Boris johnson

Just how bad is it for Boris Johnson? In some ways it’s difficult to tell, this is a prime minister who seems almost unable to exist without a crisis.  But last night’s new Covid rules — mixed up with the unending stories about Downing Street parties in the depths of lockdown — seem to have ushered in a different level of Westminster discontent. It’s more the timing than anything else. On Tuesday morning, the Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab said ‘We don’t think that Plan B is required’. On Wednesday evening the PM implemented Plan B. What happened?  During those intervening 36 hours, the data on Omicron only seemed to have improved.

The row over the Downing Street ‘party’ has claimed its first victim. On Wednesday Allegra Stratton announced that she was resigning from government. Her decision followed the leaked footage of a practice press briefing in which Stratton — then spokeswoman for the Prime Minister — appeared to joke about a lockdown breaching No. 10 party four days after is alleged to have taken place. Addressing reporters outside her home, Stratton — who most recently has been working on the COP26 summit — said she was deeply sorry for her comments:  My remarks seemed to make light of the rules, rules that people were doing everything to obey. That was never my intention. I

Downing Street have spent the week trying to play down reports of a secret No. 10 party last Christmas when the rest of the country was under restrictions. They have tried a few tactics: at Prime Minister’s Questions last week, Boris Johnson didn’t deny the event had taken place but insisted all Covid guidance had been followed. When that failed, the Prime Minister’s spokesman went on the record saying there had been no party. Then today the blame shifted to civil servants: with briefings that it was an event mainly made up of officials rather than political appointees. Those responses are unlikely to hold much weight going forward. This evening, ITV has released footage of senior

It’s crime week for the government — with Boris Johnson and his ministers set to unveil a range of measures to show how they plan to get tough on law and order. Only the ministers sent out to land that message are themselves facing questions over criminality. The claims of a ‘boozy’ Christmas party of up to 50 people, held last year when the rest of the country was banned from mixing between households, emerged in the Mirror last week but don’t seem to be going away anytime soon.  Downing Street has insisted that no rules had been broken though the Prime Minister has not denied that an event took place In various broadcast rounds,

There’s a spectre haunting British politics: the spectre of Peppa Pig. It seems the fictitious children’s character has become the new fault line in Westminster, following Boris Johnson’s lauding of the pink porker at the CBI conference. Seeking clear blue water between himself and the Tories, Sir Keir Starmer has used an interview in today’s Times to attack the theme park centred around the animated animal, declaring: ‘I have been to Peppa Pig World, of course I have. It’s dreadful.’ Given Sir Keir’s clear-out of the last of the Corbynites, his views on Trots are well known but it’s a far cry from Labour leaders of old. Party spin-doctors famously

Boris Johnson can breathe a sign of relief this morning after the Conservatives held Old Bexley and Sidcup. In a by-election triggered by the death of the former MP and cabinet minister James Brokenshire, Tory candidate Louie French won over 50 per cent of the vote, with Labour coming in second. However, despite this victory, the Tory majority has been reduced from 19,000 to 4,478. Even taking into account the reduced turn out, the Tory vote share has fallen Both the Tories and Labour are claiming the result as a success this morning – with members of the shadow cabinet pointing to the swing towards Labour as proof they are back in business. Meanwhile,

Sir Keir Starmer had two lines of attack at Prime Minister’s Questions, both of them strong in their own way. The problem was that it wasn’t entirely clear what held them together and by splitting his six questions between them, he weakened the force of both. Starmer has been building a case for a while that Boris Johnson is playing the electorate for fools Starmer started by asking Boris Johnson about the Mirror front page, which claims the Prime Minister and his aides broke lockdown restrictions last year by holding a party in Downing Street. Johnson brushed off the allegations by arguing that people were more interested in what happens

As the government turns its attention to the new Covid variant, the ramifications of the Owen Paterson sleaze row are not quite done yet. After a difficult few weeks for the Prime Minister and his team in 10 Downing Street, Boris Johnson’s approval ratings have fallen both with the general public and Tory members. The latest ConservativeHome poll puts Johnson in negative ratings for the second time since the last election among the Tory grassroots — on -17.2. In a way, it’s hardly surprising Johnson’s standing has fallen given the combination of problems facing the government — from tax rises to small boats and the Paterson row. The question is,

Today the government has said that for the next three weeks it will be mandatory to wear masks in shops and on public transport, pending a review. It was already mandatory to wear a mask on the tube, as a condition of travel. So to avoid mixing up ideas, let’s focus on the new mandate from the government: that people will have to wear masks in shops. Imposing a requirement that anyone entering a shop must wear a mask, whether the shop wants to accept them or not, is a straightforward imposition on human liberty. We have accepted huge infringements upon our liberties over the past 21 months. We did

The next election won’t be like the 2019 campaign. It will be far tougher for the Tories. Ministers were struck by a recent presentation by the Tory strategist Isaac Levido to the cabinet a fortnight ago, in which he stressed that the next election would be much more like 2015 than 2019. Levido’s argument was that the three key factors which led to the Conservative victory two years ago were Brexit, Jeremy Corbyn and Boris Johnson — but the next election campaign would be a far more traditional affair. To win, as I write in the magazine this week, the Tories will have to show that they have delivered on their

Sir Keir Starmer enjoyed himself again at Prime Minister’s Questions today. He came armed with plenty of very good lines, and of course had more than enough government messes with which to poke Boris Johnson. The Prime Minister, for his part, had more fire in his belly than last week, presumably because he’s managed to get rid of his cold. But he didn’t manage to rescue his authority after a very tricky three weeks. The Prime Minister, for his part, had more fire in his belly than last week The Labour leader focused most of his questions on the social care revolt this week, asking Johnson why he had promised that

MPs have approved the government’s social care cap in the Commons. But the vote doing so was narrow, and there seem to have been a lot of Conservative MPs either abstaining (which would be a rebellion against a three-line whip) or absent. Some will have been unwell, and ‘slipped’, as it is known, for other reasons. But some may have agreed with the whips that their car was due to break down or a tooth due to need emergency dental work, thus preventing them from voting against this controversial amendment. Others, like Matt Hancock, gave such rousing speeches in its favour that casual observers might have been forgiven for thinking