Carrie on, Boris! PM off hook over luxury holiday
THE decision by the Commons Committee on Standards is a relief for Boris Johnson – and a victory over Westminster’s ‘sleazebuster’ Kathryn Stone.
Parliamentary Standards Commissioner Miss Stone, who had investigated the Prime Minister’s 2019 holiday with then-fiancee Carrie Symonds to the Caribbean island, had ruled that Boris broke the rules that say MPs must ‘conscientiously fulfil’ their duty to declare all financial interests.
Boris refused to accept her verdict. And now the committee, made up of MPs and independent lay members, and which has the final say on such matters, has sided with him, saying his account of who paid for the trip was ‘accurate and complete’.
The Daily Mail disclosed in May how Miss Stone and Mr Johnson were engaged in a fierce behind-the-scenes battle over the holiday. Information obtained by this newspaper showed that the commissioner had told the Prime Minister that the luxury winter break was worth more than double the £15,000 he had declared in the Commons register.
Nor did Miss Stone believe, as Mr Johnson had claimed, that the bill had been met by Tory donor and Carphone Warehouse co-founder David Ross.
And he had failed to meet his duty to the Parliamentary code of conduct by disclosing financial interests, she said.
In robust exchanges with Miss Stone, Mr Johnson categorically denied any wrongdoing and claimed he secured the villa as a late booking for a heavily discounted £15,000.
he said confusion over who paid the bill and whose villa he stayed in arose from the fact Mustique villas were like Costa Brava ‘time shares’.
If the committee had backed Miss Stone, Mr Johnson would have faced the humiliation of being suspended as an MP.
But it rejected her claim that he had broken Parliamentary rules and instead gave him a rap over the knuckles for not explaining more promptly how the trip was funded. It is his second narrow escape in just two months over allegations of financial wrongdoing. In May, a separate investigation into who paid for the makeover of the Downing Street flat he now shares with wife Carrie found there was no conflict of interest.
However, Lord Geidt, the Prime Minister’s adviser on ministerial standards, said he had behaved ‘unwisely’ in letting the refurbishment go ahead without checking who was footing the bill.
It is an almost identical outcome to this week’s Mustique inquiry – and consistent with Mr Johnson’s patchy record on such matters.
Despite his fierce intellect he is famously disorganised.
Though he has earned a fortune from his writing and enjoys a £170,000 prime ministerial salary, his approach to his personal finances is about as orderly as his hairstyle. In 2018 he was forced to apologise to MPs for failing to declare more than £52,000 in income after the Standards Committee said he displayed an ‘over-casual attitude’ to the rules.
Accused of late declarations in the Commons register on nine occasions, Miss Stone said it indicated a ‘lack of attention, rather than inadvertent error’.
her verdict on his Mustique holiday suggests she is no longer prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. Fortunately for Mr Johnson, the Parliamentary committee has been more forgiving.
his consistently high popularity ratings show most voters take a similarly generous view towards his personal conduct.
But with growing public complaints about a Government where there is ‘one rule for them and another for everyone else,’ the Prime Minister will need to be more careful in future.