A former Bullingdon Club member and university friend of Boris Johnson has been appointed to Whitehall’s independent sleaze watchdog, the Guardian can disclose. Permission to republish the photograph has since been withdrawn by Gillman & Soame, the Oxford portrait photographers who hold the copyright. The Bullingdon Club was an elite dining club which became notorious at Oxford for lavish rituals, opulent banquets and smashing up restaurants. A Cabinet Office spokesperson said: “Mr Fergusson applied through open and fair competition, following the governance code for public appointments. The panel was made up of Evans, former children’s commissioner Anne Longfield, Vote Leave figure Baroness Gisela Stuart, and Darren Tierney, the director general of propriety and ethics in the Cabinet Office.

Source: The Guardian July 15, 2021 20:28 UTC