 Boris Johnson's decision to defend his crooked colleague, Owen Patterson, has seriously damaged his government. So why did he take the risk? The simplest explanation would be that Boris Johnson was defending a friend and was willing to run roughshod over the rules to get him off the hook. But there's a problem with that narrative. Boris Johnson is famously a man who doesn't understand interpersonal loyalty. We then might have to look for a deeper motive. And on that front, Boris Johnson's former closest ally has his own ideas. Dominic Cummings tweeted, so after all of this controversy, he tweeted, Part of the point of yesterday is the removal of Kay Stone. Most media ignored S. Walters stories where he carries wallpaper in the PM's illegal donations because Carrie hands out so many leaks and exclusives. Yesterday was really about the PM and his own allies regarding illegal money, not Owen Patterson. He then goes on, Guide could only do cover up by not interviewing those who know what actually happened in 2020 with the fake Blind Trust secret illegal donations. If EC, which is the Electoral Commission, interviews people with perjury charges hanging, the Prime Minister will be screwed. Now there's a hell of a lot referenced in those tweets, and it's not particularly easy to understand. It's in sort of Dominic Cummings language is his style of tweeting, which involves lots of technical terms and abbreviation. So I'm going to unpack them for you. So Kay Stone is Catherine Stone, the standards commissioner. I'm going to put her to one side because we're going to talk about her more in one moment. S. Walters also mentioned is Simon Walters. He's a Daily Mail journalist who broke the story about the refurbishment of Boris Johnson and Carrie Simmons Downing Street flat. This scoop, if you don't remember it, or if you need reminding, involved Boris Johnson getting wealthy Tory donors to pay to refurbish his flat, but then channeling the money via the Conservative Party. The donations were not declared until after the media found out and it became this big public Ferrari. That meant it potentially broke electoral law and it led to many very reasonable charges of a cover up. The guide referred to in the second tweet is Lord Christopher Guite. He's the former private secretary to the Queen who was appointed by the government to investigate the donations into Johnson's flat. At the time we said it was a bit ridiculous that someone appointed by the government was investigating the government. Dominic Cummings clearly thinks there was a cover up going on there as well. Finally, the EC referred to is the Electoral Commission. They were the second body charged with investigating the shady donations other than Lord Guite. The Electoral Commission, unlike parliamentary committees or all these advisors, these appointees has legal power to mandate witnesses to give evidence. They haven't used those powers yet. That segues nicely into a couple more tweets Cummings put out. So he then tweeted one simple thing even the Dud Starmer should be able to manage today. Right to the Electoral Commission demanding that they interview those in number 10 with knowledge of PM's illegal donations, including the infamous wallpaper WhatsApp group with perjury charges for those shown to lie. Yesterday was a preemptive strike by the Prime Minister on the Electoral Commission and Stone. Tory MPs are just expendable cannon fodder. They are trying to keep secret the cover up earlier this year on his illegal donations and lies to Guite and the Cabinet Secretary about it all. Hashtag, follow the money. So he's saying that what needs to happen right now, what Boris Johnson is really terrified about is the Electoral Commission getting people to answer questions under oath about his dodgy dealings last year in 2020 when it came to funding the refurbishment of his flat. The one person referenced in those tweets we haven't introduced properly yet but who is key to this story is Catherine Stone. She is the commissioner employed by Parliament. So not by the government, by Parliament with the responsibility of investigating wrongdoing by MPs. It was her decision that Parliament on Wednesday overrode and it's her who quasi-quarteng this morning suggested should consider her position. So she's the most obvious person who this whole sordid affair was intended to oust. So when it comes to who Catherine Stone is, the Guardian had a decent profile of her. So they write, Stone was born in Derby and went to school in nearby Belpa before taking a degree in sociology and a master's in women's studies at Loughborough University. She has a long history of tackling politically contentious issues. So she previously served as the commissioner for victims and survivors in Northern Ireland with the delicate task of tackling the legacy of the troubles. Stone was also a commissioner for the Independent Police Complaints Commission overseeing investigations including into the Roverum Force's failure to tackle child sex abuse. She began her working life caring for children with disabilities and went on to run the charity Voice UK which represents people with disabilities who have experienced crime or abuse. She was given an OBE in 2007. Now the thing that that introduction to Catherine Stone makes me think is she has potentially everything the Conservative Party hates. She also seems highly qualified for her job. So remember the person that Boris Johnson appointed to investigate him was a previous private secretary to the royal family. Establishment through and through, someone who is probably going to use a light touch when it comes to holding the powerful to account. This person potentially a little bit more risky for Boris Johnson. The key bit in that profile though is the following. In her current post and perhaps most relevantly given Downing Street's interest in the Paterson case, Stone has found herself investigating the Prime Minister's personal finances. She found against him over a free holiday he took in mustique courtesy of a Tory donor because he quote did not make sufficient inquiries to establish the full facts about the funding arrangements for his free accommodation either before his holiday as he should have done or in 2020 unquote. However, Bryant's committee subsequently sought