Latest news with #BorisJohnson
Irish Independent
6 hours ago
- Politics
- Irish Independent
Declan Lynch: Donald Trump is trapped in a mix of Groundhog Day and Seinfeld, but nobody's laughing
One of the unintended consequences of the Covid pandemic is that we were given an extended masterclass in the dark arts of the post-truth populists. Donald Trump — and indeed Boris Johnson in his own reckless way — were constantly engaged in a game of promoting public health measures while also, with a nod and a wink, undermining them.
Telegraph
18 hours ago
- Business
- Telegraph
Boris Johnson: I'm sad about lack of British interest in Ukraine
Boris Johnson has said he is 'quite sad' about a lack of British interest in Ukraine, adding that speaking up for it was his number one priority. At an event for Ukrainian veterans at the country's London embassy this week, the former prime minister told The Telegraph: 'The interest in Ukraine and the appetite is so low nowadays. I find it quite sad. 'I mean, it sort of comes and goes, but it's number one for me. Number one.' Asked about how he evaluated his successors as Tory leader and prime minister on Ukraine, Mr Johnson said: 'Britain continues to be very important in this. But if you talk to some of my Ukrainian friends, they'll say that perhaps we're not in quite the leadership, the thought leadership, role that we were.' 'There are a lot of domestic issues that are very difficult right now, and you can see why they're distracted, but I think this is a big opportunity for Britain.' On a potential return to frontline politics, Mr Johnson added: 'I don't see any immediate way I can be particularly useful in British politics right now. But I think I can continue to talk about Ukraine.' Mr Johnson met Ukrainian veterans at the embassy event, organised by DTEK, the largest private investor in Ukraine's energy sector. He was greeted with applause by the group, some of whom had been tortured after capture. Asking about the soldiers' itinerary on their visit to Britain he said: 'I invited you to my pub in Somerset, but understandably that was too far.' One of the trip's organisers told him 'there is also a cultural programme' for the soldiers to learn about Britain, to which the former PM responded 'that's the pub', provoking laughter from the crowd. He is calling for European governments to seize the $300 billion of Russian assets frozen in Europe and send them to Ukraine, describing this as 'a down payment from Russia to Ukraine on the reparations that Russia will inevitably have to pay one day for what it has done'. Mr Johnson claimed Donald Trump, the US president, was in favour of such a move, despite concerns that it could spook international investors. 'This is an idea that is attractive to Donald Trump. He would like to do it, but the Europeans need to step up,' he added. It comes after Mr Johnson had said the best way for the Tories to counter Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, was to ignore him. He repeated that call on Friday, saying: 'If you've got a problem with a political doppelganger, don't talk about them. That's my strong advice. What voters want to hear is what we're doing, what we Tories are offering for them, whether they're 16 or 102. They want to know what the Tory plans are.' The most recent survey of voting intention by YouGov put Reform on 26 per cent, Labour on 24 per cent, and the Conservatives on 17. Speaking days after Sir Keir Starmer announced plans to give the vote to 16-year-olds, Mr Johnson said there was 'no reason why they shouldn't be persuaded to vote Tory at all'. Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leader, has said she would focus on rebuilding the trust of voters before developing a comprehensive set of policies for the party's next election manifesto. Earlier this year she launched the Policy Renewal Programme and ditched the Conservatives' previous commitment to Net Zero by 2050 – a key pledge of Mr Johnson's Government. On the news this week of the Afghanistan data leak under the Conservatives, Mr Johnson said it was 'absolutely right' to protect Afghans at risk of repercussions from the Taliban. 'I knew nothing about this,' he said of the leak and subsequent super-injunction. 'I think it is, in principle, absolutely right to protect those who have helped our country, at great risk to their own lives and the lives of their families. I think it's absolutely right to try to do that.' Of the unprecedented super-injunction, which prevented journalists from reporting on the story or acknowledging the existence of the gagging order itself, Mr Johnson added: 'My first instinct would have been to use the D-notice process, but I don't know what the legal advice was.'
