Commentator Mail on Sunday. "Worst political pundit in the West" - G.Greenwald. "Clown Prince" - D.Cummings. Didn't attend private school. Mingled with Tories.
Interesting thing. Someone’s just pointed out that almost all the staff who were on the Durham trip with Keir have since left his office. You know how all the witnesses to the Kennedy assassination died or disappeared in mysterious circumstances….
I don’t get the “debate” surrounding Matt Hancock. He’s now openly admitted he broke his own rules. So either the Government formally adopts the position “we don’t have to abide by the rules, but you lot do”. Or he has to step down. It’s that simple.
Again, people are just being stupid. No one condones vandalism. But come on, what are we doing with statues of slavers knocking around on the streets of Britain in 2020.
Understand people's Omicron concerns. But we were told vaccines would remove the need for lockdowns. If that's no longer the case, OK. But we need to have a serious debate. Because I just don't see how a cycle of perpetually locking, then unlocking, society is sustainable.
Just wanted to say thank you for all the lovely messages and tributes about my mum. She’d have told everyone to stop making such a fuss, but deep down she would have been very touched.
If only someone at the BBC had realised earlier the way to stop black men in the United States being killed by policeman was to remove the Fawlty Towers “Don’t Mention The War” episode.
Not sure what the debate is. Gordon Brown is clearly right. If the energy companies are unwilling or unable to provide their services at a price millions can afford, they are going to have to be brought under public control until the crisis abates. It’s not a difficult one.
Joking aside, can you imagine if Corbyn had ducked Andrew Neil? He’d have rightly been slaughtered for it. Boris Johnson is Prime Minister. He has an obligation to subject himself to scrutiny. If he bottles it people will wonder what he’s trying to hide.
Seeing a lot of criticism of unions at the moment. We’ve been told this virus is the biggest threat we have faced for a century. A killer so lethal we’ve had to lock ourselves away for months. Protecting their members is what unions are meant to do.
This really is the image that perfectly encapsulates today’s march. The complete unwavering certainty of her moral superiority as she walks along with a placard featuring a Swastika…
Can’t remember the last time a British Prime Minister got ripped apart as comprehensively as Boris was taken apart by Ed Miliband. Tory MPs aren’t going to put up with much more of this.
Going to ask this again. If Boris didn't think drinking, eating party favours, playing music, wearing tinsel and Santa hats, and singing along to Abba represented a breach of the rules, why was he so "furious" at what Allegra Stratton revealed. What was the material difference.
There is a debate going on about whether the kidnapped Israeli children were “treated humanely”. No kidnapped child is treated humanely. The act of kidnapping a child is of itself a depraved and inhumane act. What is wrong with people.
Can we just nail another thing. People saying "was just a few drinks and some cake". OK. But that's not Boris's view. Because when his staff were found having a few drinks and some cheese, he said he was "furious", ordered a cabinet office inquiry and accepted their resignations.
To repeat, if the major private utilities are unable to provide basic services to their customers at a price that is affordable they should be brought under public control. Not handed subsidies. Not “bailed out”. If the market fails, the state should step in and replace it.
People enjoying having a pop at Matt Hancock at the moment. But for the past 40 years we’ve been told the NHS was on the point of collapse. When it faced its biggest challenge for a century it was on his watch. And it didn’t collapse. It stood strong.
It doesn't matter whether you're pro-Brexit or anti-Brexit. Or pro-Boris or pro-Corbyn. If there is evidence a foreign state has been interfering with UK democracy we need to be informed about it. This is the classical definition of an issue that transcends party politics.
We've now reached the point where the public are being advised to flag down buses to protect themselves from police officers. And the head of the Metropolitan Police remains in post. How does anyone in authority seriously think this is a sustainable position.
If you said "let's imagine the worst possible political optics", wheeling a suitcase of booze into No.10, in the midst of a pandemic, with social gatherings banned, on the eve the of the funeral of the Duke of Edinburgh, whilst the nation was in mourning, is quite hard to top.
Apologies, but I’m going to keep banging on over this. It was widely perceived the “Abba Party” represented the most egregious Partygate breach. How can Sue Gray possibly justify not even investigating. There’s literally no rationale. It’s not even a cover-up. It’s so blatant.
Just so I'm clear, the Boy George currently taking the high moral ground in the jungle is the same Boy George who got 15 months for handcuffing a male escort to a wall, and beating him with a metal chain.
Large numbers of people leaving Tory conference tonight because there are no trains tomorrow. Thereby missing the PM’s speech announcing the axing of the Manchester rail upgrade. Historians will write entire chapters on the events of the past two weeks…
I started working in politics in 1991. I saw the implosion of Major up close. And the end of New Labour. The Miliband era. May's collapse. Boris blowing it within three years. But I've never seen a more toxic political, communications and policy mix than this. It's unsustainable.
