Adam Boulton: Long Johnson is still plaguing the Tories – Sunak needs to take decisive action

Published

3 years ago

January 28, 2023

admin

Those worried about the health of British politics have diagnosed a new disease at Westminster.

Chris Patten, a grandee from the Conservative establishment, spotted what he called “Long Boris” last summer.

Weeks after Boris Johnson announced his resignation as prime minister, Lord Patten, a former party chairman and former BBC chairman, lamented the persistent “corrupting and debilitating impact of Johnson’s premiership on British politics and government.”

As with ‘SARS-Covid-19’ there was some debate as to how the condition should be named in general conversation.

Eventually, “Long Johnson” was settled on rather than the more familiar “Long Boris”.

The commentator Paul Waugh listed some of the symptoms of Long Johnson he saw in the bloodstream of the Conservative party: “A debilitating condition that led it to lose its sense of taste, decency and direction.”

Long Johnson hit fever pitch with the Conservative party’s short-lived collective decision to select Johnson’s preferred candidate, Liz Truss, as the next prime minister. That quickly burnt itself out.

Westminster Accounts: Search for your MP

On taking office Rishi Sunak tried to shake off Long Johnson by promising that his government would be one of “integrity, professionalism and accountability” at all times. It is not proving so easy for the new prime minister to escape unwanted legacies from his predecessor-but-one.

Questions of probity over two men who were promoted by Johnson, Nadhim Zahawi and Richard Sharp, have combined to create the biggest political crisis of Sunak’s short premiership.

According to Raphael Behr, political columnist on The Guardian, the “Zahawi episode is a symptom of Long Johnson, the chronic, recurrent, debilitation of government by a pathogen that still circulates in the ruling party long after the original infection has been treated”.

The embarrassments Sunak is grappling with are debilitating hangovers from the Johnson era, so is the fumbling way the prime minister is dealing with them.

Nadhim Zahawi had the reputation at Westminster of a comparatively competent and personable minister, one of those credited with the successful roll-out of the vaccine programme. But as often with politicians who become conspicuously wealthy there was much gossip about his finances.

His wealth was generated as a co-founder of the polling company YouGov before he became an MP.

Scrutiny of Zahawi’s finances sharpened when he became Chancellor of the Exchequer, the politician responsible for the nation’s finances and tax system. In seeking the truth, journalists received what they considered to be aggressive threats of libel from lawyers acting for Zahawi, designed to suppress allegations, some of which have been confirmed as accurate.

It is now known that while he was Chancellor, Zahawi quietly negotiated a tax settlement totalling some £5m, including a penalty of more than £1m, with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) for which he was the minister responsible.

Zahawi says his mistake was “careless but not deliberate”. Jim Harra, the head of HMRC, told MPs this week: “There are no penalties for innocent errors in your tax affairs.”

There is no pressing reason why Boris Johnson should have made Zahawi chancellor. Nor does the haste with which the appointment was made suggest that the prime minister or his officials, led by the Cabinet Secretary, had sufficient time for due diligence looking into his suitability for this most sensitive financial post. Yet their green light then effectively gave him a free pass to prominent ministerial ranks under both Truss and Sunak.

By late last year scrutiny by an honours committee elsewhere in Whitehall reportedly held up a proposed knighthood for Zahawi.

In the past, when serving prime ministers have announced their intention to resign, other ministers have stayed in post until the successor is chosen. He or she then assembles their own cabinet team. This has been so even when threatened ministerial resignations force out a prime minister, as happened to both Tony Blair and Boris Johnson.

Once he announced he was going, Johnson could have said that he was not accepting resignations and that all minsters would stay on in the interim. That is not the way Boris Johnson behaved. He used his dying powers of patronage to settle scores and to try to influence the outcome of the leadership election.

He fired Michael Gove and then he troubled the ailing Queen to appoint an entirely new temporary cabinet for the few weeks of the leadership contest. Johnson promoted Zahawi to the Treasury, thus crucially depriving Rishi Sunak of the status of high office during the leadership battle, while Truss luxuriated in the great office of state of foreign secretary.

