Uk politics

Wednesday

Robert Peston

Why neither Boris nor Hunt can stop a no-deal Brexit

There is a lot of confusion about Boris Johnson’s approach to Brexit. And that is deliberate because the candidate has yet to make a big call about the nature of the modifications he is seeking to the Brexit plan negotiated by Theresa May. The ultra Brexiters among his supporters, the hard core of the European Research Group led by Steve Baker and Jacob Rees-Mogg, want him to ditch her Withdrawal Agreement completely – and replace that with a “GATT 24” temporary free trade arrangement for the years that would be necessary for the negotiation of a permanent new trade deal with the EU. This they regard as true liberation from the EU.

Ross Clark

The flaw in Jeremy Hunt’s Brexit plan

Jeremy Hunt’s case to be Conservative leader is that he is the sensible, low-risk option. While Boris is now committed – thanks to his interview on Talkradio yesterday to leave the EU on 31st October, come what may, ‘do or die’, Hunt is holding out the prospect of some flexibility. The last day of October, he said this morning, is a ‘fake deadline’. Trying to force Brexit on that date, he said, could lead to a general election, a Corbyn government, followed by no Brexit at all. If the government were close to cutting a deal, he has said, then we should extend the deadline. If there were no deal

Tuesday

Nick Cohen

Why Tories are hooked on Boris Johnson

Modern politicians are like drug dealers intent on keeping their clients’ hooked. They sell fixes to their core voters: upping the strength and deepening the addiction. The punters know at some level they are being played. But a temporary high is better than no high, and infinitely preferable to the sweats and shakes the cold turkey of reality brings. Boris Johnson is the British right’s pusher. He feeds its addiction, taking Conservatives from drug to drug. Higher and higher they go. Further and further from the straight world of the normies with their tedious facts and nagging doubts.  Thomas De Quincey said in his Confessions of an English Opium Eater:

Neil O'Brien

Boris’s secret weapon in the fight against Corbyn

After nine years cleaning up Labour’s mess, things are looking up. Government debt as a share of the economy is starting to fall. For Theresa May’s successor, this means there is an opportunity to spend some desperately-needed money on public services: the police, prisons, schools and local government. But it’s also vital – and a key Tory weapon in the fight against Corbyn – to cut taxes, putting more money in people’s pockets. Boris Johnson has already made such a pledge, floating the idea of increasing the point at which people pay the higher rate of tax. In the long-term, that would be good to do. Yet given the limited

Katy Balls

Boris Johnson doubles down on his Brexit position

The Boris Johnson campaign has today responded to accusations that Johnson has been avoiding scrutiny by sending their candidate on a mini-media blitz. In the past 24 hours, Johnson has given interviews to the BBC, LBC and Talk Radio. There’s even a promise of more media interaction to come. In all of the interviews, the former mayor of London refused to answer questions on his private life – on the issue of why police were called on Friday night to the apartment he shares with his partner Carrie Symonds. He did, however, send social media into a frenzy when he was asked how he liked to relax and replied that

Melanie McDonagh

Why should we pay for Harry and Meghan’s new home?

Before you get too worked up about the £2.4 million cost to the taxpayer of refurbishing Frogmore “Cottage” for a family of three – one a baby – bear in mind to keep some indignation in reserve for next year. Because this is only the first instalment of the project before the costs have had a chance to overrun, and you know what it’s like with builders. Wait for the next financial year. The other thing is, this already-not-inconsiderable-sum isn’t actually necessary for the housing of Meghan and Harry in the style they feel they deserve. As Richard Kay wrote in a brilliant bit of analysis for the Daily Mail,

Robert Peston

‘Preposterous rubbish’: The EU’s verdict on Boris’s Brexit plan

I asked important EU and UK people involved in Brexit talks what they made of Boris Johnson’s claim on BBC that: 1: The EU would be prepared to cancel the Northern Ireland backstop. 2: Continue free and frictionless trade with UK for an “implementation period” after Brexit on 31st October. 3: Negotiate a new package of measures to keep an open border on the island of Ireland during the implementation period, and; 4: Would break all their own red lines because they won’t like Nigel Farage’s 29 MEPs turning up at the European Parliament, and will panic when Johnson says he won’t necessarily pay all the £39bn Theresa May agreed that the UK owes

