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Boris Johnson condemns fresh ‘Partygate’ claims

Justice Secretary Alex Chalk said on Tuesday there had been no ministerial involvement in the passing on of the new alleged breaches…reports Asian Lite News

Former prime minister Boris Johnson has condemned the handling of fresh allegations of Covid lockdown rule-breaking as “bizarre and unacceptable”, as he faces a further possible probe into the “Partygate” scandal that helped push him from office.

It emerged on Tuesday that a government ministry had handed two police forces material about alleged violations of pandemic regulations.

Johnson, 58, was ousted as prime minister last summer following a revolt within his ruling party after months of accusations of lockdown infringements and other scandals.

He repeatedly denied in parliament, and elsewhere, that he or his staff had broken his own pandemic era restrictions by holding boozy gatherings in Downing Street.

But the Met issued fines to dozens of aides after a criminal probe, and Johnson became the first serving UK prime minister found to have broken the law, over one of the gatherings.

London’s Metropolitan Police has confirmed it is “assessing” new information it received over the last week related to “potential breaches” of the coronavirus rules in Downing Street between June 2020 and May 2021.

The information was passed on by the Cabinet Office, the government department responsible for supporting prime ministers and ensuring the effective running of government.

The ministry is currently preparing a public inquiry into the country’s pandemic response.

Johnson is also still being investigated by parliament’s Privileges Committee over whether he lied to MPs about “Partygate”, in a process that could ultimately trigger his removal as a lawmaker.

A statement issued by Johnson’s office, however, said his lawyers had written to police to “explain in detail why the Cabinet Office is entirely wrong in its assertions”.

“No contact was made with Mr Johnson before these incorrect allegations were made both to the police and to the Privileges Committee. This is both bizarre and unacceptable.

“For whatever political purpose, it is plain that a last-ditch attempt is being made to lengthen the Privileges Committee investigation as it was coming to a conclusion and to undermine Mr Johnson.”

The statement described the events in question as “entirely within the rules either because they were held outdoors or came within another lawful exception. They include regular meetings with civil servants and advisers”.

Justice Secretary Alex Chalk said on Tuesday there had been no ministerial involvement in the passing on of the new alleged breaches.

“Material came to light which was passed to the civil service. The civil service considered that in accordance with their code, and with no ministerial intervention,” Chalk told LBC radio.

“Ultimately, whether it was the right judgement to do it turns on what’s in those documents. And I’ve not seen those documents,” he added.

ALSO READ-Johnson may face probe again after fresh ‘Partygate’ claims

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Boris set to become a dad for eighth time at 58

The wife of former British prime minister Boris Johnson, Carrie Johnson, on Friday, took to Instagram to announce that she is pregnant with the couple’s third child. She said the baby would arrive ”in just a few weeks”…reports Asian Lite News

The wife of former prime minister Boris Johnson, Carrie Johnson, on Friday, took to Instagram to announce that she is pregnant with the couple’s third child. She said the baby would arrive ”in just a few weeks”.

In an Instagram post, she shared a picture of herself holding hands with her two children. She wrote, “New team member arriving in just a few weeks. I’ve felt pretty exhausted for much of the last 8 months but we can’t wait to meet this little one. Wilf is v excited about being a big brother again and has been chattering about it nonstop. Don’t think Romy has a clue what’s coming…She soon will!”

Boris Johnson Set To Become A Father For The Eighth Time At 58

The baby would arrive ”in just a few weeks”.

The wife of former British prime minister Boris Johnson, Carrie Johnson, on Friday, took to Instagram to announce that she is pregnant with the couple’s third child. She said the baby would arrive ”in just a few weeks”.

In an Instagram post, she shared a picture of herself holding hands with her two children. She wrote, “New team member arriving in just a few weeks. I’ve felt pretty exhausted for much of the last 8 months but we can’t wait to meet this little one. Wilf is v excited about being a big brother again and has been chattering about it nonstop. Don’t think Romy has a clue what’s coming…She soon will!”

As per the Independent, 35-year-old Johnson is a British media consultant and worked as a media official for the Conservative Party. She is also a senior adviser to Oceana, an ocean conservation charity.

The couple, who married in May 2021, already have two children– three-year-old Wilf and two-year-old Romy. While Wilf was born in April 2020, Romy was born in December 2021. It is Mr. Johnson’s third marriage.

It is the first time the couple have welcomed a child while not living in Downing Street, which they left in September last year after Mr. Johnson was ousted by his own government.

