Downing Street Says » Chancellor/Expenses

Put that the Prime Minister had had several chances today to confirm that the Chancellor would still be in his post in ten days time and had not done so, the Prime Minister s Spokesman (PMS) told the assembled press that the Prime Minister had given the standard answer that he would give in relation to any Minister at any time.

Asked if it was important for the markets to get a clear indication of whether the Prime Minister would stand by his Chancellor, the PMS said that the Prime Minister had been doing that as well as talking about the very good job that the Chancellor was doing. Put that on Channel 4, the Prime Minister had used the past tense three times when describing the job the Chancellor was doing, the PMS said that on the Today Programme that morning, the Prime Minister had said that the Chancellor was doing a good job. In his Sky interview this afternoon, the Prime Minister had used an almost identical form of words.

Asked why the Prime Minister had said unprompted that he wouldn t comment on speculation about what might happen in the next week, the PMS said clearly there was a lot of speculation around. Put that the Prime Minister had said in his Sky interview that the issues surrounding the Chancellor s expenses had been inadvertent, the PMS replied that the central accusation in the Telegraph this morning was that the Chancellor was submitting claims for two houses simultaneously; that was not the case.

There was a particular issue about this service charge. When the Chancellor had submitted the claim for the service charge, it was a pre-payment and he was living in his flat at the time.

Put that in the Sky interview the Prime Minister had said that the Chancellor had apologised, the PMS said that he did not have the full transcript in front of him, but he did not remember it in quite those terms. Asked if there had been any private conversations in which the Chancellor had apologised to the Prime Minister for any of this, the PMS said he wouldn t comment on private conversations between the Prime Minister and the Chancellor.

Asked whether the Prime Minister thought that there should be an apology if a mistake had been made, the PMS replied that this was clearly inadvertent. The Chancellor had taken the decision to repay the money. Asked whether the Chancellor had offered to resign, the PMS said not as far as he was aware.

Asked if he thought it was damaging to the economy or the markets if there was some doubt over the Chancellor s position, the PMS said that if we were to react to every piece of media speculation and get unduly distracted by that then that would not be a position that we would want to be in. There was always speculation about reshuffles and the positions of individual Ministers.

Put that the Prime Minister could have ended the speculation, the PMS said that it was a longstanding convention that Prime Minister s did not go around making those kind of comments and did not address reshuffle questions in those terms. Asked if the Chancellor was thinking of simplifying the tax form so that even he did not have to hire an accountant to fill it in for him, the PMS said that that was a decision for the Chancellor.

Asked if he accepted that the Chancellor had been damaged by these allegations, the PMS said he would not start getting into judgments on media stories. The Prime Minister had been making clear that the Chancellor was a very good Chancellor and was doing a good job. Asked if the Prime Minister had further engagements after returning from his visit, the PMS said that he had other meetings in Downing Street, as people would expect.

Put that it had been over two weeks since Sir Philip Mawer had started to investigate Shahid Malik and had there been any movement on that, the PMS said that Sir Philip Mawer had not submitted his report to the Prime Minister yet.

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» Monday, June 1, 2009

Chancellor/Expenses

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