Tory plotters go back to basics to beat the leaks

Our Westminster columnist who takes no prisoners

DOWNING Street is reportedly lining up Lord (Francis) Maude for yet another efficiency review of Whitehall – the Tory ex-Minister having concluded one only last July.

The additional navel-gazing exercise would be another win for Maude, whose consultancy, FMA, advises foreign governments on… efficiency and public-sector reform. I don’t know why Whitehall wonks can’t just read the 2018 speech Maude gave on government efficiency at a conference dubbed the

‘Russian Davos’ in Moscow, where his tab was picked up by a Kremlin-funded institution.

Meanwhile, FMA has advised Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Putin-friendly Kazakhstan –

regimes that need little help in the efficiency of eliminating opponents but not corruption.

Before another lofty Whitehall review role goes his way, I wonder if Maude, 68, could declare how much he earns

from foreign states, which the Code of Conduct has required all peers to do since January.

Last night Maude claimed he has a mysterious ‘arrangement’ exempting him from the rule. He declined to answer how his Stakhanovite work ethic for autocratic and Kremlin-friendly regimes is compatible with his

seat in the Lords.

HAVE we reached peak Politics by WhatsApp?

Seditious MPs are increasingly resorting to more old-school methods of conspiring, now that messages on supposedly private chat groups have a habit of being leaked.

Backers of one Tory leadership hopeful tell me their lieutenants

have been spending the Jubilee weekend drawing up a list of parliamentary office locations for their estimated 30 supporters if there’s a no-confidence vote in Boris Johnson.

All MPs have an office on the Commons estate, but contacting them can be a mission impossible as they are spread over myriad corridors and buildings.

As an alternative to picking up

BIG business lobbyists Edelman and the Aspen Institute think-tank are hosting talks on how to rebuild trust in diverse fields, from politics to climate change. And who of unimpeachable integrity will give the key speech on ‘trust in business’? Step forward Lord (John) Browne, who quit as boss of BP in 2007 (but kept his seat in the Lords) after being caught repeatedly lying in witness statements as part of a High Court battle to stop this newspaper publishing details of his business activities.

the blower to shore up support, ‘it makes it easier if we can go to their office and accost them’, a source says.

Meanwhile, Government advisers have found a new way to defeat the transparency laws while still using Facebook-owned WhatsApp.

No one needs to mysteriously ‘lose’ their phones when things get

hot. Instead, there’s a new trend of simply switching on the ‘disappearing’ message function. Consequently, anything the advisers send is automatically deleted within a short time frame.

Considering that all official communications should be accessible for any Freedom of Information Act request – not to mention future public inquiries – it’s another bad day

for Government transparency.

STANLEY and Carrie Johnson, above, are patrons of the Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation, which last week spoke out against the cruel use of lumpfish in the salmon industry to eat lice off big fish.

After being used as ‘cleaner fish’ for infested salmon, they are then ruthlessly disposed of.

Which brings to mind the equivalent ‘cleaner fish’ of Westminster being sent out to defend Boris Johnson – the school of 2019-ers seemingly willing to say anything: Mark Jenkinson, Katherine Fletcher, Jacob Young and Joy Morrissey. When will they realise that they, too, are disposable?