Yesterday’s post, ‘The Venn diagram link between Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage: Chris Bryant MP’, has background information on the Labourite who managed to relentlessly target and pursue the former Prime Minister out of office.
Having reviewed Bryant’s back story and more recent years in the House of Commons, we now come to 2022, when Boris’s ‘parties’ in No. 10 became the subject of statements and debates in Parliament.
On January 22, 2022, allegations appeared suggesting that if Conservative MPs did not support Boris, who was still in post at the time, Government funding would be cut off from their constituencies.
As Chris Bryant made the allegations, I have reason to doubt their veracity. GB News reported (emphases mine):
The senior MP who heads the Commons “sleaze” watchdog has warned Government attempts to pressurise Tory MPs seeking to oust Boris Johnson are illegal.
Chris Bryant, chairman of the Commons Standards Committee, said threats to withdraw public funding from MPs’ constituencies amounted to “misconduct in public office” and should be referred to the police.
He said there were even allegations the Prime Minister had been directly involved as he battles to save his job ahead of a keenly-awaited report into lockdown parties in Downing Street.
Sorry, I find that hard to believe.
An anti-Boris Conservative MP was also stirring the pot on the subject:
His intervention came after William Wragg, the senior Tory MP who first raised concerns about attempted “blackmail” by No 10, disclosed that he is to meet police to discuss his claims.
Mr Bryant, who is a Labour MP, said he had spoken to “about a dozen” Conservatives in recent days who had either been threatened by Government whips with having funding cut from their constituencies or promised funding if they voted “the right way”.
The Guardian reported what Bryant had told the BBC:
“I have even heard MPs alleging that the prime minister himself has been doing this,” Bryant told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme. “What I have said to all of those people is that that is misconduct in public office. The people who should be dealing with such allegations are the police.
“It is illegal. We are meant to operate as MPs without fear or favour. The allocation of taxpayer funding to constituencies should be according to need, not according to the need to keep the prime minister in his job.”
He described the government’s levelling up fund as “an open opportunity for government ministers to corruptly hand out money to some MPs and not to others”. The fund has been a source of controversy. Two councils in England represented by Tory ministers have received funding despite being among the least deprived fifth of local authorities nationwide.
Downing Street has said it will not launch its own inquiry into Wragg’s claims, despite calls for it to do so. A No 10 spokesperson said it would only open an inquiry if it were presented with evidence to support the allegations.
Too right.
I suspect that Bryant’s beef was that Conservatives were doing something positive to help deprived areas, such as Teesside, which had suffered under decades of Labour domination.
The Sue Gray report on Partygate was also due around that time:
The blackmail allegations are just one source of acute pressure on No 10. Johnson also faces calls for transparency over the Sue Gray inquiry into the Downing Street parties. The opposition has asked that the full evidence be published after it emerged that the report was likely to just be a brief summary of findings.
Labour and the Liberal Democrats called on Friday for all accompanying evidence – including emails and witness accounts – to be released alongside the report’s publication.
When asked whether the prime minister should step aside over the more than 15 parties alleged to have taken place, several Conservative MPs have said they will wait for the report’s findings before deciding whether to back him or not. If they are unsatisfied, he could face a no-confidence vote.
The report is expected to be ready at some point from the middle of next week, according to government sources.
Subsequent news stories reported that, unbeknownst to most, Gray, the senior civil servant said to wield much power, was already in talks with Labour’s Sir Keir Starmer about becoming his chief of staff. Of course, she had been given a pass, so to speak, and is still headed towards that job.
Incredibly, Bryant was given an accolade on June 29 that year, having been proclaimed a ‘worthy winner’ of the Civility in Politics Award.
Guido Fawkes has the story (emphases his):
Congratulations to Chris Bryant, joint winner of the 2022 Civility in Politics award. Last night he took home the gong alongside minister Robin Swann [at the time, Minister of Health in the Northern Ireland Assembly], with judges claiming Bryant stood out in a crowded field for his “praise and support from across the spectrum“:
As Chair of the Standards Committee Chris has been responsible for marshalling commitments from people across the political spectrum to hold those in power to account, striving to maintain standards and facilitate scrutiny, of his own side as well as others.