The new arrival will be Johnson’s eighth child as he has four children from his previous marriage to Marina Wheeler. He has one more child from an affair with art consultant Helen Macintyre, according to BBC. However, he has not officially confirmed the exact number. He did not have any children with his first wife Allegra Mostyn-Owen.

The news comes days after the ek-UK PM purchased a nine-bedroom mansion with a three-sided moat in Oxfordshire, worth 3.8 million pounds, as per the Guardian.

Speaking about his love of fatherhood, the-58-year-old told Sky News in 2021, ”It’s a lot of work, I’ll tell you that much, but I love it, I absolutely love it, and I want you to know I change a lot of nappies.”

ALSO READ-Do not write Boris off

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Boris nominates father for knighthood

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson attends a press conference in London, Britain, May 25, 2022.(Xinhua/IANS)

Any honour for Stanley Johnson would raise questions about Johnson’s use of the honours system to reward family members with titles…reports Asian Lite News

Boris Johnson has put his father forward for a knighthood in his resignation honours list, it has been reported.

The former prime minister, who left office last September, has nominated Stanley Johnson for the honour, The Times newspaper said.

Stanley Johnson, a former MEP, was among as many as 100 names put forward by Johnson for Cabinet Office vetting, the paper added.

A spokesperson for the former Conservative leader said: “We don’t comment on honours.”

Any honour for Stanley Johnson would raise questions about Johnson’s use of the honours system to reward family members with titles.

He faced accusations of cronyism in 2020 after he nominated his brother Jo Johnson, a former minister, for a peerage in 2020. He is now Lord Johnson of Marylebone.

In 2021, senior Tory MP Caroline Nokes and a journalist publicly accused Stanley Johnson of touching them at Conservative party conferences.

Nokes, chairwoman of the Commons’ women and equalities committee, accused Stanley Johnson of forcefully smacking her on the backside and making a vulgar comment at the Conservative Party conference in 2003.

Stanley Johnson said after that he had “no recollection” of either incident.

Last week a parliamentary inquiry had found BBC chair Richard Sharp made “significant errors of judgement” when he did not declare his role in the facilitation of a loan in 2020 to Boris Johnson,.

Sharp, a banker and former chair of the Royal Academy of Arts, was appointed in January 2021 on the recommendation of Oliver Dowden, then Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) secretary, and Boris Johnson, who was still Prime Minister at the time, ‘Variety reports’.

A report in ‘The Sunday Times’ in January alleged that Johnson put forward the recommendation just weeks after Sharp “helped to arrange a guarantee on a loan of up to 800,000 Pounds [$990,000 ]” for Johnson.

According to ‘The Sunday Times’, Sharp was drawn into Johnson’s finances while dining with the then prime minister and businessman Sam Blyth, a friend and “distant cousin” of Johnson’s. The report stated that Blyth had agreed to act as a guarantor for the loan and wanted Sharp’s “advice on the best way forward”.

Sharp notes appeared before a parliamentary inquiry convened by the DCMS Committee on February 7 and said: “I’ve never given the (former) Prime Minister advice. He’s never sought it. I know nothing about his personal financial affairs.”

The committee, which also interviewed Sharp prior to his appointment as BBC chair, established that Sharp had effected an introduction of Blyth to Cabinet Secretary Simon Case and repeatedly asked him why he didn’t disclose the matter during the interview. Sharp, in turn, repeatedly said that he was following “due process”.

The committee report, which was published on Sunday and is quoted by ‘Variety’, pointed out: “Richard Sharp’s decisions, firstly to become involved in the facilitation of a loan to the then Prime Minister while at the same time applying for a job that was in that same person’s gift, and then to fail to disclose this material relationship, were significant errors of judgement, which undermine confidence in the public appointments process and could deter qualified individuals from applying for such posts.”

The report added, according to ‘Variety’: “Mr Sharp’s failure to disclose his actions to the panel and the committee, although he believed this to be completely proper, constitute a breach of the standards expected of individuals applying for such public appointments…. Mr Sharp should consider the impact his omissions will have on trust in him, the BBC and the public appointments process.”

Earlier, this year, Johnson said that Russian President Vladimir Putin had “threatened him with a missile strike during an extraordinary phone call” ahead of Moscow launching its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

He made the remarks in a BBC documentary titled ‘Putin Vs the West’ which will be broadcast on Monday.

