Boris Johnson says No 10 leaving do was ‘absolutely essential for work purposes’

Published

2 years ago

March 22, 2023

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Boris Johnson has sworn “hand on heart” he did not lie to MPs about partygate events in Downing Street – and said a gathering where he was pictured holding a glass in the air was “absolutely essential for work purposes”.

The former prime minister also said the size of Number 10 made it difficult to social distance inside with staff following the guidance “to the best of our ability”.

Mr Johnson faced about three hours of questioning by the cross-party Privileges Committee as they determine whether he misled parliament by denying events in Number 10 during the pandemic broke COVID regulations. He could be suspended from the Commons and face a by-election if they find he purposefully misled the House.

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In his opening remarks, Mr Johnson swore “hand on heart, I did not lie to the House” after taking an oath on the King James Bible to tell the truth during the session.

“When this inquiry was set up I was completely confident that you would find nothing to show that I knew or believed anything else, as indeed you have not,” he said.

“I was confident, not because there has been some kind of cover-up. I was confident because I knew that was what I believed and that is why I said it.”

He added that there is no evidence of officials raising issues about breaking rules “because that never happened” as he accused the committee of not giving people at the events the chance to explain themselves.

But he claimed it had been a mistake to say guidance had been “followed completely at No 10”.

“I was misremembering the line that had already been put out to the media about this even, which was ‘COVID rules were followed at all times’,” he said.

Mr Johnson, as he did in his written evidence published on Tuesday, said it was difficult to social distance in No 10 as it is a “cramped, narrow 18th Century town house” and they had no choice but to meet “day in, day out, seven days a week in an unrelenting battle against COVID”.

“I will believe till the day I die that it was my job to thank staff for what they had done, especially during a crisis like COVID, which kept coming back, which seemed to have no end,” he said.

He said the most important point was that the police, in their inquiry, agreed his attendance at the events was not against the rules.

And he mentioned his former chief adviser Dominic Cummings, who he said has no evidence to show he raised concerns and has “every motive to lie” after the pair fell out.

‘Essential for work purposes’

When questioned about a photo of one of the events in November 2020, which shows the former PM appearing to toast staff with a drink at a leaving do for departing communications chief Lee Cain, he said: “I believe it was absolutely essential for work purposes.”

He said the meeting, which happened while social distancing was in place, was “necessary” because two senior members of staff were about to leave “in potentially acrimonious circumstances”.

“I accept that perfect social distancing is not being observed but that does not mean that what we were doing is incompatible with the guidance,” he added.

The former PM insisted time and time again during the grilling that his officials assured him no rules were being broken and nobody raised any problems with him.

At one point he got frustrated at being continually asked if anybody had assured him guidance was being followed, and said: “It’s clear from what I’ve said that I was assured repeatedly by different people and on different occasions that the rules have been followed.”

But chair and veteran Labour MP Harriet Harman called his reassurances flimsy.

“Do you actually think we would be entitled to be a bit dismayed about the flimsy nature of this assurance?” she asked.

Ms Harman said it appeared his assurances “did not amount to much at all”.

Mr Johnson acknowledged he could have given a fuller explanation to MPs about his view on following COVID guidance in No 10.

“Perhaps if I had elucidated more clearly what I meant and what I felt and believed about following the guidance, that would have helped,” he said.

Sue Gray crops up several times

Mr Johnson took several aims at former top civil servant Sue Gray, who carried out a partygate inquiry that criticised the leadership in No 10 at the time of the events. She has recently resigned from the civil service to become Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff.

Committee chair Harriet Harman said in her opening remarks they are not relying on any material from Ms Gray’s report “and nor will we”, adding she is not a witness in their inquiry.

The former PM mentioned her several times in his opening remarks and answers to MPs, saying Ms Gray told him “on a couple of occasions at least” she “did not think the threshold of criminality had been reached”. He also mentioned the Sue Gray report a handful of times.

At times the interactions between committee members and Mr Johnson were terse, with the former PM at one point saying a gathering in the garden of Number 10: “I really must insist this point, people who say that we were partying in lockdown simply do not know what they are talking about.