Sky News
a day ago
- Politics
- Sky News
Former Metropolitan Police commissioner Lord Ian Blair has died
Former Metropolitan Police commissioner Lord Ian Blair has died aged 72. Lord Blair led the force for three years between 2005 and 2008 and was in charge during the 7/7 London bombings. The 20th anniversary of the 2005 attack, which killed 52 people, was on Monday. The Met's response notoriously included the shooting dead of an innocent man, Jean Charles de Menezes, at Stockwell Tube station two weeks later. He was killed under the mistaken belief he was a suicide bomber. False details about how he acted were put out by the Met, insinuating the Brazilian was in some way responsible for what happened. Lord Blair repeated those details and was later accused of a cover-up and obstructing inquiries into the incident. Sky News crime correspondent Martin Brunt said "it effectively blighted his time as commissioner" and that "history will probably judge him quite harshly". "But there were good things," he added. "[Lord Blair] took hold of the Met and forged a much better relationship with MI5 in the wake of the 7/7 bombings. "Some of his big things were diversity and he reformed the way the Met recruited - people from ethnic communities. "He was a big supporter of neighbourhood policing. Although that, over the years, dwindled due to a lack of funding. But it's more or less the model police forces across Britain are reintroducing." Lord Blair quit his role in 2008 after saying he didn't have the confidence of then-mayor Boris Johnson. Viewed as a liberal figure, he was sometimes jokingly referred to as "PC Blair" by other officers. He joined the police in the 1970s and served with other forces before joining the Met. His early work as a detective in London included investigating the fatal 1987 King's Cross fire. Senior positions for the Thames Valley and Surrey forces followed before he returned to the capital as deputy commissioner - and then the top job. Lord Blair was a crossbench peer and was active in the House of Lords right up until his death.
Scotsman
a day ago
- Politics
- Scotsman
Former defence secretary adept at keeping head down under fire
Former Tory defence secretary Sir Ben Wallace who has said he makes 'no apology' for applying for an injunction blocking reporting about the leak of data on Afghans who supported British forces. Thousands of people are being relocated to the UK as part of a secret £850 million scheme set up after the breach (Picture: James Manning/PA Wire) The big story of the week has been the High Court lifting the super-injunction which suppressed press coverage of a Ministry of Defence leak of Afghan refugees' personal details. Sign up to our daily newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to Edinburgh News, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... This is only the latest scandal to have hit the UK's botched withdrawal from Kabul in 2021. The first scandal was the withdrawal itself. Thousands of Afghans who had worked for the UK military and whose lives were therefore under threat from the Taliban were left stranded on the tarmac at Kabul Airport while the family pets of British staff were airlifted out. We now discover that some of them are still in Afghanistan four years later. All of this happened in Boris Johnson's time in Downing Street. I assume he really couldn't have cared less what happened to those left behind and didn't give a toss about the cats and dogs either. The foreign secretary Dominic Raab didn't even bother coming back from holiday. Raab was a typical member of Boris Johnson's inner circle; faceless, utterly forgettable and completely incompetent. He did not even have the air of a government minister. He looked like he should have been the manager of a branch of the Carphone Warehouse in Slough. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Six months later, in February 2022, a spreadsheet containing the personal details of 19,000 Afghans was released 'in error', putting the lives of a further 100,000 at risk. The government's response, we now learn, was to to organise a massive cover-up to save their own necks, going as far as taking out a super-injunction to prevent the story even being mentioned in the press. The defence secretary at the time of the affair, Ben Wallace, said he took 'full responsibility' for the leak but offered no apology for the use of the super-injunction, claiming it was done to not 'put in peril those we need to help out'. I suspect he did it because he saw his own career was 'in peril', and he succeeded, as he stayed in the job for another year and served under Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak. Not many others escaped the night of the long knives when Liz the Lettuce started her 46-day reign of incompetent zealotry. As a former army officer, he was clearly skilled at keeping his head down when under fire. Being ex-military, he was at least qualified to be defence secretary, unlike his successor Grant Schapps who held a whole raft of posts in government, in which he was invariably well out of his depth. As a side hustle, he ran a series of get-rich-quick schemes under a variety of assumed names. As faceless as Raab, but with an added air of shiftiness, I would never have bought a second-car off the bloke, let alone left him in charge of the armed forces. In other words, exactly the sort of safe pair of hands needed to be in charge of keeping this whole scandal under wraps. Now the super-injunction has been lifted, the whole mess is left for the current government to clear up. Keir Starmer has hardly been a glowing success in his first year in office. However, in comparison to Johnson and his self-serving cronies, he appears to be the embodiment of integrity.
