Boris johnson

Tuesday

Katy Balls

Boris tries to avoid a vaccine war

After France’s Europe Minister became the latest politician to threaten a vaccine export ban on the UK, Boris Johnson used today’s press conference to try to diffuse the row ahead of Thursday’s summit of EU leaders. When asked in the Q&A session whether such an export ban could derail the UK roadmap for ending lockdown and if the UK would retaliate, the Prime Minister stressed the need for cooperation from all sides. No. 10 fear retaliatory measures in the event of a vaccine export ban could make the situation go from bad to worse Johnson said the UK would continue to work with European partners to deliver the vaccine rollout – suggesting

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Boris Johnson’s uncomfortable lockdown anniversary

There is little to celebrate in today’s first anniversary since Britain went into lockdown, but Boris Johnson did try his best to mark it with a positive message about what was to come. The Prime Minister held a press conference in Downing Street this evening where he told the public that he wanted to ‘to thank everybody for their courage, your courage, discipline and patience’, and promised that the government was on track to meet its vaccination targets. He closed by saying: ‘And cautiously but irreversibly, step by step, jab by jab, this country is on the path to reclaiming our freedoms.’ One question that clearly haunts Johnson is whether

Thursday

Katy Balls

Boris Johnson attempts to calm vaccine concerns

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

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Unopposed: why is Keir Starmer making life so easy for the PM?

If there is one thing worse than being talked about, it is not being talked about — and this is the fate beginning to befall Keir Starmer. He is at risk of becoming an irrelevance. After not even a year of being Labour leader, Starmer finds his personal ratings on the slide: a YouGov poll this week showed his rating at minus 13, down from plus 22 last summer. Just over half of voters think he doesn’t look like a PM-in-waiting and Labour itself is consistently trailing the Tories in the polls. It’s not clear yet what Starmer stands for, and he is running out of time to make an

Bruce Anderson

Boris Johnson undersold his security review

It was the political equivalent of Halley’s comet. On Tuesday, Boris Johnson underestimated his own achievement. He claimed that the review of defence, security and foreign policy was the most wide-ranging study of those topics since the end of the Cold War. That was being too modest. It is the most important contribution since the Duncan Sandys Defence White Paper in 1957, which set out Britain’s strategy for the Cold War: rethinking and re-organising our capabilities and commitments in order to contain and counter the Russian threat. But the latest review is even more radical. The Sandys paper rested on one assumption which is, alas, no longer true: that Britain

Wednesday

Gabriel Elefteriu

How Brexit has boosted Global Britain

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.

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

PMQs was an unseemly scrap

It’s bizarre to see political enemies laying claim to the purest of motives when they’re fighting like dogs to extract political advantage from the week’s hottest issue. At PMQs were treated to the unseemly spectacle of party leaders using the appalling death of Sarah Everard for personal gain. Sir Keir Starmer called it, ‘a tragedy so shocking it demands justice and change’. And he called on his opponent to ‘collectively rise to this moment.’ Boris was caught off-guard. Pre-session he’d crammed his head with stats about nurses’ pay and soaring vaccination rates. Suddenly had to talk about sexual violence. He scoured his mental archive for a useful fact or figure

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Starmer ends up on the back foot at PMQs

Prime Minister’s Questions is usually a session where the PM defends his handling of one issue or another, under attack from the leader of the Opposition. But today’s session involved an attempt by Sir Keir Starmer to defend his approach to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. Labour knows it has an exposed flank on this because the legislation contains such a large mix of different policies, and because it adopted its position of opposing the Bill rather late on. The Labour leader devoted his questions to asking Johnson about how the government would respond to the aftermath of the murder of Sarah Everard, arguing that ‘sometimes a tragedy

Tuesday

Gus Carter

MPs question Johnson’s plan for Global Britain

Boris Johnson still has a journalist’s ear for snappy phrases — levelling up, an oven-ready Brexit, Global Britain. The PM attempted to flesh out one of those headlines on Tuesday with his integrated review — so called because it ties together foreign and defence policy alongside trade and international aid.  The 100-page document — designed to set the course for ‘Global Britain’ over the next ten years — identifies Russia and China as the UK’s two biggest international challenges. The former is described as an ‘active threat’, a dangerous rogue state, while the East Asian country is seen instead as a ‘systemic challenge’. The position is clear: China is the

Jade McGlynn

Boris’s Russia review will delight Putin

The strategy outlined within the integrated review lacks the urgency, agility, and need for ambiguity needed to take on the country it deems our ‘most acute threat’: Russia. Described as the ‘biggest review of our foreign, defence, security and development policy since the end of the Cold War’, in fact — when it comes to Russia — much of the IR reads more like a literature review than a 21st Century ‘Long Telegram’. Russia is referenced only fourteen times directly, and then with a great deal more descriptive analysis than comprehensive plans of action. Much of the content is welcome: one section deals with Russia under the new term of

Johnny Patterson

Boris’s China plan is a missed opportunity

From Brexit to China, ‘cakeism’ – the idea that it is possible to govern without making hard choices – appears to be the defining philosophy of Boris Johnson’s government. A hawk to the hawks and a dove to the doves; the Prime Minister wants to be all things to all men. The result is that the government have so far failed to make the hard decisions needed when it comes to China. But as with lockdown in March 2020, dither and delay is only going to increase the difficulty and trouble ahead down the road. The publication of the integrated review today makes this painfully clear. The report’s most significant passage is buried

Sophia Gaston

The world will welcome the new ‘Global Britain’

