Politics

Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.

Wednesday

6 Jul 2022

The most damning accusation against Boris Johnson

In the blizzard of letters by Tory MPs who want Boris Johnson to go, one stands out. Chris Skidmore has called for the rules of the 1922 Committee to be changed so that another vote of no confidence. His argument is particularly forceful: ‘This is an extremely grave situation, that is tantamount to an effective cover-up of sexual abuse that would never be tolerated in any normal, functioning, workplace.’ All other letters have talked about a loss of trust, integrity and standards. They haven’t come close to making the point about the Chris Pincher scandal as forcefully as Skidmore does. It is the most serious accusation that has been levelled against

Robert Peston

The meeting tonight that will decide Boris Johnson’s fate

The 1922 Committee – the organising body for Conservative MPs – faces a momentous decision on Wednesday night. If its members believe the mood of their colleagues is that the Prime Minister must face an immediate further test of his popularity, following the Chris Pincher debacle and the serial resignations from government, they could allow a further vote of confidence in the PM. But the threshold for such a vote would be massively increased, to avoid the charge that the committee was somehow on a vendetta against the PM and was trampling on the party’s internal rules of democracy. The new trigger for a vote of confidence would be that

Patrick O’Flynn

There is no way out for Boris Johnson

Just after 6 p.m. yesterday it seemed like the Boris Johnson regime was in total, house of cards style collapse. Sajid Javid resigned as Health Secretary during a televised act of contrition by the PM over his handling – if that’s not too indelicate a word – of the Chris Pincher affair. Five minutes later Rishi Sunak quit as Chancellor. Their aides briefed that the two moves had not been coordinated. Nobody believed this. Outside the Marquis of Granby public house near Smith Square – the Tory tribe’s favourite Westminster watering hole – groups of right-wing think-tankers and researchers for Conservative MPs – avidly scoured social media for updates. Inside

Daisy Dunn

Just Stop Oil’s protest is doomed to fail

The eco-mob is at it again. Members of the protest group Just Stop Oil have progressed from blocking fuel terminals to disrupting the British Grand Prix and gluing themselves to the frames of paintings in galleries and museums across the country. To which anyone with even the vaguest recollection of the traffic-stopping stunts of Insulate Britain must sigh, ‘Not very original’. Last Wednesday, a pair of activists stuck themselves to the frame of a nineteenth-century landscape by Horatio McCulloch at Kelvingrove Art Gallery in Glasgow. The following day, another pair selected the decidedly more famous ‘Peach Trees in Blossom’ by Vincent van Gogh at London’s Courtauld Gallery for the sticky-fingered

Isabel Hardman

The ministerial resignations keep on coming

More ministerial resignations are underway and the day has barely begun in Westminster. Will Quince, who had the humiliating job of answering questions about what Johnson knew and when on the Monday broadcast round, has quit. He’s an education minister and writes in his letter that the Prime Minister last night apologised to him for ‘the briefings I received from No. 10 ahead of Monday’s media round, which we now know to be inaccurate.’ The timing meant that Nadhim Zahawi had to spend his first interview in the job reacting to more bits falling off the government Quince had tried to distance himself as much as possible from those briefings,

James Heale

Zahawi: I will go for growth

The big winner from yesterday’s drama was Nadhim Zahawi. Just ten months ago he was a junior minister: now he holds the second most powerful position in government. The newly-appointed Chancellor has today done his first round of interviews, appearing across a range of outlets to outline his plans for the Treasury. As Kate Andrews write elsewhere on Coffee House, a key faultline between Rishi Sunak and Boris Johnson was fiscal responsibility. The former was unwilling to support spending increases without corresponding tax hikes: the latter is keen to cut taxes without slashing spending. Zahawi has already signalled he will be less evangelical about these issues than Sunak, hinting on

Freddy Gray

Who says Boris has to go?

