Kemi Badenoch has warned that Tory members will be “very angry” if MPs take part in a “stitch-up” to lend votes to other candidates to keep her out of the top two in the leadership contest.
Allies of Badenoch have claimed she is the victim of a “dirty tricks” campaign, with Robert Jenrick in effect lending votes to James Cleverly, which the former has strongly denied.
Asked if she believed Jenrick was taking this approach, she told The Times: “I think that may be happening. But what else is happening is that there is tactical voting. We’re also operating in an environment where people have friends — people who they’ve worked with, people they owe favours to. So that will be happening.”
Meanwhile, Boris Johnson has claimed he considered launching an “aquatic raid” on a warehouse in the Netherlands to retrieve Covid vaccine doses amid a row with Europe.
The former prime minister wrote in his new book Unleashed that he considered sending the British Army on a daring raid to snatch the vaccines from an EU warehouse, although he rejected the idea, saying: “The whole thing was nuts.”
Mr Johnson’s book, Unleashed, is being serialised in the Daily Mail and has seen him defend his actions during “Partygate”, which eventually led to his resignation after he was found to have lied over flouting lockdown rules.
Key Points
- Kemi Badenoch warns Tory members will be ‘very angry’ if stitch-up occurs
- Boris Johnson considered ‘nuts’ plan to raid Dutch warehouse over vaccines row
- Boris Johnson said he paid the partygate fine because ‘he had a lot on'
- Former PM realised he had Covid when he couldn’t finish the cheese in the fridge
- Johnson claims the partygate scandal was ‘feeblest event in the history of human festivity’
Tories facing ‘dire’ finances as businesses and donors switch to Farage and Starmer
12:30
Holly Evans
Donors and businesses are turning their backs on the Tories for Labour and Nigel Farage’s Reform UK as the party enters its conference with question marks over its finances.
Insiders have told The Independent that a number of red flags have been raised in preparation for the first annual conference since the historically poor general election defeat in July.
In the weeks before the conference in Birmingham, set to get underway on Sunday, it was claimed that the party was still struggling to find a sponsor for its VIP blue room, previously sponsored by the retail company Regent Street Group.
Read the full article here:
Tories spent too long ‘appeasing Reform voters’, warns Theresa May
12:13
Holly Evans
The Conservative Party has “failed to see the threat from the Liberal Democrats” while focusing too much on Reform, Theresa May has warned.
Writing in The Times ahead of the party’s annual conference in Birmingham, Baroness May said the remaining candidates for the Tory leadership could “play into Reform’s hands” by failing to understand why they lost the general election.
The former prime minister said the Conservatives lost power in July not due to policy, but because the party had “trashed our brand”, losing its reputation for “integrity and competence”.
Blaming the Partygate scandal and Liz Truss’s mini-budget, Lady May added the Tories had spent “too long tacking to the right in order to appease potential Reform voters” and “forgot that we are not a right-wing party but a centre-right party”.
Lady May compared the Conservatives’ strategy to last month’s 1,500m Olympic final in Paris, in which Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen was too focused on defeating Britain’s Josh Kerr that he allowed American Cole Hocker to come through on the inside and take gold.
She said: “Just as Ingebrigtsen was focused on Kerr and failed to see that his action against him would open up other threats, so the Conservative Party has been focused on Reform and failed to see the threat from the Liberal Democrats – losing 60 seats to them at the election.”
Badenoch condemns ‘unforgivable’ attempts to undermine Sunak
11:45
Holly Evans
Kemi Badenoch has hit out at Rishi Sunak’s critics who attepted to undermine him during the final months of his premiership, describing it as “appalling”
“Starting the New Year with people talking about a ‘grid of shit’ to undermine Rishi, ‘We’re going to cause all these problems so he has to resign’, in the year we were most likely to have an election … that is unforgivable,” she told The Times.
She revealed that she had been approached by those plotting to remove him but rebuffed them, before taking aim at Robert Jenrick, who was one of Sunak’s most ardent critics.
“The difference between Robert and me is that my resignation was my lowest moment and his resignation was his highest moment,” she says. “In the hustings he tells people that it was his resignation that showed why he should be leader, whereas my resignation was, for me, a sign that our party was fragmenting.
