Andrea Jenkins said that “the lines around public service are blurred.” Credit: Leon Neal/Getty
Public officials should announce meetings they have held with shadow Labor ministers, allies of Boris Johnson have said amid fury over the Partygate investigation.
Andrea Jenkins, former minister- a Conservative, said a “campaign” had been mounted to make sure the former prime minister misled the House of Commons. She said that “the lines were blurred when it comes to public service” and also pointed the finger at deputies in her own party who “never recognized Boris” as a leader.
Nadine Dorries, the former Minister of Culture, separately accused the Mandarins of “improper behavior and making false statements” against Mr Johnson.
The former prime minister has been handed over to police over new allegations of violating lockdown rules after , as officials handed over the diaries he planned to release to the Covid investigation.
His allies said he was the victim of a Downing Street 'witch hunt' intended to influence the coming results of the Privilege Committee's investigation.
They were even more infuriated by the fact that Sue Gray, who led the original Whitehall investigation into the Partygate, should become Sir Keir Starmer's chief of staff.
Ms Jenkins, MP for Morley and Outwood, said that “on the left there is a real hatred for Boris Johnson that I haven't seen since Thatcher's funeral.”
She told Sky News: “I think it's unfair. I think the lines have been blurred as far as the public service is concerned, as some former public servants have come out and publicly stated, “I was responsible for the overthrow of Boris Johnson.”
“You see, part of the investigation, we hear that the head of the ethics department brought his own karaoke machine to the party of civil servants, but Boris got the blame for all these parties.
“Therefore, I would like to see more transparency if civil servants get this organized campaign, and they are trying to stop our immigration policy etc.
“I think we need to see more transparency with the civil service and [for] them [to] declare their interests and their relationship not only with the media, but also with the shadow cabinet.”
The Fall of Boris
Sir Simon MacDonald, a former permanent undersecretary of foreign affairs, played a key role in toppling Johnson last fall. In a November interview, he called Johnson the worst of the seven prime ministers he has served since Margaret Thatcher.
Gray's investigation revealed that Helen McNamara, then head of the government's ethics office, provided a karaoke machine for one of the Partygate meetings. send the former prime minister to the police.
She said the privileges committee had no “really good evidence” that he had misled the House of Commons about Downing Street parties.
>“After all, I saw hatred there, vitriol. Now they need to leave Boris alone,” she said. “Without a doubt, no one is perfect, but a serious campaign was organized … and in my own party.
“Because let's admit that the majority of my fellow deputies belong to the One Nation to the left of the party. . They have the leader they wanted in Rishi.
“They never accepted Boris, they never accepted Liz Truss, and they're out of sync with party members who are big Boris fans.”< /p>
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Ms Dorris also questioned the timing of Mr Johnson's call to police, suggesting there was a clear link to the privileges committee's investigation.
“Anyone who thinks that just a few weeks before this, the privileges committee was going to announce the results in the investigation that this has just been discovered, found and reported, I am afraid this is for birds,” she told the BBC c.
“The only people who act inappropriately and make false statements are those who sent these diaries to the police and the privileges committee just a few weeks before the privileges committee was going to report of his findings.”
The Privileges Committee, a cross-party commission of MPs, is to decide whether Mr Johnson has misled the House of Commons by denying any parties in No. 10.
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If he finds that he has done so, he may recommend a suspension of 10 or more sitting days, which will trigger a recall petition in his constituency of Uxbridge and South Ruislip.
MPs will have the right final vote on whether to accept the committee's findings.
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