As the cameras burped and clicked, as an aggravated nation watched, Boris Johnson announced that he was giving up. ‘Let us seize this chance and make this our moment to stand tall in the world,’ he said. ‘That is the agenda of the next Prime Minister of this country. Well, I must tell you, my friends, you who have waited faithfully for the punchline of this speech, that, having consulted with colleagues and in view of the circumstances in Parliament, I have concluded that person cannot be me.’ That was June 2016, you’ll remember. Johnson’s abrupt volte-face was a jaw-dropping moment; nobody saw it coming. The press conference was supposed

Stephen Daisley

Who could replace Boris Johnson?

You have to wonder how much longer Boris Johnson can cling on. Sooner or later, he has to run out of ministers, right? Actually, I’m reminded of Australian prime minister Gough Whitlam who, unwilling to wait for Labor members to elect his cabinet after victory in the 1972 election, appointed himself and deputy Lance Barnard to a two-man ministry. For 14 days, the pair of them ran Australia on their tod, holding 27 ministerial portfolios between them. I used to think it an admirable feat. Now I have visions of a deserted Downing Street, not even Dilyn or Larry still in post, only Boris and Nadine Dorries left round the

Steerpike

Tory Twitter gets personal

Resignations! Accusations! Recriminations! It’s all kicking off in the Tory party at present. One man’s misfortune is another man’s opportunity – and no man knows that better than Nadhim Zahawi, the newly-appointed Chancellor now sporting the biggest grin in Westminster. Not all Conservative MPs though are happy at seeing their colleagues rise. News that Michelle Donelan was to be promoted from universities minister to Education Secretary was not well received by Telford Tory Lucy Allan. The unorthodox backbencher didn’t seem impressed by the move, responding to a No. 10 tweet announcing the appointment with just one word ‘Seriously.’ Is there some historic, little-known feud between the pair? Mr S hopes that

Kate Andrews

Rishi Sunak will be missed as Chancellor

We will never know the counterfactuals of the past few years. What if another MP had been made Chancellor when Sajid Javid resigned (the first time)? What if a green chancellor Rishi Sunak hadn’t had a pandemic to manage? While we can’t answer these questions, it’s hard to imagine any MP – certainly on the left, even on the right – taking fiscal responsibility as seriously as Sunak did when he had the permission of his party – and politicians the world over – to throw it out the window. I suspect it won’t take long for us to start missing the former Chancellor and the critical role he played

Tuesday

5 Jul 2022

Katy Balls

Will Nadhim Zahawi be a tax cutting Chancellor?

Just over three hours after Rishi Sunak resigned as Chancellor, Boris Johnson appointed his successor. Downing Street confirmed on Tuesday evening that Nadhim Zahawi will take on the role – leaving his job as Education Secretary to enter No. 11. It comes after Zahawi spent over an hour in Downing Street following speculation he could step down. There were reports that Zahawi had said he would only stay if Johnson moved him to the Treasury, though allies of Zahawi query this version of events. What is certain is that this is a big promotion for Zahawi, who only joined the Cabinet last autumn in the September reshuffle. Prior to that

Isabel Hardman

Boris appoints Steve Barclay as Health Secretary

Steve Barclay is the new Health Secretary. This is a fascinating move for both political and policy reasons. The first is that it is an admission by the Prime Minister that his current Downing Street operation is not working: Barclay was the chief of staff brought in to ‘get a grip’, and there has manifestly not been much of that. The second is that Barclay is, to put it mildly, a hawk on health spending. He was a Health Minister before becoming Chief Secretary to the Treasury, and formed an extremely sceptical view of the health service and its ability to waste money while in that position. Barclay’s biggest challenge,

Isabel Hardman

What next for Nadhim Zahawi?