Both Badenoch and Jenrick are due to lay out their vision for the future of the Conservatives over the following days at the party’s annual conference.
After returning to parliament, MPs will whittle down the four candidates to a final two, with members voting for their new leader soon afterwards.
Kemi Badenoch warns Tory members will be ‘very angry’ if stitch-up occurs
11:28
Holly Evans
Tory leadership hopeful Kemi Badenoch has warned that members will be “very angry” if MPs orchestrate a “stitch-up” to keep her out of the final two.
Allies of the North West Essex MP have claimed her campaign is the victim of “dirty tricks”, which has seen her competitor Robert Jenrick accused of lending votes to James Cleverly.
Speaking to The Times about the support she has received from voters, Badenoch said: “But really what I think that they’re saying is less that they want a chance to vote for me, but that there is no stitch-up. They want a real competition. And if the MPs try and stitch it up, I think the members will be very angry.”
She recalled: “It happened in 2019, where the Boris [Johnson] camp played around with votes to make sure that they got the person they wanted to be up against. And it can happen. I don’t know whether there’s enough of us for it to happen.”
Asked if she believed Jenrick was attempting that approach, she said “that may be happening”, but added that a number of MPs were tactically voting for friends or to repay favours.
Russell Findlay picks Rachael Hamilton as Scottish Tories deputy leader
11:00
Holly Evans
Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay has said his new deputy leader will “play a key role” in changing the party.
Mr Findlay, who comfortably won the contest to succeed Douglas Ross as the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, appointed MSP Rachael Hamilton to the post.
She takes over from Meghan Gallacher, who had stood against Mr Findlay for the party leadership and resigned as deputy partway through the campaign.
Ms Hamilton, the MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, said she was “privileged” to become deputy and “excited” to be part of the party’s new leadership team.
It is Mr Findlay’s first appointment since becoming party leader on Friday, and he said he was “delighted” Ms Hamilton would be deputy leader.
Boris Johnson says he ‘struggled’ to keep straight face during trans debate
10:29
Holly Evans
In his new memoir, Boris Johnson has recalled his amusement during Penny Mordaunt’s speech that gender recognition for trans people was the “most important issue of our times”.
In an excerpt published in the Daily Mail, he said: “I didn’t catch all the details, but it seemed fairly harrowing stuff, and at one point I heard Penny claim: ‘This is the most important issue of our times.’
“I didn’t always agree with Phil Hammond, but I happened at that moment to catch his eye and to see that he – like me – was struggling to contain his amusement.
“I mean: I could see that this was an issue of huge importance to some people (though surely not that many?) and I could see that it needed to be handled with tact and sensitivity.
“But ‘the most important issue of our times’? Really?”
In his book Unleashed, he wrote that Theresa May had announced “in breathy vicar’s-daughter tones” that Ms Mordaunt had “something very important to talk about”, which led him to question whether Lady May was really Right-wing.
Starmer’s pragmatic approach to government is proving to be what’s best for the country
09:56
Holly Evans
Almost three months into his administration, Sir Keir Starmer’s self-styled “British pragmatism” has made a refreshing – indeed invigorating – change from the ideological obsession and grinding search for new culture wars that disfigured politics under the Conservatives.
Such controversies as there have been – notably about the cuts to the winter fuel allowance and policy in the Middle East – have been fact-based and verging on the empirical. The same is true about his efforts to build a personal rapport with Donald Trump, and the apparent willingness to rethink taxing the super-rich non-doms, given reports that the Treasury fears little if any new revenue may be raised by attacking these extremely mobile people.
There is nothing to be gained from taxation that yields no return, and there is even less to be said for failing to get on terms with a man who has a roughly even chance of being the president of the United States of America in about six weeks. The prime minister, in both cases, is placing country firmly before party, even if it means dining on some of his own words as well as Mr Trump’s no doubt excellent banquet.
Read the full article here:
Starmer responds after Musk tells people to avoid UK following summit snub
09:26
Holly Evans
Sir Keir Starmer has responded to Elon Musk after the tech tycoon said people should not go to the UK.
