Boris johnson

No prime minister wants to be dependent on the opposition to get the government’s business through the House of Commons. But this is the position Boris Johnson will likely find himself in when it comes to ‘Covid status certificates’, I argue in the magazine this week. Labour are sounding sceptical of vaccine passports at the moment More than 40 Tory MPs have already signed a pledge to oppose vaccine passports, and the government’s majority is 80. ‘It is just down to Starmer. If he whips against, Boris will lose,’ says one of the leaders of the Tory rebellion. The policy has hit a nerve in the Conservative party. Tory opponents

Alan Duncan’s diaries are currently being serialised by the Daily Mail ahead of their release next Thursday. As a long-serving MP of 27 years who knew four successive Tory premiers, who lent Major his leadership headquarters, was part of May’s Oxford generation and worked alongside both Cameron and Johnson, surely such chronicles would be brimming with brio and insight? Unfortunately thus far revelations appear to have been fairly short on the ground, despite the Mail‘s best efforts to puff its ‘hilarious’ purchase as ‘one of the most explosive political diaries ever’ by claiming the cabinet had been ‘rocked’ by its contents. As of day three, the biggest bombshells have been that Duncan didn’t think

The biggest question facing Boris Johnson is the future of his so-called vaccine passports. A few months ago, the idea was dismissed by No. 10 as ‘discriminatory’. Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, said: ‘We are not a papers-carrying country.’ But now, without debate or democratic scrutiny, vaccine passports are quickly heading from unthinkable to unstoppable. Today, No. 10 released more details — hence the questions Johnson is facing. But bizarrely, the Prime Minister was unable to admit to any of it, and pretended to be confused by what he was being asked. This matters. If he cannot acknowledge his flagship scheme, leaving such an indefensible gulf between what his government has just published and what he has just said, he may already be

The recent report of the commission on race and ethnic disparities has given the clearest indication yet of the guiding philosophy animating the Conservatives under Boris Johnson. It is rooted in the traditional commitment of conservatives to national unity. The calculative political positioning of the Cameron and May regimes seems to be long gone. Since the nineteenth century the platforms of political parties can be understood by measuring the relative weight they attach to the ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity. Labour puts equality above the other two ideals and, when we had a Liberal party, it put liberty above everything else.  Today’s Liberal Democrats are closer to Labour than

How strange to have spent a year in a world where to hug someone outside of your household is not allowed. For the past five days, six people in England have been able to meet up outdoors again, but only in a socially distanced way. Previously, the argument for crackdown on such instinctive human behaviour centred around hospitals being overrun. Today, the Covid data tells a very positive story, with infections, hospitalisations and deaths all down by 90 per cent or more since the most recent peak. Meanwhile, the right data is going up, with over half of the UK adult population having received at least their first dose of a Covid

This afternoon the Prime Minister chaired the second meeting with business bigwigs on his ‘Build Back Better’ council, whose membership includes John Lewis supremo Sharon White, Heathrow chief Lord Deighton and Charlotte Hogg of Visa. The dry-as-dust press release to mark the occasion is replete with the usual jejune platitudes beloved of Whitehall mandarins for the government’s ‘Plan for Growth’ and forthcoming ‘Innovation Strategy.’ What the dispatch did not mention however was a typically Johnsonian jibe at the expense of his former chief adviser. Following the news yesterday that GlaxoSmithKleine will support the manufacturing of up to 60 million doses of the Novavax coronavirus vaccine at its Barnard Castle plant, Mr

All eyes were on Downing Street’s spanking new £2.6 million media suite, unveiled for the first time at this afternoon’s press conference. Speaking in front of a sea of blue backdrop, Boris Johnson was flanked by a brace of Union Jacks and his covid lieutenants Professor Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance. Johnson revealed that a deal has been agreed to support the manufacturing of up to 60 million doses of the Novavax coronavirus vaccine in the UK. Big pharma behemoth GlaxoSmithKline will provide ‘fill and finish’ manufacturing capacity from the beginning of May – the completion stage of vaccine manufacturing, preparing vials of the final vaccine and packaging them for

Boris Johnson has spent the afternoon giving evidence to the Liaison Committee made up of select committee chairs. The Prime Minister was quizzed on a range of topics from the UK’s vaccination programme to Brexit issues for the music sector. Here are five main takeaways from the session:1. Vaccine passports could be needed to go to the pub It wasn’t so long ago that ministers in Boris Johnson’s government were insisting that immunity certificates were most definitely not coming to the UK. How times have changed. Today Johnson said the ‘basic concept of vaccine certification should not be totally alien to us’. Asked whether pubs will be able to bar

Boris Johnson has tonight addressed the 1922 committee of Conservative backbenchers over the government’s roadmap for ending lockdown. The Prime Minister told MPs that a third wave of coronavirus reaching the UK from Europe was ‘inevitable’. However, he insisted that the UK had built up resources to deal with any such threat and the country’s roadmap for ending the lockdown remained on track. Discussing recent criticism of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, Johnson defended the jab, pointing out that it was produced at cost. He told MPs he had ‘nothing against big Pharma’ or big farmers – this was a reference to the Chief Whip and Nottinghamshire farmer, Mark Spencer, who was sitting beside him. He also put the

The message from Boris Johnson’s press conference this evening was one of reassurance. Following the decision by several EU member states to suspend use of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine over concerns about a potential link with blood clots, the Prime Minister said that the vaccine is safe and that ‘the benefits of the vaccine in preventing Covid far outweigh any risks’. Pointing to statements from both the UK and EU regulators on its safety, Johnson said the thing that ‘isn’t safe is catching Covid’. Johnson was also at pains to calm concerns over vaccine supply. The Prime Minister admitted that the UK was experiencing a supply issue — but said that

The government’s integrated review of foreign and security policy, published yesterday, has landed surprisingly well considering that much of the Whitehall blob has been so dismissive of Boris Johnson’s concept of Global Britain. A few longstanding critics have been snippy about the new document. But no one can disagree that the review offers a genuine strategy. In recent years, one of the most persistent ideas about the UK’s future on the world stage has been that we cannot make a go of things post-Brexit. Such ideas, so the counter-argument goes, are based on the deluded nostalgia of a ‘buccaneering’ nation, foolishly going it alone on trade and much else besides.