Armed forces minister James Heappey has been doing the rounds on radio and TV this morning defending Boris Johnson over the partying scandal, as the prime minister prepares for what is likely to be a difficult PMQs later today.
While Heappey did say he believed and trusted Johnson, there were a few caveats and he also acknowledged public opinion.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
I choose to believe what he said, but there’ll be millions of your listeners who won’t. That’s why Sue Gray is doing her investigation.
Heappey stuck to the line that the prime minister thought the party was a work event. He said Johnson had not said he did not know the rules surrounding Covid at the time a party was held at Downing Street in May 2020, but that he “did not know, as he was going to it, that he would break the rules”.
He also said he wished colleagues submitting letters of no confidence i Johnson would wait, and that during an interview on Tuesday the prime minister “looked like a man that has the weight of the world on his shoulders”.
Asked if he wants Johnson to lead his party into the next election, Heappey said: “As things stand right now, yes.”
He added:
I suspect he’s going to have to apologise for this many more times because people are not going to let their anger die down easily.
The mood of Conservative MPs was hardening against Boris Johnson last night, with open talk of how to oust the prime minister and who should succeed him as he gave a disastrous interview claiming not to have lied over Downing Street parties.
A string of Tory MPs from various ranks and wings of the party said they believed there would be enough letters to trigger a leadership contest after the publication of the Sue Gray report into allegations of lockdown breaches, with some reports on Tuesday night that it could come sooner.
Johnson was trying to shore up his support in the parliamentary party after it emerged a group of a dozen or so of the 2019 intake had met in the office of Alicia Kearns to discuss his future as prime minister.
After the meeting – dubbed the “pork pie putsch” as Kearns’ constituency contains Melton Mowbray – one MP said there were about 20 letters, “some sent, some in draft”. There needs to be 54 letters submitted to trigger a confidence ballot against the prime minister, who met some of the new cohort on Tuesday evening.
With MPs plotting his demise, Johnson emerged from isolation in No 10 to defend himself against claims from Dominic Cummings, his former aide, that he lied to parliament about believing a garden party in the first lockdown was a work event.
The prime minister said “no one warned” him that that the 20 May 2020 “bring your own booze” party he attended alongside 30-40 staff was against the rules, and confirmed he had given his account of events to Gray.
“I can’t believe we would have gone ahead with an event that people said was against the rules … nobody warned me it was against the rules, I am categorical about that – I would have remembered that,” he told Sky News.
Read more from my colleagues Rowena Mason, Jessica Elgot and Aubrey Allegretti here:
Armed Forces Minister James Heappey did not just discuss Boris Johnson’s woes this morning but also weighed in on Prince Andrew.
He said Prince Andrew kept “horrifically ill-advised” company and his civil sex case risks overshadowing the Queen’s platinum jubilee, a minister has said.
He said Andrew had “caused enormous challenges for the royal family”, but avoided saying whether it was right for the Queen to strip her son of his military roles.
Heappey said that as a minister he did not want to comment further as he “might risk being too colourful”.
But he told LBC that Andrew had “caused enormous challenges for the royal family in a year when we should be celebrating the extraordinary service of Her Majesty the Queen as she reaches her platinum jubilee”.
It comes as Andrew awaits a civil sex case in the US, with the trial scheduled to take place between September and December.
Virginia Giuffre is suing the duke for allegedly sexually assaulting her when she was a teenager and claims she was trafficked by Andrew’s friend, the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, to have sex with the duke when she was 17 and a minor under US law.
Prince Andrew has strenuously denied the allegations.
One Tory backbencher has said he expects enough Conservative MPs will submit letters this week to trigger a confidence vote in Boris Johnson – and that Dominic Cummings and had others would release more damaging information ahead of the vote.
Andrew Bridgen, one of seven MPs to have publicly declared they have written to the chairman of the backbench 1922 Committee, Sir Graham Brady, calling for a vote, said he expects at least 20 more letters to go in on Wednesday from MPs newly elected in 2019.
Under party rules, there will be a confidence vote if 54 Conservative MPs submit letters to Brady.
Bridgen told the PA news agency:
I heard first-hand last night that another 20 from the 2019 intake will be going in today.
I would have thought that will encourage a considerable number of others who are wavering to put their letters in. I think will we get to threshold of 54 this week.
Graham Brady will announce we are having a confidence vote next week, probably Tuesday or Wednesday.
The Sue Gray report, I think, will be out Tuesday or Wednesday next week. and of course Dominic Cummings and those who have got information damaging to the prime minister will probably dump everything into the press this weekend to influence the vote next week.
A former adviser to Boris Johnson when he was mayor of London has also been defending the prime minister this morning. He said his former boss should not be forced out before Sue Gray’s report.
Lord Moylan told Sky News:
I think we have to see what Sue Gray says about what the rules were in a work environment at that time.
People who had to go to work, had to work in a work environment with social distancing, as far as possible, he (Prime Minister) walked into the garden, he shouldn’t have stayed in the garden, he’s apologised for that, and now we go forward from there.
The question of the ‘pork pie plot’ is one that I think some MPs have been a bit giddy about, but I don’t think they should force the elected Prime Minister out on the strength of this.
They need to reflect on the facts, they need see Sue Gray’s report, and they think need to think about the consequences and the follow through.
James Heappey signalled he thinks that if Sue Gray’s report shows Boris Johnson misled Parliament he should resign.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, the Armed forces minister said:
The prime minister has my trust, he has my confidence, he stood at the despatch box the other day and he gave an account of himself that I can understand and that I accept.
If Sue Gray comes out and says something different then we’re in a different place and I’m happy to come back and reflect on my feelings then.
He added:
The ministerial care code is clear: the highest responsibility that any minister has is to be accurate in what they say to the House of Commons. That is the very foundation of our parliamentary democracy.
Armed forces minister James Heappey has been doing the rounds on radio and TV this morning defending Boris Johnson over the partying scandal, as the prime minister prepares for what is likely to be a difficult PMQs later today.
While Heappey did say he believed and trusted Johnson, there were a few caveats and he also acknowledged public opinion.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
I choose to believe what he said, but there’ll be millions of your listeners who won’t. That’s why Sue Gray is doing her investigation.
Heappey stuck to the line that the prime minister thought the party was a work event. He said Johnson had not said he did not know the rules surrounding Covid at the time a party was held at Downing Street in May 2020, but that he “did not know, as he was going to it, that he would break the rules”.
He also said he wished colleagues submitting letters of no confidence i Johnson would wait, and that during an interview on Tuesday the prime minister “looked like a man that has the weight of the world on his shoulders”.
Asked if he wants Johnson to lead his party into the next election, Heappey said: “As things stand right now, yes.”
He added:
I suspect he’s going to have to apologise for this many more times because people are not going to let their anger die down easily.
Source: Guardian
