Category Archives: Politics

‘People want answers’: Boris Johnson’s apology lands flat with Bolton’s swing voters

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Questions of fairness and trust linger for constituents in Tonge Fold, in the most marginal of Tory-won red wall seats

When Boris Johnson addressed MPs an hour after the release of Sue Gray’s redacted report, he will have hoped his apology would travel far beyond the Commons chamber and reached places like Tonge Fold, on the outskirts of Bolton.

But the immediate reaction suggests the prime minister might be in trouble. “It’s just extremely disappointing and very frustrating. There’s no other words for it,” said Adele Warren, a Conservative councillor, after watching Johnson’s Commons statement with some of her party colleagues.

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Gray finds ‘failure of leadership’ at No 10 as police investigate 300 photos

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Angry Tories confront Boris Johnson as report finds many of 16 lockdown events ‘difficult to justify’

Boris Johnson has been left desperately trying to shore up his premiership after the Sue Gray report as detectives were revealed to be investigating 300 photos and 12 events in Downing Street, including a party in the prime minister’s private flat.

Johnson faced a wall of anger from Conservative MPs in the House of Commons after Gray’s investigation concluded that many of the 16 parties were “difficult to justify” and condemned “failures of leadership and judgment” in No 10 and the Cabinet Office.

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Sue Gray report into Downing Street parties finds ‘serious failure to observe high standards’ at No 10 – live

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Latest updates: report into parties in Downing Street is published after being sent to No 10 earlier on Monday

In his pooled interview in Essex, Boris Johnson brushed aside suggestions that the version of the Sue Gray report being published this week, with the most incriminating material removed at the request of the Met police (who believe its publication would compromise their own investigation), would be a “whitewash”. When this was put to him, he replied:

You are going to have to wait and see both what Sue says and of course what the Met says.

What I will say to the president, as I’ve said before, is that I think we really all need to step back from the brink and I think Russia needs to step back from the brink.

I think that an invasion of Ukraine, any incursion into Ukraine beyond the territory that Russia has already taken in 2014 would be an absolute disaster for the world, but above all it would be a disaster for Russia.

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Read Sue Gray’s report into Downing Street parties

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Below is the report into parties and ‘work events’ at Downing Street which are alleged to have broken the UK’s lockdown rules. It was compiled by senior civil servant Sue Gray and published after the Met police asked for it to make ‘minimal reference’ to matters it is investigating

• Sue Gray report into Downing Street parties is published – follow live

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No 10 set for U-turn over mandatory Covid jabs for NHS staff in England

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Minister says lower severity of Omicron variant ‘opens the window for us to look at it’

Downing Street appears likely to drop its policy of dismissing frontline NHS and care staff in England who refuse Covid vaccinations, a minister has strongly indicated, after nursing and care organisations called for this to happen.

A decision would be made “in the course of the next few days”, according to Simon Clarke, the chief secretary to the Treasury. He said the lower severity of the Omicron variant of Covid did “open a space” for the policy to be reversed.

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Young people who lost jobs in pandemic in UK ‘returning to insecure work’

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Resolution Foundation thinktank report says third of ‘returners’ on temporary or zero-hours contracts

Young people who lost their jobs during the pandemic in the UK have returned to less secure work, often in gig economy roles, according to research from a leading thinktank, which also found almost 50,000 more men under the age of 24 are now economically inactive.

A report by the Resolution Foundation published on Monday found young people had returned to work rapidly in late 2021, with unemployment now slightly lower than pre-pandemic levels, but a third of the 18- to 34-year-olds back in the workplace were now in atypical, insecure work.

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Boris Johnson to try to regain control with Brexit bill and policy blitz

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PM hopes to move on from parties scandal with plans to make it easier to scrap EU laws and tackle cost of living crisis

Boris Johnson will attempt to seize back control of the government agenda this week with a policy blitz, a Brexit bill and flying visit to Ukraine, as Westminster remains in the grip of paralysis over the Sue Gray and police inquiries into No 10 parties.

Amid frustration in No 10 at the uncertainty surrounding the report on rule-breaking parties in Downing Street, sources said Johnson was determined to deflect public outrage with a schedule of high-profile announcements and photo opportunities that he also hopes will show MPs he remains focused.

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Covid live news: Russia reports record 121,228 new cases; UK to start vaccinating vulnerable children

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Russia confirms a record 121,228 new daily cases of the virus; NHS will offer vaccinations to vulnerable children between five and 11

Polling has begun in Portugal in a parliamentary election marred by fears of a low turnout due to record coronavirus infections, Reuters reports.

At the University of Lisbon, staff outnumbered mostly elderly voters, with signs on the walls asking people to wear a mask, observe social distancing and to use their own pen.

I have huge respect for rank-and-file police officers who put their lives on the line to keep us safe.

For them to do their job, the public have to have trust and confidence in them. But the way the Met has handled this, I think, is undermining that.

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Liz Truss says UK will introduce tougher sanctions on Russia this week

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Foreign secretary announces legislation in bid to dissuade Putin from launching Ukraine invasion

Legislation to allow Britain to hit banks, energy companies and “oligarchs close to the Kremlin” with economic sanctions will be introduced by the government this week, the foreign secretary, Liz Truss, has said.

The scheme is the latest attempt by the UK to dissuade the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, from launching an invasion of Ukraine, and was announced hours after Britain said it was willing to deploy more forces to Estonia and other Nato allies in eastern Europe.

