Boris johnson

Thursday

Toby Young

Boris and The Sextator farce

Fourteen years ago, almost to the day, Lloyd Evans and I received a note from Boris. It was the press night of Who’s The Daddy?, our play about the various sex scandals that had engulfed The Spectator in the previous 12 months, and we were terrified about how he’d react. As the editor of the magazine, he would have been within his rights to sack us, given how disloyal we’d been. We had portrayed him as a sex-mad buffoon with a portrait of Margaret Thatcher on his office wall that turned into a pull-down bed — in constant use throughout, needless to say. Not only that, but we’d sent up

Petronella Wyatt

Diary – 11 July 2019

I am beginning to feel like a sort of fairground curiosity: one of those pickled things in jars that Victorians stared at. It is Boris’s fault. Because I once had a close friendship — all right, all right, a tendresse — with Mr Johnson, I am pointed at, photographed, and harried in the aisles of shops. Soon members of the public will be tearing off bits of my clothes — something Russian peasants used to do with anyone who had met the Tsar, as if this would bestow some of Batiushka’s divine status. Tabloid journalists doorstep me, believing I have the answers. I am a female Zoltan Kapathy; not so much an

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

The ties that bind

It seems a fitting end to an ill-fated premiership. As Theresa May prepares to leave No. 10, a major quarrel erupts between her government and its most powerful ally, the United States of America. Leaked diplomatic cables show Sir Kim Darroch, the British ambassador in Washington, calling President Donald Trump ‘inept’, ‘insecure’ and ‘uniquely dysfunctional’. The funny thing is, the words in his memo are just as applicable to Theresa May’s leadership. Within days, Sir Kim resigns. But every diplomatic crisis is a political opportunity, as President Donald Trump well understands. He even spelled this out in one of his Twitter rants. ‘The good news for the wonderful United Kingdom is

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Boris’s most important appointment

After being backed by a majority of Tory MPs, Boris Johnson now looks set to win over party members by an even larger margin. Surveys suggest he will hoover up between two thirds and three quarters of the vote. A Tory leader with such a mandate would, normally, start his premiership with huge amounts of political capital and be able to dictate terms to their opponents within the party. But Johnson will have to watch his back from the moment he crosses the threshold of No. 10. Most new prime ministers arrive with a decent majority. Johnson will be clinging to power from day one. Even with the DUP, the

Harry Mount

Jog on

Forget the cigar, the homburg and the V-for-victory sign. If Winston Churchill were around today, he’d be pounding the streets in T-shirt, shorts and chunky trainers. Jogging is an almost compulsory obsession for any Tory alpha male. Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt are forever out running; Michael Gove has lost a drastic amount of weight racing around west London; and Boris has revealed he’s down to 15 and a half stone, from 16 and a half. He’s also declared he’d freeze obesity taxes on fattening food — the answer to losing weight was more exercise, he said — and admitted to failing to keep up a vegan diet (he likes

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

Optimistic Boris looks ahead to turbulent term as PM in TV debate

Jeremy Hunt managed to sum up the Tory leadership contest very aptly this evening when he accused Boris Johnson of ‘peddling optimism’. The line, delivered in ITV’s leaders’ debate, did the Foreign Secretary no favours, though. He was pitching himself as the truthful realist, who wouldn’t make promises he couldn’t deliver on. Johnson ridiculed this as ‘defeatist’, telling the audience in his summation that Britain needed to get off ‘the hamster wheel of doom’. Had Hunt suggested Johnson was ‘peddling myths’ or ‘peddling nonsense’, then his line would have had better force for his cause. Instead, it underlined why the former Mayor of London is doing so well in the

James Forsyth James Forsyth

A feisty debate, but no game changing moment

Tonight’s debate between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt was a feisty affair. The pair clashed repeatedly over the October 31st Brexit deadline, tax policy and Donald Trump. The mood of the debate was summed up when Boris Johnson was asked what he most admired about Jeremy Hunt and replied, ‘his ability to change his mind’. Hunt shot back that he most admired Boris Johnson’s ability to avoid answering the question. The Brexit section of the debate was dominated by the question of whether the UK would leave on October 31st or not. Jeremy Hunt pushed Boris Johnson on whether he would resign if that didn’t happen, Boris Johnson dodged before

