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Tory ‘cost sheet’ – 120 scandals and gaffes as Labour vows to ‘cease the chaos’

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Labour has warned voters they should expect “more of the same mess” if Rishi Sunak pulls off a surprise win in the General Election.

The Mirror has compiled a scandalous ‘Tory charge sheet’, including 120 examples of Tory sleaze, law-breaking, Government incompetence, reckless spending of taxpayers’ money, and endless gaffes – all since the 2019 election. Boris Johnson returned last night in a surprise appearance at a Tory rally, as Mr Sunak desperately tried to avert wipeout at the polls.

But voters will remember the chaos of his time in No10, where his shameless lies about the Partgate saga eventually led to him being found to have misled the Commons. And what about Dominic Cummings’s infamous trip to Durham during the first coronavirus lockdown, as well as a 60-mile round-trip to Barnard Castle to “test his eyesight”?

Scroll down for the full list of 120 things the Tories should be punished for at the polls






Boris Johnson


The climate crisis could lead to contribute to another pandemic according to an academic
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10 Downing Street/AFP via Getty)

Labour vowed to finally “stop the chaos”, and rebuild the country after 14 years of Conservatives in power. It also issued a warning to voters thinking about voting for Mr Sunak on Thursday.

A party spokesperson said: “14 long years of Tory chaos — filled with scandals, sleaze, and economic blunders — has cost the country dearly. If at the end of this campaign Sunak won, expect more of the same mess. It’s time to stop the chaos, turn the page and start to rebuild with Labour.”






The Mirror exposed the Partygate scandal in December 2021


The Mirror exposed the Partygate scandal in December 2021
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Daily Mirror)

Boris Johnson won the 2019 General Election with a promise to ‘Get Brexit Done’ – before later admitting the deal he signed “fails” to work. During the Covid pandemic, the UK was subsequently found to have one of the worst increases in death rates of major European economies.

In one of the worst examples of Tory sleaze, a ‘VIP lane’ was created to award PPE contracts to businesses, which campaigners claimed was reserved for referrals from ministers and senior officials. It led to Tory peer Baroness Michelle Mone referring new company PPE Medpro for an £81million Government contract.

When it appeared the wheel’s were coming off Mr Johnson’s premiership, he went on to regurgitate a fake online right-wing conspiracy theory, claiming Labour leader Keir Starmer “spent most of his time at the DDP failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile”.

But, it was the Chris Pincher scandal that finally spelled the end of Mr Johnson as PM, despite overseeing Downing Street becoming the most-fined address in the UK for Covid breaches after the Partygate scandal. Mr Pincher was promoted to Conservative Party Deputy Chief Whip after allegations of sexual misconduct. Mr Johnson initially claimed he wasn’t aware of the allegations, but it was later revealed he was very much aware, and even dubbed Mr Pincher ‘Pincher by name, Pincher by nature’.


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Liz Truss was later voted by Conservative members as the new PM, which would be the start of the UK’s shortest-ever reign in No 10.

The former Foreign Secretary’s disastrous mini-Budget sparked a cost of living crisis, as the pound plummeted to a 37-year low. Mortgage bills almost doubled across the country, while she also temporarily abolished the 45p top tax rate. The tax cut decision was quickly reversed – as was the decision to put Liz Truss in Downing Street.


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Rishi Sunak was later voted by Tory MPs to be the next Prime Minister, and he promised to restore “integrity, professionalism, and accountability” in his first speech outside No10. But one of his first decisions was to reappoint Suella Braverman as Home Secretary, even though she’d resigned from the role just six days previous for breaking the ministerial code over security breaches.

At the time, Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: “He said he wants his government to have ‘integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level’. Yet he has just appointed Suella Braverman to be Home Secretary again a week after she resigned for breaches of the Ministerial Code, security lapses, sending sensitive government information through unauthorised personal channels, and following weeks of non-stop public disagreements with other cabinet ministers. Our national security and public safety are too important for this kind of chaos.”






Liz Truss became the shortest-serving PM in British history


Liz Truss became the shortest-serving PM in British history
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Getty Images)

Ms Braverman was sacked 13 months later after “sowing the seeds of hate” by claiming protests in support of Palestine were “hate marches”. It sparked a far-right riot in London on Remembrance Sunday, headed by Tommy Robinson. Just days earlier, she had revealed plans to ban homeless people living in tents.

