son’s former Telegraph colleagues, led by
his former editor Lord Moore — for push-
ing the Paterson play. The old guard are
furious that their revolt has now raised
the issue of whether to curb outside earn-
ings. Both, meanwhile, are furious with
Johnson for either the plan or the U-turn.
A Tory strategist said: “You can’t
underestimate how angry people are.
This is the worst it has been between the
party and Boris since he became prime
minister. Boris will pay a huge price with
MPs. The expenses scandal damaged
things for David Cameron but people
bought the argument that he had no
choice to kick some of them out. Boris
opened this can of worms himself.”
A senior figure in government admit-
ted: “The troops, particularly the 2019-
ers, are pissed off with us and pissed off
with the Spartans.”
The greater concern is that Johnson
does not listen to the right people and
there is no one in the No 10 operation
powerful enough to challenge him when
he is set on a disastrous course. A cabinet
minister added: “The first rule of politics
is that if you listen to Charles Moore and
do the complete opposite of what he says,
you won’t go far wrong.”
No 10 is widely seen as chaotic and dys-
functional with factions developing
around Carrie Johnson, the prime minis-
ter’s wife, and Dan Rosenfield, the chief
of staff. Two insiders used the same
phrase last week: “It’s much worse in
there than you think.”
Ben Gascoigne, a close aide of John-
son’s from City Hall days who left No 10earlier this year, is returning to Downing
Street. But his appointment is not one
that will change No 10. “It is more a reflec-
tion of Boris’s insecurity that he can’t
really trust anyone,” an ally said.
Some remain concerned that, despite
his affection for the classics, Johnson has
no one to perform the role of the slave
who used to whisper to Roman emperors
at their moments of greatest triumph
“memento mori” (remember you are
mortal). As one former No 10 aide put it:
“He’s got high on his own supply.”
The PM will try to get things back on
track by refocusing the government on
his levelling-up agenda. Michael Gove
addressed the cabinet gathering on
Thursday with his ideas, which will be
made public in December.
The cabinet will hope it is better
thought out than recent interventions.
Another who knows Johnson well said:
“The vaccine rollout was actually the
anomaly of Boris’s tenure. He continually
makes the same mistakes again and
again. If Labour can start putting one foot
in front of the other we will be in trouble.
There will be many more weeks like the
last one.”Labour’s shadow attorney-
general made money
representing a gold and
copper mining company in a
British Virgin Islands court
case during the pandemic.
Lord Falconer, a close ally
of Sir Keir Starmer, the
Labour Party leader, has kept
a second job as a partner at
an international law firm
based in Los Angeles
throughout his time in the
shadow cabinet.
According to the website of
the firm, Gibson, Dunn &
Crutcher, Falconer, 69,
specialises in “complex
commercial litigation and
arbitration”. He is qualified to
practise in the British Virgin
Islands (BVIs).
In this role, Falconer has
represented a mining
consortium in a $7 billion
(£5.2 billion) dispute over
mineral extraction rights,
which is being heard at the
Eastern Caribbean Supreme
Court, since last year.
His client is Tethyan
Copper, a joint venture
between a Canadian gold-
mining firm and a Chilean
minerals group. The
consortium argues that
Pakistan has unlawfully
Gabriel Pogrund and
Tim Shipman
The spotlight shifted to Sir Geoffrey
Cox, above, after claims against Owen
Paterson, pictured with his wife, Roselucrative second job with
Mishcon de Reya, the London
law firm, while serving as
shadow Brexit secretary
under Jeremy Corbyn in 2017.
Former members of Corbyn’s
team said he blocked Starmer
from taking the post. Starmer
has presented it as a
voluntary decision.
Labour sources last night
said none of the “blind”
payments was from Mishcon
de Reya. He earned more
than £25,000 for legal work
this parliament, carried out
before he became party
leader.
A spokesman said: “The
full details were not declared
for reasons of client
confidentiality on legal
advice. This was all agreed
with the registrar at the time.”
Labour says it would ban
MPs from working for
lobbying or consultancy
companies, or holding
company directorships, but
has stopped short of calling
for an all-out ban on second
jobs. It is unclear whether its
proposed reforms would
prohibit Falconer from
serving as a partner at his
firm, which represents a
different legal status to a
director of a company. There
is no suggestion that Falconer
has broken any rules.his views on sleaze. Adam agreed: “I
think the fact that no one has heard his
opinion on it then he’s not come out and
condemned it, I think it shows it’s politi-
cians in general.”
