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Yesterday’s post introduced the ongoing Conservative Party leadership contest.
Today’s post will discuss what happened on Wednesday and lead up to Thursday afternoon’s vote, the result of which will appear tomorrow.
Before Wednesday’s vote
Guido Fawkes wrote the following on the morning of Wednesday, July 13, before the first round of voting (red emphases his, purple ones mine):
Good morning. Six of the eight remaining Tory leadership candidates face an uphill battle throughout the day, as they attempt to reach the 30-MP threshold required in the first knockout round of the contest at 6pm. Rishi now has 48 backers, meaning he can basically sit back and relax for at least the next two rounds, though that hasn’t stopped him adding Steve Barclay to his list of supporters this morning. Penny Mordaunt also has the 30 required. The other six, not so much…
All eyes are on Jeremy Hunt and Suella Braverman as the ones most likely not make it, though one of Hunt’s backers told Guido last night they believe they have the requisite support. They also described rumours that Gavin Williamson is instructing Rishi backers to temporarily support other candidates like Hunt and Kemi, so Rishi doesn’t have to face Liz in the final two, as utter rubbish, though members of other campaign teams believe it is absolutely happening. With Sajid, Shapps and Priti now out of the race, there are 30 newly floating MPs up for grabs…
News overnight includes a policy-light interview with Rishi in The Telegraph, who’s trying to get the press back onside after yesterday’s scenes at his campaign launch. He says he’ll run the economy like Thatcher if he wins. Tom Tugendhat committed to spending 3% of GDP on defence last night. Penny has used a Times op-ed to commit to supporting families as PM. Stay tuned for her campaign launch at 10.30 this morning…
And:
from now on candidates can also vote for themselves…
Candidates experienced highs and lows, as covered below.
Nadhim Zahawi
When Boris Johnson appointed Nadhim Zahawi as Chancellor of the Exchequer on July 5, it was remarked that he is the first Chancellor with facial hair in 65 years:
Before Harold Macmillan, we have to go back another few decades to find another bearded Chancellor:
Zahawi appears to be the man who convinced Boris that he should stand down as leader of the Conservative Party. On Thursday, July 7, the Daily Mail reported:
Boris Johnson will finally announce his resignation today – but is lining up a ‘unity Cabinet’ as he battles to stay in Downing Street for months longer.
The PM admitted defeat in the wake of a shattering intervention from Nadhim Zahawi, who was only appointed on Tuesday night following Rishi Sunak’s departure. He told Mr Johnson that his situation is ‘not sustainable’.
Two days later, on Saturday, news emerged that HMRC (Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs) were investigating Zahawi’s tax situation. Hmm:
Zahawi said on a Sunday morning news programme that, if elected Party leader, he would release his tax returns. He complained of being set upon, something Boris knows only too well:
On Tuesday, July 12, he launched his campaign video in which he tells his life story. He arrived in England from Iran with his parents. He started school not knowing a word of English. Fast forward to the past two years and he was able to live his dream. He headed the coronavirus vaccine rollout and went on to become Education Secretary. Today, he is Chancellor. Amazing:
On Wednesday morning, he told LBC’s Nick Ferrari that, if elected leader, he would give Boris a Cabinet post:
Guido has the video and concluded:
He’s the second leadership contender to make such a pledge after Suealla Braverman. Clearly Zahawi sees some benefit in associating himself with Boris. A swift change of tone considering he was calling for Boris’s resignation just a few days ago…
Agreed, but there is no way that a former Prime Minister would take a Cabinet post.
Later on Wednesday morning, someone hacked Zahawi’s campaign website and redirected it to Penny Mordaunt’s. Penny’s website also seemed to have issues:
They are not the only ones, however, as Guido reported that Rishi Sunak’s site is banned on the Parliamentary estate:
Website woes are a common theme throughout the leadership campaign, Rishi’s site is blocked in Parliament as “insecure” and candidates have had their domain registration timings scrutinised. Turns out this stuff is hard to do right…
Jeremy Hunt
Conservatives either love or loathe Jeremy Hunt.
He served as Health Secretary and then as Foreign Secretary, until Boris sacked him in July 2019.
Hunt ran against Boris in the 2019 leadership contest. In one appearance during that campaign, he said his wife was Japanese. She quickly corrected him and reminded him that she is Chinese.
I wonder if he said that on purpose, because …
During the pandemic, as a backbencher, Hunt proposed Chinese-style lockdowns and mandatory vaccines for healthcare staff.
Nadine Dorries MP recalled a conversation with Hunt in July 2020:
On Christmas Day in 2021, the Mail reported that Hunt’s wife presents Chinese state-sponsored television programmes, broadcast on Sky TV from London:
The wife of former Cabinet Minister Jeremy Hunt presents a TV show for China’s state-run media that has been accused of ‘whitewashing’ the Communist Party’s human rights abuses.
Lucia Guo, who has three children with the former Health Secretary and Foreign Secretary, appears on China Hour, a series broadcast on Sky TV that showcases Chinese culture to a UK audience.
It is made by the state-owned China International TV Corporation and British-based Dove Media, in partnership with the Communist regime’s tourist office in London.
The programme has featured reports on the effectiveness of China’s pandemic response and about the beauty of the Xinjiang region without mentioning it is the site of ‘re-education’ camps for its persecuted Muslim Uighur population.
Ms Guo, who is originally from the city of Xi’an in central China, hosts a feature on the show called Signature Flowers of China.
It has been broadcast since September and is also available on YouTube.
Human rights campaigners at the US research institute Freedom House last year accused China Hour of being part of the Chinese Communist Party’s international media web.
The programme has been praised in Beijing for its viewing figures while its reports on the pandemic have been credited with ‘playing a unique role in communicating the Chinese narration of the epidemic to the world’.
On March 13, 2020, three days before the UK’s first lockdown, Hunt wanted all British schools closed.
Although Hansard has all of Jeremy Hunt’s contributions to parliamentary debates, in May 2022, he tried to walk back his promotion of Chinese-style pandemic measures.
Someone put this graphic together around May 21, a significant date for Hunt, as you will see below:
The next day, May 22, he appeared on Sophy Ridge’s Sky News programme to say that he did not want to see a Conservative leadership contest:
Guido posted the video and this comment:
Maybe Hunt is one of these Tories who thinks it might be good to lose the next election? He could become leader of the opposition…
That day, a number of letters to the editor appeared in The Sunday Times. The week before, he had written an article for the paper outlining how he would reform the NHS.
A retired GP wrote the Times to point out that Hunt had ample time as Health Secretary some years before, yet he took no action:
What a nerve! Jeremy Hunt tells us “How I would fix the NHS” (News Review, last week) — but he was the longest-serving health secretary in British history and has a huge responsibility for the NHS being in this parlous state.
He did nothing to increase the capacity of our hospitals, which has resulted in ambulances queueing outside A&E departments, unable to discharge their patients. He pledged that by 2025 we would be self-sufficient in “homegrown” doctors, but a lack of planning has resulted in a huge shortage of NHS staff in all sectors. He went out of his way to alienate junior doctors, causing the unprecedented strike of 2014. He did nothing to integrate the NHS with social care.
