Auto Amazon Links: No products found. Blocked by captcha.
Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer has refused to disclose further information about the resignation of his transport secretary Louise Haigh last week. Haigh stepped down from her role after it emerged she had a historic fraud conviction from a decade ago, which she had reportedly informed Sir Keir of when he appointed her to the shadow cabinet in 2020. During Prime Minister’s Questions, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch asked why Haigh, a “convicted fraudster”, had been appointed as transport secretary. Sir Keir replied that Haigh had been right to resign after new information came to light, but he declined to give details about that information, saying he would not disclose private information.
Badenoch accused the prime minister of “obfuscating” and demanded an explanation for the appointment of a “convicted fraudster”. Sir Keir shot back, pointing out that both Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak had received fixed penalty notices for breaking Covid rules and suggesting that Badenoch was obsessed with Westminster issues. Fixed penalty notices are not considered criminal convictions as long as the fine is paid on time. Later, a Labour source responded to Badenoch’s questions by calling on the Conservatives to explain their own “criminality in office”, referring to Johnson and Sunak’s Covid rule-breaking.
Haigh became the first minister to resign since the Labour government took office in July after Sky News and The Times revealed details of her past conviction. Haigh released a statement explaining that she had reported a mugging to the police in 2013 and later found a work mobile phone that had been stolen in a drawer at home. Turning on the phone “triggered police attention”, and she was taken to magistrates’ court for making a false report to the police. She pleaded guilty and received a conditional discharge six months before being elected as an MP in 2015. Haigh did not tell the government’s propriety and ethics team about her conviction when she joined the cabinet after Labour’s election victory in July, believing that it was sufficient to have disclosed her spent conviction to Sir Keir while Labour was in opposition.
A spokesperson for Downing Street declined to say what Sir Keir knew about Haigh’s conviction, stating only that he had accepted her resignation after “further information” emerged. Sir Keir has been criticised by some in the Labour Party for his handling of the affair, with one unnamed Labour MP telling The Guardian that the resignation was a “significant headache” for the opposition leader. However, others have defended Sir Keir and praised Haigh for her swift resignation
Read the full article from The BBC here: Read More
Auto Amazon Links: No products found. Blocked by captcha.