Claire added: “I don’t think Starmer
would be a great leader and I don’t think I
really know what his views are.” Julia
agreed: “Labour are not very vocal in
what they would do, just saying they
would do better but not saying how they
would do it better.”
James Johnson said: “This is by no
means the end of Labour with these vot-
ers. They are open to tuning back in again
properly when an election comes round.
The gap between a majority of 80 and a
result that ends Johnson’s premiership is,
because of a high number of very mar-
ginal seats, a surprisingly small one.” In
2019, 71 seats were won with a majority of
less than 3,000 votes. “Labour’s chal-
lenge is to find something else to shift the
dial,” Johnson says. “Sleaze is not going to
do it on its own.”
In terms of what should now be done,
voters are clear. Nearly two thirds (64 per
cent) want to see a total ban on second
jobs for MPs, a move Johnson is under-
stood to regard as unnecessary. No 10 is
now taking a back seat, letting MPs and
the Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, lead a
rethink of what should be done. Hoyle
wants to ban ex-MPs who lobby from
holding passes, something viewed as
“entirely reasonable” by Johnson’s aides.
Downing Street is also relaxed about a
plan proposed by Lord Evans, the chair-
man of the committee on standards in
public life, that would rewrite the MPs’
code of conduct to ensure that their par-
liamentary work was always their main
job. That could lead to a limit on the num-
ber of hours MPs could spend on outside
interests or cap the amount of extra
money they could earn at their annual
salary of £82,000 — something which
would have prevented Sir Geoffrey Cox,
the former attorney general, from earn-
ing up to £1 million a year from working
as a barrister.
In the focus group, Adam and Duncan
found merit in a cap on outside earnings,
but there was scepticism that such
tweaks to the system were practical. Julia
and Amanda, 39, a school librarian, said
hours or money would be “hard to moni-
tor”, Scott that it “wouldn’t work at all”.
Overwhelmingly, the participants also
backed an outright ban on second jobs.
If the past fortnight has not been a
turning point, why not? For Johnson,
there remains great residual sympathy
that he has been dealt a difficult hand as
prime minister. Ges, 66, who is retired,
was the most supportive: “They’ve come
in at a very difficult time. I don’t think
Boris has been that bad. I think he’s really
done all right. Give him a break until the
next election and then judge.”
Scott said: “I don’t think anybody
could have nailed the situation that we’re
in.” Rose agreed: “Whoever got in they
would have had problems. Brexit would
have been a nightmare with a new gov-
ernment.”
The creeping fear in Tory circles, how-
ever, is that the flood of sleaze has
handed Labour a stick with which to beat
the government at a time when support
was already beginning to erode as a result
of the recent national insurance rise and
a growing sense that the coronavirus vac-
cine programme is no longer the envy of
the world.
“The polls are moving but it’s not just
about sleaze,” said a former No 10
adviser. “It’s tax rises and general eco-
nomic competence and the sense that
Covid is now not going well. Even when
sleaze blows over we won’t be back to a
ten-point lead.”
There are two other concerns at the
top of government. Firstly, that if the past
fortnight has not killed Johnson’s stand-
ing with voters, it has seriously damaged
relations with his party. Secondly, that
the recent crisis reveals character traits
in the prime minister and the failure of
his aides to rein in his wilder flights of
fancy that will soon lead to further mis-
calculations.
Younger MPs, many in red-wall seats,
are furious with the old guard — ageing
Eurosceptics, Old Etonians and John-
He is said to
be obsessed
with aviation
Since 2005, he has lived in
and represented Welwyn
Hatfield, a London green-belt
Conservative seat with a
majority greater than 10,000.
For years he lived a 15-minute
drive from Panshanger
airfield, a former RAF training
site.
Under David Cameron,
Shapps grew in stature:
having seized his seat from
Labour, he was appointed to a
housing role in the shadow
cabinet. In 2010 he became a
minister and, in due course,
Conservative Party co-
chairman.
He found himself in theHis love of aviation has
taken up valuable time in a
department with a budget of
£3 billion whose recent
responsibilities have included
dealing with post-Brexit trade
disruption, delivering
protective personal
equipment from abroad,
overseeing HS2 and building
roads and rail infrastructure.
It is even said to have
undermined the
government’s response
during crises such as the
collapse of Thomas Cook,
which heralded the biggest
repatriation since Dunkirk.
At the time of the holiday
firm collapse, in September
2019, the then chairwoman of
the Civil Aviation Authority
(CAA), the aviation regulator
which belongs to his
department, was forced to ask
Shapps to stop demanding
staff time to discuss amateur
aviation. Shapps allegedly
“backed off ”, and let the CAA
grapple with its biggest
peacetime crisis.
