Philip hammond

Theresa May’s first Cabinet meeting wasn’t accompanied by the kind of eye-catching announcement you would have expected from Tony Blair or David Cameron. Instead, the big news is that the new Prime Minister will chair three Cabinet committees on the economy and industrial strategy, exiting the European Union, international trade and social reform. This does rather underline her reputation for being someone who doesn’t like delegating, as well as her interest in the serious machinery of government, rather than media gimmicks. She then underlined her serious reputation further by welcoming colleagues to the coffin-shaped table in Downing Street by saying the following: ‘When I launched my leadership campaign, I said

It’s not a great day to be an ambitious Tory who attended a private school — let alone Eton. After Theresa May promised to work to build a society with a focus on helping the working class rather than the rich, she has started by implementing this approach in her Cabinet. George Osborne, Nicky Morgan, Theresa Villiers and Oliver Letwin are among the privately-educated politicians to face the axe today. Meanwhile, the majority of the high profile briefs have gone to state school educated politicians. Alongside May, the Chancellor — Philip Hammond — and the Justice Secretary — Liz Truss  — attended a state school. Meanwhile Justine Greening has made history by becoming the

‘Brexit means Brexit’ has been Theresa May’s message since she started running for the Tory leadership. But Brexit could mean a whole variety of things. For example, a Norwegian-style deal with the EU would, technically, be ‘Brexit’. But now, Theresa May has shown real intent. She has demonstrated that she really is serious about this. She has appointed three leavers to the key Brexit-related jobs in government. David Davis will be Secretary of State for exiting the EU, Liam Fox gets the International Trade job and Boris Johnson the Foreign Office. The David Davis appointment is particularly striking. He resigned, unexpectedly, from David Cameron’s shadow Cabinet. Putting him in charge

This morning, Philip Hammond has insisted that those running for the Tory leadership explicitly set out how they intend to leave the EU. The Foreign Secretary told Robert Peston that he wanted to know how they would manage the trade-off between single market access and free movement. Hammond himself appears to favour a version of the Norwegian model; in the single market and accepting free movement. Now, I think we can take this as meaning that Hammond won’t back Boris Johnson. Hammond accused Boris and other Leavers of making ‘contradictory promises’ in the referendum campaign. Though, it is worth remembering that Boris Johnson and Michael Gove were both explicit that

Departmental questions in the House of Commons are generally an opportunity for backbenchers of all parties to hold the government to account. But a strange pattern is emerging at Defence Questions, whereby the backbenchers of each of the two main parties pour their efforts into making life uncomfortable for their own frontbenchers, even though Labour’s team isn’t actually in government. So today Michael Fallon and his ministers had to contend with complaints from Sir Edward Leigh about the suggestion that Britain leaving the European Union would harm Britain’s national security. But Emily Thornberry, who is supposed to focus her fire and that of her party on ministers, had to deal

Fifteen months ago Philip Hammond talked about treason. In an exchange with Conservative backbencher Philip Hollobone in the House of Commons, the Foreign Secretary declared: ‘We have seen people declaring that they have sworn personal allegiance to the so-called Islamic State. That does raise questions about their loyalty and allegiance to this country and about whether, as my honourable friend rightly says, the offence of treason could have been committed.’ Mr Hammond promised to refer the matter to the Home Secretary, Theresa May, but the silence since has been deafening. Meanwhile the number of Britons travelling to Syria to join Isis continues to rise. 800 at the last count, according to a statement

David Cameron is warming to the idea of making Boris Johnson Foreign Secretary. As I write in The Sun this morning, Cameron is drawn to the idea of sending Boris to the Foreign Office in a post-May reshuffle. But a Cabinet ally of the Prime Minister stresses that Boris will have to be ‘unequivocally yes’ come the EU referendum if he is to be Foreign Secretary. It is easy to see why the idea of doing what it take to bind Boris in before the referendum is gaining traction in Number 10. Polling shows that Cameron backing Britain staying part of the EU gives the In campaign a big boost.

The story of the fourteen Foreign Office cleaners who wrote to Philip Hammond about being paid National Living Wage has become murkier. After their note reached the Foreign Secretary, the cleaners — who work for Interserve, a private contractor — were called into a meeting. According to reports yesterday, the cleaners say that three of them were made redundant and the others were accused of ‘bringing the contract into disrepute’. In an attempt to bat off any suggestion that the cleaners were being told off for daring to contact their boss — something that would be a very bad look for the Foreign Secretary — Hammond said at Foreign and Commonwealth Questions this morning that

Philip Hammond this evening hinted he doesn’t think Britain is going to get any fundamental reforms on freedom of movement. The Foreign Secretary, appearing alongside Tory grandee and Peter Lilley at a Demos fringe event, argued that Eastern European countries have an ‘emotional ownership’ to their EU membership in a way Britain does not: ‘Because of the emotional linkage with their own freedom from Soviet slavery and the ability of people in Eastern Europe to travel for the first time in their lives, a deeply emotive thing, no political leader in Eastern Europe is going to support the end of freedom of movement. It would be domestic political suicide.’ Despite

There were no announcements in Philip Hammond’s speech to the Tory party conference. He used a chunk of it to contrast the Conservatives with Labour under Jeremy Corbyn, telling the members listening that the Conservatives would this week ‘show the British people what a real party of government looks like’. But what was more interesting was what he didn’t mention in his speech, particularly in the passage on Europe. Hammond did say that Europe is ‘seriously in need of reform’. And he did say that ‘reform is possible’. But his list of what Britain would say no to as part of that reform didn’t include some of the things that

Philip Hammond is the first Foreign Secretary to visit Iran in over a decade as he returned to reopen the Britain’s embassy in Tehran yesterday. But what has prompted this change in government policy? On the Today programme, Hammond explained that Britain needs the influence of a ‘very important country’ in the region to help with the fight against the Islamic State: ‘We’re trying to develop cordial relations with what is a very important country in a volatile and difficult region. We’ve had a difficult history between Britain and Iran but following the nuclear deal and after a couple of years in which relationships have been getting steadily better, we want to try and move to the next phase. ‘The

With MPs being awarded a 10 per cent pay rise this summer, politicians have been left having to defend their annual salary of £74,00o from sceptics who point out that the boost comes at a time when their constituents face tough cuts. Still, Mr S wonders whether that number is too small an estimate after one takes into account all the freebies they can receive. According to the latest register of interests, MPs have been managing to enjoy a summer of freebies in between their constituency work. After John Bercow boasted last year that he had watched 65 of Roger Federer’s matches, he looks on course to achieve a similar number for 2015. According to the