Steerpike

Watch: Boris dodges Carrie Symonds question 26 times

Boris Johnson has come out of hiding but it seems he is still doing his best to dodge scrutiny. On LBC this morning, Boris was quizzed repeatedly about how a picture of him in the Sussex countryside with his girlfriend Carrie Symonds found its way into the media. And 26 times, he refused to answer. Here is how the exchange unfolded: NF: Why the picture today? BJ: Newspapers will print whatever they are going to print. NF: Where did the picture come from? Boris Johnson, where did the picture come from? BJ: The longer we spend… NF: Where did the picture come from? BJ: The longer we spend on things extraneous…

Alex Massie

Boris’s backers have a lot to answer for

In today’s Times, a “long-standing friend” of Boris Johnson complains that “there’s a tendency to infantilise Boris”. Putting the man who still looks likely to be the next leader of the Conservative and Unionist party and prime minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland under a form of, well, house-arrest must have seemed like a good idea at the time. After all, the race is his to lose and can only be lost by him. “Clearly”, the chum adds, “there was a need to protect him but it went too far”.  This seems revealing. A number of questions arise. First, *why* do people feel inclined to

Monday

Katy Balls

Could Boris Johnson command the confidence of the Commons?

Could Boris Johnson command the confidence of the Commons? That’s the question being asked in Westminster this week as various ‘Stop Boris’ factions emerge. The Standard reports that Cabinet Secretary Sir Mark Sedwill has told Theresa May that she ought to only advise the Queen to appoint Johnson or Jeremy Hunt as her successor if she is confident that they can command a majority in the Commons. With hostility growing over Johnson’s Brexit plan – which could lead to no deal – it’s BoJo who this appears to be aimed at. Over the weekend, the Sunday Times reported that the Johnson campaign had been warned by the Chief Whip that there was

Isabel Hardman

Is the Tory party trying to tear itself apart?

The Conservative party seems to have viewed the demise of the Jeremy Kyle Show as a gap in the market which it needs to fill, with a series of bizarre stories about the behaviour of some of its leading figures over the past few days. Just to top off Mark Field grabbing a female protester at a dinner by the neck and Boris Johnson’s relationship troubles, there is also the start of a by-election triggered by a Conservative MP being convicted of expenses fraud. In keeping with its apparently constant need for drama and attention, the party has decided that the best way to deal with Chris Davies being booted

Brendan O’Neill

The shameful hounding of Carrie Symonds

Who’s really harassing Carrie Symonds? We have no proof that her boyfriend Boris Johnson is. One surreptitiously recorded late-night row does not add up to evidence of an abusive relationship. But we have plenty of proof that leftists are. That’s the great irony of the Boris-tape controversy: Boris-bashers claim merely to be concerned for Ms Symonds’ welfare but in truth many of them seem hell-bent on making her life a misery. Ask yourself what kind of person puts up posters outside a young woman’s flat mocking her lover. That’s what some of Ms Symonds’ neighbours have done. They attached posters to metal railings showing Boris looking ridiculous, alongside the words:

Katy Balls

Jeremy Hunt capitalises on Boris Johnson’s troubles

When Jeremy Hunt was announced as the candidate who would join Boris Johnson in the final two for the Tory leadership contest members’ vote, there were cheers amongst members of the Johnson camp. The view was that, unlike Gove, Hunt would prove a gentle opponent who Boris would have little bother shrugging off. However, after a weekend of bad headlines for the former mayor of London involving a late night incident with his girlfriend Carrie Symonds, that theory can now be called into question. Johnson refused at the first membership hustings to say why police were called to Symonds’s flat in the early hours of Friday. While that refusal went

Thursday

James Forsyth

How Boris Johnson intends to approach the next stage of the Tory leadership contest

