Boris Johnson live news: No 10 denies details were edited from Sue Gray’s Partygate report

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Rishi Sunak says he will give his £400 energy rebate to charity

No 10 sources have denied claims that details of an alleged Downing Street flat party were removed from Sue Gray’s Partygate investigation.

Senior members of Boris Johnson’s team are alleged to have put pressure on the civil servant to remove certain details and names from her report into coronavirus rule-breaking, with the 15 people finally named in the document only half the number initially told they would feature, according to the Sunday Times.

A Whitehall source told the paper: “On Tuesday night, one last attempt was made to persuade her to omit names from the report, but she made it plain to them the only way that was going to happen was if they issued her with an instruction .”

It was also alleged that Mr Johnson’s chief-of-staff Steve Barclay “tweaked” details about the party in the PM’s flat on the eve of publication.

But Cabinet Office sources rejected claims the report was edited due to pressure, while a No 10 source denied all allegations, saying: “It is untrue that anyone on the political side saw anything in advance or sought to influence it.”

Key PointsShow latest update 1653821410Cabinet reshuffle coming ‘sooner than everyone thinks’, report claims

Our chief political commentator John Rentoul highlights this story in today’s Mail on Sunday, which claims that Tory Chairman Oliver Dowden faces being moved in a Cabinet reshuffle which is coming “sooner than everyone thinks”.

The paper reports that Mr Dowden is expected to pay the price for recent by-election losses and poor performances in May’s council elections, as well as plunging poll ratings.

Mr Dowden’s public pledge to change candidate selection processes to ensure that half of Tory MPs elected at the next election are women has alienated both male and female colleagues, according to the paper.

Andy Gregory29 May 2022 11:50

1653820210Tory MP appears to joke about Partygate

A Tory MP has made a joke widely interpreted as making light of outrage over Covid rule-breaking in No 10.

“Off to the footy,” Brendan Clarke-Smith tweeted. “Making the tough choice not to buy sandwiches and an orange juice in case anybody accuses me of being a lawbreaker.”

Andy Gregory29 May 2022 11:30

1653819010Iceland has seen customers ‘disappearing to food banks’, boss says

Richard Walker, managing director of Iceland, says the supermarket chain serves “some of the poorer demographics” but has seen customers “disappearing to food banks” amid the rising cost of living.

Mr Walker told Sky News’s Sophie Ridge On Sunday program there is a “perfect maelstrom of inflationary pressures”, adding: “The reality is there is no typical Iceland shopper, averages don’t work very well because we have people who come in and spend five quid and people who come in and spend £50.

“Generally, I think it is safe to say everyone is feeling the pinch now, it doesn’t matter who you are.

“We do serve some of the poorer demographics around the country. We are hearing stories, as you said, of some of our custom disappearing to food banks, which is a reality, or, indeed, some customers when they are at the till asking the cashier when it amounts to 40 quid so that they can leave the rest of their shopping.”

Andy Gregory29 May 2022 11:10

1653817870Boris Johnson’s position not in jeopardy even in event of by-election losses, minister says

Boris Johnson will survive as prime minister even if the Tories lose next month’s by-elections, the Northern Ireland secretary has claimed.

Speaking on the BBC’s Sunday Morning show, Brandon Lewis suggested that the prime minister would survive a no confidence vote, adding: “But I would go further. I don’t think we are in that space.”

Asked whether Mr Johnson’s position was in jeopardy if the Conservatives lose the Wakefield and Tiverton and Honiton by-elections, Mr Lewis replied: “No, I don’t think so. I equally don’t think we will lose those two by-elections.

“I think we’ve got a very strong case, we’ve got great candidates and we’ll all be out campaigning to win them, because that is what is in the interest of those areas.”

Andy Gregory29 May 2022 10:51

1653816850Sadiq Khan urges government to scrap benefits cap

London’s mayor Sadiq Khan has urged the government to scrap the cap benefits, after it emerged that tens of thousands of Britain’s poorest families stand to miss out on a huge boost to their incomes next year in Rishi Sunak’s £15bn package.

Benefits payments are set to soar by as much as 10 per cent from April, the chancellor has confirmed, but more than 120,000 households will lose out unless ministers raise the cap on how much they can receive from the state.

Our Whitehall editor Kate Devlin has more details here:

Andy Gregory29 May 2022 10:34

1653815710Labour criticises lack of government ‘action on the causes’ of cost of living crisis

Labor Party chairwoman Anneliese Dodds said the government has failed to take action to grow the economy as she criticizes the “frustrating” lack of measures to alleviate the causes of the cost of living crisis.

Speaking on the BBC’s Sunday Morning programme, Ms Dodds said: “The really frustrating thing is yes we’ve finally seen some action from the government on the symptoms of the cost-of-living crisis … but we’re not seeing any action on the causes.”