Earlier, after Sunak emerged as the person most likely to replace Johnson, he became the subject of damaging leaks about his US Green Card and his wife’s non-dom status. The Metropolitan Police coincidentally tarnished the teetotal Sunak’s reputation, and blunted the impact on Johnson, by issuing them both with fixed penalty notices for breaking COVID regulations at the “ambushed with a cake” Johnson birthday party in the cabinet room.

Sunak experienced the hard way the phenomenon, now hitting Zahawi and Sharp, that friendship with Johnson often has adverse consequences.

Richard Sharp insists that he was appointed the chairman of the BBC on merit after a rigorous selection process. There is no reason to doubt his perspective. When I knew him at university, more than 40 years ago, he was an exceptionally decent and considerate person. He went on to build a highly successful career in finance alongside generous voluntary contributions to public service and charity.

Men with known political affiliations such as Michael Grade, Gavyn Davies and Marmaduke Hussey have been appointed to the BBC chair by other prime ministers. But Boris Johnson made the final decision over Sharp, after he and his allies had previously broken with precedent by conjuring up culture wars and pre-endorsing friends and allies such as Paul Dacre and Charles Moore for top posts in the media, normally viewed as apolitical – unsuccessfully it turned out.

Johnson used his patronage to appoint Peter Cruddas to the House of Lords, someone who had helped him out with his personal finances. Richard Sharp says he “simply connected” people, who then facilitated an undeclared personal £800,000 overdraft guarantee for the prime minister.

Richard Sharp and cabinet secretary Simon Case may genuinely have decided this was immaterial to Sharp’s BBC application but is that the way Boris Johnson sees things? Several enquiries into Sharp’s appointment are now under way. Johnson’s benefactor Sam Blyth is an old friend of Sharp.

The inquiries will doubtless ascertain whether Boris Johnson knew of this obliging distant cousin’s existence before Sharp introduced him to the cabinet secretary.

Long Johnson is also evident in the way the government is handling these potential scandals.

Quick resignations and moving on are things of the past. Following a pattern which became familiar during the Johnson era, Sunak has presided over, and sometimes joined in, denials that have turned out to be inaccurate, playing for time by calling for further inquiries after awkward facts are established.

Sir Keir Starmer had a two-pronged attack at PMQs: “We all know why the prime minister was reluctant to ask his party chair questions about family finances and tax avoidance, but his failure to sack him, when the whole country can see what is going on, shows how hopelessly weak he is.”

Sizeable minorities in parliament and perhaps even more in the Tory membership are not loyal to Sunak and hanker for a return of Johnson. This limits Sunak’s ability to lead firmly.

With his oblique reference to the great wealth of Sunak’s family, the leader of the opposition went further, implying that the prime minister is really just one of them – sharing similar values, or the absence of them, to Johnson and Zahawi and the same acquisitiveness.

Only urgent decisive action by Sunak can demonstrate that he has beaten the plague of Long Johnson.

UK

Britain is buying new air defence missile systems – but can they protect us?

Published

4 hours ago

August 22, 2025

admin

Britain is buying new air defence missile systems - but can they protect us?

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has announced it will buy £118m worth of air defence missile systems for the British Army.

But will this new purchase protect an increasingly vulnerable UK from attack, and why now?

For more than 50 years, the British Army relied on the Rapier air defence missile system to protect deployed forces.

In 2021, that system was replaced by Sky Sabre.

The new system is mobile, ground-based, and designed to counter various aerial threats, including fighter aircraft, attack helicopters, drones, and guided munitions.

It’s known for its speed, accuracy, and ability to integrate with other military assets, including those of the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force (and NATO).

What is the Land Ceptor missile, and why do we need more of them?

Sky Sabre includes radar, command, and control capability and – most importantly – a missile to intercept incoming threats.

The Land Ceptor missile weighs around 100kg, has a 10kg warhead, and can intercept threats out to around 15 miles (25km), making it around three times more effective than the Rapier system it replaced.

When the MoD made the decision to replace the Rapier system, the global threat environment was very different to that experienced today.

Since the end of the Cold War, the UK has been involved in expeditionary warfare – wars of choice – and generally against less capable adversaries.

So, although the Land Ceptor missile is very capable, defence planning assumptions (DPAs) were that they would not need to be used in a serious way, commensurate with the threat.

