Boris johnson

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

When news broke over the weekend that former minister Nick Gibb had become the 14th Tory MP to publicly call for Boris Johnson to resign, cabinet loyalists were furious. They weren’t just concerned about the growing number of no-confidence letters — they were angered by what they saw as a co-ordinated effort by ‘One Nation’ Conservatives to oust the Prime Minister. One Nation Tories, a 40-strong parliamentary group, have long been regarded with suspicion by Johnson’s inner circle. ‘They’re the government’s most obvious and vocal critics,’ says a member of the whips’ office. They tend to occupy traditional shire seats or sit in Lib Dem/Tory marginals. During the Brexit referendum

After the night of the long hangovers, what next for Boris Johnson’s No. 10 team? Following the departure of five top advisers on Thursday, the PM has tonight announced two replacements to try and rescue his sinking premiership. Cabinet minister Steve Barclay has taken up the reins as Johnson’s chief of staff while Guto Harri joins as director of communications. Barclay’s appointment will certainly raise eyebrows, given that he is already an elected MP serving as a constituency and will now be expected to work 16-18 hour days in Downing Street. But Mr S is more intrigued by the hire of Harri, who previously worked as Johnson’s director of external affairs

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

Boris Johnson’s great strength has always been his ability to spot, recruit and hire a great variety of brilliant people. He did so when he edited this magazine and as London Mayor with a superb crop of deputy mayors. As Foreign Secretary he couldn’t hire anyone, so he struggled. As Prime Minister, his gift seemed to have come back when he hired Munira Mirza as policy chief. She was one of his deputy mayors and having her in No. 10 was, to me, a promise of great things to come. Her resignation, today, suggests a prime ministerial team that’s falling apart rather than being rebuilt. She is an academic, a thinker, a fighter, writer (she once wrote a