Boris johnson

Thursday

Cindy Yu

The Spectator podcast: Theresa May’s new cabinet

George Osborne has gone, Phillip Hammond is in No 11, David Davis and Liam Fox are back in the Cabinet – and Boris Johnson is the new Foreign Secretary. Theresa May’s reshuffle has made headlines around the world – and Boris’ appointment in particular has been a big talking point. In this week’s Spectator podcast, Isabel Hardman talks to James Forsyth, Fraser Nelson, and Colleen Graffy, a former official in the US State Department. Here’s what she has to say about Boris: ‘He is a particularly attractive combination of being a politician who speaks both knowledgeably and eloquently, but different from any politician that’s in America. So I think that

Boris Johnson

The Boris archive: Africa is a mess, but we can’t blame colonialism

This article was published in The Spectator on 2 February 2002 by Boris Johnson, the new Foreign Secretary and former editor of the magazine.  You would need a heart of stone not to have been moved by the little Aids-ridden choristers. We sat under a mango tree, before a dancing-space of packed red earth, and what a preposterous delegation we were. There was Mr Rod Liddle, the big white chief of the Today programme, not looking especially kempt. There was Vicky Scott of Unicef, and there was your correspondent, addressed repeatedly by the pleasing title of ‘Mr Honourable Johnson’. And as we sat in our armchairs, as though at some durbar,

Tom Goodenough

Watch: Home Secretary Amber Rudd on Boris – ‘he isn’t the man you want driving you home’

Amber Rudd didn’t pull her punches during the referendum campaign when she aimed her fire at Boris Johnson. During a heated ITV debate, she said this about Boris: ‘Boris? Well, he’s the life and soul of the party but he’s not the man you want driving you home at the end of the evening. This is a very serious choice you have to make.’ Of course, when Rudd said those words it would be difficult to imagine the events that would play out over the next few weeks. And now, just a month later, Britain is heading out of the EU, Theresa May is our new PM and Rudd and

Tom Goodenough

Watch: Angela Eagle’s terrible timing continues as she reacts to Boris’ appointment

Angela Eagle’s leadership launch has so far been characterised by one thing: her terrible timing. When she announced her bid to run against Jeremy Corbyn on Monday, journalists abandoned her speech after Andrea Leadsom dropped out of the Tory race at the same moment – leaving Eagle desperately trying to find anyone left in the audience who wanted to actually ask a question. And last night’s attempt to try and drum up support in her flailing campaign also came to a halt when the news filtered through that Boris Johnson had been made Foreign Secretary. After taking some time to regain her composure, Eagle told the crowd that the news

Wednesday

James Forsyth

Theresa May has just shown she really is serious about Brexit

‘Brexit means Brexit’ has been Theresa May’s message since she started running for the Tory leadership. But Brexit could mean a whole variety of things. For example, a Norwegian-style deal with the EU would, technically, be ‘Brexit’. But now, Theresa May has shown real intent. She has demonstrated that she really is serious about this. She has appointed three leavers to the key Brexit-related jobs in government. David Davis will be Secretary of State for exiting the EU, Liam Fox gets the International Trade job and Boris Johnson the Foreign Office. The David Davis appointment is particularly striking. He resigned, unexpectedly, from David Cameron’s shadow Cabinet. Putting him in charge

Tuesday

Tom Goodenough

‘May Day’: How the papers reacted to our new PM-in-waiting

David Cameron is now in in his last full day in Downing Street and already all eyes are on the woman who will replace him. Theresa May is on the front of every newspaper this morning as she prepares to take over at No.10. Here’s how the papers have greeted Britain’s new PM-in-waiting: The Daily Mail, which backed Theresa May in the Tory leadership race, relishes the prospect of her taking over from David Cameron. On its front page, the paper describes the handover as the ‘Coronation of Theresa’ – making a big show of her promise to heal rifts and make Brexit a success. Don’t expect such uncompromising praise

Monday

Cindy Yu

Coffee House Shots: Leadsom drops out – what next for May?

