Lord frost

The Tory leadership teams rolled into Belfast this afternoon, clad in metaphorical red, white and blue and eager to display their unionist credentials. But while all eyes were on Ulster, elsewhere the real scrap was happening at the Conservative Environment Network where proxies were battling it out for the two final contenders. In team Truss’s corner was Lord Goldsmith, the former MP now ensconced in ermine, while George Eustice, the soon-to-be-departed Environment Secretary, did the honours for Rishi Sunak. The two men have both been jousting for their patrons but there was little sign of courtly behaviour on show. Eustice, who serves as Goldsmith’s boss in the department, accused Truss

Since David Frost quit the government in December over its political direction, he has not said that much about the future of UK-EU affairs. But in the Churchill lecture at the University of Zurich tonight, he sets out a potential new basis for relations. His tone is warm and marks a deliberate attempt to move on from the scratchy relations of the last few years: he argues that there is a ‘need to recognise that the EU is a natural ally of the United Kingdom, and that we should seek – as sovereign equals – ways to cooperate and work together more.’ Frost’s speech is a sign of a reminder that there is

Boris Johnson’s premiership has been plunged into further crisis tonight by the resignation of the Brexit minister Lord Frost. Frost has, according to the Mail on Sunday, quit over the political direction of the government, citing Plan B, tax rises and net zero. His decision to go makes Johnson more vulnerable than he has been at any point in his premiership. He has lost the man who negotiated his Brexit deal, the person he used to reassure hardline Brexiteers he wasn’t going soft and the second most popular member of his Cabinet among the party faithful. Frost, a canny political operator, will know just how much his departure will weaken Johnson,

Away from the shenanigans of Downing Street’s Christmas parties, another festive bash was being held last night just down the road in Westminster. Mr S was among those at One Birdcage Walk enjoying the hospitality of the Adam Smith Institute’s annual shindig, where Lord Frost enlivened the evening with a stalwart defence of free-market principles against the tide of interventionism. Britain’s Brexit supremo raised some eyebrows in No. 10 last week with his comments at the Thatcher Conference on the need to diverge quicker from the ‘European social model’ adding ‘I agree with the Chancellor – our goal must be to lower taxes.’ And it was that same message Frost returned to in his speech, as he told