Boris johnson

Thursday

The Spectator

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

The Spectator

Plan B | 20 June 2019

When Boris Johnson was appointed editor of this magazine two decades ago, an unkind soul said it was like ‘entrusting a Ming vase in the hands of an ape’. The remark encapsulated many people’s worst fears about the man who will almost certainly be Britain’s prime minister in four weeks’ time, if not before: that Boris is an irresponsible joker. Similar warnings were made when he was elected London mayor. His refusal to conform to type encourages a constant expectation of imminent disaster. What if Boris flops in No. 10? Even his supporters can’t be sure he won’t fail: his election as leader is a gamble from a party that

James Forsyth James Forsyth

How Boris Johnson intends to approach the next stage of the Tory leadership contest

There was a huge cheer in Boris Johnson’s office when it was announced that Jeremy Hunt had 77 votes, sending him into the final two and eliminating Michael Gove. The Johnson campaign were dreading a run- off against Michael Gove, which would have been far more testing for their candidate. The Johnson campaign are keen to say that there’s no complacency, but there is an understandable confidence that they will beat Hunt. Indeed, their planning for government, which I wrote about in this week’s magazine, is about to be significantly stepped up. Boris Johnson will have no time to waste once he enters Downing Street: there’ll only be 99 days

Katy Balls Katy Balls

The Boris campaign get the leadership final they hoped for

There will be sighs of relief in the Boris Johnson camp this evening after Jeremy Hunt won the second spot on the members’ ballot. It’s no great secret that the Foreign Secretary was Johnson’s preferred opponent. Boris allies were concerned that a contest against a candidate like Michael Gove (or, worse still, Rory Stewart) could be bruising and rather hostile. With Gove a very able debater, Johnson would likely have been pressed on the Brexit detail on a nightly basis. Even Jeremy Hunt’s allies appear to admit he is an easier candidate to go up against. Ahead of the final vote sources close to the Hunt campaign were warning that

Steerpike Steerpike

George Osborne’s change of heart

For a long time George Osborne was more likely to be found taking snipes at his one-time political rival Boris Johnson than supporting his political efforts. In 2016, the former chancellor mocked Johnson by saying that were he to go for the party leadership he would not ‘fumble the ball’ – a thinly-veiled attack on Johnson’s botched leadership campaign in the 2016 contest. Only just like 2019 Johnson, 2019 Osborne is a rather different figure. Now editor of the Evening Standard, Osborne has used the paper’s leading article today to endorse Boris Johnson. With MPs voting for a final time today on which two candidates will go to the members’ vote,

Toby Young Toby Young

Boris Derangement Syndrome

I switched on the radio last week and caught the tail end of a discussion about the Conservative leadership election. The presenter, who seemed to be in a highly agitated state, was talking about one of the contenders: ‘A man who’s lied to both of his wives, all of his mistresses, every constituent, every employer, every party leader, every colleague, every interviewer, every journalist he’s ever encountered, he’s not just lied to them, he’s actively agitated to deceive them…’ On it went. Even by left-wing shock jock standards, it was unhinged. He could only have been talking about Boris Johnson. In the US, Trump Derangement Syndrome, or TDS, is a

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Boris in No. 10

Quietly and discreetly, the planning for Boris Johnson’s premiership has begun. No one wants to be seen measuring the curtains, but his team are confident he’ll be the choice of Tory party members. It would be the most spectacular upset if he is not. Boris has fixed a Brexit deadline — 31 October — and time is short so his aides are concentrating on what to do when — if — he makes it to No. 10. The first few weeks in No. 10 are crucial for any prime minister, but particularly one who takes over in mid-term, without their own personal electoral mandate. Boris will have only 99 days

Matthew Parris Matthew Parris

When good men go bad

It was when Matt Hancock went over to Boris Johnson that something snapped. ‘Every time a child says “I don’t believe in fairies,”’ said Peter Pan, ‘there is a fairy somewhere that falls down dead.’ When Matt Hancock said this week that he did believe in Boris Johnson, something in me died. I remember Matt practising with a few of us for his speech to Conservative candidate selection meetings. He needed more work on the fluency — he still does — but was outstandingly bright, quick, endearingly ambitious, full of bounce and, most important, he seemed to me a good person. Of course all of us are a mixture of

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

PMQs showed the damage the leadership debate is causing to the Tory party

Last night’s Tory leadership debate was an illustration of where the wider party has ended up: fractious, confused, and without a clear plan for what to do next. Today’s Prime Minister’s Questions showed the damage that these blue-on-blue attacks are doing to the Conservative party. A number of the candidates have criticised the policies of their own government particularly when it comes to spending. It was inevitable that this was going to get picked up by the Opposition as an attack line. Labour’s Paul Williams pointed out that Sajid Javid had pledged to reverse Theresa May’s police cuts, while other MPs either made bids for the spending review or warned

Robert Peston Robert Peston

Who will face Boris in the final stage of the Tory leadership contest?

