Liz Truss
@trussliz
I tested positive for Covid this evening.

Thankfully I’ve had my three jabs and will be working from home while I isolate.

Northerner
@grimnorth_0
A good job you had your mask on this afternoon, Lizzy.

Kate McCann
@KateEMcCann
Liz Truss has tested positive for covid. She attended the packed meeting of Tory MPs and ministers in Portcullis House this evening, leaving before it finished. She was not wearing a mask.

Channel 4 News
@Channel4News
"The Prime Minister tells the truth."

Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries defends Boris Johnson after the publication of the Sue Gray report and following Met police reports that they have 300 images pertaining to Downing Street parties.

[Twitter video]

Ian Blackford
@Ianblackford_MP
This is what truth to power looks like at Westminster. A liar is allowed to keep his place- I am forced to leave for telling the truth. He misled the house, he must go. Tories must look themselves in the mirror and ask if they can allow this to go on much longer? Remove him now.

[Twitter video]

Peter Stefanovic
@PeterStefanovi2
Faced with accusations that he has lied to Parliament Boris Johnson responded today…with lies

[Twitter video]

Lord Agnew resigns in parliament after £4.3bn write-off, saying oversight of loans scheme had been ‘nothing less than woeful’
...
Speaking in the House of Lords, he accused the government of “arrogance, indolence and ignorance” in its attitude to tackling fraud estimated to cost £29bn a year.

The row over the decision will leave Johnson fighting Conservative anger on yet another front, with the prime minister facing pressure from backbenchers over Sue Gray’s inquiry into alleged lockdown-breaking parties, as well as over the rise in national insurance contributions, whips’ tactics, and accusations of Islamophobia.

In his statement, Lord Agnew said his resignation was not an attack on the prime minister but that he could not stay on in good conscience.

“Given that I am the minister for counter-fraud, it would be somewhat dishonest to stay on in that role if I am incapable of doing it properly. It is for this reason that I have sadly decided to tender my resignation as a minister across the Treasury and Cabinet Office with immediate effect.”
...
HMRC believes that about £5.8bn, or 7%, of the £81.2bn paid out by the taxpayer through the various Covid-19 emergency response schemes has been stolen. So far, just £500m has been recovered, and it expects to be able to recover between another £800m and £1bn by 2023.

The National Audit Office (NAO) has singled out the government’s “inadequate” attempts to tackle fraud within the £47bn business bounce-back loan scheme (BBLS). It warned in December that loans worth £4.9bn, or 11% of the total, would be lost to fraud because anti-fraud checks had been “implemented too slowly”.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jan/24/minister-resigns-in-protest-at-handling-of-fraudulent-covid-loans

EXCLUSIVE: Government ministers Michael Gove and Lord Agnew referred six Covid testing firms to the VIP ‘Fast Track’ lane

Good Law Project can now reveal that Michael Gove, and Cabinet Office Minister Lord Agnew, referred six firms down a fast track ‘VIP’ route to bid for lucrative Test and Trace contracts. This is the first time the names of the Ministers who referred testing firms for VIP treatment have been made public.

When we first revealed evidence of a VIP lane for politically connected suppliers to win multi-million pound testing contracts, Government claimed that what we were saying was “completely false”.

Now, after a lengthy battle with the Cabinet Office, it has admitted that senior ministers Michael Gove and Lord Agnew frequently made use of a ‘fast track’ lane.

In its FOI response, it confirms: “a total of 6 offers of help were received to the VIP email address: covidtestingtriage@dhsc.gov.uk from the Private Office of Michael Gove and the Private Office of Lord Agnew”.

https://goodlawproject.org/news/michael-gove-lord-agnew-testing-vip-lane/

Minister Lord Agnew accused in conflict of interest row

A Cabinet Office minister in charge of procurement is at the centre of a conflict of interest row after it emerged that he has shares in a firm that helps companies to bid for government contracts worth millions.

Lord Agnew of Oulton, also a significant Conservative donor, is among shareholders of Public Group, which makes its money by helping start-ups to win contracts with government departments. Labour accused Agnew of a potential conflict of interest and called for an “urgent ramping up of transparency at the heart of government” to tackle alleged cronyism.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/minister-lord-agnew-embroiled-conflict-of-interest-row-0gc2qp55l

Bury South MP says Tory policies ‘doing nothing’ to help constituents, piling further pressure on Boris Johnson

Just minutes before prime minister’s questions, Wakeford – elected as the MP for Bury South in 2019 – crossed the floor to sit with Keir Starmer’s party, declaring in a letter to Johnson resigning the Conservative whip that he was “incapable of offering the leadership and government this country deserves”.