Over the course of the past weekend, Andrea Leadsom has come under fire for her comments on having children. Such media scrutiny has proved too much for Leadsom as she announced her withdrawal from the Tory leadership campaign. With this leaving Theresa May as the only candidate for Prime Minister and Conservative party leader, what will happen next? Joining Isabel Hardman for Coffee House shots today is Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth. On the podcast, James Forsyth describes how Andrea Leadsom lost her confidence in the contest: ‘Most of the people who’d voted for Michael Gove were moving over to the Theresa May camp, so she really would have been

James Forsyth

Can Theresa May nurse the Tories back to health?

It might prove easier for the Tories’ new leader Theresa May to reunite the party post referendum than expected. First, many Tory MPs have been taken aback by the brutality of the past few weeks. They know how close the party is to entering into a post-Maastricht cycle of political violence and there appears to be a desire to pull back from the brink. Second, both sides have had their pound of flesh. The Leavers have seen David Cameron resign and George Osborne see his leadership hopes dashed; the Remainers have seen Boris Johnson and Michael Gove brought low by the leadership contest. May’s biggest challenge will, obviously, be to

Isabel Hardman

And then there was one… Theresa May’s team prepare for government

Chris Grayling has given this very brief statement on behalf of Theresa May in the past few minutes: ‘Can I start by thanking on behalf of Theresa May and on behalf of everyone involved in Theresa’s campaign team by thanking and paying a warm tribute to Andrea Leadsom. Her actions this morning have shown what a principled and decent politician she is and how willing she is to put the interests of the country before her own. She is a true public servant. Theresa is currently on her way back to London from Birmingham and she will make a statement later today. But on her behalf I’d just like to

Lara Prendergast

Graham Brady rules out re-opening the Tory leadership contest

Following Andrea Leadsom’s announcement that she is bowing out of the leadership race, Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 committee, has confirmed that Theresa May is now the only remaining candidate. While he refused to confirm that she was now the country’s Prime Minister, he ruled out re-opening the contest, which means it is almost certain that May has got the top job. Gove has also voiced his support: Andrea Leadsom spoke with great dignity and courage today. I wish her every success in the future. We should now move as quickly as possible to ensure Theresa May can take over as leader. She has my full support as our next prime

Nick Cohen

The martyrdom of St Andrea

He may have died in the seventeenth century but in his Mysterie of Rhetoric Unvail’d  of 1657 John Smith showed he understood how sneaks such as Andrea Leadsom operate.  Defining the rhetorical device of ‘apophasis’, Smith described it as A kind of irony, whereby we deny that we say or doe that which we especially say or doe Leadsom proved herself the queen of denying what she says and does: the apotheosis of apophasis. She made a political issue of the childlessness of Theresa May, a loss we know is a matter of sorrow to the Home Secretary and her husband, as it is to many couples, while denying that

Fraser Nelson

Andrea Leadsom drops out of leadership race

In what must be the shortest-lived leadership campaign in the history of the Conservative Party, Andrea Leadsom has just announced that she’s dropping out. She said in her resignation statement that there was not “sufficient support” from her colleagues – perhaps a nod to how many of them said that they would quit the party if she won. She said she wants “the immediate appointment of a strong and well-supported Prime Minister”. And that woman, she said, must be Theresa May. In the four days since the formal leadership race began, it became painfully obvious that Ms Leadsom was simply unfit for the job. She messed up an interview with The Times, saying she didn’t want to attack

Isabel Hardman

Andrea Leadsom: Theresa May is ‘ideally placed’ to implement Brexit

Andrea Leadsom has withdrawn from the Tory leadership race, saying ‘the best interests of our country are best served by the immediate appointment of a strong and well-supported Prime Minister’ and that she did not have sufficient support to lead a strong and stable government. She said Theresa May was ‘ideally placed’ to implement Brexit and that she would withdraw immediately so that the new Prime Minister could be appointed immediately. Leadsom did not mention the torrid weekend that she has had, in which she sustained heavy criticism for her comments about having children giving her a ‘direct stake’. But even her supporters had come away from the past few

