Category Archives: Boris Johnson

Starmer announces ‘UK’s largest packet of sanctions’ against Russia since early days of war with Ukraine – UK politics live

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​PM says Trump has ‘changed global conversation on Ukraine’ as he pledges more military aid and sanctions

Keir Starmer called for support for Ukraine to be boosed in three ways in his virtual speech to the conference in Kyiv.

First, military support should increase, he said.

The UK is doing that, providing £4.5bn pounds in military aid this year, more than ever before. We’re doing more than ever to train Ukrainian troops helping Ukraine to mobilise even further. And we are proud to have taken on the leadership of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group.

So today, we’re announcing the UK’s largest packet of sanctions since the early days of the war, going after Russia’s shadow fleet and going after companies in China and elsewhere who are sending military component.

Later day, I will be discussing further steps with the G7. But I am clear that the G7 should be ready to take on more risk, including the oil price cap, sanctioning Russia’s oil giants and going off the banks that are enabling the evasion of sanctions.

President Trump has changed the global conversation over the last few weeks, and it has created an opportunity.

Now we must get the fundamentals right if we want peace to endure. Ukraine must have a seat at the table, and any settlement must be based on a sovereign Ukraine backed up with strong security guarantees.

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Kabul evacuation whistleblower wins case against UK government

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Civil servant Josie Stewart found to have been unlawfully dismissed in 2022 after she told BBC about failures

A civil servant who blew the whistle about the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and Boris Johnson’s involvement in a decision to evacuate a pet charity from Kabul has won her case for unfair dismissal against the government in a legal first.

An employment panel of three judges unanimously found the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) unfairly dismissed Josie Stewart in 2021 after she leaked information in the public interest.

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Reasons given for Boris Johnson peerages ‘inadequate’, campaigner says

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Martin Rosenbaum fought for 18 months to reveal who had supported nominations of two former special advisers

The reasons given for a peerage awarded by Boris Johnson have been described as “inadequate” and a “mystery” by a freedom of information campaigner after an 18-month struggle.

Charlotte Owen, a former special adviser in the Conservative government, was appointed to the House of Lords in Johnson’s resignation honours list in 2023.

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Boris Johnson to cut short Australian book tour due to ‘unforeseen circumstances’

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Former UK prime minister cancels Melbourne event but will proceed with Sydney show on Friday

Former UK prime minister Boris Johnson will cut short his Australian book tour after cancelling a Melbourne event this week.

Johnson was due to speak at a dinner at the Sofitel hotel in Melbourne on Saturday to promote his political memoir, Unleashed. The event was to follow another show in Sydney, which will go ahead on Friday.

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Russia imposes travel ban on cabinet ministers, calling it retaliation for ‘Russophobic’ policies – UK politics live

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Kremlin bans UK cabinet ministers including Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Yveette Cooper from entering country

The Federation of Small Businesses applauds the ambition in the government’s Get Britain Working, but says that overcoming the “pervasive poverty of ambition” about employment in the public sector won’t be easy. This is from Tina McKenzie, the FSB’s policy chair.

This is a start – but only a start – in fixing the pervasive poverty of ambition in the Jobcentre, health and other state systems when it comes to getting people back into work. Increasing employment is ultimately the most sure-fire way to drive up living standards and economic growth.

Ministers have a huge job to persuade public institutions that work is good for health and that everyone who needs work should be helped to get a job or start-up in self-employment – not least getting rid of the idea that the only good work is in graduate jobs, the public sector or volunteering.

The ambition behind the 80 per cent employment target is both clear and important ..

To deliver on this policy agenda, government and small businesses must work in partnership to drive real change through the whole employment system and make sure the country is helping those who most need work.

It is right to ensure that young people who are seeking work are helped to find a job or training. Positive early experiences in the jobs market are vital for young people’s future life chances. They must be supported to take part, not faced with self-defeating sanctions.

Success will also depend on ministers making the investment that’s needed in health services and quality training. Jobcentre staff must have a central role in redesigning their services, and devolution must never come at the cost of staff terms and conditions.

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Essex police defend their investigation of Allison Pearson tweet

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Force says Telegraph writer accused of inciting racial hatred, rather than committing a non-crime hate incident as she had claimed

Essex police have defended their decision to investigate the Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson over a social media post, saying she is accused of “inciting racial hatred” not of committing a “non-crime hate incident”, as she had claimed.

The row over Pearson’s tweet has been splashed across the front pages of the Times, Telegraph and Mail this week. Leading figures on the right, including the new leader of the Conservative party, Kemi Badenoch, and the former prime minister Boris Johnson, have leapt to her defence.

