Afternoon summary
Daily Telegraph turns on Johnson
Boris Johnson used to work for the the Daily Telegraph and, according to Dominic Cumming, he used to call it his “real boss”. But if he read it today, he will have been horrified. What the academic Tim Bale calls the “party in the media” is particularly influential in Tory politics, and today’s edition suggests the Telegraph, which used to support Johnson solidly, is close to giving up on him.
Three items stand out in today’s paper. Allison Pearson, a columnist who used to rave about him, has a column headlined: “My love affair with Boris is over.” Here’s an extract:
For months, I have been hearing from lifelong Conservatives (members and donors) who say they will never vote Tory again until that “charlatan/buffoon/Net Zero numpty/green socialist/habitual liar” (take your pick of angry epithets) is removed. The Westminster village may get excited about the threat to the PM from Tory rebels; trust me, it’s as nothing compared to the rancid disillusionment of Tory voters.
On the news pages there is a long article explaining, in considerable detail, how Johnson has repeatedly broken promises on the economy and tax.
Colleagues have dug through what Johnson said vs what he did on economic policy to date.
— Ben Riley-Smith (@benrileysmith) June 8, 2022
- Personal taxation
- National Insurance
- VAT / fuel duty
- Biz taxes
- The economy
- Cost of Gov
Lots of detail. From @Masonboyowen @tomelleryrees @gordonrayner https://t.co/YVP8efA7dg
Perhaps most significantly of all, the letters page is devoted to letters almost exclusively criticising Johnson.
One of the grimmest things the PM could read today: the entire Daily Telegraph letters page is filled by readers saying his time is up.https://t.co/8Vz09Eo5so
— Gordon Rayner (@gordonrayner) June 8, 2022
Quite a moment for Boris when his ex-employer, @Telegraph, devotes this much of its Letters page to…trashing him. pic.twitter.com/7QgklXoFqD
— Becky Barrow (@beckymbarrow) June 8, 2022
Updated
Minister insists Northern Ireland protocol plan not being proposed as 'red meat' for Tory Brexiters
Conor Burns, the Northern Ireland minister, told a Commons committee this morning that government plans to unilaterally abandon parts of the Northern Ireland protocol were not being put forward to appease Tory Brexiters.
At a hearing with the Northern Ireland affairs committee, the chair, Simon Hoare (Con), suggested the government was using the proposals as “red meat, dead cats, play-things, distractions either to salve the appetites of the European Research Group, shore up the robustness of the prime minister or get editorial red tops on side”.
But Burns rejected this claim. Boris Johnson was in “the space of wanting to fix this”, Burns said. Burns also said he wanted to take the politics out of the row about the protocol. He explained:
We want a spirit of co-operation and partnership with our friends in the EU.
One of my ambitions is to drag this protocol stuff maybe out of the politics and back into process, because that’s essentially what we’re talking about.
We’re talking about how to create a system of checks and regulations that reflect different destinations of different goods and types within these islands.
We have long maintained that with a degree of pragmatism and goodwill there should be a negotiated solution that can be found.
Burns said the government wanted to negotiate a solution to the protocol problem with the EU. But he said that, because the negotiating mandate for the EU team had not been expanded enough to make an agreement position, the UK was having to make plans for a unilateral approach.
When it was put to him that the government was giving in to the demands of the DUP, he replied:
I’m an openly gay Catholic-born in north Belfast who supports the Union, I don’t do things for the DUP. I do things because they are the right things to do for the United Kingdom. And fixing this will have the consequence hopefully of restoring devolved government in Northern Ireland.
Updated
Priti Patel has repeatedly refused to meet chief inspector of borders and immigration, MPs told
The chief inspector of borders and immigration has said he is “disappointed” and “frustrated” that he has not been able to meet the home secretary since taking up the role more than a year ago, PA Media reports. PA says;
David Neal, independent chief inspector of borders and immigration, said he has asked to speak to Priti Patel on a number of occasions since he was appointed in March 2021.
But five or six pre-arranged meetings have been cancelled, he told the home affairs committee.
Neal said he is “not sure I can do any more” to get access to the home secretary, and he has “switched fire” to engage ministers.
He told MPs: “I’m disappointed that I’ve not spoken to the home secretary, and frustrated because I think I have got things to offer from the position that I hold.”
He said he has “good access” to ministers and feels “well-served” by those he speaks to regularly.
And he said Steve Barclay, a Cabinet Office minister tasked to oversee the issue of the rising number of migrants arriving on Britain’s shores, had declined a meeting.
Neal later told MPs he has not encountered any impact of the Rwanda partnership on numbers attempting to cross the Channel in small boats.
Widely criticised plans to fly migrants who cross the Channel in small boats more than 4,000 miles to Rwanda were announced by the government in April.
At the time, Boris Johnson accepted the measure was not a “magic bullet” that will solve the crossings, but said he hoped it will be a “very considerable deterrent”.
Updated
A Conservative peer, Helena Morrissey, has resigned as the lead non-executive director at the Foreign Office (a governance adviser, sitting on the Foreign Office’s board), after criticising Boris Johnson in an interview, the Sun’s Harry Cole reports.
NEW: Tory peer Baroness Morrissey out as Foreign Office adviser just hours after telling LBC: "I'd rather Boris Johnson didn't carry on."
— Harry Cole (@MrHarryCole) June 8, 2022
She resigned as lead non exec after talk with Perm Sec.
