Boris johnson

On 14 June, a short email popped up in the inboxes of all Financial Times editorial staff. It came from the paper’s style guru and announced tersely: ‘The out campaigners should be Brexiters, not Brexiteers.’ As usual for the FT’s style pronouncements, the memo did not lay out the reasoning behind the decision, but it followed a discussion among editors over whether the word ‘Brexiteer’ had connotations of swashbuckling adventure. Much has been said and written about the power of the Leave campaign’s simple and disciplined messaging.

The worst men always find themselves in others. If they are instinctive liars, they accuse their opponents of lying. If they mistreat women, they assume all other men do the same. If they are sleazy, over-promoted know-nothings, they see their angry faces in every stranger they meet. On this reading, Liam Fox’s barroom tirades are just the voice of his own subconscious speaking truth to a man who should be a thousand miles from power. When Fox said the British were ‘too lazy and fat’ to be a free-trading people, he did not realise he was describing himself.

'Brexit means Brexit', Theresa May has repeatedly reassured us. But it seems Brexit might not mean an introduction of a 'points-based' immigration policy which Vote Leave - and a number of cabinet ministers, including Boris Johnson - had called for during the referendum campaign. The Prime Minister said the system was no 'silver bullet' and planned to look 'across the board' for answers instead. As is becoming clearer - and as James Forsyth pointed out after May's Marr interview yesterday - the Prime Minister has a style in front of journalists which involves giving little away.

So, where are we at on Brexit? Well, we know that Theresa May wants immigration control as part of the deal which essentially rules out a Swiss or Norwegian style deal. But, as I report in The Sun, beyond that little is settled. As one Cabinet Minister said to me after the away day at Chequers this week, ‘The truth is that, at the moment, we’re still in the preparatory stage’. Cabinet Ministers were struck by how open the discussion was at Chequers. Unlike in the Cameron era, there was no early indication as to what the Prime Minister wanted the meeting to conclude. According to those present, one of the most forceful speakers was the Chancellor Philip Hammond. He emphasised that growth would be lower next year.

Throughout this fractious summer, one thing has united all the warring pundits and politicians. Left, right; Leave, Remain, everyone at least agrees that it was crazy to leave the country in Boris’s hands. He’s not serious, they say, looking, as they make this pronouncement, jolly pleased with their own relative gravitas. They should instead be ashamed. The endless jeering at Boris isn’t justified — he was a decent mayor of London — and it is not in good faith. What purports to be considered criticism is almost always just sour grapes. Why the bitterness? More often than not, Boris-bashers — in Parliament or press — are his contemporaries. A lot of them went to Oxford with him and they measure their success against his. It makes them cross.

For weeks there have been reports of simmering tensions between Theresa May's three Brexiteers. After the Prime Minister appointed David Davis as the Brexit Secretary, Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary and Liam Fox as the International Trade Secretary, the group have developed a rivalry over who does what. In particular, Fox is thought to be butting heads with Johnson. After he sent a letter to Johnson demanding that the Foreign Office be broken up and hand certain responsibilities to his department he was accused of attempting a 'land grab'. While that bid failed, another land grab appears to have found greater success.

When it was reported that Liam Fox and Boris Johnson are already squabbling about who should be in charge of what in relation to Brexit, this was taken by some to be a feather in Theresa May’s cap. Isn’t she clever to have set Leavers against one another, was the thought. Downing Street sources were quoted as saying that she took a dim view of these silly games. But if it is true that Cabinet ministers are already at loggerheads about their roles, might that not suggest that the Prime Minister who invented these roles — and entire new government departments — has not properly defined them?

Boris Johnson has spent his adult life being underestimated and sneered at. But today's attack by Tim Farron, the leader of what remains of the Liberal Democrats, rather takes the biscuit. Today it emerged that, with Theresa May in Switzerland and Philip Hammond out of the country, Boris is running the British government. So Farron pipes up to say: Putting Boris Johnson in charge of the country is like putting the Chuckle Brothers in charge of Newsnight. Still, at least if he’s here, he’s not in Rio offending everyone he meets – and there’s always Larry the cat to stop him doing anything silly. But Boris Johnson is arguably more qualified than anyone in any front bench to run the government.

Brits sometimes think that 'personality politics' is a bad thing. Jeremy Corbyn has certainly suggested as much; just before he won the Labour leadership last September, he dismissed the concept as juvenile and egoistic. Instead, he said: 'We are not doing celebrity, personality or abusive politics – this is about hope.' But although Corbyn has stuck to that belief, he's wrong - and a big part of his problem is not realising that. While some say the idea of personality politics is an American import, in reality Brits have been doing it for decades. Take Harold Wilson’s advisers planting hecklers at TV hustings so the Labour leader could deploy his best put-down lines. That was in 1964.

Although George Osborne was passed over for the role of Foreign Secretary in Theresa May's Cabinet reshuffle, the MP for Tatton is still keen to show that he can fly the flag for Brexit Britain. It follows that the former Chancellor of the Exchequer is set to be guest of honour at Tina Brown's Brexit bash in New York this week. According to Page Six, Osborne will join the top hack -- and one time Remain-er -- for a dinner which aims to show that the 'special relationship' can survive Brexit. With New York journalists perceiving this as Osborne's attempt to 'drum up trade with the US in the wake of his country’s shock exit from the European bloc', Mr S can't help but wonder if George has run his plans past Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary.