Tories of all tribes are up in arms over a new Labour party political broadcast which makes wildly untrue claims about BoJo. The video spins tired untruths over Labour’s partygate wheeze, which was of course hysterically amplified by The Guardian and BBC. A “foster carer” called “Jon” claims that while the Queen was mourning for Prince Philip on her own, Boris was partying in Downing Street. False…
Boris was, of course, at Chequers, where he observed a minute’s silence, and was pictured doing so at the time. As was extensively covered in the Sue Gray Inquiry and the Covid Public Inquiry, it has been established he was nowhere near and indeed unaware of the event. Not like Labour to let the facts get in the way of some election propaganda…
Rayner delivered a good attack on Dowden at PMQs.
“I read with interest that the Right Honorable gentleman has been urging his neighbour in No 10 to call an election because he’s worried they might get wiped out. Has he finally realised that when he stabbed Boris Johnson in the back to get his man into No 10 he was ditching their biggest election winner for a pint-sized loser?“
Ouch…
Cameron throws shade on Boris…
“I have not been sitting like some latter day de Gaulle … waiting to be asked, how should I put it, to ‘take back control’. Nor am I Cincinnatus, hovering over my plough. I leave all classical allusions, and indeed illusions for that matter, to another former prime minister with whom I shared a number of educational experiences”.
Boris appeared at the right-wing Canada Strong and Free Network last night, at which he gave an impassioned defence of the need to keep supporting Ukraine in its struggle against Russia. Boris succinctly specified the cause that brings freedom-lovers together:
“The difference between us conservatives and our opponents is that every time their instinct are always about control, expropriation, coercion – about taking your money and spending it on your behalf, and regulating your lives. We on the whole are in favour of freedom. It’s that single Anglo-Saxon idea of freedom that should unite conservatives.“
Boris had a few things to say about “absolutely nuts” decisions by so-called Conservatives at home: “We’re banning cigars? What is the point? The party of Winston Churchill wants to ban cigars. Donnez moi un break, as they say in Quebec. It’s just mad.” More than a few Tory MPs are in strong agreement on that one…
An interesting nugget of skullduggery was unearthed by the Mail’s Martin Beckford yesterday, who examined the House of Lords report into the conduct of Lord Geidt. Co-conspirators will remember Geidt as the establishment standards supremo who – eager to demonstrate how beyond reproach he is – flounced out of Boris Johnson’s government after agreeing to advise it on standards. A resignation covered breathlessly by the media pack…
As it turns out, the report reveals that during Lord Geidt’s investigation into the No 10 flat, he was simultaneously working as an adviser to Theia group, which wanted to sell the MOD satellite technology. Just two days before Geidt published his report into the flat, he conducted a meeting with officials on behalf of Theia. The committee has now found his conduct in that meeting was a breach of Lords rules…
While the left and Johnson’s Tory critics raged over flatgate and canonized Geidt for his role, he was working as the Independent Adviser on Ministerial Interests while simultaneously working as a paid advisor to a defence company seeking government work. Who will independently advise the independent advisers…
An op ed popped up in The Times this morning by Angela Rayner and Keir Starmer praising Boris Johnson no less – and endorsing his flagship policy of levelling up. It’s certainly a change of tune. Rayner previously slammed Boris as a ‘pound shop Trump’ while Starmer said he ‘loathed’ the former Tory leader…
Labour’s top team write:
“The Tories started to understand this with the levelling-up white paper. Much of the analysis in it was good. And there were parts that talked a good game about how Britain needed to build up all parts of the country. But the policy was killed at birth by the then chancellor, Rishi Sunak, who refused to back it…“
It’s an accusation that Johnson himself has made against Sunak, who repeatedly blocked spending plans for the north of England, and who was caught on camera at a Tory event boasting that he had “undone” plans which “shoved all the funding into deprived urban areas”. It looks like Labour’s blueprint to regain the red wall will be a copy and paste job of the 2019 Tory plan…
