the times | Saturday May 28 2022 7News
In the end Boris Johnson and Rishi
Sunak decided to go big. “Furlough
bazookered the problem [during the
pandemic],” the prime minister said
“We need a similar solution here that
takes us through to spring.”
After criticism that the chancellor
did not do enough to help people with
soaring inflation in April, his cost-of-
living package on Thursday was a huge
intervention.
Although it was not formally a bud-
get, it was bigger than many fiscal
events of the past. It offered £21 billion
of new support worth an average of
£700 for households, rising to as much
as £1,650 for the most vulnerable.
At the dispatch box Sunak went even
further, committing himself to uprating
benefits and the state pension in line
with inflation next year, a measure
which will cost a further £15 billion.
Yesterday he opened the door to even
more spending, suggesting he would
intervene again if energy bills remain
high next year.
Johnson has become a convert to a
windfall tax. Having resisted a push by
No 11 for months, he was persuaded of
the need for it when Bernard Looney,
the head of BP, said that the company
would not change its investment plans
if one were imposed.
At one meeting he even delighted in
referring to it as the “Robin Hood” tax
because it took from the rich and gave
to the poor. During a cabinet call on
Thursday he said the companies were
essentially asking to be taxed, arguing
their lack of “squeal” was significant.
However, the fact the intervention is
part-funded by a windfall tax on oil and
gas companies has led to deep ideologi-
cal unease among some cabinet minis-
ters and Conservative backbenchers.
This, after all, was the week they wit-
nessed a Tory chancellor boasting that
his spending plans were twice as gener-
ous as Labour’s and that his windfall tax
would raise more than twice as much.
How, some asked, can the Tories
claim to be the party of fiscal responsi-
bility and tax cuts while raising taxes
and spending on such a scale?
As one cabinet minister said: “The
politics of this is just so bad. We voted
against it, we marched the whole party
up the hill and are now taking them
back down again. It looks like we’re
being dictated to by Labour.”
Another minister expressed con-
cerns that intervention could quickly
be forgotten.“The last intervention was
worth £22 billion and we barely got any
credit for it,” the minister said. “It won’t
be long before the calls will start again,
a matter of weeks. We have to make
sure that we get credit for it this time.”
Johnson is unrepentant. On Monday
he held a meeting with leading econo-
mists including Lord King of Lothbury,
the former governor of the Bank of En-
gland, Rupert Harrison, a former advis-
er to George Osborne, and Dr Gerard
Lyons, a former adviser to Johnson.News
wall wipeout as Labour returns
£21bn bazooka may blow
new hole in PM’s support
The prime minister’s biggest concern
was whether the package was so big it
would fuel inflation. “He wanted reas-
surance that he could spend the money
without fuelling inflation,” a source at
the meeting said. “He was told the Bank
will take care of inflation and that it’s
not out of control. It’s being driven by a
couple of specific factors.”
At a meeting of the 1922 Committee
of Tory MPs on Wednesday evening,
Johnson was told by one backbencher
that the Conservatives fail when they
put up taxes. “Boris argued the govern-
ment spent huge amounts of money
during the pandemic and have to be
careful,” a Tory MP said. “He said that
if interest rates go up we are stuffed.”
Cabinet colleagues remain uncon-
vinced about the windfall tax. Seven
spoke out publicly against it before it
was announced, and they told The
Times they retained deep misgivings.
Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secre-
tary, is said to be concerned by an an-
nouncement that BP is reviewing its in-
vestments in North Sea oil and gas.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Brexit oppor-
tunities minister, was the only one on
the cabinet call to speak out against it
directly. But other ministers including
Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, Bran-
don Lewis, the Northern Ireland secre-
tary, Sajid Javid, the health secretary,
and Suella Braverman, the attorney-
general, are said to have misgivings.
“It’s been terrible colleague-handling
yet again,” said one government figure.
“They allow ministers to go out there
defending a really difficult corner and
then just do a monumental U-turn
without any consultation.”
One grandee said that Sunak’s an-
nouncement could end up alienating
some on the right of the party who were
already suspicious of Johnson’s eco-
nomic instincts. The prime minister,
however, feels his authority over the
party is now untrammelled after the
publication of the report by Sue Gray,
the senior civil servant, into lockdown-
breaking parties in No 10.
The findings were grim but Johnson,
is confident. “Of course the Gray report
felt like some level of closure but he’s
been in a different place for some time
now,” one ally said.
The prime minister’s appearance at
the 1922 Committee was a testament to
his attitude. While apologising for
rule-breaking he found time to
argue that Britain would not have
won the Second World War if
there had been an alcohol ban in
No 10. “The Conservatives stand
for self-reliance and self-control,”
he said. “We tend not to want to
ban things.”
Others are not so sure
about his future. At the
height of the scandal in Jan-
uary, Johnson summoned
potential Tory rebels to
his office in the House of
Commons. He was inno-
cent of every charge, he
told them, and if that
proved to be untrue he
would be the first to fall
on his sword. “He told
me that he hadn’t done
anything wrong but
said, ‘Rest assured, if I
am found to have done
something wrong, thedoor won’t hit me on the way out,’” one
Tory MP said. That same MP is now
weighing up whether he needs to give
Johnson a push after the Gray report
and police investigation laid bare the
extent of the rule-breaking in Downing
Street. “He just lied to my face. So when
we’re then facing questions about his
integrity, it feels relevant,” he said.
