Conservative party

It is two years since Boris Johnson achieved one of the most remarkable election victories in modern history. The large Tory majority gave him personal power to a degree rarely seen in British politics, a chance to reshape his country and party. Having stood for office as a ‘liberal Conservative’, he would be able to govern as one. What has he done with that authority? He ends the year with dozens of ‘red wall’ Tory MPs in open rebellion against him, rejecting his vaccine passports. During Tony Blair’s premiership, Johnson crusaded against the principle of identity cards, saying they were not just intrusive and pointless but represented a huge and

It’s a topsy turvy world when your friends and allies do you all kinds of damage and then your enemies and detractors accidentally ride to the rescue. But that’s what’s going on in the life of Boris Johnson. His lax approach to the conduct of his own circle is a major factor in his popularity slump. Whether that be backing Owen Paterson, wilfully being taken in by partying Downing Street staffers or over-indulging his wife’s focus on animal rights, utopian environmentalism and support for the Stonewall agenda.  Yet now the cavalry has appeared over the brow of the hill and it is made up of people who wish to bring him down.

The next election won’t be like the 2019 campaign. It will be far tougher for the Tories. Ministers were struck by a recent presentation by the Tory strategist Isaac Levido to the cabinet a fortnight ago, in which he stressed that the next election would be much more like 2015 than 2019. Levido’s argument was that the three key factors which led to the Conservative victory two years ago were Brexit, Jeremy Corbyn and Boris Johnson — but the next election campaign would be a far more traditional affair. To win, as I write in the magazine this week, the Tories will have to show that they have delivered on their

After three torrid weeks, Tory MPs were hoping for a better start to this one. Alas, it has got off to a rather bizarre start. The kindest thing that can be said about the Prime Minister’s speech this morning to the Confederation of British Industry is that it was peculiar.  The main thrust of the speech was meant to be about green growth as part of the government’s levelling up agenda — with an announcement that new homes and buildings will require electrical vehicle charging points from next year. But the announcements are not what is leading the coverage. Instead, it’s the Prime Minister’s confused manner as he had to stop and start before going off on a

Is there anyone left in the Conservative party who is happy with Boris Johnson? The Prime Minister has now managed to wind up pretty much every single Tory MP with his handling of the second jobs row, opening up still more fault lines in the past 24 hours. His letter to the Speaker yesterday saying he wanted a ban on MPs taking paid work as parliamentary strategists, advisers or consultants — and that outside work should also be within ‘reasonable limits’ — has upset the many backbench Tories. They now worry that they’ll suffer a big drop in income thanks to the mishandling of the Owen Paterson case. This is not

Number 10 will have been relieved that the weekend did not bring new stories about Conservative MPs raking in lots of money from second jobs. There were still sleaze angles in the Sunday papers, including regarding the Prime Minister’s own dealings, but the air seems to be going out of the story a little. The past two weeks has opened up a chasm between the ‘red wall’ MPs elected in 2019 and more traditional Tories The trouble is that this week brings a whole host of new chances for the row to blow up once again. There’s the Liaison Committee hearing with the Prime Minister on Wednesday, which will include

A week ago today, Tory MPs were getting increasingly nervous about Downing Street’s plan to stay the guilty verdict against Owen Paterson. Despite warnings from various senior MPs, the government pressed on – and the result has been a firestorm about second jobs, with Geoffrey Cox now facing Labour calls for an inquiry into his conduct. We are a week in and the scandal shows no sign of abating It is hard to see how Boris Johnson gets off the hook he has caught himself on. If he tries to resolve this scandal with a set of strict new curbs on outside interests he will infuriate a considerable number of his

What are the long-term political implications of the government’s clown show over Owen Paterson? My guess is that voters won’t pay too much attention, but MPs certainly will. And that could matter at least as much. Start with the public. Do voters feel angry that their Prime Minister doesn’t play by the rules — written and unwritten — of politics and government? There’s a lot to be angry about, and ripping up the rules against cash-for-lobbying certainly justifies rage. And maybe in time, the idea of the PM as leader of a privileged clique who don’t play by the same rules as the rest of us will indeed prove harmful to

