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.
Two men have been arrested by armed officers after multiple people were stabbed on a train.
The train was stopped at Huntingdon station, in Cambridgeshire, after police were called at around 7.40pm on Saturday.
Cambridgeshire Police said a number of people have been taken to hospital, while a “large-scale response” was deployed by the East of England Ambulance Service.
Video shared online which appears to have been filmed from a railway bridge shows a huge police response with armed officers running along the platform towards the train carriages.
Gavin saw injured passengers
Witnesses told Sky News the stabbings started around 10 minutes after the 6.25 train from Doncaster to London King’s Cross left Peterborough and passengers sounded the emergency alarm.
One man who was on the train told Sky News he saw someone coming though his carriage saying: “They’ve got a knife, I’ve been stabbed.”
“They were making their way through the carriage to get away from the suspects. They were extremely bloodied,” said the man who gave his name as Gavin.
He said by the time the train pulled up “they were basically on the floor”.
“That person ended up collapsing on the floor. They were taken to an ambulance pretty much straight away,” he said.
Gavin said passengers were ushered out into the station and “there were multiple people who had been stabbed making their way down”.
But he said one of the suspects had also come off the train and was “running rampant as well”, and was “waving a large knife” before he was taken down by armed officers with a taser.
Pic: Police at Huntingdon train station
London North Eastern Railway, which operates East Coast Mainline services in the UK, said all lines are blocked around Huntingdon station, with major disruption expected until the end of the day.
Police said the A1307 has been closed on the approach to the town centre and the incident remains ongoing.
Cambridgeshire Police said in a statement: “We were called at 7.39pm with reports that multiple people had been stabbed on a train.
“Armed officers attended and the train was stopped at Huntingdon, where two men were arrested.
“A number of people have been taken to hospital.
“The incident remains ongoing and the A1307 has been closed as you approach the town centre.”
Huntingdon MP Ben Obese-Jecty said in a post on X he was “aware of the incident” and “trying to establish further information”.
“My thoughts are with the victims and those involved,” he wrote.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said the “appalling incident” was “deeply concerning”.
“My thoughts are with all those affected, and my thanks go to the emergency services for their response,” he wrote on X.
“Anyone in the area should follow the advice of the police.”
The Home Secretary said she was “deeply saddened” by the incident in Huntingdon and urged the public to “avoid comment and speculation at this early stage”.
In a statement on X, Shabana Mahmood said: “Two suspects have been immediately arrested and taken into custody.
“I am receiving regular updates on the investigation.”
Speaking to Sky News at the scene, Huntingdon MP Ben Obese-Jecty said: “When I first arrived here, I’ve simply never seen as big a response to an emergency incident as there were in terms of police, fire and ambulance.”
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said on X: “Horrific scenes in Huntingdon, in what seems to be a brutal mass attack by two perpetrators.
“My thoughts are with all those injured or affected and the emergency services responding The police and government should provide an update on what happened and who has been arrested as soon as possible
Tory party chairman Kevin Hollinrake also described the scenes as “horrifying”.
“My thoughts are with the victims and the emergency services responding to this incident,” he wrote on X.
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A Land Rover was spotted leaving Royal Lodge – the home of Andrew Mountbatten Windsor – on Saturday morning, as more US politicians call for him to testify before a congressional committee.
Emails released on Friday in unsealed court documents shed new light on Andrew’s correspondence with Epstein.
Months after the paedophile financier was released from prison in 2009 for prostituting minors, Andrew wrote that it would be “good to catch up in person”.
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Will Andrew have to give evidence on Epstein?
The pair were pictured together in New York’s Central Park in December 2010, in a meeting Andrew later claimed was to end their friendship.
In Congress, the House Oversight Committee is investigating the Epstein affair, and several of its members have invited Andrew to come and give evidence, presenting it as an opportunity to clear his name.
Meanwhile, Virginia Giuffre’s family have called for Andrew to be “investigated” over her claims that – as a teenager – she had sex with Andrew on three occasions after being trafficked by Epstein and Maxwell.
Andrew has always denied the claims. Ms Giuffre sued in 2021 and the case was settled outside of court for a sum believed to have been around £12m.
In an interview with Gareth Barlow on Sky News, Ms Giuffre’s brother Sky Roberts praised the King for stripping his brother of his remaining titles and ousting him from Royal Lodge.
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Virginia Guiffre’s family sends message to King
Andrew set for six-figure sum
Andrew could be in line for a six-figure payout and an annual payment as part of his “relocation settlement” after being forced out of the Royal Lodge, the Guardian reported.
One option includes an initial six-figure sum followed by an annual payment, which would be paid from the King’s private funds, and is thought to be several times his £20k-a-year navy pension, sources told the newspaper.
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He will move from Windsor to private accommodation in Sandringham, Norfolk. But on Saturday, people in Sandringham had mixed views about the move.
