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Good Sunday afternoon. This is Annabelle Dickson, back in the Crunch hot seat, after a glorious two-week Norfolk staycation.
THINGS TO KNOW
LESSONS IN CONTRITION: Another Partygate bombshell has dropped this weekend in the form of Conservative HQ lockdown partying video footage (chapeau to the Mirror team for getting that one.) Cabinet veteran Michael Gove has been out on the airwaves this morning branding the revelations “terrible,” issuing an unreserved apology on behalf of the party for the shenanigans. His Conservative colleagues may well wonder if things could have been different if Boris Johnson had taken a similarly contrite approach when the Partygate scandal broke all those months ago.
Meanwhile in June 2023: Conservative MPs will tomorrow have to decide whether to endorse a highly-critical privileges committee report on the ex-PM’s conduct over the scandal which will mean another afternoon of open Tory warfare.
Voter verdict: Against that backdrop, and more importantly a cost-of-living and deepening mortgage crisis, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak now faces four by-elections. David Warburton, of sex and drugs allegations fame, has told the Mail on Sunday that he is quitting as an MP with a swipe at parliament’s harassment watchdog, which he says denied him a fair hearing. He has, however, admitted that he took cocaine. The Lib Dems are getting excited about that particular contest. Tory MPs are not. Former Cabinet minister David Davis told GB News the upcoming by-elections would be “embarrassing” and “difficult.”
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Back to tomorrow: Gove, the housing secretary, told Laura Kuenssberg that he thinks parts of the privileges report, which concluded Johnson repeatedly misled MPs over lockdown-breaking gatherings, were “excellent work.” But he said he will be abstaining on the grounds that a 90-day penalty is “not merited.” A former minister tells Sunday Crunch the intervention by Gove this morning will be “persuasive to lots of people.” Another said MPs are being encouraged to go by-election campaigning tomorrow, especially in Uxbridge.
What we can expect: Penny Mordaunt, leader of the House of Commons, will table a one-line motion Monday afternoon and then MPs will be able to have a good old debate. Tory MPs will have a free vote, with no obligation to attend. Johnson last week told his supporters not to oppose the report in the hope of avoiding a vote and most other Conservative MPs have been hoping it will be avoided too.
But but but: Veteran backbencher Bill Cash has a Telegraph piece this morning setting out why he plans to vote against the report. He may be a lonely voice and it will likely be up to the speaker to decide whether to actually call a division.
Expect this to come up: The debate could still be worth a watch. The Mail on Sunday, whose sister paper now has BoJo on the payroll, goes to town on what it says is a “leaked invitation” which blows apart claims “Boris Johnson’s chief Partygate inquisitor” Bernard Jenkin was at a work event, when he went to what they allege was a drinks party for his wife. Jenkin has denied breaking COVID-19 rules.
Not so honorable: Beyond the obvious reignition of public anger ahead of tomorrow’s vote, the Mirror revelations also left Gove facing more questions about Johnson’s controversial honors list. The party in question was organized by the campaign team of then London Mayoral candidate Shaun Bailey, who will now sit in the House of Lords after Johnson made him a peer. He had left before the video was taken, the paper says. But Ben Mallet — who was made an OBE — is holding a glass of red wine and wearing festive braces, and is now running Moz Hossain’s campaign to stand as London mayor next year. The Mirror’s John Stevens has also just revealed the identities of the two people caught dancing in the video.
Ask BoJo: Gove stuck to the line that Sunak was following due process in waving through Johnson’s peerage list. “We’ll all have our personal feelings about who was on that list, the decision about who was on that list was Boris Johnson’s,” Gove told the BBC. He earlier told Sky it was for “Boris to defend his choice of peers.” No word from Team Johnson on that one yet.
Revoke ’em all: Labour’s Scottish leader Anas Sarwar unsurprisingly begged to differ, telling Sky’s Sophy Ridge that Sunak should not just revoke the honors of the party-goers, but should be “withdrawing the entire honors list from Boris Johnson.”
