Youth campaigners have stepped up efforts to oust Boris Johnson from his constituency with grassroots organisations increasingly hopeful they can make history by ensuring he is the first prime minister to lose their seat at a general election.
Despite speculation that Johnson might have relocated to a safer seat, it was confirmed on Thursday that he would stay put, ignoring an internal assessment from the intelligence agency GCHQ that he is potentially at risk.
Continue reading...The businesswoman tells ITV show that she is heartbroken, humiliated – and that the PM hangs up the phone on her
The US businesswoman Jennifer Arcuri has accused Boris Johnson of brutally casting her aside “like some one-night stand” and leaving her “heartbroken” since he became prime minister and the controversy over their four-year relationship became public.
In an outspoken interview with ITV’s Exposure, to be broadcast on Sunday, the tech entrepreneur also tells the journalist John Ware that Boris Johnson has refused to take her phone calls at Downing Street and has cut her off before she could initiate a conversation.
Continue reading...PM makes false statements about Brexit being ‘blocked’ and his record as London mayor
Boris Johnson is facing criticism over a series of inaccurate statements made in a flurry of live broadcast interviews during a difficult day of campaigning.
The prime minister was challenged on Friday on subjects as varied as crime, Brexit, the abandoned London garden bridge project and the number of children he has fathered.
Continue reading...Jeremy Corbyn will announce free internet plan in speech in Lancaster, while prime minister is in Oldham
Johnson is now asked whether he has done enough for the flood victims. He says you can never do enough for someone who has suffered in a flooding. Of course there’s always more you can do, he says, but he will make sure that the insurers don’t “weasel out of their obligations” to the flood victims. His government has put far more into flood defence than previous Labour governments, he says, 2.6bn.
They move on to migration. Is net migration going to rise and fall under a Conservative government? Johnson says “it’s a great thing” that there are “more EU nationals in the UK than ever before”. Once we come out of the EU, in January, we will take control of our borders, the PM says. When pressed for particular target numbers, Johnson says he doesn’t want to play the numbers game. He says the problem is uncontrolled immigration, and that this is what Labour wants to pursue. He brings up an Australian-style point-based immigration system again. Is a brain surgeon or a porter getting more points? His analysts haven’t decided yet, the PM says.
PM cancels stop-off in Glastonbury after being heckled on visit to school
Boris Johnson has been accused of refusing to meet members of the public and running scared of protests during a visit to Somerset.
Johnson was in south-west England to try to bolster the campaigns of Tory colleagues against strong Liberal Democrat challenges. But in Taunton he was heckled by protesters as he visited a school and a planned stop-off at a bakery on the edge of Glastonbury was ditched.
Continue reading...The prime minister delivers the first big set-piece speech of the campaign as Labour pledges £26bn extra per year for NHS
That’s all from us for this evening. Thanks for reading and commenting. For a comprehensive rundown of the day’s events, see my colleague Andrew Sparrow’s daily election briefing:
Related: Andrew Sparrow's election briefing: Johnson won't change Brexit stance to please Farage
Related: Boris Johnson heckled over floods but does not apologise for 'slow response'
Hoey also said complained that MPs had spent the last two years trying to thwart Brexit, telling LBC:
We’ve had two years of parliament – a remain parliament – doing everything they can to stop us leaving; by different methods and some not so serious as others. But most of the Labour MPs in there and a substantial number of Conservatives have tried to stop it.
Continue reading...Government working ‘round the clock’ to help deluged regions, prime minister says
Boris Johnson declined to apologise over his government’s slow response to the flooding across parts of the north of England, insisting that a huge amount of work was going on to help and compensate victims.
The prime minister faced difficult questions over whether enough had been spent on flood defences in deluged regions of Yorkshire, the east Midlands and Lincolnshire, after giving a speech on how he would give billions of pounds to research and development.
Continue reading...Hillary Clinton has said she is 'dumbfounded' as to why the UK government has not yet published a report on alleged Russian interference in British politics. Speaking to BBC's Radio 4 Today programme, the former US presidential candidate said: 'Every person who votes in this country deserves to see that report before your election happens.'
Continue reading...Ex-secretary of state says it is unacceptable to keep report from public before election
Hillary Clinton has called Downing Street’s suppression of a report into potential Russian infiltration of British politics “damaging, inexplicable and shaming”.
The 2016 US presidential candidate told the Guardian it was “incredibly surprising and unacceptable that in your country there is a government report sitting there about Russian influence and your current government isn’t releasing it”.
Continue reading...Party leader has stressed benefits of immigration, but some fear policy could hurt Labour in Tory seats
Labour activists are urging Jeremy Corbyn to incorporate the radical pro-migration policy passed at the party’s conference into its manifesto this week as the Tories prepare to weaponise the issue in the election battle.
Senior Labour figures are expected to meet on Monday to thrash out the details of the party’s policy, but a final decision will not be made until next weekend.
Continue reading...Labour ‘shocked’ as police watchdog freezes investigation into Jennifer Arcuri scandal
The scandal over Boris Johnson’s friendship with technology entrepreneur Jennifer Arcuri was reignited on Saturday after the Observer revealed that the independent police watchdog has delayed its announcement on whether the PM should face an investigation into possible criminal misconduct until after the election.
