Ethics chief ‘should examine PM’S talks with Cummings’

RISHI SUNAK should ask his ethics adviser to investigate his meetings with Dominic Cummings, a former sleaze watchdog has said.

The pair are believed to have spoken in London in December 2022 and again over dinner in North Yorkshire in July, in meetings which were not officially recorded by Downing Street.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said this morning that no job offer had been made to Mr Cummings, who was Boris Johnson’s chief adviser.

But Sir Alistair Graham, a former chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, said Mr Sunak still faced questions on his failure to declare the meetings. He said Mr Sunak should ask Sir Laurie Magnus, the Prime Minister’s independent adviser on ministers’ interests, to look into the case.

Sir Alistair said: “If these were official meetings, then there should have been a civil servant present and a record retained for future reference.

“If he has not recorded these meetings, then he is potentially in breach of the ministerial code. He should ask his statutory advisor to carry out an investigation. Because he was seeking assistance for a general election, he can argue they were political meetings rather than official government ones – but these things are a fine line.

“It would have been sensible to have ensured there was a proper record of the meetings.” Sir Laurie is unable to launch his own investigations into ministers and can only do so on the instigation of Mr Sunak.

Mr Cummings, the former Vote Leave campaign director, claimed at the weekend that the Prime Minister had sought a “secret deal” with him in a bid to win next year’s election.

This morning, the Prime Minister’s spokesman said: “It was a political meeting, I wouldn’t have any more details than that. I think they [special advisers] have been clear there wasn’t a job offer made.” They added that it was a “private political discussion” and that “those sorts of discussions are not required to be disclosed”.

Mr Cummings told The Sunday Times: “He wanted a secret deal in which I delivered the election and he promised to take Government seriously after the election. But I’d rather the Tories lose than continue in office without prioritising what’s important and the voters.”

The former aide is said to have urged Mr Sunak to abandon his cautious economic approach, settle the NHS strikes and double the threshold at which people pay the 40p rate of income tax from £50,271 to £100,000.