.@BorisJohnson's deputy chief of staff, Baroness [Simone] Finn, has retained her shareholding of between 25% and 50% in Francis Maude Associates, a consultancy that advises governments, although she has resigned as a director. When I asked Downing Street about this, a...
spokesman said: “Baroness Finn has declared all her relevant interests to the House of Lords, and in addition, complied with the Cabinet Office requirements for special advisers to declare outside interests.The Cabinet Office has a formal process to avoid...
conflicts of interest arising from such declared interests.” All I would point out is that perceived conflicts of interests can be as damaging for confidence in government as actual conflicts of interest. And if Francis Maude Associates takes on new business with this...
government, there will be a perception of a conflict of interest.
PS Francis Maude tells me his firm has done no work for the UK Govt, nor has it sought any work with them and “nor will we”

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More from @Peston

16 Mar
There is an an enormous amount of noise around the apparent statement in the government's "Integrated Review" that the government is increasing its stockpile of nuclear warheads by more than a third. But a close reading of what it says shows NO SUCH commitment at all...
What the document says is "in 2010 the Government stated an intent to reduce our overall nuclear warhead stockpile ceiling from not more than 225 to not more than 180 by the mid-2020s. However, in recognition of the evolving security environment, including the...
developing range of technological and doctrinal threats, this is no longer possible, and the UK will move to an overall nuclear weapon stockpile of no more than 260 warheads". To be clear, the current stockpile of nuclear weapons is unknown. It is a state secret. But whatever...
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19 Feb
According to a source, the departure of Oliver Lewis - or “Sonic” - from Downing St was because “Carrie wants [Henry] Newman running the Union” - ie the unit charged with keeping Scotland in the UK, which was Lewis’s job. This shows not that Carrie Symonds is necessarily...
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As a lead indicator, this feels significant ahead of lockdown easing. It is not that there has been a great surge of Covid19 infections. But if the rate of decline has slowed or stopped, as Zoe indicates, that shows quite how hard it is to get prevalence down to trivial...
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Read 4 tweets
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.@ProfCalumSemple said something highly significant on @BBCr4today this morning: “The mutation of most concern, which we call E484k, has also occurred spontaneously in the new Kent strain in parts of the country too”. He is saying that the Kent strain, which has run rife
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