Bryant has an unrivalled record of thoughtful and reflective conduct in office. He is a worthy winner. Here are just a few examples of his upstanding behaviour:
This April, in the spirit of bipartisanship and civility, he declared [Brexit negotiator Lord] David Frost “an idiot”:
Then just six days ago, Bryant again reached across the aisle to mock Frost after the by-election results [Tiverton and Honiton, now with a Lib Dem MP]:
Who could forget the moment he stormed out of the Commons after, according to multiple chamber eyewitnesses, telling [fellow Labour MP and Speaker of the House Sir Lindsay] Hoyle to “f*ck off”:
To be fair to Bryant, he did eventually return a week later to apologise. No doubt this sealed the deal for the judges yesterday as they handed him a trophy for his efforts. Commiserations to the nominees who missed out this time, including Wes Streeting and Tom Tugendhat. It must be tough to lose an award recognising standards and civility to a man who had to refer himself to the standards commissioner…
Indeed. What hypocrisy.
I had no idea who votes in this award and never heard of it until 2022.
According to a September 27, 2019 article from The Guardian, it was launched that year, the paper says, ‘for courtesy and decency amid anger over Brexit’:
The annual Civility in Politics prizes will be given out to politicians who have shown courtesy and decency through their work, with categories of bridge-builder of the year and campaigner of the year.
The Labour peer Lord Wood, one of the figures behind the awards, said: “Everyone agrees that politics in the UK is facing a crisis of trust and a crisis of civility.
“As divisions and bitterness mount in the continuing debates around Brexit, we strongly believe that politics must respond not by mirroring these trends, but by resisting them.
“These awards are a small attempt by a group of people in public life – of different and no political persuasions – to shine a spotlight on politicians who argue their case with decency and civility, and are able to engage with people across the divides that threaten to scar our country.”
The launch follows a dramatic week in British politics in which Boris Johnson sparked fury among MPs for his continued description of legislation to block a no-deal Brexit as a “surrender bill”.
The award’s website shows the full list of 2022 award winners. There was a Bridge Builders award won by the Local Government Association’s Civility in Public Life Programme, a Campaigner of the Year won by Nazanin Ratcliffe’s husband Richard and the Daniel Stevenson award given posthumously to David Amess, the Conservative MP stabbed to death in October 2021.
Returning to Chris Bryant, he also played a role in Liz Truss’s downfall on October 19, 2022, in the fracking bill vote which led to her final 24 hours as leader of the Conservative Party, although she stayed on as Prime Minister until Conservative MPs voted in Rishi Sunak as the next party leader.
You can find out more about that vote in the second half of this post and this post, which mentions Chris Bryant alleging that bullying occurred in the division lobbies. The vote was initially said to have been a vote of confidence in Truss’s premiership, then, in the closing arguments, it was announced that it was simply a vote on fracking.
Bryant also appeared on Sky News, still pressing on with his story:
However, there was another photo which portrayed something calmer. Photos are forbidden in the voting lobbies, but, somehow, these got through:
Sir Lindsay Hoyle looked into the matter and reminded members that photography is forbidden in the voting lobbies.
On November 1, Guido gave us the results of Hoyle’s investigation. By then, Truss was on gardening leave.
The only person in trouble appeared to be Chris Bryant:
Lindsay Hoyle has concluded his investigation into the events that took place in the division lobbies on October 19, when the government called a vote of confidence in itself in response to a Labour Opposition Day motion on fracking.
According to reports at the time, many from Labour MPs, it was claimed there had been verbal bullying and physical manhandling. Tory MP Alex Stafford was reportedly manhandled into the ‘correct’ voting lobby by Therese Coffey and Jacob Rees-Mogg.
Contrary to all those reports, Hoyle has found no evidence of any of this that night. A statement read to the Commons this morning concluded “that atmosphere was tense… but there is no evidence of any bullying or undue influence placed on other members.
While some members thought physicial contact was being used to force a member into the lobby, the member concerned has said very clearly that this did not happen.