“He threatened me at one point, and he said, ‘Boris, I don’t want to hurt you but, with a missile, it would only take a minute’ or something like that. But I think from the very relaxed tone that he was taking, the sort of air of detachment that he seemed to have, he was just playing along with my attempts to get him to negotiate,” Johnson was quoted as saying in the documentary.

The former Prime Minister also said that he warned Putin that invading Ukraine would lead to Western sanctions and more NATO troops on Russia’s borders.

He also tried to deter Russian military action by telling Putin that Ukraine would not join Nato “for the foreseeable future”, the BBC reported. Johnson further said that “Putin had been very familiar during the most extraordinary call”.

The former leader’s claims however, have been been official verified.

ALSO READ-Boris fires shot against Sunak’s Brexit deal

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Boris fires shot against Sunak’s Brexit deal

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson attends a press conference in London, Britain, May 25, 2022.(Xinhua/IANS)

Sunak has also said U.K. lawmakers will get to vote on the deal, but he has not said when…reports Asian Lite News

Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Thursday poured cold water on current premier Rishi Sunak’s new Brexit deal with the European Union, saying he would “find it hard” to vote for it in Parliament.

Johnson said he hoped Sunak’s deal would work, but argued that that it did not amount to “the U.K. taking back control” — a key Brexit slogan.

The government has been bracing for a response from Johnson, a strong backer of Brexit who was ousted from office by ethics scandals in July 2022. Johnson is widely believed to hope for a political comeback, and blames Conservative colleagues including Sunak for bringing him down.

Johnson left office with an unresolved dispute between the U.K. and the bloc over trade rules for Northern Ireland, the only part of the U.K. that shares a border with an EU member nation.

Under Sunak, the two sides struck a deal, which was announced on Monday. The “Windsor Framework” agreement will ease customs checks and other hurdles for goods moving to Northern Ireland from the rest of the U.K. that were imposed after Brexit to maintain an open border between the north and its EU neighbor the Republic of Ireland. The open border is a key pillar of Northern Ireland’s peace process.

But Northern Ireland’s British unionist politicians have yet to give it their blessing. They worry that accepting any aspect of EU trade rules will undermine Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom.

Sunak has also said U.K. lawmakers will get to vote on the deal, but he has not said when.

“This is not about the U.K. taking back control,” Johnson said during a speech in London, referring to the fact that some EU rules will still apply in Northern Ireland. “This is the EU graciously unbending to allow us to do what we want to do in our own country, not by our laws, but by theirs.

“I’m going to find it very difficult to vote for something like this myself, because I believed we should’ve done something very different,” Johnson said.

The U.K. government’s Northern Ireland secretary, Chris Heaton-Harris, asserted that the deal meant that the U.K. was “decisively taking back control in a host of areas from Brussels.”

“It ensures unfettered access for Northern Ireland-made goods to the whole U.K. market,” he said, and also gives Northern Ireland’s elected politicians “the opportunity to reject the application of any harmful new EU rules in the few areas in which they remain.”

“We have never said this is the perfect solution,” he added — but insisted it was better than options proposed during Johnson’s time in office.

ALSO READ-Boris Johnson warns Sunak over Brexit deal

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‘BBC Chair made’errors of judgement in Boris loan affair’

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson attends a press conference in London, Britain, May 25, 2022.(Xinhua/IANS)

Sharp, ‘Variety’ notes, appeared before a parliamentary inquiry convened by the DCMS Committee on February 7 and said: “I’ve never given the (former) Prime Minister advice. He’s never sought it. I know nothing about his personal financial affairs.”..reports Asian Lite News

BBC chair Richard Sharp made “significant errors of judgement” when he did not declare his role in the facilitation of a loan in 2020 to the then Prime Minister Boris Johnson, a UK parliamentary inquiry has found, according to ‘Variety’.

Sharp, a banker and former chair of the Royal Academy of Arts, was appointed in January 2021 on the recommendation of Oliver Dowden, then Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) secretary, and Boris Johnson, who was still Prime Minister at the time, ‘Variety reports’.

A report in ‘The Sunday Times’ in January alleged that Johnson put forward the recommendation just weeks after Sharp “helped to arrange a guarantee on a loan of up to 800,000 Pounds [$990,000 ]” for Johnson.

According to ‘The Sunday Times’, Sharp was drawn into Johnson’s finances while dining with the then prime minister and businessman Sam Blyth, a friend and “distant cousin” of Johnson’s. The report stated that Blyth had agreed to act as a guarantor for the loan and wanted Sharp’s “advice on the best way forward”.

