Patrick O’Flynn is a former MEP and political editor of the Daily Express
Boris Johnson may well have to go. His own proximity to a party in his private flat in Downing Street on 13 November 2020 – the very day he fired Dominic Cummings – could be the thing that does for him. Were the police to decide that this event was a criminal breach and hand
The post-war Conservative statesman David Maxwell Fyfe once claimed that loyalty was the Tory secret weapon. Like many of his ideas – he was also a notable advocate of European integration – this one did not stand the test of time. Indeed, it crashed and burned when he became one of the highest profile victims
British prime ministers like to deploy the armed services in civilian life because doing so is one of the few levers they can pull that seems to be attached to something that makes an actual difference. While billions extra can be thrown at the NHS with no discernible change or poured into failing public services
It is often said that there are few convinced ‘Boris-ites’ to be found among the ranks of Conservative MPs and that this lack of a praetorian guard of diehard supporters is a major weakness for the Prime Minister. But a much bigger weakness is the rapid ebbing away of the ranks of Boris-ites among the
The brilliant but troubled footballer Mario Balotelli once scored a goal in a Manchester derby match and then lifted up his jersey to reveal a t-shirt with the slogan: ‘Why always me?’ Those who had followed his chaotic career closely could have told him that being the sort of bloke who allows fireworks to be
Boris Johnson is a bit of a wide boy when it comes to his personal finances and the trappings of office. Though such an observation may offend some of the PM’s most ardent supporters – the kind of people who initially claimed that his outrageous attempt to get Owen Paterson off the hook was perfectly fine
If campaign messaging is too subtle then the chances are that the electorate won’t even notice it, so in his first speech of 2022 Keir Starmer kept things very simple. Standing in front of not one Union flag, but two, an immaculately turned-out Labour leader in notably perky form told an audience in Birmingham today:
In the fiercely competitive world of politics, it is not often that an opponent presents you with an Achilles heel that runs the whole way up the back of his leg. It would be even more unusual for someone presented with such a copious target to then fail to go in hard, studs-up against it.
Has Boris Johnson just been thrown a lifeline by a devolution settlement that has caused nothing but trouble for UK prime ministers over the past 20 years? The PM’s decision not to impose further restrictions on social mixing before New Year celebrations has been underlined in the public consciousness by the opposite choices of devolved
There’s no point denying it, Labour is doing a bit better these days. Its poll rating is averaging a 39, which is back where it was this time last year after a long dip down into the low thirties that coincided with Boris Johnson’s ‘vaccine bounce’. These days it is the Tories languishing on an
Monday’s Cabinet meeting held over Zoom was a fraught affair by the sounds of it. Michael Gove and Sajid Javid were reportedly the leading voices calling for more restrictions on household mixing and on the hospitality sector, while the likes of Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss argued that the data did not warrant such a
It’s a topsy turvy world when your friends and allies do you all kinds of damage and then your enemies and detractors accidentally ride to the rescue. But that’s what’s going on in the life of Boris Johnson. His lax approach to the conduct of his own circle is a major factor in his popularity
Is the ball about to come loose at the back of the scrum? Though an imminent defenestration of Boris Johnson is still just about odds-against, the chances of him leading the Tories into the next election are certainly receding. Should a leadership contest be required as early as next year it is already clear who
If Boris Johnson is brought down by his team’s lax attitude to the Covid restrictions they imposed on everyone else then Keir Starmer will be fully entitled to claim a share of the spoils. For yesterday Starmer, or more likely a scriptwriter with real political nous, delivered an understated killer of a line at PMQs.
In politics some rows gain potency from blowing up at a bad time. Some because of their symbolic power. Some because of a single memorable televised gaffe that can be constantly replayed. And some because they involve very serious lapses. It is rare for a single story to encompass all of these damaging dimensions but that
Given the complexities of modern government, with all its pitfalls and unforeseeable reverses, pointing out when ministers have made a mess of things is certainly an important part of the repertoire of opposition – the equivalent of a boxer’s jab in our pugilistic political system. But the ‘it’s a shambles’ method of politics can only
The tragic drowning of more than two dozen people in the English Channel yesterday should remind us that closing down this irregular migration route has become a multi-purpose moral duty. Not only does the British state have a responsibility to do so to preserve its social contract with its citizens and the integrity of the
Perhaps the past seven chaotic weeks are best regarded as an experiment by the Tories. Boris Johnson’s intention appears to be to establish just how badly he can run the country while remaining on course for re-election. Despite calamity after calamity hitting Boris’s administration, things are still looking rosy for the party: Politico‘s poll of polls shows
The sheer number of useless interventions that have been touted as offering a solution to the cross-Channel migrants crisis is bewildering. Various rounds of talks with France about heightened cooperation to make the route non-viable; paying large sums of money to France to fund beach patrols; appointing a cross-Channel Clandestine Threat Commander; threatening to ‘call
Rishi Sunak thinks Boris Johnson goofed badly when he conspired to upend Commons standards procedures. And he agrees with his red wall colleagues that this appeared to place the government on the side of a privileged elite. That is certainly the standard interpretation of his comment this week that the government needed to do better –
