Johnson has usually claimed to have a successful government. A close look at what is happening in his government will show how terrible it is. Corruption in Johnson’s government is undeniable. We will start with the dispute over Owen Paterson’s sleaze. Paterson broke the lobbying rules and Johnson supported him. Now, Boris Johnson admits that his efforts to keep Owen Paterson were wrong. Paterson’s case and other cases of corruption show that corruption in Jonson’s government has become a disaster in Britain.
Owen Paterson’s background
According to the Gov.Uk, Owen Paterson is married with three children. Owen studied history at Radley College, Abingdon and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He joined the British Leather Company in 1979. He became Sales Director in 1983 and Managing Director in 1993 in the British Leather Company. He became Conservative MP for North Shropshire on 1 May 1997. Owen held several posts while in opposition. He was Shadow Minister for Transport from 2005 to 2007. He was also Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland from 2007 to 2010. He was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland from May 2010 to September 2012. Owen Paterson was Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs from 2012 to 2014.
Break of lobbying rules
Breaking of lobbying rules is an instance of corruption in Johnson’s government. According to the Sky news, Boris Johnson’s government has been accused of “corruption”. Johnson’s government voted to protect Conservative MP Owen Paterson from suspension. Owen Paterson was the MP for North Shropshire. He was facing a 30-day suspension from the House of Commons for “repeatedly” breaching lobbying rules. He received money for consultancy work on behalf of clinical diagnostics company, Randox, and Lynn’s Country Foods. The company is a meat processor and distributor. According to the Daily Mail, the two companies paid him £500,000.
Boris Jonson’s Confession
As the Sky news states, Boris Johnson finally admits ex-minister Owen Paterson broke lobbying rules. Mr Johnson admitted this under questioning from a House of Commons committee of senior MPs. At first, Mr Johnson tried to save Owen Paterson from a House of Commons suspension. However, two weeks later, he finally admitted that Owen Paterson had broken lobbying rules. The prime minister said he thinks it was a very sad case. He thinks there’s no question that Mr Paterson has broken the rules. The report shows that he received money for supporting Randox, a clinical diagnostics company, and Lynn’s Country Foods, a meat distributor.
Corruption in Johnson’s government
The controversy over Owen Paterson’s sleaze and the continuing disputes at Westminster have unveiled the corruption in Johnson’s government. The corruption dispute has damaged the prime minister and the Conservative party. According to the euronews, the House of Commons standards committee recommended suspending Paterson for 30 days. Johnson’s government ordered Conservative MPs to oppose suspension and call for an overhaul of the whole standards process.
According to the Guardian, critics have urged Boris Johnson to prevent MPs from using personal companies to skirt tax bills. Under some planned new rules on second jobs, MPs avoid taxes. Critics have returned to stopping such rules as the Conservative sleaze row in continuing in Westminster. Using a personal company to accept payments for consultancy work can provide benefits such as avoiding income tax of up to 45%. Multiple MPs were paid in total about £1m through arrangements.
Corruption in Jonson’s government seems to be rising day after day. Owen Paterson’s sleaze is only one case that has become a hot topic of debate nowadays. The results of a Daily Mail poll showed that Boris Johnson is leading the ‘sleaziest’ government in more than 40 years of British politics. The results of the survey showed that Boris Johnson is more than twice as ‘sleazy’ as Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer.
Honesty or deception
According to the Sky news, Mr Johnson wants to ban MPs from working as paid political consultants or lobbyists. He is now trying to win cross-party support for this achieving this goal. For fighting against government’s corruption, Jonson’s government claims that there is a system. According to the Guardian, this system is the register of members’ interests. In this system, MPs declare what they earn on top of their salary as an MP. They declare what they earn by working for private firms or others outside parliament. They also have to declare gifts, or substantial shareholdings, among other interests. For instance, the prime minister has declared that he took free hospitality at a Heathrow VIP lounge. He took the free hospitality on the way to his stay at the Goldsmith family’s villa e in Spain.
According to the Daily Mail, Boris Johnson suddenly ended a 22-minute press conference in Glasgow. He ended the conference after facing a lot of questions about the corruption of Conservative party. The prime minister refused to apologise about the case of Owen Paterson’s sleaze during the press conference. The conference was at the COP26 summit in Glasgow. Johnson seems to be afraid of questions about corruption. He seems to be hiding some facts. Do MPs and the prime minister declare everything honestly? Can people trust what officials declare?