Pressure is growing on the former Tory London mayoral candidate Shaun Bailey not to accept the peerage offered to him by Boris Johnson, as a senior Conservative MP said he should “consider his position”. Tobias Ellwood said there were “big questions” around the peerage after a video surfaced appearing to show Tory party workers drinking alcohol and dancing on 14 December 2020, at a mid-lockdown gathering held by the campaign team involved in Bailey’s unsuccessful mayoral bid. The Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, strongly hinted on Monday that fines might follow a reopening of an investigation into the party at Conservative party HQ – as it emerged it was described as a “jingle and mingle” event on the invitation. “I think we can all guess which way it will go,” he told the News Agents podcast, after he was asked about the apparent partying in the video, obtained by the Daily Mirror.
Along with Ellwood’s comments, there was a less than ringing endorsement of Bailey’s position on Tuesday morning by the work and pensions secretary, Mel Stride, when asked if his party colleague should take the peerage. Stride told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “What is happening here, as I understand it, is that the Metropolitan police are looking into the events surrounding this Daily Mirror video that has recently been released and they will no doubt come to their conclusions and then there are mechanisms involving the forfeiture committee that can lead to changes to honours that have been given in the past.” Earlier, Ellwood said there were “big questions” around Bailey’s peerage, adding: “Absolutely he needs to consider that, if I’m frank.”
He said that the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, should “grasp” the issue of peerages, adding: “You can’t simply have prime ministers stuffing the Lords with their friends. “If there’s anything to come of this I really encourage Mr Sunak to now draw a line under Boris Johnson’s tenure and indeed influence over the parliamentary party. “There’s an opportunity now for the prime minister to draw a line, to continue the progress that he’s already made, further stamp his personality by dealing and confronting things like this directly.” The video appeared to show events at Tory HQ hours after Matt Hancock, then the health secretary, announced London was to move into tougher tier 3 Covid restrictions. The minister Michael Gove has apologised and said the actions were “indefensible”, but he refused to back calls for some of those who attended to lose honours given by Johnson, who has been found guilty of misleading parliament over the Partygate scandal. Bailey has said that he “apologises unreservedly” for the event, saying it “turned into something after I left”, but that “the buck stops with me”. It was for others to decide if he should not have his peerage but he would like to continue “doing work for the country”, he said.