Evening Standard Comment: Sleaze leaves Johnson with a political headache

What precisely qualifies someone as a paid lobbyist and how many hours a week is too many? These are some of the questions that Boris Johnson will have to address as he seeks to stem the bleeding caused by his mishandling of the Owen Paterson affair.

This newspaper previously called on the Prime Minister to clarify the rules around MPs’ second jobs. We therefore welcome that he has now sought to do so.

Yet while Paterson was found to be in a clear breach of the rules on paid advocacy, the reality is that many MPs rely on outside interests to top up their pay and that much of it is allowed under the current system.

Some cases are straightforward. Few would argue that Labour MP Dr Rosena-Allin Khan should be forced to give up shifts at A&E or that former cabinet ministers must be prevented from writing memoirs. But it is those marginal cases that will cause headaches for the authorities, which is why transparency and a clear rulebook will be vital.

The Prime Minister’s political headache is not limited to the architecture of new rules. The sleaze affair has also magnified the divide between those newer Tories from Red Wall seats and long-standing MPs. Johnson, not universally regarded as a master of party management, will have to find a way to put his party back together again.