Row over conspiracy linked to Morgan McSweeney’s stolen mobile persists – UK politics live

A Labour MP joined the Conservatives in accusing the government of a cover-up after McSweeney’s phone was stolen

The Conservatives are continuing to suggest that Morgan McSweeney has been engaged in some sort of conspiracy to dispose of his mobile phone, and stop parliament getting hold of his messages with Peter Mandelson. Yesterday Kemi Badenoch said “it is only right that Morgan McSweeney testifies in Parliament and explains exactly what happened”. And this morning Andrew Griffith, the shadow business secretary, told Sky New that “the whole thing is as smelly as a fish market on a hot summer’s afternoon”.

Referring to claims that McSweeney’s account of how he had his phone stolen (meaning the messages potentially cannot be recovered) and that the police did not investigate it propertly, Griffith went on:

It just doesn’t compute, does it? I worked in Number 10. Briefly, I had a Number 10 phone. There was a paranoia about devices like that falling into other people’s hands.

And so whether it was the Met Police, whether it was Morgan McSweeney, and what sounds like pretty evasive set of reporting, even when you look at that transcript, or whether it was the Number 10 security team following up something that at the time they could not have been sure had not been taken by a state actor, a phone with all sorts of government secrets potentially in it, that’s precisely why people in government have two separate phones.

I don’t believe McSwindle had his iPhone stolen

Honest believe, Matt. It’s smacks of the liar Johnson defence of ‘lost all my WhatsApp messages’. We mustn’t take the public for fools. And I am afraid this smacks of too convenient by far. I won’t do it. I will say what I actually think. And I don’t believe it. End of!

I believe the report was made. McSwindle didn’t mention that he was the chief of staff to the PM. A significant omission of he’d wanted the police to prioritise the offence.