Boris Johnson’s latest excuse for appointing groping MP Chris Pincher as a chief whip is that he forgot he had been directly told an investigation was held into the Tory’s behaviour.
The lame reasoning came after a retired senior civil servant demolished the weekend claims that the Prime Minister knew nothing about the specific allegations made against the disgraced MP.
Lord McDonald, former permanent secretary at the Foreign Office, took the unusual step of claiming Johnson was told “in person” about the lurid allegations surrounding Pincher’s groping behaviour three years ago.
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McDonald spoke out to dispute the Downing Street account that the Prime Minister knew little about the deputy chief whip’s reputation before appointing him.
Faced with that the PM’s spokesman said on Tuesday that Johnson initially “didn’t recall” having been told about the incident when he was asked on Friday by Downing Street staff.
Johnson is coming under mounting pressure over his decision to appoint his close ally Chris Pincher to the job of deputy chief whip after Labour’s Angela Rayner raised the issue in parliament.
In a Commons answer the Paymaster General Michael Ellis admitted the PM had been “made aware” of concerns about alleged inappropriate behaviour by Pincher when he was a Foreign Office Minister in 2019.
But he used the same memory loss excuse for Johnson as the facts began to tell a different story.
Ellis said: "The Prime Minister was made aware of this issue in late 2019, he was told that the permanent secretary had taken the necessary action, no issue therefore arose about remaining as a minister.
"Last week when fresh allegations arose, the Prime Minister did not immediately recall the conversation in late 2019 about this incident. As soon as he was reminded, the No 10 press office corrected their public lines."
Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner, who hauled Ellis to the Commons to answer questions about standards in public life, said there was an “ethical vacuum” in No10.
She added: “The Prime Minister was personally informed about these allegations and yet he was either negligent or complicit.”
The McDonald revelations utterly demolished the Downing Street line from Friday that Johnson was not aware of “specific allegations” against Pincher before giving him the job.
Yet the PM’s official spokesman denied he had misled journalists - instead suggesting the PM had simply forgotten.
Asked if either the Prime Minister had given him false information, or if he had deliberately misled the press, the spokesman replied: “I wouldn’t characterise it in either of those terms”.
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