This is my scenario for how the last two days of the MPs’ stage of the Tory leadership ballot will play out – which of course by definition means none of it will happen (and the clever money probably bets against me). Most of the 30 votes won by the defeated Brexiteer Dominic Raab will transfer to Johnson – with perhaps just a few going to Sajid Javid, following his loud commitment to take the UK out of the EU by 31 October, no ifs or buts. So it will be touch and go who is knocked out today, Javid or Rory Stewart – because Stewart’s decision to cast himself in

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

A cacophony of a leadership debate

Boris Johnson’s warning that the televised Tory leadership hustings would be a ‘cacophony’ was proved correct this evening when the five candidates spent an hour talking over one another. Any private fears the former Foreign Secretary may have had about his own performance were largely unjustified, though, as he stayed reasonable and quiet throughout the debate. His worst performance came when he answered a question on Islamophobia. Johnson appeared not to have prepared an answer for this, even though his column on the burqa and his handling of the Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe have come up repeatedly throughout this contest. He initially argued that others had lifted and exaggerated his words ‘as

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

Boris Johnson is Theresa May in drag

Boris Johnson seems the opposite of Theresa May. The worst thing she ever did was run through a wheat field. The worst thing he ever did remains open to debate. But dark suspicious prompted Charles Moore, whom older readers will remember as a defender of family values, to ask: ‘Does it matter if our future prime minister is considered by some to be a sex maniac?’ (Not if it’s a sex maniac Moore supports, apparently.) May is withdrawn. Johnson is outgoing. May will tell you how many children she has. Johnson won’t. May is viewed by the right as the head of a Remainer conspiracy. Johnson resigned rather than serve in

Katy Balls Katy Balls

What would be a good result for Boris in the second ballot?

What counts as a good result for Boris Johnson in the second ballot? The former foreign secretary has already hit the magic number (105 MPs) that ought to guarantee a candidate a place in the final two – winning 114 votes in the first round. It follows that the pressure is on in some quarters for Johnson to build on this momentum when MPs vote for a second time this afternoon. In terms of stamping his authority, there are Johnson supporters who would like to see him win the support of half of the Parliamentary party – thereby providing him with a strong mandate going forward. The Johnson campaign is

Monday

James Forsyth

Why the TV debates could break Rory Stewart’s momentum

With Boris Johnson having all but booked his place in the final two, the most interesting question of the Tory leadership contest right now is whether Rory Stewart can get the 33 votes he needs to get through the next round of voting. If he does, he makes it to Tuesday night’s BBC debate. At which point, Stewart would have the chance to take on Boris Johnson directly. Some, including former Downing Street staffers, think that this clash could even propel Stewart into the final two. But I think it could actually break Stewart’s momentum. Why, because a lot of Tory MPs fear too much blue-on-blue action and wouldn’t want

Friday

Freddy Gray

Boris should ignore Lynton Crosby’s debate-ducking advice

There is a reason Boris Johnson is avoiding the TV debates, and his name is Lynton Crosby.  Crosby is running the Johnson leadership campaign — in awkward conjunction, it seems, with Boris’s girlfriend Carrie Symonds. He is a veritable TV debatephobe. He has run the last two Tory general elections, and he ordered David Cameron and Theresa May to shy away from the TV debates.  In Crosby’s view, debate-ducking is the sensible course. He sees no upside. For frontrunners, especially, if the debate goes well, there is no real uptick in support. The only way a TV debate can influence an election is if a candidate has a massive gaffe, a

Robert Peston Robert Peston

Why the Tory leadership race could now be cut short

Before this Tory leadership election started, the party’s grandees and custodians were telling me party members MUST at all costs be given a choice of candidates to be leader and our next prime minister. Now they tell me Boris Johnson is so far ahead – both among MPs and seemingly among the membership – that it would politically insane to stick to the current timetable of two candidates beating each other up in public, in front of mostly retired white men, for four weeks. “At a time when we face the greatest test for generations [delivering Brexit], the spectacle of two middle-aged men scrapping for the votes of our members, who are

Tom Goodenough Tom Goodenough

Please can we stop calling Boris ‘Mr Johnson’?

Boris Johnson has undergone a makeover and no, it’s got nothing to do with his tidier hair and vanishing paunch. While Boris’s girlfriend Carrie Symonds has been busy transforming his appearance, journalists are now doing their bit to rebrand Boris too. I’m talking of course about Boris becoming Mr Johnson. A ‘request’ from Channel 4’s Louisa Compton is doing the rounds telling reporters to ‘STOP referring to Boris Johnson as just ‘Boris’. She says: ‘He’s a politician – we shouldn’t use first names for politicians – doing so is over-familiar and gives the impression they’re our mates, or much loved comedy characters’. Leaving aside that to some Boris is a

Thursday

Taki

High life | 13 June 2019

A lady once offered to go to bed with me if I could ensure that she would write The Spectator’s Diary. This was some time ago, but what I clearly recall is that I didn’t even try. To help her land the Diary, that is. I don’t wish to start any guessing games among the beautiful ‘gels’ that put out the world’s best weekly, but to my surprise that particular lady did get her wish some time after, with no help from yours truly. (What I can tell you is that all this did not happen under the present sainted editor’s watch.) I was thinking of the Diary as I

The Spectator

Hard sums

‘Choice’ is a word that is used liberally in Conservative thinking — whether it be about schools, hospitals or consumer goods. It is when consumers have choice, goes the argument, that providers of goods and services are forced to up their game. Choice brings diversity, inspiring new ideas and allowing for their success. It is not clear that the same rule applies to Conservative leadership elections. Never before have Conservative MPs been presented with such a broad array of candidates. Ten made it to the first ballot, rather than the more usual four or five. It is hard to argue that the quality of the contest has improved as a

Robert Peston Robert Peston

The two biggest threats to Boris’s leadership bid

Now the real shenanigans begin. Boris Johnson will – barring a disaster of Johnsonian scale – be on the ballot of Tory members to pick their next leader and our prime minister on or around 22 July. And, truthfully, given that he is by a margin the darling and chouchou of those members, it is challenging to see how he can be beaten. Except for one thing. His campaign has been wholly based on Boris Johnson as an idea, a concept – the idea being that only he through his force of personality and penchant for the arresting bon mot can sequentially deliver Brexit, boost the popularity of his party