Boris johnson

One of the most striking things about the government’s Queen’s Speech was Boris Johnson’s focus on where the country could be in ten years’ time: ‘Mr Speaker, this is not a programme for one year, or one Parliament it is a blueprint for the future of Britain. Just imagine where this country could be in ten years’ time. Trade deals across the world, creating jobs across the UK, 40 new hospitals, great schools in every community, and the biggest transformation of our infrastructure since the Victorian age.’ Rather than simply focus on what his government would do in the five-year term he won last week, the Prime Minister talked about

Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn have just faced one another in the Commons for the first time in this new Parliament, though it is highly unlikely to be the last. The pair were responding to the election of the new Speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, and both chose to use their statements to make a few remarks about the election itself. Naturally, Johnson was greeted with a huge cheer from his MPs when he rose, and told the Speaker that ‘I mean absolutely no disrespect to those who are no longer with us – but I think this Parliament is a vast improvement on its predecessor’. He then promised that ‘this Parliament

Much of the political class is still in a state of shock. Many are tempted to echo Lord Melbourne: ‘What all the wise men promised has not happened and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass.’ This was an extraordinary election because underneath all the stress it was a very boring affair. From the beginning, the polls predicted a sizeable outright Tory victory. But after 2017, no-one was ready to trust the polls. Among Tories, though well concealed, there was also a widespread fear that Boris would implode. That did not happen. Instead, everyone stuck to the script. To the very end, a number of

‘If Darlington high street isn’t visibly better in four years’ time, we’ll be in trouble’, one of Boris Johnson’s confidants told me the other day. Boris Johnson and his team are, as I say in The Sun this morning, acutely away that if they are going to make Thursday night’s electoral shift permanent then they are going to have to deliver for those places that swung to the Tories in this election. Part of Boris Johnson’s answer will be improving the infrastructure serving these places. In his interview with The Spectator during the campaign, he indicated that he was going to rip up the Treasury’s rules on capital spending to

Boris Johnson’s victory speech in Downing Street was aimed at the voters unsure about his government, whether they be the voters who backed his party for the first time, or Remainers who didn’t vote Tory. In an acknowledgement of how difficult it will have been for many traditionally Labour voters to turn away from their party, he said: ‘To all those who voted for us, for the first time, all those whose pencils may have wavered over the ballot and who heard the voices of their parents and grandparents whispering anxiously in their ears, I say thank you for the trust you have placed in us and in me and

The last YouGov constituency-level poll showed a significant closing of the gap between Labour and the Conservatives, with the projected Tory majority falling from 68 seats two weeks ago to 28 seats now – and with a margin of error which could take us well into hung parliament territory. The interpretation being put on this is that while the Conservatives have hit a ceiling, Labour continues to draw tactical voters away from the Lib Dems. But it is worse than that for the Tories. In spite of appeals to Brexit voters to vote tactically, in some places votes are beginning to drain away in the other direction, from the Conservatives

An interview earlier today with my colleague Joe Pike captures the contradiction at the heart of Boris Johnson’s campaign. He wants to be seen as campaigning to lead a ‘new’ government, but the Tories have been in power since 2010. So he finds it impossible to take responsibility for four-year-old Jack Williment-Barr, left to lie on coats for hours in a Leeds hospital. As the video shows, he refuses to look at the picture of Jack – which comes across as him saying ‘I don’t want to own this’. This is certainly the political moment of the day and could be the moment of the campaign: