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Boris Johnson has made a grovelling apology to his standards adviser after apparently failing to disclose key messages during a probe into the Downing Street flat refurb.
Lord Geidt is said to have been furious when an Electoral Commission probe revealed that the PM personally WhatsApped a Tory donor about funding for the £140,000 overhaul.
The peer had previously cleared Mr Johnson of breaching the ministerial code, but looked again at the issue after the commission’s report.
The PM has blamed having to change his phone after his number was made public in a security bungle for the failure to flag the message to Lord Brownlow asking for more works to be authorised.
The standards adviser is understood to have concluded that the new information does not fundamentally change his conclusion, but is highly critical of the latest oversight.
Boris Johnson (pictured today) has made a ‘humble and sincere’ apology to his standards adviser after apparently failing to disclose key messages during a probe into the Downing Street flat refurb
Lord Geidt is said to have been furious when an Electoral Commission probe revealed that the PM personally WhatsApped a Tory donor about funding for the overhaul.
The PM’s grace-and-favour flat was decorated with the help of Lulu Lytle (file picture does not show the flat itself)
The correspondence between Lord Geidt and Mr Johnson is expected to be published shortly.
The peer previously cleared Mr Johnson of breaching the code in relation to the funding of the flat refurbishment but has re-examined his initial investigation in the wake of the Electoral Commission probe.
The PM had assured Lord Geidt, the independent adviser on ministerial interests, that he did not know who was paying for the £112,549 refurbishment until this year.
But the electoral watchdog uncovered evidence that Mr Johnson sent WhatsApp messages asking Lord Brownlow to sign off works months earlier.
In the light of the revelations, Lord Geidt wrote to Mr Johnson asking him to explain the apparent contradiction.
It is understood their exchanges include ‘three to four letters’.
As opposed to sanctions, Mr Johnson and Lord Geidt are thought to have agreed to reform the system for oversight of ministerial interests to include more resources for the relevant secretariat in the Cabinet Office.
One official said last month: ‘Geidt makes clear the situation is a total mess. But at the same time the fundamental conclusion is that the PM did not deceive and did not break the ministerial code.’
Mr Johnson is said to have apologised for the handling of the initial inquiry into the loan of £58,000 from Lord Brownlow.
The Daily Mail revealed details of the lavish redecoration of the apartment shared by the PM and his then fiancée in March last year.
The revamp at No11 by upmarket designer Lulu Lytle is said to have included gold wall coverings.
But the funding of the work did not appear in the list of political donations published by the Commission or in Mr Johnson’s Commons register of interests.
It prompted demands from the Labour Party for a full investigation into how the extravagant work was paid for and whether rules were broken.
One of Lord Geidt’s first actions after being appointed as adviser on ministerial interests was to probe the saga over the lavish No11 refurbishment.
Boris Johnson wanted a charitable trust to cover the huge bill for improvements to the grace-and-favour residence beyond the £30,000 a year that the taxpayer foots.
Lord Brownlow was drafted in to head the theoretical trust – but the whole idea was later ditched as impractical under government rules.
In the meantime the Conservative Party had repaid the Cabinet Office for the works using funds provided by Lord Brownlow, and the peer also met other invoices directly.
The PM subsequently resolved the chaos by paying out of his own pocket, and Lord Geidt concluded that while he had been ‘unwise’ not to keep closer track of how the work was being funded, no rules had been broken.
However, critically the peer’s report noted that officials told him Mr Johnson had not been aware of the ‘fact or the method of the costs of refurbishing the apartment having been paid’ until February last year.
‘I have also spoken in similar terms to the Prime Minister who confirms that he knew nothing about such payments until immediately prior to media reports in February 2021,’ the report said.
That seemed to clash with an Electoral Commission investigation published yesterday, which revealed that Mr Johnson WhatsApped Lord Brownlow in November 2020 asking him to authorise work on the flat.
‘The Prime Minister messaged Lord Brownlow via WhatsApp asking him to authorise further, at that stage unspecified, refurbishment works on the residence,’ the commission stated.
‘Lord Brownlow agreed to do so, and also explained that the proposed trust had not yet been set up but that he knew where the funding was coming from.’
No10 insists the premier messaged Lord Brownlow in his role as head of the supposed trust, and did not know the source of the money.
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