Steerpike

Well, that's that then. This afternoon the Metropolitan Police fined the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of Exchequer for breaking lockdown laws. It follows an investigation into alleged Covid law-breaking at 12 gatherings in Whitehall and Downing Street. Both Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak have maintained their innocence right up until this week. Below are six of the most memorable denials by the two men since claims emerged last year. 1 December 2021  At Prime Minister's Questions, Johnson denies that Covid rules had been broken. He tells the House of Commons: 'All guidance was followed completely in No. 10.' 3 December 2021 Asked whether rules had been broken Johnson told the BBC: 'That's not true. We followed the guidance throughout.

Crispin Blunt has had quite the 24 hours. The Tory MP yesterday made an extraordinary intervention in the case of Imran Ahmad Khan, the Wakefield backbencher found guilty of the sexual assault of a 15-year-old boy. Blunt decided to release a highly unusual and hyberbolic statement which lambasted the conviction as a 'dreadful miscarriage of justice' incited by 'lazy tropes about LGBT+ people' based in 'Victorian era prejudice.

Who's out to get Rishi? That's the question allies of the Chancellor are asking after a week of revelations about the Richmond MP. They include the non-domiciled tax status of his wife, Akshata Murthy, Sunak's decision to hold a US green card and pay tax in America for his first 18 months in No. 11 and his own alleged links to tax havens. There have also been leaks over briefing battles, including the Treasury's opposition to insulating homes in the energy strategy and a proposal to double the energy rebate. The timing of such stories – coinciding with Boris Johnson emerging from the darkest period of his premiership – has raised suspicions about Johnson loyalists seeking revenge for Sunak's lukewarm support during partygate.

It seems that taking gratuitous swipes at J.K. Rowling has become something of a competition for liberal broadsheets on both sides of the pond. First, the New York Times took a potshot at the Harry Potter creator for its new marketing campaign trumpeting 'independent journalism.' And now the Guardian – keen to prove that, it too, is achingly right on – has published a piece which implies that Rowling's views on same-sex spaces are somehow more controversial than domestic abuse. Grim. The latest jibe at Britain's greatest living writer came in a piece detailing the controversies around the production of the Fantastic Beasts film.

Four weeks ago, Rishi Sunak was riding high, Boris Johnson was on the slide and the Chancellor’s daughter was proudly telling the women’s lobby drinks that she too wants to be a reporter. Now, after a fortnight of damning media coverage, her ambition might have been changed. Lambasted over his spring statement, mocked over his PR stunts and hounded by questions about his wife’s business affairs, Sunak is facing a tougher political landscape.  How can Rishi, the long-time favourite as next PM, come back from all this? Speak to ten different backbenchers and you’ll get ten different answers.

What price, solidarity? That's the question Europe's leaders have been asking since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February. The answer, it turns out is: not too high, a price, thanks. One German SDP politician, Florian Post, went viral last weekend after complaining that: I don't know if it's just me, but I'm starting to find the Ukrainian ambassador's impertinence unbearable. I condemn Russia's war of aggression in the strongest possible terms, but I don't feel like freezing, nor do I want a Third World War. Such concerns were met with sarcastic offers to divert blankets and clothes from Ukrainian refugees to warm freezing Germans instead. Now, another of the continent's less edifying politicians has made clear her thoughts on Europe's current sanction regime towards Russia.

It's tough at the top in Westminster. You've climbed the greasy pole in British politics only to be buried in red boxes, urgent questions and endless morning media rounds. But there are some perks to being a government frontbencher: as the latest release of ministerial gifts makes clear. Released just before the current recess, they shed some light on the tastes of Boris Johnson's top team. The ministerial code states that ministers are allowed to keep only gifts below the value of £140, unless they pay their value above that sum. So when they dig into their own pockets to keep one, a picture of their tastes begins to emerge.

Westminster is in recess but many of its finest are out and about, knocking up doors in their local constituencies. Council elections are just five weeks away and while some struggle to muster enthusiasm for such contests, the result will invariably be seen as a referendum on the two main party leaders. But amid all the paper candidates and MP wannabes, one name on a forthcoming ballot paper clearly jumps out: Lutfur Rahman, the prospective mayor of Tower Hamlets. Steerpike has long covered the antics of Rahman, who in 2015 earned himself the dubious distinction of being Britain’s first directly elected mayor to be removed after being found guilty of electoral fraud.

Sunday: a day of rest, church and more headlines about Tory MPs misbehaving. Today's unfortunate backbencher is David Warburton, who faces the unholy trinity of allegations about sex, drugs and undeclared Russian loans. The Somerset MP has now had the party whip withdrawn, following claims he took cocaine and was sexually inappropriate towards three women. He denies any wrongdoing. The excesses of the parliamentary Conservative party are by no means the only booze-related story in today's newspapers. It appears that Lindsay Hoyle isn't a fan of Mr S's dispatches about sloshed parliamentary staffers snoozing off their hangovers overnight in their offices.