The Tesla and SpaceX boss lashed out at the UK after it was reported he had not been invited to a major investment summit because of his social media posts during the summer riots.
Mr Musk said: “I don’t think anyone should go to the UK when they’re releasing convicted paedophiles in order to imprison people for social media posts.”
Sir Keir, who held a gathering for US business chiefs set to attend the summit while he was in New York, told reporters that Mr Musk’s views were in “stark contrast” to those of the executives he had met.
“There’s a really strong window of opportunity now with the UK, given the changes we’ve brought about, our number one mission on economic growth, and to talk them through the wealth fund, the industrial strategy, what we’re doing in terms of planning, grids, etc,” Sir Keir said.
“So I’m listening good and hard to what they have to say, because they will be attending the summit, and many of them are already investing in the UK.
“On Tesla. Obviously, I encourage investment from anywhere, and so I don’t want to be misunderstood on this. So good investment into the UK is what I’m very, very keen to promote.”
It is understood SpaceX has been invited to send a representative to the summit in October.
The Tories are adrift in the political wilderness – can they ever recover?
09:01
Holly Evans
When the Conservatives begin their annual conference tomorrow (Sunday), it might be tempting for them to savour the woes engulfing Keir Starmer’s government so early in its life. Labour’s freebies will certainly provide plenty of ammunition – and jokes at Starmer’s expense.
True, it’s good news for the Tories if voters think the parties are “all the same” – one likely result of the recent controversy. It will be harder for Labour to play the sleaze card against the Tories at the next election.
All politicians struggle to resist schadenfreude. Yet the biggest mistake the Tories could make would be to assume Labour is doomed to be a one-term government. I recall such Tory complacency in 1997 after Labour’s previous landslide; the Tories lost the following two elections.
Read the full analysis here:
Boris Johnson considered ‘nuts’ plan to raid Dutch warehouse over vaccines row
08:42
Holly Evans
Former prime minister Boris Johnson considered launching an “aquatic raid” on a warehouse in the Netherlands to retrieve Covid vaccine doses amid a row with Europe, according to an extract from his memoir.
Mr Johnson convened a meeting of senior military officials in March 2021 to discuss the plans, which he admitted were “nuts”, according to an extract from his Unleashed book published in the Daily Mail.
At the time, the AstraZeneca vaccine was at the heart of a cross-Channel row over exports, with the EU lagging behind the pace of the rollout in the UK.
The extract says the deputy chief of the defence staff (military strategy and operations), Lieutenant General Doug Chalmers, told the prime minister the plan was “certainly feasible”, using rigid inflatable boats to navigate Dutch canals.
But the senior officer said it would not be possible to do this undetected, with lockdowns meaning the authorities might observe the raid, meaning the UK would “have to explain why we are effectively invading a long-standing Nato ally”.
The former PM admitted: “Of course, I knew he was right, and I secretly agreed with what they all thought but did not want to say aloud: that the whole thing was nuts.”
SNP calls for investigation into donations from Labour peer
08:29
Holly Evans
The SNP has asked for an investigation into donations to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Labour MPs by Lord Waheed Alli.
In a letter to the standards commissioners in the House of Commons and House of Lords, SNP MP Brendan O’Hara said the revelations have “become Sir Keir Starmer’s version of the expenses scandal”, and he also wants Lord Alli’s Downing Street pass – that he held for a time after the election – looked into.
Donations from Lord Alli, such as money that was spent on clothing, have been under scrutiny.
Mr O’Hara said that unless the matter is “comprehensively investigated” then it is “inevitable that the damaging drip, drip of revelations will continue to erode public trust”.
He later added: “I believe there now exists a clear and immediate public interest in launching a full and independent investigation into all of Lord Alli’s donations and gifts to the Prime Minister, Cabinet ministers and Labour Party MPs.
“There must also be an investigation into the decision to give Lord Alli a security pass to Downing Street, and into how – and why – it was used.”
On Friday evening The Guardian reported there were further clothing donations worth a total of £16,000 to Sir Keir by Lord Alli in October 2023 and February 2024. According to the paper, the donations were described as “for the private office of the leader of the opposition”.
What to expect from Tory conference
08:00
Archie Mitchell, Political Correspondent
The 2024 Conservative Party Conference will be a drastically different affair from last year’s gathering in Manchester, when Rishi Sunak’s government was in its dying days.
Back then, ministers announced a slew of eye-catching policies that would reshape the future of the country in a desperate last few roles of the dice - Alex Chalk promising to offshore prisoners, Jeremy Hunt planning to slash the number of civil servants and Rishi Sunak scrapping HS2.
This year, Mr Sunak is a lame duck Tory leader and all eyes will be far from the diminished former prime minister. Instead it will be a four-day battle for the future leadership of the party, with the four remaining contenders thrashing it out to try to win over Tory members.
James Cleverly, Kemi Badenoch, Robert Jenrick and Tom Tugendhat will be put to the test in a series of hustings and speeches, as well as taking part in intense lobbying and networking behind the scenes in Birmingham with MPs and the party rank and file.
On offer elsewhere will be former Tory MPs, ousted by the public in July’s general election, setting out where they think the party went wrong and what it needs to do next.
High profile names expected to appear are ex-PM Liz Truss, former business secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg and incoming Spectator Editor Michael Gove.
The Independent will be bringing the latest updates and analysis from the conference.
Boris Johnson Unleashed: No Narcissus ever stared more intently into the limpid waters of self-love
07:48
Holly Evans
Lenin once reputedly said that there are decades where nothing happens, and weeks where decades happen. Soon after the millennium, the British Isles experienced a rush of history: a financial emergency, six general elections, five new prime ministers, a constitutional crisis, a pandemic – and then the death of the Queen.
Some have said that these were the nation’s worst years since the Napoleonic wars, and there is one politician who has blazed a meteoric trail across almost every page of this teeming history: Boris Johnson. But only now is he telling his story, for no less than a reported half a million pounds and counting.
At that price, never mind setting the record straight, he’ll have to deliver. But what is in the offing from such a maverick pen? As he might put it, a macédoine of regret, maybe mortification, and dismay? As the first parts of Unleashed are serialised, we finally get a hint of what might be to come.
Read the full review here:
Boris Johnson recalls Partygate scandal: ‘I ate no blooming cake’
07:23
Holly Evans
Boris Johnson has denied eating cake at the “feeblest event in the history of human festivity” held on his 56th birthday.
The former prime minister said he did not see or eat any cake at an event on 19 June 2020, according to an extract from his memoir published in the Daily Mail.
Of the occasion, he wrote: “Here is what actually happened that day. I stood briefly at my place in the Cabinet Room, where I have meetings throughout the day, while the Chancellor and assorted members of staff said happy birthday.
“I saw no cake. I ate no blooming cake. If this was a party, it was the feeblest event in the history of human festivity.
“I had only just got over Covid. I did not sing. I did not dance.”
Downing Street previously admitted staff “gathered briefly” in the Cabinet Room for what was reportedly a surprise get-together for Mr Johnson organised by his now-wife Carrie.
An ally of the former prime minister, Conor Burns, said Mr Johnson was “ambushed with a cake” at the event.
Boris Johnson was ‘surprised’ partygate would be a line of attack for Labour
06:30
Barney Davis
Boris Johnson has written of the moment he was confronted with the partygate story dismissing it initially as “old cobblers”.
Writing in Unleashed which isbeing serialised in the Mail +
“[Former Downing Street Director of Communications] Jack explained that the Daily Mirror had a story about a breach of lockdown rules in No 10 during the pandemic. They were accusing the press department of having a party on December 18, 2020 – almost exactly a year previously.
“Jack said the story was nonsense, because it was traditional for the press department to have a glass of wine at their desks on a Friday evening. I looked at him blankly. ‘So no rules were broken?’
“‘No, PM,’ he said firmly, ‘no rules were broken.’
“‘Fine,’ I said, and carried on.
“It sounded like a load of old cobblers – probably some desperate nonsense being peddled by embittered former advisers – and I forgot about it. I was most surprised when it was raised at PMQs the next day – as Labour’s main line of attack.”
Labour called on both the PM and then chancellor Rishi Sunak to go, saying they were “unfit to govern”.
