Afternoon summary
Nadine Dorries, the former culture secretary and Johnson ally, has suggested that the diary information that has been submitted to the police, on the grounds that it purports to show that Johnson hosted events at Chequers and No 10 that may have broken Covid rules, may have been inaccurate. (See 2.45pm.)
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Nadine Dorries suggests records implying Boris Johnson broke Covid rules at Chequers might have wrong names and dates
TalkTV has just sent out a news release, quoting Nadine Dorries, the former culture secretary, that is headlined: “A return to politics is the ‘last thing’ on Boris Johnson’s mind.” This is an odd thing to say because Johnson has not actually left politics; he continues to be MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, for which he is paid £86,584 a year.
To be fair to Dorries, the former culture secretary and leading Johnson supporter, she does not say herself he is out of politics. In an extract from the opening spiel for her TalkTV show tonight quoted in the news release, she says:
Long after Oliver Cromwell had been dead and been buried, possessed, fearful and irrational men dug up his body and publicly executed him. Let’s face it – some in Westminster what they fear more than anything, is the return of Boris Johnson and they will go to any lengths to ensure that they prevent that from happening as they let their imaginations run riot and lead them down the paths of devious intent.
Well I’ve got news for them: Boris Johnson has gone. When I spoke to him at 4am yesterday morning US time, I got the strong impression that making a return is the last thing on his mind.
Dorries also suggests that the diary information that has been submitted to the police, on the grounds that it purports to show that Johnson hosted events at Chequers and No 10 that may have broken Covid rules, may have been inaccurate.
A few days ago just as he was about to leave for his trip to the US he was informed, without prior warning, that diaries compiled by civil servants which he had not written in or had ever even seen, had been sent to the police by a high-handed civil servant who also wrote to the privileges committee and suggested in his covering letter that Boris may have breached Covid laws.
Let me just tell you about the official diary and record-keeping process which takes place within government. They are in effect official state records – a minute by minute, line by line account of a prime minister’s every single movement. In the case of Boris, they are over 10,000 pages long and even Sue Gray who had access to those diaries failed to think there was anything significant in there to include in her report or even to discuss with the Met. I am very sure that if there was anything in there, she would’ve found it. They are completed by junior civil servants in the private office and they are frequently wrong! The detail the wrong people, the wrong places, the wrong times, and the wrong dates even.
If this sounds familiar, it is because Dorries has some experience of how written records can be misleading. During the MPs’ expenses scandal the parliamentary commissioner for allegations investigated a complaint from a BNP activist alleging that Dorries was claiming second home expenses for her house in her Mid Bedfordshire constituency when this was in fact her main home, not her second home. Dorries said her main home was in fact in the Cotswolds.
At the time Dorries wrote a blog that implied she spent most of her time at weekends in her constituency. In evidence to the commissioner, Dorries said the blog was “70% fiction”. He accepted this argument, and that her main home was in the Cotswolds, and he concluded that she had not broken expenses rules.
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