In fact the only person the report does find against are Labour MPs like Chris Bryant, who took photos in the lobby and tweeted them out – a breach of Commons rules. The man who judges others on standards comes a cropper again…
A short time later, Guido posted again, ‘Will Chris Bryant Correct the Record?’, which said:
Chris Bryant is the chair of the Commons Committee on Standards. It is his job to uphold standards in the House and oversee investigations into other members for breaking rules. While confronting Boris at the Liaison Committee in 2021, Bryant slammed the then-PM for failing to correct the record:
When a minister lies, they should correct the record, I presume you agree… It seems that you very rarely correct the record. Why is that?
On the evening of Wednesday 19 October, Chris Bryant stood up in the Commons and told MPs the following as a matter of fact:
As you know, Members are expected to be able to vote without fear or favour and the behaviour code, which is agreed by the whole House, says that there shall never be bullying or harassment of Members. I saw Members being physically manhandled into another Lobby and being bullied.
On the BBC later that night he ramped up this rhetoric, saying what he saw was “clear bullying”.
Today’s report by the Speaker, summarising the testimony of those involved and with a good vantage point, rejects this claim entirely.
Lindsay Hoyle says, “While there was some physical contact between Members, there is no evidence from our investigation that this was any more than a gesture of comfort”.
Will the ever-virtuous Bryant follow his own advice and correct the record forthwith?
Even then, Bryant still insisted he was telling the truth in this Twitter exchange. Christian Calgie, by the way, has since graduated from Guido and moved on to The Express:
Less than three weeks later, Bryant had a go outside of Parliament, at Kate Andrews, The Spectator‘s economics editor, who was on the BBC’s Question Time panel.
On November 18, Guido wrote:
Chris Bryant, incumbent winner of the civility in politics award, is currently hectoring Kate Andrews, one of the country’s most prominent female economic voices. Taking to Twitter, Chris Bryant complained that the BBC hadn’t accompanied her Question Time appearance with a mention that she “is part of the Institute for Economic Affairs, which is notoriously secretive about their funding.”
Guido included a link to Bryant’s tweet then continued:
Two quick points, Chris:
-
- She isn’t “part of the Institute for Economic Affairs” – Kate left the IEA almost three years ago.
- The BBC did mention it, in their graphic announcing the night’s lineup.
Guido included the Question Time graphic of Andrews, which clearly stated:
Was Associate Director at the Institute of Economic Affairs think tank
Bryant was still angry.
Guido went on …
The one-man standards arbiter strikes again…
UPDATE: Bryant doubles down
… and included this Twitter exchange between the MP and Andrews:
Andrews’s IEA page is blank. Bryant posted a screenshot of it and wrote:
You might want them to remove this.
She replied, pointing out that it had no content and the date listed was 8 July 2016.
She added:
It is one thing to make a mistake. This doubling down is much worse. I look forward to your correction.
I have no idea how that ended.
A couple of weeks later, on December 6, Guido told us that Bryant was giving a lecture at the University of Westminster in his capacity as the 2022 Civility in Politics winner:
Chris Bryant is giving a speech at the University of Westminster this evening on “truth, honesty and integrity.” In full, the ‘Civility in Politics 2022’ winner will talk on:
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- The importance of truth, honesty and integrity in public office and in news reporting
- The role of algorithms in filtering news & their distorting effect on the truth
- How news providers stir up hatred and drive divisive agendas to generate clicks and the advertising revenue which follows
- Why it is essential that news publishers are bound by robust standards on accuracy – the integrity of our democracy relies on it
Chris Bryant should pause the pontificating until he spends some time on introspection…
Since Bryant won the civility in politics award – the irony of which Guido detailed here – he’s not stopped putting his foot in it.
A month after winning it he was forced to apologise for false claims he’d made in Parliament, the outcome of an unprecedented legal challenge that saw his parliamentary privilege come unstuck. Not just a minor false allegation – accusing Christopher Chandler of money laundering and being a Russian spy…
As Chris lectures students on how “news providers stir up hatred and drive divisive agendas”, he may want to think about his description of Liz Truss’s new batch of ministers:
It feels like pretty much anyone with a brain, a conscience and a work ethic has been purged from government either by Johnson or Truss. It’s an empty vessel of a government – loud, noisy but dangerously vacuous.