“People who say that that event was a purely social gathering are quite wrong.”

When asked if Mr Johnson believed exceptions to the workplace rules and social distancing guidelines applied to No 10 but not to hospitals and care homes, he said: “Of course not.”

The committee has been looking into denials made by Mr Johnson in 2021 and 2022 after a deluge of stories in 2021 claimed illegal gatherings were held in No 10 while the public was being told to stay at home.

Mr Johnson was asked about the events time and time again in the Commons, and he repeatedly denied any COVID rules were broken.

But after further articles, police and Cabinet Office investigations, and more than 100 fines, it became clear that was not the case.

MPs from all sides of the Commons questioned whether Mr Johnson had misled the Commons over what he knew – a serious breach of parliamentary rules – and they voted in favour of the privileges committee carrying out an inquiry.

An initial report from the cross-party group of MPs said it would have been “obvious” to the prime minister at the time that rules were being breached, and the Commons may have been misled multiple times.

But while he accepted in his evidence, published ahead of his appearance yesterday, the Commons had been misled, Mr Johnson insisted his statements were made “in good faith” and to the best of his knowledge at the time.

UK

Five people guilty in case of mistaken-identity double murder of teenage boys

Published

23 hours ago

November 15, 2024

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Five people guilty in case of mistaken-identity double murder of teenage boys

Four teenagers and a 45-year-old man have been found guilty of murdering two boys, aged 15 and 16, who were attacked with machetes in a case of mistaken identity.

The convictions follow a five-week trial at Bristol Crown Court.

The jury heard how Max Dixon and Mason Rist were killed in a case of mistaken identity on 27 January, after being wrongly identified as being responsible for a house attack in the Hartcliffe area of the city earlier that evening.

Antony Snook, 45, Riley Tolliver, 18, and three boys aged 15, 16 and 17 were all on trial each charged with two counts of murder.

As the jury foreman returned the guilty verdicts, none of the defendants showed any reaction from the dock, as they sat impassively and stared straight ahead.

The fatal stabbings in Knowle West lasted just 33 seconds – with both boys suffering what the court heard were “unsurvivable” injuries and “instant severe blood loss”.

Both died in hospital in the early hours of 28 January.

Detective Superintendent Gary Haskins, the case’s senior investigating officer from Avon and Somerset Police, told Sky News that Max and Mason had nothing to do with the house attack.

“Those boys were not known to their attackers, they were best friends, two beautiful children just going about their lives and attacked for no reason whatsoever,” he said.

Much of the prosecution’s case was based on CCTV and doorbell videos, including a camera on Mason’s own house which captured footage of the knife attack against him.

The pair were seen leaving Mason’s home at around 11.15pm and were going for a pizza.

Prosecutor Ray Tully KC told the jury that the boys were set upon by the group who had been travelling in Snook’s Audi Q2.

He said the group were “out for revenge”, “acting as a pack” to hunt down those responsible and “tooled up” with fearsome weapons.

After the attackers fled, Max and Mason were left bleeding in the street.

The investigation involved more than 230 police officers and staff – with thousands of pieces of evidence analysed.

Hundreds mourned victims at school

The teenage victims were in year 11 together at the Oasis Academy John Williams secondary school and were preparing to sit their GCSEs this summer.

The school’s headteacher Victoria Boomer-Clark told Sky News that everyone rallied to support fellow pupils and staff.

She said: “After the boys were tragically murdered, for us first and foremost we were thinking about the families and how they were coping with the absolute tragedy and shock of that.

“I can remember trying to prepare for that Monday morning and my memories now are how exceptionally strong our young people are and how we have a real sense of community.

“Unbeknownst to us the young people had arranged to hold a vigil on the playground during breaktime on that first Monday. We had hundreds of young people and staff coming together in silence.”

Ms Boomer-Clark said the boys would have attended school prom this summer.

“We had a wall that was lit up in red for Mason and Liverpool football club and a wall in blue for Park Knowle Football Club,” she said. “The year group came together and supported each other through it.”

Detective had never seen ‘horrific’ weapons before

The murders came before a new law was introduced banning ownership of zombie-style knives and machetes.

