Boris Johnson

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 […]

Sky producers are searching for a Michael Gove lookalike to play the cabinet minister in the upcoming series, This Sceptred Isle. The five-part drama charts events surrounding the prime minister, Downing Street, and the country during the first wave of the global pandemic. A casting brief says producers are searching for a male “in his early 50s, […]

Mark Drakeford has told a Welsh Affairs Committee that the union “is over” and a new one was needed to reflect a “voluntary association of four nations”. The first minister also condemned Downing Street’s approach of bypassing the devolved administrations through levelling up funds. He stated: “For the first time since devolution, we are dealing with a UK government […]

Former French ambassador to the UK Sylvie Bermann made recent headlines with her very undiplomatic comments about Boris Johnson. She talks to TIM WALKER about how the country changed in her time here, and what she sees for its future. Almost a month after the EU referendum, the newly-appointed foreign secretary Boris Johnson bounded into the opulent residence […]

MEPs have dropped plans to approve Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal after the UK government was accused of violating the agreement. The UK’s latest Brexit move saw the government unilaterally extend the Northern Ireland Protocol grace period until October, despite on-going conversations with the EU. In a damning statement, Maroš Šefčovič, vice president of the European Commission, said the move announced […]

The allocation of £1 billion funding to mainly Conservative seats “feels like pork-barrel politics”, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has claimed. He said of the 45 areas allocated cash under new towns deals, 40 were represented by Tories and it sounded “fishy”. But Boris Johnson said it was partly due to his success in the […]

Loyalist paramilitary organisations have told prime minister Boris Johnson they are withdrawing support for Northern Ireland’s historic peace agreement. The outlawed groups said they were temporarily withdrawing their backing of the Belfast/Good Friday accord amid mounting concerns about the contentious Northern Ireland Protocol governing Irish Sea trade post-Brexit. However, they stressed that unionist opposition to […]

MITCH BENN with his weekly look back at some of the highlights and lowlights of recent days… BLAME-DODGE OF THE WEEK So at last we know whose fault the spectacular and ongoing implosion of Brexit is. And it’s a bit of a jaw-dropper.  So who is to blame? The prime minister? The previous prime minister(s)? […]

The UK’s spending watchdog has said in its latest analysis to accompany Rishi Sunak’s budget that the prime minister’s Brexit deal will shrink the economy by 4%. The Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) said there was very little in Johnson’s deal that would change the prediction of a long-term loss to productivity over 15 years. […]

Boris Johnson should “listen to his own MPs” before cutting the UK’s foreign aid contribution to Yemen, Sir Keir Starmer argued during Prime Minister’s Questions. Grilling Johnson over a proposed 0.2% cut to Britain’s foreign aid budget, Sir Keir said: “This week the government halved our international aid to Yemen. If the prime minister thinks this is […]