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Hancock given hard time over sugar tax and social care

On the subject of MPs who hope Boris Johnson might give them a job, Matt Hancock was before the Health Select Committee this afternoon, where he ended up taking a fair bit of flak for what the current government hasn’t done, and what the next administration might do. After his own failed leadership bid, the Health and Social Care Secretary backed Johnson, which made for a very awkward section in today’s hearing about the sugar tax. Hancock was repeatedly pressed on Johnson’s pledge to review ‘sin taxes’, including the one on sugary drinks, and he repeatedly answered that the most important thing was to look at the evidence behind the

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Could Boris Johnson make Jeremy Hunt his deputy?

Who will Boris Johnson appoint as his deputy? Now that voting in the Tory leadership is well underway – with 60 per cent of party members expected to have sent back their ballots by Thursday – most MPs are starting to think more about what the next prime minister’s cabinet will look like, and less about who that prime minister will be. There are more than enough candidates to fill the cabinet twice over, given the number of MPs who have backed Johnson. Some of their colleagues mock them for supporting someone merely because they hope he will give them a government job, but it’s quite understandable that someone might

Katy Balls Katy Balls

The court of Boris Johnson: the factions competing for approval

How will Boris Johnson govern? With even Jeremy Hunt allies privately braced for defeat in two weeks’ time when the result is announced, talk has turned to what a Johnson government could look like. This relates not just to his Cabinet but how No. 10 will be run and who Johnson will take guidance from. ConservativeHome’s Paul Goodman has predicted that a Johnson government will be much more like a court than his predecessors – with groups of courtiers offering rival advice: ‘He will listen to these groups and play them off’. So, which groups will be vying for Johnson’s approval? Over the length of the Tory leadership campaign, Johnson

Monday

Steerpike

Boris takes inspiration from The Godfather

When Michael Gove turned on Boris Johnson in the 2016 Tory leadership contest and decided to stand against his former Vote Leave comrade, it was likened to Brutus’s betrayal of Julius Caesar. But with things looking brighter for Johnson this time around – and the former mayor of London viewed as a shoo-in for No. 10 – could he be about to exact his revenge? Mr S only asks after BoJo gave a rather curious answer when asked ‘what’s your favourite movie scene?’ by the Daily Mail over the weekend. Johnson ominously pointed to The Godfather’s acclaimed ‘Baptism of Fire’ scene – where Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone ruthlessly orchestrates the

Ross Clark Ross Clark

What the Heck boycotters can learn from Boris Johnson

You can tell a lot about the Left simply by reading the list of subjects which are trending on Twitter. Top spot this afternoon goes to the hashtag #BoycottHeck. If you are wondering what that means, Heck is a family firm based in North Yorkshire which until the weekend ran a blameless business making gluten-free sausages. Besides its traditional pork sausages, it has also established a reputation for its vegetarian sausages – winning plaudits from a great number of warm-hearted, peace-loving people of the Left. That was, however, until Boris Johnson passed by on the campaign trail for the Tory leadership contest, and posed for a photo opportunity in a

Saturday

Robert Peston

The plan to block no-deal Brexit

MPs opposed to a no-deal Brexit will make an almost-final attempt early this coming week to make it impossible for Boris Johnson – if he becomes PM – to prorogue or suspend parliament to force through a no-deal Brexit. The plan which has been designed largely by Dominic Grieve, the senior Tory MP and former Attorney General, would amend the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation bill) – which is due to be debated on Monday – to force the government in October to make an oral statement on the progress of efforts to restore fully devolved government to Northern Ireland. If the amendment were to pass, it would mean the House

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Boris Johnson must remember: In victory, magnanimity