Boris Johnson claims ‘Brexit saved lives'
05:15
Barney Davis
Boris Johnson has claimed his Brexit deal allowed a faster rollout of the Covid vaccine saving lives.
Writing in Unleashed, serialised in Mail +, he said: “Under my deal, we came out. We took back control. That meant that when it came to the approval of vaccines, we no longer had to go at the pace of the rest of the European Union.
“We had our own agency – the Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency – and we could do our own thing.
“It meant, bluntly, that we were able to immunise huge numbers of elderly and vulnerable people who – if they had been living in an EU country, or in pre-Brexit Britain – would unquestionably have been forced to wait for EMA approval for their drugs, and who might therefore have died of Covid.
“It wasn’t long before some graffiti appeared on the wall in Portobello Road, West London.
“‘Brexit saves lives,’ it said.
“It wasn’t the sort of writing you expect on the wall in the largely Remain-backing Kensington and Chelsea, and I know that some of you will still find it a pretty indigestible assertion. But painful as it may be for some people, it’s true.”
Badenoch doubles down on claim she became working class after working in McDonald's
05:00
Jabed Ahmed
Kemi Badenoch has doubled down on her claim that she “became working class” when she got a job at McDonald’s.
The Tory leadership hopeful said she came to the UK “with no money, no friends, no parents”.
She told LBC at that point in her life she was working class as she “had to work to eat”.
“I grew up in a middle class family but coming here I became working class - my dad gave me his last £100, he said ‘you know this is all we have’ because all our money was gone and this is one of the things that people don’t understand,” Ms Badenoch said.
Watch her original comments below:
Independent readers say Keir Starmer needs ‘time and space to clean out the Tories’ from government
04:30
Jabed Ahmed
Pension credit claims hit almost 75,000 since winter fuel payment slimdown
04:00
Jabed Ahmed
Pension credit claims have hit almost 75,000 amid Government efforts to boost benefits take-up.
Department for Work and Pensions figures released on Friday showed the Government received around 74,400 pension credit claims in the eight weeks since 29 July, when Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced means testing for the winter fuel payment.
This is up from 29,500 claims in the eight weeks before the announcement.
But in the seven days beginning on 16 September, the department received 11,800 claims, down from 13,400 the week before.
The vast majority (92 per cent) of claims made in the week beginning 16 September were made online.
Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall has previously urged pensioners to check if they are eligible for the benefit, which would unlock winter fuel payments of up to £300.
Watch: Who will be the next leader of the Conservatives?
03:00
Jabed Ahmed
Labour freebies: The gifts Starmer and other MPs have accepted as PM under fire
02:00
Jabed Ahmed
Boris Johnson has spoken of the moment he handed over Prime Ministerial responsibility to Dominic Raab
01:01
Barney Davis
Boris Johnson has written of the moment he handed before he went to the ICU suffering with Covid-19.
Writing in Unleashed, serialised in Mail + he said: “With the oximeter on my finger, we could see that my oxygen levels started slowly to creep up again, and I began to feel sleepy. Before I folded, there was one thing I had to do.
“I rang Dominic Raab. ‘First Secretary of State,’ I said.
“‘PM,’ he said. “‘You know I said that you might have to deputise for me,’ I said.
“‘Yes, PM.’
“‘Well, that moment has come.’
“‘No problem, PM,’ he said. ‘Get well soon.’
“He didn’t sound remotely rattled – in fact, he went on to do an outstanding job.”
If Mr Johnson had died, Mr Raab would have taken over as caretaker prime minister while a successor was chosen from a leadership election.
Watch: Starmer warns Israel-Hezbollah clashes risk triggering wider regional war
01:00
Jabed Ahmed
Boris Johnson said he paid the partygate fine because ‘he had a lot on'
Saturday 28 September 2024 00:01
Barney Davis
Boris Johnson has insisted he didn’t see anything illegal at his Downing Street birthday party writing in his memoir Unleashed, being serialised in Mail +.
Writing about the fallout of the event he said: “I relied upon Sue Gray, who (though I did not know this) had already been approached to be the chief of staff to Ed Miliband, former Labour leader, and who was to go on to be the chief of staff to Keir Starmer, my number one political foe.
