Boris johnson

Thursday

Gavin Mortimer

Could the Yellow Vests spoil Macron’s Biarritz G7 summit?

Who was the bright spark who thought it would be a good idea to hold this weekend’s G7 summit in Biarritz? At the height of summer? Normally in August the population of this Atlantic coastal resort in France’s Basque country balloons from 25,000 to more than 110,000. But not this year. Admittedly the arrival in Biarritz in the last fortnight of 13,200 law enforcement personnel has swelled the numbers, but they’re unlikely to be buying beach towels and taking surfing lessons. Biarritz is in lockdown and the airport is closed until Sunday, along with the main train station and those of four neighbouring resorts. Tourists and commuters will have to

Katy Balls Katy Balls

It’s time to talk about what no deal really means

The main reason Conservative MPs prefer Boris Johnson’s government to Theresa May’s is because of its clarity of message. The government now has direction and purpose. Briefings from Tory HQ, delivered even to those MPs who have managed to get away on holiday, have gone from intermittent and inconsistent to daily and succinct. The message is simple: Brexit will be delivered by 31 October, crime is being tackled and the NHS properly funded. We can expect to hear these messages, or variants thereof, for the next few months. But there is one area where the government seems less sure of itself: what will happen in the event of no deal?

Wednesday

Katy Balls

Boris Johnson and Angela Merkel’s optimistic press conference

When Theresa May held press conferences with European leaders over Brexit, they were often a painful affair – with her counterpart quick to suggest little progress had been made. This afternoon Boris Johnson opted for an optimistic approach in his first outing on the world stage. The Prime Minister met with Angela Merkel this afternoon in Berlin for talks ahead of the G7 summit this weekend. In the press conference, Johnson joked that the pair had many things to discuss including the ‘small matter of Brexit’. With figures in Brussels – including EU council leader Donald Tusk – rejecting the demand in Johnson’s letter to ditch the backstop from the

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

France says no deal now the most likely Brexit outcome. But why now?

Why would French government officials brief that they think it most likely Britain will leave the European Union without a deal? Boris Johnson hasn’t even made it as far as his meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, and is only just being welcomed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel. So why brief that out now, before the leaders have even spoken? The comments appear to be part of the briefing war between European leaders and the British government, with neither side wanting to take the blame for any fallout from a no-deal Brexit. As I explained yesterday, the EU wants to paint Johnson as being set on taking Britain out without

Robert Peston Robert Peston

Boris Johnson’s Brexit opponents are playing into his hands

There is arguably the most important conflict raging in the Tory party since Churchill replaced Chamberlain as PM in 1940. Although we are living through 1940 in reverse, because Johnson is already the self-defined “war-time” PM, the wannabe Churchill, when some of his colleagues want something and perhaps someone else. Forget the battle between government and opposition, what matters most right now is the fight between Boris Johnson and his consigliere Dominic Cummings on one hand against a minority of senior Conservative MPs led by Philip Hammond, David Gauke and Greg Clark – the so-called Gaukeward Squad – over whether a no-deal Brexit is preferable to a Brexit delay. At stake is pretty much

Tuesday

John Keiger

Emmanuel Macron could be Boris Johnson’s Brexit saviour

One thing on which Remainers and Brexiteers can agree is that Brexit delayed is Brexit denied. The government continues to proclaim that the UK will leave the EU on 31 October with or without a deal. But No. 10 is acutely sensitive to the possibility of a parliamentary manoeuvre designed to compel the executive, through legislation, to seek a further extension of Article 50 to delay Brexit yet again. But Boris Johnson should keep calm about this prospect, for an unlikely saviour – the president of France, Emmanuel Macron – could come to his rescue. Whatever Brexit extension legislation Parliament might push through, any further extension of Article 50 requires unanimous

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

No. 10 hits back in the backstop blame game

The stand-off between Downing Street and the European Union over Boris Johnson’s latest proposal for the backstop boils down to a disagreement over whether the British government really cares about getting a Brexit deal at all. When Donald Tusk rejected Johnson’s plan today, he all but accused him of being set on a no-deal exit, saying: ‘The backstop is an insurance to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland unless and until an alternative is found. Those against the backstop and not proposing realistic alternatives in fact support re-establishing a border. Even if they do not admit it.’ A Downing Street spokesperson hit back at this, insisting that

