The Solicitors’ Regulation Authority has told business secretary Jonathan Reynolds they may prosecute him in future over his claims to have been a ‘solicitor.’ After Jonathan Reynolds told a lunch of Westminster journalists last week that he had been cleared by the SRA one of its spokesman told The Telegraph:
“We have concluded our investigation. We do not consider it proportionate or in the public interest to bring criminal proceedings. However, we have advised that if the behaviour is repeated, we may well reconsider our position.”
This comes after Guido revealed numerous times Reynolds had referred to his career as a ‘solicitor’ – including in the Commons – despite never advancing past the rank of trainee. Reynolds told hacks gathered at the Westminster Press Gallery’s lunch: “They came back shortly after that media period to say look, always be careful to be accurate, but there’s no misleading here, and there’s nothing else to look into.” A warning slap for Reynolds and any other aspiring CV inflationists…
Lucy Powell told Sky News that the Ed Miliband-Russell Brand interview happened in part because the ‘social media age’ had not begun by 2015:
“Look, I mean, he approached the Labour Party, he approached the campaign team, and we’re in very different times now. We weren’t in the social media age at the time – where you could maybe search things up and see allegations about somebody at the time. and as I say, if there was any suggestion at all, we were dealing with someone who was a known sexual predator at the time, then, of course, you know, no one would have done that. But as I say, he was a well known public figure. Lots of people from Hollywood to the BBC to many others gave this person a very, very powerful platform. And we didn’t know at the time, unfortunately. It was a different era.”