Two new allegations around London Deputy Mayor Ray Lewis have emerged today. First, that - contrary to his claims - his Academy is no longer being funded by Newham Council and, second, that despite repeated references to Ray Lewis being a Magistrate, in fact according to the Ministry for Justice Ray Lewis “is not and never has been a Magistrate“.

Meanwhile, Boris Johnson is increasingly in the firing line over the whole issue because the Evening Standard has documented a series of checks that could have been undertaken before Ray Lewis’s appointment but which weren’t. Given the seniority of Ray Lewis’s post (Deputy Mayor, albeit that he isn’t the only one), shouldn’t Boris Johnson have ensured that full checks were carried out before he was appointed?

If Boris Johnson had been misled by someone, that’s one thing. But if he failed to make sure the right questions were asked, there’s no shirking the responsibility for that.

UPDATE: Ray Lewis has now resigned.

UPDATE 2: Ray Lewis had also said that he was not aware of having been banned by the Church of England from holding office. The Church has now responded by saying that he had in fact appealed against the ban (and therefore must have known about it).

Meanwhile, a war of words has broken out between the Church of England and the Conservative Party. The Conservatives have tried to blame the Church:

In a desperate attempt to ensure that Johnson’s first serious crisis does not undermine Cameron’s own position, Nick Boles, a key member of Cameron’s “kitchen cabinet” and one of Johnson’s most senior aides, accused church leaders of negligence. He said they had failed to disclose that they had a dossier of accusations made against Lewis while he was a vicar. “The church sat on it and suddenly decided to bring it into the public [arena] now. Why?” he said.

But the Church has hit back, saying that Boris Johnson and his team are at fault for not asking questions they should have asked:

Chris Newland, chaplain to the Bishop of Chelmsford, said: “Lewis’s ministry was restricted because of very serious allegations. If you want to employ someone in a high-profile job, you check with their employers, you take up their references. None of that was done.”

And in worse news for Boris Johnson it has now come to light that not only was he written to about Ray Lewis’s past (though this is some controversy over how clear this was made in the letter and whether or not Boris Johnson was told about the contents of the letter) but that in addition that the Bishop of Barking spoke to him personally over Ray Lewis’s background.

Press release just out:

Liberal Democrat Leader, Nick Clegg, has today committed to unilaterally introduce the recommendations of the Members Estimates Committee for independent spot checks of MPs expenses.

Despite Labour and Conservative MPs defeating the MEC’s recommendations on Thursday, the Liberal Democrats will go ahead with implementing those that are relevant in order to further improve accountability.

Nick Clegg said:

“The Liberal Democrats will now implement as many of the recommendations as we can to tighten up the rules on MPs expenses - particularly those relating to spot checks of MPs expense claims.

“My Shadow Cabinet will shortly be publishing quarterly breakdowns of their expenses and I expect this to be the first of several measures to greatly improve how we account for ourselves.

“I hope that Gordon Brown and David Cameron will join me in implementing these measures so that together we can begin to restore public confidence in politicians after what has been a very damaging week.”

The steps will include:

• Working with the Institute of Chartered Accountants to draw up detailed proposals to implement spot checks of expenses for Liberal Democrat MPs. The Liberal Democrat Chief Whip, Paul Burstow, will be meeting with the Institute of Chartered Accountants shortly to discuss these issues.
• Establishing an independently chaired Audit Board for the Party to oversee issues of probity and integrity.
• Publishing a detailed breakdown of expenses of all Liberal Democrat Shadow Cabinet members. 

Alex has beaten me to writing up the result of yesterday’s vote, so here are his words:

News reports of last night’s self-pampering vote by greedy MPs offer a choice of two messages: either ‘they’re all at it’ or ‘the Tories and Liberal Democrats condemned Labour’. But the truth is that not all MPs – and not all parties – have their snouts in the trough. The truth is that of 176 MPs so out of touch with the economic woes of the real world that they voted themselves £23,000 a year for home furnishings, 146 were Labour. But none were Lib Dems. Zero. Despite desperate Tory spin, it was Conservative MPs who tipped the ‘trough’ vote. If the couple of dozen Tories who voted for luxury goods to prop their households up against a recession had voted the other way, MPs’ expenses would now be less shaming to Parliament’s all-time-low reputation …

