Westferry - a Sorry Affair. A thread follows on Robert Jenrick, Richard Desmond, Ben Elliot, and an (until now) secret apology (1)
"The case is closed” and Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick has done no wrong, No10 declared defiantly last month over the Westferry property deal furore. Which doesn’t quite stack up with what’s being going on behind closed doors, @TimesRadio has learned (2)
In fact, the Conservative Party’s two co-chairmen Ben Elliot and Amanda Milling gave a grovelling apology to the party’s most senior committee of grandees over the messy donor scandal last week (3)
The pair were summoned before the 1922 Committee’s executive, who demanded to know why a Cabinet minister had been seated next to the former newspaper proprietor-turned-property developer Richard Desmond at a major party fundraiser (4)
And, at the very moment Desmond wanted Jenrick to rule in his favour over his highly controversial 1,500-home development in east London. Ministers must never again be placed in such potentially compromising positions, the 1922 exec insisted (5)
Elliot agreed and apologised. Mistakes had been made, the PR supremo and the Duchess of Cornwall’s nephew conceded, and new procedures are now in place to ensure they don't happen again (6)
All this will make Robert Jenrick’s appearance before the Commons Housing Committee on Wednesday morning even more uncomfortable for him. Having ducked all attempts by MPs to put him on the spot so far over his unlawful decision to green light the Westferry development... (7)
...Jenrick is finally appearing before the committee at 9.30am, on the very day MPs leave for their long summer holiday. The HCLG Committee have no less than 26 unanswered questions for him. But the questions for Elliot and Milling don’t end there either (8)
I’m also told by several Tory greybeards that they were astonished to see Richard Desmond at the party’s Winter Ball last November as an official donor. He hadn’t been a donor for very long, it transpires (9)
The £12,000 that the former Express owner had paid for his table was the first donation on record that he has made to the Conservative party. Why hadn’t he given before? Because, I am told, there had been a long running unofficial ban on any donations from Desmond (10)
The ban stretched back to David Cameron’s era. As one party grandee told me, there was “no f***ing way we were taking money from Desmond”, for the reason being that he was thought to be “highly transactional” and “trouble” (11)
The party’s perception, right or wrong, was that Desmond would want something in return for his generosity – such as face time with the Housing Secretary over a lucrative development, to pluck an example out of the air (12)
So what changed? Why was the billionaire allowed back into the fold? “The new regime has a significantly lower tolerance for this sort of thing,” one CCHQ old hand told me. “Ben Elliot's an idiot and desperate to prove to Boris he can raise lots of money” (13)
Others give a different explanation. “Its naivety, not corruption,” said another senior Tory. “If you’re going to take a bung to approve a planning decision, then do it for 12 million not 12 grand” (14)
Others again point the finger at the Tory leader himself and his City Hall circle. Boris Johnson and his senior aide Sir Eddie Lister have had a long association with Desmond that stretches back years to the PM’s time as London Mayor (15)
Exactly why the Tory party door was re-opened to Richard Desmond may never be known. It’s highly likely that it has been firmly closed again now. What’s for sure is this won’t be the last billionaire donor scandal in Westminster (16)
End of thread. More on Times Radio just after 7am (17)
