Boris johnson

Why aren’t the Tory leadership contenders courting rural voters?

Around nine million people – over 17 per cent of the population – live in an area classed as ‘rural’. That number is set to grow; by 2025, it has been estimated that the population of the English countryside will have increased by half a million. So surely, when a politician is bidding to become the next prime minister, it would make sense to consider what the rural population’s priorities might be. A national survey of rural opinion on the leadership contest, organised by the Countryside Alliance, would indicate that this isn’t happening. It’s far from new to say that farming communities are worried about Brexit, and concerned that their

Boris’s secret weapon in the fight against Corbyn

After nine years cleaning up Labour’s mess, things are looking up. Government debt as a share of the economy is starting to fall. For Theresa May’s successor, this means there is an opportunity to spend some desperately-needed money on public services: the police, prisons, schools and local government. But it’s also vital – and a key Tory weapon in the fight against Corbyn – to cut taxes, putting more money in people’s pockets. Boris Johnson has already made such a pledge, floating the idea of increasing the point at which people pay the higher rate of tax. In the long-term, that would be good to do. Yet given the limited

Katy Balls

Boris Johnson doubles down on his Brexit position

The Boris Johnson campaign has today responded to accusations that Johnson has been avoiding scrutiny by sending their candidate on a mini-media blitz. In the past 24 hours, Johnson has given interviews to the BBC, LBC and Talk Radio. There’s even a promise of more media interaction to come. In all of the interviews, the former mayor of London refused to answer questions on his private life – on the issue of why police were called on Friday night to the apartment he shares with his partner Carrie Symonds. He did, however, send social media into a frenzy when he was asked how he liked to relax and replied that

Steerpike

Watch: Boris dodges Carrie Symonds question 26 times

Boris Johnson has come out of hiding but it seems he is still doing his best to dodge scrutiny. On LBC this morning, Boris was quizzed repeatedly about how a picture of him in the Sussex countryside with his girlfriend Carrie Symonds found its way into the media. And 26 times, he refused to answer. Here is how the exchange unfolded: NF: Why the picture today? BJ: Newspapers will print whatever they are going to print. NF: Where did the picture come from? Boris Johnson, where did the picture come from? BJ: The longer we spend… NF: Where did the picture come from? BJ: The longer we spend on things extraneous…

Alex Massie

Boris’s backers have a lot to answer for

In today’s Times, a “long-standing friend” of Boris Johnson complains that “there’s a tendency to infantilise Boris”. Putting the man who still looks likely to be the next leader of the Conservative and Unionist party and prime minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland under a form of, well, house-arrest must have seemed like a good idea at the time. After all, the race is his to lose and can only be lost by him. “Clearly”, the chum adds, “there was a need to protect him but it went too far”.  This seems revealing. A number of questions arise. First, *why* do people feel inclined to

Could Boris Johnson command the confidence of the Commons?

Could Boris Johnson command the confidence of the Commons? That’s the question being asked in Westminster this week as various ‘Stop Boris’ factions emerge. The Standard reports that Cabinet Secretary Sir Mark Sedwill has told Theresa May that she ought to only advise the Queen to appoint Johnson or Jeremy Hunt as her successor if she is confident that they can command a majority in the Commons. With hostility growing over Johnson’s Brexit plan – which could lead to no deal – it’s BoJo who this appears to be aimed at. Over the weekend, the Sunday Times reported that the Johnson campaign had been warned by the Chief Whip that there was

James Forsyth

Hunt preys on Boris’s wobble

Jeremy Hunt is proving to be a more aggressive rival than many in the Boris Johnson campaign expected. Shortly before the last round of parliamentary voting, Hunt talked about putting ‘Boris through his paces’ which made him sound more like a personal trainer than a political opponent. But since making the final two, Hunt has been far punchier. His attacks on Boris Johnson this morning for ducking various TV debates are properly aggressive. Hunt’s attacks are garnering more attention because, after a relatively smooth parliamentary stage, Boris Johnson is having a wobble. The fallout from the Thursday night incident at his partner’s flat isn’t helping and his Brexit answer is

Brendan O’Neill

The shameful hounding of Carrie Symonds

Who’s really harassing Carrie Symonds? We have no proof that her boyfriend Boris Johnson is. One surreptitiously recorded late-night row does not add up to evidence of an abusive relationship. But we have plenty of proof that leftists are. That’s the great irony of the Boris-tape controversy: Boris-bashers claim merely to be concerned for Ms Symonds’ welfare but in truth many of them seem hell-bent on making her life a misery. Ask yourself what kind of person puts up posters outside a young woman’s flat mocking her lover. That’s what some of Ms Symonds’ neighbours have done. They attached posters to metal railings showing Boris looking ridiculous, alongside the words:

Katy Balls

Jeremy Hunt capitalises on Boris Johnson’s troubles

When Jeremy Hunt was announced as the candidate who would join Boris Johnson in the final two for the Tory leadership contest members’ vote, there were cheers amongst members of the Johnson camp. The view was that, unlike Gove, Hunt would prove a gentle opponent who Boris would have little bother shrugging off. However, after a weekend of bad headlines for the former mayor of London involving a late night incident with his girlfriend Carrie Symonds, that theory can now be called into question. Johnson refused at the first membership hustings to say why police were called to Symonds’s flat in the early hours of Friday. While that refusal went

Dear Mary: what do you do if you spill red wine on a sofa?