Under the spotlight: It’s not been a great weekend for Johnson’s honors picks generally. Saturday’s Times had a not especially glowing profile of Charlotte Owen, the 30-year-old former adviser heading to the House of Lords thanks to Johnson. While today’s Observer says Owen only entered Downing Street’s political office to cover for another official’s maternity leave.
Good news for Schofers: There are some fun pieces on Johnson’s future prospects. James Johnson (no relation), of pollsters JL Partners, who was Theresa May’s Downing Street polling expert, tells the Sunday Times: “The red wall prefers Rishi Sunak to [Johnson] by more than 20 points. He is less popular with the British public than Phillip Schofield and Xi Jinping.” POLITICO’s Esther Webber also had a great piece last week on why Britain’s so over Boris Johnson, in case you missed it. Paul Waugh’s weekend read in the i on the Johnson legacy is also worth your time. Reports that some MPs believe he’s like another former Tory PM — Ted Heath, the former PM whose decades-long sulk at Margaret Thatcher’s reign tarnished his own record further — are bound to sting.
Quote of the day: Comes from former Boris Johnson adviser Samuel Kasumu. While defending part of Johnson’s legacy, including the vaccine rollout, Kasumu told Laura K: “It’s completely possible to achieve great things and still be a bit of a knob.”
Could have been different: The Sunday Times also has a lovely nugget that Johnson told the Junior Chronicle, an Eton magazine edited by one Peter Rees-Mogg, whose father was given a knighthood by Johnson a week ago, that he would go quietly if he was found to have broken the rules. The interview was published this weekend, but conducted four weeks ago. An early lesson for the young Rees-Mogg about not sitting on a story.
Gray day: Oh, and it wouldn’t be a Partygate weekend without a Sue Gray mention. She was author of the infamous Partygate internal report and is now off to work for Keir Starmer as his chief of staff. The Sunday Telegraph reckons the Cabinet Office inquiry into Gray’s conduct over her handling of a move to work for Starmer breached Whitehall impartiality rules and says she could have been suspended or sacked had she not quit. Dave Penman, the FDA union leader who has been representing Gray, told the Tele there had been an agreement the investigation would be suspended pending the outcome of the Acoba process, and called the paper’s take “mere speculation.”
Coming attraction: The report was reportedly signed off on by controversial Cabinet Secretary Simon Case, who just happens to be up in front of the Lords constitution committee on Tuesday talking about senior civil servant departures.
INFLATION NATION: Of probably more interest to voters was Gove’s grilling on whether the government is going to step in and help homeowners facing hundreds of pounds a month increases in their mortgage payments, on top of all the other hikes to household bills. The Resolution Foundation had a pretty scary report out yesterday predicting rising interest rates will mean people looking to remortgage their homes will pay an average £2,900 a year more from 2024. In short, Gove said the government was “keeping it under review” but made a pretty strong argument against intervention.
Get to the cause: Gove, who told Sky he is mortgage-free, insisted the government needed to “go to the root cause of this.” He told the BBC: “You can provide temporary amelioration, you can provide a salve, a balm, an intervention,” but argued that “if you spend public money in order to deal with particular crises, you are inevitably adding to the stock of debt, and if you add to the stock of debt, that puts pressure on interest rates,” he said.
Meanwhile in Whitehall: Government departments have been tasked with finding more spending and job cuts within months to help Chancellor Jeremy Hunt build up a tax-cutting election war chest, according to the Sunday Telegraph. Good luck, as they say, with that.
This might be why: The Sun on Sunday says another ex-PM, Liz Truss, will lead a “revolt” over plans to pass a new law stating corporation tax can’t be cut below 15 percent as part of the OECD deal which would be enforced by the end of the year. More than two dozen Tories have signed up to try and stop the new law coming in. Ex-Home Secretary Priti Patel is also opposing the move.
Looming this week: The latest inflation figures are due on Wednesday, and the Bank of England is due to announce on Thursday whether it is putting up interest rates again. Former Deputy Governor of the Bank of England Charlie Bean told Sky he thought rates would “certainly go higher” from where they are, but said what the central bank would want to avoid is putting rates up and then having to backtrack in short order.
