A Tory grandee faces the threat of the sack for trying to get Owen Paterson off the hook for breaking lobbying rules.
Bernard Jenkin, a senior Conservative leader is being pressured by fellow conservatives to quit as the paid chairman of Commons liaison.
He is accused of being a ‘stooge’ for Boris Johnson, who ordered the botched attempt to save Mr Paterson.
Bernard Jenkin, a senior Conservative leader is being pressured by fellow conservatives to quit as the paid chair of the Commons liaison panel
Sir Bernard’s Tory foes claim he ‘betrayed his duty’ to protect all Commons committees, including the standards committee, which proposed that the former minister should be suspended from parliament for 30 days.
After his wife Baroness Jenkin became involved in the Paterson scandal, Sir Bernard was forced to resign as MP for Harwich.
It emerged yesterday that she exchanged emails with Mr Paterson’s wife, Rose, hours before her suicide last year. Mrs Paterson reportedly wrote: ‘Sometimes I just feel like I should go into the garden and never come back.’
Baroness Jenkin’s email referred to an obscure blog linking Mrs Paterson to Randox, the company at the centre of her husband’s lobbying controversy.
Mr Paterson is understood to have said he believed the email ‘pushed Rose over the edge’. Sir Bernard is being rebuffed by the 35 Commons committee chairmen, who are responsible for the liaison committee which oversees all the other.
He is paid £15,000 a year on top of his £81,000 MP’s salary to run the group.
Sir Bernard’s Tory foes claim he ‘betrayed his duty’ to protect all Commons committees, including the standards committee, which proposed that the former minister (above) should be suspended from parliament for 30 days
Several fellow members are furious at Sir Bernard’s prominent part in the vote to sabotage the decision by the standards committee to punish Mr Paterson.
There is particular anger over the fact that it came after Sir Bernard, who also sits on the standards committee, ‘recused’ himself from its sleaze inquiry into Mr Paterson on the grounds that they are friends.
The Daily Mail learned from Simon Hoare that members of Sir Bernard’s liaison committee want him to resign. Simon Hoare is the head of the Commons Northern Ireland commission.
After Baroness Jenkin’s involvement in the Paterson scandal and his wife becoming embroiled, Sir Bernard became the MP for Harwich & North Essex.
The Dorset North MP, one of 13 Tories who voted against last week’s Commons bid by Mr Johnson to reprieve Mr Paterson, has told friends he is ‘appalled’ by Sir Bernard’s behaviour.
Mr Hoare told the Mail: ‘It is not unreasonable to expect the chairman to protect other parliamentary committees.’
Karen Bradley, another liaison committee member and former minister, has privately questioned Sir Bernard’s fitness to be chairman.
Sir Bernard is also accused of trying to ‘neuter’ the liaison committee’s role of scrutinising the Prime Minister in his regular appearances before the panel.
The newspaper was told that Johnson angered them at a private meeting when he demanded they give Mr Johnson prior notice of any questions.
‘It was an outrageous suggestion,’ said a member of the committee. ‘Our job is to hold the PM to account – Bernard wants to turn it into a cheerleading group.
‘We were forced to accept him as chairman by Downing Street because they thought he would be soft on Boris. They have not been disappointed, but this cannot continue. It is an abuse of Parliament.’
Sir Bernard, the son of Patrick Jenkin, who served in Margaret Thatcher’s Cabinet, and his well-connected wife Anne make up one of the most influential Tory power couples.
Sir Bernard said last night: ‘No one has raised any concerns with me. I always try to act in the best interests of the committee.’