When he turns to “the importance of truth, honesty and integrity in public office”, he will surely mention his recent smearing of Tory MPs by falsely claiming – on the floor of the House – he had witnessed bullying in the voting lobbies the night of the fracking vote. He is yet to correct the record…
On the topic of calling on news publishers to be “bound by robust standards on accuracy”, he may choose to mention how even the BBC managed to show him up when he accused them of failing to mention Kate Andrews “is part of the [IEA]” when she appeared on Question Time last month. Of course she isn’t, and he didn’t back down when this inaccurate bullying of a female columnist was called out…
Anyone wanting to watch the speech can reserve a spot here. Guido, for one, will be giving it a miss…
As if all of that weren’t enough, the year ended with Bryant getting a knighthood!
Guido has the honours list made public on December 30. Bryant was rewarded for political and public service. This makes him Sir Chris Bryant.
Leader of the House Penny Mordaunt did not appreciate Bryant’s allegations about corruption on Thursday, January 19, 2023 during Business Questions, over which she presides. He began with slurring the Levelling Up funds, which have been used in the most downtrodden parts of the country that had been consistently voting Labour until 2019:
In the 18th century, a Government Minister used to stand at the entrance to Westminster Hall at the end of the parliamentary Session and reward MPs who had voted loyally with the Government throughout the year with dollops of cash. Now, I am not trying to give ideas to the Government, and I hope that everybody would accept that that is utterly corrupt. I also happen to think that the operation of the levelling-up fund and of the towns fund is completely corrupt, because it is not based on need, it is not based on the poorest communities in the country and it is not based on levelling up. It is discretionary and it is competitive, which rigs itself deliberately against the poorest communities in the land, as we have seen over the past 24 hours. Can we have a debate in Government time on corruption in the operation of slush funds in this country?
She replied:
The hon. Gentleman is the Chair of the Committee on Standards, so he will be very able and equipped to investigate this further.
He shot back:
Really? That’s great.
Hardly a civil reply.
Mordaunt said:
It is his Committee; he can do what he likes. I would just say this to him: first of all, we have a number of funds. We have the levelling-up fund, the community ownership fund—
Bryant fired back:
Corrupt.
Mordaunt named more funds. After each one, Bryant said:
Corrupt.
She closed their exchange with this:
There are many, many funds. The hon. Gentleman is saying that they are all corrupt. They are all available to view on gov.uk, and you can see where funding has gone.
I would also say to the hon. Gentleman that these bids are not assessed by Ministers; they are assessed independently. They are scored and it is transparent. Good feedback will be given to those who did not progress in this round. Quite often, what happens is that bids that are not successful in one round are successful in successive rounds, because those areas that needed improvement have been done.
Finally, I would say to the hon. Gentleman, because of the way in which he has put his question, that he has slight form in accusing people of doing things that on investigation they have turned out not to have been done. It was very recently that he accused one of my colleagues of manhandling somebody who turned out not to have been handled at all. I would just urge a little caution in how the hon. Gentleman makes such accusations.
On May 23, Bryant hoped to be in for a new plum, prestigious job, that of a rector at an Oxford college, in this case, Exeter College.