One by one, cabinet ministers are confirming that they are not resigning this evening, leaving a very small group of ministers who have said nothing. One of the most conspicuous silences comes from Nadhim Zahawi, the Education Secretary. He has been mooted as a potential leadership contender, and has refused to rule out a bid. Tonight, he is not answering calls from colleagues. He is reading messages on WhatsApp but not replying to them. It has now been too long for him just to be a bit busy. Zahawi has one of those things that Westminster types are obsessed with: a backstory Currently we have two cabinet resignations and a

Matthew Lynn

Rishi Sunak won’t be missed as Chancellor

Rishi Sunak’s resignation was, without question, a brave, honourable and dignified decision. By stepping away from the cabinet, the Chancellor Rishi Sunak may well have done enough to salvage his reputation among Conservative MPs and party members. Perhaps he might even have rescued what was once seen as a potentially meteoric career. But although he may be missed as a politician, one thing is clear: Sunak won’t be missed as Chancellor. In reality, he was a catastrophe in the role – and now that he has gone, his successor will have a chance to reverse his policies. The Chancellor leaves a worse legacy than perhaps any predecessor of modern times Whether Sunak

Katy Balls

Johnson’s loyalists try to steady the ship

MPs and aides in Westminster are on tenterhooks this evening as to whether more ministers will follow in the footsteps of Sajid Javid and Rishi Sunak and resign. Yet while some ministers are for now maintaining a vow of silence when it comes to their plans (most notably Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi), others have come out to make clear that they continue to back Boris Johnson as Prime Minister in a bid to stabilise him. Among those staying in post are Liz Truss – with a source close to her saying the Foreign Secretary is 100 per cent behind the Prime Minister Among those staying in post are Liz Truss

Steerpike

Watch: Tory vice chair resigns live on air

You know it’s bad when the Old Etonians are turning on you. After the Cabinet departures of Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid and, er, whatever the hell Andrew Murrison was trying to do with his blurry letter of resignation, Bim Afolami has become the fourth Tory MP to quit the official payroll tonight. Afolami opted to do it on TalkTV, the newly-launched broadcasting channel which has struggled to retain its viewers. As one wag quipped to Mr S: ‘He actually resigned three hours ago but no one noticed.’ Pressed by host Tom Newton Dunn, Afolami said that while he had not sent a formal note of his intent to the

Isabel Hardman

Sunak and Javid resign. Now what?

11 min listen

Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid have resigned from government. In letters to the Prime Minister this evening, Sunak said the government ‘cannot continue like this’, while Javid told the PM that ‘the situation will not change under your leadership.’ Will more ministers now resign? And is this the end of Boris Johnson’s premiership? Isabel Hardman speaks to James Forsyth and Katy Balls.

Isabel Hardman

Boris remains ‘bullish’ as his cabinet implodes

Shortly after he received the resignations of Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid, Boris Johnson addressed around 70 Tory MPs who are still sort-of loyal to him. I’m told by one loyal colleague – who sounded rather bewildered by the whole thing – that Johnson was ‘remarkably bullish’, claiming he is going to appoint a new Chancellor and Health Secretary tonight, and that now there might be a chance of delivering some tax cuts. ‘No one has survived this kind of thing before,’ says one Tory MP That last comment was him lashing out at Sunak for repeatedly blocking what Tory MPs have been calling for as a means of getting

Fraser Nelson

A double cabinet resignation is a blow Boris is unlikely to survive

So it has started. The joint resignation of Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid marks a cabinet coup against Boris Johnson, seeking to remove him without the need for a parliamentary revolt. ‘This will be a cabinet thing, not a party thing,’ one minister told me earlier: ‘Someone will have to resign, then others will be faced with a choice.’ That someone turned out to be Javid, who quit as Health Secretary this evening with Sunak following 20 minutes later. Johnson is in survival mode, telling Tory MPs that ‘cutting taxes now somewhat easier” now that debt-averse Sunak has gone. Within hours, Nadhim Zahawi – who has a more elastic view

James Forsyth

Who will join Sunak and Javid in quitting the cabinet?

The Chancellor and the Health Secretary have both resigned and at least one more cabinet minister is considering their position. This is the cabinet moving against Boris Johnson. It reflects the growing sense in cabinet that, as Sunak puts it, ‘we cannot continue like this’. This puts Boris Johnson in the gravest danger of his premiership. It is hard to see how he can continue when he is losing the confidence of so many of his cabinet who feel that the current situation is untenable for the country, the government and the Conservative party. It is remarkable for two such senior cabinet ministers to resign at the same time. It