Boris johnson

Thursday

The Spectator

Portrait of the Week – 16 August 2018

Home Unemployment fell by 65,000 to 1.36 million — at 4 per cent the lowest level since 1975. The economy in the United Kingdom grew by 0.4 per cent in the second quarter, compared with 0.2 per cent in the first. The rate of inflation rose a jot from 2.4 to 2.5 per cent, measured by the Consumer Price Index. Sports Direct, run by Mike Ashley, agreed to buy the House of Fraser chain of 59 department stores for £90 million after it had gone into administration. Homebase said it was closing 42 of its 241 stores. Marks & Spencer closed seven clothes stores as part of its programme to close 100 by 2022. Ofcom fined Royal Mail £50 million for anti-competitive behaviour.

Ayesha Hazarika

Diary – 16 August 2018

Taking my new stand-up show Girl on Girl to the Edinburgh festival this year and playing at the prestigious venue the Gilded Balloon, was hand on heart the most stressful thing I have ever done — and I lived through the Ed Stone. My nerves were off the scale. Will anyone come to see the show? Will it be a massive disaster? Is this a very public and expensive cry for help? Why don’t I just go on a yoga retreat? These are all the things which swirl round your head seconds before you go on stage. Stand-up is one of the hardest things you can do. It’s just you — there’s no one to hide behind and you live or die by your wit, words and performance.

Wednesday

Steerpike

Momentum’s Boris stunt backfires

Oh dear. As many politicians have discovered, trial by Twitter rarely ends well. And neither does poll by Twitter. Where in a normal poll, factors such as sample size and demographic can be controlled, these thing are taken out of control when you ask the Twitterati to decide. Despite this, many campaigners see this set-up as actually beneficial to their aims – starting polls on issues they believe to know their own followers' opinions on already in order to prove a point. So, spare a thought for the pro-Corbyn grassroots organisation Momentum. They asked their followers whether Boris Johnson ought to have the Conservative whip withdrawn for comparing women wearing the full face veil to letterboxes.

Monday

Brendan O’Neill

Boris Johnson is a victim of the modern inquisition

The Muslim Council of Britain wants Theresa May to subject Boris to a ‘full disciplinary inquiry’ over his comments on the niqab and burqa. Let’s call this by its true name: an inquisition. This inquiry would be a 21st-century inquisition of a man simply for speaking ill of a religious practice. May must resist this borderline medieval demand that she punish a member of her party for expressing a ‘blasphemous’ thought. She must put aside her Borisphobia and stand up for freedom of conscience against the inquisitorial hysteria that has greeted Boris’s remarks. Burqagate has been mad from the get-go.

Steerpike

Watch: Boris does the tea run

Boris Johnson has been in hot water for the past week over his Telegraph column which compared women in burqas to letter boxes, so it made sense for him to use the restorative powers of a hot drink to try and remove himself from trouble. The beleaguered MP has been on holiday in Italy for most of the furore, where he has been able to dodge questions about his column. But since his return, reporters have been camped outside his UK home waiting for answers. When he finally left the sanctuary of his house, the reporters could be forgiven for feeling mixed emotions. The former Foreign Secretary refused to any questions about the burqa, but did bring out tea for his pursuers: ‘I have nothing to say about this matter except to offer you some tea…’ https://www.youtube.

Saturday

Gavin Mortimer

What happened to Je Suis Charlie, Prime Minister? | 11 August 2018

On January 11 2015, I was one of two million people who marched slowly and silently through Paris to honour the memory of the people slaughtered days earlier for being blasphemers and Jewish. It was an extraordinary day, an emotional one, too, soured only a little by the sight of presidents and prime ministers at the head of the march. These were the people who for years had been pretending there wasn't a problem with the rise throughout the West of political Islam. Now, following the murder of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists and the shoppers in the Kosher supermarket, they had muscled their way to the front to claim they were the standard-bearers of liberty in the fight against an evil ideology.

Friday

Roger Scruton

The art of taking offence  

The emerging witch-hunt culture would be an object of half-amused contempt, were we still protected, as we were until recently, by the robust law of libel. It is still possible to laugh at the absurdity of it all, if you sit at home, avoiding contact with ignorant and malicious people, and getting on with real life – the life beyond social media. Unfortunately, however, ignorant and malicious people have discovered a new weapon in their unremitting assault on the rest of us, which is the art of taking offence. I was brought up to believe that you should never give offence if you can avoid it; the new culture tells us that you should always take offence if you can.

