Labour’s Angela Rayner has told Boris Johnson to stop using his office for private gain, following the revelation he is under investigation for a £15,000 Christmas trip he took to the Caribbean back in 2019.
A list of MPs being probed by Kathryn Stone, the parliamentary commissioner for standards, was released today and it shows she is looking into the mystery of who funded Mr Johnson’s vacation to Mustique. The PM claimed at the time the trip was paid for by David Ross, a Tory party donor, who owns a property on the island, but Mr Ross has since denied this version of events.
Taking to Twitter after the scandal came to light, Ms Rayner, the newly instated shadow chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, said it was just “another day, another investigation into [Mr Johnson] for more sleaze and dodgy dealings”.
The deputy leader of the Labour Party went on to warn Mr Johnson to “stop using the office of prime minister as an opportunity to fund his lavish lifestyle and enrich his mates”.
It comes as the re-elected Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham critiqued his own party for being “too cautious” under leader Keir Starmer, which he said is the reason Labour performed so badly in last week’s elections.
He said the party should have set out more clearly how much it believes nurses and care workers should be paid, and accused the shadow cabinet of failing to back him sufficiently last autumn when he battled plans by Mr Johnson’s government to pay people in his area on furlough 67 per cent of their wages.
The so-called “King of the North” was re-elected at the weekend, taking 69 per cent of the vote. The size of his victory almost immediately led to suggestions he could be a future leader of the party.
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