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Who is the most divisive figure in politics? Last year the Daily Mirror claimed Lee Anderson was ‘the worst man in Britain’. This week the Conservative MP is managing to cause a headache both for Labour and his own party. Anderson is a grassroots favourite who even before he was made deputy chairman of the party was near top of the list when it came to the MPs local associations wanted to speak at their events. When No. 10 gave him the role back in February, the idea was that he would help Rishi Sunak in his appeal to the 2019 coalition – with Anderson a straight-talking red wall MP.

The political world splits in two whenever fresh evidence emerges that Boris Johnson does not think that life’s rules and norms apply to him. One faction, the majority, humourlessly harrumphs about standards and brands him unfit for high office. Another tries to excuse the latest infraction. It’s a grey area. It’s not a serious matter. There’s a vendetta against him. Today we saw the latest case of Johnson finding it churlish to expect him to stick to the ‘network of obligation that binds everyone’ (a phrase that should be copyright of his Eton classics teacher, Martin Hammond). According to the Sunday Times, the BBC chairman and former Goldman Sachs banker Richard Sharp

Liz Truss’s Downing Street press conference has made everything worse, as far as Tory MPs are concerned. As soon as it was over, a number of backbenchers who had supported Truss for leader were locked into a call with Thérèse Coffey, the PM’s closest friend in Parliament and the Deputy Prime Minister. Those on the call said it was ‘like a wake,’ with even Coffey sounding ‘broken.’ ‘You could see the loss in her eyes,’ said one. Coffey reiterated the points the Prime Minister had made in No. 10, before taking questions. The ‘wake’ line is one you hear a lot at the moment. A number of MPs who went

Tory conference has long been more stage-managed than other party meetings, but this year the official speeches from ministers have also been condensed into a very strange late afternoon slot lasting just two hours. The rest of the time is free for fringe meetings and plotting. Ministers and their aides have been told they have to keep their addresses to the hall announcement-lite, which makes those two hours feel largely pointless. Kwasi Kwarteng didn’t announce very much at all, even though his two U-turns have dominated the day’s agenda. This morning, the Chancellor dropped the plan to abolish the 45p rate of tax, and this evening it has emerged that

In a tetchy performance on The Andrew Neil Show, Tory party chair Jake Berry repeatedly insisted that everyone would have to wait until the Chancellor’s unveiling of his fiscal plan on 23 November to find out whether or not there would be spending cuts and when the government believes it will hit its 2.5 per cent growth target. Berry’s performance, which involved repeatedly trying to answer a different question to the one he was asked, made it even harder to believe that this line can hold. If every minister interviewed for the next six weeks sounded like Berry did just now, then it would be a disaster for the government. The sensible

Is there a way for the government to get out of the mess that it is in? This is the question obsessing ministers and Tory MPs. If the government doesn’t set out how it intends to square the circle, it’ll be risking more market mayhem. But as I say in the Times today, it is very hard to see a way out of this that is both politically palatable and economically possible. Nervous Tory MPs are being told by one of Truss’s cabinet allies ‘the solution is to be very tough on public spending’ A rapidly growing number of Tory MPs think the government should abandon or delay the abolition

Tom Tugendhat and Penny Mordaunt both took to the BBC Sunday Show this morning. Tugendhat’s appearance came straight after the chief of the defence staff Tony Radakin and Tugendhat immediately went on foreign policy his strongest suit. His answers in this area are crisper than his ones on domestic issues.  Tugendhat made much, as he always does, of the ‘clean start’ he would offer. He did, though, credit Boris Johnson with breaking the Brexit deadlock and levelling up, though said he would take it further. He reiterated his call for a further cut in fuel duty, he wants 10p off. But on energy more broadly he talked about the need

Can Liz Truss gather momentum behind her leadership bid? That’s the challenge facing the Foreign Secretary today ahead of the second round of voting in the contest. Truss is vying for votes among the right of the party along with Suella Braverman and Kemi Badenoch. Of the three, she came out on top in the ballot on Wednesday with 50 MP nominations to Badenoch’s 40 and Braverman’s 33. There is now a push to get these MPs to rally around one candidate. As a supporter of Truss remarked last night: ‘Lots of people need to do some soul-searching.’ When asked why she hadn’t resigned from Johnson’s cabinet, she responded that

Today’s the day in the Tory leadership race where it starts to look less like a fun run with anyone and everyone taking part. By this evening, candidates need to have the backing of at least 20 of their MP colleagues. Rishi Sunak, Penny Mordaunt and Tom Tugendhat are the only candidates out of a field of 11 (and possibly still growing) to reach the threshold. It means today will be a frenzied round of conversations in the corridors of power, with half of Conservative MPs still to give their endorsements (read the full list here). Liz Truss isn’t far off reaching the threshold, but she is competing with Suella

I’ve been thinking for the past couple of days about who can beat Penny Mordaunt in the contest to be the next Tory leader. Despite the shaky start to her campaign, I still think she’s the favourite. Rishi Sunak has too many people trying to stop him; most importantly, a lot of the membership. Truss has too many detractors within the parliamentary party (although she could possibly overcome this and win). Kemi Badenoch is a real possibility but has a lot of ground to make up during the course of the contest. The rest are either too underbaked, have too much baggage, or are beset by other issues. Mordaunt’s appeal

Boris Johnson’s final hours as Prime Minister have been undignified. We do not yet know quite how this will end, but we know he will eventually have to quit. There is a delegation of cabinet ministers in Downing Street waiting for him – more here. Johnson found out about this group while he was in the liaison committee hearing, and was confronted about it by Darren Jones. His response shows that he is not going to accept the first plea from this cabinet delegation. He burbled on about the cost of living and how he wasn’t going to ‘give you a running commentary’ on political issues. This underlines the point

