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.
Ava was heading home from Pizza Hut when she found out her dad had been arrested.
Warning: This article includes references to indecent images of children and suicide that some readers may find distressing
It had been “a really good evening” celebrating her brother’s birthday.
Ava (not her real name) was just 13, and her brother several years younger. Their parents had divorced a few years earlier and they were living with their mum.
Suddenly Ava’s mum, sitting in the front car seat next to her new boyfriend, got a phone call.
“She answered the phone and it was the police,” Ava remembers.
“I think they realised that there were children in the back so they kept it very minimal, but I could hear them speaking.”
“I was so scared,” she says, as she overheard about his arrest.
‘Ava’ says she was ‘repulsed’ after discovering what her dad had done
“I was panicking loads because my dad actually used to do a lot of speeding and I was like: ‘Oh no, he’s been caught speeding, he’s going to get in trouble.'”
But Ava wasn’t told what had really happened until many weeks later, even though things changed immediately.
“We found out that we weren’t going to be able to see our dad for, well we didn’t know how long for – but we weren’t allowed to see him, or even speak to him. I couldn’t text him or anything. I was just wondering what was going on, I didn’t know. I didn’t understand.”
Ava’s dad, John, had been arrested for looking at indecent images of children online.
We hear this first-hand from John (not his real name), who we interviewed separately from Ava. What he told us about his offending was, of course, difficult to hear.
His offending went on for several years, looking at indecent images and videos of young children.
His own daughter told us she was “repulsed” by what he did.
But John wanted to speak to us, frankly and honestly.
He told us he was “sorry” for what he had done, and that it was only after counselling that he realised the “actual impact on the people in the images” of his crime.
By sharing his story, he hopes to try to stop other people doing what he did and raise awareness about the impact this type of offence has – on everyone involved, including his unsuspecting family.
John tells us he’d been looking at indecent images and videos of children since 2013.
“I was on the internet, on a chat site,” he says. “Someone sent a link. I opened it, and that’s what it was.
“Then more people started sending links and it just kind of gathered pace from there really. It kind of sucks you in without you even realising it. And it becomes almost like a drug, to, you know, get your next fix.”
John says he got a “sexual kick” from looking at the images and claims “at the time, when you’re doing it, you don’t realise how wrong it is”.
‘I told them exactly what they would find’
At the point of his arrest, John had around 1,000 indecent images and videos of children on his laptop – some were Category A, the most severe.
Referencing the counselling that he since received, John says he believes the abuse he received as a child affected the way he initially perceived what he was doing.
“I had this thing in my mind,” he says, “that the kids in these were enjoying it.”
“Unfortunately, [that] was the way that my brain was wired up” and “I’m not proud of it”, he adds.
John had been offending for several years when he downloaded an image that had been electronically tagged by security agencies. It flagged his location to police.
John was arrested at his work and says he “straight away just admitted everything”.
“I told them exactly what they would find, and they found it.”
The police bailed John – and he describes the next 24 hours as “hell”.
“I wanted to kill myself,” he remembers. “It was the only way I could see out of the situation. I was just thinking about my family, my daughter and my son, how is it going to affect them?”
But John says the police had given information about a free counselling service, a helpline, which he called that day.
“It stopped me in my tracks and probably saved my life.”
‘John’ thinks children of abusers should get more support
‘My world was crumbling around me’
Six weeks later, John was allowed to make contact with Ava.
By this point she describes how she was “hysterically crying” at school every day, not knowing what had happened to her dad.
But once he told her what he’d done, things got even worse.
“When I found out, it genuinely felt like my world was crumbling around me,” Ava says.
“I felt like I couldn’t tell anyone. I was so embarrassed of what people might think of me. It sounds so silly, but I was so scared that people would think that I would end up like him as well, which would never happen.
“It felt like this really big secret that I just had to hold in.”
“I genuinely felt like the only person that was going through something like this,” Ava says.
She didn’t know it then, but her father also had a sense of fear and shame.
“You can’t share what you’ve done with anybody because people can get killed for things like that,” he says.
“It would take a very, very brave man to go around telling people something like that.”
And as for his kids?
“They wouldn’t want to tell anybody, would they?” he says.
For her, Ava says “for a very, very long time” things were “incredibly dark”.
“I turned to drugs,” she says. “I was doing lots of like Class As and Bs and going out all the time, I guess because it just was a form of escape.
“There was a point in my life where I just I didn’t believe it was going to get better. I really just didn’t want to exist. I was just like, if this is what life is like then why am I here?”
Professor Armitage says children of abusers should be legally recognised as victims
‘The trauma is huge for those children’
Ava felt alone, but research shows this is happening to thousands of British children every year.
Whereas suspects like John are able to access free services, such as counselling, there are no similar automatic services for their children – unless families can pay.
Professor Rachel Armitage, a criminology expert, set up a Leeds-based charity called Talking Forward in 2021.
