Chief Partygate investigator-turned Labour Chief of Staff Sue Gray was in personal contact with Privileges Committee chair Harriet Harman while Gray was still a civil servant. According to Sky News, Harman made frequent, direct contact with Gray in the early stages of the Kangaroo Court’s Partygate probe, claiming privately “I just speak to Sue”. A Privileges Committee spokesperson insists this is all above board:

“The chair with the full knowledge of the committee has had regular contact with a number of ministers and officials in the Cabinet Office to discuss matters such as the provision of documents to the committee, the identity of potential witnesses and the welfare of civil servants who may be affected by the inquiry.”

They also stressed “the privileges committee is not relying on evidence gathered by Sue Gray“. Just like how she ‘wasn’t’ working on the Partygate probe after opening talks with Labour – until it was revealed she was, after all…

Starmer claimed Richard Sharp being appointed to the BBC was corrupt because he was helpful to then PM Boris on an unrelated matter when the role was being discussed. Gray being appointed to Starmer’s office however is not corrupt despite when the role was being discussed her being helpful to the man who wants to be PM in getting rid of his most potent campaigning opponent. Completely different.

As the Privileges Committee finally released Boris Johnson’s 50-page written evidence submission, Guido was struck by one claim from the Committee. In their press release, they state “Mr Johnson’s written submission contains no new documentary evidence”. Sources close to Johnson categorically refute this. Guido is happy to take a look at the evidence and let co-conspirators be the judge.
The dossier includes previously unpublished WhatsApp messages sent on the evening of December 7, 2021. On page 37, the dossier includes a text from a senior adviser to Boris saying, ““I think you can say ‘I’ve been assured there was no party and no rules were broken’”. The committee did not publish this evidence previously.

Page 36 of the submission includes a WhatsApp message from Boris, asking his team “is there a way we could get the truth about this party out there?”. It hardly looks like a cover up. The committee did not publish this evidence previously.

There were further testimonies included on page 42 of the dossier. This includes a witness saying “it is my honest belief that Mr Johnson did not deliberately or negligently mislead the House” and another testifying that multiple civil servants assured Boris that rules were followed. The committee did not publish this evidence previously.

Boris makes further defences in his dossier. He criticises the Committee’s fourth report for selectively quoting a witness – omitting the claim that Boris didn’t drink and “was the most sensible person there”. Boris also doesn’t hold back from blasting “the discredited” Dominic Cummings:

“It is no secret that Dominic Cummings bears an animus towards me, having publicly stated on multiple occasions that he wanted to do everything that he could to remove me “from power”. He cannot be treated as a credible witness”.

The Committee needs to explain why they kept back from publishing evidence that supported the central contention that Boris was advised by officials that all was compliant...

There had been a lot of speculation from the usual suspects that Boris would not fight his Uxbridge and South Ruislip seat; the broadsheet conspiracy theorists’ favourite chicken run was to Nadine Dorries’ constituency in Bedford, which will become vacant when she goes to the Lords. Guido always expected him to fight Uxbridge with the attitude that he would go down fighting if the Tories are put to a rout at the next election. The polls suggest the odds are against Boris…

Labour’s Danny Beales shouldn’t be complacent about his forecasted 16 percentage point lead. Boris has star power, campaigns like no one else in British politics and is a lucky general. The boundary changes in his Uxbridge and South Ruislip seat are worth a welcome thousand or so extra votes. The above forecast is based on a uniform national swing. Boris, given a chance, will defy that swing. No one has gotten rich betting against Boris.

Next week Boris is up before Harriet Harman’s kangaroo court Privileges Committee to give evidence. On Wednesday she will seek to prove what was in his mind when he said in Parliament that he was advised that “all guidance was followed in No. 10” and “I have been repeatedly assured since these allegations emerged that there was no party and that no Covid rules were broken”. Harman wants to prove that he knew this – in the light of the subsequent fixed penalties issued – was untrue. If a majority on the committee believe that they can read his mind and that he was knowingly lying they might have a chance to suspend him from Parliament for 10 sitting days, triggering a petition under the Recall of MPs Act 2015. That is self-evidently what Harriet Harman wants to do – so ask yourself why? Is it because they fear Boris could come back and beat them again…

Boris Johnson has won unlikely support from the high-profile, Brexit-frustrating QC Lord Pannick. It’s understood that Lord Pannick will this morning deliver a “devastating blow” to the privileges committee investigation into whether Boris misled the house – an investigation already so blatantly stitched up it carries no moral weight. Lord Pannick – who can hardly be accused of being a supporter of Boris or Brexit – is expected to argue that the committee’s desire to see the PM chucked out of the Commons could seriously muzzle ministers in future. This is the same Lord Pannick who represented Gina Miller in 2019 at the Supreme Court over the government’s prorogation attempt…

The inquiry has already been roundly slammed, not only for having changed the terms of reference from looking into whether Boris ‘deliberately misled the house’ to merely ‘misled’; there are also questions of why Speaker Lindsay Hoyle waved a magic wand to give the committee the power to trigger the recall act. The chair, Harriet Harman, has also prejudged the inquiry by tweeting that Boris did mislead the House…

Guido understands Lord Pannick’s full argument will be published in the next few hours, by lunchtime at the very latest. A Downing Street source tells The Mail “This isn’t for Boris, but for all future PMs and MPs,” “Ministers will never be able to say anything if they think they can be found in contempt by accidentally giving the wrong answer.” Pannick will also question why witnesses are being allowed to give evidence anonymously, contrary to standard court practice, with an insider source saying the advice is “absolutely devastating”…

Who’d have thought it: appointing a Boris-hating Labour MP to chair the investigation into the PM over whether he misled the House – someone who’d already decided the outcome of the inquiry when Tweeting Boris had done so – looks like it may result in a politically-motivated stitch-up designed to humiliate the beleaguered PM further, and force him out of Parliament. Yesterday evening it emerged Harman’s Privileges Committee has quietly changed the terms of their investigation.

Publishing advice from the Clerk of the Journals on the definition of a contempt, the Committee now says “that while “much of the commentary has focussed on whether Mr Johnson “deliberately” or “knowingly” misled the Committee”, “this wording is not in the motion”.” A major blow to the PM’s defence that it was his understanding no rules were broken, that he ducked out of the leaving do’s he attended early before they became parties, and that he did not therefore knowingly mislead the house. 

“It will be for the Committee to decide, on the basis of its assessment of the evidence, whether, in the circumstances in which they were made, Mr Johnson’s statements “amounted to misleading the House”. It is possible that in making that decision the Committee may expressly or implicitly come to a view as to whether the Ministerial Code was breached, but that is not the question before it.”

While the Committee will now disregard the PM’s intent, the Clerk’s report does say that can feed into deciding a sanction. This is all, in the understated words of The Telegraph, “a departure from precedent”…

It seems the Speaker’s also got in on the act of changing rules. The Privileges Committee’s announcement yesterday said Hoyle has ruled that “any suspension of the requisite length (10 sitting days or 14 calendar days) ) following on from a report from that Committee will attract the provisions of the Recall of MPs Act”. Previously only recommendations of suspension from the Standards Committee would apply the recall act. Now the PM faces a by-election being forced by Harman. Tory MPs are now having to fight back on his behalf, launching a petition to scrap the investigation altogether in light of his resignation…