Adam Boulton: Long Johnson is still plaguing the Tories – Sunak needs to take decisive action
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.
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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”.
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Analysis: Labour says PM ‘too weak’
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.
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‘Questions need answering’ in Zahawi case
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.
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Zahawi should ‘stand aside’
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
Sharaz Ali found guilty of murdering ex-partner’s sister and her three children in Bradford house fire
A man has been found guilty of murdering his ex-partner’s sister and her three children in a house fire.
Prosecutors said Sharaz Ali, 40, was “motivated by jealousy and fuelled by drink and drugs” when he set fire to Bryonie Gawith’s home early on 21 August last year.
Jurors heard that Ali went to the home in Westbury Road, Bradford, aiming to “take revenge” on his ex, Antonia Gawith, who was staying there after ending their “abusive” seven-year relationship earlier that month.
Antonia Gawith managed to escape, but Bryonie Gawith, 29, and her children Denisty Birtle, nine, Oscar Birtle, five, and 22-month-old Aubree Birtle died in the blaze.
Bryonie Gawith and her children Denisty, Oscar and Aubree Birtle died in the fire
Ali told a jury he had no intention of harming others when the house went up in flames, saying: “I didn’t want to hurt anyone but myself.”
But after a trial at Doncaster Crown Court, he was found guilty of four counts of murder and attempting to murder Antonia Gawith.
Calum Sunderland, 26, who went with Ali to the house and kicked the door in for him, was found guilty of the manslaughter of Bryonie Gawith and her three children, but cleared of the more serious charges of murder.
He was also cleared of attempted murder, and an alternative count of attempting to cause grievous bodily harm, in relation to Antonia Gawith.
Calum Sunderland. Pic: West Yorkshire Police
Mohammed Shabir, 45, who had also been due to go on trial, died of a heart attack in October after collapsing in prison.
After the verdicts, the judge, Mr Justice Hilliard, thanked jurors and said the case had been “distressing beyond measure – three children and their mother murdered”.
“I don’t think anyone who heard Antonia’s desperate cries for help will ever forget them,” he said.
“These are truly dreadful crimes.”
The judge also praised the “extraordinary bravery” of those who tried to save the children trapped in the house.
Ali and Sunderland, a convicted arsonist, were driven to the house by Shabir, stopping on the way to fill a seven-litre canister with petrol, the court heard.
Doorbell footage captured Ali telling Sunderland, who was carrying the petrol and a lighter, to “kick the door in”, which he did before running back to the car.
Antonia Gawith said she saw an “angry” Ali run into the house and begin pouring petrol on her while shouting before setting himself and the house on fire.
Antonia Gawith outside Doncaster Crown Court. Pic: PA
‘I couldn’t save them’
In a video interview played to jurors, she sobbed as she told police how she “couldn’t save” her sister, nieces and nephew, as she tried frantically to get back in the house through the back door.
“I was just screaming, trying to get back in the house and I couldn’t get in. I couldn’t save them,” she said.
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West Yorkshire Police’s Detective Chief Inspector Stacey Atkinson said: “Bryonie and her three children would still be alive today if it wasn’t for the horrific and truly callous actions of Ali and Sunderland that day.
“They left a mum and her three children completely helpless whilst her sister and their auntie watched on in horror.
“Our thoughts and sympathies are with the family, who despite their immense strength of character now face the rest of their lives without them.”
Senior Crown Prosecution Service prosecutor Amanda McInnes said Ali was a “selfish killer who had no regard for anyone but himself”.
“He was motivated by jealousy and his actions have now needlessly robbed a family of their loved ones,” she said.
“Both men played their role and caused the deaths of a young family who should still be with us today.”
UK
‘I didn’t know where to turn’: Why ethnic minorities with gambling addictions struggle to get help
On a dark December morning two years ago, Kiki Marriott left her flat and started walking.
Content warning: This article contains references to suicide.
It was 5am, and she was heading for the station.
“I was numb at that point,” she says.
“I was just so done with trying to survive and just existing… feeling extremely lonely and isolated and didn’t know where to turn.”
She was trapped in a cycle of addiction, gambling all hours and taking cocaine for the maximum buzz.
‘I didn’t know where to turn,’ says Kiki
“I sat at the train station thinking about my daughter, thinking about the mistakes that I’ve made in the past, thinking that I didn’t want to live this life any more.”
Kiki was waiting for the first train.
But that train was late. And she changed her mind.
Instead of taking her own life, she decided to seek help.
Yet what she would find on that journey of recovery would shock her.
“I just realised that there wasn’t anybody that looked like me, sounded like me, and it got me to thinking, well I can’t be the only black woman suffering with a gambling or cocaine addiction.”
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‘I can’t be the only black woman suffering addiction’
Racial disparities
Research has shown that people from ethnic minority backgrounds are less likely to gamble than white people, but are more likely to suffer harm from gambling.
Despite that, too often they do not seek help.
And YouGov statistics shared exclusively with Sky News shed a light on why.
The survey of 4,000 adults for GamCare, which runs the National Gambling Helpline, found that two-thirds of people from ethnic minority backgrounds who’d gambled in the past year had spent more money than they’d planned, double the amount of white respondents.
They were also more than twice as likely to hide their gambling and nearly three times as likely to feel guilt.
Kiki is not surprised.
“For me, coming from a black community, a black background, what goes on indoors stays behind closed doors,” she says.
“You keep your mouth shut, and you handle your business yourself.”
And when she considered what an addict looked like, it wasn’t someone like her.
“I just thought it’s an old white man’s thing – that they go into the bookies, and they have a drink and they bet.
“I thought, well, that’s not me.”
But Dharmi Kapadia, a senior sociology lecturer from Manchester University, who focuses on racial inequality, thinks there’s more than just cultural pressure at play.
