Even ex-PM is fed up of Boris and his regime
FIRSTLY, I would like to congratulate your correspondent David Abbott for his excellent letter (“Did Labour abstainers pull off masterstroke?”, Mailbox, November 6).
Following on from this, we need to understand that in our Parliamentary system, former Prime Ministers usually tend to avoid engaging in personal criticism of their successors, particularly if they serve as leader of the same party.
So, Sir John Major’s verdict on Boris Johnson’s handling of the Owen Paterson affair as being “shameful and wrong” and “politically corrupt’’ amounts to an extraordinary and devastating intervention and just shows how low Mr Johnson’s reputation has sunk with senior members of his own party.
Sir John went as far as to say that he would describe it as a personal dilemma were he to have to consider voting for Johnson and his regime at the next General Election.
It would appear to all fair-minded people that Mr Johnson’s handling of the standard committee’s findings and recommendations on Mr Paterson has been disgraceful.
The Common’s committee, comprised not just of cross-party MPs, but members of the public, upheld findings by the parliamentary commissioner for standards that Mr Paterson had egregiously breached the rules on several occasions, by lobbying ministers as a handsomely paid consultant for two private companies.
The Commons was planning to suspend him for 30 days when the Prime Minister and his close mates schemed to interfere in the House proceedings by initially suggesting that it must vote to overturn the findings of the standards committee and then vote for a wholesale change in an amendment to reform the standards system.
It has been reported that many MPs opted to support the new amendment to avoid losing funding for their constituencies.
Others, including media groups which traditionally support the Tory party, expressed a unanimous outcry the next day and Boris’s team decided to climb down, albeit disgracefully.
Their other Tory supporters soon realised what the implications were of being asked to support Boris and they collectively decided against supporting him. Hence, a massively deserved defeat followed.
It is worth noting that Mr Johnson has already faced numerous other questions around his behaviour/ integrity.
This includes the yet-unfinished question of establishing the true value of his so-called free holiday in Spain.
Apparently, our Boris got tired of all his scheming and so decided to have a holiday. The property he rented is owned by a famous UK tax exile who had already received a peerage from the Boris government and seemed happy to please his friend.
To date, there is still uncertainty about who paid the estimated £25,000 rent for the accommodation.
We also have the unresolved case of Jennifer Arcuri (who says she was having a relationship with Boris when he was Mayor of London and, as a result, authorised for her to travel free of charge with him on several trade missions, giving her free opportunities to promote her other business services and trade) and the furore around Home Secretary Priti Patel breaking the ministerial code with bullying behaviour against staff.
Here we had Sir Alex Allan, Johnson’s ministerial code adviser, having his reasonable advice to sack Ms Patel ignored by the Prime Minister.
Instead, Sir Alex resigned and sued for wrongful dismissal. What a pitiful outcome.
Suresh Chauhan, Glen Parva