Mr Sunak would later go on to make a grim £1,000 bet with Piers Morgan over the future of his Rwanda policy. It would be widely criticised as belittling the lives of desperate asylum seekers, while also showing off his multimillionaire wealth.






British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announces a General Election on July 4th 2024.

The PM also managed to pass a law overruling the UK courts, in order to deem Rwanda as a safe country for his flagship immigration policy. The £600m policy is still yet to come to fruition, despite huge amounts of taxpayers’ money spent on the gimmick. Mr Sunak called a General Election in the pouring rain outside Downing Street earlier this month. The public will be heading to the polls on July 4.

Tory charge sheet – in full

  1. January 2020 – Boris Johnson missed the first of five Covid COBR meetings because he was on holiday at Chequers

  2. March 2020 – Boris Johnson’s chief advisor Dominic Cummings broke lockdown rules by travelling to Durham and Barnard Castle. The Government insisted he acted responsibly

  3. April 2020 – Matt Hancock’s ‘1,000 people tested each day’ target was found to record some Covid tests more than once. The target was also quietly watered down to ‘1,000 tests a day’

  4. April 2020 – Elderly patients with Covid were discharged from hospitals and were taken back to care homes

  5. April 2020 – Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick accused of ‘selfish arrogance’ after reportedly breaking lockdown rules twice

  6. May 2020 – Dominic Cummings’ trip to Durham and Barnard Castle becomes public, and he holds a press conference in the Downing Street rose garden, where he claims he drove a 60-mile round-trip to test his eyesight

  7. May 2020 – Partygate 1: ‘Bring Your Own Booze’ garden party at No 10 was attended by Boris Johnson

  8. May 2020 – RAF ordered to collect 400,000 PPE gowns from Turkey which were subsequently found to be unsafe for use

  9. May 2020 – Tory peer Dido Harding – who is wife of a Tory MP – appointed head of ‘track, test and trace’ programme. Her previous experience included being head of TalkTalk during a major data leak

  10. May 2020 – Matt Hancock claimed the Government had thrown a “protective ring” around care homes despite allowing people to return without being tested

  11. June 2020 – Partygate 2: Civil servant’s leaving drinks broke lockdown rules

  12. June 2020 – Dominic Raab said he wouldn’t take the knee during Black Lives Matter protests, as it was a sign of subjugation

  13. June 2020 – Tories went to war with Marcus Rashford, after the England footballer urged the Government to U-turn over plans to stop giving free school meals to kids during school holidays

  14. July 2020 – Dover MP Charlie Elphicke was found guilty of three counts of sexual assault against two women, and given a two-year prison sentence

  15. July 2020 – Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick faced calls to resign over his role in a controversial planning project proposed by Tory donor Richard Desmond, which saved the former Daily Express owner up to £50m in council costs

  16. August 2020 – Education Secretary Gavin Williamson faced calls to resign over A-Level results chaos which saw Ofqual downgrade 40% of teacher-assessed grades. Private school pupils were found to benefit from the scheme disproportionately

  17. October 2020 – Boris Johnson ranted about rather seeing ‘bodies piling high’ than having another lockdown

  18. November 2020 – Partygate 3 & 4: Two more lockdown-breaking parties occurred, including leaving drinks for a special advisor, and a separate event in Downing Street

  19. December 2020 – Partygate 5, 6 & 7: Three more lockdown-breaking parties, one of which included Boris Johnson appearing on camera with a party hat

  20. December 2020 – Downing Street press team filmed joking about breaking lockdown rules during practice-run press conference. The footage emerged a year later

  21. December 2020 – Boris Johnson said it would be “frankly inhuman” of him to cancel Christmas. Days later, Johnson cancels Christmas

  22. January 2021 – Boris Johnson signed the Northern Ireland Protocol, despite previously vowing “over my dead body” would there wouldn’t be checks on goods crossing to the island of Ireland

  23. January 2021 – Jacob Rees-Mogg broke Covid guidance by travelling 15 miles into a ‘Tier 4’ area for Latin Mass

  24. February 2021 – Boris Johnson accused of “vanity” after spending taxpayers’ money on three Downing Street photographers

  25. April 2021 – Boris Johnson quizzed over his relationship with Jennifer Arcuri, after claims they had an affair while he paid her for ‘IT lessons’

  26. May 2021 – Rob Roberts MP found to have made ‘significant’ repeated unwanted sexual advances to a member of staff and is given a six-week suspension from the Commons. He was readmitted to the Conservative party in October 2021