And what of the Tories? To his credit, this is one of those rare occasions when Mr Cameron’s progressive rhetoric was matched by his voting record: he voted the right way, and told his Shadow Cabinet to follow him. Also to his credit, this time they did – most Tories actually voted the same way as Mr Cameron on a divisive issue, which is very rare indeed. But, though the Tories’ spin doctors are very effective and have managed to get an anti-Labour message into several papers on the back of this vote, the fact remains that glancing at the list of who voted which way finds yet another Tory split as a couple of dozen Tory MPs followed their greedy Tory instincts and pocketed as much cash as they could lay their hands on.

Coverage left, right and centre today over the allegations against Ray Lewis, one of Boris Johnosn’s deputy mayors (e.g. The Times).

A few points to note:

1. The Bishop of Chelmsford has said that, ”Between 1999 and 2005 Ray was placed under the formal disciplinary structures of the Church of England and his ministry was restricted.” This is a very different story from Ray Lewis’s own public statements.
2. This however hasn’t stopped ConservativeHome saying that, “the left-leaning media have jumped on this story with relish, pre-judging him with little more than some disjointed insinuations.” Hmm… I think most people would describe having a Bishop give such a different story from the Deputy Mayor on the key issue of whether he was disciplined for past misbehaviour as rather more than a disjointed insinuation. There’s a lot that we don’t yet know but somehow I think that if a Labour or Liberal Democrat blog was trying to defend one of its own against similar allegations and used that phrase they’d be taken apart by ConservativeHome and other right-wing blogs. And quite right too. 
3. And finally, an unfortunate choice of words. In responding to the allegations of, amongst other things, sexual misconduct, Ray Lewis said: “sometimes I rub people up the wrong way.”

London Mayor Boris Johnson held a press conference this afternoon, announcing that he is to hold an inquiry into his newly appointed Deputy Mayor, Ray Lewis, over allegations of sexual misconduct.

The BBC takes up the story:

BBC London learned Mr Lewis, who has responsibility for youth, was barred from working in the Church of England after the allegations were made when he was vicar at a church in east London a decade ago.

Mr Lewis was placed on the Church of England’s Lambeth and Bishopsthorpe Register - the so-called Lambeth List - in 1999.

People on the list are prevented from public ministry and preaching.

UPDATE: Politics.co.uk has a good summary of the allegations against Ray Lewis.

The Daily Telegraph has the story:

Gordon Brown is under pressure to reveal whether Keith Vaz, the influential head of a Parliamentary Committee, has been offered a peerage or honour in return for backing the Government’s controversial counter-terrorism measures.

The Daily Telegraph has seen a private letter sent by chief whip Geoff Hoon to Mr Vaz expressing an expectation that his former ministerial colleague will be “appropriately rewarded” for backing the measure to hold terror suspects for up to 42 days without charge.

Mr Vaz is the Labour chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee. He was previously opposed to the plans but later offered his full backing. He made a major speech during the debate on the proposals which is thought to have won over some backbench MPs. Securing his backing was seen as crucial by the Government …

The Prime Minister has been accused of offering rebel backbenchers a series of deals in exchange of their votes but the chief whip’s letter may provide the first hard evidence that rewards were potentially available to those supportive of the plans.

I’ve blogged previously (here and here) about some of the errors which came to light in the London election results. None of these were serious in their own right, but they do cast doubt on how good the checking processes really were. Now a comprehensive review has suggested that up to 41,000 votes went unaccounted for:

Although the glitches are unlikely to have changed the overall result of the mayoral race – Boris Johnson won by almost 140,000 votes after second choices were taken into consideration – today’s report lists a string of potentially serious problems with the counting procedures used in the mayoral and London Assembly elections.

Among the deficiencies highlighted in the report are the counting of blank ballots as valid votes, frequent jams in the scanning machines and a series of bugs and system freezes. ORG’s observers also reported that they were refused access to parts of the process at counts in London Olympia and Alexandra Palace.