It’s the only free, in-person, peer support group for families of suspected online child sex offenders in England. But it does not have the resources to provide support for under-18s.
“The trauma is huge for those children,” Prof Armitage says.
“We have families that are paying for private therapy for their children and getting in a huge amount of debt to pay for that.”
Prof Armitage says if these children were legally recognised as victims, then if would get them the right level of automatic, free support.
It’s not unheard of for “indirect” or “secondary” victims to be recognised in law.
Currently, the Domestic Abuse Act does that for children in a domestic abuse household, even if the child hasn’t been a direct victim themselves.
In the case of children like Ava, Prof Armitage says it would mean “they would have communication with the parents in terms of what was happening with this offence; they would get the therapeutic intervention and referral to school to let them know that something has happened, which that child needs consideration for”.
We asked the Ministry of Justice whether children of online child sex offenders could be legally recognised as victims.
“We sympathise with the challenges faced by the unsuspecting families of sex offenders and fund a helpline for prisoners’ families which provides free and confidential support,” a spokesperson said.
But when we spoke with that helpline, and several other charities that the Ministry of Justice said could help, they told us they could only help children with a parent in prison – which for online offences is, nowadays, rarely the outcome.
None of them could help children like Ava, whose dad received a three-year non-custodial sentence, and was put on the sex offenders’ register for five years.
“These children will absolutely fall through the gap,” Prof Armitage says.
“I think there’s some sort of belief that these families are almost not deserving enough,” she says. “That there’s some sort of hierarchy of harms, and that they’re not harmed enough, really.”
‘Ava’ started taking drugs after her dad’s arrest and ‘didn’t want to exist’
‘People try to protect kids from people like me’
Ava says there is simply not enough help – and that feels unfair.
“In some ways we’re kind of forgotten about by the services,” she says. “It’s always about the offender.”
John agrees with his daughter.
“I think the children should get more support than the offender because nobody stops and ask them really, do they?” he says.
“Nobody thinks about what they’re going through.”
Although Ava and John now see each other, they have never spoken about the impact that John’s offending had on his daughter.
Ava was happy for us to share with John what she had gone through.
“I never knew it was that bad,” he says. “I understand that this is probably something that will affect her the rest of her life.
“You try to protect your kids, don’t you. People try to protect their kids from people like me.”
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.
MasterChef presenter John Torode will no longer work on the show after an allegation he used an “extremely offensive racist term” was upheld, the BBC has said.
His co-host Gregg Wallace was also sacked last week after claims of inappropriate behaviour.
On Monday, Torode said an allegation he used racist language was upheld in a report into the behaviour of Wallace. The report found more than half of 83 allegations against Wallace were substantiated.
Torode, 59, insisted he had “absolutely no recollection” of the alleged incident involving him and he “did not believe that it happened,” adding “racial language is wholly unacceptable in any environment”.
John Torode and Gregg Wallace in 2008. Pic: PA
In a statement on Tuesday, a BBC spokesperson said the allegation “involves an extremely offensive racist term being used in the workplace”.
The claim was “investigated and substantiated by the independent investigation led by the law firm Lewis Silkin”, they added.
“The BBC takes this upheld finding extremely seriously,” the spokesperson said.
“We will not tolerate racist language of any kind… we told Banijay UK, the makers of MasterChef, that action must be taken.
“John Torode’s contract on MasterChef will not be renewed.”
Australian-born Torode started presenting MasterChef alongside Wallace, 60, in 2005.
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Why Gregg Wallace says he ‘will not go quietly’
A statement from Banijay UK said it “takes this matter incredibly seriously” and Lewis Silkin “substantiated an accusation of highly offensive racist language against John Torode which occurred in 2018”.
“This matter has been formally discussed with John Torode by Banijay UK, and whilst we note that John says he does not recall the incident, Lewis Silkin have upheld the very serious complaint,” the TV production company added.
“Banijay UK and the BBC are agreed that we will not renew his contract on MasterChef.”
Read more from Sky News:
BBC reveals highest-earning stars
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Earlier, as the BBC released its annual report, its director-general Tim Davie addressed MasterChef’s future, saying it can survive as it is “much bigger than individuals”.
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BBC annual report findings
Speaking to BBC News after Torode was sacked, Mr Davie said a decision is yet to be taken over whether an unseen MasterChef series – filmed with both Wallace and Torode last year – will be aired.
“It’s a difficult one because… those amateur chefs gave a lot to take part – it means a lot, it can be an enormous break if you come through the show,” he added.
“I want to just reflect on that with the team and make a decision, and we’ll communicate that in due course.”
Mr Davie refused to say what the “seriously racist term” Torode was alleged to have used but said: “I certainly think we’ve drawn a line in the sand.”
In 2022, Torode was made an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours, for services to food and charity.
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