ealth Secretary Steve Barclay has insisted Boris Johnson has a “huge role to play” in politics and may stay an MP after the subsequent basic election.
The backing comes after the previous prime minister hit out on the Cabinet Office for handing over data to police referring to additional potential lockdown breaches throughout his premiership.
Mr Barclay, who was appointed Health Secretary by Mr Johnson after Sajid Javid dramatically stop the position and triggered a wave of resignations that led to his downfall, defended his former boss on Sunday.
Asked on Sky’s Sophy Ridge On Sunday present whether or not the previous prime minister was “toast”, he replied: “No, I think Boris has a huge role to play. We saw his leadership in the country’s response to Ukraine where he took the lead on that.”
He added: “Of course I want to see Boris back as a member of Parliament and I want to see all my colleagues back but the point is Boris achieved many things”.
Mr Johnson appeared flustered when he was approached by Sky News at an airport in Washington DC on Friday and quizzed about entries from his ministerial diary which have been referred to 2 forces.
The Times, which broke the story, reported the paperwork present visits by pals to Chequers – the prime minister’s grace and favour nation residence – and additional occasions in Downing Street.
They merely file occasions in my day
Asked what the entries present, he replied: “They merely record events in my day.”
Mr Johnson was beforehand fined for attending a gathering in Downing Street to mark his birthday in June 2020 – one in all a sequence of political crises that in the end led to the top of his premiership.
“This whole thing is a load of nonsense from beginning to end … I think it’s ridiculous that elements in my diary should be cherry-picked and handed over to the police, to the Privileges Committee without even anybody having the basic common sense to ask me what these entries referred to,” he mentioned.
The new data got here to gentle throughout a evaluation by taxpayer-funded attorneys forward of the Covid public inquiry.
Mr Johnson has since introduced he's severing ties together with his authorized workforce, which was anticipated to price the general public purse £220,000.
It is known he misplaced confidence within the Cabinet Office.
The division is adamant ministers performed “no role” within the decision-making course of behind the police referrals, whereas Mr Johnson believes he's the sufferer of a “politically motivated stitch-up”.
But – as reported by the Sunday Times – Jeremy Quin, the Paymaster General, is known to have accredited the handing over of paperwork to the Privileges Committee investigating whether or not Mr Johnson lied to Parliament over partygate.
The fallout provides to the issues confronting Mr Sunak, who was handed a set penalty alongside Mr Johnson over the June 2020 occasion and now faces unrest from the previous prime minister’s allies.
Labour chief Sir Keir Starmer has mentioned he believes the general public is “fed up to the back teeth” with tales in regards to the former prime minister.
“These are deeply personal things and increasing revelations about Boris Johnson, I think, just add to that sense of hurt and people are fed up with it,” he instructed broadcasters on Friday.
“I do think there are questions now about why have these allegations not come out before, all these allegations.”
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