At issue are the second jobs of former minister Owen Paterson and MP for the Torridge and West Devon constituency Sir Geoffrey Cox. On Thursday Boris Johnson said officials, who breach rules on second jobs should be punished, adding that MPs must primarily devote themselves to representing their constituents.
However, Dominic Cummings claims the head of government himself breached government rules by spending more time than needed on his second job. In a post on Substack, Cummings wrote that before the coronavirus pandemic started Johnson asked whether he could devote a large chunk of his time to writing a biography of Shakespeare.
"You get the idea. Within a month of the election he was bored with the PM job and wanted to get back to what he loves while shaking down the publishers for some extra cash. So WTF is he doing having a go at MPs given all his own outside earnings — and attempted outside earnings ... while he’s supposed to be pretending to be PM?!", Cummings wrote.
"In February, as COVID spread he was in Chevening [Chequers was undergoing renovations] writing about Shakespeare and messaging No10 that COVID was 'the new swine flu' — though as I told MPs, we actually did not want him to stop his holiday as we thought he would return and tell everyone it was a hoax. Which of course is what he did when he returned at the end of February," Cummings wrote.
Sleaze Row
Instead of punishing the former minister, Boris Johnson's government decided to reform a parliament standards system that found Mr Paterson guilty of violating lobbying rules, but made a U-turn and apologised after the news caused a huge outcry from MPs and the public.
Sir Keir Starmer, leader of the opposition Labour Party described the government as "corrupt".
"The prime minister is trashing the reputation of our democracy and our country. It is a pattern of behaviour from a prime minister who doesn't know to uphold standards in public life," he said.
MPs are allowed to have second jobs, although critics of Sir Geoffrey pointed out that he used his parliamentary office to take part in the inquiry via video, which they argue is a violation of government rules, which state that MPs should ensure facilities paid for by the public purse "always support their parliamentary duties".
Many MPs, including colleagues from his Conservative Party, accused Sir Geoffrey of failing to pay due attention to his work in parliament as it transpired that he missed 30 hearings in the Commons while doing his second job.