the times | Thursday April 28 2022 2GM 5News
Boris Johnson has criticised the Com-
mons Speaker for trying to summon
journalists from The Mail on Sunday
over their coverage of Angela Rayner.
The prime minister’s official spokes-
man said that he was “uncomfortable”
with journalists being asked to answer
to politicians.
Sir Lindsay Hoyle had requested a
meeting with David Dillon, the editor
of The Mail on Sunday, after the news-
paper published claims that Rayner,
Labour’s deputy leader, had crossed
and uncrossed her legs during prime
minister’s questions to distract John-
son.
The comparison made by an un-
named Conservative MP between Ray-
ner and Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct
was criticised by MPs across the polit-
ical spectrum, including Johnson.
However, Dillon yesterday refused
the invitation, saying that journalists
must not “take instruction from offi-
cials of the House of Commons, how-
ever august they may be”.
His stance was backed yesterday by
Johnson, whose spokesman said: “The
prime minister is uncomfortable at the
idea of our free press being summoned
by politicians. We have a free press in
this country and reporters must be free
to report what they are told as they see
fit.”
The spokesman added that Johnson,
himself a former newspaper reporter,
did not want “any perception of politi-
cians seeking to in any way curb or con-
trol what a free press seeks to report”.
Earlier the Daily Mail published com-
ments made by Rayner in a political
podcast in which she discussed com-
parisons between her behaviour at
PMQs and Stone in Basic Instinct. She
said that she was “mortified” by the
comparison, telling Matt Forde’s The
Political Party podcast: “There is a tintparty” reflect growing confidence in
Downing Street that the prime minister
will escape future fines.
Johnson attended six of the events
being investigated by the police but has
so far been fined for only one — a 56th
birthday party that was held for him in
the cabinet room in June 2020.
The Times reported this week that
Johnson was increasingly confident
that he would not be fined for attending
a lockdown-breaking “bring your own
booze” party in the No 10 garden.
Although he has admitted attending
the event in May 2020, which was
organised by his principal private secre-tary and attended by up to 100 people,
Johnson claimed that he believed that it
was a work-related event.
The first questionnaires for those
who attended it were sent six weeks
ago, with the first fines for it issued last
week. No 10 has confirmed that John-
son has yet to be fined over that event.
Government sources believe that
police have accepted his claim that it
was a work event and that, because it
took place in his own garden, it was not
technically an offence.
It is understood that the police have
not begun issuing questionnaires for
Cain’s November leaving drinks,
suggesting that the police investigation
could last for months.
Yesterday it emerged that Durham
police would consider a letter sent by
Richard Holden, the MP for North
West Durham, urging the force to re-
examine a video that emerged last year
showing Sir Keir Starmer holding a
beer at a constituency office. The La-
bour leader had been in the office of
Mary Foy, MP for the City of Durham,
and the 43-second clip shows him in a
room with colleagues after a day of
campaigning in the Hartlepool by-elec-
tion. In January Starmer said that he
did not break any rules and was eating
a takeaway when the video was filmed.Ministers are preparing to abandon the
introduction of routine post-Brexit
border inspections on food entering
Britain from the EU.
In an attempt not to exacerbate sup-
ply chain problems and potentially in-
crease the cost of imported food, the
government is expected to announce
that it will not bring in physical inspec-
tions, planned from July, on animals,
meat and other agricultural products
entering the UK.
The inspections have been repeated-
ly delayed since the UK left the EU at
the end of 2020 amid concerns that the
infrastructure was not in place to carry
out the checks and that it would in-
crease delays and costs to consumers.
Rather than extend the deadline yet
again, ministers are understood to have
decided to scrap the checks, Whitehall
sources said.
Instead ministers intend to speed up
plans to roll out a new digital border
where goods entering the UK will only
be subject to physical checks on a risk
basis. That is now likely to be rolled outHenry Newman was hired as a senior
adviser after his meeting with the PMNews
mortgage bills to rise by £1,
Johnson defends the
rights of journalists
in Rayner sexism row
Henry Zeffman Associate Political Editor of misogyny in it... Every time I do a
PMQs somebody has an opinion on
what I wear.
“Did you see the meme on Sharon
Stone like I was doing it at the last
PMQs? I was mortified.”
Forde asked her if the suggestion was
that she was “doing that to distract Bo-
ris”, to which she replied: “It doesn’t
take much, does it? I don’t need to do
that.”
After the comments were reported,
Rayner said yesterday: “I said to [Forde]
in January that the sexist film parody
about me was misogynistic and it still is
now. As women we sometimes try to
brush aside the sexism we face, but that
doesn’t make it OK.
“The Mail implies today that I some-
how enjoy being subjected to sexist
slurs. I don’t. They are mortifying and
deeply hurtful.
“‘She loves it really’ is a typical excuse
so many women are familiar with. But it
can’t be women’s responsibility to call it
out every time. I don’t need anyone to
explain sexism to me — I experience it
every day.”
Hoyle had said that he wanted to use
the meeting with Dillon — which had
been planned for yesterday morning —
to ask that “we are all a little kinder”.
He said: “I firmly believe in the
duty of reporters to cover parliament,
but I would also make a plea, nothing
more, for the feelings of all MPs and
their families to be considered, and the
impact on their safety, when articles are
written.”
In his letter declining the meeting
with Hoyle, Dillon had written that
“following investigations by the Con-
servative Party, three other MPs who
were part of the group on the House of
Commons terrace, one of them a
woman, have come forward to corrobo-
rate the account of Angela Rayner’s re-
marks given to us by the MP who was
denied attempting to titillate the prime minister at PMQs after the Daily Mail doubled down on its sister paper’s accusation the source of last Sunday’s story”.PIXELfrom next year rather than in 2025 as
planned.
The move is likely to be largely wel-
comed by industry, which has warned
that imposing the new checks would
create additional costs and uncertainty
across the UK food supply chain.
However, UK food exporters will still
face a full range of checks for goods
being sent to the EU.
Privately ministers plan to use the
move to put pressure on the EU to
reform the Northern Ireland Protocol.
They will argue that if the UK is not
imposing food checks on goods enter-
ing the country from the EU there is lit-
tle justification for a hardline approach
to the border in the Irish Sea.
Yesterday the former Brexit minister
Lord Frost claimed that the Northern
Ireland Protocol had left the Good Fri-
day agreement “on life support” and
needed to be renegotiated or scrapped.
“I think it would be entirely reason-
able for the government to act unilater-
ally to override key elements of the pro-
tocol in domestic law,” he told the think
tank Policy Exchange.
“In so doing it would be safeguardingits higher obligation to the Belfast
[Good Friday] agreement.”
At the same time, the prime minister
told the House of Commons that the
Northern Ireland Protocol needed to
be rectified.
Responding to a question from
Democratic Unionist Party MP Jim
Shannon, Boris Johnson said: “There is
clearly an economic cost to the proto-
col. That is also now turning into a
political problem.
“We need to rectify that balance for
the sake of the Good Friday agreement
on which this country depends.”
But the government has refused to be
drawn on speculation that the Queen’s
Speech on May 10 would include legis-
lation to suspend the protocol unilater-
ally if a negotiated solution did not
emerge.
The prime minister’s official spokes-
man said: “We do want to move as
quickly as possible. It remains our view
that a negotiated settlement would be
the right approach.” But the spokesman
added: “We don’t rule out taking
further steps if solutions cannot be
found.”Oliver Wright Policy EditorMinisters to scrap EU food checks