Political Editor, The @spectator. Ex-Sunday Times, Mail, Sun Tel, Express. Author of the Brexit quartet. Order No Way Out and Out here: lnkfi.re/oCRrDT
Suella Braverman did not mistakenly leak a meaningless document. She endlessly consulted a maverick. She deliberately emailed a policy doc not yet agreed to her pvt email. Then she sent it to John Hayes and someone she thought was his wife. Then lied to PM about when it was sent
I’ve been doing this job for 21 years. I’ve written millions of words about the last six years in which British politics descended into psychodramtic crack dream. Today may be the most batshit day of the lot
NEW: Queen Elizabeth II thought Boris Johnson "better suited to the stage" than politics and two days before her death, after he resigned, she told a senior courtier in jest: "At least that idiot won't be organising my funeral." 1/
The Liverpool end at Wembley strikes up a chant of "fuck the Tories" and the Chelsea end fights back with a chant of, er, "fuck the Tories". Look away now prime minister
Politics is a rough trade and Rishi Sunak needed Suella Braverman's support at the weekend, but receiving several 🤮 emojis from MPs that someone sacked as a security threat 6 days ago is now walking back up Downing Street. Hard for Sunak to rabbit on about integrity now
Everyone in Britain still acts as if this was a normal government. Instead it is a project of deliberate destruction, of laws, of institutions, of anything that stands in the way of a PM who just doesn’t want to be held to account.
Those FIVE Zahawi u-turns in full:
Serving Boris
“He’s got to go”
Chancellor, yes please
Letter: Actually you should resign
I’m backing Boris
We must support Rishi
The question mark over Keir Starmer is not competence but whether he can do politics. He has just:
1) Shown he means business on antisemitism
2) Made Boris look indecisive
3) Offloaded a Corbynite
4) Helped the hard left Twittersphere reveal itself as ridiculous
Good day’s work
NEW: Boris Johnson will not attend the funeral of Prince Philip. He was due to but the guest list is limited to 30 people and the PM has stood aside to give more space for family and friends