Furious Tories brand Boris Johnson a ‘pound shop Trump’ for Jimmy Savile ‘slur’ about Keir Starmer

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Boris Johnson appeared increasingly politically isolated tonight after the Chancellor joined his top aide in blasting an ‘inappropriate and partisan’ attack on Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer involving paedophile Jimmy Savile.

In a move that will fuel suggestions he wants to replace Mr Johnson, Rishi Sunak used a live televised press conference to criticise the Prime Minister for his desperate jibe about the CPS’s failure to prosecute the notorious child sex beast when Sir Keir was its boss in 2009.  

Under pressure at the despatch box over Sue Gray’s Partygate report on Monday the PM claimed the Labour leader had ‘used his time prosecuting journalists and failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile‘ while running the Crown Prosecution Service.

Mr Johnson partially climbed down from the remarks earlier today after days of insisting he was right to level the criticism – but stopped short of an apology.

However it was too little, too late to prevent one of his longest serving and most loyal aides resigning in disgust. 

Policy chief Munira Mirza, 44, who worked with the PM for 14 years, including when he was mayor of London, said she had urged him to fully apologise for using a ‘scurrilous’ trope that originated on far right websites but he had refused. 

Minutes later Mr Sunak appeared live on television to put clean air between himself and his boss, saying: ‘With regard to the comments, being honest I wouldn’t have said it and I am glad the Prime Minister clarified what he meant.’

One source told ITV’s Robert Peston tonight that the Chancellor’s ‘coup is underway. The firing squad is assembling’. 

And a veteran Tory aide told MailOnline: ‘Munira isn’t so much a stab in the back as a big f***ing beheading.’ 

Later it was revealed Jack Doyle, the No10 director of communications, was also stepping down. He told staff: ‘It was always my intention to do two years. Recent weeks have taken a terrible toll on my family life.’ 

It is the latest calamity to hit the Prime Minister, with rebellious backbenchers sick of the smell of scandal emanating from No10 over Partygate going public with letters of no confidence in his leadership.  

His situation was further undermined when Mr Sunak repeatedly refused to rule out running for the Tory leadership if the PM is ousted.  

The PM went into reverse this morning over the jibe after his own MPs branded him a ‘pound shop Trump’.

Sir Keir was Director of Public Prosecutions more than a decade ago when the CPS decided not to prosecute Savile. After his death in 2011 the DJ and presenter was revealed as one of the UK’s most prolific child sex offenders, with crimes spanning decades.

But in the latest humiliating backtrack by the Prime Minister he admitted this morning Sir Keir ‘had nothing to do personally’ with the decision.

In a letter revealed by the Spectator this afternoon, Ms Mirza said: ‘I believe it was wrong for you to imply this week that Keir Starmer was personally responsible for allowing Jimmy Savile to escape justice. There was no fair or reasonable basis for that assertion. 

‘This was not the usual cut and thrust of politics; it was an inappropriate and partisan reference to a horrendous case of child sex abuse. 

‘You tried to clarify your position today but, despite my urging, you did not apologise for the misleading impression you gave.’  

No10 replaced her this afternoon as head of the policy unit with MP Andrew Griffiths, the PM’s parliamentary private secretary. A spokeswoman said: “We are very sorry Munira has left No10 and are grateful for her service and contribution to government.’ 

It has been suggested that he had been warned beforehand by aides not to use the line but did so anyway. And he has since refused to apologise, with ministers supporting him as recently as this morning by saying it was fair criticism.

But in a BBC interview in Blackpool this lunchtime, Mr Johnson finally admitted his remarks meant ‘a lot of people have got very hot under the collar’.

‘Let’s be absolutely clear, I’m talking not about the Leader of the Opposition’s personal record when he was DPP and I totally understand that he had nothing to do personally with those decisions,’ he said.

‘I was making a point about his responsibility for the organisation as a whole. I really do want to clarify that because it is important.’ 

Former No10 aide Dominic Cummings, now an arch critic of the PM, tweeted: ‘Moral courage from Munira who has done her best to make progress with a professional team throughout the horror since 11/20.

‘It’s also an unmistakable signal the bunker is collapsing & *this PM is finished*.’ 

He predicted a ‘mad scramble’ away from the Prime Minister, adding: ‘Pretty soon there will be a mad scramble & ministers will be kicking themselves hitting their heads saying ”WHY didnt i move faster arghhh”.

