MPs approve privileges committee report saying Boris Johnson’s allies tried to undermine partygate probe
MPs have approved a report criticising the conduct of Boris Johnson’s allies after he was found to have lied to parliament over partygate.
The motion was approved on the nod and without the need for a formal vote.
Commons leader Penny Mordaunt earlier said she hoped it would bring an end to the “sorry affair”.
The privileges committee, which had investigated Mr Johnson for lying about partygate, accused 10 Conservative politicians of being part of a coordinated attempt to undermine the panel’s report.
Politics latest: Tories accused of ‘dragging reputation of House through mud’
Among those named were former cabinet ministers Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg and Dame Priti Patel, who used the debate to push back on the report.
Other Tory MPs listed in the report included Nadine Dorries, Mark Jenkinson, Sir Michael Fabricant, Brendan Clarke-Smith and Dame Andrea Jenkyns, along with Conservative peer Lord Goldsmith.
The Conservative Democratic Organisation – headed by Lord Cruddas and Lord Greenhalgh – was also named for an email campaign.
Ms Mordaunt said the report was an “exceptional situation” and not part of the usual “cut and thrust of politics”.
Read more:
The key findings of privileges committee that sealed Boris Johnson’s fate
Who was named as criticising the Boris Johnson partygate report?
Introducing the motion to approve the report, Ms Mordaunt told the Commons: “I hope colleagues who have been named will reflect on their actions.
“One of the most painful aspects of this whole affair is that it has involved animosities between colleagues, and colleagues of the same political hue.
“But I know of at least one member named in the report who has taken the time to speak with regret to some other members of that committee and I applaud them for doing so.
“I hope that some speeches we might hear this afternoon will acknowledge that obligation we have to one another as colleagues.”
Referring to former prime minister George Canning, who as foreign secretary was challenged to a duel by war minister Lord Castlereagh in 1809 over a dispute about the deployment of troops, Ms Mordaunt added: “If Castlereagh and Canning could adopt polite civility after fighting a duel, I live in hope that today will be the end of this sorry affair.”
Mr Johnson’s supporters had attacked the Labour-led but Tory-majority committee as a “witch hunt” and “kangaroo court” – with the former PM found to be complicit in the campaign against the panel investigating him.
Sir Jacob, the former business secretary, said: “There are some issues with this report, I think beginning, as it happens, with its title, ‘co-ordinated campaign of interference’… there is no evidence that it was coordinated.”
He added: “I’m not very often coordinated with the official line to take. Indeed, I have always thought that it is politically rather important that members should be independent in what they say and in how they vote, and therefore to make an assertion of co-ordination without evidence is a problem with this report.”
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‘I think that’s a mic-drop Jacob Rees-Mogg’
Asked by Labour MP Dame Angela Eagle if he would like to apologise to the committee members for calling them “marsupials”, Sir Jacob said: “I have absolutely no desire to impugn the integrity of individual members of the committee, some of whom I hold in very high regard.”
He also told MPs: “I’ve always thought it is important to get on well with people and to be courteous to them… across the House. But that doesn’t mean that one can’t criticise them.
“And it was legitimate, and it is legitimate, to question the position of the chairman of the committee.”
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Labour’s Harriet Harman, who chaired the privileges committee, said: “Our special report makes it clear that it’s not acceptable for members fearing an outcome which they don’t want to level criticisms at the committee, so that in the event the conclusion is one they don’t want they will have undermined the inquiry’s outcome by undermining confidence in the committee.”
Elon Musk could be on track for a $1trn pay packet.
Tesla shareholders have approved the whopping financial package for the CEO – who’s already worth an estimated $491bn – if he hits a series of ambitious targets over the next 10 years.
But that $1trn figure (or £761,910,000,000) – which is both one thousand billion and one million million – is almost impossible to imagine for most people.
Even so, we have drilled down into the numbers and examined what you can do with a trillion US dollars – and it turns out, quite a lot.
Show me the money
Laid end to end, a trillion one-dollar bills would cover a distance of approximately 156 billion metres.
That could wrap around the equator 3,890 times, easily reach the sun from Earth (around 149.6 million km) or loop from Earth to the moon 405 times.
That many one-dollar notes could cover a massive area (roughly 10,339 km squared), meaning you could blanket nearly all of Lebanon or Jamaica in bills.
Spend it on sport
You could splash out on virtually all of the world’s major sporting leagues.
The clubs which make up the Premier League are relatively cheap ($30bn), and even when snapping up the UEFA Champions League clubs and the big five top divisions of Spain, Italy, Germany, and France, there’s still $858bn left in the kitty.
The four major US sports leagues for ice hockey, baseball, basketball, and American football (NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL) have a rough valuation of $544bn, according to Sportico.
But then add the IPL cricket league ($120bn) and F1 ($23.1bn) and Musk still has change from an estimated total spend of $829.7bn.
Elon Musk is in the money if he hits targets set by Tesla’s shareholders. File pic: AP
Take over Tesla’s rivals
He could buy up the top 15 largest publicly traded automakers (excluding Tesla) by market capitalisation.
They would include firms like Japan’s Toyota ($275bn), Chinese automaker BYD ($120bn), and luxury brands like Ferrari ($81bn) and Mercedes-Benz ($62bn), as well as BMW ($52bn), Volkswagen ($50bn) and Ford ($48bn).
But there would still be a little change left over; the total bill would be an eye-watering $992bn.
Buy up San Diego
He could buy up every single residential property in San Diego County – valued at a total of $1trn. Seattle is just slightly out of reach at $1.1trn, according to recent data from real estate firm Zillow.
But if he wanted to buy big – there is always Tennessee. The total value of homes in the US state is estimated at $957bn. Or there is Maryland, which at $1.01trn could be bought if he can find a little more cash behind the sofa.
Sadly, he would struggle to scoop up London’s entire housing stock, which in February was valued at just under £2trn ($2.53trn), according to agents Savills.
Cities like New York ($4.6trn) and Los Angeles ($3.9trn) are also not within his budget, hosting America’s most expensive residential markets.
Do something charitable?
There is always the possibility Musk could follow in the footsteps of Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who intends to give away 99% of his vast fortune over the next 20 years.
He could give every single man, woman, and child in the US a share of his cash pile. They would receive approximately $2,917.32 (£2,223.29), based on a population estimate of 342.7 million.
Although it would be roughly $14,348.79 (£10,935.20) for every person (roughly 69.6 million) in the UK.
If he wanted to give the entire globe an early Christmas present, then based on the rough world population estimate of 8.2 billion, everyone would receive $121.80 (£92.87).
Pay off the credit card
With $1trn, he could instantly rewrite history and erase debt interest payments and the government debt from dozens of the world’s sovereign nations.
Or Musk could wipe out the debts of Singapore ($1trn) or South Korea ($0.99trn) in one go, according to figures from the International Monetary Fund’s latest World Economic Outlook (Oct 2025).
But when it comes to the biggest debt-laden countries, $1trn would not even touch the sides.
The US has $38.3trn of government debt (just over one third of the total global debt pile) while the UK has a modest $4.1trn.
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