However, as the Russian invasion of Ukraine has demonstrated (as has the series of Iranian attacks on Israel), significantly larger stockpiles are required against a more capable enemy.

Is the UK vulnerable to missile attack?

In short, yes. Although the Land Ceptor missile does provide an excellent point-defence capability, it is not an effective counter to ballistic or hypersonic missiles – the Sea Viper mounted on Royal Navy Type 45 Destroyers using the Aster 30 missile has that capability.

In the Cold War, the UK had Bloodhound missiles deployed around the UK to provide a missile defence capability, but as the perceived risks to the UK abated following the collapse of the Soviet Union, UK missile defence fell down the priorities for the MoD.

Although the radar based at RAF Fylingdales forms part of the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS), and can detect incoming threats, the UK no longer has an effective interceptor to protect critical national infrastructure.

Instead, the UK relies on the layered defences of European allies to act as a deterrence against attack.

In the near term, this timely order for Land Ceptor missiles doubles the British Army’s tactical capability.

However, as the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East have demonstrated, ballistic (and increasingly hypersonic) missiles are being produced in increasing quantity – and quality.

Without significant (and rapid) investment, this critical gap in national military capability leaves the UK vulnerable to attack.

UK

New dinosaur named after record-breaking yachtswoman

Published

4 hours ago

August 22, 2025

admin

New dinosaur named after record-breaking yachtswoman

A newly-discovered dinosaur with an “eye-catching sail” along its back and tail is to be named after record-breaking yachtswoman Dame Ellen MacArthur.

Istiorachis macaruthurae was identified and named by Jeremy Lockwood, a PhD student at the University of Portsmouth and the Natural History Museum.

Istiorachis means “sail spine” and macaruthurae is taken from the surname of Dame Ellen, who became famous for setting a record for the fastest solo non-stop round-the-world voyage in 2005.

Dame Ellen is from the Isle of Wight, where the creature’s fossils were found.

Before Dr Lockwood analysed them, the fossils, which date back 125 million years, were thought to be from one of the two known iguanodontian dinosaur species from the island.

“But this one had particularly long neural spines, which was very unusual,” he said.

Writing in the scientific journal Papers in Palaeontology, Dr Lockwood said his study showed the dino would have probably had a pronounced sail-like structure along its back.

The exact purpose of such features “has long been debated, with theories ranging from body heat regulation to fat storage”.

In this case, researchers think it was most likely to be for “visual signalling, possibly as part of a sexual display”.

For the study, the researchers compared the fossilised bones with a database of similar dinosaur backbones which allowed them to see how these sail-like formations had evolved.

Dr Lockwood said his team showed Istiorachis’s spines “weren’t just tall, they were more exaggerated than is usual in Iguanodon-like dinosaurs, which is exactly the kind of trait you’d expect to evolve through sexual selection”.

Professor Susannah Maidment, of the Natural History Museum, said: “Jeremy’s careful study of fossils that have been in museum collections for several years has brought to life the iguandontian dinosaurs of the Isle of Wight.

“His work highlights the importance of collections like those at [Isle Of Wight museum] Dinosaur Isle, where fossil specimens are preserved in perpetuity and can be studied and revised in the light of new data and new ideas about evolution.

“Over the past five years, Jeremy has single-handedly quadrupled the known diversity of the smaller iguanodontians on the Isle of Wight, and Istiorachis demonstrates we still have much to learn about Early Cretaceous ecosystems in the UK.”

UK

Shoreham air crash: Families mark 10 years since one of UK’s worst airshow disasters

Published

7 hours ago

August 22, 2025

admin

Shoreham air crash: Families mark 10 years since one of UK's worst airshow disasters

On the 10th anniversary of the Shoreham air disaster, the families of some of those killed have criticised the regulator for what they describe as a “shocking” ongoing attitude towards safety.

On 22 August 2015, a vintage fighter jet plummeted out of the sky and crashed into one of the busiest roads in Sussex, killing 11 men.

Most of them weren’t even watching the aerobatic display overhead when they were engulfed in a fireball that swept down the dual carriageway.

Jacob Schilt, 23, and his friend Matthew Grimstone, also 23, were driving to play in a match for their football team, Worthing United FC.

Both sets of parents are deeply angry that their beloved sons have lost their lives in this way.

