Politics

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Thursday

Max Hastings

Diary – 20 June 2019

I am besieged by media folk asking when I shall make good on a four-year-old threat to flee to Buenos Aires should Boris Johnson become prime minister. How can I get on to a flight, I ask, when so many other voters are already wait-listed? In truth, however, we are being served successive courses in a national banquet of self-harm, too grisly to merit jokes. Nobody should blame Johnson for wanting to be prime minister: many unsuitable people do. But there will be infinite historical curiosity about how the Tory parliamentary party could scramble to deliver Britain into the custody of a man whom few of its members would entrust with their wallet, handbag or spouse, save to secure a cabinet seat.

Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 20 June 2019

Boris and his team made a mistake by agreeing to take part in Tuesday’s BBC leadership debate. In such decisions, candidates must be absolutely ruthless. It does not matter whether one is accused of ‘running away’ if one does not take part. The only question is, ‘Will going on X improve the candidate’s chances with the relevant electorate?’ The relevant electorate in the Tory leadership campaign is 1. MPs and 2. party members. Nobody else matters, except inasmuch as wider opinions affect those who vote. Boris could easily have reached MPs without going on the BBC debate. He can less easily reach party members, but even then, he can find more suitable platforms later.

The Spectator

Plan B | 20 June 2019

When Boris Johnson was appointed editor of this magazine two decades ago, an unkind soul said it was like ‘entrusting a Ming vase in the hands of an ape’. The remark encapsulated many people’s worst fears about the man who will almost certainly be Britain’s prime minister in four weeks’ time, if not before: that Boris is an irresponsible joker. Similar warnings were made when he was elected London mayor. His refusal to conform to type encourages a constant expectation of imminent disaster. What if Boris flops in No. 10? Even his supporters can’t be sure he won’t fail: his election as leader is a gamble from a party that believes its very survival is at stake.

Senay Boztas

What the UK can learn from the Dutch ‘vote for a woman’ initiative

Call me an obnoxious bigot, but here’s a suggestion. Instead of a queue of mostly male Tory leadership candidates getting their knickers in a twist about who is or isn’t a feminist, how about... electing more women who could take part in the race? After years of watching politicians dodge balls like female quotas or all-female candidate lists, a grassroots campaign in the Netherlands has come up with a simple idea. Understand your political system and use your vote better. The Stem op een Vrouw (Vote for a woman) group has been working since 2017 to encourage the country’s 17 million people not just to vote for any old woman.

Robert Peston

Philip Hammond says he will ‘fight and fight again’ to stop a no-deal Brexit

Astonishing scenes at Mansion House tonight. Not the climate change protestors who interrupted Philip Hammond's speech (though goodness knows how they got through the extraordinary security) but the Chancellor saying he will fight and fight again to prevent Boris Johnson going for a no-deal Brexit (though he did not name Johnson). He said:- "I cannot imagine a Conservative and Unionist-led Government, actively pursuing a no-deal Brexit; willing to risk the Union and our economic prosperity, and a General Election that could put Jeremy Corbyn in Downing Street, to boot. And I will not concede the very ground we stand on.

James Forsyth

How Boris Johnson intends to approach the next stage of the Tory leadership contest

There was a huge cheer in Boris Johnson’s office when it was announced that Jeremy Hunt had 77 votes, sending him into the final two and eliminating Michael Gove. The Johnson campaign were dreading a run- off against Michael Gove, which would have been far more testing for their candidate. The Johnson campaign are keen to say that there’s no complacency, but there is an understandable confidence that they will beat Hunt. Indeed, their planning for government, which I wrote about in this week’s magazine, is about to be significantly stepped up. Boris Johnson will have no time to waste once he enters Downing Street: there’ll only be 99 days to October 31st. The first hustings on Saturday will give us an idea of how Hunt intends to campaign.

Ross Clark

Why are our MPs so pathetically in thrall to Extinction Rebellion?

Why are MPs so pathetically in thrall to Extinction Rebellion? This morning, while the world was focused on the Conservative leadership campaign six Commons select committees (Treasury, BEIS, Environmental Audit, Housing, Communities and Local Government, Science and Technology, and Transport) jointly launched a 'Citizens' Assembly' on climate change. If you think you have heard that term before, it was one of the central demands of the climate change activists who occupied Oxford Circus for two weeks in April. One by one, they seem to be having their demands met as if they were a conquering army as opposed to a ragbag of anti-capitalist protesters. They demanded that Parliament declare a ‘climate emergency’ – which it duly did on 1 May.

