about Tory MPs reluctance to move against him is that if the roles were reversed he wouldn’t hesitate for one second to ditch any or all of them if it meant he could hang on to power.,

Ken Clarke, in The Independent says the UK is “dangerously close” to becoming an “elected dictatorship” under Boris Johnson and he said the prime minister’s handling of Brexit clashes were “laughable”.  He said Johnson had nothing but disregard for “constitutional constraints”, calling his party “more nationalist than at any time in my lifetime”.

Clarke said, “He gets angry if the courts or parliament try to interfere. As the elected prime minister, he thinks he should not be impeded in these ways.” 

 He must go - and soon.

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