Boris johnson

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

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

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

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

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

Remember #rorywalks? This was the hashtag created to follow the progress of Tory leadership candidate Rory Stewart as he travelled around Britain meeting people in places detached from mainstream politics. One encounter that sticks in my mind happened when he met a couple from east London, who told him that they wouldn’t start a family because their local area was too unsafe to bring a child into the world. Whether apocryphal or not, it is clear that there are parts of Britain where criminality and incivility has become normal, battering the morale of our most vulnerable citizens. The public mood is not receptive to further ‘understanding’ of people who seem to