OVER IN LABOUR LAND: Big news north of the border for Labour leader Keir Starmer. A Sunday Times poll suggests Labour will defeat the Scottish National Party at the next election for the first time — a massive boost to his chances of securing a majority in Westminster at the general election. The Panelbase Poll suggests the SNP could lose more than half of its 45 seats.
No Indy ref: On his conveniently-timed media round, Sarwar insisted again there would be no second referendum on Scottish independence in the next parliament. Labour would not “plunge our country into chaos again,” he told Sky. Starmer is in Scotland tomorrow selling plans to allow devolved governments and communities to build green energy projects through the publicly owned GB Energy company.
Green about going green: The Sunday Times says the Labour leader has given Equinor, the Norwegian state-owned energy company, assurances Labour will not block the Rosebank oil and gas field west of Shetland, which is expected to get the go-ahead within weeks. Labour says it had never been policy to revoke existing licenses. Sarwar also did his best to sound reassuring, telling Ridge there would be “no cliff-edge” and “turning off the tap,” and that oil and gas would be playing a significant role for decades to come. He told the BBC he had met industry leaders to make it clear Labour would honor any new licenses issued between now and the next election.
QUICK-FIRE CATCH-UP
JUST RETURNED: Scotland’s former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has been spotted at her home for the first time since her arrest last Sunday. She told hacks: “I am certain that I have done nothing wrong.” The BBC has more after she was released without charge last weekend following seven hours of questioning as part of a police investigation into the SNP’s finances.
INTO THE LONG GRASS: After Downing Street’s Saturday announcement that it is delaying its long-planned clampdown on buy-one-get-one-free offers on fatty, salty and sugary food, the Sunday Telegraph says ministers are now also talking about pushing back the rollout of a scheme to charge retailers and manufacturers for the cost of council recycling, fearing it would also push up the already sky-high cost of a weekly shop.
OUR MAN IN NATO: French President Emmanuel Macron is trying to block U.K. Defense Secretary Ben Wallace from being the next head of NATO, the Sunday Telegraph reports. French officials have told NATO colleagues they want a figurehead from the European Union, the paper’s Joe Barnes reports. My POLITICO colleague Lili Bayer had a must-read piece at the end of last week on internal wrangling among NATO allies over the timing of the appointment, and a potential push to pair it with the race for top EU tops.
IF YOU WON’T DO IT: Prince William, the heir to the throne, has used a Sunday Times interview to announce plans for a big homeless project, which includes plans to build social housing on his own land. The paper says the monarch-in-waiting recently met Housing Secretary Michael Gove and Labour leader Keir Starmer to brief them on his plans. It will be a big question for the government why the monarch feels he has to get involved. “I’m not here to talk about government policy,” William told the paper diplomatically. “My plan is an additive to what is already being done.”
SUNAK’S AI MAN: Tech investor Ian Hogarth has been confirmed as the new chair of Rishi Sunak’s important artificial intelligence taskforce by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology this morning. Hogarth’s fairly recent magnum opus in the FT is worth your time if you want to know what this new top adviser is thinking.
MEDIA ROUND
Carole Walker in for Ayesha Hazarika on Times Radio (4 p.m. to 7 p.m.): Former Justice Secretary Robert Buckland … Former Chief Whip Wendy Chamberlain … Labour MP Debbie Abrahams … The Sun’s Natasha Clark.
Gloria Meets on GB News (6 p.m.): Lib Dem leader Ed Davey … Treasury select committee chair Harriet Baldwin … Labour’s South Yorkshire Mayor Oliver Coppard.
Westminster Hour (BBC Radio 4, 10 p.m.): Treasury select committee chair Harriet Baldwin … Labour chair Anneliese Dodds … Politics professor Tim Bale … The i’s Paul Waugh.
WEEK AHEAD
SUNDAY
CHINA: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has arrived in Beijing ahead of talks with Chinese officials. Our POLITICO colleagues in Washington have a good primer.