Telegraph
2 days ago
- Politics
- Telegraph
President Starmer? PM to beef up Downing Street to get a grip on chaos
Sir Keir Starmer is looking at creating a new 'Department for Downing Street' in an attempt to stop dysfunction at the centre of government. The shake-up would see a senior civil servant appointed to a lead role and scores of other officials drafted in, strengthening the Prime Minister's ability to drive through change in Whitehall. Interest in the idea reflects both disillusionment in Number 10 about the existing government machine and recent high-profile setbacks such as the welfare cuts U-turn. The idea opens up Sir Keir – who has nothing like the staff support enjoyed by the US president – to the charge of a 'presidential' land grab. Boris Johnson launched a similar move with his own attempted ' reset ' as Tory MPs tried to oust him in 2022, but the changes were killed off when he was forced from office. A Whitehall organisational shake-up forms part of a wider 'reset' being mulled over in Downing Street after a year in office and a bruising welfare cuts rebellion. When and how to reshuffle ministers in an attempt to better deliver on Sir Keir's priorities, and potential personnel changes in Number 10 are also believed to be under consideration. Work being done by a think tank closely aligned with Downing Street has become a point of interest among Sir Keir's allies as they consider how to improve things before the autumn. The Future Governance Forum was founded by Nathan Yeowell, a friend of Morgan McSweeney, Sir Keir's chief of staff who will play a key role in deciding any overhaul. The think tank, while non-partisan, has done work which informed Labour on the transition into power and how to deliver 'mission-driven government' – the approach Sir Keir has vowed to adopt in office. In recent weeks there is understood to have been particular interest from Downing Street insiders in a months-long series of work being run by the foundation called 'in power'. It is being headed up by Helen MacNamara, a former civil servant who rose to deputy cabinet secretary before leaving government in 2021 after tensions on how to tackle Covid in Mr Johnson's team. Hundreds of former government figures of all political stripes and none have been interviewed for the project, the outcomes of which will be published later in the summer. Its core recommendation is expected to be that a Department for Downing Street is established, a proposal that sources say is being actively considered inside Sir Keir's close team. 'There is a deafening consensus that the PM will be better served with a department,' said one source familiar with the foundation's work. 'It is quite hard to find someone who has worked in No10 who thinks it is set up brilliantly.' Complaints that Downing Street is ill-equipped to support the demands of a 21st century prime minister have been voiced for many years from Tories and Labour figures alike. The White House brings together hundreds of officials, including two standalone bodies advising on economic policy and national security, to help the US president make decisions. By comparison, Number 10 brings together a collection of a few dozen political advisers and a civil service team that is less senior than is found in other great offices of state. Much of the influence of the prime minister is wielded through the Cabinet Office, a department whose exact role is reshaped by every incumbent and can often be left ill-defined. Creating a 'Department of Downing Street' would likely see the appointment, as with other departments, of a senior civil servant to the role of permanent secretary. How Sir Chris Wormald, the recently appointed Cabinet Secretary – the country's most senior civil servant – would fit in this new system would be closely watched. He has been the source of some critical anonymous briefings from inside Number 10 that have made the newspapers – mutterings waved away by many in Downing Street. Mr Johnson announced a new 'Office of the Prime Minister' in January 2022 as he was attempting to stabilise his premiership after revelations of Covid lockdown breaches dubbed 'partygate'. Samantha Jones, a health official who had helped counter the Covid pandemic from inside the government, was announced the following month as the unit's new permanent secretary. But five months later Mr Johnson was forced from office by his own MPs and the restructuring of Downing Street was quietly dropped. If the Prime Minister does end up adopting and announcing a Downing Street Department, the idea could well be panned as window-dressing by his political opponents. A Reform source said: 'This sounds like an attempt by Starmer to become more presidential, but he has no real power left after multiple U-turns. Beefing up Downing Street won't solve his problems.'