  27. May 2021 – Boris Johnson spent £112,000 refurbing the Downing Street flat, but he claimed he wasn’t sure who paid for it

  28. June 2021 – Matt Hancock resigned after being as filmed breaking social distancing rules by kissing his aide Gina Colangelo in his office

  29. June 2021 – Home Secretary Priti Patel said fans had the right to boo the England football team for taking the knee to protest racism

  30. August 2021 – Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab faced calls to resign after remaining on a family holiday in Crete while the Afghanistan government collapsed and the Taliban reclaimed power

  31. October 2021 – Owen Paterson found to have committed an “egregious” breach of the parliamentary standards over a lobbying scandal, but insisted he did nothing wrong

  32. October 2021 – Boris Johnson tried to save Owen Paterson from suspension by backing an unprecedented amendment to parliamentary standards. Despite the Government winning the vote, there was a near-immediate U-turn, and Mr Paterson was suspended from Parliament, triggering the North Shropshire by-election

  33. October 2021 – Dido Harding’s Test and Trace revealed to have “failed”, despite an eye-watering £37billion budget of taxpayers’ money

  34. October 2021 – The Government waited too long to introduce coronavirus lockdown measures and caused “unnecessary deaths”, a landmark report claimed

  35. November 2021 – The Government faced a fresh legal challenge over Priti Patel bullying claims

  36. November 2021 – Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries wrongly told a select committee that Channel 4 was “in receipt of public money”, undermining her own argument it should be privatised

  37. November 2021 – PPE contracts revealed to include ‘VIP lane’ for close contacts of people in the Conservative party

  38. November 2021 – Boris Johnson spent almost £1m on report to discover a bridge between Scotland and Northern Ireland was impossible

  39. December 2021 – The Mirror published its first report exposing the Partygate scandal

  40. December 2021 – Former Tory MP Andrew Griffiths found to have repeatedly raped and sexually assaulted his wife

  41. December 2021 – Cabinet Secretary Simon Case resigns as leader of the Partygate probe, as it turned out he hosted his own party during lockdown

  42. December 2021 – No10 Press Secretary Allegra Stratton resigns after video emerges of staff joking about breaking lockdown rules

  43. January 2022 – Boris Johnson admitted he was at a Downing Street party during lockdown, but claimed he didn’t know it was a party. It meant Johnson went from claiming “no rules were broken”, to ‘Yes, rules were broken but I wasn’t there’, to ‘Yes, rules were broken and I was there but I didn’t know I was there’

  44. February 2022 – Minister for Brexit Opportunities Jacob Rees-Mogg issues a plea to The Sun’s readers to send him possible benefits of Brexit

  45. February 2022 – Boris Johnson regurgitated fake online conspiracy theory during PMQs by falsely accusing Sir Keir Starmer of “spending most of his time [at the DDP] failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile”

  46. March 2022 – Chancellor Rishi Sunak fails to use a card reader properly when filling up with petrol

  47. March 2022 – It’s revealed that Rishi Sunak borrowed a Sainsbury’s worker’s Kia for the publicity stunt

  48. March 2022 – Gavin Williamson handed a knighthood by Boris Johnson, despite pandemic exam results fiasco

  49. March 2022 – It’s revealed the Government rejected £122m of surgical gowns from company PPE Medpro; a new company with links to Tory peer Michelle Mone

  50. April 2022 – David Warburton MP had the Tory whip removed after allegations of cocaine use and sexual harassment against three women

  51. April 2022 – Imran Khan MP convicted of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy, and is sentenced to 18 months in prison

  52. April 2022 – Neil Parish MP resigned after watching pornography in the House of Commons while sat next to a female colleague

  53. April 2022 – Boris Johnson U-turned on Tory manifesto pledge and raised National Insurance tax

  54. April 2022 – Boris Johnson used a false statistic in PMQs, despite previously promising not to use it again after repeated fact checks. He claimed there were “more people in work now than there were before the pandemic”.

