Boris Johnson admits making mistake trying to defend Owen Paterson from sleaze charges

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Boris Johnson has admitted it was “a total mistake” to try to defend Owen Paterson for breaking lobbying rules in a move that triggered a fortnight of Tory sleaze scandals.

In a beseiged appearance in front of senior MPs Johnson said he accepted that his former Conservative colleague who made £100,000 out of undeclared lobbying had been wrong.

Johnson told the Commons Liaison Committee: “I think it was a very sad case but I think there’s no question that he had fallen foul of the rules on paid advocacy as far as I could see from the report. “The question that people wanted to establish was whether or not given the particularly tragic circumstances he had a fair right to appeal.”Paterson, who resigned as an MP, complained that he had not had