Boris Johnson

As the pride of the British fleet prepares to sail to the South China Seas, MARK MARDELL offers a timely analysis of what ‘Global Britain’ might actually mean. There’s little that says ‘Global Britain’ so well as traveling halfway around the world to deliver the message “Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough!” The Royal […]

TIM WALKER on the tax implications for the prime minister’s controversial Downing Street makeover. Boris Johnson‘s cunning plan to have party donors fund the £200,000 refurbishment of the Downing Street flat he shares with Carrie Symonds could trigger a significant personal tax liability for him. By any reckoning, this amounts to a “gift” and the Ministerial Code […]

Downing Street has sought to distance Boris Johnson from Jacob Rees-Mogg’s verbal attack on a journalist, but declined to issue an apology. No 10 said on Friday they were “not comments that the PM would’ve made,” but a spokesman chose not to rebuke the Commons leader. Rees-Mogg abused the HuffPost journalist after he published a […]

The prime minister is due to receive his first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine as a host of European countries announced they would return to using the jab following fresh safety assurances. A slew of countries, including Germany and France, reversed their decision to temporarily pause its use over blood clot concerns after the European […]

Priti Patel’s clampdown on demonstrators is part of a chilling pattern of government moves to silence dissent Priti Patel is clamping down on the right to protest. She won’t admit it, of course. When she presented her new police, crime, sentencing and courts bill to the Commons this week, she insisted it had no impact […]

Which minister’s mate charged the government £2.6million for the new No.10 Downing Street press briefing room, asks Mitch Benn as he hands out political awards to Boris Johnson and Priti Patel Hello and welcome to this, the first of my columns to be 100% compliant with the terms of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts […]

Boris Johnson has been reprimanded over misrepresenting Labour’s stance on the police bill that passed through the Commons Tuesday evening. Johnson was gently rebuffed by Commons speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle at the conclusion of today’s Prime Minister Questions after he claimed Labour had voted against a bill on the wrong grounds. Responding to Sir Keir […]

Dominic Cummings has revealed the four demands he made of Boris Johnson before joining No 10 as the prime minister’s chief adviser. Cummings told a group of MPs in his first public appearance since leaving No 10 that he persuaded the prime minister to sort of the “disaster zone” of Whitehall. Appearing before the Commons […]

Dominic Cummings is to appear before MPs for the first time since he quit as Boris Johnson’s chief aide.     Cummings be questioned by MPs over the government’s new “high-risk” scientific research agency that he championed before his dramatic departure from No 10. In his first public appearance since the dramatic departure late last year, the […]

Boris Johnson’s controversial curbs on protests would “make a dictator blush” and show his government’s liking for “authoritarianism”, MPs have warned. The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill cleared its first parliamentary hurdle after receiving a second reading by 359 votes to 263, majority 96, despite opposition to several measures contained within it. Labour tabled […]

Downing Street has not denied reports that Boris Johnson thought the best approach in the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic was to “ignore it”. The prime minister’s official spokesman pointed to the government’s approach of doing “everything we can” to reduce transmission of the virus, protect the NHS and save lives. The BBC reported […]

South African comedian Trevor Noah has taken aim at the royal family and Boris Johnson during his stint as host of this year’s Grammy Awards. Noah, who hosts the late-night satirical news programme The Daily Show in the US, made fun of the prime minister during a comment about UK pop star Harry Styles. The comedian joked that […]

Brexiteer Mark Francois has urged Boris Johnson to stop paying the EU for post-Brexit arrangements after the UK’s decision to leave the EU led to a number of issues in Northern Ireland.  The chair of the European Research Group and Tory MP said the prime minister should reconsider paying £20bn worth of payments over the […]

Boris Johnson will discuss ways to protect women and girls from violence with the head of the Metropolitan Police amid a storm of criticism over the force’s handling of a vigil in memory of Sarah Everard. The prime minister is expected to chair a meeting of the government’s Crime and Justice Taskforce on Monday, with […]

Boris Johnson has held “frank” conversations with the DUP on the Northern Ireland Protocol as he visited the region. Extra checks on goods passing through its ports from the rest of the UK following Brexit have angered unionists. The prime minister toured a mass vaccination centre in Arlene Foster’s Co Fermanagh constituency. He was joined by […]

The husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe says her case has been a “failure of diplomacy and campaigning” ahead of her return to court in Iran. Richard Ratcliffe said it would take “a long time” for his wife to recover from the psychological trauma of her ordeal, but that continuing media coverage had “kept her a bit […]

