Great Britain: Johnson needs an explanation | tagesschau.de

Bad news for Boris Johnson: Information is frequently hacked into the press from the prime minister’s closest circle. Is there a former counselor, Cummings?

Boris Johnson clearly denies this. A journalist asked if he had actually said in a familiar circle last year that he would rather accept the accumulation of corpses than take responsibility for the third lockdown. Johnson responded with a resounding “no”.

Christoph Brucel

Johnson is on the defensive – days before the local and regional elections. He has to defend himself for his coronavirus policy. The UK has recorded far more people who have died from or due to Coronavirus compared to other countries, close to 130,000. The accusation is: Because Johnson’s response came too late.

But there’s more: Johnson also faces leaked text messages and the question of who actually funded the extravagant refurbishment of his Downing Street apartment. “Every day there are new claims. There is a feeling. Everything must be clarified. We have to introduce new rules.”And the He said Opposition leader and Labor Party leader Keir Starmer.

Back to drama

Drama is back in British politics. It’s about disrespectful sayings, unpublished donations, and the possibility of awarding benefits to an entrepreneur. And it comes to a man who quits in November 2020: Dominic Cummings. Many in the government breathed a sigh of relief at the time, hoping that they would never have to see the deliberate and power-conscious advisor to the prime minister, who also led the Brexit campaign and, above all, made it a success.

Months before Cummings’ departure, in the spring of 2020, Johnson negotiated with the vacuum cleaner manufacturer Dyson. It was about making ventilators in the UK. Businessman Sir James Dyson has written a text message to the Prime Minister. He saw problems of a tax nature facing his employees who he wanted to send from Singapore to Great Britain.

Johnson replied that he settled it. A few days ago, the media reported this exchange and published excerpts from it. A discussion followed about the impact and transparency of government affairs. Labor politicians criticize that these good contacts – bypassing all government agencies – wished they had many entrepreneurs in the middle of the crisis.

Search for “babbler rat”

Since then, Johnson has been primarily concerned with the question of who is the “chatty rat” that is said to have sent this text messages and other information. Johnson is said to have used the term in discussions with editors-in-chief of many media outlets – and he is said to have mentioned Cummings in this context.

He defended himself in a blog and he denied this. In the same entry, he made serious allegations against Johnson regarding the downing street apartment renovation that Johnson shared with his fiancée Carrie Symonds. The interior is said to cost £ 200,000. The Prime Minister is entitled to £ 30,000 a year. It discusses the issue of the financier who is behind the financing and whether or not this can affect it. Conservative MP Charles Walker defended the prime minister, saying this was an unimportant question because the renewal did not cost taxpayers a penny.

The coming weeks will show whether this is really the case. Cummings will testify before a parliamentary committee in May. There are concerns within the Conservative Party that armed with tape recordings and photos of internal mail messages, it could make further allegations. The Conservative Party never liked the independent chancellor alongside Johnson.