At long last, the flatgate letters are out. Boris Johnson has today been cleared by his ethics adviser Lord Geidt of deliberately misleading an investigation into the funding of his Downing Street flat refurbishment – despite being accused of acting ‘unwisely’. Geidt had previously cleared Johnson of breaking the ministerial code over allegations of soliciting a donation from Lord Brownlow but a recent Electoral Commission investigation revealed previously unknown WhatsApp messages between Brownlow and Johnson.
But while Geidt says the emergence of the ‘lost’ WhatsApp message ‘caused me to test my confidence in my earlier conclusions’, Johnson maintains the texts did not undermine previous assurances that at ‘no point in the eight months until late February 2021’ was he aware that costs were being met by Lord Brownlow personally. In an exchange of letters, the Prime Minister apologised for failing to disclose the crucial messages, with Geidt concluding that ‘potential and real failures of process occurred in more than one party of the apparatus of government.
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