Katy Balls Katy Balls

No. 10’s media strategy – ‘The focus is the country rather than the Westminster bubble’

What is Boris Johnson’s strategy for engaging with the media? Over the weekend reports emerged that the Johnson government’s media strategy would omit Radio 4’s flagship current affairs programme. No. 10 director of communications Lee Cain is said to have told aides that the Today programme is a ‘total waste of time’. He’s not alone. Johnson’s most senior adviser Dominic Cummings also appears to feel little in the way of warmth towards the show – reportedly telling colleagues that he didn’t listen to it once during the EU referendum campaign when he was campaign director for Vote Leave. So is the government at war with the BBC already? It’s a little more

Monday

Freddy Gray

Jeremy Corbyn, not Boris Johnson, is ‘Britain’s Trump’

Jez he did! Jeremy Corbyn has just surprised absolutely nobody by calling Prime Minister Boris Johnson ‘Britain’s Trump.’ He labelled Boris a ‘fake populist’ and a ‘phoney outsider.’ No doubt Labour speechwriters think this is a great attack line ahead of a general election.  But it might backfire – for two reasons. First, Trump is not nearly as toxic in Britain as everybody in political circles believes. Secondly, for Labour voters, the uncomfortable truth is that the British equivalent of Trump is not Boris, as everyone says. It’s Jeremy Corbyn.  Corbyn, 70, and Trump, 73, have far more in common than Boris and Trump. Jeremy and Donald are both anti-establishment

Thursday

The Spectator

Where’s Boris?

Before Boris Johnson became Prime Minister there was widespread expectation that his government would be chaotic. It was thought that he would be good at articulating the broad sweep of government policy, but that his administration would quickly sink into turmoil. In the event, the opposite has happened. Three weeks on, the government appears to be running with almost military precision. Preparations for no-deal Brexit seem to be well under control, to the alarm of Philip Hammond, who had thought the task impossible. Yet the Prime Minister himself seems to have gone underground. He is not on holiday — his government is working all hours. But he has not been

Peter Jones

Boris Augustus

The Tories, allegedly a ‘one-nation’ party, are currently imposing Brexit on a divided nation. As a result, some Tory MPs will vote against Brexit, effectively abandoning the party. This raises the question of political values – the question being, what happens after Brexit? Romans faced the same problem when the republic collapsed (27 bc) and Augustus became emperor. The Roman historian Tacitus, looking back at those events some 140 years later, summarised how Augustus achieved supreme power: he charmed the army with bonuses, the people with cheap corn, and everyone with the beguiling pleasures of peace. He then gradually took over the functions of the senate, the magistratus (officers of

The Spectator

Portrait of the Week – 15 August 2019

Home Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, proposed an extra 10,000 prison places and the expansion of stop-and-search powers. PC Stuart Outten, 28, was cut in the head with a machete after he stopped a van in Leyton, east London, in the early hours; Muhammed Rodwan, 56, of Luton, was charged with attempted murder. While trying to make an arrest, PC Gareth Phillips, 42, was run over in Moseley, Birmingham, by someone driving his own car; Mubashar Hussain, 29, was charged with attempted murder. The RAF is to allow recruits to wear beards. John Bercow, the Speaker, said that he thought parliament could stop Britain leaving the EU without an agreement.

Ben Sixsmith

Locking up bankers won’t solve Britain’s crime epidemic

On Monday, a 16-year-old boy was stabbed to death in Munster Square in Camden. A Witness reported seeing three men ‘screaming and laughing’ as they chased him with a machete. The poor kid apparently sought refuge in a house, banging on the door and pleading for help, but his pursuers were close behind him. A couple of days before, across town in Leyton, a police officer had been attacked with a machete after trying to stop a van. PC Stuart Outten was slashed across his head and hand but courageously resisted the attack and survived. In Tottenham, a week before, an 89-year-old woman was reportedly raped and murdered in her

Bernard Connolly

How to make sense of Jeremy Corbyn’s pitch to Remainers

What is Jeremy Corbyn up to? The appeal in his letter to Remainers in the Commons to turf Boris Johnson out, and magically transform the Leader of the Opposition into an ‘interim’ Prime Minister – one who would block not just a no-deal Brexit but any Brexit at all, looks like something out of a Bulgakov novel. But there is a sensible – at least from Corbyn’s point of view – purpose behind it. Few of the various ex-Labour and ex-Conservative independent MPs are likely to support the appeal. Many Corbyn-despising Labour MPs will not back it. A couple of Tories might decide to end their parliamentary careers endorsing it.