This is the man who could replace the fool we now have as prime minister. Heaven help us.
One week later, on May 28, an article in the Mail suggested that Hunt had a plan to topple Boris:
Boris Johnson‘s Cabinet allies have accused supporters of former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt of mounting a secret pub plot to oust the Prime Minister.
They suspect MPs who attended a dinner at an upmarket bar in West London called The Surprise last week were scheming to trigger a Tory leadership challenge.
The event, held the night before Sue Gray’s report into Partygate was published, was hosted by Devon MP Mel Stride, a former campaign chief for Michael Gove who is seen by the Johnson camp as a rebel ringleader.
Also in attendance was long-serving Ludlow MP Philip Dunne, a key ally of Mr Hunt.
The article has two familiar names, in addition to Hunt’s. Those MPs entered the current leadership contest:
Of the 16 MPs known to have been there and who voted in the 2019 leadership election, just three backed Mr Johnson.
Five backed Mr Hunt, who is widely expected to mount a leadership bid if a contest is called, while six supported Mr Gove, who is not expected to enter another contest …
Politicians at the dinner strongly denied they were scheming against Mr Johnson and accused his allies of ‘paranoia’.
They pointed to the fact that Boris arch-loyalist Grant Shapps – who has himself been tipped as an outside bet for the leadership –addressed the meeting.
But a Cabinet ally of Mr Johnson said: ‘Mel Stride is a Goveite looking for a new horse to hitch his wagon to. Many of the people he invited to the pub backed Gove or Hunt last time – including Dunne, who is running Hunt’s latest bid.
‘Any MP considering backing Hunt must be a masochist yearning for the kind of thrashing we sustained in 2017 and longing for the humiliation of a very long spell on the Opposition benches.
‘Without Boris, we will be handing the next Election to a Labour-SNP coalition. But then, some of our pro-Remain MPs and those who think they were naturally destined for high office, are too bitter to care’ …
Trade Minister Penny Mordaunt, considered a potential future Tory leadership contender, condemned behaviour at No 10 as ‘shameful’, telling the Portsmouth News she was ‘angry’ that people blocking ‘reasonable requests to relax [Covid] restrictions, were at the same time ignoring the rules’.
I agree with whoever said that without Boris, the next election will go to a Labour-SNP coalition. Yet, here we are, sadly.
By June 6, the story of Hunt’s yearning to be the next Conservative Party leader grew traction, especially with GB News presenters.
Neil Oliver threw his characteristic diplomacy away in this tweet:
Bev Turner shared a Hunt anecdote, wherein he advocated paying domestic staff low salaries:
Someone from Hong Kong confirmed the Chinese way of paying peanuts to domestic staff:
A Conservative Party member chimed in with disgust:
Adam Brooks, the publican who appears on Dan Wootton’s show was grateful that Boris was at the helm during the pandemic:
Now let’s look at what Jeremy Hunt told Nadine Dorries, Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, back in July 2020:
Ben Leo, who works on Dan Wootton’s show, tracked Hunt down in front of his house on July 9 to follow up. This is an excellent video. Readers won’t be surprised to find out that Hunt said absolutely nothing:
Now let us fast forward to last weekend.
GB News viewers were aghast to find out that Esther McVey, an MP many of us admired up to that point, cast her support for Hunt, as did her husband Philip Davies:
Why would a no-nonsense, straight-talking Conservative back Jeremy Hunt?
The answer came on Sunday, July 10, when Hunt announced that, if elected leader, Esther McVey would become Deputy Prime Minister.
Guido posted the video:
She must be stupid if she believes that, I thought. It’s like a would-be Romeo trying to seduce a girl. Promise her anything to get her to submit …
Just look at the man’s eyes. He often looks like this:
Guido tweeted:
That’s me done with McVey and Davies. I liked him, too. No longer.
On Monday, July 11, Dan Wootton warned that Conservative MPs could destroy the Party if either Rishi Sunak or Jeremy Hunt become leader:
He is not wrong in that assessment.
First round voting results
Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee of Conservative backbench MPs, declared the results of the first round of voting shortly after 5 p.m.
Nadhim Zahawi, the new Chancellor, and Jeremy Hunt were eliminated from the contest:
Conservatives around the nation breathed a sigh of relief at Hunt’s elimination from the race.
Perhaps Hunt should have taken a cue when the top of the bell he was ringing flew off, nearly hitting a bystander:
As for Zahawi, he posted a lengthy letter:
He has a lot on his plate, so perhaps it is best that he focuses on recovering some of the millions that fraudsters took during the pandemic. Those people stole taxpayers’ money:
He should also do something about road fuel tax:
Meanwhile, Jeremy Hunt pledged his support for front runner Rishi Sunak:
And then there were six
As Wednesday closed, we were left with six candidates going into Thursday:
Kemi Badenoch, someone around whom most Conservatives could rally, had just over 50 MPs supporting her.
Tom Tugendhat, rather surprisingly, considering that he has a high profile, had fewer than 50.
Suella Braverman, another candidate who makes most Conservative Party members happy, has just over 40.
I think that Braverman and/or Tugendhat will lose on Thursday. Tugendhat is another one who deserves to go.
Guido summed up Wednesday’s activity. Highlights follow.
Rishi Sunak could be losing momentum:
- … After hogging the limelight with his campaign launch yesterday, today he resumed being the punching bag of choice for all other candidates.
- Faced some horrible polling from all quarters, which shows he basically stands no chance of winning among the members if he gets through to the final two.
Penny Mordaunt did well:
- A great day for Penny – if she wins the contest, today will undoubtedly be viewed as the day she secured the victory …
- Received a major boost from YouGov polling that shows, should she get through to the final two, she’d smash every other candidate.
- Remains a comfortable second among MP backers.
Liz Truss survives another day:
- Vowed to halt green levies
- Continued her campaign as the ‘Boris continuity candidate’.
Suella Braverman is unlikely to make it through past Thursday’s voting.
Kemi Badenoch does not want tax cuts but has gained support:
- Continues to gain support, not least with her former employers at The Spectator.
Kemi is also opposed to the current form of the dreaded Online Safety Bill, the debates on which could not be completed before summer recess, as the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill, quite rightly, took priority. There is also the debate on confidence in the Government on Monday, which should be interesting:
Thursday, before the vote
Guido summed up the state of play on Thursday, July 14. An excerpt follows:
In a few months’ time, what will people remember of Jeremy Hunt’s 2022 leadership campaign? Nothing, obviously. Seemingly just 18 MPs realised he was running one at all, which is odd as he needed 20 to get on the ballot in the first place. As Sky’s Sam Coates asked last night: what exactly does Rishi gain from being endorsed by this competition’s biggest loser? He certainly won’t gain all of Hunt’s supporters – many of them are now angry that Hunt went with Rishi, and not Tugendhat. Mind you, there was already anger towards Hunt from Team Penny, who endorsed him in 2019, as it was very clear he was never considering returning the favour this time around. Et tu, Jeremy…
Today should, in theory, be Truss’s day in the spotlight. Her campaign launches bright and early in Smith Square, in two hours’ time. They’ll be delighted with The Mail splash this morning, which is blatantly campaigning for Liz and telling the right to unite behind her to defeat Rishi. The same front page carries a briefing from someone in the Truss camp accusing Penny of telling lies about her trans stance. Lord Frost has also just taken to the airwaves to slam Penny’s record in government, saying she was so rubbish as his deputy he had to ask the PM to move her during the Northern Ireland negotiations…
Yes, this was a damning moment for Penny.