“These explanations of stigma have become dominant,” she says.
“We’ve found that what’s more important is that people don’t want to go and get help from gambling services because of previous racist treatment that they’ve suffered at the hands of other statutory services, for example, when they went to the GP.”
Dharmi Kapadia thinks there’s more than just cultural pressure at play
‘I needed to change’
The stigma felt very real for Kiki, so she hid what she was doing.
“I’ve had trauma in my life. I’ve been sexually abused as a child.
“As the years have gone on, a traumatic event happened in my family that really changed the dynamics of my life and that’s when I moved on from scratch cards to online slots.”
She became hooked – betting around the clock, spending her benefits on 10p and 20p spins on online slots and borrowing money from those around her.
Eventually her daughter moved out when she was 15.
“That’s when everything escalated. I didn’t have that responsibility of keeping up appearances.
“Before that, gas, electric, food shopping, all those things had to be in place.
“I just lived and breathed in my bedroom at that point and yeah, it was very lonely.”
When Kiki left the station that day, she called the National Gambling Helpline.
“For the first time in my life, I was completely honest about everything that I was doing – the lies, the manipulation when I was in active addiction, the secrecy.
“I was completely transparent because I wanted to change. I needed to change.”
‘Where’s all the women?’
Since then, she has undergone constant therapy, including a six-week stint in rehab.
And as she headed home in the taxi, her phone rang.
It was Lisa Walker, a woman who understood gambling addiction. She had won £127,000 playing poker at 29 before losing everything and ending up homeless with her young children.
Lisa Walker (left) sought help from Gamblers Anonymous and was among very few women at her meetings
When she finally asked for help, she too felt she was different, walking into a Gamblers Anonymous meeting to find she was one of only two women in a room with 35 men.
“I was thinking, where’s all the women?” says Lisa.
“I can’t be the only woman in the world with a gambling addiction, so that got me thinking, what services are out there for women?”
It was the catalyst to set up support for female gamblers in April 2022.
Since then, Lisa has helped close to 250 women, but all but four have been white.
One of those four was Kiki.
‘There’s no getting away from it’
“It just baffles me… Why aren’t they reaching out for support? Is it the shame? Is it stigma?” says Lisa.
But another concern is that it’s simply too easy to hide the gambling.
“Getting on the train this morning, 90% of people are on their phones, and we don’t know whether they’re playing slots,” she says.
“I could probably sit here now and sign up for 50 online casinos and probably get over a thousand free spins.
“I just think there’s no getting away from it because it’s 24 hours a day.”
Kiki says she now has an ‘amazing’ relationship with her daughter
Kiki’s flat in Woolwich, where once she couldn’t even go to the bathroom without gambling, has become the place where she runs her own online peer mentoring groups.
“Feeling understood and validated for your experiences, for how you was raised… the core beliefs that you’re taught from a young age, to have somebody that looks like you, talks like you, has the same cultural background… it’s extremely important to make you feel understood, to make you feel validated,” she says.
‘You can learn from it’
Kiki will need to attend support groups for life to keep her addictions at bay.
But she has a clear goal, just as Lisa did.
“My focus is to help other people, help empower other people to choose themselves, to show them that there is light after so much darkness… that you don’t have to be a victim of your circumstances, that you can choose to grow from it and learn from it and heal from it,” she says.
For Kiki, there was so much at stake.
“It was either I was going to die or I was going to become a woman and a mother that my daughter could come back to and respect again.”
And that has happened. Kiki’s daughter is 19 now.
Kiki now helps others suffering from gambling addiction
“We’ve got an amazing relationship today. I’ve took full accountability for the mistakes that I’ve made.
“She’s extremely proud of where I am today.”
It’s more than Kiki could have dreamt of two years ago.
Now all she wants is to help others escape the endless cycle of addiction.
Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK
To speak to an adviser on the National Gambling Helpline, call 0808 8020 133
Sir Keir Starmer has declared it his “moral mission” to “turn the tide on the lost decade of young kids left as collateral damage”.
The government launches its 10-year youth plan today, which has pledged £500m to reviving youth services.
Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has also warned that young people are now “the most isolated in generations” and face challenges that are “urgent and demand a major change in direction”.
But despite the strong language, the Conservatives have warned that “under Labour, the outlook for the next generation is increasingly bleak”.
Lisa Nandy is on Sky News from 7am – follow live
Launching the 10-year strategy, Sir Keir said: “As a dad and as prime minister, I believe it is our generation’s greatest responsibility to turn the tide on the lost decade of young kids left as collateral damage. It is our moral mission.
“Today, my government sets out a clear, ambitious and deliverable plan – investing in the next generation so that every child has the chance to see their talents take them as far as their ability can.”
What’s in the government’s strategy?
Under the plans, the government will seek to give 500,000 more young people across England access to a trusted adult outside their homes – who are assigned through a formal programme – and online resources about staying safe.
The prime minister said the plans will also “ensure” that those who choose to do apprenticeships rather than go to university “will have the same respect and opportunity as everyone else”.
The plan comes following a so-called “state of the nation” survey commissioned by Ms Nandy, which heard from more than 14,000 young people across England.
Launching the strategy, she said: “Young people have been crystal clear in speaking up in our consultation: they need support for their mental health, spaces to meet with people in their communities and real opportunities to thrive. We will give them what they want.”
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Child poverty strategy launched
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Lisa Nandy will speak about the plan on Sky News on Wednesday morning. Pic: PA
But the Conservatives have criticised the government for scrapping the National Citizen Service (NCS), which ended in March this year.
Shadow culture secretary Nigel Huddlestone said “any renewed investment in youth services is of course welcome”, but said Labour’s “economic mismanagement and tax hikes are forcing businesses to close, shrinking opportunities while inflation continues to climb”.
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