Boris Johnson will be the UK's new Prime Minister following a landslide victory in the Tory leadership race. The former London Mayor beat rival Jeremy Hunt by a clearer margin of 92,153 votes to 46,656.in the battle to succeed Theresa May. The identity of the new prime minister was revealed around midday on Tuesday after a ballot of the Tory party's 160,000 members closed yesterday evening. The outgoing Mrs May will take part in her final Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday before she hands in her resignation to the Queen and recommends Mr Johnson as her successor. Mr Johnson will now start drawing up his first Cabinet reshuffle after getting the traditional desk-thumping welcome from Conservative MPs. Here’s the full timetable of when Boris Johnson will start as the new Prime Minister. Tuesday The result of the Conservative leadership contest was announced around lunchtime on Tuesday. Party chairman Brandon Lewis made a short speech before Dame Cheryl … [Read more...] about When will Boris Johnson start as new UK Prime Minister?
When was boris johnson made mayor
No, Boris Johnson did not ‘deliver the Olympics’
“Boris Johnson delivered the Olympics.” It is a line that is not so much creeping as shoehorning its way into the public debate over its next prime minister. It is one of Team Boris’s approved lines, when it sends ambitious Tory MPs into the TV and radio studios because Johnson is too conniving to appear himself. On Thursday night, Kwasi Kwarteng was the latest to come out with it, this time on BBC Question Time. Anyone who knows anything about the delivery of the Olympics, and there are hundreds such people around, if not thousands, has the same reaction to this apparent truth. It is to laugh. Boris Johnson himself is among those people. I would be incredibly surprised if his own private reaction to the idea he “delivered the Olympics” would be to anything but chuckle to himself. I was The Independent’s Olympics News Correspondent in the year running up to the 2012 games. I did little else but cover the delivery of the Olympics. The Olympics were, … [Read more...] about No, Boris Johnson did not ‘deliver the Olympics’
Rory Stewart is a reminder of what Boris Johnson used to be
James Kirkup 12 June 2019 10:50 AM 12 June 2019 10:50 AM Share Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Email Whatsapp Britain is not quite in the grip of Rorymania. He gave a properly impressive speech this week and he has spoken with honesty and clarity about politics and policy. But Rory Stewart isn’t going to be our next prime minister and it’s hard to see him remaining in Cabinet for much longer. He’s a hit on Twitter, but Twitter is not real life. Most voters still don’t know who he is. None of that means what Stewart has done during the Conservative leadership election is irrelevant or unimportant. He, like Matt Hancock, has run towards conversations about difficult and important things like social care when many of their colleagues have run away. When (if) the Conservatives ever decide to start taking the business of actually governing seriously again, they may just appreciate that sort of courage and seriousness. Politically, I think what … [Read more...] about Rory Stewart is a reminder of what Boris Johnson used to be
Can Brexiteers trust Boris Johnson to deliver a ‘real’ Brexit?
James Kirkup 21 May 2019 2:54 PM 21 May 2019 2:54 PM Share Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Email Whatsapp The current Westminster consensus that Boris Johnson is the next Tory leader and prime minister raises all sorts of thoughts. Among them is to speculate about the sheer terror this consensus should strike in the man himself, given that Westminster consensus has been wrong about basically everything in the last three years. For what it’s worth, I also think Johnson is the favourite to replace Theresa May, but I also thought Remain would win the referendum, that May could never be PM, and that she would win her general election with an increased majority. I suspect most of the people now sagely tipping Johnson as a dead cert made similar predictions. But we are where we are, and so all the chat around the Commons is about prime minister Boris Johnson. Would he govern as a reckless populist, delighting the Tory membership by driving … [Read more...] about Can Brexiteers trust Boris Johnson to deliver a ‘real’ Brexit?
Cometh the hour: Boris Johnson may be the Tories’ best hope
James Forsyth 18 May 2019 9:00 AM 18 May 2019 9:00 AM Share Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Email Whatsapp The worse things are for the Tories, the better for Boris Johnson. If the Tories were ahead in the polls, he’d have little hope of becoming leader. MPs would choose someone more clubbable, less divisive, and more interested in them personally: who didn’t annoy so many of them so much. But Tory MPs are now contemplating an existential crisis. Tory voters are defecting en masse to Nigel Farage’s Brexit party. The Conservative party’s survival may well turn on winning these voters back, and the former foreign secretary — the tribune of Leave, the buccaneering Brexiteer, the darling of the grassroots — is the most obvious person to do that. Suddenly, Boris is back and in contention for the leadership again. The question now is: can he do what it takes to win? Ever since Theresa May lost the Tory majority in 2017, her departure … [Read more...] about Cometh the hour: Boris Johnson may be the Tories’ best hope