Guido has the video …
… and the quote:
To be honest I’m quite surprised that she is where she is in this leadership race. She was my deputy, notionally more than really, in the Brexit talks last year… I felt she did not master the detail that was necessary in the negotiations last year. She wouldn’t always deliver tough messages to the European Union when that was necessary… she wasn’t always visible. Sometimes I didn’t even know where she was. I’m afraid this became such a problem that after six months I had to ask the Prime Minister to move her on… from the basis of what I saw I would have grave reservations about [Mordaunt].
Guido says that Lord Frost isn’t the only one critical of her, either:
On Tuesday, CityAM published damning claims from Department for International Trade sources alleging Penny was “missing for months” as a trade minister and wasn’t reliable – something Guido’s ministerial sources later confirmed themselves…
As the day unfolded, Rishi tried to make his resignation and leadership candidacy appear sudden, failing to mention that he had his website domain registered in 2020:
On a lighter note, Tom Tugendhat will rue this photo of ‘Tom a tart’:
Oh, well, he’s likely to be out by the end of the day, anyway.
It is unfortunate that so many members of the public cannot identify the next Conservative leader:
Meanwhile, among the party membership, here’s the latest from Grantham & Stamford Conservative Association. I am surprised that Mordaunt is doing so well. At least Badenoch is in second place:
Today’s vote began at 11:30 and closed at 3 p.m. All being well, I will have an analysis of the results tomorrow.
Despite receiving more brickbats this week, Prime Minister Boris Johnson is still standing as Parliament enters its February recess.
Former PM John Major had a go at Boris about Brexit in a speech he gave to the Institute for Government this week. Like another former PM, Theresa May — still a serving MP — Major is a staunch Remainer.
Writing for The Spectator, historian Nigel Jones discussed the Blob (our Swamp) on Thursday, February 11, 2022 (emphases mine throughout except for Guido Fawkes’s posts):
Still fighting their neverendum certain Blobbers, so used to having things go their way for the past half century, view the man who brought us Brexit as the one who betrayed the favourite cause of his caste. For that alone he must be punished. They seek not only Johnson’s removal from office but his total humiliation …
The Mays and the Majors of this world, uniting with the legions of the left who have always loathed Johnson, cannot bear it that someone who sums up in his rumpled and hitherto popular persona all that they are not, is, after all the ordure that they have poured over him, like Elton John: still standing. After weeks of sustained bombardment with the most vicious projectiles his enemies can muster, the object of their righteous wrath is still withstanding the siege from the Downing Street bunker, even belting out ‘I will survive!’
… And those such as Johnson’s former editor Max Hastings, who has predicted the PM could be gone within weeks, could yet be proven wrong. But if Boris does go he will not have been brought down in a flood of booze but by the bile of ‘the Blob’ against the black sheep who dared, by accident or design, to stray from the flock.
The Spectator‘s Katy Balls says Boris is succeeding because he is buying himself time, putting forward his ‘red meat’ policies to win back MPs and those souls who voted Conservative in 2019:
After a difficult few weeks, Boris Johnson has made it to parliamentary recess. Given few expect a no confidence vote to be held during recess, time away from parliament gives the Prime Minister much-needed breathing space. After the seemingly never-ending parade of partygate stories, there have been times when MPs were sceptical he would make it this far.
Instead, the Prime Minister has succeeded in buying himself time — talking down would-be plotters and rushing out a string of red meat announcements to keep the right of his party on side. The announcement this week that all Covid restrictions could end a month early is a prime example of this. When MPs return from recess, Johnson will unveil his plan for living with the virus — which will include the guidance rather than law (self-isolation is expected to become just advice) and reduced access to tests.
Boris made his liberating announcement about lifting coronavirus restrictions to the House of Commons on Wednesday, February 9:
Guido Fawkes wrote:
Boris in the Chamber just now announcing that the final Covid restrictions, including the legal requirement to self-isolate after a positive test, are likely to be lifted after the February recess. The “living with Covid” plan will be revealed on 21st February. A full month ahead of schedule…
February 24 could be our third liberation day. We already had Independence Day on July 4, 2020, followed by Freedom Day on July 19, 2021 and now this. Let’s hope it is permanent.
In any event, the announcement made two front pages on Thursday, February 10, with the Daily Mail being more positive about this world leading move than The Star. I can empathise with both:
When SAGE’s scientists and the unions object, we know Boris is on the right track. Boris didn’t even bother consulting the former, as The Mail reported:
Unions are already digging their heels in after Boris Johnson revealed he intends to ditch all remaining Covid laws within a fortnight as a poll revealed that three in four workers ground down by almost two years of lockdowns and restrictions want to continue with self-isolation.
Unison, Britain’s largest union serving more than 1.3million members from swathes of the public sector, has accused the Prime Minister of going ‘too far, too soon’, insisting that the virus ‘hasn’t disappeared’ — despite a raft of data suggesting the worst is now over.
SAGE scientists have also warned of the ‘dangers’ of the PM’s plan to make England the first country in the world to scrap all Covid rules, after it emerged Mr Johnson had not discussed it with the committee which is now infamous for its gloomy predictions about the pandemic.
Boris appears to be placing more weight on what is actually happening rather than alarming data projections from SAGE:
The resistance comes despite Covid infections falling consistently, with even the gloomiest surveillance study now accepting that the country’s outbreak has peaked — mirroring the official numbers.
The milder nature of Omicron, coupled with sky-high immunity, mean the NHS never came under the levels of pressure that No10’s experts feared would happen, with hospitalisations and deaths both now in freefall.
People with fragile health should note that they will be free to continue self-isolating. That freedom is an individual choice rather than a mandate by law.
The same goes for masks.
Boris is no doubt trying to encourage the socialist governments in Wales and Scotland to do the same thing:
The announcement annoyed the devolved governments in Scotland and Wales – with Nicola Sturgeon’s administration calling it a publicity stunt to divert from the Partygate scandal that has left the PM fighting for his job.
The First Minister did this afternoon pledge to ditch face masks in Scotland’s classrooms from February 28 — keeping them in communal areas — but says she will wait for expert advice before following Boris’s lead on any other rules.
The Scottish Government is unlikely to go as far as dropping all rules when it publishes its strategy for living with Covid in the months ahead on February 22. The plans will be debated by MSPs, meaning any changes could be several weeks behind England. The Scottish Government is even set to extend its Covid powers until September 24.
Conservatives applauded Boris’s move:
Lord Frost, who dramatically quit Cabinet partly in protest at draconian curbs, was among the senior Tories praising the move. ‘The PM’s plan to end all Covid restrictions a month early is the right thing to do & is extremely welcome. I hope the government will also make clear we will not go down the road of coercive lockdowns ever again,’ he tweeted.