There was a huge cheer in Boris Johnson’s office when it was announced that Jeremy Hunt had 77 votes, sending him into the final two and eliminating Michael Gove. The Johnson campaign were dreading a run- off against Michael Gove, which would have been far more testing for their candidate. The Johnson campaign are keen to say that there’s no complacency, but there is an understandable confidence that they will beat Hunt. Indeed, their planning for government, which I wrote about in this week’s magazine, is about to be significantly stepped up. Boris Johnson will have no time to waste once he enters Downing Street: there’ll only be 99 days

Katy Balls

The Boris campaign get the leadership final they hoped for

There will be sighs of relief in the Boris Johnson camp this evening after Jeremy Hunt won the second spot on the members’ ballot. It’s no great secret that the Foreign Secretary was Johnson’s preferred opponent. Boris allies were concerned that a contest against a candidate like Michael Gove (or, worse still, Rory Stewart) could be bruising and rather hostile. With Gove a very able debater, Johnson would likely have been pressed on the Brexit detail on a nightly basis. Even Jeremy Hunt’s allies appear to admit he is an easier candidate to go up against. Ahead of the final vote sources close to the Hunt campaign were warning that

Katy Balls

Sajid Javid could still be headed for Downing Street. 11 Downing Street

Sajid Javid has been knocked out of the Tory leadership contest – coming in fourth place overall. Ahead of the contest, there were high hopes amongst Javid supporters that he could make it all the way to the final two – and potentially No. 10. However, he had a difficult campaign start and the result today will now be seen as an achievement – and a cause of relief – by many of his supporters. There were points when it seemed Javid would struggle to get this far in the contest. The Home Secretary’s leadership bid got off to a bad start with a lacklustre video launch from which he

Steerpike

George Osborne’s change of heart

For a long time George Osborne was more likely to be found taking snipes at his one-time political rival Boris Johnson than supporting his political efforts. In 2016, the former chancellor mocked Johnson by saying that were he to go for the party leadership he would not ‘fumble the ball’ – a thinly-veiled attack on Johnson’s botched leadership campaign in the 2016 contest. Only just like 2019 Johnson, 2019 Osborne is a rather different figure. Now editor of the Evening Standard, Osborne has used the paper’s leading article today to endorse Boris Johnson. With MPs voting for a final time today on which two candidates will go to the members’ vote,

James Forsyth

The new PM’s Rory Stewart problem

In this contest, Rory Stewart has established himself as the new champion of the Tory left. He has become a significant figure in the party. The interests of party unity mean that any new prime minister would want to have him inside the tent rather than on the backbenches where he would be the natural leader of any rebellion. But Rory Stewart has already said that he wouldn’t serve in Boris Johnson’s Cabinet. Indeed, he seems unlikely to serve in any new Tory leader’s government. This poses a problem for the incoming PM. Stewart’s absence will make it that much harder to bring the Tory party back together. Stewart is

Steerpike

Full list: Tory leadership contenders and MPs backing them

The race for the Tory leadership race is on. More than a dozen candidates put themselves forward but to make it to the final two those seeking to replace Theresa May must persuade fellow Tory MPs to back them. Here are the latest tallies of who is left in the contest – and who is supporting each candidate: Through to the final two: Boris Johnson, 146 MPs publicly backing, 160 votes in the last round The clear favourite with party members and the bookies’ favourite to take the Tory crown, former foreign secretary Boris Johnson is seen by many in his party as the candidate most able to take on Nigel

Wednesday

Lloyd Evans

John Bercow’s authority has now collapsed

The title ‘Father of the House’ tends to give the bearer a chronic problem with wind. The present holder, Ken Clarke, stood up at PMQs and asked a question of Gibbonian magnitude and complexity. Among the gusts of prose was a useful point about spending. ‘It would be extremely unwise for the outgoing government to make reckless commitments,’ he said. He was ignored. Member after member tried to cadge money from Mrs May before she quits the Downing Street cash-pile. The Conservative MP Marcus Jones wanted a handout for shops in Nuneaton, while Paul Scully made the case for SEN children. Tim Loughton, whose constituency abuts the sea, proposed a