A funny thing happened on the way to the cathedral for the service of thanksgiving to the Queen on Friday. It wasn’t just that Boris Johnson got booed, it was also that Sadiq Khan got cheered. GB News solemnly reported that the Mayor of London ‘received extensive cheers from members of the public who were adorned with Union Jack hats and flags’. So who were these royalist admirers of Mr Khan and detractors of Mr Johnson? I don’t know and neither do you. Given that the mayor secured an underwhelming vote share last year and is one of Labour’s most partisan figures, it seems a stretch to think of him

Boris Johnson is running out of time to produce things the Tories can show the voters at the next election. The theme of his Queen’s Speech – if there was one – was an attempt to fix that. That next election campaign was countered by Keir Starmer in the chamber this afternoon. The main focus was on the cost-of-living crisis and how much worse things are going to get. Funnily enough, Starmer didn’t mention the members of the government who’d broken Covid rules The Labour leader repeatedly accused this government of not being ‘up to the challenge’, with the Tories producing only a ‘thin address bereft of ideas or purpose, without a guiding

Neil Parish, the MP for Tiverton and Honiton, is set to quit the Commons. After he was this week accused of watching porn in the chamber, Parish swiftly had the whip withdrawn and referred himself to Parliament’s complaints process. But he initially claimed he would stay in the job and continue to represent his constituency until the inquiry finished. Now though the BBC has confirmed that Parish will stand down as an MP after admitting that he watched porn twice on the parliamentary estate. Parish suggested the first time he looked at porn it was accidental after viewing tractors on his phone, but the second time was deliberate. It’s certainly been a rollercoaster

Cast your mind back to Channel 4’s election night programme. The 2019 exit poll results flash up on screen. Realising the size of the Tory majority, hosts Krishnan Guru-Murthy and comedian Katherine Ryan, along with pundits Amber Rudd and Tom Watson, all look crestfallen: the Conservatives had won and Brexit was secured.  However, nearly two and a half years on from that night, the joy of the Channel 4 clip feels a bit empty. Very little has been done with that huge parliamentary advantage. Instead, the government’s big announcement this week is that they’re privatising the broadcaster. Fine. No problem with that; it’s probably a good thing. Except it doesn’t

Downing Street’s plan to privatise Channel 4 is already facing a Tory revolt – less than 24 hours after the plans were confirmed. On Monday night, the channel’s chief executive told staff that the government plans to proceed with privatisation. The official line from Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries is that this will ‘give Channel 4 the tools and freedom to flourish and thrive as a public service broadcaster long into the future’ and compete with streaming giants like Netflix. Only the broadcaster takes a different view: that this is a mistake – and plenty of senior Conservatives agree. Former Scottish Conservatives leader Ruth Davidson has described it as ‘the opposite of levelling up’ – citing

Rishi Sunak – Brexit vote and Ukraine resistance ‘are not analogous’ The Chancellor was in the TV studios this morning, ahead of the Spring Statement that he will deliver on Wednesday. Economic issues, like much else, have been cast into the shadows over recent weeks as the spotlight has inevitably focused on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Even today was no exception, as in his interview with the BBC’s Sophie Raworth, Rishi Sunak was first asked to address a stir caused by the Prime Minister’s remarks at the Conservative’s spring conference yesterday in Blackpool: Government’s energy support ‘will make a difference’ Turning to Sunak’s brief, Raworth asked about the rising cost of living

As the Conservative party’s Spring Forum gets underway in Blackpool, attention is turning back to domestic politics, with cabinet ministers publicly suggesting partygate is over – or more specifically that it is ‘fluff’ according to Jacob Rees-Mogg. A debate about tax is also underway on the fringes as Rishi Sunak continues to insist that he is a low tax Tory despite much of his behaviour since entering No. 11 suggesting the opposite. When the Chancellor unveils the spring statement next week, MPs hope there will be an indication of Sunak’s alleged tax cutting preferences. While the National Insurance hike is now viewed as baked in, there’s speculation that there could

Boris Johnson certainly managed to rally the troops on their first day back from recess this afternoon as he told the Commons that all remaining domestic Covid restrictions were coming to an end.  The most explosive moments of the past few months haven’t been about the continuation of Covid restrictions From this Thursday, the legal requirement to self-isolate following a positive test will come to an end. Until 1 April, people who test positive will be advised to stay at home, but after that ‘we will encourage people with Covid-19 symptoms to exercise personal responsibility, just as we encourage people who may have flu to be considerate to others’. On

Tobias Ellwood, the chair of the defence select committee, has this morning announced that he is sending a letter to the 1922 chairman calling for a no confidence vote in Boris Johnson. In a way this is not a surprise: Johnson cut Ellwood from the government when he became Prime Minister and the two are temperamentally very different. But the worry for No. 10 is that there are rather a lot of former ministers on the backbenches these days, and if a lot of them start writing letters then a no confidence vote will become a near certainty. Another concern for No. 10 this morning is whether they can live up to

The stench of death clings to Boris Johnson. Bury South MP Christian Wakeford has crossed the floor to join Labour. David Davis has told him to resign ‘in the name of God’. Tory MPs reportedly continue to hand in letters of no confidence to the 1922 Committee. Once they reach 54, there will be a vote of confidence. Fresh polling on the Red Wall, conducted by JL Partners for Channel 4, puts Labour at 48 per cent and 37 per cent for the Tories, a near inversion of the 2019 election result. Sir Graham Brady — and Sir Keir — should expect some more knocks on their doors. The revelation