The move will prove a huge embarrassment for Johnson, who is fighting to avoid enough of his own backbenchers submitting letters calling for a no-confidence vote. Fifty-four are needed to trigger a ballot. Many of those who have written a letter are members of the 2019 intake, like Wakeford. He submitted a letter last week.
...
To raucous cheers in the Commons chamber, Starmer “warmly welcomed” Wakeford to the opposition benches – gesturing to the MP who was sat directly behind him. “Like so many people up and down the country, he has concluded that the prime minister and the Conservative party have shown themselves incapable of offering the leadership and government this country deserved.”

Johnson attempted to appear bullish in front of his own MPs, telling them: “The Conservative party won Bury South for the first time in generations under this prime minister, with an agenda of uniting and levelling up and delivering for the people of BS, and we will win again in BS at the next election under this prime minister.”

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jan/19/tory-mp-christian-wakeford-has-defected-to-labour-says-starmer

Arthur Snell
@SnellArthur
This is gold.

[Twitter video]

LBC
@LBC
'I don't think he's a big figure.'

Jacob Rees-Mogg's response to Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross calling for Boris Johnson to resign.

@IainDale | @Jacob_Rees_Mogg

[Twitter video]

BBC Newsnight
@BBCNewsnight
“Douglas Ross has always been quite a lightweight figure”

Jacob Rees-Mogg MP says the Secretary of State for Scotland “is a much more substantial and important figure in this”

#Newsnight https://bbc.in/3I0s4wB

[Twitter video]

kathryn samson
@STVKathryn
In an interview Jacob Rees-Mogg stands by his comments on Douglas Ross saying:
‘If you take the King’s shilling you are beholden to the crown.’

BBC Scotland News
@BBCScotlandNews
"Even I am not as derogatory about [Douglas Ross] as his own Tory colleagues," says FM Nicola Sturgeon, referring to the "lightweight" comment from Rees-Mogg. Read more ➡http://bbc.in/34P4ip5

Live #FMQs updates ➡http://bbc.in/3Kbn3TJ

[Twitter video]

Representing Border
@ITVBorderRB
NEW: Jacob Rees-Mogg 'should just go and have a long lie down... preferably not in the House of Commons'.

That's the reaction from Scottish Conservative MSP @jamiegreeneUK after JRM called Douglas Ross a 'lightweight'

[Twitter video]

Kevin Brennan MP
@KevinBrennanMP
After Jacob Rees-Mogg's remarks about the leader of the Scottish Tories being a lightweight I asked him if he could even name the Leader of the Welsh Conservatives - he couldn't!

[Twitter video]

Government’s use of system to award deals to two firms during first Covid wave found to be unlawful
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Describing the allocation of offers to the VIP lane as “flawed”, the judge said: “There is evidence that opportunities were treated as high priority even where there were no objectively justifiable grounds for expediting the offer.”

She added: “The claimants have established that operation of the high priority lane was in breach of the obligation of equal treatment under the PCR (public contract regulations) … the illegality is marked by this judgment.”

More than 32bn items of PPE with a value of £14bn were bought through directly awarded and negotiated contracts.
...
The judge said it was “unlawful” to confer preferential treatment on PestFix and Ayanda on account of their allocation to the high priority lane, but in both cases said that they justified priority treatment on their merits and so would have been awarded anyway. In both instances O’Farrell said this was because the companies were offering “high volumes of PPE” at a time of urgent demand.

The judgment noted that gowns supplied by PestFix were deemed unsuitable for use in an NHS clinical setting. PestFix-supplied FFP2 masks were also found to be unsuitable for use in the NHS while its FFP3 masks failed testing and there were issues with the gowns. There are ongoing commercial disputes with PestFix with respect to the FFP3 masks and the gowns. O’Farrell also said that FFP2 masks supplied by Ayanda “have not been distributed into the NHS”.

Describing the advantages being placed in the VIP lane conferred, O’Farrell said: “Offers that were introduced through the senior referrers received earlier consideration at the outset of the process. The high priority lane team was better resourced and able to respond to such offers on the same day that they arrived, in contrast to the opportunities team (which assessed suppliers and their offers not prioritised through the VIP lane), where the sheer volume of offers prevented such swift consideration.”

It was accepted that the VIP lane did not act as a quality filter, it simply processed all offers provided they were considered credible.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jan/12/use-of-vip-lane-to-award-covid-ppe-contracts-unlawful-high-court-rules