The Cabinet Office is trying to weaponise the law against a former prime minister. They have threatened to withdraw funding for his legal fees during the Covid inquiry. Government lawyers wrote to Johnson:
The funding offer will cease to be available to you if you knowingly seek to frustrate or undermine, either through your own actions or the actions of others, the government’s position in relation to the inquiry unless there is a clear and irreconcilable conflict of interest on a particular point at issue.
To even threaten this is a tyrannical act, the capricious move of a mad monarch. Oddly, it’s the kind of arbitrary behaviour that Boris Johnson’s enemies were accusing him of. The idea the government can stop paying a former PM’s legal fees is wrong. But the idea they might threaten it in order to get him to do as they wish? Oh, that is much worse.
Because if you are the government, you are in charge of the coffers.
Britain’s best politics newsletters
You get two free articles each week when you sign up to The Spectator’s emails.
Already a subscriber? Log in
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in