“It obviously changed our lives forever, and it’s a huge reminder every 22nd of August, because it’s such a public anniversary. It’s destroyed our lives really,” his mum, Caroline Shilt, said.

“It was catastrophic for all of us,” Jacob’s father, Bob, added.

‘They had no protection’

Sue and Phil Grimstone argue that the regulator, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), has not been held accountable for allowing the airshow to take place where it did.

“At Shoreham, the permission given by the CAA did not allow displaying aircraft to perform over paying spectators or their parked cars,” they said.

“But aircraft were permitted to fly aerobatics directly over the A27, which was in the display area, a known busy road.

“This was about ignoring the safety of people travelling on a major road in favour of having an air show. They had no protection.”

A series of catastrophic errors

The crash happened while the experienced pilot, Andy Hill, a former RAF instructor, was attempting to fly a loop in a 1950s Hawker Hunter jet.

But he made a series of catastrophic errors. His speed as the plane pitched up into the manoeuvre was far too slow, and therefore, he failed to get enough height to be able to pull out of the dive safely. The jet needed to be at least 1,500ft higher.

Mr Hill survived the crash but says he does not remember what happened, and a jury at the Old Bailey found him not guilty of gross negligence manslaughter in 2019.

When the inquest finally concluded in 2022, the coroner ruled the men had been unlawfully killed because of a series of “gross errors” committed by the pilot.

The rules around air shows have been tightened up since the crash, with stricter risk assessments, minimum height requirements, crowd protection distances, and checks on pilots.

But Jacob and Matt’s families believe the CAA still isn’t doing enough to protect people using roads near airshows, or other bystanders not attending the events themselves.

The families recently raised concerns about the Duxford airshow in a meeting with the CAA.

While aircraft are no longer allowed to fly aerobatics over the M11, they do so nearby – and can fly over the road at 200ft to reconfigure and return. If the M11 has queuing traffic in the area, the display must be stopped or curtailed.

The Grimstones believe this demonstrates accepting “an element of risk” and are frustrated that the CAA only commissioned an independent review looking at congested roads and third-party protection earlier this year.

“We feel the CAA are still dragging their feet when it comes to the safety of third parties on major roads directly near an air show,” they said.

The family have complained about the CAA to the parliamentary ombudsman.

‘There are still question marks’

Some experts also believe the CAA has questions to answer about a previous incident involving Mr Hill, after organisers of the 2014 Southport Airshow brought his display to an emergency stop because he had flown too close to the crowd, and beneath the minimum height for his display.

In its investigation into the Shoreham disaster, the Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) later found that while the CAA inspector present had an informal discussion with the pilot, no further action was taken, and the incident was not reported to the AAIB.

Retired pilot Steve Colman has spent many years looking into what happened at Shoreham, and he believes the CAA failed to fulfil their statutory obligation to fully investigate and report the incident at Southport.

“You have to ask the question – if the Southport incident had been investigated, then was Shoreham more likely or less likely to have occurred?” he said. “I think there can only be one answer – it’s less likely to have occurred.”

Tim Loughton, who was the MP for Shoreham at the time, believes a balance must be struck.

“We don’t want to regulate these events out of existence completely. A lot of the smaller air shows no longer happened because they couldn’t comply with the new regulations […], but certainly there are still question marks over the way the CAA conducted and continues to conduct itself. I would welcome more parliamentary scrutiny.”

Rob Bishton, chief executive at the CAA, said: “Our thoughts remain with the families and friends of those affected by the Shoreham Airshow crash.

“Following the crash, several investigations and safety reviews were carried out to help prevent similar incidents in the future. This included an immediate review of airshow safety and a full investigation by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch. All recommendations and safety improvements from these reviews were fully implemented.

“Airshows continue to be subject to rigorous oversight to ensure the highest possible safety standards are maintained.

“At a previous airshow in 2014 the pilot involved in the Shoreham accident was instructed to abort a display by the show’s flying director. This incident was investigated by the UK Civil Aviation Authority and regulatory action was taken.”

Mr Bishton added: “As part of the work to review the safety oversight of airshows following the tragic Shoreham crash, the actions taken by the regulator following such a stop call were enhanced.”

But the families of those killed still believe much more could be done.