No matter how much you loved Boris you would find it maddening if he spilled red wine on your sofa.  And more so if he didn’t even make a gestural effort to clear it up. But, like us all, Boris would have known from experience of the futility of trying to get red wine stains out of ‘soft furnishings ‘ We’ve all seen fellow party guests being humiliated after such spillages as bossy people set to with theatrical paper towel mopping or the pantomime of pouring white wine or whole packets of sea salt onto the stains. And then we’ve seen that nothing seems to work. Boris may have felt

There’s no denying the Boris tape was politically motivated

A neighbour records a domestic row through the wall of their flat, takes the recording to a newspaper which then publishes details of the conversation. I wonder what The Guardian would have made of that in 2011 when it was on its crusade against press intrusion which led to the Leveson Inquiry – especially had the newspaper been a red-top. Eight years ago, it was hacking into the messages on mobile phones which caused the controversy – a practice which led to criminal trials and a comprehensive, judge-led inquiry into the ethics of the press. Is it really any less offensive to record a conversation through the walls of a

James Kirkup

This tape will always threaten Boris Johnson

It’s not hard to work out the ‘lines to take’ that are being handed out from Boris Johnson’s team to his surrogates in politics and the media after the police were called to the flat he’s been living in. ‘It’s a private matter. It’s an invasion of privacy. The neighbour who taped the incident, called the cops and tipped The Guardian (yes, The Guardian) clearly has an agenda. This is the same sort of smear they’ve tried against poor old Mark Field. All couples have rows. It was just a domestic. Besides, women commit at least as much domestic violence as men.’ I won’t bother to record here my contempt

Melanie McDonagh

Boris has to get out of Camberwell

Well! Just when it looked like the only political question anyone would be talking about is the start of the leadership hustings, what do you know? All anyone can think about is Boris Johnson’s row with his girlfriend on Thursday night. The one police were called to. Just after he’d seen off Michael Gove and the leadership contest seemed pretty well sewn up, now this: a proper row a plate-throwing, loud enough for the neighbours to hear every word sort of row. For anyone who hasn’t actually read the details, here’s the Mail’s account: ‘Neighbours told last night how they heard plates and glasses smashing during a “proper tear-up” at

History will wonder how we trusted Boris with Britain

I am besieged by media folk asking when I shall make good on a four-year-old threat to flee to Buenos Aires should Boris Johnson become prime minister. How can I get on to a flight, I ask, when so many other voters are already waitlisted? In truth, however, we are being served successive courses in a national banquet of self-harm, too grisly to merit jokes. Nobody should blame Johnson for wanting to be prime minister: many unsuitable people do. But there will be infinite historical curiosity about how the Tory parliamentary party could scramble to deliver Britain into the custody of a man whom few of its members would entrust

Letters | 20 June 2019

Eco opportunity Sir: As a North Sea oil engineer now working on the UK’s ‘green’ energy transition, I believe Ross Clark (‘Greener than thou’, 15 June) raised many valid points but missed out on the major opportunities for the UK economy. Irrespective of what we believe to be the extent of climate change, other key factors are changing rapidly. Who will want to drive their own petrol car when they can summon an autonomous vehicle at the click of an app? And with the global population rising, the total energy demand continues to soar. In the UK, leaps in technology have led to major investment and seen energy generation costs

Diary – 20 June 2019

I am besieged by media folk asking when I shall make good on a four-year-old threat to flee to Buenos Aires should Boris Johnson become prime minister. How can I get on to a flight, I ask, when so many other voters are already wait-listed? In truth, however, we are being served successive courses in a national banquet of self-harm, too grisly to merit jokes. Nobody should blame Johnson for wanting to be prime minister: many unsuitable people do. But there will be infinite historical curiosity about how the Tory parliamentary party could scramble to deliver Britain into the custody of a man whom few of its members would entrust

Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 20 June 2019

Boris and his team made a mistake by agreeing to take part in Tuesday’s BBC leadership debate. In such decisions, candidates must be absolutely ruthless. It does not matter whether one is accused of ‘running away’ if one does not take part. The only question is, ‘Will going on X improve the candidate’s chances with the relevant electorate?’ The relevant electorate in the Tory leadership campaign is 1. MPs and 2. party members. Nobody else matters, except inasmuch as wider opinions affect those who vote. Boris could easily have reached MPs without going on the BBC debate. He can less easily reach party members, but even then, he can find more

Portrait of the Week – 20 June 2019

Home Boris Johnson was well ahead in the parliamentary stage of the contest for the leadership of the Conservative party, gaining 126 of the 313 votes by MPs in the second ballot, with Jeremy Hunt second at 46 (and Dominic Raab knocked out). He had declined to take part in a Channel 4 debate, and was represented by an empty podium before an audience purporting to be floating voters. The most memorable metaphor of that debate concerned bin bags. Rory Stewart said: ‘I was trying to cram a whole series of rubbish bins into the rubbish bin.’ He had meant to say ‘a whole series of rubbish bags’, but the