Just a few months ago, the view inside Downing Street was that the COP26 summit would be a national morale booster. The Coldplay singer Chris Martin was mentioned as a potential headline act and there were excited discussions about giving the event a cute mascot. Now, the headlines are about rail strikes, bin men running away from rats on rubbish-strewn streets in Glasgow and the Prime Minister declaring that recycling doesn’t work. Even the mascot, Bonnie the seal, has been called ‘rat-like’ by government sources. ‘It’s hideous,’ says a member of a foreign delegation. Just as the technical climate negotiations have hit stumbling blocks, so too have No. 10’s other

Is Rishi Sunak a low tax chancellor? He certainly likes to tell anyone who will listen that he is. Yet his actions tend to suggest the opposite. The tax burden is currently on track to reach its highest level since the early 1950s, and while Sunak unveiled one big tax slash in the Budget in the universal credit taper rate cut, the main thrust of Sunak’s announcements was spend, spend, spend. Tonight Sunak addressed Tory MPs at a meeting of the 1922 committee. After announcing £150 billion in extra public spending, Sunak sought to convince his party that, despite this, he was committed to lowering taxes. Having said in the chamber that

There are two ways Number 10 can look at new polling which shows only 14 per cent of Britons understand the slogan ‘levelling up’. The first: the government has utterly failed to communicate its signature policy. The second: at least they didn’t poll the Cabinet. The findings, which come in research by Redfield & Wilton Strategies for PoliticsHome, are interesting for what they tell us about now much the slogan has cut through (66 per cent have heard of it) versus how much it’s been understood (one in three haven’t the foggiest what it refers to). Ministers may not be all that troubled because political slogans function much like old movie

If Boris Johnson were to vanish tomorrow, who should replace him? The American pollster Frank Luntz asked this of about 200 people at The Spectator’s live podcast last week, and the answer was Liz Truss. This took me by surprise – I’d have said Rishi Sunak – but there’s no doubting the Lizmania that was in the air in Manchester.  The new Foreign Secretary was pulling in the crowds, flirting with the right-wing think tanks (it’s time for her to be ‘reinfected with sound ideas’ she told them) posing for selfies and – later, in the nightclubs – dancing with her army of admirers. Her events were the ones with the

One of the themes of Conservative conference was that the government has dropped plans for a radical reform of the planning system, which was designed to get more houses built in the south east. Both Boris Johnson and the new party chairman Oliver Dowden were keen to stress this point. But, I say in the Times today, this is a mistake. The Tories are the party of the property-owning democracy, and live and die by this The Tories have been spooked by the Chesham and Amersham by-election where the Liberal Democrats ran hard against planning reform and took the seat on a 25 per cent swing from the Tories. Boris Johnson

It’s the first day of the annual Conservative party conference here in Manchester. The first events will be held from 11 a.m onwards with Liz Truss expected to make her first major speech since her promotion to Foreign Secretary, less than three weeks ago. Here are the highlights on the main stage and fringe events for the public: Main agenda: 13:30 – Debbie Toon, the President of the National Convention, formally opens the conference 15:00 – Speech by the Conservative party chairman, Oliver Dowden MP 15:10 – Speech by the Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss MP 16:45 – Speech by the International Trade Secretary, Anne-Marie Trevelyan Fringe events: 13:00 – Scottish Conservative and Unionist party fringe Douglas

The Prime Minister is thought to thrive on chaos. If so, then he should be in his element. Wholesale gas prices have risen sixfold, winter heating bills are set to be the highest on record. Millions of people across the country are wondering what they might have to forgo to pay for heat. Supermarkets are warning of food shortages. There are 100,000 missing HGV drivers. The army has been called in to help, but has only 150 tanker drivers available. Queues for petrol jam the roads, and medics can’t get to work. The Prime Minister might thrive on chaos, but Tory members do not. ‘Tory grassroots are furious,’ says one

Any Tory rebellion on social care is unlikely to be very big this evening when the Commons votes on a resolution introducing it. There are a number of reasons for this, not least that voting against a money resolution, particularly one on an issue that is as big as a budget, is a much bigger deal than rebelling on normal legislation. Then there’s the prospect of a reshuffle, with everyone in Westminster busily trying to read runes about whether Boris Johnson will move around his front bench tomorrow. If it doesn’t happen, disappointed MPs are hardly going to complain in public that they’d supported the policy in the hope of career