Tory MPs last night insisted that lockdowns should never be deployed again. ‘I am glad to see the emphasis on learning to live with Covid,’ said Bob Seely, who represents the Isle of Wight …
David Jones, a former Cabinet minister, welcomed the ‘very positive’ news, adding: ‘The PM deserves credit for this. We have locked down for too long and we now need a commitment that we will not lock down again, save for in the most exceptional of circumstances.’
Steve Baker hit the nail on the head. The lifting of restrictions is meaningful only if Boris reforms the Public Health Act of 1984 — and, may I add, scraps the Coronavirus Act of 2020:
Former minister Steve Baker added: ‘I welcome this announcement but we are not out of the woods until the Public Health Act has been reformed, we have new rules for better modelling, competitive, multi-disciplinary expert advice and wellbeing-based cost-benefit analysis covering the costs of lockdowns and restrictions. There is much to do!’
Earlier this week, Boris made another reshuffle involving the Cabinet Office and Downing Street, in line with the preliminary recommendations from Sue Gray’s report on Boris’s lockdown parties on January 31. Boris had met with Conservative MPs that evening:
Guido’s accompanying post reads in part:
It could be “imminent”.
Guido was also first to reveal the PM won over swathes of support from wavering MPs by promising to massively up their involvement in No. 10’s policy-making, saying he liked Graham Brady’s suggestion of 1922-organised MP policy committees.
In a sign of how the day had played out, in the evening Birmingham 2019 MP Gary Sambrook put out a gushing tweet about the PM:
Guido understands he’s now withdrawn his letter of no confidence to Graham Brady. After the vaccine rollout and Brexit, the new shadow whipping operation has to be one of the most impressive things Boris’s No. 10 has managed to organise…
On Tuesday, February 8, GB News gave us the details on the reshuffle:
Jacob Rees-Mogg will be the minister responsible for “Brexit opportunities” in the first move confirmed as part of Boris Johnson’s reshuffle.
The shake-up of the ministerial team follows the appointment of Stephen Barclay as the Prime Minister’s chief of staff and comes as Mr Johnson seeks to relaunch his administration following the partygate row.
Mr Rees-Mogg, previously the Leader of the House of Commons, will still sit at the Cabinet table in his new role as Minister for Brexit Opportunities and Government Efficiency …
Former Chief Whip Mark Spencer has been confirmed as the new Leader of the House of Commons to replace the vacant role left by Jacob Rees-Mogg.
Mark Spencer has been the MP for Sherwood since 2010 and has previously been Deputy Leader of the House of Commons.
Stuart Andrew has been appointed as Minister of State (Minister for Housing) in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities; he has been the MP for Pudsey since 2010, he has most recently been a deputy whip.
Chris Heaton-Harris has been confirmed as the Government’s new Chief Whip; he has served as MP for Daventry since 2010, he had most recently been Minister of State for Europe and is famed in Westminster for his use of Twitter to post one-liner jokes.
James Cleverly MP will become Minister of State (Minister for Europe) in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office as part of the shake-up of the Government frontbench, Downing Street said.
Wendy Morton MP to be a Minister of State in the Department for Transport.
Rt Hon Christopher Pincher MP to be Treasurer of HM Household (Deputy Chief Whip).
Samantha Jones, the Prime Minister’s adviser on the NHS and social care, has been appointed as the new No 10 permanent secretary and chief operating officer, Downing Street said.
Samantha Jones, who is a civil servant, is a former NHS trust executive.
She helped develop the plan to reduce hospital waiting lists, but it did not go down well in Parliament this week when Health Secretary Sajid Javid announced it. Even Conservative MPs thought it was weak, especially as a record high of 6.1 million patients are awaiting surgery or other medical procedures.
Samantha Jones will be both an interim No 10 permanent secretary and its COO, both new posts, as The Telegraph reported on February 9:
Boris Johnson has appointed a former NHS trust executive who advises him on health policy to the newly created position of No 10 permanent secretary.
In the latest move to shake-up his inner circle, the Prime Minister announced that Samantha Jones will take the role for six months on an “interim” basis.
Ms Jones had been Mr Johnson’s expert adviser on NHS transformation and social care, meaning she helped craft the newly announced plan to bring down NHS waiting lists.
The former nurse and NHS veteran will also hold the title of Chief Operating Officer for Downing Street as she helps shape the new civil service structure being created for the Prime Minister.
There was another appointment, that of Stuart Andrew MP as Levelling Up Minister:
Andrew Griffith, one of the MPs who was reshuffled in the first week of February, laid out his plans as Boris’s new Director of Policy:
You would not know it from the media headlines, but families want to hear about our plans to grow employment, tackle the NHS backlog, control our borders, make their streets safer, bring down the cost of living and return rapidly to the point when we can cut taxes to let everyone keep more of their own money – all policies that are rooted in strong Conservative values.
As the Prime Minister’s Director of Policy, these are my top priorities together with delivering the tangible opportunities from Brexit that will allow our economy to be more competitive and the reform of government to deliver better public services. Whilst the Policy Unit’s remit is to advise the Prime Minister across the widest breadth of government policy, we will be unafraid to ruthlessly focus on the key issues. It is ultimately outputs that matter.
Elected in 2019, he is far from the Sir Bufton Tufton brand of Conservative MP and has been against the EU since John Major’s time as PM:
From a comprehensive school in south-east London, I was the first in my family to go to university, where campaigning to keep the UK out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism turned me into a lifelong Conservative.
Jacob Rees-Mogg went further, asking Sun readers for suggestions on which EU regulations should be rolled back in the UK:
The opportunities in front of us are immense. Huge parts of our economy are no longer regulated by the EU.
Before Brexit, many of my constituents would write to me to complain about regulations that burdened them daily.
From farmers to electricians, on so many issues I had to tell them that even as an MP I could not help to solve their problems, as these rules were set by the EU, not the British Parliament.
Thanks to Brexit, that has all changed. Sun readers can hold their MPs accountable, as the buck truly stops with them …
You are the ones who know the red tape binds your hands, and to do my job I need your wisdom. Ronald Reagan rightly said: “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help’.” This needs to be turned on its head: Britain needs The Sun readers’ help instead.
I implore you all to write to me with the regulations you want abolished — those which make life harder for small businesses, which shut out competition, or simply increase the cost of operating. Through thousands of small changes, we can enact real economic change — which means The Sun’s readers will feel a real Brexit bonus in their pockets and in their lives every day.
WRITE TO ME: Jacob Rees-Mogg, House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA
EMAIL: jacob.reesmogg.mp@parliament.uk
In other news, the UK economy grew 7.5% in 2021:
Guido has the quote from the ONS:
Darren Morgan, ONS:
“Despite December’s setback, GDP grew robustly across the fourth quarter as a whole with the NHS, couriers and employment agencies all helping to support the economy,” he said.
“Overall, GDP in December was in line with its level in February 2020, before Covid-19 struck, while in the fourth quarter as a whole, it was slightly below that of the fourth quarter in 2019.”