Schools, colleges and universities can now apply for funding to allow students to study and work abroad as part of the post-Brexit replacement of the Erasmus exchange programme. The £110 million Turing scheme, which will fund global exchanges for about 35,000 UK students from September, will target disadvantaged students and those from under-represented areas. But […]

Sir Keir Starmer will target the government’s controversial 1% pay rise for NHS workers during the campaign for the May elections, declaring “a vote for Labour is a vote to support our nurses”. The Labour leader is to launch the party’s campaign for the local and mayoral elections by demanding key workers are given “a […]

Three of the government’s LGBT advisers have resigned as they issued sharp criticism of equalities ministers Liz Truss and Kemi Badenoch. Jayne Ozanne accused Boris Johnson’s government of creating a “hostile environment” for LGBT people and criticised the two ministers as being “ignorant” on key issues. The government’s Equalities Office also confirmed that it had […]

Boris Johnson has refused to apologise for falsely accusing Labour of having voted against a pay rise for NHS staff. Johnson claimed during Prime Minister’s Questions, where he came under fire for a 1% pay rise for nurses, that Labour had opposed earlier government plans to give health workers a 2.1% hike. Johnson told MPs the […]

The failure to properly investigate allegations against ministers risks damaging public confidence, Boris Johnson’s former independent adviser on the ministerial code has warned. Sir Alex Allan said there was now a case for giving the adviser greater powers to initiate their own inquiries into complaints against members of the government. Sir Alex quit the post […]

The Welsh secretary has accused the first minister Mark Drakeford of being “fixated on politics” after said that Boris Johnson “really, really is awful”. Simon Hart said that he hopes the first minister now “slightly regrets” a clip of him saying the prime minister “really, really is awful”, which emerged during an S4C film. The Welsh […]

Sir Keir Starmer has questioned whether Boris Johnson thinks NHS workers or Dominic Cummings are more deserving of a pay rise. In this week’s Prime Minister’s Questions, Sir Keir asked: “Who does the prime minister think deserves a pay rise more, an NHS nurse or Dominic Cummings?” The prime minister replied: “As I told (Daisy […]

Greenpeace has condemned Boris Johnson’s plans to ditch taxes on short-distance domestic flights after pledging to help the environment. A review today reveals No 10 is considering cutting Air Passenger Duty on domestic flights under plans to boost connectivity within the UK. Johnson said he wanted to “build back better” after the coronavirus crisis in a […]

Downing Street has declined to distance itself from a minister’s claim that the Duke of Sussex is “blowing up his family” after revealing that Boris Johnson watched the explosive interview. No 10 continued on Tuesday to refuse to comment on the allegations of racism within the royal family made by Harry and Meghan, claims that […]

Labour has said any allegations of racism should be investigated by Buckingham Palace after the Duke and Duchess of Sussex claimed a royal had raised concerns about how dark their son’s skin tone might be before he was born. During an Oprah Winfrey interview, Meghan said that when she was pregnant with Archie an unnamed […]

US president Joe Biden’s climate envoy has visited London for talks with Boris Johnson. The visit by former secretary of state John Kerry is the latest sign of the new administration’s dramatic break from the approach to climate issues under Donald Trump. The UK is hosting the major United Nations Cop26 summit in Glasgow on […]

“Glaring ommissions” made during lockdown were due to a lack of women in cabinet, a former Tory minister has claimed. Caroline Nokes MP, chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, has previously accused Boris Johnson’s administration of having a “very blokey mentality”. The backbencher has said she wants a “gender-balanced cabinet” leading the government to ensure […]

Boris Johnson is famous for making babies. Now his Brexit is making babies unhappy. It has been a gloomy week on the sunlit uplands of sovereign Britain, where Boris Johnson dismisses the unfolding post-Brexit trade fiasco as mere “teething problems”, Michael Gove talks of “issues which I would not describe as teething problems” and manufacturers […]

The government has tried to give NHS staff “as much as we possibly can” after recommending a 1% pay rise, the prime minister has said. The proposal has sparked talk of industrial action and demonstrations were planned across England on Sunday, with senior Conservatives also speaking out. An Opinium poll has suggested as much as […]

European leaders have made catastrophic errors over vaccines, for which their citizens are paying a price. But the shambles has not undermined the basic principles on which the EU is built. The roll-out of the Covid vaccine should be a moment for universal celebration, but something disturbing is happening. It’s being wrapped in a Brexit narrative […]

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has suggested the success of the coronavirus vaccine rollout has led to the Conservatives establishing a 13-point lead over his party. He said “people want the government to succeed” during a pandemic, but conceded there is a “lot of work to do” to rebuild support. The poll by YouGov for […]