Steerpike

Last night it was suggested that when Boris Johnson was Foreign Secretary, he was caught on camera by a BBC fly-on-the-wall documentary saying that the French were 'turds' for their intransigence during the Brexit negotiations. According to the Daily Mail the Foreign Office then allegedly lobbied the BBC to remove the offending line from the documentary when it aired last November. As shocking revelations go, being caught secretly insulting the French is probably not going to seriously harm Johnson's prospects with the Tory membership. Nonetheless, speculation has already turned to where the story came from. Johnson certainly fuelled the rumours today when he was asked about the incident during Tory leadership hustings.

Has the excitement of pitching to be the next leader of the Liberal Democrats gone to contender Ed Davey's head? Yesterday, the potential successor to Vince Cable was forced to apologise for his violent language, after he said a Remain alliance should 'decapitate' the 'blond head' of Boris Johnson in an opinion piece for the Times. The embarrassing U-turn appears not to have discouraged Davey though from his adventurous approach to winning the leadership contest. Taking part in a leadership debate on Victoria Derbyshire this morning, Davey revealed that he had been approached by MI6 at one point in his career: 'As a younger man I almost served our country in a different way. MI6 tried to recruit me to be a spy overseas.

Chris Williamson is back in the Labour party. The controversial Corbynite MP was suspended from Labour earlier this year following comments he made about anti-Semitism in the party. But now after an internal investigation, Williamson is once again a Labour MP. Williamson was slapped with a formal warning after he was filmed at a Sheffield Momentum event saying that Labour had been ‘too apologetic’ for anti-Semitism. But to the surprise of no one – not least Mr S – Williamson avoided getting the boot. It's safe to say the news is going down badly among MPs.

Boris Johnson has had a tricky time being quizzed by journalists over the past few days, as he's been grilled about his Brexit position, his negotiating stratgey, his late-night row with Carrie Symonds and his history of consuming (or not quite consuming) Class-A drugs. But it seems as if the former Foreign Secretary was floored by the simplest question of them all today. Appearing on TalkRadio this afternoon, Boris was simply asked by presenter Ross Kempsell what he did to relax? Johnson appeared to be stumped: 'I like to paint, or I make things... I have a thing where I make models of... I make  buses.' Kempsell asked the potential prime minister to clarify: did that mean he made models of buses? The former London of Mayor replied: 'I make models of buses...

There are few stranger relationships in Westminster than the close alliance of Boris Johnson and the campaigner, author, and self-described 'Chief Fanny defender' Nimco Ali. According to Ali, she first met Boris Johnson in Putney eight years ago when they bumped into each other on the high street, as she was campaigning about FGM. She asked him for a meeting and the rest, as they say, is history. The pair went on to take part in several anti-FGM campaigns and, as Ali put it: 'he and his team at City Hall went on to work with me over several years.' Johnson and Ali seem to have become particularly close since he officially declared that he was running to become the next leader of the Conservative party.

Britain has become rather used to hysterical prognostications about the threat of a no-deal Brexit from our MPs ever since we voted to Leave in 2016 – with some parliamentarians suggesting that supermarkets will be left empty and drug supplies will vanish if we don't get a deal or extension by October 31. But Labour's Rupa Huq set a new bar today on doom-laden predictions, when she suggested there could be a breakout of scurvy on Britain's streets if we left without a deal.

After the second round of voting in the Tory leadership race earlier today, which saw Dominic Raab booted out of the contest, it seemed as if renegade challenger and International Development Secretary Rory Stewart had all the momentum heading into the televised BBC leadership debate tonight. But, while Stewart may be winning over his colleagues in the Commons, it appears that he might need to do more to win back Tory voters who have defected to the Brexit party. As part of a series of questions asked by ordinary members of the public, James from Oxford explained that he'd reluctantly left the Conservative party recently to vote for the Brexit party, and asked all the candidates in the studio what they would do to lower the tax burden for people like him.

It seems like half of Twitter has fallen in love with Rory Stewart and his whirlwind campaign to become prime minister. But recently, it's not just centrist swing-voters who've been swept off their feet by the International Development Secretary. Certain figures on the pro-no deal side of the Brexit divide now seem to have fallen under Stewart's spell and are issuing full-throated endorsements of him. Nigel Farage invited Stewart onto his LBC show yesterday and hailed him for having 'set alight' the Tory leadership process, and praised his 'terrific campaign'.

When you consider that Theresa May's unwise decision to campaign for a 'dementia tax' almost single-handedly cost her the general election in 2017, you would think that the current Tory leadership candidates would be very careful about alienating older voters ahead of any upcoming membership vote. Jeremy Hunt, though, seemed to take the opposite tack following the television leadership debate tonight. While the Foreign Secretary tried to make the point that more should be done to protect the oldest in our society as they approach their final days, in practice, he seemed instead to call for a cull of anyone with a bus pass. In a social media banner advertising his policies, Hunt quoted himself saying that: 'Every older person should die with dignity and respect.

For the past week they've been exchanging side-glances, passing on compliments, and making excuses to spend time together. Now they've made it official. Yes, late last night Chuka Umunna finally made his move and joined the Lib Dems. In an interview with the Times announcing the new relationship, the former Labour MP revealed that he was 'really grateful to Vince' Cable for keeping the door wide open for him to join, and had been made 'to feel incredibly welcome' by his new party.