Proper zinger from Angela Rayner to Boris Johnson at
#PMQs
: “The next time a man with Covid symptoms drives from London to Durham, it’ll probably be to get a Covid test.”
Love the idea that Boris Johnson's defence relies on us believing that Theresa May would leave a flat in such a mess that he, Boris Johnson, would be unable to live in it.
More expensive travel insurance, no pet passports, possible roaming charges, red tape for business: the government's website to tell people how to prepare for Brexit sounds like something the Remain campaign wrote in 2016.
Surprising endorsement of Corbyn from the Chancellor here, but it's nice to see politicians praising the other side when they agree with them on something.
Nadhim Zahawi's line that the staff in the No10 quiz were there because "they had to respond to a national emergency" is in no way undermined by the fact that one of them is wearing tinsel.
I for one am astonished to see that people who have been attacking Keir Starmer for not making a statement are now attacking him for making a statement.
"I was once commissioned to investigate parties in Downing Street, but when it came to the most notorious party, I decided it would neither be appropriate nor proportionate to do so."
VoteLeave never claimed Turkey was imminently going to join the EU. They said it was the EU’s (and Turkey’s) plan. The UK was funding Turkey’s preparations.
"You've burned my house down."
"Yes, but we should look at the fact that I was cooking tea."
"You've burned my house down!"
"Look, there was a lot of concern about what was for tea."
"YOU'VE BURNED MY HOUSE DOWN!"
"I'm simply not going to say that I was wrong to be cooking tea."
"I think I was the first one to not believe," Sajid Javid tells
@sophieraworth
, in an epic claim that realising Boris Johnson was a wrong 'un FIVE DAYS AGO counts as insight.
Penny Mordaunt sits alone on the government front bench, having explained why she will be supporting the verdict on Boris Johnson. None of her ministerial colleagues have turned out to support her.
Dominic Raab says Keir Starmer is "apparently" a former Director of Public Prosecutions, applying a significantly higher level of scepticism to the Labour leader's CV than he does to the prime minister's party claims.
So, to be clear:
1. Prime ministers lying to parliament is fine.
2. Voting in Parliament is "silly games".
3. He's watching the cricket on a working day.
I am 100% against today’s appalling recommendations. I fully intended to vote against, but I will be standing with my colleagues and not giving others the satisfaction of taking part in their silly games with a division 🎪
At least the cricket is worth watching today 🏏
#boycott
Find your royal baby name by combining your favourite US comic strip character, your favourite Star Wars actor, your favourite cake, and the location of your grandmother's favourite castle.
Hard not to admire all these Cabinet members who, like Grant Shapps, are managing to overcome their personal fury at law-breaking and their deep disappointment with Boris Johnson in order to keep their jobs for the good of the country.
Looking forward to a lot of "When The Facts Change, I Change My Mind" pieces on Trump in the coming days, from people who have spent five years studiously ignoring the facts.
What happened to Keir Starmer tonight outside parliament is appalling. It is really important for our democracy & for his security that the false Savile slurs made against him are withdrawn in full.
"And my very natural assumption, as I heard my staff chanting 'I like to move it move it' in the basement, was that they were discussing the best location for the House of Lords..."
It's the local elections story that no one is talking about: Why has the wealthy southern English city of London turned its back on the Tories? I visited this proud and historic port to talk to locals about how the government has left them behind.
To be fair, if you'd told me in 2019 that Boris Johnson's house would turn out to be one of the biggest crime scenes of 2020, I wouldn't have batted an eyelid.
EXCL: Police have a photo of Boris Johnson holding a can of a beer at his lockdown birthday party in June 2020 - taken by his taxpayer funded official photographer.
Ministers! Always Remember The Public Inquiry Code:
BEFORE "This is not the time."
DURING "I can't talk about the ongoing inquiry."
AFTER "We need to put this behind us."
Robert Jenrick tells
@TimesRadio
: “there will be a time when we will look back and say with hindsight there are things the government could have done differently. But that time is not now”.
Twice now in the Commons, Keir Starmer has advised Boris Johnson of being useless over Afghanistan. He just said his judgement has been "appalling". What's interesting is that this has been met with barely a murmur of disagreement from the packed Tory benches.
Over in the Commons, Tory MPs are shouting "Resign!" at Sajid Javid for announcing Covid restrictions. He's spent months trying to appease them, but in the end, he's been forced to pick a side.
Priti Patel says MPs criticising Rwanda are "xenophobic". Quite right. Paul Kagame won 98.79% of the vote at the last election. What greater endorsement can there be of his democratic leadership?
Exclusive:
Boris Johnson will appoint his own private lawyer if he receives a questionnaire from the police over alleged breaches of lockdown rules
The lawyer will focus on his ‘unique’ legal situation - that No 10 is both his home and workplace
Excitement at Tory Conference as left-wing firebrand
@Madz_Grant
of filthy socialist rag The Telegraph joins the Guardian's
@JohnJCrace
on the list of Sketchwriters BANNED from Rishi Sunak's speech.
