2 2GM Thursday January 13 2022 | the times
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after days of refusing to comment. He
said at prime minister’s questions: “I
want to apologise. I know that millions
of people have made extraordinary sac-
rifices in the last 18 months. I know the
rage they feel with me and with the gov-
ernment I lead when they think that in
No 10 rules are not being followed.”
He said that he “believed implicitly”
that it was a work-related event. Carrie
Symonds, then his fiancée, was also said
to have attended. He said that he
regretted not breaking up the gathering
and “sending everyone back inside”.
Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader,
called on him to resign, saying that he
had not only breached coronavirus
rules but misled parliament.
“We’ve got the prime minister
attending Downing Street parties — a
clear breach of the rules. We’ve got theNEWS
DAB RADIO l ONLINE l SMART SPEAKER l APPTo day’s highlights
8.35am
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8.30pm10.30pmLisa Nandy, shadow secretary for levelling up
The former civil servant and cancer patient
Clair Fisher on palliative care and the
need to change the law surrounding it
Monty Don, gardener and presenter, right
Henry Firth and Ian Theasby
from the vegan recipe site BOSH!
Henry Bonsu takes a first look at
tomorrow’s newspaper front pagesTO SEA, OR
NOT TO SEA?
The RSC is taking its
troupe on a cruise
PA G E 2 0© TIMES NEWSPAPERS LIMITED, 2022.
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THETIMES.CO.UK/SUBSCRIBEChristmas cheer
for retail giants
J Sainsbury, JD Sports
and Dunelm, three of
Britain’s biggest
retailers, increased
their annual profit
forecasts after making
more money over
Christmas than they
had expected. Page 37Arrest over
Alps murders
The brother of Saad
al-Hilli, the British
businessman shot dead
with his wife and
mother-in-law in the
French Alps in 2012,
has said that he hopes
an arrest will solve the
mystery. Page 17
Australia ‘wants
to ditch Queen’
Australian republicans
claim a majority of the
public support ditching
the monarchy. They
want the country’s
nine parliaments to
each nominate a head
of state before a
national vote. Page 33COMMENT
Could Corbyn become
the Farage of the left?
DAVID AARONOVITCH, PAGE 27COMMENT 27
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Mike Atherton on
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PA G E 7 2prime minister putting forward a series
of ridiculous denials which he knows
are untrue — a clear breach of the min-
isterial code,” he said. “That code says
ministers who knowingly mislead par-
liament will be expected to offer their
resignation. The party’s over, prime
minister. The only question is will the
British public kick him out, will his
party kick him out or will he do the
decent thing and resign?”
After what was described as a “tense”
15-minute call with Johnson yesterday,
Ross, the Scottish Tory leader, said there
was “significant unrest and concern” at
Westminster and Holyrood about the
prime minister’s presence at the event
and he could no longer support him.
Ross added: “I don’t think he can con-
tinue as leader of the Conservative Party
and prime minister, asking people to fol-
low the rules and guidance of his gov-
ernment, when I don’t believe he did.”
Sources said that Ross had made hisstatement after Johnson failed to guar-
antee that no more revelations would
emerge.
Wragg, chairman of the public ad-
ministration committee, told BBC Radio
4’s PM that it would be “preferable” for
Johnson to resign because MPs were
“tired” and “frankly worn out of defend-
ing what is invariably indefensible”.
Nadine Dorries, the culture secre-
tary, said that Johnson had taken “full
responsibility” for the party. Michael
Gove, the levelling up secretary, said:
“Nadine is right.”
Sajid Javid, the health secretary, said
he had done the “right thing” and Priti
Patel, the home secretary, urged Tory
MPs to “back Boris”. Jacob Rees-Mogg,
the Commons leader, told Times Radio
that those calling for Johnson to resign
were “people who are always unhappy”.
Reports and analysis, pages 6-
Johnson’s defence is no defence at all,
leading article, page 31continued from page 1
PM refuses to quitongoing legal matter”. Sources close to
the duke’s legal team have said that an
out-of-court settlement with Giuffre to
avoid a trial remains “on the table”. But
one said: “He has been very clear that
he wants to clear his name.”
It was unclear whether Giuffre would
be willing to settle the case, unless he
acknowledged her allegations. “Her
attorney David Boies is saying that
she’s not interested in a settlement out-
side of an admission of liability,”
Mitchell Epner, an attorney with the
New York firm Rottenberg Lipman
Rich, said. “This is a horrible day for
Prince Andrew,” he added. “He has only
bad options in front of him.”
He said he did not see how other
members of the royal family could
avoid being called as witnesses and
predicted that Boies’s cross-examina-
tion could be devastating. “I would not
want to be in the crosshairs of David
Boies for a deposition,” he said. “I don’t
think Saint Francis of Assisi would
want to be in the crosshairs of David
Boies for a deposition.”