Katy Balls

The Boris campaign get the leadership final they hoped for

There will be sighs of relief in the Boris Johnson camp this evening after Jeremy Hunt won the second spot on the members' ballot. It's no great secret that the Foreign Secretary was Johnson's preferred opponent. Boris allies were concerned that a contest against a candidate like Michael Gove (or, worse still, Rory Stewart) could be bruising and rather hostile. With Gove a very able debater, Johnson would likely have been pressed on the Brexit detail on a nightly basis. Even Jeremy Hunt's allies appear to admit he is an easier candidate to go up against. Ahead of the final vote sources close to the Hunt campaign were warning that a Gove/Boris final would amount to a 'psychodrama'. However, the result has also led to whisperings of tactical voting in certain quarters.

John Connolly

Did Boris’s dirty tricks help Hunt over Gove?

Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt are through to the final stage of the Tory leadership contest, after the results of the fifth round of voting were announced this evening. Michael Gove has been knocked out of the competition, after falling just two votes short (75 vs 77). Cries of foul play have followed, with suspicion that Team Boris "lent" several votes to Hunt. Boris Johnson managed to win 160 votes from his colleagues: the majority of MPs. But this is just three more than the previous round. Odd given that Sajid Javid scored 34 votes this morning, before he was eliminated. Did all but three of Javid's supporters move to Jeremy Hunt and Michael Gove?

Ian Warren

No matter what Brexit position it has – Labour is screwed 

No matter what Labour decides to do with regard to a second referendum next week, as things stand it will lose seats. And as a party which has lost half its vote share in a little over six months, it shouldn’t expect to have any target seats, just defensive positions. Before I explain why, I would like to make the following assumptions: Assumption 1: all things being equal, the current polling position stays where it is. It could all change next week. Anyone care to predict? No, neither do I. I can only work from what’s in front of me and calculate from there. If things change, I’ll change. Assumption 2: If Labour chooses to advocate for a second referendum and Remain, it will have a messenger in Jeremy Corbyn with about the worst approval rating in living memory.

Stephen Daisley

Does Rorymania have a future in the Conservative party?

'Rorymania is over,’ Isabel Hardman pops into my inbox to tell me, in last night’s Evening Blend. Rory Stewart’s elimination from the Conservative leadership race cuts short a seductive insurgency that began with pseudo-selfies and flirted with the opportunity, however wishful, of a political realignment. One place Rorymania never took off was inside the Conservative party, where Stewart’s campaign was viewed with something between bewilderment and resentment. At its electoral apex, Rorymania commanded support from just 11.8 per cent of the parliamentary Tory party.

Katy Balls

Sajid Javid could still be headed for Downing Street. 11 Downing Street

Sajid Javid has been knocked out of the Tory leadership contest – coming in fourth place overall. Ahead of the contest, there were high hopes amongst Javid supporters that he could make it all the way to the final two – and potentially No. 10. However, he had a difficult campaign start and the result today will now be seen as an achievement – and a cause of relief – by many of his supporters. There were points when it seemed Javid would struggle to get this far in the contest. The Home Secretary's leadership bid got off to a bad start with a lacklustre video launch from which he struggled to recover momentum. With so many candidates in the race at the beginning, in the first week Javid's bid had little cut through with rivals dominating the conversation.

Steerpike

Rupa Huq: no-deal Brexit will lead to scurvy

Britain has become rather used to hysterical prognostications about the threat of a no-deal Brexit from our MPs ever since we voted to Leave in 2016 – with some parliamentarians suggesting that supermarkets will be left empty and drug supplies will vanish if we don't get a deal or extension by October 31. But Labour's Rupa Huq set a new bar today on doom-laden predictions, when she suggested there could be a breakout of scurvy on Britain's streets if we left without a deal.

