After Christmas 2019 Boris Johnson and his partner had a holiday on the island of Mustique between the 26th December and 5th January. It was in a villa named Indigo which has three bedrooms, three staff and a reflecting courtyard pool which can be rented around the New Year for $20,000 plus 21% in taxes and a discretionary 5% staff tip and other costs. For ten days the costs must have been about £30,000. The peripheral costs Johnson paid, but where did the money for the accommodation come from? It was a gift, but after reviews from the Parliamentary Commissioner and the Committee for Standards, it still seems opaque. This note may uncover the answer.
GIFTS FOR JOHNSON AND THE CONTEXT FOR THIS TRIP.
Johnson stood as leader of the Conservative Party earlier in 2019 and received something like £700,000 in donations from people and firms interested in supporting his leadership bid. We do not know how much was spent in his leadership campaign or why people came up with this money. He is used to receiving political gifts. The General Election, the Brexit General Election, was held on 12th December, and two weeks after being elected Prime Minister, he and his girlfriend, Carrie Symonds, were in Mustique for ten days. It is the period after choosing a cabinet and before Coronavirus became public policy, recently highlighted by Dominic Cummings.
THE CONTROVERSY – YES HE DID, NO HE DIDN’T AND YES HE DID
The donation in relation to the Mustique trip was declared to the Register of MP’s interests, as is required. A gift in kind of £15000 was declared, given by David Ross, CEO of Carphone Warehouse, on the 24th January, 2020. On 13th February, 2020 a Mail Online article said that a spokesman for David Ross said that he had facilitated the trip, “but had paid no monies whatsoever”. This is odd. We may take it that a spokesman, talking to the Daily Mail on David Ross’s behalf, had ascertained the truth of the event from Mr Ross five weeks after the holiday had taken place. Mr Ross, it seems, at this stage, had paid “no monies whatsoever”. The statement seems slightly irritated by the fact that Mr Ross was being used, but that may be fanciful. This bald statement conflicted with Boris Johnson’s entry in the Register of Interests that his visit was paid by David Ross and the trip became controversial and unclear.
After a long inquiry involving many letters another story emerged. Mr Johnson had “sought and was offered” use of a villa on Mustique owned by Mr Ross, a Conservative party supporter and friend of Mr Johnson. However, Mr Ross’ villa was unavailable for the dates of Mr Johnson’s holiday so instead another villa was found for the prime minister. Who paid for it? The eventual story was that Ross paid for it by paying in kind a rental payment to the Mustique Company who handled all the rents for these elite holiday homes on the island. He indirectly gave them income from his villa when they rented it out.
GUILTY AND THEN INNOCENT.
Kathryn Stone, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Parliamentary Interests concluded that the Prime Minister had breached the code because he did not “make sufficient inquiries” to establish who was providing his accommodation, but the House of Commons Committee on Standards came to a different conclusion. “We conclude that Mr Ross was the donor of Mr Johnson’s holiday accommodation through an informal arrangement with the Mustique Company, whereby the Mustique Company paid the Richardsons for Mr Johnson’s stay and Mr Ross would provide his villa to the Mustique Company for free in recompense. We therefore find that Mr Johnson’s Register entry is accurate and complete, and we find no breach by Mr Johnson of paragraph 14 of the Code.”
STITCHED TOGETHER.
The Final story seems stitched together to put Boris Johnson on the right side of the requirements of the Declaration of Interests, but is it true? Obviously earlier the “informal arrangement” Ross had with the Mustique company was so informal Ross did not recall it. Perhaps the arrangement occurred later to dig Boris out of the hole he had dug himself. But who did pay, until Ross carried the can? It is irritating not to know and the Committee on Standards Report looks to skate over the Ross volte face. Fortunately, we have a clue.