With the ballot papers out, the next few days will be crucial in the Tory leadership election. As I say in The Sun this morning, it is reckoned that 60 percent of party members will have voted by Thursday. The Boris campaign are bullish. One very senior figure in the campaign is privately predicting that they will win by a more than twenty-point margin. The Hunt campaign is adamant that this isn’t right and that the contest is tightening every day. But interestingly, even several of his Cabinet supporters aren’t trying to claim that the race is close. One tells me, ‘Let’s face it, there isn’t must doubt about what

Friday

Steerpike

Boris vs Hunt: a voter’s guide

Voting is finally underway in the Tory leadership contest. So should Britain’s next prime minister be Boris Johnson or Jeremy Hunt? Boris is the clear frontrunner but could Jeremy Hunt’s impressive campaign mean that another political upset is on the cards? In some areas, the pair are in complete agreement: they both oppose a second referendum on Scottish Independence, want to reduce Britain’s greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050 and have pledged to tackle the North-South divide. But what of the policy differences? Here’s a round up of where each candidate stands: Brexit Boris Johnson: Boris has pledged that Britain will leave the EU by 31 October ‘come what

Thursday

Taki

High life | 4 July 2019

Hold the presses, this is a world exclusive. A Boris ex I sat next to last week gave me the scoop: he is absent-minded, disorganised and drops wine on sofas. The ex in question was Petronella Wyatt and we were at a lunch Rupert Hambro gave for Conrad Black. There were lotsa big hitters there, including Pa Johnson. La Wyatt is a good girl, and she did have a bit of a rough time with Mr B, but she’s been grand where cashing in is concerned. Despite non-stop offers by the lowlifes that pass as journalists nowadays, she has refused them all. Ladies do not spill the beans, especially not

Joan Collins

Diary – 4 July 2019

It has been a spring of party madness in London and New York. I was lucky enough to have several birthday parties thrown for me in both cities, including Evgeny Lebedev’s glamorous soirée at which Nigel Farage announced that he was no longer being served at any pub in Brussels, which may explain why he’s cut down on the drinking. There was also the ultra-glam Met Ball in New York: Dame Anna Wintour mingling with a half-naked Lady Gaga; divine Bette Midler in top-to-toe black sequins and a top hat, dancing with the talented Julianne Moore (wearing green sequins) and Cher in ripped jeans and an anorak. Not to be

The Spectator

Portrait of the Week – 4 July 2019

Home Boris Johnson, the bookies’ favourite for the leadership of the Conservative party, would, if he became prime minister, ‘show the public sector some love’ said his supporter Matt Hancock. Jeremy Hunt, his rival for the leadership, said: ‘If you’re a sheep farmer in Shropshire or a fisherman in Peterhead… I will mitigate the impact of no-deal Brexit on you.’ The 160,000 members of the Conservative party, few of them public-sector workers, and even fewer sheep farmers or fisherfolk, were sent postal ballots from 6 July to vote for the new leader. The Speaker chose not to select an amendment by Dame Margaret Beckett and Dominic Grieve intended to stop

Linden Kemkaran

What is it about Boris Johnson that makes his critics so angry?

When I posted on Facebook a picture of me standing next to Boris Johnson, I expected a few likes and probably a few more harsh comments. What I didn’t anticipate were the hundreds of words of ranting vitriol posted by friends, some of whom I had known since school. My picture was harmless enough: a selfie, quickly snapped when Boris visited my hometown of Sevenoaks on Monday. It wasn’t a ringing endorsement, or even an approval of him. And it offered no comment on what he stands for. It was simply a picture of us squinting at the camera with the caption: “kicked off the week with this guy, our next

James Forsyth & Katy Balls

A whole new Boris

‘I’m going to stick ruthlessly to script,’ says Boris Johnson. ‘This is not the stage of the campaign when you innovate.’ He’s right to worry about the timing. The new Tory leader won’t be chosen for just over two weeks but the ballot papers go out this weekend. Boris is the odds-on favourite. This is the most important week of the campaign and he’s determined to come across as a serious, game-changing leader, not the loveable yet unreliable joker. The old Boris would mess up his hair before going on television. Today, when we meet in his House of Commons office, he quickly puts on a jacket — as if