Boris johnson

The oil price is up by more than 40 per cent since the start of the year. It is being driven up by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the lack of investment in oil and turning the world economy on and off again: US production is still not back to pre-pandemic levels. In the immediate term, as I say in the Times today, pretty much the only way to bring the price down is to get Saudi Arabia – which has 1.5 to 2 million barrels a day of spare capacity – to pump more. The West’s relationship with Saudi Arabia has always been morally problematic. The justification for it, despite Riyadh’s appalling

It was with some relief that I heard that Labour’s Diane Abbott was opposed to the Russian invasion of Croatia, because you cannot always tell with the far left what way they are going to swing. The Stop the War mob, along with 11 serving Labour MPs, have been anxious to exonerate Vladimir Putin and, in the usual fashion, blame the West. Their Russophilia has easily survived the end of communism and the transformation of Russia into a fascist state. But Croatia presents additional problems for lefties – and I know many former communists who will not visit Croatia because of the role of the Ustase during the second world

Prime Minister’s Questions today had a strange tonal disconnect to it. The session began with a standing ovation for the Ukrainian ambassador Vadym Prystaiko, who was watching from the gallery. Normally, clapping is banned in the Commons, but today the Speaker tore up protocol and MPs from across the house (and journalists, who by convention don’t clap anything) stood up to applaud Prystaiko. It was a moving moment. But it was not matched by the tone of Boris Johnson, either in his exchanges with Keir Starmer or indeed in the rest of the session. The Labour leader chose to focus on sanctions and economic crime. He asked why certain oligarchs,

What can the UK do to ensure that Vladimir Putin fails in Ukraine? The Prime Minister has just given a press conference in Poland with his counterpart Mateusz Morawiecki where he repeated his assertion that ‘Putin will fail’ and that the West ‘will succeed in protecting and preserving a sovereign, independent and democratic Ukraine’. The Russian president, he said, had underestimated the resolve of Ukraine and its allies. He also warned that things were likely to get much worse, saying:  Johnson was confronted by a campaigner who accused him of being afraid ‘It is clear that Vladimir Putin is prepared to use barbaric and indiscriminate tactics against innocent civilians to

Boris Johnson came under sustained pressure at PMQs today to introduce tougher sanctions against Russia. Both Sir Keir Starmer and Ian Blackford pressed the Prime Minister on the matter, with the Labour leader opening his questions by arguing that given a sovereign country had been invaded, ‘if not now, when’ would the government unleash a full package of sanctions. Starmer repeatedly said the Labour party was supportive of what had been announced so far but that it wanted much more from the government. This included cracking down on the Russian state-backed broadcaster RT, which he said should be prevented from spreading Vladimir Putin’s propaganda around the world. Johnson argued that

Boris Johnson certainly managed to rally the troops on their first day back from recess this afternoon as he told the Commons that all remaining domestic Covid restrictions were coming to an end.  The most explosive moments of the past few months haven’t been about the continuation of Covid restrictions From this Thursday, the legal requirement to self-isolate following a positive test will come to an end. Until 1 April, people who test positive will be advised to stay at home, but after that ‘we will encourage people with Covid-19 symptoms to exercise personal responsibility, just as we encourage people who may have flu to be considerate to others’. On

The Prime Minister has been attending the annual Munich Security Conference, where the prospective Russian invasion of Ukraine is very much at the top of the agenda. The BBC’s Sophie Raworth caught up with Boris Johnson yesterday, following a speech he made warning of the disaster that war would bring. Johnson said in the interview that he believed that Vladimir Putin was ready to orchestrate such a crisis at any moment: ‘It is important that people should feel confident again’ Tomorrow, the government is expected to announce its plans to remove all Covid restrictions for England. Raworth asked if this would erode the government’s ability to act decisively if complications

Boris Johnson has a lot of people to thank for his survival in 10 Downing Street, but Keir Starmer should be at the top of the list. The Labour leader whipped his MPs to side with the government when lockdown votes looked tricky. Labour even saved Johnson from a defeat in the Commons over vaccine passports. But Starmer’s greatest service came last month, on a day that could have finished Johnson for good. Members of the 2019 crop of Tory MPs had met to discuss their problems with the Prime Minister. The scene was set for an old-fashioned Conservative regicide. But just as senior Tories began to tell journalists that

The presumption of many MPs — and maybe many of you — is that the Met is bound to issue a fixed penalty notice to the Prime Minister for attending parties in Downing Street, because the half dozen ‘events’ he attended look, swim and quack like a party, and therefore must have been a breach of Covid rules. So what is Boris Johnson’s defence? He thinks he has one, so he is paying out of his own pocket for a lawyer — who is also being used by his wife Carrie Johnson. And the Met Police have sent the relevant questionnaires for the PM and Carrie direct to this lawyer.

As the Foreign Secretary warns an invasion of Ukraine by Russia could be ‘imminent’, Boris Johnson has been spending the day on a ‘Levelling Up’ tour in a bid to get his premiership back on track. The stops include both the North of England and Scotland. For the latter part, the Prime Minister today visited Rosyth Dockyard where new Royal Navy warships are under construction.  Only Johnson cut a rather lonely figure — with no Scottish Conservatives coming out to meet him. While his long time ally Alister Jack, the Scottish Secretary, is simply away so unable to join, for others it appears to be more personal. The leader of the Scottish Conservatives Douglas Ross was absent today. He

As yesterday’s attack showed, there’s no love lost between Boris Johnson and John Major. Mr S has previously chronicled the many times Major has criticised his successor, with whom he so publicly disagreed over Brexit. The enmity between the two men stretches back to the early 1990s when Johnson was the Telegraph’s main man in Brussels and subsequently the paper’s chief political commentator in Westminster.  The-then journalist had great fun lampooning Europhile excesses at the time of the Maastricht debate, something which naturally didn’t make him popular with the pro-EEC Major as he tried to ram the treaty through Parliament. As Johnson later recalled:  I was just chucking these rocks over the garden