Last modified on Sat 12 Jun 2021 11.49 EDT
Boris Johnson is facing legal action over his decision to give a peerage to a billionaire party donor in defiance of advice from the watchdog for appointments to the Lords.
Electoral Commission records show that Peter Cruddas, a former Conservative party treasurer, gave the Tories a further £500,000 just three days after taking his seat in the upper chamber last February.
Lord Cruddas, a businessman and philanthropist who has given more than £3m to the Conservatives since 2010, has strongly denied any wrongdoing.
At the time of his appointment, Downing Street took the highly unusual move of publishing an open letter from Johnson to Paul Bew, the chair of the Lords Appointments Commission, explaining why he was putting Cruddas in the upper house without its approval.
R rate threat to unlocking
The R rate is back above one across the UK, with daily cases at their highest since March 22, the latest data shows. The NHS recorded 5,274 new cases yesterday and tracking by the King’s College London app suggests the virus is advancing in all but three parts of the country. Although hospital admissions have been relatively flat over the past seven days, Public Health England says the India variant of the virus is more than twice as likely as the Kent variant to lead to hospitalisation within two weeks of a positive test. The figures increased pressure on the PM to delay the 21 June end date for Covid restrictions.
A Tory donor gave £500,000 to the party three days after he was admitted to the House of Lords against the advice of the appointments committee.Electoral Commission records show that the Conservatives
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Figures released by the Electoral Commission today show that the banker and businessman, poured the six-figure sum into party coffers in the first quarter of 2021. He was made a peer in December.