AS the noise of Brexit deafens the country, Tory leadership hopeful and Brexiteer Boris Johnson is never far from the news.
And today the former foreign secretary has hit the headlines again, rebuked by the House of Commons after failing to declare part-ownership of a property in Somerset in the register of members’ interests.
Ordinarily, these kind of indiscretions might pass by unnoticed, but this isn’t Johnson’s first telling.
READ MORE: Scottish Tory MP forced to deny he backs Boris Johnson as next PM
Back in December, he was also reprimanded by the Commons standards committee after a late declaration of £52,000 in book royalty payments.
Kathryn Stone, the commissioner for standards, said about the case in her report to the committee: “I do not accept that this was an inadvertent breach of the rules. Mr Johnson has co-operated fully with my inquiry.
“But his failure to check properly that he had brought his register entry up to date during my last inquiry might be regarded as showing a lack of respect for the house’s rules and for the standards system.”
The committee itself said: “While there is no suggestion that he has at any time tried deliberately to conceal the extent of his interests, this latest breach reinforces the view which we expressed in our previous report, that he has displayed ‘an over-casual attitude towards obeying the rules of the House’, in conjunction with ‘a lack of effective organisation within [his] office’.”
Stone added that Johnson’s cavalier attitude doesn’t seem appropriate considering he’s “a longstanding and senior member of the house”.
With conflict building amongst the Tories, one would imagine Johnson would like to keep his nose clean if leadership comes calling.
Then again, he hasn’t yet publicly declared his interest in that, either.
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