“Some of the allegations in her report – vomiting, fights and so on – turned out to be untrue, and had to be withdrawn.
“As for all the other fines that were issued – more than 120 fixed penalty notices – the answer is of course that I don’t know. I wasn’t there, or didn’t see anything that looked illegal. If the fines were like mine, they must have been a bit puzzling.
“But what could I do? I paid the fine and got on with the job. I had a lot on.”
ICYMI: What was announced in Starmer’s Labour conference speech?
Friday 27 September 2024 23:59
Jabed Ahmed
Defence Secretary watching Israeli ground invasion rumours ‘really carefully’
Friday 27 September 2024 23:00
Jabed Ahmed
Defence Secretary John Healey is looking at a rumoured Israeli ground invasion into Lebanon “really carefully”.
Mr Healey said on Friday airstrikes and rocket fire exchanged between Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah present a “risk that this escalates into something that is much wider and much more serious”.
Defence Secretary John Healey is looking at a rumoured Israeli ground invasion into Lebanon “really carefully”.
Mr Healey said on Friday airstrikes and rocket fire exchanged between Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah present a “risk that this escalates into something that is much wider and much more serious”.
Asked about the rumoured ground invasion, Mr Healey replied: “We’re watching this really carefully. That will be a matter for the Israelis.
“At the moment, it’s airstrikes. At the moment, there are missiles from the Lebanese Hezbollah directed at Israel. This conflict serves no one.”
Boris Johnson claims the Downing Street event that sparked the partygate scandal was ‘feeblest event in the history of human festivity’
Friday 27 September 2024 22:30
Barney Davis
Boris Johnson has insisted that he had no birthday cake at the Downing Street event that launched the Partygate scandal.
The former Prime Minister wrote in Unleashed being serialised Mail +: “I saw no cake. I ate no blooming cake. If this was a party, it was the feeblest event in the history of human festivity.
“I had only just got over Covid. I did not sing. I did not dance. I ate a salad – but then it was lunchtime, and I do normally eat at my desk. I did not meet anyone that I don’t meet in the course of the working day.”
The scandal contributed to Boris Johnson‘s downfall as Prime Minister and his resignation as an MP.
He added: “I have no idea what version of events people gave the police. But I very much doubt that it was fair. I was obviously vulnerable to the testimony of some who were determined to bring me down.”
Exclusive: Starmer saved by Tory leadership chaos in Labour poll slide over freebies row
Friday 27 September 2024 22:00
Jabed Ahmed
Boris Johnson realised he had Covid-19 when he couldn’t finish the cheese in the fridge
Friday 27 September 2024 21:41
Barney Davis
The former Prime Minister has claimed he knew he was suffering from life-threatening Covid when he couldn’t finish the cheese in the fridge.
He wrote in Unleashed being serialised in Mail +: “By Sunday, April 5, there were more than 1,000 daily fatalities across the country. I was still flat out, floating in and out of consciousness, waiting for my fix of paracetamol, when Carrie came in like a ministering angel.
“‘Come on,’ she said. ‘You need to get something to eat.’
“I said that the kitchen really felt a long way away. So she brought up some apple and cheese. I looked at that cheese with such complete apathy that I knew – after a lifetime as a functioning cheese-oholic – that something was definitely awry.
He added: “Carrie rang Dr Price and explained things, and then passed the phone to me. He wanted me to come in right away, to St Thomas’ Hospital. No, no, I said... You have got to come in, he said. You have now spent too long getting worse, and it has got to the stage where it could go either way.”
Boris Johnson speaks of becoming the ‘most popular PM in history' when Brits thought he was going to die from Covid
Friday 27 September 2024 21:26
Barney Davis
Boris Johnson has written about his near-death experience from Covid-19 answering critics who thought he was exaggerating his illness.
Serialised in the Mail +, he wrote: “All I can say is that I felt truly lousy: the scratchy, breathless exhaustion that is familiar to Covid sufferers. I also know that at one stage my oxygen levels dropped to 72 per cent, and that below 70 per cent some nasty things start happening to your body.