Thursday

Toby Young

The art of the quit

Brits don’t quit,’ said David Cameron two weeks ago, to which the obvious rejoinder is: ‘Oh but they do!’ The list of quitters since the referendum seems to grow every day, the latest being Nigel -Farage. Everyone made the same joke when they heard he had resigned — ‘How long for?’ — but when I bumped into Suzanne Evans earlier this week she told me he was still in charge. ‘I think he was giving notice of his intention to resign, but hasn’t put a date on it,’ she said. She was paying close attention, given that she became the interim leader the last time Nigel quit and lasted precisely

The Spectator

Why the Tories should send May and Gove to the country

As a radical paper, The Spectator has always been an admirer of Michael Gove, particularly his education reforms. He was, perhaps, a little too radical when abandoning Boris Johnson at the eleventh hour last week – but let it not be said that he lacks the steel needed to become Prime Minister. Andrea Leadsom was impressive during the referendum campaign and might be a triumph as Prime Minister. But there is only one battle-tested Brexiteer in this contest – and he is Michael Gove. Tory MPs will today choose which two candidates they will ask the membership to choose between. The glitch in the voting system means they get to choose

Fraser Nelson

‘I had to step up’

On the way to interview Michael Gove, we meet a government minister, an Old Etonian, who suggests we ask him, ‘How can anyone trust you ever again?’ Just a fortnight ago, proposing such a question would have been unthinkable: the Justice Secretary had a reputation for being one of the most consistent, decent and honourable men in the cabinet. When Gove agreed to back Boris Johnson’s leadership bid, the pair seemed a dream team. But on the morning of their campaign launch, Gove announced that Johnson was unfit for the job, so he’d stand himself instead. Then, he was knocked out by Conservative MPs who were still recovering from the drama.

Harry Mount

Give us a break!

As Boris Johnson will know from his love of Greek tragedy, hubris leads to nemesis. And it is Boris’s own hubris — in playing cricket with Lord Spencer the weekend after Brexit, and not finishing his leadership speech on time — that supposedly led to his downfall. I well know from working with Boris at the Telegraph that prompt timekeeping is not his forte. For five years, my Wednesday nights were destroyed as Boris regularly missed the 7 p.m. deadline for delivering his column. ‘It hasn’t arrived,’ I’d say to him over the phone at 7.01 p.m. ‘Ah, Christ, sorry,’ said Boris, ‘Bloody internet! It must be pinging its way down those

Tuesday

Rob Wilson

Why I’m backing Theresa May

The EU Referendum has served to emphasise the huge divisions which exist across our country. One of the most prominent and significant of these divisions is the disparity between those who are seemingly economically comfortable and those who struggle on a daily basis. There are some who characterise these struggles as a natural conclusion of the austerity measures pursued by Coalition and majority Conservative Governments. If only it were that simple. The EU Referendum brought to the surface decades of growing anguish from sections of the country’s working people: wages that never seem to rise coupled with increased pressure on local public services – a double whammy of discontent. This

Monday

Tom Goodenough

Boris goes back to throwing rocks from the sidelines

Dropping out of the Tory leadership race does mean one good thing for Boris: he can now go back to throwing rocks from the sidelines. Having landed himself in hot water last week with his Telegraph column in which he appeared to offer both freedom of movement for Brits abroad whilst introducing a much stricter immigration policy in the UK – which looked, at best, like wishful thinking – he’s now somewhat freer to speak his mind this time around. Boris certainly makes the most of that opportunity today. In his column, he says: ‘It is time for this nonsense to end. It was wrong of the Government to offer

Steerpike

Boris Johnson’s campaign manager goes for Gove – ‘an emotional need to gossip’

After Michael Gove turned on his one-time ally Boris Johnson and decided to run for leader himself, there was disbelief and anger among the former Mayor of London’s supporters. While Jake Berry declared that there was a special place in hell for Gove, his fellow Tory MP Ben Wallace has used a comment piece in today’s Telegraph to claim the Justice Secretary has an ’emotional need to gossip, particularly when drink is taken’. In the article, Wallace explains why he believes Gove just isn’t up to being Tory leader — let alone Prime Minister. To do this, he reveals the chaos that ensued after Gove gave Lynton Crosby just five minutes notice that