Detective Superintendent Gary Haskins said: “The weapons used in the attack on Mason and Max were simply horrific.

“I’ve been a detective for many, many years and I’ve had the misfortune of investigating some serious offences.

“In all my service I’ve not seen a weapon like the one we saw used on those two boys.

“There is no place for a weapon of that type in society for any reason whatsoever.”

The detective praised the boy’s families, who attended court throughout the trial.

He added: “I’m humbled by the families involved in this investigation. They’ve been at court every day, they’ve seen things at court that no parent should ever be exposed to. They saw the attacks on their children, but they maintain their dignity, their courage and their love for their family.

“How can you replace what they’ve lost? They’ve lost two beautiful sons, and I can only hope that the verdicts will bring some form of closure. It will never close completely.”

Snook will be sentenced on 19 November at Bristol Crown Court.

The other four defendants will be sentenced on 16 December following the preparation of pre-sentence reports.

Police are continuing to investigate the Hartcliffe house attack and search for those responsible.

UK

UK economy grows by 0.1% between July and September – slower than expected

Published

1 day ago

November 15, 2024

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UK economy grows by 0.1% between July and September - slower than expected

The UK economy grew by 0.1% between July and September, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

However, despite the small positive GDP growth recorded in the third quarter, the economy shrank by 0.1% in September, dragging down overall growth for the quarter.

The growth was also slower than what had been expected by experts and a drop from the 0.5% growth between April and June, the ONS said.

Economists polled by Reuters and the Bank of England had forecast an expansion of 0.2%, slowing from the rapid growth seen over the first half of 2024 when the economy was rebounding from last year’s shallow recession.

And the metric that Labour has said it is most focused on – the GDP per capita, or the economic output divided by the number of people in the country – also fell by 0.1%.

Reacting to the figures, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves said: “Improving economic growth is at the heart of everything I am seeking to achieve, which is why I am not satisfied with these numbers.

“At my budget, I took the difficult choices to fix the foundations and stabilise our public finances.

“Now we are going to deliver growth through investment and reform to create more jobs and more money in people’s pockets, get the NHS back on its feet, rebuild Britain and secure our borders in a decade of national renewal,” Ms Reeves added.

The sluggish services sector – which makes up the bulk of the British economy – was a particular drag on growth over the past three months. It expanded by 0.1%, cancelling out the 0.8% growth in the construction sector.

The UK’s GDP for the most recent quarter is lower than the 0.7% growth in the US and 0.4% in the Eurozone.

The figures have pushed the UK towards the bottom of the G7 growth table for the third quarter of the year.

It was expected to meet the same 0.2% growth figures reported in Germany and Japan – but fell below that after a slow September.

The pound remained stable following the news, hovering around $1.267. The FTSE 100, meanwhile, opened the day down by 0.4%.

The Bank of England last week predicted that Ms Reeves’s first budget as chancellor will increase inflation by up to half a percentage point over the next two years, contributing to a slower decline in interest rates than previously thought.

Announcing a widely anticipated 0.25 percentage point cut in the base rate to 4.75%, the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) forecast that inflation will return “sustainably” to its target of 2% in the first half of 2027, a year later than at its last meeting.

The Bank’s quarterly report found Ms Reeves’s £70bn package of tax and borrowing measures will place upward pressure on prices, as well as delivering a three-quarter point increase to GDP next year.

UK

Meeting the deeply radical anti-tax group that is ‘growing in popularity’

Published

1 day ago

November 15, 2024

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Meeting the deeply radical anti-tax group that is 'growing in popularity'

“If you are a member of something, it means you’ve accepted membership. Anything with ‘ship’ on the end, it’s giving you a clue: it’s telling you that’s maritime law. That means you’ve entered into a contract.”

This isn’t your standard legal argument and it is becoming clear that I am dealing with an unusual way of looking at the world.

I’m in the library of a hotel in Leicestershire, a wood-panelled room with warm lighting, and Pete Stone, better known as Sovereign Pete, is explaining how “the system” works. Mr Stone is in his mid-50, bald with a goatee beard and wearing, as he always does for public appearances, a black T-shirt and black jeans.