One man told Sky News he would be unwelcome: “This is a lovely, peaceful area. His reputation now is tarnished, and, I don’t think it’s right.
“This is where the royals come for Christmas… and come throughout the year. And, I don’t think people local really want to see him here.”
But another man was more sympathetic: “He hasn’t been found guilty of anything in my view. So and people forget that he was a war hero in the Falklands. That’s all gone now, isn’t it? Nobody’s thinking that he’s done any good.”
Public supports Charles, poll shows
A poll has revealed the public supports the King’s decision to strip Andrew of his titles and remove him from the Royal Lodge.
Of the 4,739 people surveyed by YouGov, 79% said it was “the right decision” to “strip Andrew Mountbatten Windsor (formerly Prince Andrew) of his prince title”.
But when asked about the speed of King’s response to the Andrew-Epstein revelations, 58% of respondents said the monarch moved “too slowly”.
Police provide update
The Metropolitan Police has given Sky News an update on allegations that Andrew asked a royal close protection officer to “dig up dirt” on Virginia Giuffre in 2011.
When reports first emerged two weeks ago, the force said it was “actively looking into the claims”.
On Saturday, the Met said: “Following recent media reporting on the actions of officers in relation to this matter, we are considering whether any further assessment or review is necessary.”
Meanwhile, the police watchdog, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), issued a statement regarding allegations that Andrew’s royal close protection officers had obstructed lawyers serving a lawsuit from Virginia Giuffre in 2021.
The IOPC said: “We have not received any referrals in relation to this matter at this time.”
Read more from Sky News:
Why Andrew is still in line to the throne
The Sandringham homes he could move to
Graham Smith, from the anti-monarchy group Republic, told Sky News: “The problem that the royals have is that there’s going to be more information coming out, more scandals, more accusations and more emails.
“The idea that essentially… he’s [Andrew] told to live in a very large house, given a half million pound stipend, and told to use his own name, is any kind of punishment, is absurd in most people’s eyes.”
In the next few days, the King is expected to submit the royal warrant, affecting the dukedom, and letters patent, which will formally remove Andrew’s entitlement to use the title prince and HRH style.
“I hate it,” Shirley told us.
Every time she has to give her address, it leads to a snide remark or joke at her expense.
She’s lived on Prince Andrew Drive in Telford, Shropshire, for 35 years.
As the national scandal around Andrew Mountbatten Windsor – as he is now called – has deepened, it has become increasingly embarrassing for her.
Andrew latest: Virginia Giuffre’s brother calls for investigation
A few years ago, another resident started a petition to change the name of the road, and somebody covered up part of the street sign.
“I think we should change it,” Shirley told us, “but don’t ask me what to.”
Shirley is one of the residents calling for the street to be renamed
After a few minutes weighing up the options, she settled on Prince George Drive.
“At least that looks to the future,” she added.
Linda Boden has lived on the road even longer – she and husband Phil moved here after getting married 45 years ago.
“We have actually had the conversation this morning, that the name of this road will get changed,” Linda said.
Phil told us he wasn’t bothered about the name. “It’s just a name, it’s not the man… I can’t tell you what I think [about him] without swearing you know.”
A bird’s eye view of Prince Andrew Drive
Cheryl, who lives nearby, told us what really mattered to her were the victims of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal – particularly the late Virginia Giuffre.
“That poor girl needs justice,” she said. “It is ridiculous it has gone on this long to be perfectly honest. That poor family are still living with it.”
Read More:
Andrew loses his titles – everything we know
The Sandringham homes he could move into
Cheryl’s focus is on Virginia Giuffre
Julie Harper lives on the adjacent road, called Queen Elizabeth Way, and is more than happy with her road name.
She told Sky News that the King had made the “best decision ever” by removing his brother’s titles.
I asked where her sympathies lay within this long-running royal scandal and Julie was unequivocal.
“With anybody who has been sexually exploited,” she said bluntly.
Julie believes Princess Anne Drive would be a better name for her neighbours’ road.
“She’s one of the better ones,” she added.
Julie lives on the nearby Queen Elizabeth Way and suggests a renaming that would stick to the royal theme
Changing the road name would be a logistical headache for local authorities and residents, with some telling us it did not bother them and they would not fancy the extra paperwork to amend things such as household bills and driving licences.
But Postman Gary told us every time he’s making deliveries on Prince Andrew Drive, he feels for the residents.
“We have a little giggle because we know they don’t want it named that anymore and I wouldn’t either if I lived here. It’s probably time it changed.”
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‘Huge’ part of royal statement you might have missed
We did not find anyone on Prince Andrew Drive who disagreed with the King’s decision to remove his titles and oust him from his home in Windsor.
The monarchy needs to retain the support of the public across the UK – that’s one of the reasons the King has taken such decisive action at this point in the scandal.
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