Guido told us:
According to Guido’s scholarly source, the Labour MP is on the final shortlist of candidates to become the new Rector of Exeter College at Oxford University, and apparently interviewed all day Monday for the position. Bryant hasn’t announced any plans to stand down, so this would come as a surprise…
Guido decided to ask Chris how the weather was in Oxford yesterday. Bryant, never typically lost for words, clammed up and has since been dodging Guido’s calls. After agreeing to talk yesterday evening, he changed his mind. Today he was otherwise engaged in Windsor for his investiture as a knight bachelor of the realm. A bauble traditionally dangled at the end of one’s career…
Guido contacted Exeter College, but they had no comment other than confirming that the new rector would take up the post in September 2024:
September 2024 would be an ideal jumping off point for an MP who doesn’t fancy another gruelling election campaign…
Chris and Guido have been sparring partners for two decades. We were once even neighbours. He had a cancer scare recently, and no one would blame him if he has decided that next year, at the age of 62, there might be more to life than politics. If it is true that he is standing down, we wish Sir Chris well…
It seems that Exeter College didn’t like the cut of Sir Chris Bryant’s jib. On June 27, Guido informed us that he didn’t make the cut (purple emphases mine):
Sir Chris Bryant has sadly missed out on the Rectorship of Exeter College, Oxford. As Guido reported last month, Bryant was on the final shortlist of candidates for the £105,000-a-year role, and was hoping to take up the post after stepping down from Parliament next year. Instead, one of the other three candidates, Major General Dr Andrew Roe CB, has been selected. Roe is Chief Executive of the UK Defence Academy. Guido hears Bryant was seen as “too controversial” a figure, so the Governing Body voted for Roe instead. There are plenty of other Oxford rejects walking around SW1, Chris…
In yesterday’s post, I covered most of what Bryant said about Boris in the June 19 debate about Harriet Harman’s Privileges Committee condemnation of him to the extent that MPs agreed not to give the former PM a former members’ pass to the parliamentary estate, which is highly unusual.
The Privileges Committee then came up with a separate report, alleging that some MPs were trying to obstruct their work. They held a debate on that on Monday, July 7. Bryant, having relinquished the chairmanship of the Privileges Committee in 2022 because he had already decided Boris was guilty, wisely did not appear at the debate, although his name came up several times.
However, we can see more ‘civility’ from the Labour MP in the following video, when he grilled the Prime Minister on why he was not showing up at two consecutive Prime Minister’s Questions. This is from Tuesday, July 4, when Rishi Sunak appeared before the Liaison Committee, comprised of the heads of the various select committees. Bryant still heads the Standards Committee:
Bryant also had a go at Rishi over the special report from the Privileges Committee on the MPs who were allegedly obstructing their work on bashing Boris. Guido says:
While it might not have matched the box office value of Boris’s appearance last year, Sir Chris Bryant did at least provide some light entertainment at today’s Liaison Committee hearing. The Civility in Politics winner grilled Rishi over his poor attendance at PMQs – he’s missing the next two appearances – and kicked up a fuss over the Kangaroo Court’s report … Rishi hasn’t actually read the full 30,000 word report, though Guido can hardly blame him. There was also some confusion over which report Bryant was actually talking about in the first place: the 30,000 word doorstop, or the 14 page whinge about the Court’s critics. Bryant thought the latter was only 3 pages, for some reason…
Bryant bashed Rishi for not having read the ‘full report’, saying it was only three pages long, and for not voting to censure Boris.
Guido had more on this in a subsequent post, along with this video:
Guido tells us how Bryant got things wrong once again:
The heated exchange between Sir Chris Bryant and Rishi Sunak today led Bryant to get muddled with his facts in his attempt to condemn the PM.
Whilst bashing Rishi for failing to pay Parliament – and specifically the Kangaroo Court Privileges Committee – sufficient respect, Bryant claimed that Wes Streeting had made the vote, even after attending the same charity event as Rishi that evening. Wes did not vote on the Privileges Committee’s report…
He gave Rishi a further telling off by claiming the report was only “about 3 pages long” – making the fairly significant oversight that the report is, in fact, fourteen pages long. Looks like Sir Chris Bryant should correct the record…
Guido stepped in to help the mistaken MP:
Then Guido left the perfectly pious MP with a question over lockdown parties, asking Bryant if he had attended one himself:
HMM!
I do hope that the answer to that question is in the affirmative. Time will tell.
If so, Bryant should be dragged through the same seemingly endless — and career-damaging — process that he applied to Boris Johnson.
Hypocrisy, thy name is Chris Bryant.
Churchmouse Campanologist 
2 comments
July 15, 2023 at 8:01 am
john cheshire
CM, the Civility in Politics prize sounds a lot like the Nobel Peace prize. Both seem to be awarded to undeserving individuals and thus rendering the prizes worthless. For example, bathouse Barry was given the Nobel Peace prize for no good reason at the very beginning of his term as president.
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July 15, 2023 at 9:51 am
churchmouse
You are so right, John. Thank you for that useful comparison.
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