People are trying to cast shade on this achievement, but even The Spectator, hardly pro-Boris, has a compliment for his administration. Today, Katy Balls pointed out:
With prices soaring, interest rates rising and the cost of living crisis growing more acute by the day, we could do with some more positive news: and this morning’s GDP update has played a small part in providing it.
Despite suffering the largest economic contraction in 300 years in 2020 – and taking the biggest economic hit in the G7 – Britain had the fastest growing economy in the G7 last year, boosting its GDP by 7.5 per cent.
It’s still a mixed story: looking at where the UK economy is now compared with pre-pandemic levels, it ranks average within the G7. But with one of the steepest hills to climb back to recovery, the UK’s relatively fast growth enabled the economy to get there several months before it was forecast to do so …
… while the economy did take a slight hit at the end of last year, it did not fall back below pre-pandemic levels. Britain can still boast that it made a full economic recovery – and hopefully recoup December’s losses fairly quickly, given how quickly fears about Omicron’s severity were put to bed.
Finally, with local elections coming up in May, Boris will be doing what he does best — campaigning around England (with one stop in Wales):
Guido notes that not all of Boris’s destinations will be holding an election this Spring, but the PM needs to turn things around for the Conservatives:
Boris has spent a lot of time on the road recently. Almost every day he seems to show up at another school, building site, or hospital somewhere outside SW1 – in just the last 5 weeks, he’s made 10 trips across the UK. Coincidentally, 7 of those trips happen to be in seats which are holding local elections in May …
With Labour and much of the media hammering away at Partygate since December inside the Westminster bubble, Boris obviously knows his best chance of turning things around is to get back into campaign mode. It is what he does best, after all…
Although Labour are still ahead in the polls, an amazing reversal that began when the Downing Street parties during lockdown came to light, a pollster from Savanta ComRes thinks that it will be easier for Boris to win his 2019 voters back than it will be for Starmer to encourage them to vote Labour:
This is what Savanta ComRes uncovered from their latest focus group — Starmer isn’t capturing their collective imagination, so Boris is still in with a chance:
I will have more next week on Boris’s attempt to survive at No. 10.
On Saturday, December 18, 2021, Lord Frost resigned as the UK Government’s chief Brexit negotiator.
He cited his dissatisfaction with Boris Johnson’s ‘political direction’:
Most Conservatives were in shock at the news. He was among the top-rated Cabinet members and was negotiating Brexit as well as could be expected, given the nature of the EU in Brussels:
Lord Frost had been in a Brexit negotiating post for two and a half years. He became a full Cabinet member on March 1, 2021, at which point he became Britain’s chief negotiator, taking over from Michael Gove, who was then Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.
Guido Fawkes has the text of Frost’s acceptance of the Cabinet position:
I am hugely honoured to have been appointed Minister to take forward our relationship with the EU after Brexit. In doing so I stand on the shoulders of giants and particularly those of Michael Gove, who did an extraordinary job for this country in talks with EU over the past year.
Frost was sworn into the House of Lords on September 8 as Baron Frost of Allenton in the County of Derbyshire. Because of coronavirus, wearing ermine has been optional:
The most intractable part of Brexit has been — and continues to be — the EU’s holding Northern Ireland hostage. Goods from Great Britain cannot get through, such as English oak trees, which the Province wants to plant for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee in 2022. British Christmas cards were taxed last year, according to EU rules. The transport of medicines is a much more serious problem.
Guido Fawkes has the full text of Lord Frost’s resignation letter and Boris’s reply.
This is the main highlight, wherein the peer mentions his ‘concern about the current direction of travel’, particularly with coronavirus lockdowns. Interestingly, he thinks that Brexit ‘is now secure’:
Although Lord Frost had tendered his resignation the week before, according to the Mail on Sunday, and had agreed to stay on until January, he changed his mind and left Government with immediate effect, after the Mail on Sunday leaked his impending departure a week before. See the end of the first paragraph of his letter below:
The story made the Mail on Sunday‘s front page on December 19. Frost also objected to, quite rightly, to tax hikes and green policies, neither of which is Conservative:
The article clearly worried some Conservative MPs. Sam Coates from Sky News tweeted a bit of their WhatsApp exchange.
Theresa Villiers wrote:
Very worrying that Lord Frost has gone.
Andrew Bridgen replied:
Worrying? It’s a disaster. Lord Frost was concerned about the policy direction of the Gov. So are most of the Conservative backbenchers.
Marcus Fysh said, in part:
Frost is a hero and 100% right on this.
The day he resigned, The Spectator posted the text of Frost’s speech to the Centre for Policy Studies, ‘Britain needs low taxes and no vaccine passports’. Excerpts follow:
We can’t carry on as we were before and if after Brexit all we do is import the European social model we will not succeed. We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the European Union from Britain with Brexit, only to import that European model after all this time …
It is all too easy to get captured by the interest groups and the lobbies. We don’t have time for that. The world is not standing still. No-one owes us a living. Earning one is now fully in our own hands. The formula for success as a country is well known. Low taxes – I agree with the Chancellor, as he said in his Budget speech, our goal must be to reduce taxes.
Light-touch and proportionate regulation, whatever our policy objectives. Free trade – of course – simultaneously increasing consumer choice while reducing consumer costs. Ensuring competition stops complacency – keeping our economy fit and responsive to innovation and progress abroad.
And personal freedom and responsibility. Unavoidably, we have had a lot of state direction and control during the pandemic. That cannot and must not last for ever, and I am glad that it is not. I am very happy that free Britain, or at least merry England, is probably now the free-est country in the world as regards covid restrictions. No mask rules, no vaccine passports – and long may it remain so.
The Mail on Sunday‘s editorial explained why Frost’s departure is a serious blow not only for the UK but also for Boris’s premiership (emphases mine):
Lord Frost, the Brexit Minister, is the opposite of a career politician. He is a distinguished diplomat with a long record of skilled negotiation who gave his talents to Boris Johnson in the hope of getting Brexit done, successfully and to the benefit of this country.
He is a serious and substantial figure, a genuine patriot who believes in Britain …
He transformed the Brexit talks, symbolising a new, unapologetic and frankly patriotic approach by getting our negotiating team to wear Union Flag badges.
His approach was so unlike the feeble and defeatist attitudes of so much previous British contact with the EU that Brussels realised it was for once dealing with serious opponents, with an iron determination to stand up for ourselves …
But his departure is less to do with the continuing problems of sorting out the details of our new relationship with the Continent and more to do with the PM’s conduct of the Covid crisis.
With his usual sharp perception, Lord Frost has decided that he has had enough of the Government’s increasingly European-style approach to the pandemic.
Lord Frost has been among the strongest voices in Cabinet in favour of keeping the country open and for avoiding more legislative controls to deal with the disease. He is believed to have objected in principle to the idea of ‘vaccine passports’. He is also thought to have been disillusioned by the latest resort to regulations.
This is all of a piece with his more general disenchantment with the whole policy direction of the Government in recent months – especially on tax rises and the green-driven preoccupation with the target of ‘net zero’ CO2 emissions.
