Boris johnson

Who will Boris Johnson appoint as his deputy? Now that voting in the Tory leadership is well underway - with 60 per cent of party members expected to have sent back their ballots by Thursday - most MPs are starting to think more about what the next prime minister's cabinet will look like, and less about who that prime minister will be. There are more than enough candidates to fill the cabinet twice over, given the number of MPs who have backed Johnson. Some of their colleagues mock them for supporting someone merely because they hope he will give them a government job, but it's quite understandable that someone might make that calculation: after all, even non-politicians tend to want to go as far as they can in their line of work and to earn as much as possible.

When Michael Gove turned on Boris Johnson in the 2016 Tory leadership contest and decided to stand against his former Vote Leave comrade, it was likened to Brutus’s betrayal of Julius Caesar. But with things looking brighter for Johnson this time around – and the former mayor of London viewed as a shoo-in for No. 10 – could he be about to exact his revenge? Mr S only asks after BoJo gave a rather curious answer when asked ‘what’s your favourite movie scene?’ by the Daily Mail over the weekend.

MPs opposed to a no-deal Brexit will make an almost-final attempt early this coming week to make it impossible for Boris Johnson - if he becomes PM - to prorogue or suspend parliament to force through a no-deal Brexit. The plan which has been designed largely by Dominic Grieve, the senior Tory MP and former Attorney General, would amend the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation bill) - which is due to be debated on Monday - to force the government in October to make an oral statement on the progress of efforts to restore fully devolved government to Northern Ireland. If the amendment were to pass, it would mean the House of Commons would have to sit in October.

Voting is finally underway in the Tory leadership contest. So should Britain's next prime minister be Boris Johnson or Jeremy Hunt? Boris is the clear frontrunner but could Jeremy Hunt's impressive campaign mean that another political upset is on the cards? In some areas, the pair are in complete agreement: they both oppose a second referendum on Scottish Independence, want to reduce Britain’s greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050 and have pledged to tackle the North-South divide. But what of the policy differences? Here’s a round up of where each candidate stands: Brexit Boris Johnson: Boris has pledged that Britain will leave the EU by 31 October ‘come what may, do or die’, and has not ruled out proroguing Parliament in order to achieve this.

Silence has befallen French pronouncements on Brexit. Le Monde’s vitriolic editorial (12 June 2019) on Boris Johnson apart, the scene is remarkably calm. But this isn't good news. In fact, such silence is often a sign of French anxiety and a presage to trouble, particularly when Britain is concerned. As rationalists, the French are frequently frustrated by the ‘wait and see’ of the empirical British. ‘What is not clear is not French’, said the 18th century French philosopher Antoine de Rivarol.

It is a week on since the first hustings of the Tory leadership run off. Boris Johnson appears to have righted the wobble that led to his rather lacklustre performance in Birmingham. But Jeremy Hunt is not going to ease off. As I report in The Sun this morning, the Hunt campaign’s attitude is, ‘We’re not going to let up on attacking Boris because we know it is cutting through’ The Hunt camp point to polling in the last few days which shows that he has a bigger advantage over Jeremy Corbyn than Boris Johnson and that the public prefer Hunt to Johnson as Prime Minister. This may be, and Hunt—who is far less well known that Boris—may be benefitting from some kind of novelty factor.