Boris Johnson starts new job as Daily Mail columnist day after report found he lied to Parliament
Boris Johnson is set to be unveiled as the Daily Mail’s new columnist, it has been reported.
It comes after the Privileges Committee found the former Prime Minister delberately misled Parliament over partygate.
Today’s front page of the Daily Mail reports that an “erudite new columnist who’ll be required reading in Westminster and across the world” will be starting on Saturday.
According to POLITICO’s Playbook, Mr Johnson is being paid “a very high six-figure sum” to pen a weekly column.
Before he became Prime Minister in 2019, Mr Johnson had written a column for the Daily Telegraph.
The Mail has been a staunch supporter of Mr Johnson during partygate, with an editorial in today’s paper branding the Privileges Committee’s findings “a risible exercise in bias and hypocrisy”.
In Thursday’s damning assessment of the former Prime Minister, the committee’s report said Mr Johnson would have faced a 90-day suspension if was still an MP, and suggested his parliamentary pass, normally available to former MPs, should be removed.
In their 108-page report, the cross-party group of MPs concluded that Mr Johnson made “deliberate attempts to mislead the committee and the House”.
It goes through the details of a series of gatherings in Downing Street, finding that it is “highly unlikely” Mr Johnson could conclude that they did not breach the rules, and that he therefore misled the Commons and committee.
MPs will vote on Monday on the report by the committee, whose recommended sanctions are expected to be voted through, with only a relatively small group of Johnson loyalists set to oppose the report’s findings, although many more Conservatives could simply not turn up.
Rishi Sunak is set to let allow Tory MPs stay away from the Parliament vote to minimise the risk of further splits in the party.
The long-awaited report was scathing in its assessment of Mr Johnson, who it said misled the House by claiming Covid rules and guidance were followed at all times in Number 10 on four separate occasions.
The commitee also found the former PM committed a “serious contempt” of Parliament, and that his“vitriolic” attack on the committee and its work in his bombshell resignation letter last week was “an attack on our democratic institutions.”
It had originally planned to recommend a suspension of 20 to 40 days but increased the penalty after Mr Johnson’s withering statement which branded the committee a “kangaroo court”.
The Tory-majority group also said that Mr Johnson had committed an “egregious breach of confidentiality” by revealing the contents of the warning letter he received from the committee when he quit as an MP on Friday.
Meanwhile, former Deputy Prime Minister Damian Green said it will be “quite difficult” for Boris Johnson to return as a Tory candidate for the Commons in the future.
The senior Tory MP told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “What I feel particularly sad about is the response he has made.
“I think if he had been more temperate in his response it would be easier for him to have a way back into active politics, but he’s chosen to use phrases like ‘kangaroo court’ and ‘witch hunt’ and described the report as ‘deranged’.”
Mr Green said he intends to vote to approve the report on Monday with a “heavy heart”, adding: “I think personally it’s such an important act that deliberately abstaining is not really rising to the importance of the occasion.”
Labour Party chair Anneliese Dodds has urged Rishi Sunak to tell Mr Johnson taxpayers will no longer fund the legal fees that helped him minister defend himself in the Privileges Committee inquiry.
“Boris Johnson should pay for his legal bills. He’s already making a lot of money from speaking at different events. He should pay that money back to the taxpayer. That’s what’s needed,” Ms Dodds said.
