Prime Minister of UK Boris Johnson quickly named two loyalists to the positions of health and treasury secretaries after two ministers resigned from the post on Tuesday.
Steve Barclay was appointed as health secretary, while Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi replaces Rishi Sunak as Treasury chief, Downing Street said. At the same time, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss swiftly threw her support behind Johnson. Other Cabinet members, including Culture Secretary Nadine Dories, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace and Home Secretary Priti Patel, were also in his corner.
UK Health Secretary Sajid Javid and Treasury Secretary Rishi Sunak, a British Indian resigned on Tuesday after a former civil servant spoke out about Downing Street's handling of allegations against recently suspended MP Chris Pincher.
The latest scandal began Thursday when Chris Pincher resigned as deputy chief whip amid complaints that he groped two men at a private club. That triggered a series of reports about past allegations levelled against Pincher and questions about why Johnson promoted him to a senior job enforcing party discipline. Pincher denies the allegations.
Johnson's office initially said he wasn't aware of the previous accusations when he promoted Pincher in February. By Monday, a spokesman said Johnson knew of allegations that were either resolved or did not progress to a formal complaint.
That account didn't sit well with Simon McDonald, the most senior civil servant at the UK Foreign Office from 2015 to 2020. In a highly unusual move, McDonald went public with claims that the prime minister's office wasn't telling the truth.
McDonald said in a letter to the parliamentary commissioner for standards that he received complaints about Pincher's behaviour in the summer of 2019, shortly after Pincher became a Foreign Office minister. An investigation upheld the complaint, and Pincher apologised for his actions, McDonald said.
Johnson was briefed in person about the initiation and outcome of the investigation," McDonald wrote. Hours after McDonald's comments were published, Johnson's office changed its story again, saying the prime minister had forgotten that Pincher was the subject of an official complaint.
Then minutes before Javid and Sunak announced their resignations, Johnson told reporters that Pincher should have been fired from the government after a previous 2019 incident.
Asked if it was an error to appoint Pincher to the government, Johnson said, I think it was a mistake, and I apologise for it. In hindsight, it was the wrong thing to do.
The shifting explanation from Johnson fuelled discontent within the Cabinet after ministers were forced to publicly deliver the prime minister's denials, only to have the explanation shift the next day.
