Partygate was not just ‘trivia’ and ‘fluff’

SEEMINGLY, Jacob Ress-Mogg considers Boris Johnson’s blatant lies about ‘partygate’, with one rule for us, another for everyone else, as merely ‘trivia’ and ‘fluff’.

No doubt he thinks the same about the following:

Boris Johnson’s refusal to sack Dominic Cummings over his ‘eye test’ in Barnard Castle;

Robert Jenrick, the Housing Minister, fast-tracking a planning permission to benefit a Tory donor £45m, before having to admit it was unlawful;

PPE contracts worth £1.7bn being fast-tracked without competitive tendering via a ‘VIP lane’ after recommendations from Tory MPs, ministers and peers – for their mates. A judge has since said this was unlawful;

‘Levelling-up’ cash going not to the most deprived areas but to ministers’ constituencies, such as Robert Jenrick’s and Rishi Sunak’s;

Priti Patel being found guilty by the independent adviser of breaking the ministerial code by bullying civil servants. Boris Johnson supported her, and the adviser resigned rather than Priti Patel. The civil servant forced out of his job by bullying was paid £370,000 in compensation;

Tory MP Owen Patterson breaking the rules by lobbying for the company paying him money, and Boris Johnson deciding that the rules should be ripped up to let his ‘honourable’ friend off;

Tory MP Geoffrey Cox earning more than £1m above his £82,000 MP’s salary working for the Virgin Islands government, which was accused of corruption by the UK Foreign Office;

An ex-chair of the Tory party, talking about donations to the Tory party admitting: ‘Once you pay your £3m, you get a peerage’;

Boris Johnson pushing ahead with the nomination of Evgeny Lebedev for a peerage, despite MI5 and MI6 considering that there was a threat to national security. Baron Lebedev of Hampton and Siberia’s wealth comes from his father – an ex-KGB, Russian oligarch, who is close to the Kremlin;

The Tory Party receiving £1.93m of Russian money since Boris Johnson became Prime Minister.

No, Mr Rees-Mogg, this is not ‘trivia’ and ‘fluff’, let’s call it out for what it really is – sleaze and corruption.

Mike Baldwin Thorverton, Devon