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Covid bereaved angered by Badenoch’s ‘insulting’ Partygate remarks

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Families group calls Tory leader ‘deeply misguided’ after telling BBC that Boris Johnson-era scandal was ‘overblown’

Families bereaved by the Covid pandemic say they feel insulted by Kemi Badenoch’s claim that the Partygate scandal was “overblown”.

The new Conservative party leader also told the BBC that Boris Johnson had fallen into a “trap” of breaking lockdown rules that should never have been introduced.

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Kemi Badenoch says Partygate scandal was ‘overblown’

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New Tory leader calls Boris Johnson a ‘great prime minister’ who fell into a ‘trap’ over Covid rules

The new Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, has said the Partygate scandal was “overblown” as she rejected the need to “churn over” everything that went wrong with previous Tory prime ministers.

Badenoch won the party leadership on Saturday and said she was going to be “honest” about what went wrong in the party under her predecessors.

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PMQs live: Keir Starmer faces Rishi Sunak in the Commons

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Latest PMQs comes as sources say chancellor is briefing ministers that £40bn will need to be found in the budget

Robert Jenrick has finished his speech, and he is now taking questions.

Q: Kemi Badenoch says she is Labour’s worst nightmare. Is she right?

I think that our party faces an existential challenge right now. Our party has no divine right to exist. That’s why we need to get the choice right in this leadership election, and that’s why I stand for ending the drama, ending the excuses, and actually delivering for the British people.

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Stop pushing heat pumps or face major backlash, green energy magnate tells Labour

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Party donor Dale Vince warns that urging homeowners to switch to clean-power technology risks political storm bigger than Ulez

The government risks a huge political backlash if it keeps pushing the public to install heat pumps to replace their boilers, one of Britain’s leading green entrepreneurs has warned.

Dale Vince, a major Labour donor and renewable energy advocate, called on Keir Starmer to rethink national programmes, championed by Boris Johnson, pushing the technology. Vince argued that Whitehall should explore alternatives to the devices, which he said were expensive, caused serious disruption and could end up increasing energy bills for some people.

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Sky News pulls out of Boris Johnson interview over recording ban

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Beth Rigby’s withdrawal after not being allowed to record conversation follows BBC cancellation over notes gaffe

Sky News has pulled out of an interview with Boris Johnson after its political editor, Beth Rigby, was told she could not make an audio recording or transcript of the talk.

The former prime minister had promised to “reveal what really happened during my time as [London] mayor, foreign secretary and PM” during the conversation next week as he promotes his memoir Unleashed. Johnson’s interview with the BBC was dropped earlier this week after the presenter Laura Kuenssberg mistakenly sent him her briefing notes.

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Boris Johnson calls for referendum on leaving ECHR

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Move over European convention on human rights likely to put pressure on Tory leadership candidates to follow suit

Boris Johnson has called for a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European convention on human rights, a move likely to increase pressure on those vying for the Conservative leadership to follow suit.

The former prime minister told the Daily Telegraph there was a “strong case” for a vote on the ECHR, which some Tories blame for hampering their efforts to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda.

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Tories challenge other Labour ministers to follow Keir Starmer in paying back donations – UK politics live

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The prime minister said he’d paid back £6,000 worth of gifts and hospitality, including Taylor Swift tickets and his wife’s rented clothing

The UK has agreed to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, ending years of bitter dispute over Britain’s last African colony, Haroon Siddique reports.

Today’s homelessness figures highlight the need for the government to press on with banning no-fault evicitions, campaigners say.

It’s frankly ridiculous section 21 still exists – we’re approaching 6 years since the previous government first promised to abolish it, while every indicator on the dashboard has been going in the wrong direction. And now we discover homelessness caused by evictions is up almost 5% on the previous year. It’s clear from today’s data that that the renting crisis is driving the homelessness crisis …

Amid this escalating social crisis, the government’s renters’ rights bill is absolutely crucial. This legislation is a significant improvement on the last government’s effort. As drafted it will already make a difference for a lot of people.

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BBC cancels Boris Johnson interview after Laura Kuenssberg message gaffe

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Briefing notes mistakenly being sent to ex-PM meant it was ‘not right for the interview to go ahead’, says presenter

The BBC has cancelled a prime-time interview with Boris Johnson after the presenter Laura Kuenssberg accidentally sent the former prime minister her briefing notes.

Kuenssberg said she sent Johnson the notes “in a message meant for my team”. The former BBC political editor said it was “embarrassing and disappointing”, adding the error meant it was “not right for the interview to go ahead”.

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Senior Tories cast doubt over Boris Johnson’s plan to ‘invade the Netherlands’

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Former prime minister’s claims about wanting to seize Covid vaccines being held in the EU ‘may have been a joke’

Senior Tories have cast doubt on Boris Johnson’s claim that he seriously considered invading the Netherlands to seize vaccines during the pandemic, saying the story had obviously been overblown and reheated to boost sales of his memoirs.

