Boris johnson

Good news in Downing Street: Theresa May has survived the weekend. After the Shapps plot failed to take off, the new consensus is that the beleaguered Prime Minister should re-assert her authority on an increasingly unruly Tory party by reshuffling her Cabinet. Had the speech gone better, there was talk that she could have done this last week. The Sunday Times reports that a shuffle is now likely to occur after the European Council meeting in two weeks’ time. If May does oblige, there are calls from within the party for her to use a reshuffle to promote younger talent – and to sack the Foreign Secretary. The latter still

By the simple expedients of being cheerful and attacking Jeremy Corbyn, Boris Johnson scored a deserved hit at the Tory conference on Tuesday. It is right not to be shy about questioning Mr Corbyn’s record. But while it is true that Mr Corbyn has never wavered, over 40 years, in his extreme socialist views, it is also worth noting that he has recently changed his tone a lot. It reminds me of how Ian Paisley, without ever recanting his anti-Popery, dropped his noisy and lurid 1970s expressions of it, and adopted a more modern political voice. In his speech in Brighton last week, Mr Corbyn almost completely left out one

It’s safe to say that Theresa May’s conference speech has not gone to plan after the Prime Minister came down with a bad cough – and a heckler presented her with a P45. Happily she has her Cabinet on her side. Or one Cabinet minister at least. Amber Rudd was caught on camera jumping to her feet to give May a standing ovation to help her during an awkward moment in the speech. The Home Secretary then appeared to order Boris Johnson to do the same: Amber Rudd telling Boris Johnson to stand for May pic.twitter.com/VGYeb5CroR — Mollie Goodfellow (@hansmollman) October 4, 2017 1-0 to Rudd…

Boris Johnson’s speech to Conservative Party conference was disloyal to the Prime Minister in the sense that unlike Theresa May, the Foreign Secretary finds it easy to be upbeat and persuasive about the benefits of Conservatism. As this morning’s round of interviews showed, the Prime Minister’s definition of ‘upbeat’ is talking faster. Johnson, meanwhile, uses his command of the English language and confidence in public speaking to cheer up party members who were so desperate for something to take their minds off their current general misery that they were queuing in long lines to get into the conference hall. But members already love Johnson. They know that even when he

Will Tory MPs unite behind Theresa May? That’s the big question at this year’s party conference – but for Boris Johnson, there is also another pressing issue: can Cyprus reunite? The Foreign Secretary arrived in Manchester – and immediately joined a welcome reception for the Conservative friends of Cyprus. He revealed to the audience the talks he has been privy to over the past year: We have not in the last 12 months achieved quite what I wanted to do. And there was a meeting in the Swiss resort called Crans Montana where we all tried to get together to resolve the Cyprus problem and we all went up to

Boris Johnson and Ruth Davidson are two of my favourite Tory politicians: both energetic, eloquent, optimistic, pro-immigration and – in general – liberal conservatives. Both have proven track records of winnng voters in parts of the country that had been inhospitable to Tories. Both are advocates of conservatism for explicitly progressive reasons: but because it’s the best way of helping those who need help most.  So I’ve never worked out why there seems to be a firth of bad blood between them. We saw it in the Brexit campaign: it seemed, as times, that the main reason Ruth joined the Wembley Brexit debate was the joy of giving Boris a

Oh dear. As the speeches get underway on day two of Labour conference, Emily Thornberry has kicked off proceedings with a low blow aimed at the Foreign Secretary. Rather than attack her opposite number for his policies alone, the shadow foreign secretary appeared to try and make a jibe about Boris Johnson’s personal life as she went on the offensive over Brexit: ‘Let’s all take a second to sympathise with poor old Boris. Come on, just a second. He’s not been happy lately. Apparently he’s sick of being blamed for the way that Brexit is going, and all the broken promises of the leave campaign. I’m sorry, what? Like, what?

Sir David Norgrove, the chairman of the UK Statistics Authority (UKSA), is an honourable man. When he publicly rebuked Boris Johnson for his use of the famous £350 million figure about our weekly EU contribution, I am sure he was statistically, not party-politically motivated. But two points occur. The first is that Sir David was, arguably, mistaken. He thinks Boris said that, after Brexit, Britain would have £350 million a week more to spend. He didn’t. He said ‘we will take back control of roughly £350 million a week’. This is correct. So long as we are in the EU, that £350 million a week is out of our control,

When Boris Johnson received a sharply worded rebuke for his ‘clear misuse of official statistics’ from Sir David Norgrove, the Chair of the UK Statistics Authority, The Spectator rushed to his aid. Steerpike asked why the statistics chief had intervened when ‘every word from Boris (this time) was accurate’.  The short answer is that Norgrove intervened because Boris was wrong to say that ‘once we have settled our accounts, we will take back control of roughly £350 million per week’. Here’s why. The Boris explanation – or, at any rate, Steerpike’s – is as follows: ‘We all know the deal with the EU: we pay in, then there’s the rebate