James Forsyth is former political editor of The Spectator.
8 min listen
Cressida Dick announced yesterday evening that she is stepping down as head of the Metropolitan Police. In a statement, Dick said she had been left with 'no choice' but to resign, after it was made clear to her that London mayor Sadiq Khan did not have confidence in her leadership. Who will replace her? And what does her resignation mean for the investigation into parties in No. 10?Katy Balls speaks to James Forsyth.
9 min listen
The Foreign Secretary's trip to Moscow today ended with Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, walking out of their joint press conference. Did the trip achieve anything – and was it a mistake from the start? Katy Balls talks to James Forsyth on this episode. For James, '[Lavrov's] rudeness is a sign that Liz Truss held the line in their meeting'.
33 min listen
In this week’s episode: What’s the mood like in Boris’s bunker?For this week’s cover story, James Forsyth writes about the defensive bunker mentality inside No. 10 and the PM’s strategy of keeping MPs sweet to hold back a no confidence vote. James joins the podcast along with Spectator Editor Fraser Nelson to discuss. (00:50)Also this week: Have we forgotten how to take a joke?Jimmy Carr has caused an online outcry after an off-colour joke from his new show, His Dark Material was clipped and posted without context on social media. Ministers, such as Nadine Dorries and Sajid Javid, have now criticised a comedian for telling a joke. In the Spectator this week both in print and online, two of our writers came to Carr’s defence.
When Boris Johnson first became Prime Minister, he did not have a majority in parliament. Still, he didn’t worry too much about making friends with Tory MPs. He decided to work from the outside in, using his public popularity to pressure colleagues. A snap election was looming: backing him, he said, was their best hope of surviving. He was right, and delivered a majority of 80. This gave him huge personal authority. MPs deferred to his judgment even when they disagreed. How different things look now. Johnson finds himself pleading with his MPs not to pull the plug on his premiership in what seems like a daily struggle. ‘He’s now a prisoner of the parliamentary party,’ says one minister. They make demands; he attempts to appease them.
9 min listen
The Prime Minister tried to start today's PMQs with an announcement to fire up the right of his base, an early end to all Covid restrictions. But the partygate scandal is the gift that keeps on giving when during the Commons session a new photo leaked of Boris Johnson at a Christmas quiz with a bottle of Prosecco and a colleague draped in tinsel. Isabel Hardman is joined by James Forsyth and Katy Balls to break down today's events in Westminster.
15 min listen
A mini reshuffle has happened, but this time nobody has been fired. Is this a sign of Boris Johnson being strategic? Or is it more an advertisement of the little room he has to manoeuvre?Also on the podcast, James and Isabel discuss the NHS backlog. Today the Health Secretary was forced to admit to MPs that the NHS waiting list in England, which already stands at a record 6 million, will keep on growing for another two years.What are the holes in his new plan? All to be discussed as Isabel Hardman speaks to James Forsyth.
14 min listen
On Saturday night, No. 10 announced two new appointments: Steve Barclay would become chief of staff, and Guto Harri would become director of communications. Will Downing Street's reshuffle improve the mood of Tory MPs? And what else does Boris Johnson have to do? Katy Balls talks to Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth about the new faces inside No. 10.
11 min listen
Katy Balls talks to James Forsyth and Fraser Nelson about what happens if and when Graham Brady receives 54 letters of no confidence in Boris Johnson's leadership.
Nick Gibb has become the latest Tory MP to declare that he has submitted a letter of no confidence in the Prime Minister to Graham Brady. The former schools minister writes in the Telegraph that ‘to restore trust, we need to change the Prime Minister’. Gibb’s letter will worry the Johnson operation because he is not a usual suspect. Yes, he left government in last September’s reshuffle. But he has hardly been a serial critic since then. If parliamentarians like him are coming out publicly, No. 10 will worry about how many more are submitting letters behind the scenes. The whole question of how many letters are actually in, as opposed to being publicly declared, is shrouded in mystery.
14 min listen
Five members of Boris Johnson's team have now resigned from No. 10. This led Downing Street to bring forward changes to Johnson's top team – announcing the resignations of chief of staff Dan Rosenfield, director of communications Jack Doyle and Martin Reynolds, his principal private secretary (who sent the now notorious BYOB email). How will the PM fill the vacuum they leave in No. 10? Katy Balls speaks to Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth.
Munira Mirza’s resignation over Boris Johnson’s refusal to withdraw his Savile barb at Keir Starmer led to Downing Street bringing forward the departure of various senior staff. Johnson’s shadow whipping operation were keen to emphasise that these were the very changes to his operation that he had promised Tory MPs on Monday night. Leaving aside the fact that these departures looked rather chaotic, the real challenge will come with whether Johnson can persuade anyone to come into Downing Street. As I say in the Times today, the failure to get Lynton Crosby to take on a formal role shows how difficult it will be to get the kind of big hitters into the building that Tory MPs are expecting.