This view meshes with his public statements, disagreeing with the European-style high- tax high-spend economic model recently embraced by the Chancellor. Lord Frost believes that such a policy, whatever the excuse for it may be, is unlikely to deliver the benefits of Brexit. These are serious objections from a serious man.
Boris Johnson, who understands very well the value of figures such as Lord Frost, needs to heed what he says, and soon. The Covid crisis has caused the Government to wander very far from the principles on which it was so decisively elected. And, while it is easy to read too much into bad by-election results, it would be very unwise for Mr Johnson to brush the North Shropshire defeat aside.
It is because he has failed to deliver what his supporters want that they are now prepared to shift their votes elsewhere. For the moment, protests of this kind are just a warning, as Lord Frost’s departure is a warning.
But if these danger signals go unheeded in the year ahead, the Government will face a much more serious defection and its future could be in real danger.
The Sun‘s article was along the same lines, signposting danger for Boris, who was already sinking in the polls at the time:
Lord Frost’s walk-out will intensify the pressure on Mr Johnson’s faltering leadership — and will be particularly painful as he was his “Brexit brother in arms” …
A Downing Street source said: “This is a proper kick in the balls for Boris and the team.
“Frostie hated the Covid restrictions and higher taxes — but vaccine passports was the final straw.”
The hammer blow came as Boris planned his fightback after his worst week in charge.
Senior allies have told him heads must roll if he is to cling on to power …
Cabinet big guns have said they will stand by the PM.
A source said yesterday: “We all need to pull together. We need the whips to make it clear that there is no other option than to stick with Boris.”
The Spectator said that Frost’s departure was worse for Boris than the recent Shropshire by-election loss, which saw the Liberal Democrats take over a long-standing Conservative constituency:
On December 19, Boris wasted no time in appointing Foreign Secretary Liz Truss as Frost’s replacement:
Guido reported that Truss will be primarily responsible for the Northern Ireland Protocol negotiations and that Chris Heaton-Harris will become her deputy:
The Foreign Secretary is to become lead negotiator with the EU on the Northern Ireland Protocol, following the departure of Lord Frost.
Liz Truss will take over Ministerial responsibility for the UK’s relationship with the European Union with immediate effect.
She will become the UK’s co-chair of the Partnership Council and the Joint Committee, and will lead the ongoing negotiations to resolve the problems arising from the current operation of the Northern Ireland Protocol.
Chris Heaton-Harris will become Minister of State for Europe and will deputise for the Foreign Secretary as necessary on EU Exit and the Protocol.
Nikki da Costa, Former Director of Legislative Affairs at No 10, posted an incisive Twitter thread explaining how hard Lord Frost worked on Brexit negotiations, despite all the obstacles. He remained cool-headed and diplomatic throughout:
At that point, I will add that, having seen the Lords grill Lord Frost when he answered their questions, they gave him a very hard time. Not surprising, when most of them are Remainers, but he really did not need the extra aggravation.
Nikki da Costa concludes:
On December 20, The Spectator took a closer look at what Frost wanted out of negotiations concerning Northern Ireland. Henry Hill, who wrote the article and works for Conservative Home, concluded that the Government didn’t have the nerve to go through with his plans:
Whether Frost speaks out or not, this speaks to a deeper political problem for the government. Frost could only ever be as muscular as Johnson was prepared to allow him. Thus, over the past couple of months, we have gone from a very robust line about triggering Article 16 — the mechanism that allows either side to suspend the Protocol — to the most recent news that actually, maybe the government’s red line about the jurisdiction of the ECJ wasn’t quite so red after all.
According to Dominic Cummings, Frost and his team did have a proper strategy for invoking Article 16 and using it to secure the reforms required to safeguard the integrity of the British state. But they knew the government didn’t have the bottle for it. And following the departure of most of the rest of the Prime Minister’s original Vote Leave team, they were also isolated within government.
Even accepting that Cummings has an axe to grind, that seems perfectly plausible. Johnson’s overall approach to the Union has been wildly erratic. One might plausibly favour either a more conciliatory ‘four nations’ strategy or a more muscular approach to unionism. The government has instead lurched haphazardly between the two.
Boris’s lurching, as the article puts it, seems to be affecting other areas of government policy:
It’s the same story on pretty much every important area where the Tories should be pursuing structural change. Ambitious planning reform has been abandoned. Detailed proposals for reforming the courts have been sidelined in favour of disinterring David Cameron’s ‘British Bill of Rights’. I couldn’t even tell you if this ministry has an education reform policy.
Time and again, Johnson has proven that his ‘fight or flight’ instinct is stuck on ‘flight’. He’s a talented campaigner with an uncommon knack for connecting with voters, at least until recently. But he isn’t going to fight to the last for the things he believes in because neither fighting nor believing things are major parts of his political character.
That day, LBC (radio) interviewed Lord Frost, who said that being a Cabinet minister involves supporting Government policies, something he no longer felt he could do, hence his resignation (H/T Guido):
On January 8, 2022, the Mail reported that Lord Frost supports Boris as Prime Minister but thinks he has the wrong advisers. He also hit out at ‘woke warriors’, stifling public debate. How true — on both counts:
Boris Johnson must reset his Government along traditional Conservative lines if he is to avoid defeat at the next General Election, his former Cabinet Minister Lord Frost warns today.
In his first interview since his sensational resignation as Brexit Minister last month, Lord Frost calls on Mr Johnson to revitalise the country with ‘free markets, free debate and low taxes’ and to ‘set the direction of travel’ to appeal to ordinary voters.
He says that the course change is essential for the party ‘if we’re going to get out of this little trough and win the Election in a couple of years’ time’ …
Lord Frost makes clear he does not want Mr Johnson to stand down, but to change his policies – and the people around him.
‘What I think we need to do is be clearer about the direction of travel, clearer about how we’re going to get there. And I think the PM should trust his instincts a bit more,’ he says, before criticising the No 10 operation.
‘The PM has a right, when he wants something to happen, for the levers that he pulls to actually produce something. And he has the right to the best possible advice around him.
‘So I think there needs to be machinery changes and there probably need to be some different voices around him to make sure that he gets the best possible advice.’
Setting out a manifesto for post-Brexit Britain, Lord Frost says: ‘I think we need to focus on rebuilding the nation and be proud of our history.
‘We need to get the country going economically again and that means free markets, free debate and low taxes. People need to look at this country and think, yes, something is changing here. You’ve got to set the direction of travel …
His intervention comes after Tory MPs were shaken by a poll in last week’s Mail on Sunday showing a Labour lead of 16 per cent in the ‘Red Wall’ seats seized by Mr Johnson in the 2019 Election, which are critical to his chances of winning the next one.
Lord Frost says: ‘I saw the polling and it doesn’t look good. I don’t think the Red Wall is so different to the rest of the country. What people want is their own lives to get better. They want control of their lives and to be prosperous‘ …
‘It isn’t about just, “Is this tax increase justifiable or not?” It’s about the big-picture things we are trying to do and why.’
That includes the ‘policing of people’s opinions’ by ‘woke warriors’ and mounting ‘Twitter pile-ons’ targeting those with opposing opinions.
‘It really worries me it’s becoming difficult to advocate certain positions that have been reasonable in public debate in the past,’ Lord Frost says.