Mr Ross provided a response on 20 July 2020 and stated:
“Mr Johnson mentioned to me in a conversation at some stage before Christmas 2019 that he may be looking for somewhere to stay for a forthcoming holiday which would need to be private and which could also take account of his security needs. I offered to try and help him. I then checked with the Mustique Company who manage a property that I own on the island but was told that my house had been let. They said they would find something by way of an alternative. Mr Johnson’s name was not mentioned or used. I referred to him as Mr Jones. Subsequently they contacted me to say that they had a very late cancellation for another property which was therefore available at short notice and at no cost to Mr Jones. Details of the stay were then confirmed directly between the Mustique Company and Mr Johnson’s office.”[i]
It is probably mainly true, but if you have not seen the problem read it again. It may be that Mr Ross was leaned on, and may even have had this text written for him by a public servant getting Boris out of the hole. There are unculpable lies, and this might nearly be one of them. In fact, you can see, Mr Ross’s heart was not really in this statement. It is a half lie. First, the obvious problem. When the Mustique Company Executive got in touch with Mr Johnson’s office they would realise they were not dealing with Mr Jones, the milkman from Merthyr Tydfil, but with Mr Johnson, the newly elected UK Prime Minister posted all around the world in the News for weeks. “Hello, this is Number Ten speaking.” The details of the stay were then worked out in December 2019 and the visit went ahead.
THE MUSTIQUE COMPANY.
Mustique is an elite island populated by luxury holiday homes and run by the Company. It has about eighty villas on land owned by shareholders of the island who are the rich around the world. The Company is also the “Government” running all the aspects of the island’s life including booking holidays. It is well run and well-resourced villas cost about $20-30,000 a week, plus other expenses. The holiday income of the island will be circa fifty times eighty times twenty thousand dollars or about $20 million much of which pays the services provided by hospitality workers in the villas minus commission to the owners of villas like Mr Ross. Mustique is famous for Princess Margaret and Roddy Llewellyn who stayed there and generated a lot of publicity. The Queen, Prince William, Mick Jagger and David Bowie have been there and some $100m has been invested in the island. Money is no object.
Mustique is politically part of St Vincent and the Grenadines. The Queen is its Head of State and it has a democratic government and a Governor General. Because Mustique is privately owned it does not receive a lot of orders from the Grenadines or her Majesty, but it is mindful of the links.
The Managing Director of the Mustique Company is Roger Prichard who seems to run this island well and easily, and we now return to the phone call from, or to, “Mr Jones” who turns out to be the Rt. Hon Boris Johnson, Head of Her Majesty’s newly elected Government. It asks if Boris can have a holiday there after Christmas and Mr Ross’s villa is already booked. Roger Prichard soon hears that Boris wants a holiday and says, “Of Course” and finds him the villa and pushes the question of payment into the long grass. Can he do less for the Leader of her Majesty’s Government, his own Head of State? Neither he nor Boris think of the Register of Members’ Interests and the holiday takes place. The Mustique Company has, de facto, paid for Boris and Carrie’s holiday.
THE COVER UP.
Then the cover up begins. We could guess it was like this. For Boris it is two mistakes. First, he puts David Ross down as the donor without checking with him first, and the latter is obviously disgruntled. Second, receiving a favour from an overseas government, even one so small as Mustique, is against Parliamentary principles, for there may be payback in all kinds of ways. The Mustique Company will co-operate. The Managing Director is able to claim that the laws of Mustique prevent him disclosing who paid Mrs Richardson the holiday rent and then David Ross is prevailed on to declare that he made the gift in kind under the threat that otherwise the Tory Government he backed could collapse under contempt of Parliament.
The lie about “Mr Jones” was a lie about a
lie. Boris was not Mr Jones. But it was included in David Ross’s statement,
which I suspect was not mainly his own, to throw attention away from a link
between Boris Johnson and the Mustique Company. It initially succeeded because
the Commons Committee was asleep, but, as Jesus said, “There is nothing hidden
that will not be revealed.” “Mr Johnson’s office” was obviously Mr Johnson’s
office in December before the holiday was arranged and took place with the
Mustique Company. Of course, this
conclusion is supposition, but many know whether it is true or not. It has been
quickly buried, but it is still there.
[i] https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/6631/documents/71459/default/ p18