Crony baloney
MPs rally to put ‘Dodgy Dave’ under spotlight over lobbying
BORIS Johnson is on the rack over the David Cameron lobbying scandal with Labour calling for a full parliamentary inquiry into how the former Tory Prime Minister contacted cabinet ministers on behalf of a failed finance company.
Labour will force a vote in the Commons on Wednesday to establish a parliament-run inquiry into the Greensill lobbying scandal.
A committee of MPs want the Government to publish all communications relating to Greensill Capital between Cameron, Johnson, Matt Hancock and Rishi Sunak, as well as special advisers and senior staff.
Cameron texted Chancellor Sunak about the firm accessing a Covid loans scheme and he also took Lex Greensill for a private drink with Health Secretary Hancock in 2019.
Greensill was an adviser to the former PM when he was in Downing Street and his supply chain finance firm hired Cameron in 2018 after he left office.
Labour is unlikely to win the Opposition Day debate but whipping Tory MPs to vote against a Commons investigation will pile pressure on the Government to explain why it does not wish its own inquiry to be so wide-ranging. Downing Street announced on Monday that senior lawyer Nigel Boardman will carry out a probe into how the specialist bank, founded by Australian financier Lex Greensill, was granted access to a Covid loan scheme for businesses, putting hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money at risk.
MPs denounced the Government inquiry as a whitewash and asked about the lobbying ties between Cameron and current ministers.
Labour’s Wes Streeting MP told the Commons: “The simple fact is, again and again… members on all sides of the House pleaded with the Chancellor to meet with us to hear the plight of millions of people who were excluded from any Government support and the Chancellor would never find the time for such a meeting.
“But a few texts from ‘dodgy Dave’ and Greensill got 10 meetings and a ream of correspondence with senior Treasury officials, the type of access that most businesses in this country could only dream of.”
Scully said the Government review would be published by the end of
June.