Boris Johnson did nothing wrong by dodging an emergency Cobra meeting on the heatwave and having a leaving party at Chequers, a minister has insisted.
Kit Malthouse, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, said it was “completely unfair” to suggest the prime minister was not interested in the UK’s response to the record-breaking high temperatures.
Some of the PM’s closest allies attended the gathering at his country residence on Sunday afternoon.
However, Johnson was absent from a Cobra meeting the day before which assessed how well-prepared the country is to cope with the blistering temperatures which are causing disruption to the transport network and pose a serious risk to people’s health.
Appearing on Sky News this morning, Malthouse was asked: “You chaired a COBRA meeting at the weekend, was the prime minister there?”
The Cabinet Office minister replied: “He wasn’t, it is my job to chair Cobra meetings and I briefed him yesterday morning at about 8 o’clock, personally.”
Asked if the PM should have been there, Malthouse said: “No, it’s literally my job to chair Cobra meetings.
“My department have the civil contingencies secretariat, which is responsible for co-ordinating the response across the whole of government. That’s what we’ve done in the two Cobra meetings that we’ve had.”
The minister was then asked: “Where was he this weekend, Mr Malthouse?”
After initially insisting he did not know, the minister admitted he had “read in the media” about the Chequers party.
Showing footage of the gathering, presenter Kamali Melbourne said: “There he is. So while the country was preparing for its worst heatwave in a generation, the prime minister was having a party at Chequers.”
In response, Mathouse said: “Well I have to tell you, having chaired Cobra on Saturday and then briefed the prime minister at 8am on Sunday, I did have some of my family round at my constituency at lunchtime as well.”
Kamali Melbourne replied: “Yes, but you’re not prime minister sir, are you? Do you think the prime minister had decided he’s going to be leaving the job pretty soon anyway, so there’s no point in him paying attention and being part of these very important meetings?”
Malthouse said: “No, that’s completely unfair. We communicated on the Friday as well and then I briefed him at 8 o’clock on Sunday morning, so he’s right across this.
“I think this is a very unfair characterisation of the media around this particular issue. It is my job to chair Cobra, it’s my job to co-ordinate across government and then to be accountable to him, which is exactly what I did when I briefed him.”
The minister added: “The prime minister has to deal with lots of things on a daily basis. that’s why he appoints secretaries of state to deal with those issues and we are well co-ordinated, we’re stood up, we’re facing a difficult 48 hours possibly, and we hope and expect that people understand that it’s going to be very hot, they’ll look out for the vulnerable and adapt their behaviour so we can all get through it as safely as possible.”
Writing for HuffPost UK, shadow Cabinet Office minister Fleur Anderson accused the government of being “asleep at the wheel”.
She said: “Given how slow they were to respond in the months preceding the pandemic, and with the Tories currently preoccupied with yet another internal leadership contest, the public will have no confidence in this zombie government to respond swiftly and decisively to this latest national emergency.”