Politics Archives

Tuesday

18 Jun 2019

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

James Kirkup

Boris Johnson should want to face Rory Stewart

You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to look at recent media coverage of the Tory leadership race and conclude that Bois Johnson is a bit scared of Rory Stewart. Johnson’s fiends and surrogates have been training their fire on Stewart since the weekend, sometimes subtly and sometimes not. This started when Matt Hancock dropped out, putting his backers in play. Then Stewart’s performance in Sunday’s Channel 4 debate convinced a number of his colleagues that he could survive the second ballot and thus qualify for a BBC debate tonight. A debate that Johnson has reluctantly agreed to be in. Reluctantly because the entire Johnson strategy in the race

Monday

17 Jun 2019

Fraser Nelson

Sajid Javid: send me into the final two and I’ll “make a better Boris”

At the hustings held by the 1922 Committee of backbench Tory MPs this evening, the question wasn’t who was going to win but who should be sent to put Boris Johnson through his paces before he wins. Word is that Team Boris is lending about 15 votes to Jeremy Hunt, who he’d most like to go up against – either today, or in later voting rounds. Boris is understood to have over 120 supporters now – more than the next three put together – so he could lend 40 votes to Hunt if he wanted. But he is more likely to keep the number low so the vote-lending isn’t obvious.

Robert Peston

How will the leadership candidates solve the Irish border question?

At the hacks’ hustings for the Tory leadership candidates, I asked the five who could be bothered to be held to account by your inky fingered servants a really boring question. Would they accept the definition of a ‘hard border’ on the island of Ireland written into the December joint agreement between the UK and the EU, which underpins the backstop plan in the Withdrawal Agreement? The reason this matters is that the joint agreement says there is a commitment to avoid ‘a hard border including any physical infrastructure or related checks and controls’, and the Withdrawal Agreement says ‘any future arrangements [for Ireland] must be compatible with these overarching

James Kirkup

The problem with Theresa May’s desire for a legacy

In less than a month, Theresa May’s premiership will be history. If she is remembered at all, it will mainly be for Brexit. She took on a near-impossible task, made it harder (her misjudged ‘red lines’ from autumn 2016 will always haunt her), and finally failed at it. That had many consequences, not least the neglect of domestic policy. The burning injustices she so memorably listed on the Downing Street step are still blazing away. Poor social mobility, health inequality, racial bias in the justice system, a dysfunctional housing market and poor provision for mental health problems – all remain unresolved. It is therefore understandable that Theresa May wants to

Steerpike

The Brexit party rallies behind Rory Stewart

It seems like half of Twitter has fallen in love with Rory Stewart and his whirlwind campaign to become prime minister. But recently, it’s not just centrist swing-voters who’ve been swept off their feet by the International Development Secretary. Certain figures on the pro-no deal side of the Brexit divide now seem to have fallen under Stewart’s spell and are issuing full-throated endorsements of him. Nigel Farage invited Stewart onto his LBC show yesterday and hailed him for having ‘set alight’ the Tory leadership process, and praised his ‘terrific campaign’. In contrast the pro-Brexit frontrunner, Boris Johnson, has received the strongest criticism from Farage, who has described the blond Etonian

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

Steerpike

Sajid Javid turns on the Old Etonians

So far in the Tory leadership contests, the candidates have spent a lot of time bashing the frontrunner Boris Johnson. However, with Johnson a sure thing for the final two, the real contest is currently between the other five leadership contenders, hoping to win second place to get on the members’ ballot. Hearing that battle cry, Sajid Javid used today’s lobby hustings to go on the offensive against his rival Rory Stewart. With Stewart building momentum over the past couple of days, Javid took the opportunity to warn MPs against selecting two Old Etonians to go to the members, while helpfully drawing attention to his own more humble beginnings. Unlike Stewart, who

Katy Balls

Matt Hancock’s Boris endorsement irks One Nation Tories

Is Boris Johnson’s route to No. 10 now unstoppable? The former foreign secretary has more MPs backing him than any other candidate and over the weekend bagged the support of two leadership dropouts – Esther McVey and Matt Hancock. Hancock’s support for Johnson is the most surprising – just a week or so ago the Health Secretary used an interview with the Financial Times to take a swipe at Johnson by declaring ‘f—- “f—- business”’ in response to his infamous ‘f—- business’ comment. It follows that many are reading Hancock’s endorsement as a sign that even Johnson’s critics have come around to the former mayor of London. However, not everyone

Jeremy Vine

My Boris Johnson story

With four minutes to go, Boris Johnson ran in. I was already concerned – maybe more concerned than Boris. It was an awards ceremony at the Hilton, Park Lane. The room was packed with financial people in bow ties. It was a couple of years before Johnson became Mayor of London. At this point he was a backbench Conservative MP and newspaper columnist. Right now he was due to make a funny speech. In four minutes. There I was, at 9.26pm, sitting with a table-load of London bankers, trying to answer their questions. ‘Will Boris actually arrive?’ ‘Is he normally this late?’ ‘Has he got lost?’ I answered them all

Sunday

16 Jun 2019

Matthew Hancock

Matt Hancock: why I’m backing Boris

The Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, dropped out of the leadership race last week and had been mulling whether to support Michael Gove (odds: 25/1) or Boris Johnson (1/5). In the end, he went for Boris. In an article in The Times, he says more. Here’s an edited extract. Central to my outlook is that we need to be optimistic about our country, take an optimistic view of human nature, and get this country moving forward with energy and vim. Because I care about people’s chances in life, I also care deeply about the best way to stop Jeremy Corbyn becoming prime minister. Boris has run a disciplined campaign and is almost certainly going to