Just what does ‘Global Britain’ actually mean? In the five years since the UK’s foreign policy was thrown into chaos after the EU Referendum, this question has reverberated without reply. In the publication of its Integrated Review of the UK’s Defence, Security, Development and Foreign Policy today, the UK Government has finally put its cards on the table. ‘Global Britain’ is no longer simply a slogan, but a roadmap underpinning a fundamental shift in our international ambitions. The Global Britain set out in the Review is a dynamic, forward-looking, tech-savvy nation, in which our domestic and international resilience is seen as one. The phrase ‘Global Britain’ was conjured in those

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Boris Johnson’s blueprint for ‘Global Britain’

Boris Johnson will today unveil the government’s integrated review which promises to set out the blueprint for ‘Global Britain’. The 100-page document – titled ‘Global Britain in a Competitive Age’ – has been heralded as the most radical reassessment of Britain’s place in the world since the Cold War. The Prime Minister is due to unveil the plans in the Commons to MPs this afternoon – but in the meantime the document has been leaked to several papers.  With Sino-scepticism building in the Tory party, the review appears to go a step further than many backbenchers would like So, what’s next for Global Britain? The aspect which is already leading to

Saturday

Katy Balls

Boris Johnson’s new approach to an independence referendum

Unionists are finding reasons for optimism when it comes to saving the union. As Nicola Sturgeon comes under fire north of the border over her handling of the Alex Salmond inquiry, ‘No’ has taken the lead in several recent independence polls. A poll this week for the Scotsman also suggested the SNP is no longer set for a majority in May’s Scottish parliament election; instead it predicted a hung parliament. Of course, the SNP could still secure a majority in the upcoming elections. If anything, that is still viewed as the more likely scenario by Tories in Westminster. This is in part why ministers are having to carefully plan their response as to what do in such

Friday

James Forsyth

Boris, Biden and the era of big government

Bill Clinton’s declaration that ‘the era of big government is over’ summed up the late 1990s political zeitgeist. Centre-left political parties could win if they accepted the small state model bequeathed by the Thatcher-Reagan consensus. Now things feel very different, as I say in the Times today. The stimulus Joe Biden signed into law is huge, $1.9 trillion (£1.4 trillion): three times larger than the financial hole created by Covid. Here there has been nothing as dramatic. But it is still telling that Boris Johnson is insistent that the public finances won’t be brought back into order by ‘austerity cuts’. Big government appears to be back. Politics is going to become

Wednesday

Lloyd Evans

Keir Starmer’s failed attempt at PMQs comedy

A glimpse of normality returned to PMQs today. For once the pandemic didn’t dominate. And Sir Keir tried a new tactic. He hammered Boris on a single issue. Nurse’s pay. Finally he’s realised that he should look for a nasty bruise and punch it again and again. Boris had memorised a counter-attack which bristled with impressive statistics. Starting salaries for nurses have increased by 12.8 per cent in the last three years. Students can avail of two types of bursaries worth either £3k or £5k. An extra 10,600 nurses are already on the wards. ‘And in one year alone there are another 49,000 people working in our NHS.’ Sir Keir

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Starmer made life difficult for Boris at PMQs

Keir Starmer had his most effective parliamentary outing in some time today. The Labour leader not only picked the right topic, nurses pay, but asked short, pithy questions which made it harder for Boris Johnson to change the subject.  Starmer landed a few blows with some cheap but effective comparisons of what nurses were getting compared to other bits of government spending. With elections coming in two months’ time, Labour will be happy to run with this issue. The only protection that the Tories have on it is to say that the independent pay review body will, ultimately, make a recommendation. Starmer’s performance could, though, have been even more effective.

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Boris hits back over Brussels vaccine jabs

Britain has sunk into a vicious bout of ‘vaccine nationalism’ — that is, at least, according to European Council president Charles Michel who made the bizarre claims last night.  Those in Westminster have been less than impressed by the Eurocrat’s bold claims that the UK is undermining the bloc’s vaccine plans, with Dominic Raab ordering EU officials to explain themselves to the Foreign Office. Responding to Michel earlier today, Boris Johnson told PMQs: ‘Let me be clear we have not blocked the export of a single Covid-19 vaccine, or vaccine components.’ Strong words by a clearly irritated PM. He told the Commons that he ‘opposes vaccine nationalism in all its forms’ — Mr S

Monday

Isabel Hardman

Will reopening schools set back Boris’s lockdown timetable?

Schools in England have gone back today, with pupils taking lateral flow tests and being asked to wear masks in order to keep the risk of infections as low as possible.  Today Boris Johnson held a special press conference to mark what he described as an ’emotional’ moment in the exit from lockdown. He said that the ‘overwhelming feeling is one of relief’ and that the ‘greater risk now is keeping them out of school for a day longer’.  There are rumblings about whether the current plan for lifting restrictions is sustainable He praised teachers for getting schools ready and for teaching throughout the lockdown period, and parents for homeschooling

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Can Boris sustain his royal silence?

Boris Johnson is clearly determined to avoid being dragged into this Harry and Meghan story. At his press conference this afternoon, he said that he has the ‘highest admiration for the Queen’ but emphasised that he wouldn’t be commenting on the story. One can understand why Boris Johnson doesn’t want to get involved in this intra-family row; it is hard to see how Keir Starmer’s opining on the matter is going to help him politically.  But Johnson’s line might prove difficult to hold. The racism charge against the royal family is incendiary. It is worth noting that Oprah Winfrey has said that Harry has told her that neither the Queen nor