Boris johnson

Is Boris Johnson a robot? I ask this advisedly, given the connotations of that word in the political arena, but the way the Prime Minister responded to questions from a journalist this afternoon does suggest he might be turning into one. He was asked by ITV’s Joe Pike for a response to the photo of a young boy with suspected pneumonia lying on the floor of Leeds General Infirmary, waiting for a bed. It’s a difficult photo for anyone to look at without an emotional response, and Johnson initially refused to see it at all, taking the reporter’s phone out of his hand, and shoving it in his own pocket.

Believe it or not, there was yet another televised election debate tonight, this time on Channel 4, called the ‘Everything But Brexit’ debate. The Tories had refused to take part, and while their decision will have been partly down to their ongoing battle with the broadcaster, which they have accused of being biased, they will also have viewed tonight’s programme as an opportunity for them to make their central election pitch without even turning up. This debate worked in the Conservatives’ favour because it was chaotic, with the representatives of the five parties who did turn up constantly talking and even shouting over each other and the presenter Cathy Newman.

The decline of the Liberal Democrats continues to give Labour a boost and rattle Tory nerves. Middle class Remainers who dislike Jeremy Corbyn are nonetheless deciding that he is their last best chance to thwart Brexit. Electing an anti-Semitic government so you don’t need to show a passport at Paris Charles de Gaulle is quite the ethical choice but there you go. It’s also a pretty big gamble. We know that Corbyn is a Brexiteer who believes freedom of movement drives down workers’ wages because he has told us as much. Voting for him to stop a hard Brexit isn’t so much holding your nose as poking your own eye, but

Stump speeches and battle bus stop-offs are a staple of political campaigning. And while much of the battle for votes now happens online, as Katy Balls points out in this week’s Spectator, the constituency fly-by remains a central element of any party’s election schedule. So what can we learn about the Conservative strategy from Boris Johnson’s tour across the country? It could reveal that the Tories are starting to panic. The Prime Minister’s campaign machine has shifted into a surprisingly defensive gear over the last week or so. Rather than descending on top target seats, Johnson is now focusing on Conservative held marginals. While his personal campaign tour has been interrupted by both

This week is seminal for Boris Johnson and Emmanuel Macron. Boris, in Watford, is hosting one of the most important Nato summits for years. Its significance is not because it marks the Alliance’s 70th anniversary, but because of President Macron’s ‘disruptive’ and trenchant criticism of the Atlantic Alliance as close to ‘brain dead’, which has touched a nerve. The French President went on to reiterate his remarks at an Elysée press conference, with a visibly uncomfortable Nato Secretary General, three weeks later. Macron attacked the ‘strident and unacceptable disconnection’ from world threats during the last two Nato summits as being ‘uniquely devoted’, in his sarcastic words, ‘to finding solutions to how to lighten