Sharp, ‘Variety’ notes, appeared before a parliamentary inquiry convened by the DCMS Committee on February 7 and said: “I’ve never given the (former) Prime Minister advice. He’s never sought it. I know nothing about his personal financial affairs.”

The committee, which also interviewed Sharp prior to his appointment as BBC chair, established that Sharp had effected an introduction of Blyth to Cabinet Secretary Simon Case and repeatedly asked him why he didn’t disclose the matter during the interview. Sharp, in turn, repeatedly said that he was following “due process”.

The committee report, which was published on Sunday and is quoted by ‘Variety’, pointed out: “Richard Sharp’s decisions, firstly to become involved in the facilitation of a loan to the then Prime Minister while at the same time applying for a job that was in that same person’s gift, and then to fail to disclose this material relationship, were significant errors of judgement, which undermine confidence in the public appointments process and could deter qualified individuals from applying for such posts.”

The report added, according to ‘Variety’: “Mr Sharp’s failure to disclose his actions to the panel and the committee, although he believed this to be completely proper, constitute a breach of the standards expected of individuals applying for such public appointments…. Mr Sharp should consider the impact his omissions will have on trust in him, the BBC and the public appointments process.”

ALSO READ-Sikhs at risk of being banned from UK courts

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The knives are out for Sunak

In a BBC documentary earlier in the week, he claimed Russian president, Vladimir Putin, threatened him with a missile strike…reports Asian Lite News

After a silence of over 100 days since her resignation as prime minister after serving the shortest term in this office in British history, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak’s immediate predecessor, launched a broadside against her successor on Sunday.

In a 4,000-word opinion piece in The Sunday Telegraph newspaper, she described Sunak’s increase of corporation tax from 19 to 25 per cent as “economically detrimental”.

She went on to write – in an unmistakable criticism of the current prime minister’s handling of the economy – that she wanted to change things as prime minister and “not manage decline or to preside over our country sliding into stagnation”.

Sunak, who is of Indian origin, steadied the boat after her 45 billion pound unfunded mini-budget caused a series economic crisis in the UK; but the country has slid into recession under his watch.

While admitting she was not blameless for her brief tenancy of 10 Downing Street, she alleged: “I was not given a realistic chance to enact my policies by a very powerful economic establishment, coupled with a lack of political support.”

Truss plans to deliver speeches in the days and weeks ahead to intensify her opposition to Sunak’s policies, including his approach to China. She will reiterate that Beijing poses a threat to Britain, where Sunak has defined his policy towards it as being one of ‘robust pragmatism’. Truss remains a member of parliament.

The colourful but controversial Boris Johnson, who preceded Truss as prime minister, has been making strenuous efforts to re-enter the news radar as well. In a BBC documentary earlier in the week, he claimed Russian president, Vladimir Putin, threatened him with a missile strike.

He narrated: ‘He (Putin) threatened me at one point and said, “Boris, I don’t want to hurt you, but with a missile strike it would only take a minute”.’ A Kremlin spokesman reacted by saying this was a ‘lie’.

Boris says Putin threatened him with missile strike

On January 22, Johnson paid a surprise visit to Ukraine and met its president, Volodymyr Zelensky. Politico magazine commented: “Boris Johnson leaped back into the spotlight on Sunday after videos of the former British prime minister visiting Ukraine were posted online, in a move likely to irritate the Conservative government back home.”

Johnson’s trip was reportedly not arranged via the British embassy and was seen as a move to undermine Sunak. The former has received a 1 million Pound war chest from a businessman donor to mount a return as prime minister.

Meanwhile Sunak, nicknamed the ‘invisible prime minister’ by a section of British media, will embark on a tour of townhall meetings in various parts of the country in an attempt to arouse people’s recognition of him. Notwithstanding the modern day power and reach of social figure, he remains a relatively little known figure in remoter parts of the UK.

From New Delhi’s standpoint, the Indian high commission in London tweeted: “A special gesture by PM @rishisunak to join for a while NSA dialogue btwn Sir Tim Barrow & Mr Doval @cabinetofficeuk…”

ALSO READ-How has Sunak done in his first 100 days?

