Boris Johnson news latest: ‘A joke’ PM escaped more Partygate fines, No 10 staff say & More Trending News

DUP chief Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has struck again at a risk from US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi that the US Congress may block a free-trade settlement with the UK if Boris Johnson strikes unilaterally to vary elements of the Northern Ireland Protocol.

The unionist chief instructed the BBC: “Nancy Pelosi states that the reason she is concerned is because the Good Friday Agreement might be undermined, but the protocol is undermining the agreement. That is absolutely evident.

“The protocol has changed some of the key principles of the Belfast Agreement and it has made it impossible to have powersharing on the basis of consensus because not a single unionist MLA elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly in the recent elections supports that protocol.

“If Nancy Pelosi wants to see the agreement protected then she needs to recognise that it is the protocol that is harming and undermining the agreement and that is why we need to deal with it.”

Sir Jeffery insisted his social gathering wouldn’t re-enter the power-sharing association in Stormont in full “until we see decisive action taken on the protocol”, including: “That is the mandate I sought from the people of Northern Ireland and on the strength of the votes that we received we have made clear to the government that decisive action is required.”

The “opacity” surrounding Partygate has been “draining of public confidence”, a former director of public prosecutions has said.

“I think that without us knowing who has received fixed penalty notices it’s very difficult for us to disentangle exactly how the police investigation has proceeded and how fair it’s been,” Lord Macdonald told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“It’s notable that, the, as you said, the head of the civil service attended parties and hasn’t been fined, but more junior colleagues who attended them have been.

“And I think the opacity that’s surrounded this has been somewhat draining of public confidence, and I think it’s been very unfortunate.”

Our chief political commentator John Rentoul has advised that Boris Johnson’s political future is in higher form than beforehand for 3 causes: there isn’t any “no oven-ready alternative”; the chief of the opposition “doesn’t want to talk about lockdown law; and local elections and national opinion polls are “not bad enough”.

You can learn his evaluation right here with Independent Premium:

The public “remain very much in the dark” in regards to the particulars of who was concerned in Partygate, a former director of public prosecutions has mentioned.

Asked about junior staff being fined for incidents which Boris Johnson was not fined for, Lord Macdonald instructed BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I think without the police providing an explanation for that it’s very difficult for us to understand why they came to the conclusions that they did.”

He added: “We don’t know who these people are, and I do feel for the junior civil servants and I quite see why they would be distressed by their names being given, but there’s a wider public interest here.

“This was a major scandal at the heart of government, at the heart of the civil service, and we remain very much in the dark about who was involved, who organised the parties, and who was responsible.

“Of course the prime minister and the head of the civil service are ultimately responsible, but there plainly were other people as well who were involved in this and we simply don’t know who they are, and I think that’s not good enough.”

There must be “transparency” in Sue Gray’s Partygate report about any ministers who’ve been fined, Dominic Raab has mentioned.

Asked if Downing Street was making an attempt to forestall the senior civil servant from publishing particular person names in her report into occasions at Downing Street throughout coronavirus lockdowns, the justice secretary instructed BBC Breakfast that that was a matter for the police and Ms Gray.

“I think that these are matters, who is identified, for Sue Gray and the Met”, he mentioned. “What we have said is that it’s right that if there’s a minister who has been fined, of course there needs to be transparency around that. I think that’s right.”

A former No 10 official who labored there throughout the pandemic has instructed The Independent that the second an official line was issued denying events, “I gasped at the audacity of the lie”.

You can learn more on the anger amongst No 10 staff after Boris Johnson escaped additional Partygate fines in our entrance web page story right this moment, by Anna Isaac, Adam Forrest and Lizzie Dearden:

Dominic Raab has mentioned he welcomes the conclusion of the Metropolitan Police probe into the Partygate scandal, and insisted that Boris Johnson “has acted on” Sue Gray’s interim report.

“We welcome the conclusion of the police investigation, or at least the Metropolitan Police investigation. I think it’s important to have the transparency and accountability that goes with that,” the justice secretary instructed Times Radio.

“I can’t comment on the relationship between the Met and Sue Gray. That would be wrong for me to do, particularly as Justice Secretary. All I can say is that we wait to get a final report. Obviously we’ve already had the interim report, and the prime minister has acted on it – the overhaul at number 10.

“We will, at the minute we get the final report, publish it as soon as possible. And the prime minister said he will come to the House of Commons and take questions so that we get have that additional tier of transparency and accountability.”

The chancellor and his spouse have made the Sunday Times Rich List for the primary time with their joint forecast at £730m, as Russian billionaires tumbled down this yr’s rankings.

On Friday morning, they emerged at 222 within the listing, largely on account of Ms Murty’s £690m stake in Infosys.

It comes after the Chancellor and his spouse’s funds have come underneath intense scrutiny in current months, after The Independent revealed Ms Murty’s non-dom tax standing, which had doubtlessly saved her hundreds of thousands in taxes.

She later agreed to pay overseas taxes on her UK earnings and Mr Sunak was cleared of breaching the ministerial code by Boris Johnson’s requirements adviser after contemplating the tax affairs.

Iceland is ready to introduce 10 per cent for seniors as Britons wrestle with the rising price of dwelling, making it the primary UK grocery store to introduce such a reduction.

The firm introduced it was giving discounted charges to clients aged over 60 from 24 May, with the low cost to use each Tuesday with no minimal spending.

Customers might want to present proof of age to have the ability to redeem the low cost, which might be accessible in-store at Iceland and The Food Warehouse branches.

The firm can also be exploring a nationwide rollout of £30 vouchers to these receiving state pension, following a regional trial over Christmas.

Richard Walker, managing director at Iceland, mentioned: “We have a protracted historical past of supporting our over 60s clients, resembling once we launched ‘Elderly Hour’ on the peak of the pandemic.

MPs are involved a couple of “significant backlog” on the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO), an unbiased physique performing because the “last resort” for people’ complaints about NHS and authorities companies, a brand new report warns.

The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC) attributed the disruption to the Covid pandemic, because it reviewed the efficiency of PHSO from 2020-2021.

As of March 2021, the physique is confronted with an unallocated backlog of over 3,000 circumstances, discovered the committee because it added that the influence of the pandemic on the NHS and its personal staff “resulted in a queue of cases waiting to be considered at the end of year”.

While the PHSO has requested additional assets to spice up the variety of case staff, the MPs on the committee mentioned they “remain concerned” in regards to the influence of delays on these utilizing the ombudsman’s companies.