‘All of Western history is about free debate, intellectual inquiry, the ability to take the conclusions where you find them.’
… Despite the many problems afflicting the Government, Lord Frost still believes that Mr Johnson will be Prime Minister this time next year, if he gets ‘the right sort of support’.
Lord Frost refuses to name his preferred successor to Mr Johnson, although he believes that Brexit is safe in the hands of Ms Truss, who has taken over his portfolio …
How would he define ‘Johnsonist Conservatism’?
‘Good question. It’s about a ‘can do’ attitude – he is relentlessly optimistic and positive about this country, which is a good thing, and he’s right to be. I think his fundamental views about the world and politics are good ones.
‘I look back to the speech he gave at party conference in 2018 about tax cuts.
‘That was a good speech and I think we could get back to that.’
Lord Frost expanded on his views in this January 21 interview with Mark Steyn on GB News, which is well worth watching:
With the controversy over Boris’s Downing Street parties still a subject of daily debate, pending civil servant Sue Gray’s report, on January 27, Frost said in The Sun that we should not condemn the Prime Minister until the facts are made available.
I am glad that he brought the PM’s critics’ hatred of Brexit into the mix, because that’s what is really at the heart of the matter:
Sue Gray’s report must be published and judgments must be made.
Her report may provide evidence to condemn the Prime Minister.
Or it may turn out, as so often before, that his critics have allowed their dislike of Brexit, or of Boris Johnson personally, to blind them to the facts.
For my part, I think the Prime Minister of this country should have the right to be believed — unless there is clear contrary evidence.
That is why the Gray report is so important.
MPs will have to draw their own conclusions from it.
On January 31, Lord Frost ruled out a return to Downing Street as an adviser.
The Telegraph‘s political editor tweeted:
Frost had tweeted:
I hope that Boris gets the message. He needs the proper help — and fast.
On Thursday, January 13, 2022, Lord Frost, who resigned as Brexit negotiator last December, gave an interview to The Telegraph in which he accused the UK Government of ‘covid theatre’.
Another reason for his resignation was his disagreement with the Net Zero policy, which most households will not be able to afford:
In the video below, which is subtitled, Lord Frost why he objects to the most restrictive of the Government’s coronavirus policies — lockdowns, masks, working from home and vaccine passports:
Good on him for objecting to what he described last month as Boris’s ‘direction of travel’. Many Conservatives agree but were sorry to see him go. He was a doughty negotiator, although Northern Ireland is still a sticking point with the EU.
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has been appointed as Lord Frost’s replacement, adding Brexit negotiations to her long list of responsibilities.
Tomorrow’s post will feature a UK coronavirus roundup.
Last week at this time, Prime Minister Boris Johnson was preparing for the G7 summit at Carbis Bay in Cornwall.
Prior to that, meetings between G7 foreign ministers and finance ministers took place earlier in London.
This is the family photo of the foreign ministers from their meeting in May. The eighth man is an EU representative:
One of the outcomes of the finance ministers’ meetings in early June was a tax on profits from the largest multinational tech giants, to be continued when the G20 meet in July:
Joe Biden
It was amazing to see Joe Biden last the full course of the G7, especially without Kamala Harris hovering over him:
I am still puzzling over this photo of Dr Jill prepping for the G7 and the text ‘United States government official’. She is the First Lady, not a government official:
Joe Biden successfully triggered a post-Brexit storm around the EU trading arrangements with Northern Ireland, which are crucial to maintaining the peace agreement between that part of the UK and the Republic of Ireland:
Biden’s opinion is important, because the UK wants to make a trade deal with the US, which would have been much easier were President Trump still in the White House:
Nigel Farage rightly tweeted:
The sad truth is that no one in government cares about Trump. Boris has made it pretty clear in Parliament that he prefers dealing with Biden.
On Thursday, June 10, the US and the UK signed The New Atlantic Charter to promote common interests between the two nations, including technology, health pandemics and climate change.
The original Atlantic Charter was signed by Winston Churchill and Franklin D Roosevelt in 1941.
This new charter is hardly as ground breaking as the original.
The Daily Mail reported:
The major focus of Mr Johnson and Mr Biden’s new charter is defeating the coronavirus crisis and preventing further global health crises.
To achieve these goals, the two men agreed to ‘scale up joint work on genomic sequencing and variant assessments’ and to work together on a new global surveillance system.
This will see the UK Health Security Agency’s new Centre for Pandemic Preparedness establishing a working relationship with its US counterpart, the proposed National Center for Epidemic Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics.
The new charter states: ‘We recognise the catastrophic impact of health crises, and the global good in strengthening our collective defences against health threats.
‘We commit to continuing to collaborate to strengthen health systems and advance our health protections, and to assist others to do the same.
Mr Johnson said: ‘While Churchill and Roosevelt faced the question of how to help the world recover following a devastating war, today we have to reckon with a very different but no less intimidating challenge – how to build back better from the coronavirus pandemic.’
While the men met, Carrie Johnson, young Wilfred Johnson and Jill Biden took a walk along the beach. That evening, the Bidens enjoyed a drink at the Tregenna Castle Hotel in St. Ives.
On Sunday, June 13, the Bidens left Cornwall and were guests of the Queen at Windsor Castle where they enjoyed tea together. The Express has more.
On Monday and Tuesday, Biden met with NATO leaders and held a private meeting with the president of Turkey, Tayyip Erdogan.
The Bidens flew to Geneva on Tuesday night. On Wednesday, Biden met with Vladimir Putin in Geneva.
Sausage war
On the topic of Biden’s beef over Northern Ireland, he wants the UK to move closer to the EU and had the diplomat at the American Embassy in London issue Boris with a démarche, a reprimand normally reserved for enemy nations.
On Wednesday, June 9, the Telegraph reported:
Joe Biden ordered US officials to rebuke Boris Johnson for jeopardising the peace process in Northern Ireland due to its stand-off with the European Union, it emerged on Wednesday night.
In a significant diplomatic intervention which now threatens to overshadow the G7 summit in Cornwall, America’s most senior diplomat in Britain told the Brexit minister Lord Frost that the UK’s stance on the Northern Ireland Protocol was “inflaming” tensions in Ireland and Europe.
Yael Lempert is said to have issued Lord Frost with a demarche – a formal diplomatic reprimand – at a meeting on June 3 in London, during which she relayed to him the US President’s “great concern” over the UK’s approach to the protocol, which was established to prevent a hard Irish border.
The protocol is causing difficulty in shipping sausages, hence ‘sausage war’. You could not make this up.
Lord David Frost is attempting to negotiate with the EU:
During “frank” discussions in London, the Brexit minister Lord Frost said he would not rule out acting unilaterally to prevent a ban on the sale of British sausages in the province from coming into force at the end of the month.
It came despite Maros Sefcovic, the European Commission vice-president, warning that the EU could ultimately suspend parts of the Brexit trade deal and hit British products with tariffs should the UK choose to extend the grace period on chilled meats.
In a clear show of defiance, one insider involved in the joint committee that oversees the Northern Ireland Protocol told The Telegraph: “David very clearly said he wasn’t taking that off the table.”
