Boris johnson

Modern pragmatist political leaders are generally keen to reassure us that there is a unifying philosophy to be found running through their mish-mash of measures. In reality, perhaps they are keenest of all to reassure themselves of it. Tony Blair had the ‘Third Way’ and David Cameron the ‘Big Society’. Boris Johnson has ‘levelling-up’. But despite the largely hostile political class reviews being rolled out on Thursday in response to his speech on the latter, Johnson’s formulation is actually far more readily understandable than those of his predecessors. Many of you will vaguely recall that the Third Way was something to do with synthesising right-of-centre economics and left-of-centre social policy

Who won the Euros? Race-baiters clearly. Sir Keir Starmer spent most of PMQs trying to label Boris as a bigot. The Labour leader craftily wove several arguments into one. He claimed that by failing to condemn fans who booed the BLM-inspired rite of genuflection, Boris was responsible for the abuse suffered by black players after the match. The PM had many powerful and obvious lines of defence. But he failed to use them. He fluffed it completely. He ignored a BBC report suggesting that most of the online abuse originated abroad. He didn’t mention that BLM is a political movement whose Marxist supporters want to close prisons and abolish police

Following his re-election as Chairman of the 1922 Committee, Sir Graham Brady would be well advised to start banging a few heads together. Because the Conservative parliamentary party has turned into a thoroughgoing disgrace. We’ve all read about the ‘transactional’ relationship between most Tory MPs and Boris Johnson – i.e. they will only continue to back him if he keeps winning. But what the past few days has highlighted is the transactional relationship Tory MPs have with each other. There is almost no semblance of basic team loyalty, let alone that higher level of solidarity known as esprit de corps. Currently this is not a band of brothers and sisters

The vote on the cut to the foreign aid budget, which Jacob Rees-Mogg has just announced in the Commons, will be tight. The government has said that it plans to return to its manifesto commitment of 0.7 per cent but only when the Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecasts show the UK is no longer borrowing for day-to-day spending and the debt is in decline. But that may not be enough to edge it given that the rebels want it restored when the economy returns to pre-pandemic levels, which will come much sooner. Reducing the aid budget from 0.7 per cent of GDP to 0.5 per cent is a rare example

Is the government having a wobble over ‘Freedom Day’ on 19 July? Well, for one thing you won’t hear ministers talking about ‘Freedom Day’ over the next week. Instead, they are preferring to focus on the need for people to be very cautious, given the soaring numbers of cases and hospitalisations. When he appeared on Times Radio this morning, vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi talked far more about what would still be ‘expected’ of people after 19 July than about how the roadmap was working and how nice it was for life to be returning to normal. For him, this date seems to be more ‘Be very careful day’. For Nadhim

You campaign in poetry, you govern in prose. That was the formula of legendary New York governor Mario Cuomo and it served him pretty well over three successive terms in office. But it’s not quite right. Not these days.  What Boris Johnson appears to understand and Keir Starmer does not is that a key factor is whether you know how to campaign in pictures. We are a long way from an election campaign, but the natural Johnsonian flair for a compelling photograph is already being revealed as a massive advantage for him when compared to the dull visual output of the opposition leader. Becoming the leader most associated with the

More than 40 years after it was written there are still lines in Yes Minister that are painfully accurate about how Whitehall works. One of these is Jim Hacker’s comment that the British system of government has the engine of a lawnmower and the brakes of a Rolls Royce. Yet most new prime ministers regard civil service reform as a ‘third-term issue’. It is time-consuming and is very much not a vote winner.  Whitehall reform is rising up the agenda But now Covid and the challenges it has thrown up has made it a priority. As I say in the Times today, it is now a matter of survival for this administration to

The long-awaited easing of restrictions will not be the triumphant moment that many expected back in May. The Delta variant has seen to that. Increasing infection numbers have made the government nervous about the reopening. From 19 July, ministers will be busy trying to look responsible — consciously putting on their masks in crowded spaces — instead of being photographed gleefully enjoying the return of various freedoms. If case numbers are, as Boris Johnson has predicted they might be, at 50,000 a day and rising on 19 July — and even the double-vaccinated still have to isolate for ten days if they come into contact with an infected person (which

Freedom Day on 19 July was the opening issue at PMQs. Boris welcomed the return to normality and the Labour leader offered to support a ‘balanced and reasonable’ end to lockdown. But he accused the government of being ‘reckless’. Hang on, cried Boris, Sir Keir was all in favour of Freedom Day last Monday. Can’t he make up his mind? Sir Keir tried to re-baptise the ‘Delta strain’ the ‘Johnson variant.’ Which is unwise politics. After trying the new label once he dropped it. Perhaps a pushy intern had suggested it. Neither leader scored a victory today. Ian Blackford of the SNP complained that the new voter-ID reforms will lead

Labour is unhappy with the government’s plan for unlocking, with leader Sir Keir Starmer calling it ‘reckless’. In the Commons this afternoon, shadow health secretary Jon Ashworth and then shadow education secretary Kate Green complained about the statements from their ministerial counterparts. Ashworth treated fellow MPs to the slightly bizarre spectacle of him waving a paper Sajid Javid had written on pandemics while at Harvard, which seemed an incongruous political stunt. All the more discordant is the party’s stance on unlocking, which seems to be to complain about it happening while offering a plan that isn’t vastly different. It is urging the government to keep mandatory mask rules to stop