In at least two cases, the margin of error was greater than the winning candidate’s margin of victory, leading the group to conclude that there was “insufficient evidence” for it to say that the results were accurate.

That’s not good.

Wendy Alexander has resigned as Labour’s leader in Scotland following a ruling that she broke the Scottish Parliament’s rules over declaring donations.

More on the BBC and PoliticsHome (which has her full statement).

From Pink News:

The leader of the Liberal Democrats has become the first party leader to comment on the decision of food manufacturer Heinz to withdraw an advert from TV because it depicted two men kissing.

Nick Clegg has written to the the Director of UK Corporate Affairs at Heinz expressing his disappointment at their decision and asking them to reconsider.

“The depiction of a same-sex kiss in this advert was innocent both in tone and content, and I am shocked that you decided to withdraw it,” he wrote.

“While I understand that some people in Britain today are uncomfortable with same-sex relationships, such prejudice should not be condoned by an organisation of your size and stature.

“The sight of two men kissing affectionately should not be considered offensive or controversial.

“This is particularly the case in an advertisement which was so rich in irony and double-meaning.

Their full story also includes the advert, whilst Andrew Reeves’s blog includes details of how to complain to Heinz:

Nigel Dickie, Director of UK Corporate and Government Affairs
Telephone: 020 8848 2726
E-mail:
Heinz’s free phone number: 0800 528 5757

MSPs have decided that Scottish Labour Leader Wendy Alexander broke the rules when she failed to declare donations to her leadership campaign. Meanwhile, it turns out that Cabinet members Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper and both under investigation over their use of the second homes allowance.

Today has also seen the publication of proposals to tighten up the whole expenses system.

Not a good day to be on the Conservative by-election team by the looks of it.

In summary, we have legal action threatened over a magazine by David Cameron on Friday, which was within a matter of hours disowned by his media team (who told the media they were backing off it) and then today his candidate denied the threat was ever made. It wasn’t a very convincing denial mind you, what with it being made to the very journalist to whom Cameron had talked about the legal threat on Friday. Oops.

Oh and magazine publishers Archant are getting involved - but it’s a Conservative Henley magazine they’re taking action over.

Meanwhile, John Howell has been snapped using written notes to tell him how much a pint of milk, six eggs, a loaf of bread and a litre of petrol cost.

It has though been a good day for Stephen Kearney, who came through really strongly in the BBC Radio Berkshire hustings.

A quick update on Philip Lardner, the Conservative candidate who praised Ian Smith a couple of days ago. He has now been suspended as a candidate by the party.

That makes two Conservatives in just a few days who have run into serious trouble after remarks about race, with Boris Johnson’s advisor James McGrath having been sacked earlier.

In brief: read the Daily Mail. It has stories on Jacqui Lait (claiming £100,000 in second home expenses although her constituency is only 35 minutes drive from Westminster), the Wintertons (claiming costs for expensive alarm system that security experts say they don’t need) and Peter Oborne has more on Alan Duncan and whether he has properly declared his business links.

For a bit of variety, there’s also another Conservative (Philip Lardner) praising Rhodesia’s Ian Smith. Yup, that’s the Ian Smith who presided over whites-only rule, banning people from voting based on their skin colour. (The previous Conservative candidate to praise Ian Smith was Richard Willis.)

UPDATE: News of the World also has a splash on four Conservative front bench MPs - “Tory’s £3m stash: Four high-flying Shadow Cabinet members in new money-grabbing scandal”. It includes more on the question of Alan Duncan’s links:

Also under fire is Shadow Energy Secretary ALAN DUNCAN. He made his millions as an international oil trader but now draws up the Tories’ policies on energy.

Duncan faces demands to explain why he did not declare a £160,000 donation from oil tycoon Ian Taylor. It was registered as a gift to the Tory party, but Mr Taylor’s spokesman said it was given to Duncan’s private office.

However, we can reveal Mr Duncan has also failed to tell the Register of Interests that he has now been made a director of Arawak Oil, part-owned by Vitol which is controlled by Mr Taylor.

Alan Duncan was quizzed about this on the Andrew Marr show this morning, though it wasn’t exactly the most searching set of questions… (see transcript).

