Articles tagged Boris Johnson:
Calm Down, Calm Down...
- 27 Oct 2019
I really should know better. On Tuesday night, I was on a Newsnight panel which included the rather impressive Liam Thorp, political editor of the Liverpool Echo. Emily Maitlis threw him a question about Boris Johnson, and he immediately launched into a little spiel about how ...
Calm Down, Calm Down, Prorogation is Not the End of Democracy As We Know It
- 28 Aug 2019
It's the end of democracy as we know it. This government is autocratic. Boris Johnson is running a tin-pot dictatorship. A coup. Just four of the quotes I've heard on the radio and TV over the last hour and all to do with the fact that the Prime Min...
How Boris Really Became Prime Minister - A Counterfactual
- 24 Jul 2019
Duncan Brack and I have published three books of counterfactual essays over the last 15 years or so. Prime Minister Portillo And Other Things That Never Happened was the first, published in 2003. Prime Minister Boris And Other Things That Never Happened followed in 2016, with ...
There Must be No Tory Leadership 'Coronation'
- 27 May 2019
This is an unedited version of my Sunday Telegraph column. Just as the last four Tory prime ministers have been defenestrated by the issue of Europe, the next one will almost certainly be defined by it. It will also dominate the imminent leadership campaign, as each cand...
Conservative Party Game of Thrones: Week 1
- 26 May 2019
Each weekend for the duration of this leadershop contest I'll be charting who's up and who's fortunes are on the decline in the Tory Party's equivalent of the Game of Thrones... Boris Johnson - Bookies favourite but will his no deal remarks in Switzerland come back ...
Here are the Three Timetables for a Tory Party Leadership Contest
- 18 May 2019
This week Theresa May agreed with the 1922 Committee Executive that she would address the leadership question with Sir Graham Brady immediately after the Withdrawal Agreement vote. Everyone has interpreted this as her signalling she would then step down, given the likely resul...
Telegraph Column: Something Changed This Week But Next Week Will Determine May's Future
- 8 Apr 2019
This article first appeared in the Sunday Telegraph. Well she’s still there, clinging to office like a limpet, defying her cabinet and soldiering on unabashed. Theresa May is effectively using the national crisis she created to tell her fractious party ‘stick with nurse for...
Telegraph Column: Who Will Back Who in the Tory Leadership Race?
- 31 Mar 2019
This article first appeared in the Sunday Telegraph. The task for any leadership candidate is to knock their competitors out one by one. They each need to emerge as the leader of their ‘tribe’. Let’s start with the tribe of ‘hard Brexiteers’. Boris Johnson has been a...
From the Archives: In Conversation with Boris Johnson
- 3 Feb 2019
This interview was conducted in the summer of 2008 and appeared in Total Politics magazine. How has the mayor’s job differed from what you may have expected on your first day? It’s infinitely better and more difficult. Difficult in what way? Just the complexity of ...
Mail on Sunday Column: The Brexit Wrecking Crew
- 20 Jan 2019
Of all the many colourful scenes and events surrounding the tumultuous defeat of the Prime Minister's Brexit deal last Tuesday, one image stays with me more than any other – and for all the wrong reasons. It is the mental picture of senior hard-Brexiteers including John Red...