No. 10 treated us to some great Top Gun-esque photos of Boris in his Typhoon outfit over the weekend, after a visit to RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire. Just this morning we also got footage of Boris on manoeuvres…
Also at the weekend, the PM held a well-timed BBQ at sunny Chequers, which unlike his belated wedding party, managed to avoid being scuppered by a relentless media onslaught. According to Politico, 130 people ate burgers and sipped sparkling wine in the sun. Among the guest list were the remaining Cabinet loyalists, No. 10 aides and Dilyn the Dog. Chequers staff may be happy to see the back of him after numerous stories about Dilyn gnawing on antique furniture…
Boris’s tubthumping valedictory speech went down a treat, with one of the best received gags celebrating his successful fibre optic broadband rollout:
“Not only has it delivered incredible choice for consumers in the way in which we consume content but farmers in tractors up and down the land can watch whatever they like at any time of day to their hearts content…”
Followed by an obvious dig at Rishi:
“we flung that eager craft through footless halls of air and generally put it through its paces and after a while the wing commander said to me do you want to have a go? I said are you sure, it seems very expensive – we only have 148 of them and they cost about £75 million.
He said don’t worry, you can’t break it and I thought ‘oh well famous last words’.
I pushed the joystick right over to the right and we did an aileron roll and then I hauled the joystick right the way back and we did a loop the loop and then I tried a more complicated thing called a barrel roll and we started as they say to pull a few Gs and when I came back to consciousness I could see the sea getting closer and closer”
“And I want you to know that after 3 happy years in the cockpit and after performing some pretty difficult if not astonishing feats: getting Brexit done and restoring this country’s ability to make its own laws in parliament; vaccinating the population faster than any other comparable country; and ensuring the fastest growth in the G7; and being the first European country to give the Ukrainians the vital military help they need see off Putin’s aggression; cutting neighbourhood crime by 31%; lowest unemployment for almost 50 years; gigabit broadband from 7 to 69%; I am about to hand the controls over seamlessly to someone else.
“But whoever it is I can tell you the twin engines of this conservative government will roar on fantastic public services, dynamic market economy, each boosting the other and there could be no better example of that relationship that symbiosis between government and the private sector than the aviation industry and if you want a final example of this government’s ambition I give you not just FCAS or Jet Zero but space flight
This year if all goes well we will launch the first UK satellite in history to enter space from UK soil as Newquay becomes this country’s equivalent of Cape Kennedy and I leave it to you to imagine who I would like at this stage to send into orbit but with so much to look forward to and with the UK at the leading edge of progress not just for our national security and prosperity but for the protection of the planet itself”
Most political onlookers know very well who Boris would like to send into orbit…
Eyebrows were raised in Downing Street over the weekend after the publication of a story in The Sunday Times that Boris had looked into having a £150,000 treehouse built for son Wilf at Chequers. The story – undisputed since publication – goes he had once again entered into discussions about Lord Brownlow forking out for the cost, however plans were eventually scuppered by police security concerns given the house would be visible from the road. Despite the design including bulletproof glass, which raised the cost significantly…
Guido was amused to learn that Downing Street’s eyebrows weren’t raised by the Sunday Times’s story, instead by Labour MPs’ attacking the plans on the grounds of Boris being out of touch. Vauxhall’s Florence Eshalomi, Rhondda’s Chris Bryant, Wallasey’s Angela Eagle, and Hull’s Karl Turner were all among those laying into the PM.
No. 10 sources wryly note, however, that it wasn’t that long ago when it was a Labour PM splashing huge wads of cash to renovate Chequers – without a whimper of controversy. In 1999, one Tony Blair added a luxury tennis court complex to the PM’s Buckinghamshire residence, something since enjoyed by successive MPs including David Cameron and Boris Johnson. Sources in the know tell Guido that the courts weren’t built using public cash, nor did they come out of the Chequers Trust, implying the extortionate costs either came out of Blair’s personal pocket, or a private donor. Given Guido unfortunately can’t make it to Blair’s big centrist jamboree today, perhaps an on-hand hack might like to raise the question of who paid for the courts…
After a relatively quiet start, Theresa May’s “hell week” on Brexit is starting to hot up. ERG Vice-Chair Steve Baker has thrown down the gauntlet to the Government on Chequers, telling Today that “at least 40 MPs” would be prepared to vote against Chequers – after taking into account a major whipping operation from the Government. Baker is known for not exaggerating support, these numbers tally with Guido’s rolling spreadsheet of where MPs stand…
May’s Brexit position has come under further pressure following the intervention from former Chief Whip Mark Harper this morning. Harper, who backed Remain, dismisses the idea that the Government will be able to get Chequers through with Labour support and calls on May to pivot towards a Canada-style deal which he says she can “unite the party around”. Harper is the first Remain-supporting MP with Cabinet-level experience to back the ERG’s Brexit stance, Downing Street should be worried…
Meanwhile, DUP sources have rubbished suggestions that their position on a sea border between Northern Ireland and Great Britain has softened. Baker also turned his fire on May’s rumoured climbdown on the Irish backstop, which could see the UK agree to remain in the single market and customs union indefinitely until the EU decided that alternative arrangements were acceptable:
“If the backstop leaves the whole of the UK in the internal market of the EU together with the customs union indefinitely – because it seems like that the trigger to leave might be handed to the EU – if that were to be the backstop that would be so obviously unacceptable…”
Opposition is mounting from all sides and May hasn’t even made any further concessions yet. Where does she go from here?
Marr asks May twice whether she will make further concessions on her Chequers plan to get a deal with the EU. May dodges the question twice…
DD not beating around the bush with his views on Chequers…
EU Council President Donald Tusk has just told a press conference that Chequers “will not work.” By Guido’s count almost half of MPs in the Commons agree with him. Noes are up by 260 since last week…
Over 47% of MPs have publicly indicated they will vote against the Chequers plan. May loyalist Sir Mike Penning announced today that he will vote against it, and over the weekend Keir Starmer announced Labour will vote against any deal based on Theresa May’s Chequers proposals. Labour’s moderates and Corbynistas have explicitly said they will not vote for Chequers. Guido so far only counts 132 MPs who have firmly expressed an intention to back Chequers.
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