Downing street

Will the Downing Street flat criticism bounce off Boris Johnson? The Prime Minister is under fire this week over the refurbishment of the No. 11 apartment. After the Electoral Commission launched a formal investigation, today's front pages make particularly miserable reading for No. 10. However, the Prime Minister has earned a reputation as a politician who is 'scandal-proof' in a way that many of his colleagues are not. Will this be the same?  Polling since the story took off is fairly limited but a BMG Research poll published today — taken Thursday to Monday — on the question of 'preferred prime minister' puts Boris Johnson on 40 per cent and Keir Starmer on just 24 per cent.

Boris Johnson did not have a good Prime Minister's Questions. It was never going to be a comfortable session, given the multiple rows about the funding of the Downing Street flat revamp and his reported comments about letting bodies 'pile up'. But the way the Prime Minister approached it ensured both that the story will keep running and that he betrayed quite how annoyed he is by it. It is little use trying, as Johnson repeatedly did, to argue that the British people are not interested in the line of questioning that Sir Keir Starmer was pursuing. For one thing, there is nothing like a politician claiming that something is 'boring' or a 'non-story' to make the media want to cover it all the more.

Of course Boris Johnson raged, King Lear-like, that he was prepared to 'let the bodies pile high in their thousands' if the alternative was subjecting the country to a third lockdown more dispiriting than either of its dreary, even grim, predecessors. I say ‘of course he said it’ not just because at least three different sources have confirmed to at least three different reporters that the Prime Minister did say it but also, and significantly, because it would be so wholly in character for the Prime Minister to have said it. If it sounds like the sort of thing he would say, that is largely because it is the sort of thing he would say. Nor have his denials been convincing.

Michael Gove's trip to Israel to study the country's 'green pass' system isn't diminishing the impression among Conservative MPs that the UK government has already made up its mind on vaccine passports. A number who I have spoken to are taking the lack of communication from their party whips as a sign that the policy will be going ahead, as there is no point in canvassing opinion on a matter if the Prime Minister is going ahead with it regardless of the feedback he gets. Some MPs who are opposed to the domestic use of what ministers are currently calling 'vaccine certification' are concerned that the way No. 10 plans to get the vote through the Commons is by making it about both international and UK use.

Boris Johnson has axed plans for televised White House-style press conferences. The announcement came six months after Allegra Stratton was unveiled as the Prime Minister’s new spokesperson who would lead the daily Downing Street briefings. Instead, Stratton will become his spokeswoman for COP26, the climate summit, fronting communications both strategically and publicly in the lead up to the event in November. Meanwhile, the No.9 Downing Street briefing room that had been renovated for the press briefings at the cost of £2.6m will be used instead by the Prime Minister, ministers and officials for government communications. So what’s behind the change in plan? So what’s behind the change in plan?

Last month Mr S was first to report that Downing Street veteran James Slack was off to the Sun after four years in No. 10. Slack, who survived the transition from May to Johnson but had only served as Lee Cain’s replacement since January, was well-regarded from his time as the Prime Minister’s official spokesperson and viewed by the lobby as a ‘safe pair of hands.’ Attention now turns to who will replace Slack in the role. Key attributes needed for the role will be the strength to work gruelling 18-hour days, unflappability under relentless questioning about interiors and the experience to manage Westminster’s unruly press pack.

This afternoon ITV got the scoop they were all after – pictures of the elusive Downing Street press conference room. The room is based in No 9 Downing Street and has enjoyed an eye-watering £2.9 million makeover to host the cream of the nation's press for televised lobby briefings. The £2.9 million spending includes £1.8 million for 'main works' plus spending on other items such as £198,000 for 'long lead items', £33,000 for 'broadband equipment' and £1,400 on a core drill. It is here that Allegra Stratton, the Prime Minister's Press Secretary, will do battle with the parliamentary lobby in the site which formerly hosted the Privy Council Office courtroom.

Since the new chief of staff Dan Rosenfield arrived in Downing Street, there has been a renewed effort to reach out to the parliamentary party. Each week, a member of the No. 10 team hold a Zoom call with Tory MPs — with attendance usually upwards of 50 MPs. Some have likened the Q&A to therapy sessions — working through previous trauma from the Vote Leave regime when the parliamentary party would regularly complain that they felt ignored.After cancelling last week, this Tuesday it was the turn of political secretary Ben Gascgoine and No. 10 political unit's Declan Lyons. The pair began by telling MPs on the call that they wanted to listen more to what they had to say — thereby allowing them to make sure the No.

Boris Johnson began the week with an optimistic message of an end to the English lockdown and hopes of a vaccine breakthrough to rid us of coronavirus restrictions altogether. However, until then his revised three-tier system is becoming a major cause of frustration for Tory MPs. The three tiers have been bulked up from their pre-lockdown incarnation. While gyms and hairdressers now can remain open under any tier, socialising is stricter than before. The level of disquiet means No. 10 will likely have to offer more to backbenchers However, the point of contention among Tory MPs is which areas are under which tier. The hope among many in the parliamentary party was that a four-week lockdown would allow a significant relaxation of restrictions in its aftermath.

It seems fresh infighting has broken out in Whitehall on what is supposed to be the most important Budget day of a generation. Yes, a briefing war has spilt out into the open, with the PM's fiancée Carrie Symonds taking to Twitter to defend... Dilyn the dog.  Some fed-up official appears to have been whispering that the prime ministerial pooch is 'sickly' and could be on the way out.  https://twitter.com/carriesymonds/status/1237650287256571904?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw According to reports, the inhabitants of No. 10 are sick to the back teeth with, to borrow Ms Symond's phrase, 'a load of total crap'. The Times's Ben Ellery reports the words of one insider, who told the paper: 'For a while there was dog shit everywhere in the flat'.

The fundamental issue revealed by the resignation of the Home Office's Permanent Secretary Sir Philip Rutnam is the yawning gap between what Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings want post-Brexit UK to be on January 1, 2021, and what senior civil servants think is deliverable. The PM and his chief aide want to have a fully functioning new immigration system by then, whereas officials fear there’s not enough time. Johnson and Cummings argue the police should be able to keep us safe if we are no longer part of European Arrest Warrant system. Officials can’t concur. Downing Street thinks we can ward off pandemics if we withdraw from the EU’s Early Warning and Response System. The Department of Health is not so sure.