MONDAY
HAPPY BIRTHDAY BORIS: MPs to debate and (potentially) vote on whether to accept the privileges committee’s conclusions that Boris Johnson deliberately misled the House, and its recommendation to permanently revoke his access to parliament. Oh and the ex-PM also turns 59.
OTHERWISE ENGAGED? Prime Minister Rishi Sunak expected to meet Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson. No word yet on whether that might conveniently coincide with the Commons privileges proceedings.
ALSO IN THE COMMONS: After the privileges report drama, MPs sit from 2.30 p.m. with work and pensions questions with a debate on the U.K. tech industry.
COVID-19 INQUIRY: Ex-PM David Cameron to give evidence to the COVID-19 public inquiry, 11 a.m.
IRISH RELATIONS: British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference to be held in London.
TUESDAY
CIVIL SERVANT SACKINGS: Cabinet Secretary Simon Case to give evidence to the Lords constitution committee on the dismissal of senior civil servants, 2 p.m.
COVID-19 INQUIRY: Ex-Chancellor George Osborne to give evidence to the COVID-19 public inquiry, from 10 a.m.
HEALTH: Health Secretary Steve Barclay to give evidence to the health committee on the NHS, 3 p.m.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS: Foreign Secretary James Cleverly to give evidence to the development committee on U.K. aid, 2.30 p.m.
BADLY BEHAVED MPS: Recall petition opens for former SNP MP Margaret Ferrier.
SMALL BOATS: Campsfield migrant center planning decision potentially due.
COMMONS: Sits from 11.30 a.m. with Treasury questions followed by the Finance (No. 2) Bill.
WEDNESDAY
INFLATION NATION: Latest U.K. inflation figures to be published, 7 a.m.
COVID-19 INQUIRY: Chancellor Jeremy Hunt and Deputy PM Oliver Dowden to give evidence to the COVID-19 inquiry, from 2 p.m.
WAR: Rishi Sunak to host the first day of the two-day Ukraine Recovery Conference.
COMMONS: Sits from 11.30 a.m. with Northern Ireland questions followed by PMQs, the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill, potentially ping pong with the Lords on the Retained EU Law bill and an opposition debate.
TRANSPORT: Rail minister Huw Merriman to give evidence on rail infrastructure to transport committee, 9.30 a.m.
WOMEN IN POLITICS: Labour Party Deputy Leader Angela Rayner and former Australian PM Julia Gillard discuss women’s experiences in politics at King’s College London, 7 p.m.
WHERE TO BE SPOTTED: Glastonbury Festival begins.
THURSDAY
COMMONS: Sits from 9.30 a.m. with Cabinet Office questions followed by the business statement and debates on the infected blood inquiry and the future of BBC local radio.
COVID-19 INQUIRY: Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty and former Chief Scientific Adviser Patrick Vallance to give evidence to the COVID-19 inquiry, from 10 a.m.
ECONOMY: Bank of England to announce latest decision on interest rates, 12 p.m.
WAR: Second day of the two-day Ukraine Recovery Conference.
ANNIVERSARY: National Service of Thanksgiving to mark 75 years since HMT Empire Windrush docked in the U.K.
BREXIT: BBC Question Time to host Brexit Special in Clacton-on-Sea, 10.40 p.m.
FRIDAY
STRIKES: Royal College of Nursing ballot closes for latest strike action plans.
ANNIVERSARY: Seventh anniversary of the Brexit referendum.
SATURDAY
SCOTLAND: Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf to set out his vision for independence at a party event in Dundee.
ELECTIONS: General election in Sierra Leone.
GLASTONBURY: Labour’s Ed Miliband and Rosena Allin-Khan due to appear at the famous music festival.
SUNDAY
ELECTIONS: Fresh parliamentary elections in Greece, and general election in Guatemala.
Thanks: To Jones Hayden for giving Crunch some Sunday sparkle.
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Annabelle Dickson
https://www.politico.eu/newsletter/sunday-crunch/lessons-in-contrition-swerving-westminster-mortgage-crunch/