He is not alone. Since the report six
more Tories MPs added their names to
the metaphorical pile of letters, emails
and even WhatsApp messages calling
for a vote of confidence in the prime
minister that are growing on the desk of
the chairman of the 1922 Committee.
On Wednesday there was not much
more than a trickle of Tories prepared
to publicly endorse the prime minister.
In an hour-long session only six Con-
servative intervened to back Johnson
— while five used the occasion to ob-
liquely and not so obliquely attack him.
So how serious are his difficulties?
His aides know he faces three signifi-
cant hurdles over the coming months,
none of which is fully within his control.
The most pressing are two by-elec-
tions on June 23. Wakefield, which the
Tories in 2019 took for the first time
since the 1930s, and Tiverton & Honi-
ton, a traditionally safe seat where the
party is facing a strong challenge from
the Liberal Democrats. Should both fall
then some predict more MPs would
turn against Johnson.
The second problem is yet another
No 10 parties inquiry, this one by the
privileges committee that has to decide
whether Johnson misled parliament.
His defence is that although he attend-
ed leaving parties he did so only briefly
as part of his leadership role. But not
having broken rules himself is one
thing; he repeatedly assured MPs the
same was true of other staff in No 10.
Three Tory MPs — Laura Farris, An-
dy Carter and Alberto Costa — decided
this week to resign from their govern-
ment posts to stay on the committee.
All are independently minded. Many of
those on the committee have extensive
legal backgrounds, including a former
magistrate and a retired police officer.
While Johnson’s critics appear some
way short of the 54 letters needed to
trigger a confidence vote, whips are said
to be concerned by the breadth of those
calling him to go. From ardent Brexit-
eers to borderline Remainers,
those who want him gone are
from all wings of the party and
all intakes.
A veteran Tory MP said that al-
though there was no co-ordinated
plot, the threshold to trigger a
confidence vote could
be reached simply by
enough MPs with
different concerns
over different inter-
ests simply reaching
the same conclusion.
“I just think things
are still quite diffi-
cult for Johnson. He
is not out of the
woods.”
Additional reporting by
Chris Smyth and George
GryllsTikTok debut on the new
@10downingstreet
account this month. He
explained that the
purpose of the account
was to offer a “behind the
scenes” look at what the
government is “getting
done”.
He added: “You won’t
necessarily catch me
dancing on here.”
His first clip attracted
more than half a million
views and tens of
thousands of followers to
the account within hours
of being shared. The
comments were not
always glowing, however.
“Cheers Boris, nan’s doing
cartwheels to keep
warm,” one user wrote.
Zarah Sultana, 28, the
Labour MP for Coventry
South, has about 320,
followers, making her one
of the most popular
British politicians on the
platform. She garnered
1.8 million views for a
video showing her urging
Boris Johnson to resign
and once filmed herself
running to secure a seat
in the Commons
chamber.
The political website
Guido Fawkes has
recently hailed Dr Luke
Evans, Conservative MP
for Bosworth, as the
“Tories’ TikTok superstar
”. He is one of the most
popular Conservative
MPs on the platform, with
20,100 followers.
The site warned that if
the TikTok videos shared
by Grant Shapps, the
transport secretary, “are
anything to go by, Rishi’s
in serious danger of being
dethroned as the cabinet
king of self-promotion”.
Shapps has 11,
followers on the site.
Sunak does not have
TikTok but has featured
on the 10 Downing Street
account this week to
share details of his new
cost of living measures.The windfall tax sits
uneasily with several of
the cabinet, write Steven
Swinford, Oliver Wright
and Henry Zeffman
Rishi Sunak boasted
of greater spending
than in Labour planslonger a reason to quit
The prime minister has also removed
a lengthy section on the importance of
ethics in government. In his previous
foreword to the code, Johnson had
demanded that ministers behave with
“integrity, objectivity, accountability,
transparency, honesty and leadership
in the public interest”, but this has now
been removed.
The ministerial code is usually
updated every few years, often after a
general election.
The government justified its decision
to make changes to the existing code,
saying it had reached a “carefully
considered position”.
It said that it was a “fundamental”
part of the British constitution for the
prime minister to have “sole responsi-
bility” for the organisation of the
government.
It also said that Geidt needed to be
protected from “trivial or vexatious
complaints which may be made for
partisan reasons” — a reference to
attempts by opposition parties to forceinvestigations into alleged breaches of
the code.
Angela Rayner, the Labour deputy
leader, said that Johnson was “watering
down the rules to save his own skin”.
“Once again, Boris Johnson has dem-
onstrated he is not serious about his
pledge to address the scandal and
sleaze engulfing his government or the
frequent and flagrant breaches of stan-
dards and rule-breaking that have
taken place on his watch,” she said.
The section that has been removed
by Johnson previously read: “There
must be no bullying and no harassment;
no leaking; no breach of collective
responsibility. No misuse of taxpayer
money and no actual or perceived
conflicts of interest. The precious
principles of public life enshrined in this
document — integrity, objectivity,
accountability, transparency, honesty
and leadership in the public interest —
must be honoured at all times; as must
the political impartiality of our much
admired civil service.”