Charles Moore, former editor of the Spectator, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph, authorised biographer of Margaret Thatcher, is on
@BBCr4today
attacking "the mainstream media establishment". What a time to be alive.
Johnson's pre-planned
#PMQs
final reply to Rayner includes “we’re getting on with delivering the priorities of the British people”, which would be better if it hadn't arrived in reply to a question about grouse shooting.
I don't think we've written enough about John McDonnell's Sunday TV interview look. Sofa, jumper, floral curtains, table lamp. It radiates: "You can trust me with the economy. I just need to get the lawn mowed first."
Minor bombshell moment as "Sir" Jacob Rees-Mogg asks Harriet Harman why she didn't quit over perceived bias revealed in Tweets. She reveals she consulted the govt and offered to resign if they didn't have confidence. The govt, she says, told her to carry on.
The best thing about Boris Johnson's Downing Street is the way that everyone involved in it keeps issuing statements expressing their horror that it is run EXACTLY the way the rest of us imagined.
People mock Mogg, but it's worth remembering that Britain's membership of the EU is the reason the French were able to stop us taking part in the invasion of Iraq.
Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg says he thinks Putin would "probably have invaded Ukraine successfully if the UK had been bound in by the requirement of sincere cooperation"
Life Hack: Save hours every week by remembering that literally nothing about the man sixth in line to the British throne, or his wife, will ever affect your life.
Helen Whately asks why the last Labour government didn't come up with a plan for fixing social care. She might not remember it, but Gordon Brown's government did. The then leader of the opposition, David Cameron, killed it by labelling it a "death tax".
Nadhim Zahawi running into trouble on
@BBCr4today
, where he seems to suggest that voters who want Richard Desmond-level access to govt ministers should, as he did, go to Tory fundraising dinners.
Chris Whitty tells
@BethRigby
that people are mistaken to conflate the COVID alert levels and lockdown measures. This is the No10 slide from the week the alert levels were announced.
Tory members don't like Dominic Grieve because he's thwarting Brexit by voting against May's deal
Tory members don't like Nick Boles because he's thwarting Brexit by voting for May's deal
Tory members love Steve Baker because he's delivering Brexit by voting against May's deal
Question Keir Starmer needs to answer today. There are 15 men on an island, and 14 of them weigh the same. They have a seesaw they can use three times. How can they identify the odd man out, and whether he weighs more or less than the others?
Brutal drive-by in the Commons from Labour Treasury spokesman
@jamesmurray_ldn
: "If we are to believe the prime minister - and there's absolutely no reason why we should..."
"By day he's Westminster leader of the SNP; by night he's a border guard, hunting Englishmen trying to sneak into Scotland: 'Blackford'. Sunday nights on ITV."
Which Boris Johnson is running for Tory leadership?
Tory MP Johnny Mercer: “He started all this One Nation stuff, he started this when he was first elected, he won a Labour city in London…that's the Boris Johnson going for the premiership”
#politicslive
"Can you not catch Covid from your friends?"
We asked Health Secretary
@sajidjavid
why there was no mask in sight in pictures of yesterday's Cabinet meeting.
#KayBurley
UF
Sir Keir Starmer called the protester who threw glitter over him during a speech an "idiot" but admitted the security breach "could have been a lot worse" 👇
Continually the most amazing part of the Number 10 redecoration saga is that we're asked to believe that Theresa May left the flat in such an appalling state that *Boris Johnson* couldn't live in it.
For years, fans and critics alike have pushed Twitter to dream bigger, to innovate faster, and to fulfill our great potential. X will do that and more. We’ve already started to see X take shape over the past 8 months through our rapid feature launches, but we’re just getting
The trick will be to catch Boris Johnson in the split second between "inappropriate to comment during live police investigation" and "all in the past, time to move on".
The ministerial line on partygate this morning:
“While there’s a live police investigation it wouldn’t be appropriate to comment.”
Which is of course quite convenient as the investigation won’t conclude today, more fines will likely follow. This line buys PM even more time.
I have already made it clear that I will cooperate fully with the supermarket security guard, and - please let me finish, Mishal - and if he finds the bottle of gin that I've hidden down my trousers, I will hand it back.
Twenty years from now, it will be quite hard to explain how the Conservative Party, in its final months in office, became gripped by the idea that it was impossible to control immigration without the help of a murderous dictatorship 4,000 miles away.
If anyone's putting together a TV package about how today's events might, in a way, be good for Boris Johnson, and they need someone to come on at the end as a counterpoint and just laugh hysterically for five minutes, I'm available from 10pm, and my rates are reasonable.