Tories will be watching closely as pollster More in Common delivers its detailed post-election briefing. Some hypothetical alternative Conservative leaders were polled for…
Interestingly a Jenrick leadership puts the Tories back by one point. Sighs of relief in LOTO there…
A hypothetical Boris return would see one in five Reform voters come back to the Tories according to the pollster. Dragging Nigel’s outfit back down to 23 points…
YouGov has released polling of 2,216 adults from 16-17 February which cements just how badly Starmer is going down now he is ensconced in No 10. All the Lobby hacks who cry “Boris” whenever Keir’s record comes up should take note…
Setting aside the usual rose-tinted goggles which explain Blair, Thatcher, and Brown’s massive leads over Starmer it is striking that Sunak and Boris beat the current PM on the question of who is better. Liz Truss is not doing so well at 13 versus Starmer’s 43. Buyer’s remorse in full effect…
Back before Christmas Starmer claimed at PMQs that Boris and Sunak had Covid “convictions.” A falsehood seeing as a Fixed Penalty Notice does not a criminal conviction make, which the former DPP would be expected to know…
Boris made clear that the PM had misled the house, telling Guido the same, and called for him to retract that claim. This has now finally been done, in the quietest way possible, by Starmer’s key ministerial outrider…
Cabinet Office minister Georgia Gould now retracts the claim on Starmer’s behalf in a parliamentary written answer to Richard Holden:
“My Rt Hon Friend the Prime Minister was referring to the Fixed Penalty Notices received by two former Prime Ministers for breaking COVID lockdown rules. The Prime Minister is happy to clarify that a Fixed Penalty Notice does not constitute a criminal conviction. He stands by the relevance of raising to the attention of the House that two former Conservative Prime Ministers were fined by the police for breaking the COVID rules that they put in place for others.”
Under usual form Starmer would have to make this retraction verbally in the Commons, the Tories (whether they back Boris, Rishi or neither) should have asked for it at the time…
Starmer splashed £80,000 of taxpayers’ cash to scrub out Tory blue from the press briefing room, branding it a “politically neutral setting.” Fittingly, the PM chose the blandest option: grey…
Guido recalls the sanctimonious outrage from Labour when Boris Johnson’s government converted the space into a TV briefing room costing £2.6 million. At the time, Labour said it reflected “Boris Johnson’s warped priorities” including it in its 2023 “money wasted” by the Tories dossier. A Labour source lamented to The Guardian – which, surprise, surprise, is remaining silent on the latest refurb now – that they “feel the Conservatives have wasted [taxpayer] money yet again at a time when there’s apparently no money for a pay rise for nurses”. Angela Rayner bemoaned “[Boris] can find millions for vanity projects, while picking the pockets of NHS workers.” Labour whitewashing the walls as well as the news…
Keir claimed in PMQs that two of Kemi’s predecessors “had convictions for breaking the Covid rules.” As Guido explained this is not true – Fixed Penalty Notices are not criminal convictions…
Now Boris – one of those Keir accused of having a criminal record – has spoken. He tells Guido:
“The Prime Minister has clearly misled the House and should correct the record today.”
Quite a serious falsehood for Starmer to have committed…
Starmer tried to kick away Badenoch’s attack on Haigh by saying: “I gently remind her that two of her predecessors had convictions for breaking the Covid rules.” Wrong…
The PM may need to find himself correcting the record. Boris and Sunak only got Fixed Penalty Notices. As anyone with experience of them would know, they are not convictions. RAC helpfully explains:
“A fixed penalty is issued by the police for minor offences and isn’t classed as a criminal conviction. If you pay the fine on time, that’s the end of the matter and all liability for the offence is discharged. It will not form part of a criminal record.”
As a former DPP Starmer might be expected to know the difference. Will he correct himself?
Speaking on Times Radio, former Home Secretary David Blunkett spoke about overdiagnosis of mental problems:
“Let’s distinguish those who are really severely mentally ill, diagnosed with things that require prolonged medical and diagnostic treatment. My wife and I talk about this a lot, because she’s a retired GP, about the fact that you can be sad without being ill. You can be momentarily depressed because your boyfriend or girlfriend’s just thrown you and you’re not mentally ill. You can even have mild issues, which can be dealt with with the right kind of support, but it doesn’t make you mentally ill. So we’ve got a real task, I think, to get the psychology, if you like, of this over. But there are things where you definitely need medical intervention, and there are other things where you need good friends, you need good connectivity, and you need a job.”