Tension persisted during
the early days of the
pandemic, when Shapps was
regarded by some civil
servants as going awol and
dedicating more time to his
hobby than the imminent
peril facing airlines. It is even
claimed the chief executive of
one airline considered writing
a public letter demanding he
focus on the task at hand.
A civil service source said
bluntly that he remained
“obsessed” with general
aviation. The obsession began
in 1995 when Shapps, then a
photocopier salesman in his
early twenties, obtained his
pilot licence. He married,
bought a printing business,
and endured cancer, but
remained a devotee of the
world of general aviation or
“GA”, the recreational use of
aircraft.Flights of fancy as Shapps
fixes on his airfield ambitions
In the final days of the
parliamentary recess in
September, Grant Shapps
made an unorthodox journey
for a cabinet minister. The
transport secretary flew solo
in his personal plane from a
farm near his Hertfordshire
home to Sywell, an
aerodrome in
Northamptonshire.
Shapps, 53, was there for
the rally of the Light Aircraft
Association: an annual
jamboree for aviation
enthusiasts from across
Europe. Having obtained a
licence in his twenties, he
remains a flying fanatic and
the proud owner of a
£100,000 Piper Saratoga.
Shortly after arriving, he
went to chat with the editor of
his favourite magazine, Flyer,
which represents the interests
of amateur pilots, including
campaigning to block
development on Britain’s
private airfields.
Shapps told him: “Because
I was reading your last
month’s edition, I had sent a
message to my office at DfT
and asked them to invite you
in so you can challenge on
some of these things ... to see
what else we should be
doing.” The minister joked:
“We’ll even have coffee!”
Perhaps it is not a surprise
he has brought his boyish
enthusiasm for flying into
government. It may even
appear an advantage, giving
him knowledge of a niche and
technical area within his
remit.
However, it has had far-
reaching effects in Whitehall,
secretly pitting him against
the prime minister and
frustrating efforts to build
more homes and tackle
climate change.
His department is quietly
spending public money
funding lobbying against the
government’s own housing
plans where development
would take place on private
runways — including some he
has personally used.
As a result, Homes
England, the housing agency
overseen by Michael Gove,
has already withdrawn plans
for a new town with
thousands of homes in one of
the most housing-stressed
areas in the country.
The lobbyists are also
battling against plans to build
a battery gigafactory on
Coventry airport. Boris
Johnson has praised the
development and it is
supposed to deliver
thousands of jobs while
helping Britain to achieve its
net-zero ambitions. According
to flight traffic data, Shapps
recently flew his plane on to
the airfield.
He has set up a scheme that
lets private pilots claim public
money for new equipment,
and allegedly lobbied against
a looming ban on a kind of
toxic fuel used by his
aeroplane.Gabriel Pogrund and
Emanuele MidoloThe Sunday Times November 14, 2021 7
reaeeee
agr
wh
w
from outside government and
given civil service salaries.
Around the same time,
Shapps created a £2 million
fund allowing pilots and
airfield operators to get free
management consultancy
from a Texas-based
international lobbying firm,
ICF Consultancy Services, on
how to, among other things,
successfully object to
planning applications. He has
called it the Airfield
Development Fund.
Documents show the new
team has lobbied against
plans to build homes over
private runways and plans put
forward by the government.
Private lobbyists employed by
the government are now
lobbying against the
government.
In some instances, the
lobbying frustrated Johnson’s
central objective of building
homes outside of London. On
May 25, 2021, Homes England
withdrew plans for 3,
homes at Chalgrove, an
airfield in South Oxfordshire,
to “take account [of ]
comments from the... airfield
advisory team”.
The team had lodged
formal objections to the
plans, declaring “protection
of airfields is a priority for
[the] DfT”. Last night, Homes
England accepted they had
pulled the plans while
emphasising the urgency of
building homes in that area.
Homes are not the only
instance in which Shapps’s
decisions conflict directly
with the priorities of the
government he represents.
As part of its commitment
to tackling climate change,
the government have long
sought to phase out a highly
toxic and dangerous
substance, tetraethyllead,
which forms part of the fuel
used in planes similar to
Shapps’s. Last April, however,
Martin Robinson, head of the
biggest group representing
aircraft owners and pilots,
contracted Shapps asking if
the government could extend
a transition period before an
eventual ban. He says the
transport secretary
responded: “On it.”
Last month, British
regulators confirmed they
would not place the substance
on a list of substances of “very
high concern”, marking one
of the most significant cases of
divergence from the EU rules
since Brexit.