  55. May 2022 – Unnamed Tory MP arrested on suspicion of rape and other historic sexual offences

  56. May 2022 – Boris Johnson tried to get Brexit undone, by saying the Northern Ireland Protocol – which he signed – “fails” to work

  57. May 2022 – Sue Gray’s report into Partygate is released, and found a “serious failure” in Government leadership, and that a number of gatherings were “hard to justify”

  58. May 2022 – Metropolitan Police issued 126 fines for lockdown breaches in Downing Street, making it the most-fined address for Covid breaches in the UK

  59. June 2022 – Chris Pincher MP resigned after groping two men at a private club. Boris Johnson reportedly knew about the allegations, but promoted “Pincher by name, Pincher by nature” to Deputy Chief Whip anyway

  60. June 2022 – Culture, Media and Sport Secretary Nadine Dorries mistook the Rugby League World Cup for the Rugby Union World Cup, and reminisced about England’s 2003 win to a room full of rugby league player

  61. June 2022 – PM ethics advisor Lord Christopher Geidt resigned after reportedly being asked to advise on breaking the ministerial code

  62. July 2022 – Michelle Donelan MP became the shortest-serving Secretary of State in history, after accepting the Education Secretary job from Boris Johnson, and then 36 hours later claiming he had “put us in an impossible position”

  63. July 2022 – Andrea Jenkyns MP filmed giving protestors the middle finger while on her way to Boris Johnson’s resignation speech. She was made a Dame in Johnson’s resignation honours list

  64. September 2022 – Liz Truss’s Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng delivered a mini-Budget, sparking a meteoric fall in the pound’s value to a 37-year low

  65. October 2022 – Liz Truss forced to ditch plans to abolish the 45p top tax rate at Tory party conference

  66. October 2022 – Claims senior Tories pressured colleagues and ‘physically manhandled’ some MPs in the House of Commons to vote with the Government

  67. October 2022 – Liz Truss resigned, becoming the shortest-serving Prime Minister in history at 45 days, which she later claimed was due to the ‘left-wing economic establishment’

  68. October 2022 – Rishi Sunak promised ‘integrity, professionalism and accountability’ when he became Prime Minister – and immediately reappointed Suella Braverman as Home Secretary after she broke ministerial code by leaking sensitive material under Liz Truss

  69. October 2022 – Rishi Sunak refused to attend COP27 as he had “other pressing domestic commitments”

  70. November 2022 – Former Tory London mayoral candidate Shaun Bailey and his staff were pictured breaking lockdown rules during Partygate

  71. November 2022 – Ex Health Secretary Matt Hancock was paid £320,000 for appearing on ITV’s I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! while Parliament was still sitting. Just £10,000 of it was given to charity

  72. December 2022 – Julian Knight MP suspended by Tory party after the Metropolitan Police launched an investigation into sexual assault

  73. December 2022 – Rishi Sunak asked a homeless man if he “works in business” during a food bank publicity stunt

  74. January 2023 – Rishi Sunak was fined for not wearing a seatbelt while recording a social media promotional video

  75. January 2023 – Boris Johnson received help from Richard Sharp in securing an £800,000 loan, before making him BBC chairman

  76. January 2023 – Tory Party chairman Nadhim Zahawi was sacked after failing to disclose an HMRC investigation into his tax affairs.

  77. March 2023 – Top Tories, including Matt Hancock and Kwasi Kwarteng, were filmed asking for up to £10,000 a day to work for a fake Korean company as a second job

  78. April 2023 – Dominic Raab was found to have bullied staff and acted in ‘intimidating’ way as foreign secretary, and also reportedly threw three tomatoes at staff in a fit of rage

  79. April 2023 – Andrew Bridgen MP was expelled from the Tory party for comparing Covid vaccines to the Holocaust

  80. May 2023 – Jacob Rees-Mogg admitted in a speech that the Government was ‘gerrymandering’ voter ID rules to gain an electoral advantage

  81. June 2023 – The Mirror published the first Partygate video, showing Tory mayoral candidate Shaun Bailey’s staff drinking and dancing during Christmas 2020

  82. June 2023 – Nadine Dorries and Jacob Rees-Mogg were reprimanded for trying to influence the Partygate probe into whether Boris Johnson lied in the House of Commons

  83. June 2023 – Boris Johnson resigned as an MP in a rage after being found to deliberately mislead Parliament about parties in Downing Street

  84. June 2023 – The UK’s Court of Appeal ruled the Government’s Rwanda asylum plan was unlawful

  85. June 2023 – Government insiders reportedly begged the Queen to block Boris Johnson’s plan to put son of a former KGB spy Evgency Lebedev to the House of Lords, it’s revealed

  86. July 2023 – Veterans Minister Johnny Mercer claimed it was a “personal choice” to use foodbanks

  87. August 2023 – Schools across the UK were forced to close buildings due to the RAAC concrete crisis

  88. August 2023 – The Home Office spent £1,500 painting over a childrens’ cartoon mural at a migrant centre, because it was deemed to be ‘too welcoming’