Katy Balls

Leadership hopefuls turn on one another in Channel 4 debate

The first televised Tory leadership debate drew as much attention for who wasn’t there as who was. After Boris Johnson decided to avoid the Channel 4 leadership debate on the grounds that voters had had enough blue-on-blue action (and perhaps also that as the Tory leadership frontrunner he has little to gain and much to lose from such an event), the broadcaster decided to effectively empty-chair him – putting up a lectern where he would have been. It then fell to Johnson’s leadership rivals Jeremy Hunt, Sajid Javid, Dominic Raab, Rory Stewart and Michael Gove to provide the substance of the 90-minute programme. It kicked off with enough blue-on-blue attacks

Steerpike

Jeremy Hunt’s pledge for the elderly

When you consider that Theresa May’s unwise decision to campaign for a ‘dementia tax’ almost single-handedly cost her the general election in 2017, you would think that the current Tory leadership candidates would be very careful about alienating older voters ahead of any upcoming membership vote. Jeremy Hunt, though, seemed to take the opposite tack following the television leadership debate tonight. While the Foreign Secretary tried to make the point that more should be done to protect the oldest in our society as they approach their final days, in practice, he seemed instead to call for a cull of anyone with a bus pass. In a social media banner advertising his policies,

Steerpike

Blue on blue warfare at the Tory leadership debate

It’s the first of the Tory leadership television debates tonight, as the candidates vying to be the next prime minister (minus Boris, who chose not take part) spar over Brexit and their suitability to lead the country in the next stage of the negotiations. And while it might seem like not that long ago that the candidates were talking about a ‘clean’ campaign pledge, it didn’t take long for blue on blue warfare to break out on live television. One of the first to go on the attack was Home Secretary Sajid Javid. Asked by host Krishnan Guru-Murthy if he would consider suspending parliament through prorogation to allow a no-deal Brexit,

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round-up: I am prepared to leave without a deal, says Jeremy Hunt

Jeremy Hunt – EU will be ‘willing to renegotiate’ Brexit deal The Foreign Secretary joined Andrew Marr this morning, days after coming second in round one of the ongoing Conservative leadership contest. With a good chance of reaching the final round, Hunt asserted that, unlike frontrunner Boris Johnson, he would be able to persuade other European leaders to amend Theresa May’s Withdrawal Agreement to remove the controversial backstop arrangement for Northern Ireland: AM: Have you got any evidence at all that anybody is prepared to [reopen the negotiations]? JH: When you talk to European leaders, as I do, they want to solve this problem. They say that if they were

Melanie McDonagh

Jeremy Corbyn is right about Iran and the tanker attacks

Jeremy Corbyn’s right about Iran, isn’t he? On the attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday, he tweeted (and don’t you just wish politicians could use a more considered medium?): ‘Britain should act to ease tensions in the Gulf, not fuel a military escalation that began with US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear agreement. Without credible evidence about the tanker attacks, the government’s rhetoric will only increase the threat of war.’ What, precisely, is wrong about that? What exactly about it caused the Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, to call him ‘pathetic’ and ‘predictable’? Hunt himself didn’t exactly follow the US party line in announcing Iran was to

Katy Balls

How Rory Stewart derailed his Cabinet colleagues’ campaigns

When Rory Stewart first announced his intention to enter the race to be the UK’s next prime minister, he was seen by colleagues as having little to no chance of making it far in the leadership contest. Yet as the Parliamentary contest goes into its second week, Stewart is one of six contenders left standing and has today won a ministerial endorsement in the form of Tobias Ellwood. The Defence Minister had been backing Matt Hancock but after the Health Secretary bowed out on Friday, he will now back Stewart – praising the DfID Secretary’s enthusiasm. This could become a recurring theme – Michael Gove, Sajid Javid and Jeremy Hunt

Saturday

15 Jun 2019

Ben Sixsmith

Nish Kumar is Jo Brand’s most obnoxious defender

We are all aware that Jo Brand saying battery acid would be a more appropriate liquid than milkshakes to throw at people was a joke. It was a bad joke, but it was a joke. We are all aware that the chances of a Radio 4 listener hearing the joke and being inspired to hurl battery acid at a right-wing politician are slim to none. It remains such a morbid and mean-spirited jest that it should not be made, let alone by people whose jokes are being funded by the taxpayer, but it is foolish to classify it as incitement. What rankles is the pungent hypocrisy of Brand’s liberal and

Charles Day

Will Britain really have a debt to the EU after Brexit?

If a lawyer advises you to pay money which you do not owe, and you do so, then you can sue that lawyer to compensate you for the loss. That’s because the lawyer owes his client a duty to not give wrong advice. Does a politician or a journalist owe that duty? Can we sue them if their advice is wrong? We need to know an answer to this as a nation, because far too many people who should know better, are wrongly advising the British people that they owe a ‘debt’ to the EU. The people who use the word are not using it metaphorically, indeed how could they,

Friday

14 Jun 2019

Katy Balls

The Layla Moran Edition

29 min listen

Layla Moran tells Katy Balls about her childhood as a diplomat’s daughter, the social life of an MP, and getting arrested at Lib Dem conference. Presented by Katy Balls.