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Boris says Putin threatened him with missile strike

The former Prime Minister also said that he warned Putin that invading Ukraine would lead to Western sanctions and more NATO troops on Russia’s borders…reports Asian Lite News

Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that Russian President Vladimir Putin had “threatened him with a missile strike during an extraordinary phone call” ahead of Moscow launching its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

He made the remarks in a BBC documentary titled ‘Putin Vs the West’ which will be broadcast on Monday.

“He threatened me at one point, and he said, ‘Boris, I don’t want to hurt you but, with a missile, it would only take a minute’ or something like that.

“But I think from the very relaxed tone that he was taking, the sort of air of detachment that he seemed to have, he was just playing along with my attempts to get him to negotiate,” Johnson was quoted as saying in the documentary.

The former Prime Minister also said that he warned Putin that invading Ukraine would lead to Western sanctions and more NATO troops on Russia’s borders.

He also tried to deter Russian military action by telling Putin that Ukraine would not join Nato “for the foreseeable future”, the BBC reported.

Johnson further said that “Putin had been very familiar during the most extraordinary call”.

The former leader’s claims however, have been been official verified.

The BBC documentary also features Defence Secretary Ben Wallace who had flown to Moscow on February 11, 2022, to meet his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu.

The film revealed that Wallace left with assurances that Russia would not invade Ukraine, but he said both sides knew it was a lie.

He described it as a “demonstration of bullying or strength, which is: I’m going to lie to you, you know I’m lying and I know you know I’m lying and I’m still going to lie to you. I think it was about saying ‘I’m powerful'”.

Wallace went on to say that the “fairly chilling, but direct lie” had confirmed his belief that Russia would invade.

As he left the meeting, he said Gen Valery Gerasimov, Russia’s chief of general staff, told him “never again will we be humiliated”.

Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses the plenary session of the 19th annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club in the Moscow region, Russia on Oct. 27, 2022. (Kremlin press release/IANS/Xinhua)

Less than a fortnight later, as tanks rolled over the border on February 24, 2022, Johnson received a phone call in the middle of the night from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“Zelensky’s very, very calm. But, he tells me, you know, they’re attacking everywhere,” the former Prime Minister said, adding that he offered to help move the President to safety.

“He doesn’t take me up on that offer. He heroically stayed where he was.”

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Boris earns over £1 mn for speeches since quitting office

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson attends a press conference in London, Britain, May 25, 2022.(Xinhua/IANS)

The register of interests said this covered nine hours work, making his fee almost 31,000 pounds an hour…reports Asian Lite News

Boris Johnson has made more than 1 million pounds from speaking engagements since being ousted as the British Prime Minister in September, a media report said.

An update to the MPs’ register of interests showed Johnson had received more than 750,000 pounds in fees for three speeches given in November, the SKY News report said.

Added to the 276,000 pounds Johnson was paid for a speech to the Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers in October, it means the former Prime Minister has made a total of 1,030,780 pounds from speaking engagements since he left Downing Street, Sky News reported.

The records show Johnson was paid 277,723 pounds by New York-based investment banking firm Centerview Partners for a speech on November 9, and organisers covered transport and accommodation costs for him and two staff.

The register of interests said this covered nine hours work, making his fee almost 31,000 pounds an hour.

He then received 261,652 pounds from The Hindustan Times for a speech on November 17 and another 215,275 pounds on November 23 from Televisao Independente for speaking at the CNN Global Summit Lisbon, the Sky News report added.

The entries declare that the latter two provided Johnson and two staff with food as well as transport and accommodation.

Johnson’s latest entry also shows he and his family have continued to receive accommodation worth 3,500 pounds a month from Conservative donor Lord Bamford, the chairman of JCB, and his wife.

Sources said he could earn tens of millions of pounds from speaking and media appearances if he worked prolifically for a number of years following his tumultuous stint in Downing Street, Sky News reported.

ALSO READ-Boris Johnson pulls out of UK PM race

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Boris is back

Former prime minister Boris Johnson on Tuesday said he will go to the upcoming UN climate change conference, in a move that could force his successor to change his mind and attend…reports Asian Lite News

Former prime minister Boris Johnson on Tuesday said he will go to the upcoming UN climate change conference, in a move that could force his successor to change his mind and attend.

Johnson told Sky News in his first interview since stepping down as prime minister in September that he had been “invited by the Egyptians” to the COP27 summit in Sharm el-Sheikh.

He said he was “very happy to go” as he had “a particular interest”, having hosted last year’s event in the Scottish city of Glasgow.

Johnson said he had a “particular interest” in going to the United Nations conference, which aims to get international agreement on reducing carbon emissions.