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Taking back control

Every Friday at 6 p.m. government aides are summoned to No. 10 Downing Street for a meeting with Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s right-hand man. Here they are plied with alcoholic beverages, updated on the latest government messaging and given instructions for the week ahead. Such meetings seldom happened under the old Theresa May regime: Fridays were a bit of a non-event when ministers were in their constituencies and aides worked hard right up to lunchtime. The new end-of-week meeting register means that is no longer an option. At the most recent meeting, a handful of aides were singled out for good behaviour. Their achievement? Reporting the minister they work for

Bruce Anderson

Summer in the city

Foolish me. I could have been writing this by the shore of Lake Trasimene, with only one problem: how to transmit it to London. Last time I stayed in the delightful house there, the technology was still in the era of Hannibal’s victory. There was no wifi, only spasmodic mobile-phone reception, and the nearest English newspapers were 50 miles away. ‘Where ignorance is bliss…’ Instead, I stayed in London to work out what was happening. As I say, folly. After two fruitless weeks, I have not even identified the questions, let alone the answers. There have been compensations: one great Test match, and very likely more to follow. Steve Smith

Wednesday

Robert Peston

Why Boris Johnson needs an election to deliver Brexit

What more-or-less all Tory MPs seem to have missed is that Philip Hammond, the ex-chancellor who has become the anti-no-deal Sandinista, agrees with Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings on the big thing that matters. Hammond loudly – and Johnson, with his consigliere Cummings sotto voce – all accept that EU leaders and negotiators do not see ANY way of negotiating a new Brexit deal on the basis of what Britain’s new Prime Minister says he wants. As one Brussels official confirmed to me, even if EU leaders – and especially Ireland’s Taoiseach Leo Varadkar – were prepared to do as Johnson asks and rip up the backstop, which they most

The Spectator

Full text: Boris Johnson’s ‘People’s PMQs’ debut

Good afternoon. I’m speaking to you live from my desk in Downing Street for the first-ever People’s Question Time, People’s PMQs, and at the moment I’m afraid MPs are all still off on holiday. But I can take questions unpasteurised, unmediated from you via this machine. So I’m going to go straight away to Luther in Cheshire. And Luther says, ‘I’d like to know how you intend to leave the EU on the 31st of October with no movement from the EU on their terms and still so much opposition in Parliament.’ Luther, you’ve asked the crucial question and there’s a terrible kind of collaboration, as it were, going on

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Why Philip Hammond could just be making things easier for Boris Johnson

Is Philip Hammond’s intervention today really a problem for Boris Johnson? The former Chancellor comment piece in the Times declares that he’s kept quiet for all of three weeks, but that ‘now it is time’ to speak out and warn the new Prime Minister that he risks betraying the British people if he goes for a no-deal Brexit. There has been a sufficiently energetic response from Number 10 sources to suggest that they are rattled by Hammond. But those sources insist that everyone in Westminster had already priced in such a complaint, and that the public will see Hammond and his acolytes bickering over process and trying to stop Brexit,

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Who is Philip Hammond to lecture Boris Johnson on Brexit?

There is a role in British public life known as the Elder Statesman – a former cabinet minister who dispenses wisdom to those currently in office based on their own experiences and observations. There are two qualifications for such a position: firstly, that you leave a decent period between leaving office and setting yourself up in the role, so that it is clear you are not simply trying to settle old scores; and secondly that you are prepared to take an objective approach to your own time in office, admitting to mistakes, saying how you would now approach the problems that you faced in office, with the benefit of hindsight.