17 min listen
Recorded just moments after Spectator Political Editor, James Forsyth broke the story that Munira Mirza, the Downing Street head of policy, had resigned over Boris Johnson’s Jimmy Savile attack on Keir Starmer. Katy Balls talks to James about how this defection of one of Johnson's oldest allies will affect the already turbulent No. 10. They are also joined by Spectator Editor Fraser Nelson who now thinks that the current government is 'terminal'.
Munira Mirza, the Downing Street head of policy, has resigned over Boris Johnson’s Jimmy Savile attack on Keir Starmer. Mirza, who has worked with Johnson for 14 years and who he named as one of the five women who have most inspired him, quit this afternoon. In a letter to the Prime Minister, Mirza writes: ‘I believe it was wrong for you to imply this week that Keir Starmer was personally responsible for allowing Jimmy Savile to escape justice. There was no fair or reasonable basis for that assertion. This was not the usual cut and thrust of politics; it was an inappropriate and partisan reference to a horrendous case of child sex abuse. You tried to clarify your position today but, despite my urging, you did not apologise for the misleading impression you gave.
Tory MPs only have one topic of conversation: the fate of Boris Johnson. They huddle together in offices in Portcullis House, comparing notes, assessing the Prime Minister’s survival prospects. At the time of writing, there is a sense in Westminster that attempts to oust Johnson have been delayed; that the danger for him will flare up again after the police end their investigation into Downing Street parties or after the local elections in May. But Johnson is not being helped by the fact that many of the hints of favour or policy change he has dropped to MPs as he has tried to shore up his position have not come to much. This is causing irritation and making MPs more inclined to send in no-confidence letters.
15 min listen
While Westminster politicians and journalists alike continue to predict exactly how many letters of no confidence in Boris Johnson have been officially filed. Michael Gove's levelling up white paper has finally arrived. A bizarre document that references many ancient cites and how they 'levelled up', but does it propose any tangible solutions on how to achieve its goal in present-day Britain?Isabel Hardman is joined by James Forsyth and Katy Balls to dissect the document.
Tobias Ellwood, the chair of the defence select committee, has this morning announced that he is sending a letter to the 1922 chairman calling for a no confidence vote in Boris Johnson. In a way this is not a surprise: Johnson cut Ellwood from the government when he became Prime Minister and the two are temperamentally very different. But the worry for No. 10 is that there are rather a lot of former ministers on the backbenches these days, and if a lot of them start writing letters then a no confidence vote will become a near certainty. Another concern for No. 10 this morning is whether they can live up to the expectations set in terms of the government’s change of direction and personnel.
13 min listen
While Boris Johnson's performance in the Common's yesterday was seen broadly as tone deaf – thanks to comments about Jimmy Savile and drug-taking on the Labour front bench – he was given a chance to redeem himself at a private meeting with his party yesterday evening. 'One of my favourite questions was when one 2019 MP asked if they could reschedule the Parliamentary away day. This received a number of groans from politicians.' – Katy Balls. Today, the Prime Minister leaves the Westminster drama behind him as he embarks on a diplomatic trip to Ukraine. Isabel Hardman speaks to Katy Balls and James Forsyth about the mood in the Tory party.
Those Tory MPs who want to oust Boris Johnson are not a single group. They come from all wings of the party and all intakes and would not agree on who should succeed him. This means there is no single view among them about the best way to proceed. But one of the most influential of their number tells me they have now come to the view it would be best to act after either the police investigation has concluded or the May elections, whichever comes first. Their argument is that, at this point, there would be the greatest consensus in both the party (and among Tory MPs) about the need for change. This would minimise the amount of poison the deed would inject into the Tory bloodstream.
14 min listen
The long anticipated Sue Gray report was finally published today albeit lacking significant chucks of detail. Following the report, Boris Johnson made a statement in the Commons. Though he apologised at the beginning, his tone did not seem particularly apologetic, which clearly riled a number of MPs across party lines. 'The discomfort among the Tory benches today was striking'- James Forsyth.But what will be the aftermath of the debate? And can Boris Johnson still come back from this?Listen to the full discussion on Sue Gray's report as Katy Balls speaks to Isabel Hardman and James Forsyth.
It is Tory MPs who hold Boris Johnson’s fate in their hands. The key question now is how do those Tories who said that they were waiting for the Sue Gray report react to this update. On the one hand, it is clearly not her report. She writes that the police investigation means that ‘it is not possible at present to provide a meaningful report setting out and analysing the extensive factual information I have been able to gather.’ On the other, this update is highly critical saying that: At least some of the gatherings in question represent a serious failure to observe not just the high standards expected of those working at the heart of government but also of the standards expected of the entire British population at the time...