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Conservatives accused of ‘levelling up’ stunt to save Boris Johnson’s job

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Lisa Nandy slams claim of boost for 20 towns, saying ‘new’ fund for poorer areas is recycled pledge

The government has been accused of trying to manipulate announcements on extra funding for poorer parts of the UK in a desperate attempt to save Boris Johnson’s premiership.

An extraordinary row blew up after Michael Gove’s Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities released a press statement – before publication of a levelling up white paper this week – saying 20 towns and cities would benefit from a “new £1.5bn brownfield fund”. The release, which named only Sheffield and Wolverhampton as recipients, said the 20 areas “will benefit from developments combining housing, leisure and business in sustainable, walkable beautiful new neighbourhoods”.

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Splits in left are set to boost far-right TV pundit in Portugal’s snap election

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As support grows for André Ventura, Socialist party has lost ground to centre-right PSD after row over budget with its allies

Between greeting regulars at the busy Lisbon bakery where she has worked for two decades – and reaching instinctively for their orders as soon as they cross the threshold – Susana Santos offers her thoughts on an imminent, and altogether less welcome, encounter.

Like many of her compatriots, she does not relish the idea of Sunday’s snap general election, which arrives amid a stubbornly lingering pandemic and during a time of economic upheaval and political uncertainty.

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‘The day I left was the saddest of my life’: EU nationals on the pain of leaving UK

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They miss the trees, the curry, the friends … but most of all, they miss feeling the UK was somewhere they could call home

Everyone misses something. For some, it’s quite specific: PG Tips, Branston pickle, proper curry. For many, it’s more intangible: the atmosphere of an English pub; that greenness, everywhere; tolerance; and British openness.

Then they pause. Actually, many formerly British-resident EU nationals say, what they miss is an idea. Or, to be precise, the idea of Britain they had before 24 June 2016: all of them remember, in painful, pin-sharp detail, how they felt, and what they did, the morning after.

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Sue Gray report: redacted version is imminent, say government sources

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Move follows anger after Met police asked civil servant to hold back details in her ‘partygate’ report

A heavily redacted report into Downing Street parties by the senior civil servant Sue Gray will be published imminently, the Guardian understands, after Scotland Yard provoked fury and confusion by revealing it had demanded key details of the worst offending be removed.

MPs labelled the Metropolitan police a broken organisation after the force admitted it had asked Gray to make “minimal reference” in her inquiry report to matters its officers were now investigating. The Met, battered by criticism, insisted it needed to protect the integrity of its investigation.

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Sue Gray report facing further delay after Met police intervention

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Force says it has asked for report to make minimal reference to Downing Street events it is investigating

The publication of the Sue Gray report could be delayed significantly after Scotland Yard revealed it had asked for references to matters it is now investigating to be removed.

Key parts of the long-awaited report on allegations of parties in No 10 that may have broken Covid rules could be pared back after the move.

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‘Time for the truth’: MPs call on Boris Johnson to publish ‘partygate’ report

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Cabinet Office officials wrangle over final version of Sue Gray’s findings on alleged Covid rule-breaking parties

Boris Johnson has been told it is “time for the truth to be released” as he faced more calls to publish a long-awaited report into “partygate” in full and not “suppress crucial details”.

Officials in the Cabinet Office are still wrangling over the final version of Sue Gray’s findings on a string of alleged Covid rule-breaking parties in Downing Street and other parts of government.

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Boris Johnson ‘will not have to resign’ if police interview him under caution – UK politics live news

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Latest news updates: ministers say PM will not follow Tony Blair’s precedent if police read him his rights over partygate investigation

As mentioned earlier, the BBC were calling it Grayja vu this morning. A reader has been in touch to suggest that an alternative would be Groundhog Gray.

Boris Johnson has left No 10 and is doing a visit later this morning, Sky News reports. That means the prospect of his doing a statement in the Commons on the Sue Gray report later today is increasingly unlikely. In his Red Box briefing (paywall) for the Times, Patrick Maguire says the planned trip today will take the PM several hundred miles away from London.

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‘All my life people have told me to lose my Muslimness’ – politicians on their battle with Islamophobia

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The former minister Nusrat Ghani has claimed whips told her she had been sacked for being a Muslim. Labour, Lib Dem and Tory colleagues share their own experiences, from being labelled a terrorist sympathiser to being told to change their name

In 2011, Sayeeda Warsi, then a co-chair of the Conservative party, implored her government to take action over the rising tide of anti-Muslim bigotry, which she said had become socially acceptable enough to pass “the dinner-table test”.

A decade later, it seems too little has changed. Last week, Nusrat Ghani, the Tory MP for Wealden, told the Sunday Times that when she was dismissed from her ministerial post in 2020, she was told by a whip that her “Muslimness” had been an issue. The chief whip, Mark Spencer, identified himself as the person who spoke to her, but strongly denied her allegations.

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Fibbing is part of Boris Johnson’s toolkit but could be his undoing

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Analysis: PM’s assertions that there were no lockdown parties are increasingly hard to believe

If Boris Johnson’s premiership is brought to a humiliating close in the coming days, it will not only be because he allowed Downing Street’s boozy lockdown parties to happen on his watch – but because he lied about them.

When allegations of parties first emerged, Johnson told MPs in the House of Commons that Covid guidance “was followed completely in No 10”, and on another occasion – vehemently – that he had been “repeatedly assured” there were no parties.

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Starmer slams ‘spectacle of PM under police investigation’ as Boris Johnson awaits Sue Gray report – live

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No 10 has still not yet received report on Downing Street parties that could trigger a Tory leadership election

Here is a question from below the line worth answering up here.

The answer is no.

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