Steerpike

Letterbox-gate: who said it first – Boris or the Guardian?

In a strongly worded editorial on Tuesday, the Guardian newspaper did not hide its contempt for what it called Boris Johnson’s ‘tasteless newspaper column joke’ which compared women in burqas to letterboxes. ‘Baroness Warsi was absolutely correct to call Mr Johnson out on this on Tuesday when she called the remarks "dog-whistle Islamophobia"', it thundered. All of this somewhat surprised Mr Steerpike. Not because of the sanctimony, but because, as one eagle-eye reader got in touch to point out, the paper had already beaten Boris to the joke. In 2013, it published a column by Remona Aly entitled ‘Nine uses for a burqa … that don't involve bashing them.’ In it, the author suggests several alternative uses for the face-covering.

Steerpike

Ken Livingstone: Boris Johnson should be kicked out of the Tory party

Oh dear. Of all the figures to come out against Boris Johnson over his comments comparing women wearing the full face veil to 'letterboxes', Ken Livingstone is perhaps the most audacious. Despite his penchant for talking about Hitler and zionism at every broadcast opportunity, Red Ken has today declared that Johnson has gone too far and must go. Speaking on LBC, he said: 'He isn't really a politician, he just wants to be a famous celebrity. Frankly, I think the Tory Party should dump him.' Not the most obvious candidate for taking the moral high ground...

Steerpike

Is Boris Johnson a policing priority in London?

In case you were wondering where the Boris burqa row had left to go, Cressida Dick, the head of the Metropolitan Police, has waded into the debate. Despite no one actually coming forward to report a crime, Cressida decided to ask her ‘very experienced officers’ if Boris Johnson’s comparing of women in burqas to ‘letter boxes’ could constitute a hate crime. Unsurprisingly, they told her that the threshold for criminality had not been passed and she duly let the world know that the former Foreign Secretary would not be investigated. If Cressida Dick is looking for ways to best fill her time, can Mr Steerpike suggest that she busy herself with actual crimes in London?

Thursday

The Spectator

Portrait of the week | 9 August 2018

Home Brandon Lewis, the chairman of the Conservative party, demanded that Boris Johnson, the former foreign secretary, should apologise for saying, in an article defending the right of women in Britain to wear the burka or the niqab, that it was at the same time ‘absolutely ridiculous that people should choose to go around looking like letter boxes’. Theresa May, the Prime Minister, said: ‘The language that Boris used has offended people.’ Jennie Formby, the general secretary of the Labour party, wrote to Dame Margaret Hodge saying that no further action would be taken against her. Dame Margaret was said to have called Jeremy Corbyn, the party leader, an ‘anti-Semite’.

The Spectator

Bravo Boris

Ever since Boris Johnson resigned as foreign secretary, it was generally assumed that there would — in time — be a dramatic clash with Theresa May. But it was thought that the Prime Minister would pick her battle over a point of principle, perhaps on Europe, rather than over a joke in his Daily Telegraph column. Boris was defending the right of Muslims to wear what they like in public, but added that he thinks niqabs look like letterboxes. The ministerial reaction has been extraordinary, and deeply unedifying. Boris’s point was that, in banning the niqab, Denmark had passed a surprisingly illiberal piece of legislation — all the more surprising in that it has emerged from a country often viewed as a bastion of liberty.

Katy Balls

Boris Johnson to face Tory probe over burka comments

It's day four of the Boris and the burka row over the former foreign secretary's decision to compare women wearing full face veils to a 'letterboxes' in a Telegraph column. And it doesn't look as though things will die down any time soon. The Conservatives are planning to launch a party probe into Johnson over his comments. Spearheaded by party chairman Brandon Lewis, complaints against the Tory MP will be referred to an internal disciplinary panel. A Conservative Party spokesman said: 'The code of conduct process is strictly confidential'. To say this will go down badly with Johnson's supporters is an understatement. Given that the whole point of Johnson's article was a liberal one in line with government policy – i.e.