The BBC has the story:

Zimbabwe’s opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has decided to pull out of the presidential run-off on 27 June, party officials have told the BBC.

The decision, taken at a meeting of the leadership of the Movement for Democratic Change in Harare, means Robert Mugabe will remain as president.

The MDC says the decision comes after at least 70 of its supporters have been killed in the run-up to the poll.

Earlier this week, Nick Clegg wrote in The Times about how the UK should respond to events in Zimbabwe:

In view of the extreme circumstances facing Zimbabwe, I urged Gordon Brown two weeks ago to warn Mugabe that unless his Government met the basic minimum standards for a free and fair election on June 27 we would work with our allies in the region and the wider world to do the thing that his regime fears: cut off access to the foreign currency that keeps them in power. This step could be taken straight away by Britain using the powers of the Exchange Control Act 1947.

You can read Nick’s full piece here.

UPDATE: This just in from Nick Clegg:

Britain must now work with the EU and the UN to draw up immediate measures to force President Mugabe out of power. We must liaise closely with Mozambique and South Africa to restrict electricity supplies into Zimbabwe, to impose a possible petrol embargo and a temporary halt of foreign currency remittances.

While these measures will hit ordinary Zimbabweans too, they might, if implemented swiftly, succeed where all else has failed to force Mugabe’s regime out of power. 

Featuring a host of stars including Paddy “I never predict the outcome of elections, but this one feels good” Ashdown, Ming Campbell, Julia Goldsworthy, Nick Clegg, Brian Paddick, lots of balloons and several printing machines:

Details of how to help in the Henley by-election at are www.henleylibdems.org.uk

Its finances that is, not the country’s:

Loyalists including the venture capitalist Sir Ronnie Cohen and the millionaire former science minister Lord Sainsbury are understood to have bailed the party out temporarily in the past few weeks - its accountants had been threatening not to sign off the accounts at the end of this month, which could have ultimately tipped the party into insolvency. Cohen is understood to have donated £100,000 while Sainsbury has pledged to underwrite certain future staff salaries.

However, Labour’s new general secretary, Ray Collins, has admitted its finances remain in a ‘parlous’ state. The party is up to £24m in the red, with donors reluctant to give, thanks to Brown’s collapse in the polls and a series of police investigations into party funding. The party is locked in what one source described as ‘tortuous’ attempts to defer a series of multi-million pound loans due to be repaid soon.

Insiders said that Labour now hoped to be able to cover its immediate costs, but only by leaving ‘not a penny’ in the bank for a general election campaign.

It’s not all bad news for Labour though:

The news comes as it emerged that David Cameron is facing a second embarrassing inquiry into the finances of a shadow cabinet minister, just weeks after the furore over his party chairman, Caroline Spelman, paying her nanny on Commons expenses.

The Electoral Commission, the government watchdog, confirmed it was ‘in correspondence’ with defence spokesman Liam Fox, a right-winger who ran for the Tory leadership in 2005, over whether he should have declared three gifts from wealthy City backers made to his private office.

The full piece is in The Observer.

It’s Tom Wise, elected as a UKIP MEP, though chucked out last year.

… including a small contribution from myself.

P.S. The editorial board is an interesting line-up.

When Boris Johnson set up his Forensic Audit Panel to investigate financial goings on at the London Development Agency, he boasted about how all the people on the panel were working for free and made no mention of any other costs being involved. (Mayor’s Question Time, 21st May, full transcript here.)

Amongst its members is Andrew Gordon of PriceWaterhouseCoopers, where he is Head of Investigations in their Forensic Services group. Given the allegations over the LDA, such expertise sounds very welcome.

But, but, but … it has now turned out that although the panel are working for free, £50,000 is to be given to PriceWaterhouseCoopers to carry out investigations.

This raises a whole host of questions: why didn’t Boris Johnson say anything about the £50,000 before? How were PriceWaterhouseCoopers selected to get the £50,000? Is there any connection between that and Andrew Gordon’s presence on the panel? Was there any agreement at the time at which he was appointed to the panel? And so on. On past form, don’t expect a speedy and detailed response from Boris Johnson though.