additional information from the Prime Minister and the donor in question, the car phone warehouse founder David Ross concluded Johnson and the he concluded Johnson had correctly declared the luxury stay. The Guardian Go On Johnson is known to have been irked by the investigation into the funding of his 2019 Christmas holiday which was one of a series into his financial affairs. One thing I want to mention there quickly because it's jumped out to me is that what people like Kwazi Kwartang, what Boris Johnson what all of the conservatives have been saying over the past 24 hours is the reason why we need to abolish the standards commissioner and replace them with another and the standards committee is that there is no process of appeal and they say the evidence here is though even though there is initially a report written by the commissioner and then her findings go to the committee, they say the committee just rub a stamp it it's not a proper appeal process because they just say yes to whatever the commissioner said. We've got here an obvious example of them actually working like an appeal process so the commissioner said one thing Boris Johnson appealed to the committee and they overturned that decision so there already is an appeal process and it seems to be working. You can see why he wants to get rid of Catherine Stone who seems like someone who is interested in holding politicians to account. Ash, what's your take is the real story of the past 48 hours Boris Johnson's commitment to taking out anyone that could possibly hold him to account? The short answer is yes. The long answer is yes but longer. When it comes to Dominic Cummings, our favourite post-government chatty patty there's a couple of pinches of salt you need to bear in mind. One is he has his own well televised history of trying to wriggle out of accountability the embarrassing pantomime of Barnard Castle and driving to test my eyesight. He's had his own part to play in terms of the weakening of standards and methods of accountability at the heart of government. The second thing is what we know is that Dominic Cummings and Lee Cain who were at the top of the Downing Street comms and strategy operation very much blame Kerry Johnson for them having to leave Downing Street. They sort of see it as a power struggle between Kerry on one side the vote leave law on the other and Kerry because she has the ear of the Prime Minister she is his wife, ultimately won out. The bone of contention there was the role of Allegra Stratton whether or not she should get this role of Downing Street spokesperson for having televised press briefings and it's funny that even after Kerry and team Allegra won what happened to Allegra Stratton what happened to that very expensive Downing Street briefing room it got scuttled and instead she became the Prime Minister's cop 26 spokesperson so make of that what you will. However the behaviour of the government when it comes to really trying to and failing to knock out Catherine Stone by discrediting the course of action and the ruling about Owen Patterson I think does suggest that there is something that the Prime Minister is trying to hide. You had this business of the Holiday Mustique claiming that you know he didn't know who paid for it at first you then had Kerry and Boris staying at the luxury villa in Marbella which was owned by the goldsmiths and the holiday was paid for by the goldsmiths I personally don't think that a Prime Minister should be receiving such lavish gifts of holidays and villas and stays on private islands because if there's no such thing as a free lunch Michael there's certainly no such thing as a free villa or a free stay on a private island so I do think that there's something in this that there is something in the Prime Minister's own financial arrangements that he is desperately trying to hide that he certainly doesn't want to be pulled out into the open and Catherine Stone is somebody who throughout her career has been not only incredibly diligent and rigorous but has been quite tough on MPs in a way which is I have to say non-partisan so Catherine Stone was quite central to the investigation of Keith Vaz particularly that business of trying to obtain cocaine to give to male sex workers and in her report Catherine Stone was absolutely excoriating of Keith Vaz not simply in terms of what it was he was alleged to do but for his lack of cooperation with the investigation and for trying to spin a tail which she found at times stretching the bounds of plausibility and being completely incredible so as much as the Conservatives might try and impugn her independence and say oh she's just got it in for us because we're the government no she's been pretty tough on Labour MPs as well that's why they're scared of her she's truly independent she's capable of being tough on MPs and she is single-minded in her desire to hold them to account I can't say this definitively but I get the impression that the musty holiday that the holiday in the south of Spain with Zach Goldsmith they're both quite distasteful these are very well-paid people they should be able to pay for their own holidays if they wanted to live remotely like the people they govern they would use their own 80k salaries to go on holidays so I find it very distasteful they do that my impression is it's kind of within the rules though to do that as long as you declare it I would completely overturn those rules I don't think you should be able to get paid 100,000 pounds by a testing company like Owen Patterson did but I get the impression rules weren't broken I think when it comes to the flat where Boris Johnson tried to set up a blind trust because I want to do up this flat we really need 200,000 to do it how am I going to possibly get this let's do something that's really untransparent and that is being investigated by the let's talk commission that seems like where there could have been laws broken the rules already have way too much leeway for what I would consider corruption but this I think potentially also broke the rules which is why I think while I accept everything you've said about Dominic Cummings being somewhat of a biased participant in all of this he's not exactly a neutral observer I think he is probably onto something when it comes to that Downing Street flat