Foreign secretary evades questions on latest Boris Johnson ‘sleaze’ allegations
The foreign secretary has evaded answering questions on the latest ‘sleaze’ allegations surrounding Boris Johnson to hit the Conservative Party.
James Cleverly was asked about a claim that the BBC chairman Richard Sharp helped the former prime minister arrange a guarantee on a loan of up to £800,000, weeks before he was then recommended for the job by Mr Johnson.
Mr Cleverly admitted he had not tried to contact the ex-PM to seek clarity on the situation today, telling Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday: “You’re the journalist not me.”
Labour has reported Mr Johnson to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards following the report in the Sunday Times, which his spokesperson denied as “rubbish”.
Boris Johnson and Richard Sharp
The allegation comes after Conservative chairman Nadhim Zahawi admitted paying a settlement to HMRC following a tax error related to a shareholding in YouGov.
Pat McFadden, the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, said that taken together the stories were damaging public trust in politicians and that is “really corrosive to governance”.
He told Sophy Ridge: “It’s very easy for the public to conclude that all politicians are the same and in it for themselves.
“I think with the Boris Johnson stuff, he almost relies on that level of cynicism so that people conclude, no scandal matters, nothing matters because that’s what they’re all like anyway.”
Asked if the report about Mr Johnson was true, Mr Cleverly said: “Well, I’ve not had a conversation with either of those parties about that situation.”
However, he insisted that, as far as he can see, Mr Sharp’s appointment as BBC chair was made on his merits.
“I have met with Richard, we discussed the (BBC) World Service, he struck me as an incredibly competent, experienced, thoughtful individual. I can see exactly why he has the attributes, both personal, professional, to be the chair of the BBC.
“So, as far as I can see, his appointment was made on those merits.”
A BBC spokesman said: “The BBC plays no role in the recruitment of the chair and any questions are a matter for the government.”
A spokesman for Mr Johnson said: “Richard Sharp has never given any financial advice to Boris Johnson, nor has Mr Johnson sought any financial advice from him. There has never been any remuneration or compensation to Mr Sharp from Boris Johnson for this or any other service.
“Mr Johnson did indeed have dinner with Mr Sharp, whom he has known for almost 20 years, and with his cousin. So what? Big deal.
“All Mr Johnson’s financial arrangements have been properly declared and registered on the advice of officials.”
Nadhim Zahawi
Cleverly says he’s ‘not an investigator’
Mr Cleverly also evaded questions over Mr Zahawi’s tax affairs, saying: “I don’t know any more detail than is in his public statement.”
Questions have swirled following an article in The Sun on Sunday, which claimed a seven-figure payment was made by Mr Zahawi to end a dispute with the taxman “after scrutiny of his family’s financial affairs”.
On Saturday night, the cabinet minister admitted he made an error but insisted this was “careless and not deliberate”.
But he did not disclose the size of the settlement – reported to be an estimated £4.8m including a 30% penalty – or confirm whether he paid a fine.
Mr Cleverly was asked to shed light on this, and whether Mr Zahawi negotiated his tax settlement with HMRC while he was serving as chancellor in the closing days of the Johnson administration, or what Rishi Sunak knew when he appointed him party chairman.
“I’m not an investigator,” Mr Cleverly said when it was put to him that he was there to speak on behalf of the government.
Asked whether Mr Zahawi will survive in his role until Wednesday, Mr Cleverly said: “What else am I going to say other than yes, because he’s a very, very effective minister.”
However, Mr McFadden said his survival is “difficult” and what happens next will be a test to the prime minister, who vowed to turn over a new leaf after Mr Johnson’s scandal-plagued premiership.
The UK-US trade deal has been signed and is “done”, US President Donald Trump has said as he met Sir Keir Starmer at the G7 summit.
The US president told reporters in Canada: “We signed it, and it’s done. It’s a fair deal for both. It’ll produce a lot of jobs, a lot of income.”
Sir Keir said the document “implements” the deal to cut tariffs on cars and aerospace, describing it as a “really important agreement”.
“So this is a very good day for both of our countries – a real sign of strength,” the prime minister added.
Mr Trump added that the UK was “very well protected” against any future tariffs, saying: “You know why? Because I like them”.
However, he did not say whether levies on British steel exports to the US would be set to 0%, saying “we’re gonna let you have that information in a little while”.
Mr Trump also praised Sir Keir as a “great” prime minister, adding: “We’ve been talking about this deal for six years, and he’s done what they haven’t been able to do.”
He added: “We’re very longtime partners and allies and friends and we’ve become friends in a short period of time.