She added: “They also haven’t taken action to grow our economy. Labor’s saying we need to buy, make and sell more in our country. Why is that important? Because we’ve had lower growth under Conservative-led governments than under Labor-led – it’s a big problem.”

Ms Dodds was asked by presenter Clive Myrie about the government’s decision to give the worst-off families £1,200 to ease rising costs as opposed to Labor’s proposed £600.

“Are you embarrassed that actually the Conservatives are way more generous than you would have been?” Myrie asked.

“No, not at all, and actually for the most hard-pressed families Labor plans would have supported them more,” Ms Dodds replied, adding that Labor policies, including a home-insulation programme, would also help people in the long term by cutting household bills “every year” and not just as a one-off.

Andy Gregory29 May 2022 10:15

1653815017Rishi Sunak has ‘stepped up’, Iceland boss says

Rishi Sunak has “stepped up” and is “pulling the right levers” to help struggling families with his latest support package, the Iceland supermarket chain’s managing director has said.

“They already had over £20bn of support before this additional £20bn of latest packages so certainly huge intervention there by the government and actually we have got to take a step back and realise a lot of these pressures are global in nature and outside of the influence of the government of the day or businesses like ours,” Richard Walker told Sky’s Sophie Ridge On Sunday.

“So I think they have done plenty, actually, for the general public and hopefully it will ease the pain and the burden as we get into the autumn as inflation may peak.

“There is a tonne of stuff I would like him to do for business, I don’t know how he is going to afford it or we are all going to pay for it but, I think at the moment they are doing a good job .”

Andy Gregory29 May 2022 10:03

1653814893Companies could ‘restrain their profits’ to reduce inflation

A union boss has suggested that companies could “restrain their profits and return that money into lower prices” in order to combat inflation.

“All British workers deserve a pay rise,” RMT general secretary Mick Lynch told Sky News. “There’s a bit of a nonsense that goes round, especially in the media that says ‘if we get a pay rise, somehow other workers won’t get a pay rise,’ or ‘if we don’t get a pay rise, it’ ll be transferred to nurses, to other public sector workers and people that are also being exploited’.

“That just won’t happen. If we don’t get a pay rise, the profits of the companies will just go up. And what needs to happen in the UK, is that some of these profits need to be reduced so that British workers can get a pay rise. Every worker in this country is struggling at the moment. They can’t keep up with the utility prices, they can’t keep up with their household bills.”

Asked if he was concerned about the impact this would have upon inflation, he said: “There are railway bosses taking home millions of pounds every year. The railyways made £500m of profit last year when fares and passengers were at an all-time low. People are stripping money out of the railway, they’re stripping money out of the economy.

“And if workers’ wages don’t go up, it means a transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich. We’ve got more billionaires than we’ve ever had in this country. The rich have never been richer. And the reason they’re able to do that and get richer all the time, is because they’re deliberately depressing workers’ wages. Inflation has come on board now and virtually nobody has had a pay rise the last two or three years. So this idea that there’s a wage-price spiral is nonsense.”

Conceding that mass pay rises “could lead to more inflation”, he said: “But what could also stop inflation is that some of the companies could restrain their profits, and return that money into lower prices. BP and Shell and the others are making record profits of billions of pounds every quarter … one of the things they could do is sacrifice those profits. Never mind a windfall tax, what about a dividend that goes back to the people that are consuming their materials.”

Andy Gregory29 May 2022 10:01

1653813983Railway strikes ‘a defensive action’, union leader says

With the UK potentially facing the largest rail strike in decades, the general secretary of the RMT union, Mick Lynch, told Sky News: “We don’t want strike action.

“This is a defensive action against the companies and the government, in fact, who are bringing in stringent cuts [to] thousands of jobs for our members, thousands have already gone, and there are thousands more to go.

“They also want to completely change the conditions that our members have agreed with their employers, and we haven’t had a pay rise for a very long time. Many of our members are now in the third anniversary of not having a pay rise.

“They worked all the way through Covid, they mainly had to work at work, not staying at home working online, and they’re fed up with it. They want to have a security job, the want to provide a service for the public, but we do need a pay rise to keep up with the rocketing inflation that we’re all experiencing.”

Andy Gregory29 May 2022 09:46

1653813480UK must ‘buy, make and sell more’ domestically to fuel growth, Labor says

The UK has to “buy, make and sell more” domestically in order to boost economic growth, Labor Party chairwoman Anneliese Dodds has said.

Pressed to single out one policy that Labor has come up with to deal with the causes of the cost of living crisis, Ms Dodds said: “We’ve got to buy, make and sell more in our country, and that’s what [shadow chancellor] Rachel Reeves has been setting out.

“If we do that then we can build growth back up again, because we’ve had far too low levels of economic growth. That’s holding back people’s living standards, and we’ve set out exactly how we would be delivering that. So it really is Labor that is the party of ideas now.”

Andy Gregory29 May 2022 09:38

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