Breaking news
Andrew Twentyman makes the best pizza in Leigh in Greater Manchester. But he’s a working man who doesn’t like Jeremy Corbyn. And for that he had to be destroyed. ‘Can you imagine what state we’d be in if Jeremy Corbyn had been in charge of all this?’ the former Labour supporter told The Guardian newspaper … Read more
It’s The Untouchables strategy. ‘When he asked Rebecca Long Bailey to stand down, Keir wasn’t thinking about the Jenrick scandal,’ an ally of the Labour leader reveals. ‘But in hindsight the comparison is stark. It’s like that old Blair line: Keir is leading his party, Boris is following his. He couldn’t sack Cummings, and he … Read more
I have already had two people come up to me today and separately say “I think Boris may have to go”,’ one Tory MP told me last week. ‘There’s no way you would have been hearing that even last month.’ It’s just one sign that some Conservative politicians are starting to think the unthinkable. In … Read more
The advisers shouldn’t really be out there,’ the No10 official conceded. ‘They’ve been pushed front and centre and that’s not where they’re supposed to be. It’s the politicians who take the decisions. We’ve been shoulder to shoulder. But in the end it’s Ministers that make the call.’ Maybe the official is right. Perhaps the Government’s boffins … Read more
What will she tell her grandchildren in years to come? Holding up a placard saying ‘Cummings you are full of sh*t!’ as she joined a screaming mob haranguing the Prime Minister’s senior adviser outside his house, where he lives with his wife and four-year-old son. Perhaps she’ll proudly show video footage of the scenes. And … Read more
The message that appeared in the Minister’s constituency in-box was typical. ‘I didn’t vote for you or Boris for this to happen.’ It was a response to the images filmed by Nigel Farage off the coast of Dover that have finally pushed Covid from the top of the public’s – if not the media and politicians’ … Read more
Who is your 11th friend? Last week it emerged Ministers are giving serious consideration to the creation of a ‘bubble’ of ten family members and acquaintances who we will be allowed to associate with as part of the slow easing of lockdown. So think about it for a moment. Not of the ten lucky souls … Read more
When the coronavirus crisis began, Boris Johnson and his Ministers wanted to follow the science. But thanks to the paranoia and false pride of the Chinese government, there was precious little science to follow. ‘We found it very difficult to get any hard information out of China at the beginning,’ a Minister told me. ‘When … Read more
It was when I bought a gun that I knew Corona Madness had finally claimed me. I’d been speaking to a Government official who presented an increasingly apocalyptic vision of how the Covid-19 crisis could spiral out of control. Panic-buying was just the start, they feared. Soon there would be looting, the police would be … Read more
For centuries, the United Kingdom was the leader of the world in the freedom of its citizens. We were permitted to do what we wanted to, unless the law explicitly prohibited it. Unless the sign said ‘Do not walk on the grass’, we could stroll across the lawn. Not for us some irksome, officious policemen … Read more