Steerpike

Rupa Huq’s concern over hate crime – then and now

As the Boris burqa row continues to dominate the news agenda for the fourth day on the trot, the former Foreign Sec’s enemies are still queuing round the block for the chance to stick the boot in. It’s hard to say though if many are actually offended by Johnson’s comments, or simply using the opportunity to settle old grudges. It was Labour MP Rupa Huq’s turn to go on the attack last night on Channel 4 news, and as Mr S pointed out, she certainly seemed to enjoy doing it. But the MP also levelled more serious accusations against Boris, saying that his comments had the potential to whip up racial hatred: ‘Every time something like this happens, there’s a rise in all types of hate crime’ https://twitter.

Greg Hall

The History Boys of Brexit

What do Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Dominic Cummings all have in common? They are Brexiteers, of course. Yet little is it known that they all studied history or classics at university. Add to this list John Redwood, Bill Cash, Daniel Hannan, Owen Paterson and Douglas Carswell — some of the most influential Eurosceptic MPs from the past 30 years. Michael Gove may have studied English literature, but as education secretary he sought to establish a ‘narrative of British progress’ in the history curriculum. Boris has written a biography of Winston Churchill and Nick Timothy has written a biography of Joseph Chamberlain. Even two of the so-called ‘Bad Boys of Brexit’, Arron Banks and Nigel Farage, are self-proclaimed history buffs.

Wednesday

Ross Clark

Britain needs a party for the ‘gammon’ vote

News comes this morning, after much speculation, of an organised attempt to create a new British political party, called United for Change, funded by LoveFilm entrepreneur Simon Franks. It doesn’t have any MPs yet, apparently, and may not have any when it launches this autumn. Is there a hole in the market for a new political party? Yes, but not a party of what the Metropolitan Left likes to call the ‘centre’. The gaping hole, as has become clear from the saga of Boris and burqas, is for a non-woke conservative party – one which unashamedly espouses conservative values without hoovering up every metropolitan liberal cause which passes beneath its nose. Senior Conservatives have inadvertently been making the case for such a party over the past 48 hours.

Steerpike

Boris Johnson ally fights back

As Cabinet ministers and Tory MPs line up to attack Boris Johnson over his burka comments, some are wondering if another politician would merit such a backlash. Right on cue, Johnson's former PPS Conor Burns has popped up to take a pop at his colleagues. Burns says some of his colleagues don't even seem to have read the piece they are 'desperate' to distance themselves from: https://twitter.com/ConorBurnsUK/status/1027147098314170368 Well, at least the Tories this time managed to make it until midweek before blue on blue warfare broke out...

Qanta Ahmed

As a Muslim woman, I’d like to thank Boris Johnson for calling out the niqab | 8 August 2018

As a Muslim woman observing Islam, I am fully supportive of Boris Johnson’s rejection of the niqab. And I wonder how many of the former Foreign Secretary’s critics understand my religion, what this form of dress represents and the subjugation it implies. To defend the niqab and to defend Muslim women are, I can assure you, two very different things indeed. Growing up Muslim in Britain, not once was I compelled to cover my hair. This changed when I moved to Saudi Arabia to practice medicine. Arriving in the Kingdom, by Saudi Arabia’s Sharia law, I could not go out into public without concealing my entire body, save face and hands, in a flowing, black abayya. This was my first experience of enforced veiling. And my last.

Stephen Daisley

Boris Johnson’s Trumpian path to power

Barely had the ink dried on Stephen Robinson’s imaginative apologia for Boris Johnson — he is compared, courageously, to Churchill — than the former foreign secretary reminded us of his capacity for blunder. In his Telegraph column Johnson assailed the ‘burka’ for leaving Muslim women ‘looking like letter boxes’ and ‘bank robber[s]’. I say 'burka' but 'letter box' suggests he actually meant the niqab. A regular Abu Hanifa is this one. But was it a blunder? Or did Johnson, freed from such responsibilities as he felt bound by in the Foreign Office, consider the renewed vigour of anti-Muslim populism and decide to sound a dogwhistle?

Katy Balls

Burka row latest: Boris Johnson vs Tory high command

Theresa May visited Scotland on Tuesday to hold Brexit talks with Nicola Sturgeon. Not that you would know this from reading today's papers as they are all about Boris Johnson. The Boris and the burka row rumbles on for a third day – after the former foreign secretary refused to apologise for his comments on Monday comparing muslim women dressed in the full veil to 'letterboxes'. Although Johnson not apologising is in some ways unsurprising, what's driving the news is the number of his former Cabinet colleagues who have called on him to do so.