Boris johnson

The first PMQs of the year gave us a preview of the political debate we’ll be having for the next few months. Labour went after the government on inflation. Angela Rayner asked Boris Johnson why he had dismissed fears over it as unfounded back in October: Johnson denied he had said it — which is an odd claim given what he said in that interview. She then punched the Tory bruise, by asking why Johnson wasn’t cutting VAT on fuel, as he had said he would do during the EU referendum. Johnson made the point that this help wouldn’t be well targeted, which is true. But the political pressure for this from

Boris Johnson latest Covid press conference was slightly confusing. The Prime Minister spent nearly an hour saying nothing particularly new. He warned that there was ‘considerable pressure’ on the NHS at the moment and unveiled daily priority lateral flow testing for 100,000 essential workers so that key services, including healthcare, don’t seize up due to staff absences. But while he accepted that hospitals were feeling the heat, he also insisted that there was no data suggesting that a lockdown was necessary or helpful. Indeed, he argued:  ‘We have a chance to ride out this Omicron wave without shutting down our country once again. We can keep our schools and our

Boris Johnson is hoping that his MPs have calmed down over the Christmas break and that this term will be slightly less turbulent than the autumn. There is not, though, much evidence that this will be the case. Worries about the cost of living, ongoing Covid problems and the unwinding of various Tory party rows will mean that Johnson needs to be on top form to tackle this spring. There is not yet much evidence of that, either. Johnson is not the kind of man who makes new year’s resolutions to transform his character There is a consensus among Tory MPs that the Downing Street operation needs to change. There

It’s that time of year again. As sure as ‘Auld Lang Syne’ and Sadiq’s fireworks farce, poring over the names of the newly-published Honours List is a time-honoured custom on New Year’s Day. Mr S got his embargoed copy and is delighted to regale his readers with news of the big-hitters collecting gongs in 2022. Tennis champ Emma Raducanu does indeed become the youngest MBE recipient ever, following her US Open triumph, with Olympian power couple Laura and Jason Kenny getting a damehood and knighthood apiece. Adam Peaty and Tom Daley receive OBEs for raising awareness of mental health and LGBT issues respectively as well as their gold medal winning achievements at Tokyo

A day did not go by on social media in 2021 without some high-profile performative outrage about Boris Johnson and the hell hole he has bequeathed us. Britain is a ‘banana republic’ apparently. We live in a ‘tinpot dictatorship’ and are an ‘international embarrassment’. This sort of thing is most often touted by talk radio hosts, former Labour spin doctors, actors and anyone who’s ever appeared on Live At The Apollo. The consequences of this language, both for the health of the nation and for those wishing for some especially humiliating deposition in Number Ten, is that it achieves nothing. It merely legitimises the idea of reverse exceptionalism: that Britain’s

Ah student politics: is there anything quite like it? The strange creatures it attracts, the passions it unleashes, the adolescent ambition and the glorious pettiness of it all; so vicious precisely because the stakes are so small. Such an ignoble tradition has spawned many of our lords and masters – Boris Johnson was an unabashed Union hack at Oxford while William Hague was ‘convicted of electoral malpractice’ in one election of the Oxford University Conservative Association (OUCA). And having spent some time recently in the Cambridge University archives, Mr S is delighted to see the route from the common room to the Commons is still alive and well. For perusing copies of

Oh dear. It appears that Boris Johnson’s love-in with the great British public appears to have well and truly concluded. Let’s hope that in the wake of ‘Partygate’, Omicron and various scandals, our under-fire Prime Minister didn’t turn on the darts last night for some much-needed respite. For there, on primetime television, the crowd at London’s Alexandra Palace burst into loud and sustained chants of ‘Stand up if you hate Boris’ that echoed around the 2022 Darts World Championship arena. Others held up signs saying ‘All round to Boris’s for afters’ and with pictures of cheese and wine, branded ‘This is a business meeting.’ It’s not the first time a

‘It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…’ Or it certainly was until Omicron intervened. For the latest Covid variant has raised fears the government will be forced into a Groundhog Day style re-run of the awful events of last December, when Boris Johnson ‘cancelled Christmas’ less than a week before the big day. What followed was somewhere between Planes, Trains and Automobiles and the evacuation of Saigon as thousands of desperate Londoners stampeded through stations to get home before restrictions took effect. Twelve months on and with most of Britain double or triple jabbed, there were hopes such scenes could be avoided this year. But with case rates soaring, the Cabinet are meeting

Boris Johnson’s premiership has been plunged into further crisis tonight by the resignation of the Brexit minister Lord Frost. Frost has, according to the Mail on Sunday, quit over the political direction of the government, citing Plan B, tax rises and net zero. His decision to go makes Johnson more vulnerable than he has been at any point in his premiership. He has lost the man who negotiated his Brexit deal, the person he used to reassure hardline Brexiteers he wasn’t going soft and the second most popular member of his Cabinet among the party faithful. Frost, a canny political operator, will know just how much his departure will weaken Johnson,

When asked what went wrong in North Shropshire, Boris Johnson gave a fascinating answer: journalists. Apparently, they have been reporting the wrong kind of stuff. He told Sam Coates of Sky News: Basically, what’s been going wrong, Sam, is that in the last few weeks some things have been going well. But what the people have been hearing is just a constant litany of stuff about politics and politicians. Stuff that isn’t about them. And isn’t about the things that we can do to make life better. The job of the government is to make people like you, Sam, interested in the booster rollout. And in skills. And in housing. And in everything

This morning, it’s the Tory party versus the scientists, with a number of Conservative MPs seeing red following Wednesday’s downbeat press conference on the Omicron variant. As the number of Covid cases soars, Boris Johnson has been accused of a lockdown by stealth – after he appeared alongside Chris Whitty in a press conference urging caution over Christmas. The Chief Medical Officer suggested people ought to prioritise the social events they most care about. This morning Whitty is giving evidence to MPs where he has suggested it is too early to say whether further restrictions will be needed. In all of this, no one is quite sure where the Prime