‘Now’s your moment, find a flicker of moral courage & ”push what is falling”.’

It is the latest volte face by the PM in recent days. Last week he tried to suggest he would not publish parts of the Sue Gray report that were held back due to a police probe into the PM and his staff. He later relented and said they would be made available.

And earlier this week he was forced to confirm that if he was fined by cops over breaches of lockdown laws, he would publicly announce it, having earlier suggested he would keep it a secret.

The Chancellor said this afternoon being the next prime minister is ‘not what I’m focused on’ as he labelled talk of a contest a ‘hypothetical situation’. 

However, in comments which will fuel speculation that Mr Sunak does have leadership ambitions, he said it is ‘very kind’ of some Tory MPs to tip him as the frontrunner.  

Mr Johnson’s decision to double down at Prime Ministers Questions yesterday has reported alarmed many of his MPs. Some have now likened him to the fake news-spouting former US president, the Times reported.

They find themselves in the unusual position of agreeing with Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who yesterday branded the PM ‘Trumpian’.

Mirza is the youngest daughter of Pakistani immigrants, her father a factory worker and her mother a housewife and Urdu teacher.

She grew up in Oldham and attended state schools before becoming the only student at her sixth form to win a place at Oxford.

It was during her study at Mansfield College that she joined the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), contributing to its magazine Living Marxism.

She went on to study for a PhD in sociology at the University of Kent under Professor Frank Furedi, who co-founded the RCP, which had then dissolved.

She had various jobs in the culture and charity sectors, including at the Royal Society of Arts, the Policy Exchange think tank, and the Tate, before being made arts adviser to Mr Johnson, aged 30, when he was elected as Mayor of London in 2008.

During Mr Johnson’s time at City Hall, she was promoted, in 2012, to the deputy mayor for education and culture, and was described by his former head of communications at City Hall Guto Harri as “the perfect counter to those critics who suspected the worse of Boris”.

Ms Mirza is reported to have been a supporter of Brexit far before Mr Johnson, and once joined a protest against a ban on drinking on the London Underground which involved riding around the Circle Line while day drinking, in an objection to the state dictating such a move.

In 2018, when the Prime Minister’s comments about women in burkas hit the headlines, Ms Mirza – a Muslim – launched a passionate defence of him in the media.

Ms Mirza reportedly helped write the manifesto that got Mr Johnson to No 10. Once he became Prime Minister, she was brought in immediately as one of his inner circle.

Former minister Steve Brine said Mirza’s resignation was ‘so predictable and a loss to Government’. 

The Winchester MP said: ‘As [I] said to the Prime Minister last night, when we met to talk about current events, this was flash-man and totally unnecessary. The PM has got to stop picking fights.’

But Mr Johnson was defended by Foreign Office ministerr James Cleverly today, as he told the BBC the comment was a legitimate criticism rather than a smear.

He claimed that Sir Keir’s refusal to take responsibility for what happened on his watch was in contrast to the PM’s actions over Partygate.

The MP for Braintree told Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘The point is, if the criticism that Keir Starmer is laying on the Prime Minister is about taking responsibility for the actions of an organisation he leads, I think raising the point that Keir Starmer himself has experience is a criticism.’  

Sir Keir laid into the PM today, saying Mr Johnson’s tactic was to ‘drag everyone into the gutter with him’. 

Sir Keir had said in a review in 2013 that Savile could have been charged for his crimes in 2009, two years before his death, had police taken victims more seriously, and he apologised for ‘the shortcomings in the part played by the Crown Prosecution Service in these cases’.

In 2020, fact-checking charity Full Fact found the Labour leader was the head of the Crown Prosecution Service in 2009 when a decision was made not to bring charges against Savile, who was later revealed to be a rampant paedophile and is believed to be one of Britain’s most prolific sex offenders.

Full Fact said: ‘The allegations against Savile were dealt with by local police and a reviewing lawyer for the CPS.

‘A later investigation criticised the actions of both the CPS and the police in their handling of the situation.

‘It did not suggest that Mr Starmer was personally involved in the decisions made.’

A flurry of Tory MPs have called on their party leader to withdraw his allegations. And victims of Jimmy Savile have argued the same.

Tory MP Julian Smith, the party’s former chief whip, turned on his party leader and tweeted: ‘The smear made against Keir Starmer relating to Jimmy Savile yesterday is wrong & cannot be defended. It should be withdrawn. False and baseless personal slurs are dangerous, corrode trust & can’t just be accepted as part of the cut & thrust of parliamentary debate’.  