James Forsyth

Javid knocked out as Gove moves into second place

Sajid Javid has been eliminated from the Tory leadership race. He came bottom of the fourth ballot with 34 votes, four down from what he got yesterday. Michael Gove moved into second place, on 61 votes to Jeremy Hunt’s 59. While Boris Johnson received 14 more votes, giving him 157—and the support of an absolute majority of Tory MPs. The increase in Johnson’s vote suggests that there was tactical voting going on yesterday. It is hard to believe that many, if any, of Stewart’s voters would have switched to him. So, where did those 14 votes come from? I would hazard that they are Brexiteers who voted tactically to eliminate Rory Stewart yesterday and have now moved—or returned—to Boris Johnson.

Steerpike

Watch: MP grilled over Hunt’s anti-money laundering ‘blunder’

As the battle for second place in the Tory leadership contest has heated up in recent days, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt has shown himself more than willing to go on the attack against the frontrunner Boris Johnson – to prove that Hunt should be the MP to face him in front of Tory members. That strategy seemed to be repeated today, when one of Hunt's backers, Sir Roger Gale, went on 5Live and used the opportunity to criticise Boris for a series of alleged 'gaffes' and 'blunders'.

John Connolly

And then there were three – Sajid Javid knocked out of the leadership race

And then there were three. After the latest round of voting in the Tory leadership contest this afternoon, the Home Secretary Sajid Javid has been knocked out of the competition, leaving only Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Jeremy Hunt in the race to become the next prime minister. Boris Johnson, unsurprisingly, came top of the poll – winning the backing of 157 of his parliamentary colleagues. Far behind him, but almost tied in second place were Michael Gove and Jeremy Hunt on 61 and 59 votes respectively. Sajid Javid received only 34 votes, 4 down from the last round. While it still seems almost certain that Boris will progress to the final stage of the leadership contest, the result means Jeremy Hunt and Michael Gove will continue their fierce battle for second place behind him.

Steerpike

George Osborne’s change of heart

For a long time George Osborne was more likely to be found taking snipes at his one-time political rival Boris Johnson than supporting his political efforts. In 2016, the former chancellor mocked Johnson by saying that were he to go for the party leadership he would not 'fumble the ball' – a thinly-veiled attack on Johnson's botched leadership campaign in the 2016 contest. Only just like 2019 Johnson, 2019 Osborne is a rather different figure. Now editor of the Evening Standard, Osborne has used the paper's leading article today to endorse Boris Johnson.

James Forsyth

The new PM’s Rory Stewart problem

In this contest, Rory Stewart has established himself as the new champion of the Tory left. He has become a significant figure in the party. The interests of party unity mean that any new prime minister would want to have him inside the tent rather than on the backbenches where he would be the natural leader of any rebellion. But Rory Stewart has already said that he wouldn’t serve in Boris Johnson’s Cabinet. Indeed, he seems unlikely to serve in any new Tory leader’s government. This poses a problem for the incoming PM. Stewart’s absence will make it that much harder to bring the Tory party back together. Stewart is also now the natural leader of any Tory effort to force the government to seek another extension, or to block no deal.

Robert Peston

Boris Johnson’s secret superpowers

David Davis gave away Boris Johnson’s big secret, live on the Today Programme: the Tory MP set to be our new prime minister has superpowers. The point is that the former Brexit secretary says he is wholly persuaded that Johnson will take the UK out of the EU, deal or no deal, by 31 October – while also conceding that Johnson has given absolutely no detail on how that can be achieved, against the implacable opposition of a majority of MPs to a no-deal Brexit, and the equally implacable opposition of EU leaders to changing the Brexit withdrawal agreement to meet the concerns of Brexiters like Johnson. I am only half joking about his superpowers.

Steerpike

Full list: Tory leadership contenders and MPs backing them

The race for the Tory leadership race is on. More than a dozen candidates put themselves forward but to make it to the final two those seeking to replace Theresa May must persuade fellow Tory MPs to back them. Here are the latest tallies of who is left in the contest – and who is supporting each candidate: Through to the final two: Boris Johnson, 146 MPs publicly backing, 160 votes in the last round The clear favourite with party members and the bookies' favourite to take the Tory crown, former foreign secretary Boris Johnson is seen by many in his party as the candidate most able to take on Nigel Farage's insurgent Brexit party. YouGov found Johnson would be the first choice of 39 per cent of Tory members in a leadership race, far ahead of any other candidate.