Boris johnson

Talk of an early election has been on the rise in recent months as the Brexit arithmetic has looked increasingly shaky. This week it has hit fever pitch. Boris Johnson announcing extra funds for the NHS has been read as a sign the party is getting campaign ready while party chairman James Cleverly set the cat among the pigeons at the weekend after he used a broadcast interview to say only that the Tories would not 'initiate' a general election. The verdict: an early election is beginning to be seen as inevitable.

I don’t pretend to have had extensive discussions about religion with our new Prime Minister, but I did have a couple of brief ones when he edited my first Spectator articles. We once discussed Christian and Muslim ideas of martyrdom, and he was suddenly reminded of a hymn he liked at Eton which he proceeded to sing to me down the phone.  His tone towards religion in general was, as you’d expect, a bit guffawing: here’s a prime site for flippant jokes and the puncturing of earnestness. But, knowing that I took religion seriously, and seeing that we had an article to discuss, he was a tad constrained.

10 days in to Boris Johnson’s premiership and the big change is, as I say in The Sun this morning, that the government machine now thinks no deal really might happen. Those involved in no deal planning meetings say that there is now an intensity to them that there never was before. Rather than querying whether no deal is desirable, officials are getting on with preparing for it. Ministers are also bound into this strategy. One of those who served in both May’s Cabinet and the new one says that under the previous Prime Minister Sunday’s Cabinet conference call would have led to a long discussion about the merits of no deal. But now all ministers are signed up to leaving on October 31st whether there’s a deal or not, it didn’t.

Stanley Johnson suggests his son, the PM, will easily deal with Iran because he is well acquainted with Persian history and knows all about kings such as Darius and Xerxes. But talking ancient history with Ayatollahs could have its problems. Here, for example, is what Herodotus (d. c. 425 bc) had to say about Darius. Distantly related to the royal family, he served loyally under King Cambyses, at whose death in 522 bc a usurper took power. Darius plotted with six others to dethrone him, suggesting they should lie their way into the palace and kill him: ‘Where a lie must be told, tell it. Those who lie and those who tell the truth all have a similar objective, to gain advantage: same end, different means.

Boris Johnson's senior adviser Dominic Cummings has found himself in the news today after a video clip emerged of him suggesting most Conservative MPs 'do not care' about 'poorer people' or the NHS. Now in No. 10, Cummings appears to be on a mission to change that – with a focus on applying the Johnson ethos of boosterism to healthcare. But what of Johnson's old comments? A search of Cambridge's student newspaper archive reveals that BoJo too has made some comments which could now be deemed off-message. In a 2000 interview with Varsity, the then editor of The Spectator discussed his decision to stand as the Conservative candidate for Henley.

Does the arrival of Boris Johnson in Downing Street signal the end of the politics of branding and the beginning of the politics of principle? Can we already see in the announcements and actions of the Johnson Government a new style of politics? The early signs would suggest so. Boris's first speech outside No.10 was devoid of fluff. The promises – extra police, delivering Brexit on time – were clear and precise and will provide an easy way to judge his record. Another source of optimism is the clear difference between Boris and his predecessor. Whereas May stirred up resentments with misleading gender pay gap publications and talk of burning injustices, Boris seems eager to ditch the spin and take steps to make society more even.

Boris Johnson is sometimes compared to Winston Churchill, not least by the man himself. Unfortunately for Britain's new Prime Minister, most of these comparisons are fatuous. But there are some similarities. Both are politically fluid and both share an enormous sense of ambition propelling them in unexpected and contrary directions. So far, we have had two Johnsons: One Nation Boris, the expansive liberal Tory, the man who won Labour London, not once but twice. More recently, we've has Brexit Boris, whose constituency seems to have been reduced to the hard-faced men and women of Leave. It is Brexit Boris that Jeremy Corbyn’s advisers choose to see: they believe he is an enemy with whom they can do profitable business.

Usually after a big government reshuffle, the happiest-looking people are the ministers, whether they’ve survived the axe or are celebrating a promotion. But at the end of this week, the most cheerful MPs appear to be the ones who left government, whether of their own volition or after being sacked by Boris Johnson. They’ve been spotted at the cricket and are happily announcing their holiday plans with their family on social media in a way that most politicians shy away from, for fear of appearing to have too much fun. But who is really in the best situation: those in the government, or those now on the outside? In my column in today’s Guardian, I examine the emotional turmoil that many MPs on both sides are going through.

The sacking of David Mundell as Scottish Secretary has left Ruth Davidson’s Tories reeling. The response is not tribal or even ideological; Brexiteers and Remainers alike regard his replacement Alister Jack as a good sort. What most are still struggling to fathom is the thinking behind Mundell’s punting. Of course, he is an opponent of no deal — Jack, by contrast, has taken the pledge and says he could support a crash-out Brexit — but he was seen as hard-working and effective in the Scotland Office. He knew the brief, had the experience and was well-briefed in the tactics of the SNP.