“That night in April 2020, the doctors and nurses of St Thomas’ Hospital were preparing, if necessary, to intubate me – spike a hole in my trachea and stuff a tube down my windpipe to force-feed oxygen into my lungs.
“They mentioned the possibility, as they prepared to wheel me downstairs.
“Is that necessary? I said. Oh yes, they said, and made it sound like a routine procedure. What they didn’t explain is that, at that stage in the pandemic, patients who were intubated had about a 50 per cent chance of survival. Then I was being wheeled on a gurney into ICU – the intensive care unit.”
He finished: “One thing is for certain: at the moment it was announced I was going into ICU, when there was therefore believed to be a genuine chance that I was about to die, my popularity figures were higher than any PM in history.”
Boris Johnson explains how he plotted Netherlands raid EU on Google Earth
Friday 27 September 2024 21:19
Barney Davis
Boris Johnson has revealed he considered a daring raid on the Netherlands to grab doses of the Covid-19 vaccine from an EU warehouse.
Serialised in the Mail +, he wrote: “We knew exactly where the target was: I could see it on Google Earth. It looked pretty easy to burgle, if you know what to do.
“It was the plant where the EU had stowed five million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine – doses that the company was trying, in vain, to export to the UK.
“As long as people in my country were dying of Covid, which I am afraid they still were in substantial numbers, I believed it was my paramount duty to secure those doses, which belonged to the UK, and use them to save UK lives.”
Revealed: Starmer’s ‘three pillar’ blueprint to rebuild EU ties with youth mobility a negotiating chip
Friday 27 September 2024 21:00
Jabed Ahmed
Russell Findlay elected as leader of the Scottish Conservatives
Friday 27 September 2024 20:00
Jabed Ahmed
Russell Findlay has been elected as the new leader of the Scottish Conservatives, beating Murdo Fraser and Meghan Gallacher.
The new leader won 2,565 votes, the party’s returning officer Leonard Wallace announced on Friday, with Murdo Fraser coming second with 1,187 votes and Meghan Gallacher in third with 403 votes.
The turnout was 60%, with Mr Wallace announcing the party has just shy of 7,000 members, 4,155 of whom voted in the leadership contest.
Theresa May denounces Trump, Farage and Le Pen over climate change ‘hoax’ claims
Friday 27 September 2024 19:00
Jabed Ahmed
What is austerity – and why is Rachel Reeves accused of bringing it back?
Friday 27 September 2024 18:29
Jabed Ahmed
Starmer admits mangling his words over ‘sausages’ blunder
Friday 27 September 2024 18:00
Jabed Ahmed
Sir Keir Starmer has said he was prepared to be mocked over the “sausages” gaffe in his Labour conference speech.
The prime minister butchered a call for Hamas to release the hostages in Gaza, instead demanding “the return of the sausages” before swiftly correcting himself.
Asked about the mistake he told reporters: “I just mangled the beginning of the word.”
He added: “These things are there to give you all the opportunity to rib me.”
The blunder in his conference speech on Tuesday was swiftly picked up on social media.
The Conservatives posted on X: “Keir Starmer uses his first big speech as Prime Minister to call for the return of the sausages.”
ICYMI: UK leaders ‘shouldn’t pull our punches’ if they disagree with the US president, MP says
Friday 27 September 2024 17:30
Jabed Ahmed
UK leaders “shouldn’t pull our punches” if they disagree with the American president, Emily Thornberry has said after Sir Keir Starmer met with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Ms Thornberry, House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee chairwoman, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Donald Trump may be the president of the United States in a couple of months’ time so of course, it’s important to have meetings with him and to build a relationship with him.
“Whatever criticisms one may have of Donald Trump, the point is that the office of president is one that needs to be properly respected and the Americans are very close friends of ours.”
The Labour politician added: “I think that this is an initial meeting, so there needs to be a certain amount of relationship building and we take it from there.
“I do think that if there are things the American president does or says that we disagree with, then we shouldn’t pull our punches.”
Rachel Reeves watering down non-dom tax changes would be ‘sensible and pragmatic’, tax experts say
Friday 27 September 2024 17:01
Jabed Ahmed
My colleague Archie Mitchell reports:
