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Up until now, the Tory leadership rules have protected Boris Johnson. The requirement that 15 per cent of MPs must send in a letter sets a high bar for a no-confidence ballot, as demonstrated by how long it took the rebels to get the numbers against both Johnson and May. But from now on, the
Today’s no-confidence vote in Boris Johnson is best seen as the next stage of a determined long-term plot to bring him down rather than as a stand-alone event. That is to say, Johnson will not be safe or restored to anything like full political health simply by winning it. Unless he triumphs by a crushing
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Boris Johnson will face a confidence vote tonight. Announcing the news this morning, the chair of the 1922 committee Sir Graham Brady said in a statement: ‘The threshold of the 15% of the parliamentary party seeking a vote of confidence in the leader of the Conservative Party has been exceeded.’ Will he win? Katy Balls
There are two questions for Tory MPs today. One, do they believe that the PM will cost them or save them their seats at the next general election. Two, how pernicious to confidence in the important institutions of government is the widespread perception that the politician at its apex is dishonest. The first question is about
As Tory MPs vote this evening, Jesse Norman’s letter stands as the most recent case for the deposing of the Prime Minister. But the letter itself may well end up helping Boris Johnson, given its oddly weak arguments from one of the Conservative party’s big thinkers. I’m one of those who has been disappointed with
Down on the Embankment in London, yesterday, we came upon a peculiar sight: a completely stationary parade. Floppy-hatted drummers, with a vaguely heraldic look, marched on the spot in columns. Behind them there were equestrian forms, mid-leap, with their lower halves made to look like marble statues and their upper bodies made of clockwork, trailing
After months of anonymous threats and speculation, Boris Johnson will face a confidence vote by Tory MPs this evening. Announcing the news this morning, the chair of the 1922 committee Sir Graham Brady said in a statement: ‘The threshold of the 15% of the parliamentary party seeking a vote of confidence in the leader of
Dear Boris, As you know, I have supported you throughout your career in politics: for Mayor of London in 2008 and 2012, and for Leader in 2016 and 2019. As Prime Minister, you have been dealt a very difficult hand with Covid and Ukraine, and you deserve great credit for much of the way in
Asked at the start of the Golden Jubilee as to which one of the many events he was most looking forward to, the Queen’s husband answered in typical Philip fashion with two words: ‘the end’. There’ll have been times during the run-up to the Platinum weekend when those around the Queen may well have shared
Long to reign over us? That’s the question Conservative MPs are pondering this weekend about their leader Boris Johnson. The boos and jeers that greeted him at St Paul’s on Friday were in stark contrast to the warmth and affection exhibited towards the Queen all week. It’s prompted several nervy Tories to consider putting in
Britain is reviewing its cornerstone anti-terror programme. As the name implies, Prevent is a strategy designed to stop radicalisation before it metastasises into killer intent. But how well is it working? There have been accusations that Prevent is discriminatory. Groups such as Liberty and the Muslim Council of Britain have criticised the anti-terror strategy for
It seems incredible that, 45 years ago, a pop group – the Sex Pistols – could release a record on a respectable label (A&M, founded by Herb Alpert, home of the Carpenters) in which they claimed, probably somewhat rashly, that our glorious monarch was not a human being. These days such sentiments are confined to
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
Things are spicing up over in France. Not content with tear-gassing British children, the Parisian gendarmerie seem to be turning on their own disgruntled citizens. Last night passengers at Paris’s Gare de L’Est scrambled to get aboard a replacement bus after a train broke down at the station. Instead of trying to shepherd irritated travellers
Out to bat for the government this morning was Transport Secretary Grant Shapps. The BBC’s Sophie Raworth asked Shapps about Boris Johnson’s St Paul’s visit as part of the Jubilee weekend Friday. As the Prime Minister and his wife ascended the steps to the cathedral, they were met with a chorus of boos from the awaiting
Bafflement is not quite the right word. Instead, Ukrainian officials and their allies now see Germany through a confused form of anger. Things started out well. Within days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in late February, and in response to international condemnation, Germany did the following, against type: It halted the Nord Stream 2 pipeline,
Eleven years ago, I was summoned to the Manoir de Ban, a huge white house overlooking Lake Geneva, to meet Michael Chaplin, Charlie Chaplin’s oldest surviving son. Charlie Chaplin had lived here for the last 24 years of his life. Now the house was empty, and the family wanted to turn it into a museum.