Shapps has also funded a
scheme allowing pilots to
claim money for 50 per cent
of the cost of buying specialist
kit for their planes. Since last
year, the DfT, and, in turn, the
taxpayer have covered half
the cost of purchases of
“electronic conspicuity”
equipment, which allows
planes to see each other in
mid-air.
Around the time Shapps
started his post, a senior civil
servant is said to have asked
him what his main priority
was. Shapps responded:
“Protecting general aviation.”notepaper, to proposed
development at Panshanger,
describing it as a community
asset which could “never be
replaced”. Homes England is
now selling the site and the
lease to the local flying club
has been terminated.
Forced to migrate to a
makeshift runway on a field
near his home, he joined
campaigns to prevent other
airfields being built on
elsewhere.
He returned to the cabinet
in July 2019, when Johnson
became prime minister.
Despite voting Remain, he
campaigned for Johnson and
was rewarded with a plum
post overseeing transport.
In a letter to Deirdre
Hutton, then chairwoman of
the CAA, he said his “key
priorities” included
“supporting the success of the
aviation industry ... including
by protecting the network of
general aviation airfields” and
“proactively advising
aerodromes faced with
possible changes of use
[planning applications] which
could constrain future flying”.
Asking a regulator to
protect airfields from
planning applications was
unusual and Hutton told him
as much. Shapps disagreed,
telling her he wanted Britain
to become the “best place in
the world for aviation”.
Shapps has since
redoubled his campaigning.
He has set up and diverted
public money to a new team
housed within the CAA: the
Airfield Advisory Team,
which, official documents
state, was designed with one
goal in mind: helping private
airfields lobby against, or
“engage with”, the planning
system. Shapps has described
its work as “crucial”.
The team leaders are
private consultants brought inGrant Shapps’s passion has frustrated efforts to build homes and tackle climate changeRAY COLLINSwilderness once Theresa May
became prime minister and
turned his political focus to
his longstanding love. In 2017,
he was appointed chairman of
the all-party parliamentary
group on aviation, and
campaigned relentlessly
against the scourge of
recreational pilots: planning
applications to build on
private airfields.
He argued the hobby had
reached a “critical point” as
“more of our airfields
disappear under housing
developments and more of
our common airspace is
closed off ”.
Between 2012 and 2018, he
submitted a series of
objections, often on
parliamentary headedrestricted its access to Reko
Diq, one of the world’s largest
untapped gold and copper
reserves, in Balochistan, a
southwestern province. In
response it secured an order
to freeze assets held by the
Pakistani state in the BVIs.
Pakistan, in turn, has accused
Tethyan of corruption,
allegations it denies, and
recently had the assets
unfrozen.
Court documents show
that Falconer acted for
Tethyan in December last
year and June this year.
The disclosures come days
after Labour demanded an
investigation into Sir Geoffrey
Cox, the Conservative MP for
Torridge and West Devon.
Cox, 61, himself a former
attorney-general, travelled to
the BVIs to defend the islands
against corruption
allegations. He also
conducted legal work from
his taxpayer-funded
parliamentary office.
Falconer sits in the House
of Lords, so is not vulnerable
to the accusation that he has
failed to prioritise
constituents. Party sources
insist that, unlike Cox, he has
not travelled to the BVIs while
representing Tethyan. Nor is
there evidence he has used
his parliamentary office inrelation to work for the firm.
However, his status as a key
ally of Starmer’s and a senior
member of his shadow
cabinet poses awkward
questions for the party as it
seeks to highlight alleged
Tory sleaze and the issue of
second jobs.
The spotlight fell on
Falconer as fresh questions
were raised about Starmer,
59, who has received more
than £100,000 for providing
legal advice while an MP,
more than £40,000 of it from
clients who have not been
declared, meaning the
taxpayer has no idea who has
been paying him.
Starmer’s entries in the
register of members interests
show that he received six
separate payments between
August 2019 and August this
year which are listed simply
as “payments for legal advice
given”. Together they total
£42,846.68. The work took
him 169 hours, an hourly rate
of about £250.
In an interview with Sky
News last week Starmer said:
“I have now given up my legal
certificate. I gave it up the
best part of two years ago.
That means I’m no longer
qualified to give legal advice.”
He has also faced scrutiny
for entering talks about aStarmer, his Lords ally and their silence over second jobs
£42k
£5bn
Value of mining rights at issue for
Tethyan, Lord Falconer’s clientThe amount Keir Starmer, right, received
for offering legal advice to unnamed clientsValue o
TethyaThe a
for of