With child maintenance, a vastly expensive Lulu Lytle flat refurb, and a major pay cut since losing his Telegraph column, Boris’s time in No. 10 has been wracked with fiscal worries. It now seems it could get much worse for the PM.
Lawyer Adam Wagner has pointed out fixed penalty notices actually increase with every subsequent one received. So while just one rule-breaking event attended by the PM would see him charged £100, the second would be £200 and the third £800.
But the amount of a fixed penalty notice increases with each subsequent one given. Here's what I think those figures would be:
— Adam Wagner (@AdamWagner1) February 2, 2022
🥳20.5.20 £100
🥳19.6.20 £200
🥳13.11.20 £800
🥳13.11.20 £1,600
🥳17.12.20 £3,200
🥳14.1.21 £6,400
Total: £12,300
By the time you take into account all six events the PM’s accused of having attended he could be staring down the barrel of a £12,300 bill. And that’s presuming the ABBA flat party didn’t have over 30 attendees, which would be greeted with a £10,000 fine.
And look who turned up to watch her…
Guido hears that Boris’s Chequers dinner with Theresa May was even more uncomfortable than expected. With Major, Blair, Brown, and Cameron already all too busy to show up, it looks like Boris himself decided he had better things to do than attend his own party. Both he and Carrie left the event before the entrées even arrived, leaving Theresa alone to entertain her fellow 100 guests for the entire three-course bash. Apparently Boris insisted, with much regret, that he needed leave because he had to catch a flight to New York. A flight which actually departed the next morning…
Carrie announces via Instagram that she’s pregnant again and expecting a December birth. She also reveals she suffered a miscarriage at the start of the year:
At the beginning of the year, I had a miscarriage which left me heartbroken.
I feel incredibly blessed to be pregnant again but I’ve also felt like a bag of nerves.
Fertility issues can be really hard for many people, particularly when on platforms like Instagram it can look like everything is only ever going well.
I found it a real comfort to hear from people who had also experienced loss so I hope that in some very small way sharing this might help others too.
The Westminster rumour mill had been much quieter on the news of this second pregnancy in comparison to the first. Though some keen-eyed sources had pointed out Carrie’s sobriety in G7 photographs, in comparison to many other guests…
Michael Ashcroft has announced that his next biography will be about Carrie Johnson.
“Carrie has interested me for some time. Many people know her as Boris Johnson’s wife, but her influence developed long before she moved into 10 Downing Street via her work over the last decade within the Conservative Party and also through the posts she has held working for government ministers. Aside from politics, she has campaigned in the fields of the environment and animal rights, both of which are areas of great interest to me.”
Ashcroft’s biography of Keir Starmer, “Red Knight”, is out next month. His biography of David Cameron, written with Isabel Oakeshott, famously floated an intimate pig-related anecdote. Carrie will no doubt be looking forward to her unauthorised biography being published with eager anticipation…
Parliament’s Standards Committee has criticised the PM for failing to register “a full account and explanation of the funding arrangements” for his holiday to Mustique with Carrie in 2019, however concluded he did not breach the code itself. The Commissioner also found “no reason” to dispute the £15,000 valuation registered by Boris. Contrary to the Daily Mail’s report in May that the Commissioner had said the break was worth “more than twice” what Boris had declared…
“We conclude that Mr Ross was the donor of Mr Johnson’s holiday accommodation through an informal arrangement with the Mustique Company, whereby the Mustique Company paid the Richardsons for Mr Johnson’s stay and Mr Ross would provide his villa to the Mustique Company for free in recompense. We therefore find that Mr Johnson’s Register entry is accurate and complete, and we find no breach by Mr Johnson of paragraph 14 of the Code.
Although, in light of the additional evidence we received, we have reached a different conclusion from the Commissioner, we do not criticise her either for commencing this investigation or, on the evidence available to her at the time, for reaching the conclusion that she did.”
There will be many crestfallen politicos and hacks this morning…
