Boris Johnson latest news: PM must quit if he lied about parties, says Major

Welsh FM Mark Drakeford has tested positive for Covid, a spokesperson has confirmed.

A statement issued on Thursday said: “The first minister of Wales has tested positive for coronavirus after taking a PCR test.

“He is self-isolating and working remotely”.

The country’s economy minister Vaughan Gething will host the three-weekly coronavirus regulations review due to take place at midday on Friday in Mr Drakeford’s place.

Back to Partygate. Boris Johnson will not receive personal legal advice from government lawyers in relation to the Metropolitan Police probe, No 10 has said.

The PM’s official spokesperson also confirmed that Mr Johnson had not yet been contacted as part of the force’s Operation Hillman investigation into a dozen events held during Covid restrictions. Earlier, Dame Cressida Dick, the force’s commissioner, confirmed questionnaires would be sent to 50 people thought to have taken part in lockdown-busting events.

However, they added: “We would look to confirm contact of this sort as relates to the prime minister given the significant public interest”.

Our political correspondent Ashley Cowburn has the full report:

In the last hour, Boris Johnson arrived in Warsaw and was been taken by motorcade to the chancellery of the Polish prime minister.

The PM is due to receive an official welcome from his Polish counterpart Mateusz Morawiecki.

The pair are then due to hold talks about tensions with Russia before giving statements to the press in Poland’s capital.

After that, they will travel to a military base to meet Nato armed forces, including UK troops.

“Human review” of decisions made by computer algorithms will be quietly axed under a bonfire of EU laws, MPs have been warned – risking a repeat of the 2020 “A-levels fiasco”. Report by Rob Merrick:

Of course, not everyone appreciates John Major’s words, and some blame him for Brexit:

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick has admitted there “probably will be” more “embarrassing or disgusting” incidents involving officers.

The remarks came after the Independent Office for Police Conduct discovered sexist and racist comments made between officers at Charing Cross.

Dame Cressida told BBC Radio London: “I’m not complacent – there could be and probably will be, over the coming months, some more examples which will be embarrassing or disgusting, because we will be rooting them out, but we want to look after our people as best we possibly can.”

Sir John Major said previous prime ministers would not have been allowed by their senior ministers and officials to behave in the way Boris Johnson does.

Sir John, who was prime minister from 1990 to 1997, said the apparent unwillingness to confront Mr Johnson was a “weakness” in No 10.

“If Mrs Thatcher in her time had been seen to behave in the way the present Prime Minister has, I can tell you what would have happened,” he said.

“The cabinet secretary would have been around straight away to tell her she couldn’t do it, and so would Mr (William) Whitelaw, Lord Carrington, Sir Geoffrey Howe and many other senior and weighty members of the cabinet.

“If I had done it, I would have had Douglas Hurd, Ken Clarke, Michael Heseltine, never mind others in No 10, telling me, ‘You just cannot do that’.

“Nobody in Cabinet, nor indeed the Cabinet Secretary, seems to be saying that to the present Prime Minister – and that is a weakness in No 10.”

Amid his scathing attack on the government’s standards, ex-PM John Major also took aim at the Northern Ireland Protocol, calling it “arguably one of the worst pieces of negotiation that we have seen in recent history”.

As BBC Newsnight’s Lewis Goodall reports: