Tory MPs ready to move against Boris Johnson over Jimmy Savile slur. Twelfth backbencher joins calls for leader to quit as Starmer row grows

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  1. Tory MPs ready to move against Boris Johnson over Jimmy Savile slur
    Growing calls from backbenchers to retract comments about Starmer
    Boris Johnson has been warned that more Tory MPs will put in letters of no confidence unless he retracts his claim that Sir Keir Starmer failed to prosecute the paedophile Jimmy Savile when he was director of public prosecutions.

    Johnson repeated his claim at prime minister’s questions today after Starmer accused him of “parroting the conspiracy theories of violent fascists to score cheap political points”.
    “He knows exactly what he is doing. It’s time to restore some dignity,” the Labour leader said.
    The prime minister said that Starmer had apologised in 2013 and taken “full responsibility for what had happened on his watch”.
    Tobias Ellwood, a Tory MP and the chairman of the defence select committee, today became the 11th Tory MP to call for the prime minister to go, citing concerns over Johnson’s comments about Savile.

    Ellwood told Sky News: “The strategy it seems is one of survival. Rushed policy announcements and attacking Keir Starmer this week with Jimmy Savile. Who advised the prime minister to say this? We’re better than this. We must seek to improve our standards and rise above where we are today.”

    His concerns are shared by many Tory MPs in the 40-strong One Nation group, who have accused Johnson of behaving like a “pound shop Donald Trump” and suggested that more letters would go in.

    Sir Keir Starmer accused the prime minister of “parroting conspiracy theories”
    A senior member of the group of centrist MPs said: “The basic decencies are something we want to see in politics. There is a widespread feeling that this broke any kind of convention. In No 10 they’ll think that the dead cat [strategy] worked. They think they’re being very clever. But it’s another piece of corrosion.

    “If Graham [Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers] continues to receive this steady trickle of letters he might suddenly find that his cup overflows rather unexpectedly.”

    Simon Hoare, the Tory MP for North Dorset, said on Twitter that the “Jimmy Savile false allegation should be withdrawn” and Sir Charles Walker, another backbencher, said that Johnson should withdraw it and apologise.

    “Of course he should withdraw it,” he told Channel 4 News. “It didn’t add to the overall debate. It’s really good though to be able to apologise. I think you never get marked down for an apology. It’s not a sign of weakness.”

    Many Tory MPs believe that the claim about Savile is part of a deliberate “dead cat” strategy by Johnson to deflect from accusations about parties in No 10.
    The term was coined by Sir Lynton Crosby, the Australian election strategist whom Johnson has begun consulting again as he seeks to ensure his survival. It refers to the idea of saying something deliberately provocative to distract from another issue.

    Johnson first made the accusation about Starmer on Monday as he attempted to fend off revelations about lockdown-breaking Downing Street parties after the publication of an update by Sue Gray, the senior civil servant who has investigated the matter.
    He said: “The report does absolutely nothing to substantiate the tissue of nonsense that he [Starmer] has said. Absolute nonsense.
    “Instead this leader of the opposition, a former director of public prosecution — who used his time prosecuting journalists and failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile, as far as I can see — he chose to use this moment to continually prejudge a police inquiry.
    “He has reached his conclusions about it. I am not going to reach any conclusions and he would be entirely wrong to do so.
    “I have complete confidence in the police, I hope that they will be allowed simply to get on with their job and don’t propose to offer any more commentary about it and I don’t believe that he should either.”

    In an interview in The Sun yesterday Johnson stood by the claim, despite the fact it has been criticised by multiple fact-checking organisations.
    Reuters Fact Check investigated the claims last year and concluded they were false.
    Fact Check UK, another independent organisation, also found that Starmer was not involved in the failure to prosecute Savile. The television personality, who died in 2011 at the age of 84, was not brought to justice for his sex abuse crimes.

    At prime minister’s questions Starmer appealed directly to Tory MPs. He said: “Theirs is the party of Winston Churchill. Our parties stood together as we defeated fascism in Europe. Now their leader stands in the House of Commons parroting the conspiracy theories of violent fascists to score cheap political points. He knows exactly what he is doing. It’s time to restore some dignity.”
    Johnson responded: “I don’t want to make heavy weather of this but I’m informed in 2013 he apologised and took full responsibility of what happened on his watch. And that was the right thing.”

  2. Nice, now we just need 42 more MPs to trigger a vote of no confidence, and even then there’s no guarantee they’ll vote Boris out.

    Believe it or not, May won the vote of no confidence against her four years ago. She just decided to voluntarily step down as Tory leader afterwards. Boris will have to be driven out kicking and screaming.

    Genuinely says a lot when Johnson was getting on the Matt le Tiss while us plebs couldn’t even visit dying, ill or otherwise vulnerable loved-ones. Says even more when only twelve Conservative MPs have the nerve to even write to the 1922 Committee after all this has come out. If I were a conservative I’d be absolutely disgusted with the state of my party.

    I’d honestly rather have another 5 years of May than this clown fiesta.

  3. I recall some pretty outrageous claims against a previous Labour leader which no one in the government or media seemed that keen to correct

  7. This is simple.

    – Make ‘Saville-gate’ more important news to push Partygate out the news cycle.

    – Johnson retracts comments.

    – Johnson carries on with the ‘problem’ solved.

    Don’t fall for it, The Tories aren’t going to turn on him until they have decided who will replace him, and no one is ready to brave it.

  8. while it is welcome, it is not altruism – Tory seats are going to come under pressure as never before and while it is generally true that voters have short memories the last two years and the revelations about Johnson’s leadership will linger.

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