Liz Truss – I ‘absolutely believe and trust’ the PM on Downing Street refurbishment
The International Trade Secretary Liz Truss was the government’s chief spokesperson this morning, meaning that she would be the lightning rod for the questions raised by Dominic Cumming’s latest blog post. The most incendiary part of the blog concerned the Prime Minister’s designs on refurbishing his Downing Street flat. Cummings claimed that Boris Johnson’s initial hopes to fund the renovation with money from the pockets of Conservative donors were ‘unethical, foolish, possibly illegal and almost certainly broke the rules on proper disclosure’. Though the reported £200,000 cost was ultimately covered by Johnson, an initial £58,000 put forward for the project by Lord David Brownlow should have been designated as a loan under the rules. Sky’s Jayne Secker put these points to Truss:
LT: I have been assured that the rules have been fully complied with, and I know that [the Prime Minister] has met the costs of the flat refurbishment.
JS: Who assured you of that?
LT: I absolutely believe and trust that the Prime Minister has done that.
‘All the costs will be declared in line with the rules’
Secker persevered with her line of questioning, asking Truss why the costs of the refurbishments had still not been declared, as is in line with the government’s Ministerial Code. However, Secker found trying to prise any further information from Truss to be akin to drawing blood from a stone:
JS: Where have they been declared [under] the Ministerial Code? They haven’t…
LT: What people want to know, is that in line with the rules, the Prime Minister has met the cost of this refurbishment… All the costs will be declared in line with the rules, and that, as far as I’m concerned, completely answers that question.
‘Chatty rat’ allegations are ‘tittle tattle’
Secker moved on to Cumming’s allegation that the Prime Minster had suggested prematurely closing the inquiry into the so-called ‘Chatty Rat’, who leaked plans for England’s second lockdown in late 2020. Cummings alleged that this was because the leaker was likely to be Henry Newman, a special adviser at No. 10 and a friend of Johnson’s fiancée Carrie Symonds:
JS: Why do you think the Prime Minister, it seems, tried to stop this leak inquiry?
LT: …This is tittle tattle that’s being promoted and I don’t think it really address the key issues that people in Britain care about.
Covid situation in India ‘is extremely worrying’
Truss also said that the government was preparing to assist the Indian government in its fight against a new strain of the coronavirus. There have now been 132 reported cases of the B1617 variant having reached the UK:
LT: The situation in India is extremely worrying… We’re working to do what we can to support the Indian government, particularly in areas like oxygen. We’re putting together a package of support, but it is a deeply concerning situation.
Angela Rayner – ‘Tell us where you’re getting this money from Boris’
Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner called on the Westminster government to publish the overdue statement of Minister’s interests. The party is also calling for the government to address this issue in the House tomorrow, alongside questions about any companies that may or may not have received preferential treatment for PPE contracts during the height of the pandemic:
AR: The public… demand it and they deserve it… Publish the Minister’s interests, and publish who’s on that VIP list, and tell us about where you’re getting this money from Boris to do up your flat.
Nicola Sturgeon – Scottish companies ‘are suffering right now’
The First Minister of Scotland joined Andrew Marr this week as the Holyrood elections draw ever closer. Marr was keen to talk to Sturgeon about the practical issues that an independent Scotland would face, especially relating to the border with England. Since it is the SNP’s desire to rejoin the European Union, Marr put it to Sturgeon that she would have to impose a physical border in order to comply with the EU’s regulations on the single market. Sturgeon was keen to avoid detail and said she was confident that the Common Travel Area would be ‘guaranteed’ in such an event:
AM: I don’t see your way through here.
NS: We will put in place arrangements, and we will negotiate those arrangements with the UK that mean that businesses [will] not in a practical sense, suffer… We are suffering right now in Scotland. Brexit has happened to us… Our companies right now are having to deal with border issues that have been imposed on us completely against our will.
Scottish people will have ‘the information they need’ before referendum
Marr challenged Sturgeon over why the Scottish government had not conducted any recent modelling into the economic impact of independence on people’s incomes:
NS: If we had done that… before the Covid pandemic struck, then obviously that model would be out of date now… We’ll put that information before people when we get to the point of asking people to make a choice… I believe that it is right to only ask people to make a choice of that magnitude… on the basis of quality up to date information.
Anas Sarwar – The political bubble ‘is obsessed with the referendum’
Marr also spoke to Anas Sarwar, the Leader of the Scottish Labour party. Sarwar said that the referendum was dominating the coverage of the Scottish campaign to the detriment of all else:
AS: The wider political bubble is obsessed with the referendum… What people care about in Scotland right now… is keeping their loved ones safe, when they get a vaccine, whether they have a job to go back to… And if now, in the midst of a pandemic, we can’t pull ourselves together as a country, then when?
I can ‘absolutely’ take on Nicola Sturgeon
Sarwar is hoping to overtake the Conservatives in a close race to be Holyrood’s next leader of the opposition. Secker asked Sarwar if he was up to the task:
AS: Absolutely I can take her on, and I’m standing directly in her own constituency as a demonstration of that… I’m going to do it with honesty… and I want to spread hope across the country, because… that’s the way we rebuild the country we all love.
Bill Gates – The world could be back to normal by 2022
In an interview earlier in the week, the Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, who though the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has taken a leading role in the fight against the Covid-19, told Secker that he has reasons to be optimistic:
BG: Some of the rich countries, including the US and the UK, even this summer, will get to high vaccinations levels, and that’ll free up so that we’re getting out vaccines to the entire world in late 2021 and through 2022. And so, we won’t have eradicated this disease but we’ll be able to bring it down to very small numbers by the end of 2022.
UK aid spend ‘is of critical importance’
And finally, Gates said that he would like to see the UK restore its former commitment to spend 0.7% of GDP on international aid. The level was cut to 0.5% in the 2021 Budget:
BG: For us, the quicker the UK can get its aid level back up to the 0.7%, the better… [UK voters] should be very proud of the impact that it has… And with the cutbacks, we won’t be able to do as much, so I hope that gets restored because it’s of critical importance.
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