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According to the Daily Mail, the Cabinet Office has commissioned some “devastating” legal advice from Lord Pannick QC that will stop the Commons’ Standards and Privileges Committee from investigating Boris Johnson over whether he misled the Commons over parties at No. 10. This advice is apparently going to be published later today. According to the report, enforcing standards and investigating those who may have broken them will catch Ministers who “accidentally” mislead the House and this will impede the proper…

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Remember Laura Norder? A perennial favourite of Tory conferences – with Home Secretaries vowing to support the police and be tough on criminals. Even Blair joined in with his “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime” slogan. That was then. Now it is the ECHR, lefty lawyers and other bleeding heart liberals in the government’s sights for, it is said, undermining the fight for justice and the rights of true born Britons to sleep easy in their beds….

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A man tries to murder a British writer for what he wrote in a novel published 34 years ago, 10 years before the would-be murderer was born. A Police Community Support Officer in Britain seeks to lecture a woman about changing her views on trans rights despite two police officers having previously visited and determined that the woman was committing no offence by displaying a sticker, expressing different views to that of the PCSO, in her window. A British university…

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“Liar”. “Untrustworthy”. “Corrupt”. The highlights of a recent Boris Johnson word cloud. They are the reason the Tory party is choosing a new leader. That and the fact that he no longer appears to be an election winner. (We will come to that later.)  So how has Penny Mordaunt, now in a good second place after two voting rounds, chosen to present herself? Well, she has got herself into quite the tangle over her record as a Minister and her…

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On Channel 4 news Jacob Rees-Mogg referred to Lord Salisbury as an example of a PM who lost a Chancellor and went onto remain for PM as years. This de haut en bas history nugget was dismissed by Sir Bob Neill who tartly observed that voters did not care about a government from 120 years ago. But before Labour get too self-righteous about the awful culture Boris has presided over, it is worth remembering that back in 2018 retired judge,…

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There are some well-worn memes doing the rounds following the ECHR decision yesterday on deportation flights to Rwanda. Many contain a number of factual errors and so, like the very busy editor of the Guardian’s Corrections section, let’s shed some light on these. The government’s policy has been declared illegal by European judges. No, it hasn’t. There will be a full court hearing in the English courts in three weeks time to assess the claims made by various appellants that…

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Two public servants: both in the autumn of their careers; both “Sirs“; both in the legislature; both facing important decisions. How are they approaching this and how are they being treated? The first is Bernard Hogan-Howe, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, between 2011 and 2017. His time as Met Commissioner was not, it is fair to say, an unalloyed success. During his time in office, the Met launched two high-profile investigations into sex abuse cases: Operation Yewtree and Operation Midland….

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Before we get to that, a brief thought on the PM and his amendments to the Ministerial Code. At the heart of most scandals is a conflict of interest: putting your own personal interests ahead of those you should take into account. The PM is ultimately responsible for the Ministerial Code and its enforcement. How is that supposed to work when it is him accused of breaching it and he is under investigation? He should not be judge and jury…

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