Boris Johnson
A rather pointless PMQs lets Boris off the hook
Given the extraordinarily low expectations, Prime Minister’s Questions went reasonably well for Boris Johnson today. That is partly because it…
Where next for ‘party Marty’?
Westminster is gearing up for ‘Sue Gray week’ as the top civil servant is due to finally release her long-awaited…
Downflood: the Good Ship Boris is sinking
In Sebastian Junger’s book The Perfect Storm, there’s a near-matchless description of how big boats go to the bottom. ‘The crisis…
The Spectator’s Notes
In May 2020, in the wake of the Barnard Castle story, Emily Maitlis delivered her famous Newsnight address to the…
Meat of the matter
Are you ready for ‘Operation Red Meat’? If not, then you should brace yourself. For it looks set to be…
Untenable
‘Nurse! The tenaculum!’ exclaimed my husband in the manner of James Robertson Justice playing the surgeon Sir Lancelot Spratt. I’m…
Neville’s advocate
Nigel Jones talks to the writer Robert Harris about Blair, Johnson and Polanski, cancel culture and his quest to rehabilitate Neville Chamberlain
After Omicron
Covid-19 is in decline in Britain, with Omicron cases now falling as fast as they rose. The booster programme —…
The fate of the French Socialists is a warning for Boris Johnson
The defection of Christian Wakeford to Labour has put a spring in the step of the left-wing party. Apparently it…
Did Johnson mislead the Commons?
Boris Johnson had hoped to move attention this week from parties — with a series of policy announcements planned as part of…
Boris’s biggest mistake was taking his allies for granted
It is often said that there are few convinced ‘Boris-ites’ to be found among the ranks of Conservative MPs and…
The truth about that No. 10 party
People seem surprised and a little doubting that the Prime Minister is incapable of remembering if he attended a party…
Dishonest mistakes
On 20 May 2020, the Metropolitan Police issued a statement on social media which summed up the conditions in the…
After Boris, who?
Even Boris Johnson’s longest-standing supporters now think he might be on the way out. His admission that he attended a Downing…
Why Boris might still survive
Haunted. Ashen. Defeated. That’s how the PM looked in parliament this afternoon as he faced the flamethrowers of the opposition.…
Boris Johnson is running out of road
There has been no good news for Boris Johnson today. After an email leaked on Monday evening showing that the Prime…
How long until we tire of Boris?
The brilliant but troubled footballer Mario Balotelli once scored a goal in a Manchester derby match and then lifted up…
The unfathomable inadequacy of Boris Johnson
There is no room for wriggling here and not just because multiple witnesses put Boris Johnson and his wife at…
Get ready to start paying the cost of Covid
Forget the desirability (or lack thereof) of tax hikes: can Britain survive them? That’s the economic question that kicked off…
Does Boris believe in Brexit?
For once, yesterday’s Downing Street press conference included a worthwhile question, and not of the ‘why aren’t you locking us…
Boris Johnson rejects lockdown (again)
Boris Johnson latest Covid press conference was slightly confusing. The Prime Minister spent nearly an hour saying nothing particularly new.…
Boris Johnson’s friendship problem
Boris Johnson is hoping that his MPs have calmed down over the Christmas break and that this term will be…
Boris Johnson’s coalition of voters is falling apart
Boris Johnson enters the third year of his premiership in a much weaker position than when he started it. Alongside…
Banana republic Britain and the curse of reverse exceptionalism
A day did not go by on social media in 2021 without some high-profile performative outrage about Boris Johnson and…
Braverman’s brush with the law
Ah student politics: is there anything quite like it? The strange creatures it attracts, the passions it unleashes, the adolescent…