Johnson claimed it had “become unfashionable” to talk about the previous COP conference that was held in Glasgow last year.

He argued that the UK-hosted COP “was a fantastic global success” which was “doing a huge a mount of good for the planet”.

Johnson said he wanted to use his appearance in Egypt to “talk a little bit about how I see things and how we see things in the UK”. He called the meeting to limit global emissions a “fantastic global success” which did “a huge amount of good for the planet”.

Johnson pushed for a greener economy during his tenure in Downing Street until he was forced to quit after a series of scandals.

Rishi Sunak, who was appointed prime minister on October 25, has been condemned for announcing that he will not be at the summit at the Egyptian Red Sea resort.

He was also criticised for downgrading the post of the government’s COP26 minister Alok Sharma and climate minister Graham Stuart, preventing them from attending cabinet.

Sunak’s spokesman on October 27 cited the PM’s “pressing domestic commitments” linked to the disastrous economic plans of Johnson’s short-lived immediate successor Liz Truss.

But on Tuesday his spokesman said his attendance was “under review”.

Johnson’s confirmation that he will be there could persuade Sunak to change his mind, given the reported bad blood between the pair.

As finance minister, Sunak was among the first of Johnson’s cabinet colleagues to resign in protest at his leadership, triggering a raft of others in government to quit.

King Charles III, a longstanding advocate for the environment since his days as heir to the throne, will not attend COP27 but will host a pre-COP reception at Buckingham Palace on Friday.

The UK is the current holder of the COP presidency, after hosting the summit in Glasgow last year.

Alok Sharma, the UK’s COP26 president, is among those saying the prime minister to go.

Johnson also used his Sky interview to say Russian President Vladimir Putin “would be crazy” to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

Johnson said using a nuclear weapon would mean Mr Putin “would immediately tender Russia’s resignation from the club of civilised nations”. The former UK leader said it would be a “total disaster” for Russia, which would be put into a “cryogenic economic freeze”. Putin would also “lose a lot of the middle ground of global tacit acquiescence that he’s had”, Johnson added.

ALSO READ-Boris Johnson pulls out of UK PM race

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Priti Patel endorses Boris in PM race  

British home secretary Priti Patel and Prime Minister Boris Johnson.(photo:instagram)

Johnson himself resigned six weeks ago after a series of scandals and mass resignations among his ministers, but is still considered popular among many Tory MPs and the wider party membership…reports Asian Lite News

Priti Patel, who served as British Home Secretary in former prime minister Boris Johnson’s Cabinet, on Saturday endorsed her ex-boss as the best-placed candidate to replace Liz Truss at 10 Downing Street.

The Indian-origin MP, who had remained conspicuously silent over her choice of Conservative Party leader in the last leadership contest between Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, said Boris Johnson had the public mandate from the 2019 general election to deliver for the Tories.

The 50-year-old politician took to Twitter to say that the former prime minister had a “proven track record” of getting the big decisions right, in an apparent attempt to override the partygate scandal of COVID lockdown law-breaking parties that critics have flagged as a major factor against a Johnson comeback.

“Boris has the mandate to deliver our elected manifesto and a proven track record getting the big decisions right. I’m backing him in the leadership contest,” she tweeted.

Her intervention comes as Johnson, 58, landed back in London from his Caribbean holiday and is widely expected to throw his hat in the ring to take on frontrunner Rishi Sunak in the race to replace Truss – who resigned earlier this week, marking the shortest tenure of a British Prime Minister at just 44 days packed with financial markets mayhem and policy U-turns.

Johnson himself resigned six weeks ago after a series of scandals and mass resignations among his ministers, but is still considered popular among many Tory MPs and the wider party membership. At least three Cabinet ministers have openly said they would back Johnson in the contest: Business Secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace and Levelling Up Secretary Simon Clarke. His tally of supporters now stands at around 46, compared to Sunak’s 100 – the threshold required to make it to the shortlist in time for the deadline of 2pm local time on Monday.

If only one candidate emerges by then, the UK could have its new Prime Minister in place by early next week. But if there is a contest between two shortlisted candidates, then the 170,000 Tory members will get an online vote to pick a new Tory leader by Friday.

So far, it is looking like a three-way contest with third-placed Leader of the House of Commons Penny Mordaunt launching her campaign video to attract more MPs to side and increase her tally of around 21.

ALSO READ-Boris, Sunak meet ahead of Tory leadership poll