With us are six other people, mainly dressed in neat jumpers. They’re members of the Sovereign Project (SP), an organisation Mr Stone founded in 2020, which, he says, now has more than 20,000 paying members.

As arcane as this may sound, it represents a worldview that is becoming more influential – and causing problems for authorities. Loosely, they’re defined as “sovereign citizens” or “freemen on the land”.

Their fundamental point is that nobody is required to obey laws they have not specifically consented to – especially when it comes to tax. They have hundreds of thousands of followers in the UK across platforms including YouTube, Facebook and Telegram.

Increasingly, they are coming into conflict with governments and the law. Sovereign citizens have ended up in the High Court in recent months, challenging the legalities of tax bills and losing on both occasions.

In October, four people were sentenced to prison for the attempted kidnapping of an Essex coroner, who they saw as acting unlawfully. The self-appointed “sheriffs” attempted to force entry to the court, one of them demanding: “You guys have been practising fraud!”

The Sovereign Project is not connected to any of those cases, nor does it promote any sort of political action, let alone violence.

Instead, they are focused on issues like questioning the obligation to pay taxes, as Mr Stone explains, referencing the feudal system that operated in the Middle Ages.

“Do you know about the feudal system when people were slaves and were forced to pay tax?” he asks.

“Now, unless the feudal system still operates today, and we still have serfs and slaves, then the only way that you can pay taxes is to have a contract, you have to agree to it and consent to it.”

Another member, Karl Deans, a 43-year-old property developer who runs the SP’s social media, says: “We’re not here to dodge tax.”

Local government tends to be a target beyond just demands for tax. Mr Stone speaks of “council employee crimes”.

I ask whether, considering the attempted kidnapping in Essex, there is a danger that people will listen to these accusations of crimes by councils and act on them.

“Well that’s proved,” Mr Stone says. “We only deal with facts.”

Evidence suggests this approach is becoming an issue for councils across the UK, as people search online for ways to avoid paying tax.

Sky News analysis shows that out of 374 council websites covering Great Britain, at least 172 (46%) have pages responding to sovereign citizen arguments around avoiding paying council tax. They point out that liability for council tax is not dependent on consent, or a contract, and instead relies on the Local Government Finance Act 1992, voted on by Parliament.

But the Sovereign Project’s worldview extends beyond council tax. It is deeply anti-establishment, at times conspiratorial. Stone suggests the summer riots may have been organised by the government.

“The sovereign fraternity operates above all of this,” he says. “We look down at the world like a chessboard. We see what’s going on.”

He explains that, really, the UK government isn’t actually in control: there is a shadow government above them.

“These are the people who control government,” he explains.

“A lot of people say this could be the crown council of 13, this could be a series of Italian families.”

Professor Christine Sarteschi, an expert in sovereign citizens at Chatham University, Pittsburgh, says she’s worried about the threat sovereign citizens may pose to the rule of law, especially in the US where guns are readily available.

“The movement is growing and that’s evidenced by seeing it in different countries and hearing about different cases. The concern is that they will become emboldened and commit acts of violence,” she says.

“Because sovereigns truly believe in their ideas and if they feel very aggrieved by, you know, the government or whomever they think is oppressing them or controlling them… they can become emotionally involved.

“That emotional involvement sometimes leads to violence in some cases, or the belief that they have the power to attempt to overthrow a government in some capacity.”

Much of this seems to be based on an underlying and familiar frustration at the state of this country and of the world.

Mr Stone echoes some of the characteristic arguments also made by the right, that there is “two-tier policing”, that refugees arriving in the UK are “young men of fighting age”, that the government is using “forced immigration to destroy the country”.

Another SP member, retired investment banker David Hopgood, 61, says: “I firmly believe it is the true Englishman – and woman – of this country – that has the power to unlock this madness that’s happening in the West.

“We’ve got the Magna Carta – all these checks and balances. We just need to pack up, go down to Parliament and say: It’s time to dismiss you. You’re not fit for purpose.”

The members of the Sovereign Project are unfailingly patient and polite in explaining their understanding of the world.

But there is no doubt they hold a deeply radical view, one that is apparently growing in popularity.