By Ben Kerrigan-
Former pensions minister Baroness Ros Altmann(pictured) has this morning called for a reckoning in Parliament , stating “there has to be a reckoning in Parliament” following the partygate scandal.
She warned that the British public are “losing trust and faith” in the “honour and the integrity shown by the people who seek to lead our country”.
Baroness Altmann added: “At the last election, we had, I think, the most terrible choice between a leader who was very much in favour of Brexit and a leader who was of the opposition at the time who was promoting all sorts of policies that most of us clearly couldn’t support.
“And indeed if you look at what has happened in Russia, you have to believe that we got the right outcome.
“This is a very dangerous world but I believe in truth, honesty and integrity and I also hope that the moral fibre of our country will be restored.
“At the moment I think there is a question mark over the integrity and the trust that can be placed in the people at the top.
“We have to be able to trust them. Certainly I think there has to be a reckoning in Parliament.
Her comments come after the first Conservative MP suggested he should resign as prime minister since he was fined for breaking Covid laws.
Backbencher Nigel Mills said: “I don’t think the PM can survive or should survive breaking the rules he put in place … He’s been fined.”
Boris Johnson broke law ‘in error’ and is ‘completely mortified’ by fine, minister claims
Mr Mills, MP for Amber Valley in Derbyshire, said the public was “rightly angry that at a time when they were observing the very strictest of the rules people who were making the rules didn’t have the decency to observe them”.
Johnson said he offered his “full apology” and it did not occur to him that he was in breach of COVID-19 restrictions when he attended his own birthday party at Downing Street in June 2020, which lasted for a brief ten mins.
He said he fully respected the outcome of their investigation.
Supporters of the prime minister have opposed calls for his resignation in the wake of the police fine, pointing to his important role in the Ukraine war.
However, Conservative Mp Nigel Mills expressed rather different views with the PA Agency.
Mills said: ‘I have two comments on that. The first one is, when will Ukraine be any better than it is now? If you told me this crisis would be over in three months’ time, then you might say, ‘well OK, let’s get this done [then] the prime minister can meet his fate’.
But the Ukraine crisis could last for a very, very long time. Are we saying there’s no chance of a change of prime minister for years?
‘The second thing I’d say … France are having an election – and they’re one of the three biggest parts of Nato. So if they can have an election with the alternative candidate being someone who probably [has] a radically different policy in relation to Ukraine than President (Emmanuel) Macron, whereas I don’t think any of the leadership contenders we would have would have a different policy to the prime minister.
So there wouldn’t really be any uncertainty that we would keep sending them as many weapons as we can and they want, and as much aid as we can, but we’re not going to be intervening. So I’m not convinced’.
Shadow chancellor,Rachel Reeves, argued that having a new PM would help Britain show support for Urkaine. She explained:
The House of Commons, the Conservative party, the Labour party, are united in our support and solidarity with Ukraine, and our opposition to the aggression that we see from Russia in Ukraine. So changing the Conservative leader would not change our resolve in terms of the conflict in Ukraine.
What you would get is leadership that could concentrate on the job in hand. There was talk earlier this week about parliament being recalled to discuss the use of chemical weapons in Ukraine. That talk of recalling parliament has now disappeared because the prime minister knows if parliament is recalled, he will be asked about the parties and the fines and he doesn’t want to do that.
And so I would argue the exact opposite to what [Tory MPs are saying] – actually, fresh leadership would mean that we would have a government that could concentrate on the issues that we need to focus on as a country, including the cost of living crisis.
However, the most unwise contribution was offered by former Conservative minister Edwina Currie, who told ITV’s Good Morning Britain that she did not care if Boris Johnson broke the ministerial code by knowingly misleading parliament about the No 10 parties. What counted was the “results” produced by politicians, she said:
‘I don’t care, I really don’t care.
‘What matters for me and what matters for millions of people in this country is the results we get from our politicians. The results we get from Boris are pretty good …
Last week we had a by-election here in the High Peak and we took a seat from Labour which means we’ve taken control of the borough from Labour.
Everybody had an opportunity to express their viewpoint. And what happened was we won the seat, we actually won it, that’s what’s happening’.
Laws are designed to be kept not broken, making it distasteful when makers of the law break their own laws. It highlights the one rule for us , one for the public.
The one weakness in the call for the prime minister to resign is one highlighted by t=The Eye Of Media in the past. The absence of calls for other ministers who broke the law to resign. There is a feeling among sober critics of the partygate scandal from this publication that punishment for an offence should apply to all or none, just like the fines imposed by police.