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Privileges committee was biased against Boris Johnson, Tory MP Michael Fabricant suggests
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2m ago
03.57 EDT
Boris Johnson going for a run this morning in Brightwell-cum-Sotwell, Oxfordshire, where he has recently bought a house. Photograph: Leon Neal/Getty Images
12m ago
03.47 EDT
Privileges committee was biased against Boris Johnson, Tory MP Michael Fabricant suggests
There are not a lot of Tory MPs willing to publicly defend Boris Johnson anymore, but one of them is Sir Michael Fabricant, and on the Today programme he gave an interview suggesting the privileges committee was biased against Johnson.
Asked if he trusted parliament to judge Johnson, Fabricant replied:
I trust parliament but of course I’m not so sure that I trust the privileges committee.
Why do I say that? I actually sat in while Boris Johnson gave evidence. Now, you’ve got to understand that the committee sits in a quasi-judicial role. It’s there to dispassionately make a judgment.
I looked at the members of the committee. Some of them behaved in a totally proper way. Others were pulling faces, were looking heavenwards, were indicating they didn’t agree with what Boris was saying. You know, I was quite shocked actually by the behaviour of some of the members of the privileges committee.
On the subject of bias, Fabricant was then asked by the presenter, Nick Robinson, if he thought there was a link between his willingness to repeatedly defend Johnson and the fact that Johnson ensured he got a knighthood in the resignation honours published last week. Fabricant said he thought this topic would come up. But, in his reply, he implied that the knighthood was nothing to do with his pro-Johnson media appearances.
He told Robinson:
You know, I’ve served the people of Lichfield for 31 years. I’ve been on the government or opposition front benches for about nine years. I helped save, when there was an issue over tax the National Memorial Arboretum. I helped move HS2 from going by a housing estate. A number of people have said that they are surprised it took so long.
Michael Fabricant. Photograph: Tolga Akmen/EPA
Updated at 03.55 EDT
39m ago
03.20 EDT
The Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood, who chairs the Commons defence committee, has criticised Boris Johnson for the way he aa attacked Sir Bernard Jenkin, a Conservative member of the privileges committee, last night. Ellwood said that if Johnson had complaints about the process, he should have stayed on as an MP, and made a statement in the chamber, instead of resigning.
Ellwood told Sky News:
If Boris Johnson is unhappy with the committee’s findings, or indeed anybody on the committee, the personalities and so forth, he could easily have made a…
2023-06-15 02:36:12
Link from www.theguardian.com