Boris Johnson has one last try to install ally in plum police role

Boris Johnson is attempting to install Lord Hogan-Howe in one of the most prestigious jobs in law enforcement before he leaves No 10.

Boris Johnson is attempting to install Lord Hogan-Howe as head of the National Crime Agency before he leaves No 10, The Times has been told.

The recruitment process for the post, one of the most prestigious in law enforcement, was reopened in May after Hogan-Howe, Johnson’s top pick, was overlooked. The prime minister is understood to have been unhappy that the former Metropolitan Police commissioner did not reach the final round.

The reopening of applications prompted a backlash because Hogan-Howe, 64, oversaw Operation Midland, Scotland Yard’s bungled child abuse investigation. He has supported the prime minister politically and took the unprecedented step in policing of backing him during the last Conservative leadership contest in 2019.

Applications are understood to have closed on Friday and the process is expected to be complete by September. Johnson is due to remain prime minister until September or later and the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers is meeting on Monday to draw up a timetable for the transition of government.

Lord Hogan-Howe is a former Metropolitan Police commissioner.

Priti Patel, the home secretary, will make the final decision on who leads the National Crime Agency (NCA) but government sources said that Johnson and his allies had been “leaning on” the Home Office to ensure Hogan-Howe was selected. Patel is supposed to consult the prime minister on her decision.

Senior policing figures view Johnson’s desire to appoint Hogan-Howe as quid pro quo for his political support. It has also been seen as an attempt by Kit Malthouse, a friend of the prime minister who was the policing minister until last week, to flex his muscles.

Malthouse is understood to have coveted the job of home secretary since he helped Johnson into Downing Street. A Whitehall source confirmed that recruitment of the new NCA director would not be delayed by Johnson’s departure as prime minister; Patel is likely to be replaced as part of the transition. “The process will continue unaffected by the prime minister’s resignation,” the source said. “The job is [too] important to be left for the next home secretary.”

Yesterday victims of Scotland Yard’s botched child abuse investigation reacted angrily to the prospect of Hogan-Howe being appointed. The former Tory MP Harvey Proctor, who was falsely accused by the fantasist Carl Beech, said it would be a calamity. “It wouldn’t send a signal to policing in this country that what happened in Midland must never be allowed to happen again,” Proctor told The Times. “I say that not for myself and the others involved in Midland but for all others who will end up in similar situations.”

The Liberal Democrats said the prospect of Hogan-Howe being appointed before Johnson left No 10 was another reason for Conservative MPs to remove him before the end of the Conservative leadership contest. Alistair Carmichael, the party’s home affairs spokesman, said: “A lame-duck prime minister dishing out high-ranking jobs to his mates would be unacceptable and profoundly damaging for trust and confidence in the police. Conservative MPs must put an end to this by removing Johnson from office right now.”

Hogan-Howe’s main rival for the job is understood to be Graeme Biggar, who is already the interim director-general. He was one of two highly qualified candidates who made it through a five-month process before recruitment was reopened in May.

Neil Basu, an assistant Met commissioner who has served as the UK’s head of counter-terrorism policing, has not reapplied, The Times understands. He has fallen out of favour with Patel and No 10 after clashes on race issues.

The NCA post is vacant because Dame Lynne Owens stepped down in September with a breast cancer diagnosis. There was speculation that she could be appointed the new Met commissioner after recovering this year but she did not apply.

Applicants will be interviewed by an independent panel chaired by a civil service commissioner. It will produce a shortlist of candidates who present to the NCA leadership. The home secretary can interview all or none of those candidates.

A Downing Street source denied that Johnson was trying to install Hogan-Howe. “It’s a Home Office decision and civil service-run process,” they said.

Behind the story

It is virtually unheard of for a senior ranked police officer to publicly endorse a politician. So when Lord Hogan-Howe publicly endorsed Boris Johnson in the 2019 Conservative Party leadership election, describing him as honourable and effective, it raised many eyebrows in the policing world.

The pair were close throughout Johnson’s reign as mayor of London, with Hogan-Howe his preferred candidate when he became commissioner of the Metropolitan Police in 2011.

It would be the icing on the cake of political cronyism for Johnson, and cap a number of prestigious roles Hogan-Howe has landed since stepping down from his role in 2017.

Among them was his pounds 15,000-a-year role advising the Cabinet Office on the response to the coronavirus and the Brexit transition, and carrying out an external review into the accidental deletion last year of more than 400,000 records from police databases.

He was appointed as a Cabinet Office adviser in 2020 even though months earlier Michael Gove, then the minister at the department, said that the Met’s treatment of Field Marshal Lord Bramall, the former chief of defence, in a disastrous VIP child sex abuse inquiry was shameful.

Given the figures who were traduced during the inquiry, handing Hogan-Howe one final job of leading Britain’s equivalent of the FBI before he leaves office would leave a particularly bad stain on Johnson’s reputation.

The reputation of Lord Brittan of Spennithorne, the late Conservative former home secretary, was also trashed, and he died before being cleared of wrongdoing.

It is for that reason, and the likelihood that Priti Patel, who will make the final decision, is expected to run for the Tory leadership, that Johnson may well be defied in his attempt to install Hogan-Howe. Patel will feel more emboldened to choose her own preference given the backlash that would follow if she backed Hogan-Howe.

The Times