And today Simon Hoare, MP for North Dorset and Chairman of the Northern Ireland Select Committee, said: ‘The Jimmy Saville false allegation should be withdrawn’. 

Mr Johnson was rebuked by the Commons Speaker yesterday over his discredited claim that Sir Keir Starmer failed to prosecute Jimmy Savile.

The Prime Minister faced calls from a Tory former chief whip to withdraw the ‘baseless personal slur’, while Sir Keir said it was Mr Johnson who was ‘debasing himself by going so low’.

Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle said he was ‘far from satisfied that the comments in question were appropriate’.

On Wednesday, Scottish First Minister Ms Sturgeon condemned the comments from Mr Johnson. 

She added: ‘I’m of a different political party to Keir Starmer, but the Jimmy Savile comments about Keir Starmer were utterly despicable.

‘(It is) appalling that the holder of the office of Prime Minister is behaving in that fake news, Trumpian manner.

‘This is about the integrity of our democracy.

‘We’ve all got to ask ourselves… as citizens, are we content to have someone with no integrity and no shame occupying Number 10, and I think the answer to that question for the vast majority of people across the UK is no.

‘But the people who can make the decision about whether Boris Johnson stays there or not are Tory MPs and the longer they allow him to stay there, the longer he will become tarnished and tainted and complicit in his conduct.’ 

What is the TRUTH behind PM’s Jimmy Savile ‘smear’ on Keir Starmer? The facts and fiction after Boris Johnson accused the Labour leader of failing to prosecute notorious paedophile when he was DPP

Boris Johnson has accused former director of public prosecutions Sir Keir Starmer of having ‘used his time prosecuting journalists and failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile‘ – and doubled down in the Commons today.

But the Labour leader has said Mr Johnson is ‘debasing himself by going so low’ by repeating ‘a ridiculous slur peddled by right wing trolls’. 

And today he used PMQs to accuse Mr Johnson of ‘parroting the conspiracy theories of violent fascists to try to score cheap political points’. The PM then refused to withdraw his comments, despite calls from his own MPs to do so.

In 2012 a QC-led inquiry exonerated Sir Keir, finding he was not involved in the decision not to put Savile in the dock two years before he died, blaming it on hapless starstruck police officers and an incurious local prosecutor. 

During Sir Keir’s tenure as director of public prosecutions from 2008 to 2013, detectives had sought advice from the CPS on four allegations that Savile had sexually assaulted girls and young women in the 1970s.

In October 2009, the CPS reviewing lawyer with responsibility for the cases advised that since none of the complainants was ‘prepared to support any police action’, no prosecutions could be brought. 

Savile, who abused 500 women and children, died in 2011 without facing justice. 

In 2012, after it became clear the Top of the Pops host had attacked and abused hundreds of children and women in hospitals, schools and while filming his BBC shows, an inquiry was carried out Alison Levitt QC, on Mr Starmer’s own orders. 

In 2013 her report found that the decision was made by police and prosecutors locally, not Sir Keir, who was unaware of it. The CPS would also say there was ‘no reference to any involvement from the DPP in the decision-making within a report examining the case.’ 

Alison Levitt QC found that police treated the victims and the accounts they gave ‘with a degree of caution which was neither justified nor required’. 

Savile also made veiled threats against officers if sexual abuse allegations against him did not ‘disappear’. 

Detectives looking at allegations advised the CPS not to prosecute Savile, believing his explanation that it was all made up and the price of being famous. 

Ms Levitt was also critical of the approach taken by the CPS’ reviewing lawyer, but did not suggest that Mr Starmer was personally involved in the decisions made.

The lawyer was also criticised for failing to properly build a case with the police or spot inconsistencies in their reports after interviewing Savile under caution and four of his victims. 

As head of the CPS, Sir Keir later apologised, admitting the failure to prosecute Savile was a ‘watershed moment’ for the organisation. But avoided any admonishment in Ms Levitt’s report.

He said: ‘I would like to take the opportunity to apologise for the shortcomings in the part played by the CPS in these cases.

‘These were errors of judgement by experienced and committed police officers and a prosecuting lawyer acting in good faith and attempting to apply the correct principles. That makes the findings of Ms Levitt’s report more profound and calls for a more robust response.’ 

Lawyer turned Labour leader Sir Keir then left in 2013 to pursue a career in politics.