  89. August 2023 – First asylum seekers board the Bibby Stockholm barge – which was costing the taxpayer more per head than a night at The Savoy

  90. September 2023 – Rishi Sunak rowed back on the Government’s Net Zero pledge, blaming ‘unacceptable costs’

  91. September 2023 – Gavin Williamson was ordered to apologise after found to be bullying a colleague via texts

  92. September 2023 – Rishi Sunak bizarrely claimed the Government was working to stop households from needing seven bins

  93. September 2023 – Education Secretary Gillian Keegan was recorded demanding to be personally thanked for doing a “f*****g good job”, after a number of schools were closed over the RAAC concrete crisis

  94. October 2023 – Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho lied about Labour trying to introduce a ‘meat tax’ at Tory conference

  95. November 2023 – The Supreme Court ruled the Government’s Rwanda plan was unlawful

  96. November 2023 – Home Secretary Suella Braverman planned to ban homeless peoples’ tents

  97. November 2023 – Suella Braverman was sacked after attacking the Metropolitan Police over the handling of pro-Palestinian marches ahead of Remembrance Sunday

  98. November 2023 – New Home Secretary James Cleverly was accused of calling the Stockton North constituency “a s***hole” in the House of Commons – which he denied

  99. December 2023 – Tory peer Michelle Mone claimed there was nothing wrong with lying to the press about her links to PPE Medpro

  100. February 2024 – Rishi Sunak made a grim £1,000 bet with Piers Morgan over Rwanda plane plan

  101. February 2024 – Rishi Sunak made a trans jibe in the House of Commons, while Esther Ghey – mother of recently murdered Brianna Ghey in a transphobic attack – was in the gallery

  102. February 2024 – Conservative MP Lee Anderson had the Tory whip removed after claiming Islamists had control of London Mayor Sadiq Khan

  103. February 2024 – Paul Scully MP apologised for saying there were “no-go zones” in some parts of Tower Hamlets, London

  104. February 2024 – Former Prime Minister and Tory MP Liz Truss remained silent when interviewer Steve Bannon described far-right thug Tommy Robinson as a “hero”

  105. March 2024 – Conservative donor Frank Hester revealed to say Diane Abbott ‘makes him want to hate all black women’. He apologised for being ‘rude’

  106. March 2024 – Chancellor Jeremy Hunt claimed £100,000 is not a huge salary in Surrey

  107. March 2024 – Scott Benton MP resigned after a newspaper sting filmed him meeting with fake gambling investors, in which he claimed he could lobby ministers

  108. March 2024 – Former PM Liz Truss was revealed to have spent £15,000 of taxpayers’ money on catering during a flight to Australia

  109. April 2024 – William Wragg MP gave up the Conservative party whip after handing out the names and telephone numbers of colleagues during the Parliament honeytrap scandal

  110. April 2024 – Mark Menzies MP lost the Tory whip after claims he phoned a party activist in the early hours of the morning, saying he urgently needed £5,000 of party funds because he was locked in a flat with “bad people”

  111. April 2024 – The Government passed a law to overrule the UK courts and claim that Rwanda was a safe country

  112. April 2024 – The Government was forced to deny that homeless people would be arrested if they smell bad

  113. April 2024 – Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan used £34,000 of taxpayers’ money for her own legal bills, after claiming on Twitter that two academics expressed sympathy for Hamas – a claim she later retracted

  114. April 2024 – Policing Minister Chris Philp asked the BBC Question Time audience whether Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo were the same country

  115. May 2024 – Rishi Sunak called a general election in the pouring rain without an umbrella, with ‘Things Can Only Get Better’ playing loudly in the background

  116. May 2024 – Rishi Sunak asked Welsh brewers whether they were looking forward to the football this summer, despite Wales not qualifying for the Euros

  117. June 2024 – Man, 46, arrested during ongoing investigation into PPEMedpro; firm linked to ex-Tory peer Michelle Mone

  118. June 2024 – Rishi Sunak’s aide, Craig Williams, investigated by the Gambling Commission after betting on a General Election behind held in July, three days before the PM announced the election date

  119. June 2024 – It emerged another Tory candidate and several party officials were also being investigated by the Gambling Commission over election date betting allegations

  120. June 2024 – Rishi Sunak finally ditched election candidate Craig Williams – 13 days after story first emerges

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