Lord Frost also rebuffed EU calls for the UK to solve the row by signing up to a Swiss-style veterinary agreement which would require it to follow the bloc’s food safety rules as they change over time in a process known as “dynamic alignment”.
Over the years, British food and veterinary standards have become more strict than those of the EU, so it is no surprise that Lord Frost is sticking to his guns.
The démarche from the United States upset the DUP leader in Northern Ireland — Edwin Poots — and some Conservative MPs in Westminster.
On Thursday, June 10, the Daily Mail reported:
New DUP leader Edwin Poots laid into Joe Biden today after the US president intervened in Northern Ireland politics with a rebuke for Boris Johnson over the EU ‘sausage war’.
Hardliner Mr Poots accused the Democrat of trying to drive ‘a coach and horses through the Good Friday Agreement’ that guarantees sectarian peace in Northern Ireland.
The US President instead used his diplomats to express ‘great concern’ over the conflict centred on post-Brexit trade rules agreed last year by both sides, which the UK is now seeking to change, the Times reported today.
The UK is now at loggerheads with the EU over rules governing the import of chilled goods like sausages into Ulster under the Northern Ireland Protocol agreed six months ago.
The US is said to have issued a ‘demarche’ to Britain, an official diplomatic censure not normally used against allies, especially those as close as the two nations.
The United States was said to have ‘strongly urged’ Britain to ‘stay cool’ and reach an agreement, even if that meant making ‘unpopular compromises’.
The White House tried to row back from the row today, insisting the bust-up had been overplayed, but not before the president was branded ‘senile’ by a Tory Brexiteer …
… an anonymous Tory MP told Politico: ‘America should remember who their allies are… unfortunately he’s (Biden) so senile that he probably won’t remember what we tell him anyway.
‘Unless an aide is listening I’m not sure he’s going to remember for very long.’
The Express had more from anonymous Conservative MPs:
One told Express.co.uk: “The cognitive decline of the American President appears to mirror the decline of the special relationship.
“I don’t actually believe this is Biden doing this.
“He’s lost the plot again. Somebody is pulling his strings because he’s senile and just hasn’t got it – if he ever had it.”
Another angry Conservative told this website the US was picking fights with the wrong people.
They said the Biden administration had issued a rebuke to the UK, one of America’s oldest allies, quicker than it had taken action against Iran or China.
“He’s talking to the wrong people on this one I’m afraid,” the MP said.
The Gateway Pundit picked up on the story:
Joe Biden’s first trip abroad is turning into an utter disaster as the senile sock puppet offends our closest allies and endangers the peace process in Northern Ireland with his incompetent dementia …
On June 10, the Prime Minister and Biden met privately at St Michael’s Mount, a 17th-century castle on an island just off the coast of Cornwall.
The Daily Mail reported that Boris downplayed the disagreement:
Boris Johnson tonight insisted Joe Biden did not rebuke him over the Northern Ireland situation during their first face-to-face talks – as the White House tried to cool a furious row.
The PM revealed that the US president avoided reading the riot act over the Brexit standoff when they met in Cornwall this afternoon.
But he said there is ‘common ground’ between the UK, America and the EU that solutions must be found to the Northern Ireland protocol issues.
The Express quoted him as saying:
So it’s a relationship, you can call it the ‘deep and meaningful relationship’, whatever you want, the ‘indestructible relationship’.
It’s a relationship that has endured for a very long time, and has been an important part of peace and prosperity in Europe and around the world.
Emmanuel Macron’s gaffe
Emmanuel Macron ruffled British feathers when he said that Northern Ireland was not part of the United Kingdom.
The Express reported on Macron’s reaction to the sausage war:
Britain has been left frustrated by the EU’s implementation of the mechanism, warning excessive customs checks are having a detrimental impact on trade between Britain and Northern Ireland.
During talks with Mr Macron at the G7 summit, Boris Johnson tried to explain the problems with the Protocol, comparing it to the hypothetical introduction of checks on goods between Toulouse and Paris.
Mr Macron responded by saying there was a difference because Northern Ireland is a separate country to the rest of the UK.
The comments enraged Boris Johnson and led to Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab blasting the EU for a lack of “respect”.
According to the newspaper, Macron also threatened a reset of British and French relations:
Emmanuel Macron was among the leaders who visited Cornwall this week for the G7 summit. Mr Macron told Prime Minister Boris Johnson the two countries had common interests, but ties could only improve if he kept his word on Brexit. One source told the Guardian: “The president told Boris Johnson there needed to be a reset of the Franco-British relationship. This can happen provided that he keeps his word with the Europeans.”
Meanwhile, Carrie Johnson took Brigitte Macron and Jill Biden to a performance at the Minack Theatre. Mrs Macron wore espadrilles.
The Queen’s reception
On Friday, June 11, the Queen held a reception at the futuristic green Eden Project for G7 leaders and their spouses. Prince Charles (pictured) and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge also attended:
A family photo was taken, where the Queen cracked a joke:
She also hosted G7 leaders in 1977. Among them was Justin Trudeau’s father, Pierre, on the far left in the photo below. Valery Giscard d’Estaing and the Queen engaged in conversation. It is unclear why the Queen Mother and Jimmy Carter were holding hands:
Other members of the Royal Family also attended this year’s reception.
The Queen has met nearly every US president since Dwight D Eisenhower. The only one she never met was Lyndon B Johnson.
The Duchess of Cambridge took Jill Biden for a visit to Connor Downs Academy, a primary school in Hayle:
Jill Biden revealed that she knows Prince Harry well, thanks to the Invictus Games.
In a separate event, the Duchesses of Cambridge and Cornwall accompanied the Queen to an event in St Austell, where the monarch cut a cake with a ceremonial sword. This video is a must:
Lighter moments
The G7 security costs were eye-watering:
In addition, the Daily Mail reported that the Royal Navy’s giant new aircraft carrier sailed past the summit venue where the G7 leaders are staying to prove Britain’s power.
A beach party was held on Saturday, June 12. The weather was good:
The G7 family photo this year was socially distanced because of coronavirus:
Elbow bumps replaced handshakes:
However, social distancing disappeared for the flypast by the Red Arrows:
Conclusion
The G7 summit ended on Sunday, June 13.
The French tried to clarify Macron’s remark about Northern Ireland:
Boris announced that the UK would build back better in a ‘gender neutral’, possibly even ‘more feminine’, way.
The nations’ leaders also agreed to counter China’s belt and road policy:
Meanwhile, the sausage war rages on.
The next big British event will be COP26, to be held in Glasgow in November 2021.
80 seat majority
1: Thousands of illegals being transported across the channel and housed in 4* hotels.
2: Petrol prices through the roof and unexploited known reserves in the North Sea
3: Hundreds of years of coal under our feet, coal fired power stations demolished
4: Fracking abandoned yet we could easily extract sufficient gas for our needs
5: Brexit Done! You’re having a laugh
6: Net zero! The future is frightening
Etcetera, Etcetera, Etcetera
Guido, thanks for the Muppet Show extract.
I couldn’t agree more.
The story continues. More to follow next week, no doubt.