I know we're supposed to be negative about everything the government does at the moment. But this NHS Nightingale story is seriously impressive. If the Chinese had done that everyone would be going bananas and asking why we can't do it.
Boris bought water-cannon for £320,000. They were never used. They have just been sold for £11,000. We are told this is the man who should be negotiating our exit from the EU.
Can we just be clear. The current crisis has been precipitated by the mini-budget. Not fears of a Labour government. Not closet Corbynites lurking in the IMF. The mini-budget did this. And if it isn’t significantly reversed, the political and economic crisis will continue.
"Why's it OK to have the Union Jack flown in schools but not the Palestinian flag". Because the Union Jack is the national flag of the United Kingdom, and the Palestinian flag isn't.
Boris hasn't been on GMB for five years. It's very obvious why. The only way this could have gone worse is if he'd whipped out his phone and started looking at tractors...
Priti Patel has decided to take the gloves off. Hammering her critics for lecturing her on what it is to experience racism in modern Britain. Good for her.
Can someone explain what action has been taken by the UK Government against a single Russian oligarch. Not a commitment to action, or an intention to act. What has actually been done.
I understand the desire to paint the EU as the bad guys. But the reality is we want to access their markets, whilst simultaneously retaining the "sovereign" right to undercut them. They're obviously not going to accept that. So what are we all doing here.
I don't want to come across like I'm channeling my inner-Corbynite. But I really do think when this election is over there needs to be serious examination of what's happening to BBC political programming. That was farcical.
John Bercow's hectoring, bullying and browbeating of Andrew Bridgen on his final day is the perfect end point to his tenure. Forget the sycophantic praise heaped on him over the past 24 hours. He's been a disastrous Speaker who has brought shame on his office.
If people don’t think lying to parliament matters. Or it does, but not as much as Ukraine, etc, fine. But when Boris said there were no parties, all rules were followed, and he was angry to learn about cheese and wine events, that was a bare-faced lie. So why pretend it wasn’t.
Andrew Tate v Greta Thunberg is a classic example of Culture War tribal disconnect. You may think she’s misguided. Or being manipulated. Or just plain wrong. But how can anyone look at him objectively and not realise she’s right, and he’s a tosser.
Still trying to get my head round the fact we've gone from Margaret Thatcher's "every housewife knows the value of what's in her shopping basket" to "I haven't got a clue who splashed out £100K on my curtains".
What's incredible is that if you look at the response from the scientific community tonight, it's basically "everyone knew SAGE were only modelling worst case scenarios". The press didn't know. The public didn't. MPs didn't. Senior advisors didn't. And Ministers didn't.
Just on the Simon Walters story. I’ve now spoken to two separate sources who I trust completely who confirm Boris did attempt to employ Carrie at the foreign office whilst he was foreign secretary.
It's become a cliche. But Coronavirus really is driving home the reality Twitter isn't a reflection of Britain. The criticism on here of Boris and the Government simply isn't being reflected in the nation at large.
Worth remembering that at almost every single stage of the Covid crisis the modelling of the virus's growth has been wrong. Not just marginally wrong, but so spectacularly wrong as to have minimal practical utility for policy making.
The job of the RNLI is to rescue people in danger at sea. It isn’t to ask them their migration status, then make a decision on whether to rescue them or not. This isn’t a difficult one.
Imagine in years to come when people actually read in their history books “in the midst of a cost of living crisis, and with interest rates soaring, the British government announced tax cuts for the very richest people in society”. It’s up there with making your horse a senator.
On Gary Lineker. We either believe in cancel-culture, or we don't. I don't. If he made the comments on-air, that's one thing. But he didn't. He isn't a political journalist. And he's entitled to his views, even if people may not agree with him.
Finchley Road. Poster of two kidnapped Jewish children. Someone’s drawn a Hitler moustache on them. This is what the Jewish community is facing. Not in 1936. In 2023. Here. In London
We have never seen a more graphic example of the double standards applied to Israel than the wave of condemnation that erupted when people thought the IDF were responsible for the hospital attack, followed by the silence accompanying the realisation it was Hamas or their proxies.
Remember - as we're watching this mess unfold in real-time - Tory MPs were told several months ago that the Government and No.10 had been reorganised specifically to ensure messes like this wouldn't happen. And part of that restructuring was the appointment of Chris Pincher.
It's important to condemn all violence. And there isn't a league table of this stuff. But it's clear from the footage we've seen that the "protestors" today were more violent - and intent on being violent - than the BLM demonstrators.
If you were a passenger on a plane, and some guy next to you started screaming he didn't trust the way the pilot was flying, would you join him in storming the cockpit and trying to land the plane yourself. Because that's basically what a lot of people are now doing re-Covid.