“He’s slightly more liberal than me to put it mildly… but we get along.”
Sir Keir added that “we make it work”.
As the pair exited a mountain lodge in the Canadian Rockies where the summit is being held, Mr Trump held up a physical copy of the trade agreement to show reporters.
Several leaves of paper fell from the binding, and Sir Keir quickly stooped to pick them up, saying: “A very important document.”
Sir Keir Starmer picks up paper from the UK-US trade deal after Donald Trump dropped it at the G7 summit. Pic: Reuters
The US president also appeared to mistakenly refer to a “trade agreement with the European Union” at one point as he stood alongside the British prime minister.
Mr Trump announced his “Liberation Day” tariffs on countries in April. At the time, he announced 10% “reciprocal” rates on all UK exports – as well as separately announced 25% levies on cars and steel.
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In a joint televised phone call in May, Sir Keir and Mr Trump announced the UK and US had agreed on a trade deal – but added the details were being finalised.
Ahead of the G7 summit, the prime minister said he would meet Mr Trump for “one-on-one” talks, and added the agreement “really matters for the vital sectors that are safeguarded under our deal, and we’ve got to implement that”.
Whitehall officials tried to convince Michael Gove to go to court to cover up the grooming scandal in 2011, Sky News can reveal.
Dominic Cummings, who was working for Lord Gove at the time, has told Sky News that officials in the Department for Education (DfE) wanted to help efforts by Rotherham Council to stop a national newspaper from exposing the scandal.
In an interview with Sky News, Mr Cummings said that officials wanted a “total cover-up”.
Politics latest: Grooming gangs findings unveiled
The revelation shines a light on the institutional reluctance of some key officials in central government to publicly highlight the grooming gang scandal.
In 2011, Rotherham Council approached the Department for Education asking for help following inquiries by The Times. The paper’s then chief reporter, the late Andrew Norfolk, was asking about sexual abuse and trafficking of children in Rotherham.
The council went to Lord Gove’s Department for Education for help. Officials considered the request and then recommended to Lord Gove’s office that the minister back a judicial review which might, if successful, stop The Times publishing the story.
Lord Gove rejected the request on the advice of Mr Cummings. Sources have independently confirmed Mr Cummings’ account.
Education Secretary Michael Gove in 2011. Pic: PA
Mr Cummings told Sky News: “Officials came to me in the Department of Education and said: ‘There’s this Times journalist who wants to write the story about these gangs. The local authority wants to judicially review it and stop The Times publishing the story’.
“So I went to Michael Gove and said: ‘This council is trying to actually stop this and they’re going to use judicial review. You should tell the council that far from siding with the council to stop The Times you will write to the judge and hand over a whole bunch of documents and actually blow up the council’s JR (judicial review).’
“Some officials wanted a total cover-up and were on the side of the council…
“They wanted to help the local council do the cover-up and stop The Times’ reporting, but other officials, including in the DfE private office, said this is completely outrageous and we should blow it up. Gove did, the judicial review got blown up, Norfolk stories ran.”
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Grooming gangs victim speaks out
The judicial review wanted by officials would have asked a judge to decide about the lawfulness of The Times’ publication plans and the consequences that would flow from this information entering the public domain.
A second source told Sky News that the advice from officials was to side with Rotherham Council and its attempts to stop publication of details it did not want in the public domain.
One of the motivations cited for stopping publication would be to prevent the identities of abused children entering the public domain.
There was also a fear that publication could set back the existing attempts to halt the scandal, although incidents of abuse continued for many years after these cases.
Sources suggested that there is also a natural risk aversion amongst officials to publicity of this sort.
Read more on grooming gangs:
What we do and don’t know from the data
A timeline of the scandal
Mr Cummings, who ran the Vote Leave Brexit campaign and was Boris Johnson’s right-hand man in Downing Street, has long pushed for a national inquiry into grooming gangs to expose failures at the heart of government.
He said the inquiry, announced today, “will be a total s**tshow for Whitehall because it will reveal how much Whitehall worked to try and cover up the whole thing.”
He also described Mr Johnson, with whom he has a long-standing animus, as a “moron’ for saying that money spent on inquiries into historic child sexual abuse had been “spaffed up the wall”.
Asked by Sky News political correspondent Liz Bates why he had not pushed for a public inquiry himself when he worked in Number 10 in 2019-20, Mr Cummings said Brexit and then COVID had taken precedence.
“There are a million things that I wanted to do but in 2019 we were dealing with the constitutional crisis,” he said.
The Department for Education and Rotherham Council have been approached for comment.
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