New polling from YouGov in the Times shows that Tory voters still prefer Boris to Rishi, nearly a year on from Boris’s resignation. According to the data, while Rishi has a higher net approval rating with the general population – at minus 23 to Boris’s minus 39 – those who voted Tory in the 2019 general election still prefer blondes: with them Boris has a net approval of 14, while Rishi scores a net approval of 7. Nearly half of Tories (47%) still think Boris was a good Prime Minister, while 34% say the same of Sunak today…
This might explain why Rishi is skipping the Privileges Committee vote in the Commons today, rather than voting for it. He hasn’t got the political capital to aggravate Boris’s supporters any more than he already has.
Tom Watson says Sunak should call off the vote on Monday over Bernard Jenkin…
Clearly, Jenkin’s views were significant in deciding the parameters of the inquiry. As I pen this, I grapple with an urge to disregard this contentious issue, to leave it to others, but the more I contemplate it, the more I’m convinced of the necessity for a temporary reprieve for Boris Johnson. Unlike in a court of law, Johnson doesn’t have the right to appeal the decision, which was made on a balance of probabilities.
In Rishi Sunak’s position, I would ascertain the facts before allowing Parliament to consign Boris Johnson to political oblivion come Monday. Their personal animosity should not cloud due process. Only Sunak can delay parliamentary proceedings to establish the facts and discuss potential alternatives if it transpires that Jenkin should have recused himself. And only Sunak can ensure an appeal process, should the facts dictate it. He should act today.
The final instalment of Guto Harri’s Unprecedented podcast details the media “field day” which bought Boris down. He adds, what we all knew, that the Lobby’s “kremlinology” was “ludicrous”. Guto also provides an explanation as to why Boris was initially hesitant to remove the whip from Chris Pincher, he claims Boris said:
“If we took away the whip from everyone here who has pinched someone’s bottom, we will lose our majority.”
Guto followed by caveatting “that’s probably not quite right”. The words “probably” and “quite” are doing a lot of the heavy lifting there…
The Kangaroo Court wanted to whack Boris with an astonishing ninety-day Commons suspension in today’s report. For context, that is the second-longest Commons suspension in the last 74 years. The only MP who got it worse was Keith Vaz, who was suspended for six months for offering to buy drugs for prostitutes. Boris’s crimes are eating cake in his office and upsetting the Kangaroo Court by calling it a “Kangaroo Court”…
His suspension would have been three times longer than Margaret Ferrier’s, who spoke in the Commons while showing Covid symptoms, and then took a train all the way back to Glasgow knowing she’d tested positive. She got thirty days. Claudia Webbe, who was actually convicted of harassment, was never suspended from Parliament in the first place.
Since Boris has ruined the Committee’s fun by leaving early, their substitute punishment is to suggest a ban on his ex-MP’s parliamentary pass – a sanction usually reserved for the likes of John Bercow, who bullied his way out of a peerage. The Committee’s over reaction only further demonstrates how unsuitable the membership were in the first place…
After riding the Boris bounce to his Warrington South seat in 2019, Andy Carter’s political future is no longer looking so assured. Carter, one quarter of the Kangaroo Court’s “Tory Majority“, is currently sat on a 3% majority which, on current polls, is perilous at best. No doubt this is why the marsupial Member of Parliament has been so quick to get on the “displaced list” of chicken running Tory MPs looking to migrate to a safe seat. The Tory grassroots might have other ideas…
Guido’s already reported that Andy has been making overtures in Chester South and Eddisbury. Some involved in the selection have “strong opinions” on Carter’s involvement with the Kangaroo Court.
Any activists involved in the selection of candidates for safe seats might also want to bear in mind what Carter had to say about the man responsible for his election to Parliament. Even before he began considering the evidence before the Privileges Committee he was deliberating over Boris’s political future. Carter was critical of the former Prime Minister in a private email:
“Being candid, Mr Johnson chose to appoint someone who he knew faced allegation in relation to ‘sexual impropriety’ to the whips office, with responsibility for pastoral issues, he then did not tell the truth about knowing about these concerns that had been raised with him previously following complaints. When a former Permanent Secretary contacted number 10 and urged them to correct their position, in relation to what the Prime Minister knew they continued to brief colleagues that the PM knew nothing about historic allegation, leaving Government Ministers to undertake broadcast interviews which were not accurate. It later became clear that Mr Johnson had been briefed on historic allegations in relation to Mr Pincher, since then further concerns have been raised with the Police also investing.”
