The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Deputy chief whip quits after drunken incident
The government deputy chief whip has resigned following a drunken incident in which he “embarrassed myself and other people”.
Chris Pincher, who was responsible for maintaining discipline among Tory MPs, apologised to Boris Johnson, saying it had been “the honour of my life” to have served in the government.
The Sun reported that he stood down after assaulting two fellow guests at the Carlton Club – a Tory Party private members’ club in London’s Piccadilly – on Wednesday evening.
In his resignation letter to the prime minister, Mr Pincher said: “Last night I drank far too much. I’ve embarrassed myself and other people which is the last thing I want to do and for that I apologise to you and to those concerned.
“I think the right thing to do in the circumstances is for me to resign as deputy chief whip.
“I owe it to you and the people I’ve caused upset to, to do this.
“I want to assure you that you will continue to have my full support from the back benches, and I wish you all the best as you deal with aftershocks of Covid and the challenges of international inflation.
“It has been the honour of my life to have served in Her Majesty’s government.”
Meanwhile, a senior Tory backbencher has warned Mr Johnson not to call a snap general election to try to avoid an inquiry into whether he misled Parliament.
Steve Baker, a former minister who organised the Brexiteer revolt against Theresa May, said there was no reason to go to the polls while the government enjoyed a strong working majority.
“The idea of going to an early general election when we could just get on and govern the country with a 77-seat working majority now, it’s really crackers,” he told LBC radio.
His comments follow a report that staff at Conservative headquarters have war gamed a snap election if Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer is forced to resign over the investigation by Durham police into lockdown violations.
However, Mr Baker said the only reason for holding an autumn election would be to evade an inquiry by the Commons Privileges Committee into whether Mr Johnson misled the House over lockdown parties in Downing Street.
He said that if crossparty committee, chaired by Labour veteran Harriet Harman, found the prime minister knowingly misled MPs he would have to resign.
“The only reason to call a general election before the autumn is to try and circumvent an inconvenient report.
“What a thing to put the nation through,” he continued.
“The honourable thing to do is let the report come out, see what it says and if it says he has knowingly misled the House, to go.”
Mr Baker expressed concern that allies of the prime minister were trying to undermine the inquiry before it had even begun, reportedly describing it as a “kangaroo court”.
A Downing Street spokesman insisted they trusted the committee “to take its responsibilities seriously”, but Mr Baker said he feared they were preparing the ground for
Mr Johnson to ignore its findings.
The MP, who is standing for the executive of the 1922 Committee which sets the Tory leadership rules, said if that happened it would be right to change the rules to allow another vote of confidence in the prime minister this year.
“It does look, unfortunately, like they are rubbishing the institution (the Privileges Committee).
“This is a most unfortunate tendency which I, for one, will not have.
“I think what they are doing is just that, preparing to ignore it,” he said.
“In those circumstances, if the prime minister tried to stay when actually he’d been found to have knowingly misled the House, then I for one would be saying we have got to give MPs a chance to vote again.”