Labour pushes government to face cronyism allegations in House of Commons tomorrow
Labour has called for a senior minister to face questions in parliament tomorrow on the ongoing allegations of cronyism and sleaze engulfing Boris Johnson’s government.
The opposition has called for the government to answer an urgent question tomorrow in the Commons, after a series of explosive claims released by Dominic Cummings on Friday.
Deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner said Johnson had to release a long overdue copy of ministers’ interests and that his government should answer questions about growing allegations of cronyism.
She told the BBC: “They should do it, not just because the Labour Party demands it, but because the public deserves it.
“It’s taxpayer money at a time of a pandemic where 3m self-employed were not supported, many of our businesses are worried about what they’ll be able to do over the next few months and what support they’ll get. They demand it and they deserve it.
“The government have to answer why they have given out billions of pounds of money to their cronies and their friends and they won’t even declare it under the current rules.”
A war erupted between Cummings and Johnson on Friday, after the Prime Minister sought to blame his mercurial former aide on leaking personal text messages between him and Sir James Dyson.
The texts showed that the Prime Minister worked to give tax exemptions to Dyson’s staff in return for his company’s efforts in making ventilators for Covid treatment last March.
Cummings wrote a 1,000-word blog post on Friday that denied he was the source of the leak and hit back with a series of damning accusations against Johnson.
This included an explosive claim that the Prime Minister tried to block an inquiry of another leak last year because the expected perpetrator was Michael Gove aide Henry Newman – a close friend of Johnson’s fiancee Carrie Symonds.
Cummings also claimed that Johnson was in line to break the ministerial code of conduct if he got Tory donors to pay for the renovations of his Downing Street flat as he allegedly planned.
“I told him I thought his plans to have donors secretly pay for the renovation were unethical, foolish, possibly illegal and almost certainly broke the rules on proper disclosure of political donations,” Cummings said.
Labour shadow Cabinet Office minister Rachel Reeves sent a letter to Johnson calling for more details to be published about his flat’s refurbishment, according to the Observer.
“Any external financial aid to a prime minister’s lifestyle must be fully declared at the time and, as the ministerial code makes clear, real and perceived conflicts of interest must be avoided,” she wrote.
It comes after the government has been hit by the Greensill Capital lobbying scandal in recent weeks, which saw David Cameron lobby ministers for preferential treatment for the failed finance firm.
It was also revealed last week that a company owned by relatives of health secretary Matt Hancock were given an NHS contract.