Tory minister on sex misconduct spreadsheet issues denial, denouncing claims as 'false and malicious' – Politics live

Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen, including Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn at PMQs and Boris Johnson giving evidence to the Commons foreign affairs committee 2.04pm GMT Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, has just started giving evidence to the Commons foreign affairs committee. You can watch the hearing here.I won’t be covering every word, but I will be keeping an eye on it and posting the highlights. 1.43pm GMT Dominic Raab, the justice minister who is tipped as a future cabinet minister and possible future leader, is one of the Tories MPs who features on the sexual misconduct spreadsheet doing the rounds at Westminster and now on social media. The Raab entry says “injunction for inappropriate behaviour with a woman”.Raab has this morning issued a very comprehensive denial which he has just repeated on the World at One. The full text is on his website, but here is the key extract.Under my own name, the entry reads: “Injunction for inappropriate behaviour with a woman”. And yet, I have never been served with any injunction for anything. Nor have I ever sought one. Equally, any insinuation that I have engaged in anything resembling sexual harassment, sexually abusive behaviour or lewd remarks with either parliamentary colleagues or staff (in any job I have done) is false and malicious. I have already taken legal advice.The only tenuous link I can conceive of is that, in 2011, a tabloid newspaper ran a vexatious story smearing me, in relation to a previous job before I became an MP. I successfully sued that newspaper for libel, and in March 2012 they paid a five figure sum in compensation, and printed an unequivocal apology and retraction on page 2. Continue reading…
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