Chris Pincher

Chris pincher who was Boris Johnson's deputy chief whip should be suspended from the commons for eight weeks after a groping young man at the Carlton Club as Eileen Foster said the commons will vote I would say unanimously to do that which is almost certainly going to trigger a by-election our political reporter Olivia at least with us in West Memphis Olivia morning well this is a disaster for the conservative party isn't it almost certainly now there'll be a fourth by-election and pincher may have a 19 000 majority but that will evaporate I suspect well absolutely it's a complete nightmare for Rishi sunak politically in terms of the sort of sitting current conservative Administration it might not be that bad because Pinter has already lost for the party Whip and of course his uh the way that Boris Johnson handled the affair precipitated his resignation and of course Richard's unit the current prime minister was heavily involved in that so it's not thought that Rishi sunak personally will get sort of too much of the blame for Chris pinch's Behavior but this eight-week suspension as you say is almost certainly going to trigger a by-election what will happen if the commons back the the motion put forward by the standards committee which as we've said it sounds quite likely that they will is there will be a recall petition which essentially means that it's in the everything becomes in the court of uh Chris pinch's constituents in Tamworth now if 10 of them just 10 percent sign that recall petition then there will be a by-election and as you say in normal times that wouldn't be too much of an issue there uh he's got a 19 000 majority in Tamworth in Staffordshire but of course labor are going to throw everything that they've got at this by-election we can expect thousands of Labor actors on the ground there we can expect here's Dharma to be rolling up his threes taking off his tires we've seen so often and campaigning very very hard in Tamworth and then of course if the conservatives lose that seat they have an 80 seat majority a slightly dwindled now but but roughly an 80 seat majority so it won't be the end of the world in terms of actually getting laws passed in the House of Commons but it will just bring up that feeling really bubbles the service that feeling that the momentum is all with labor and that is not what the conservatives want a year out from a general election that's fine Olivia um this goes to the heart of Boris Johnson's judgment doesn't it because he insisted that nobody told him that there were allegations in the past about pinch's Behavior which he knew was blown out of the water by the former foreign office permanent secretary Lord McDonald who said oh yes he was told and he was told face to face that pincher had a history of inappropriate behavior well absolutely and this was the the straw that broke the camel's back really with Boris Johnson he has been warned as Arlene Foster said pretty much everyone in Westminster knew that there were rumors circulating about Chris Lynch's behavior and it sounds very much as though Boris Johnson simply ignored those rumors and chose to promote Chris pincher to a whips position where with whips have sort of quite a lot of pastoral care over MPS or as opposed to anyway regardless of what he'd heard so that was really the the straw that broke the camels back Boris Johnson that is what eventually ended his career although of course we know that there was a pretty big build up to that before so as Arlene Foster said that not only is this a headache in terms of the conservatives really not wanting a fourth by-election at a time when they are trailing so far behind in the polls it also just reignites in people's minds in Westminster the whole Calamity which brought down the previous prime minister and adds to that General sense that the Tories aren't really in control of their own party absolutely yeah so Olivia critical reporter of course Boris Johnson made light of it all by saying yeah pincher by name pincher by Nature I'm sorry it's just not funny anymore no Boris bosser yeah these young men were very young they were embarrassed it was in the Carlton Club in front of other people he was under the influence of booze no excuse for the behavior it sort of makes you think that probably Boris is better off maybe I think 50 minutes 50 ministers resigned uh and that was the end of him the picture Fair brought him down no doubt about it yeah