Judge Kaplan’s ruling is the latest in a
series of setbacks for the duke and his
strategy, which included an interview
on Newsnight in 2019 now seen as a
public relations catastrophe. A source
who once worked with the duke sug-
gested he had failed to take heed of the
challenge he faced. “If you have been
brought up in an extremely privilegedNavy chief ’s
parting shot
Ali KeffordOne of the country’s most senior
defence chiefs launched a stinging
rebuke at the Royal Navy on his final
day in office, claiming the service had
“lost its ambition”.
Vice Admiral Nicholas Hine, the
former second sea lord, broke with
long-held tradition to fire a public
broadside. He wrote: “As I go, I say to
those who would have preferred to
have the brakes on, the pedants and the
naysayers, remain critical (always), but
please understand that the need for,
and the value of change, is not a fantasy
— if we don’t transform, we will fail and
we will lose.”
Hine has pushed through a number of
changes to the navy in his role as head of
personnel, including dramatically re-
ducing the number of sailors based at
Navy Command HQ, Portsmouth.
Lord West of Spithead, the former
first sea lord, said: “The outgoing
second sea lord clearly feels he had a
great deal of entrenched opposition to
the changes that have been wrought to
the naval service over recent years.
What is clear is that changes need to be
made, not least in view of reduced
resources available for defence.”way where you don’t hear ‘no’ very
often and assume that everyone agrees
with you, it’s not always easy to hear
counsel,” the source said.
Epner, a former federal prosecutor,
said that the case could cost the duke
$6 million, whereas Giuffre’s lawyers
were working pro bono. A settlement
could be in the range of $5 million.
If it is not settled, the case would
come before a jury. Depositions could
be taken via videolink but Giuffre’s
lawyers would almost certainly prefer
to take them in person by travelling to
London. The duke could be inter-
viewed in a lawyer’s office but third par-
ties to the case, such as Sarah, Duchess
of York, would have to be interviewed
at the US embassy in London — a place
subject to the jurisdiction of the court.
The interviews are filmed and clips can
be played to the jury during the trial.
Giuffre’s lawyers could question
Sarah and her children. They cannot
compel them to give evidence but if
they or the duke refused, the jury could
be informed of this. If the duke refused
to testify, Judge Kaplan could conclude
that he was liable for damages.
“To be clear, I would expect Prince
Andrew to have to spend $1.5 to
$2.5 million on lawyers, just to get the
case through discovery. That does not
include final trial preparation, let alone
trial. I would expect the full budget to
take the case through trial to be $4 to
$6 million, depending on how big of a
legal team he assembles,” Epner said.
Judge destroys duke’s arguments, page 5A leading academic in social mobility
has called for a review into the “scan-
dalous” failure of the national tutoring
programme, which is being run by a
Dutch human resources firm.
Lee Elliot Major, the professor of
social mobility at Exeter University,
said that it was a lost opportunity to
help children who had fallen behind
during lockdown.
Figures published on Tuesday by the
Department for Education showed
that 302,000 tutoring courses began
last term under the school-led tutoring
route. However, only 72,000 courses
began under schemes co-ordinated by
Randstad including 52,000 tutoring
courses, 10 per cent of the 524,000 tar-
get set for the company.
The awarding of the contract to
Randstad led to complaints that it had
no experience in the field. It won the
contract after the tutoring programme
was launched at the end of 2020, and in-
itially run, by the Education Endow-National tutoring scheme is
scandalous failure, MPs told
Nicola Woolcock Education Editor ment Foundation in response to the
pandemic.
Elliot Major said in response to the
latest figures: “The government’s flag-
ship recovery programme is facing fail-
ure, with scandalously low numbers of
pupils being helped. Not enough has
been done to convince teachers about
the benefits of the national tutoring
programme.
“An urgent review by ministers is
now needed — the fear is that this will
be a huge lost opportunity for the hun-
dreds of thousands of pupils, particu-
larly those from poorer backgrounds,
who have suffered severe learning loss.”
Karen Guthrie, the director of the
national tutoring programme, told MPs
yesterday that she was keen to make the
scheme available to schools and sug-
gested that teacher shortages had
caused low take-up. Guthrie told the
education select committee that some
schools may not be accessing the gov-
ernment’s flagship tuition scheme
because they lacked the “bandwidth”.
Questions have been raised aboutRandstad’s ability to deliver the scheme
effectively. Some heads say that they
find the system confusing and difficult
to navigate.
Last month, Nick Bent, the chief
executive of the Tutor Trust, one of
the partners delivering tutoring, told
MPs that Randstad did not “have
enough staff or the right expertise” and
there were “problems” with the tuition
hub.
Robin Walker, the schools minister,
told the committee that the funding for
tuition should be within the discretion
of schools, so they could work out
which pupils get the most benefit from
interventions.
Graham Archer, the director of edu-
cation recovery, said that he wanted to
see the academic mentors route and tu-
ition partners pillar, both led by Rand-
stad, “accelerate” sharply this term.
He said that the department was
working closely with Randstad “to
make sure their engagement with
schools, the simplicity and clarity of
what they are doing, is improved”.continued from page 1
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