The decision prompted fury from Westminster politicians and London assembly members who said it appeared that a ruling had been “suppressed” in order to protect Johnson from potentially damaging headlines at a crucial stage of the election campaign.
Continue reading...PM says there will be no checks on goods going from Northern Ireland to rest of UK
Boris Johnson has been accused of misleading the public about his own Brexit deal, after footage emerged of him telling exporters in Northern Ireland they will not need to fill in extra paperwork.
After a rocky start to the general election campaign in which Jacob Rees-Mogg had to apologise for his comments about victims of the Grenfell Tower fire, and the Welsh secretary, Alun Cairns, resigned, footage emerged of the prime minister regaling businesses with the benefits of his deal.
Continue reading...Migrant workers at club owned by Boris Johnson-backer Robin Birley, asking for £10.55 an hour
Staff at an exclusive private members’ club owned by a high-profile, Brexit-supporting backer of Boris Johnson are to go on strike.
Celebrities coming to 5 Hertford Street, which has hosted figures including George and Amal Clooney, Margot Robbie, Alexa Chung, Bella Hadid and royals such as Prince William, will have to consider whether they want to cross a picket line at the Mayfair property.
Continue reading...The Guardian’s political sketch writer is supposed to make up his own jokes. But politics has been so ludicrous and psychedelic that he’s just written down what happened and taken credit for the laughs
I didn’t think twice when I was asked to become the Guardian’s political sketch writer. Not only was it a huge honour to follow in the footsteps of so many great writers, such as Norman Shrapnel and Simon Hoggart, but what better job could there be for a satirist and lifelong politics nerd? Yet in February 2014, I imagined it would be a niche slot. Centre-stage, certainly, for the big set pieces of elections and budgets, but otherwise strictly for obsessives like me who could find humour in exchanges over proposed improvements to the Kettering bypass at transport questions on a Thursday morning.
Yet almost from the day I started, it was as if our politicians had chosen to overdose on psychedelics. The surreal rapidly became the all too real. Sketches that used to be comedic diversions, lighthearted puncturing of pomposity, incompetence and duplicity through exaggeration and flights of imagination, became almost straightforward reportage. I didn’t have to make anything up, I just had to more or less write down what people said and claim the laughs for myself. A transcription service, if you like.
Continue reading...No 10 refuses to clear release of report into Russian political interference before election
Boris Johnson was on Monday night accused of presiding over a cover-up after it emerged that No 10 refused to clear the publication of a potentially incendiary report examining Russian infiltration in British politics, including the Conservative party.
Downing Street indicated on Monday that it would not allow a 50-page dossier from the intelligence and security committee to be published before the election, prompting a string of complaints over its suppression.
Continue reading...Donald Trump says he would like to see his 'friends' Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage form a pact to secure a pro-Brexit parliamentary majority in the general election. Farage announced on Sunday he would not stand in next month's election, choosing instead to campaign nationally against Johnson's Brexit deal. His Brexit party will stand in every seat on 12 December, which has been seen as a potential setback to Johnson.
The president said Johnson was 'the right man for the time ... He's tough, he's smart and I think he's going to do something.'
'What I'd like to see is for Nigel and Boris to come together,' he added. 'I think that's a possibility.'
Continue reading...Labour’s candidate Ali Milani, 25, hopes student vote and Heathrow ‘betrayal’ could deliver shock result
If the ancient wood-panelled walls of the Crown and Treaty in Uxbridge could talk, they would speak to the perils of crossing parliament.
In the heart of Boris Johnson’s west London constituency, this former manor house hosted talks over the ill-fated treaty of Uxbridge in 1645, an abortive attempt to end the first English civil war, which arose from a battle between parliament and the executive and ultimately led to Charles I losing his head.
Continue reading...Prime minister accused of ‘sitting on information’ after EU referendum
Boris Johnson knew of Vote Leave’s overspend during the 2016 EU referendum, but appears to have failed to tell the authorities, according to explosive new claims from a senior MP. The payment was subsequently ruled to be illegal.
Ian Lucas revealed that he has seen correspondence obtained during the parliamentary inquiry into disinformation and democracy which showed that Johnson’s most senior aide, Dominic Cummings, told the Electoral Commission that the prime minister, and his cabinet colleague Michael Gove, knew of the overspend by the pro-Brexit organisation.
Continue reading...Chair of intelligence and security committee says dossier has facts ‘germane’ to election
Dominic Grieve has called for the publication of a report on Russian meddling in the democratic process to be published before the general election, saying it contains knowledge “germane” to voters.
The cross-party intelligence and security committee had expected Boris Johnson to approve publication of the 50-page dossier by Thursday.
Continue reading...PM rejects Nigel Farage’s offer of electoral pact, saying it could allow Jeremy Corbyn into No 10
Boris Johnson faces the threat of battling against the Brexit party for leave votes in every seat across Britain, after Nigel Farage gave the prime minister a two-week deadline to drop his Brexit deal.
After a rocky 48 hours, which saw Johnson booed during a hospital visit and urged by Donald Trump to join forces with Farage, the Brexit party leader urged him to strike a “leave alliance”.
Continue reading...