So the line’s changed again. No.10 now claiming Boris was aware of the Rashford campaign before today. They’re just making this up as they go along now. It’s embarrassing.
I spoke to an MP yesterday who told me he had weighed up his own physical safety when deciding on how to vote on yesterday’s Gaza motion. We have crossed a line now. We are not a properly functioning democracy if this is a factor in how our elected representatives act.
Sorry to bang on, but I find this incomprehensible. The Government’s been warning for weeks this crisis was coming. How did no-one say “what will our policy on refugees actually be when he invades”. It doesn’t get any more basic than this.
That letter from Labour MPs to Priti Patel shows how effective her performance in the chamber was. They thought Labour automatically owned issues relating to race. They now realise they don’t. Or at least they don’t for as long as she’s standing at the Dispatch Box.
About the work-from-home debate. There's a huge class issue here. Binmen don't get the option to work from home. Shelf-stackers don't get the option. Machinists. Plumbers. Roofers. Dinner Ladies. Bar-staff. Waitresses. Cabbies. Nurses. Electricians. They don't get that choice...
Got to be honest, I've no idea what Government guidance is on anything any more. Masks. Distancing. Numbers of friends you can meet. When and where you can meet them. Going back to work. None of it. Clear Ministers have basically given up on trying to agree a coherent line.
Damaging for Boris. Very damaging for Hancock. But most damaging of all for Dom Cummings. You can't work as the PM's most trusted advisor, then walk straight out of No.10 and stab him in the back like that. And I suspect that's how the public will see it.
We’ve spent about a billion hours debating Brexit. But in the end it all boils down to one simple fact. If you offer people a choice in a referendum, you then have to do what they say. That’s it.
Over the next few hours and days were going to get a lot of deflection from Boris and his supporters. It's important to stay focused on a simple fact. He claimed he didn't know about Pincher. He did know about Pincher. And he appointed him anyway.
Until this moment I thought the reason Boris wasn’t setting out his Brexit plan was because it wasn’t politically expedient to do so. I’m now genuinely starting to think it’s actually because he doesn’t have a plan.
If we lock-down again, why will that help defeat the virus. When we re-emerge from lockdown (again), why will it be different. Why will there not be a third, fourth or fifth wave. And how is this strategy even remotely sustainable.
The Times: "P&O suspends ferries as it plans to replace ‘all UK crew’ with foreign labour". Not entirely sure that's what Brexit was supposed to be delivering.
Be as critical of Boris as you like. But anyone who thinks he wanted to do this as part of some grand plan to enslave Britain is off their head. It’s blindingly obvious this is the last thing he wanted to do.
How is it possible for the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to be put up for a major interview with literally no clue how to answer any of the most basic questions.
"You can't criticise Meghan. That's racist". "OK. So presumably it's racist to criticise Priti Patel". "Oh, no. That's fine". "Oh. OK, so presumably it's fine to point out Diane A's contradictory stance on bullying". "Oh, no. That's a dog whistle". Again. What. Are. The. Rules.
People on both sides of the Brexit debate are losing the plot. But Boris Johnson is Prime Minister. And with that role comes serious responsibility. His Jo Cox comments were a disgrace.
This morning we're all being told by senior members of the cabinet to "move on". What does that actually mean. The sitting Prime Minister broke the criminal law. Where exactly is it we're meant to be moving to.
The Times: "[Boris's] allies have said he will not resign even if he is fined by police for breaching lockdown rules by attending Downing Street parties". From "there were no parties, no rules were broken" to this.
Understand Liz Truss has been informed by Graham Brady the traditional threshold of letters for a leadership challenge has been breached. But he is insisting on a threshold of half the parliamentary party before acting.
Setting aside personal political preferences for a second. Just on the basis of simple fact. Imagine if Labour had a leader who wasn’t Corbyn. Basically anyone else. They’d be 30 points ahead by now. We’d be looking at a 1997 scale Labour majority.
Can we just be clear. Golliwogs are racist. The clue is in the name. We don’t need them. We don’t need to see them. We don’t need to argue about them. If they’re on public display, they should be taken down.
Professor Susan Hopkins says stay in - or wear a mask if you have to go out - whilst feeling unwell. So she gets slated for it. How is it we've reached the point where simple, sensible advice about not spreading your germs to others is regarded as a war crime.
Boris Johnson’s position is untenable. The dam’s burst now. There are only two outcomes. He resigns, or his party will remove him. And it will happen relatively quickly.
One thing that needs to be clarified. I'm told that not only was Boris not fined for the 13 November event - even though others who attended were - he wasn't even sent a questionnaire over it. So if that's true, on what basis did the Met determine his attendance was legal.