The former prime minister says in his new book, Unleashed, that he asked senior members of the armed forces about the possibility of conducting an “aquatic raid” on a warehouse in Leiden in March 2021 in order to get hold of 5m doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine which he believed the EU did not want to be exported to the UK.

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‘Like celebrity reality TV where you don’t recognise the celebrities’: senior Tories fear next leader won’t survive long

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Conservative grandees at the conference in Birmingham fear that none of the candidates can unite the party’s factions

Senior Tories are already predicting that whoever wins the Conservative leadership race is unlikely to survive until the next election, amid criticisms of a “B-list” contest that risks taking the party farther to the right.

Some veteran figures have decided to give this weekend’s conference in Birmingham a miss, fearing the party has learned little from the complete loss of discipline that characterised its final years in government.

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Boris Johnson: we considered ‘aquatic raid’ on Netherlands to seize Covid vaccine

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Former prime minister admits in extract from forthcoming book that he discussed possible military operation at height of pandemic

Boris Johnson considered an “aquatic raid” on a Dutch warehouse to seize Covid vaccines during the height of the pandemic, he has revealed in his memoirs.

The former prime minister discussed plans with senior military officials in March 2021, according to an extract from his forthcoming book, Unleashed, published in the Daily Mail.

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Scottish government announces spending cuts worth £500m – as it happened

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Shona Robison, Scottish finance secretary, says current financial situation facing Scottish government is ‘not sustainable’

Tom Tugendhat, the former security minister, is launching his campaign for the Tory leadership. There is a live feed here.

Tugendhat started by saying that he did not actually want the job, because he does not want to be leader of the opposition. He wants to be prime minister, he said.

Politics is not a game, and we all know the cost when government isn’t sober and serious. We saw it in the lives lost in Afghanistan and then in that wasted chaos of that withdrawal. We saw it during Covid, not just in the lost years of education that cost so many or the opportunities missed, or even in the grief for lost loved ones or those left to cope alone, but through the disrespect.

That’s why I’m standing before you today, because this country can change. We must change, and Britain deserves better, and we need a different government.

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Hancock and Hunt failed to prepare UK for pandemic, Covid inquiry finds

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Health secretaries failed to fix flaws in contingency planning before Covid killed more than 230,000 in UK, report says

The former health secretaries Jeremy Hunt and Matt Hancock have been criticised for their failure to better prepare the UK for the pandemic in a damning first report from the Covid inquiry that calls for a major overhaul in how the government prepares for civil emergencies.

Hunt, who was the health secretary from 2012-18, and Hancock, who took over until 2021, were named by the chair to the inquiry, Lady Hallett, for failing to rectify flaws in contingency planning ahead of the pandemic, which claimed more than 230,000 lives in the UK.

-The leader or deputy leader of each of the four nations should chair a Cabinet-level committee responsible for civil emergency preparedness.

A UK-wide pandemic response exercise should be run at least every three years and a new UK-wide, whole-system civil emergency strategy be put in place.

External “red teams” should regularly challenge the principles, evidence and advice on emergency plans.

An independent statutory body should be established to advise the UK government and devolved administrations, and consult with voluntary groups and council-based directors of public health on civil emergency preparedness and response.

The UK being prepared for the wrong pandemic: influenza. When Hancock became health secretary in July 2018 his day one briefing said: “Pandemic flu is the government’s highest risk”.

The institutions responsible for emergency planning being “labyrinthine in their complexity”.

The government’s sole pandemic strategy (for flu) being outdated – it was from 2011 – and lacking adaptability.

A failure to appreciate the impact of the pandemic and the response to it on ethnic minority communities, and people in poor health and with other vulnerabilities.

A failure to learn from earlier civil emergency exercises and disease outbreaks.

A “damaging absence of focus” on systems such as test, trace and isolate that could be scaled up.

A lack of adequate leadership in the preceding years, with ministers, untrained in civil contingencies, not being presented with a broad range of scientific opinion. They also failed to sufficiently challenge the advice they got, which in any event was beset by “groupthink”.

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‘No place in our societies’: UK political figures condemn Trump shooting

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Starmer phones ex-president, as Johnson, Farage and others express shock at Pennsylvania assassination attempt

British politicians including Keir Starmer, Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson have condemned the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, as several expressed fears about rising political violence and hate speech.

A phone call with Trump on Sunday afternoon, the UK prime minister condemned the attack at the campaign rally in Pennsylvania, expressed condolences for the victims and their families, and wished the former president and others who were injured a swift recovery.

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