Timing is everything in politics. This week in Canberra a new junior minister, an obscure Australian Labor Party MP named Matt Thistlethwaite, was sworn in by the Queen’s representative, Governor-General David Hurley. His portfolio: Assistant Minister for the Republic. A minister of the Crown sworn to bring about the demise of the Crown in Australia.
At the end of 1920, a mass exodus of Russians from their homeland after the Russian civil war created a humanitarian catastrophe. ‘Never in the history of Europe has a political cataclysm torn such huge numbers of people from their mother country and their homes’ remarked émigré journalist Ariadna Tyrkova Willams. In the West there
In late March, roughly a month into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, an unnamed Nato official told NBC News that the conflict was turning into a meat grinder for both sides. ‘If we’re not in a stalemate, we are rapidly approaching one,’ the Nato official said at the time. ‘The reality is that neither side has
As millions of Brits celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, others will be gathering outside the Chinese Embassy in London to mark a different event: the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. Beijing has done its best to wipe this day from the history books, but it’s vital we don’t forget an event that has foreshadowed the direction
Occasionally I despair of my own profession. Even economists should be able to enjoy a long weekend. Yet some of us are stuck debunking commentary on the economic impact of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations – much of which justifies the old tag of the ‘dismal science’. The long Jubilee weekend will indeed mean that
June is Pride Month, the annual exercise in rainbow-washing, and if you listen very carefully you may even hear gay rights mentioned. You might be familiar with Pride Month from past years. On 31 May, the bank is offering you a fixed rate with a four per cent APRC; on 1 June, it wants you
Tory plotters have been keen to stress that any plans to oust Boris Johnson as Prime Minister are strictly on hold during the Platinum Jubilee weekend. But that doesn’t mean Johnson’s political woes are going away. The great and the good were at St Paul’s Cathedral for the Queen’s Jubilee Thanksgiving service this morning. While
For the first few weeks of watching Johnny Depp and Amber Heard attempt to turn each other into twelve cans of cat food, it felt like some silly if savage sideshow. But as the defamation trial dragged on, it became obvious there was something unusually grotesque about this case; as with a boxing match, turning the
After the lean years of Covid, there were fears for the future of the parliamentary bars in Westminster. Would they ever return to their former greatness as the social hubs of SW1? Fortunately, the removal of all restrictions from the end of January and the resumption of full-time service has prompted a roaring trade in
The Queen’s Christmas message in 2002 was unusual. She explained, briefly, her approach to her role. One could even say that she ‘opened up’: ‘Each day is a new beginning, I know that the only way to live my life is to try to do what is right, to take the long view, to give
Last week, I came across a figure so staggering that I was convinced it was wrong: 5.3 million Brits (almost the population of Scotland) are on out-of-work benefits. How could this be, with ministers so regularly boasting that unemployment stands at a 40-year low? How could it be, when a national shortage of workers has
He may not have much respect for the ‘Clown’, but when it comes to the Queen Emmanuel Macron is as smitten as his compatriots. With political relations between France and Britain at their coldest for decades, and Macron reportedly regarding Prime Minister Boris Johnson as more suitable for the circus, the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee has
Is Boris Johnson’s government about to fall apart? Twice since World War Two, Tory governments have broken up after a prolonged period of rule. They have died not because of a single crisis, but slowly expired due to sheer exhaustion, disunity, and lack of purpose or ideas. Now Boris’s regime, after another lengthy Tory period
The German political economist Benjamin Braun recently made an astute observation about the editorial position of a German newspaper – in fact, it is an observation about the German policy consensus in general. “Eurobond? Never, it’ll kill us all. Eurobomb? Bring it on.” Incomprehensibly, the EU is now discussing yet another field of political integration:
If there is one thing that could salvage this year’s Wimbledon it would be a decent showing by the tournament’s undoubted star attraction: Emma Raducanu. Engulfed in a controversy of its own making since it banned Russians and Belarussians players in response to the war in Ukraine, and facing the loss of rankings points as
The economy may be tanking and Boris in peril but MPs were grateful this week for a four day respite to mark the Queen’s platinum jubilee. Many chose to flee Westminster for home pastures elsewhere: Brandon Lewis got to press the flesh at Hillsborough Castle while his backbench colleague Laura Farris snapped pics in Newbury
