Johnson compared to Trump over Savile comments

Nicola Sturgeon has likened the Prime Minister to Donald Trump and accused him of spreading “fake news” over comments made about Sir Keir Starmer’s involvement in investigating Jimmy Savile.

An update to the long-awaited Sue Gray report on Downing Street parties during lockdown was published on Monday and it showed 12 separate events are being investigated by the Metropolitan Police.

Giving a statement on the update to MPs earlier this week, Boris Johnson lashed out at the Labour leader’s record when he was director of public prosecutions.

Mr Johnson said Sir Keir “used his time prosecuting journalists and failing to prosecute Jimmy Savile”.

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.”

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.”

At Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, Mr Johnson refused to withdraw the comment, saying Sir Keir had apologised publicly in 2013 on the issue and that was the “right thing to do”.

Sir Keir accused the Prime Minister of “parroting the conspiracy theories of violent fascists to try to score cheap political points”.

Ms Sturgeon went on to again call for Mr Johnson to quit based on his response to the substance of the Gray report.

“Boris Johnson’s performance in the House of Commons two days ago was one of the most shameful, shameless, utterly despicable performances in the House of Commons I’ve seen in my lifetime,” she said.

“The Sue Gray interim report was obviously heavily constrained by the ongoing Met Police investigation, but even so constrained it was utterly devastating in its judgments about Boris Johnson – lack of leadership, lack of judgment.

“Instead of facing up to that, instead of genuinely apologising, instead of doing what in my view would be the right thing now – stepping aside – he just tried to smear everybody around him.”