Sources say Truss believed comments made job "untenable". https://t.co/x0QnvdCN4n pic.twitter.com/nBvCtcb4Bi
Johnson should tell DUP 'in unambiguous terms' Northern Ireland protocol cannot be scrapped, says Mandelson
Asked how the government will be able to cut tax but still raise enough revenue to fund improvements in public services, ministers will tell you the answer is by promoting economic growth. It was what governments of both parties have argued for decades - although often they have struggled to make said growth materialise, and the record over the last decade has been particularly lacklustre.
In a speech today to the North East Chamber of Commerce in Durham, Lord Mandelson, the former Labour trade secretary and former European commissioner for trade, has set out a framework for how this might be achieved. He is understood to be unhappy with a report (based on a text released in advance) saying it implies he thinks Labour will struggle to win the next election unless to overhauls its economic policy. But the speech certainly challenges Starmer to do some hard thinking.
It also contains quite a lot on Brexit, and the Northern Ireland protocol. (Mandelson is also a former Northern Ireland secretary.) Here are the key points.
- Mandelson says Labour should be aiming for a “watershed win” at the next election, not narrow victory. He says:
Labour’s ambition should be to turn the intellectual tide and shoot for a watershed win like Mrs Thatcher’s in 1979, not just sneaking over the finishing line as Labour had done five years before her in 1974.
And he says Labour should “accelerate its own policy thinking”.
Labour has come a long way since the last election in 2019 when Jeremy Corbyn marooned us on fantasy island but given everything that’s happening now in the Conservative party, the time is right for Labour to raise its sights and accelerate its own policy thinking ahead of the next election ...
In retrospect, the Labour government could have done more to lay the foundations of the kind of economy Britain needs in order to prosper in this century and, central to its programme, I believe the next Labour government must give laser-like attention to the new industrial and technology-empowered policies needed to spur growth and mitigate the effects of Brexit.
- He says Labour should consider the UK’s vaccine programme, and the development of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, as a model for how to develop innovation. He says:
This is where Labour has to do its hard thinking: what are the new institutional means and mechanisms required to convert government investment and action into British private sector business growth and jobs, not just in the golden triangle of London, Oxford and Cambridge but across the UK. Just announcing a massive spend and a big policy goal does not in itself deliver economic growth.
Government needs to settle on some clear, specific goals. The recent experience of the Covid vaccine is salutary. Through a mixture of luck and judgment and borne out of necessity in a time of national crisis, we poured cash and agility into a clutch of high-risk technology ventures through a vaccine taskforce led by a venture capitalist – so we used decades of Labour and Conservative public funding in research, invention by Oxford University, accelerated regulation by the government, vaccine manufacture by the private sector and distribution by the NHS to get the result we wanted.
One thing this isn’t is a model of pure capitalism. It is adding heft and heavy lifting to the operation of markets by using the power of the government balance sheet and public procurement to make a vital difference. There are lessons here for Labour as it draws up a radical, transformative programme for government.
- He criticises government plans to abandon the Northern Ireland protocol, and says ministers should tell the DUP “in unambiguous terms” that the protocol cannot be abandoned. He says:
The breakdown over the Northern Ireland protocol is ... a wholly self-inflicted wound which has already led to Britain’s exclusion from the EU’s Horizon scientific research programme, a very serious setback both for us and for European researchers. If the breach over the protocol is not repaired it could lead to a trade war with Europe.
So trust must be re-built and on this basis a solution to the protocol can be found through less rigidity by the EU and with the British government telling the DUP in unambiguous terms that the protocol cannot be scrapped, only its impact softened.
- He calls for a new approach to Brexit, implying Britain should rejoin the single market in some form. He says:
At the last election, Boris Johnson said we were leaving the EU but not leaving Europe. That we would use our “Brexit freedom” to usher in a new economic paradigm with an independent Britain more nimble in spotting opportunities and fleet of foot in realising them. You would need a microscope to see this agility now.
Instead of Brexit acting as a catalyst to re-shape the economy it is becoming a drag anchor on our prosperity and living standards because of the additional costs, regulatory barriers and frictions being experienced by business, especially small and medium sized businesses whose links in Europe are tumbling fast as they try to navigate their way through the new red tape.
Even leading Brexiters like Daniel Hannan are now arguing that staying in the EU’s single market or large parts of it would have saved us a lot of trouble – the withdrawal issues including the Irish border would have been much more easily resolved.
We do not have to re-open the basic Brexit decision in order to improve the economic deal we struck with the EU, including a more flexible visa policy. The deal is a dynamic one, it can be stretched in different directions to facilitate greater UK-EU trade, as long as we are committed to building the relationship.
- He says the government should not abandon support for globalisation. He says:
I firmly believe that globalisation is a net positive because it creates market opportunities for an advanced economy like Britain’s and the fact that globalisation is slowing and is now threatened further by geopolitical disruption will mean less global trade and prosperity for all.
The biggest risk in the current debate about globalisation is that we move from the undeniable truth that it could work better to the false conclusion that we are better off without it. We wouldn’t, we would be less well off.
Updated
Greg Clark, the former business secretary who now chairs the Commons science committee, has revealed that he voted against Boris Johnson in the no-confidence vote on Monday. In an email to constituents, he explained why.
It was not just because Johnson was fined once over Partygate, Clark said. “I have always said that it is a big step to remove a prime minister and I do not believe that it would be proportionate to do so for this breach alone,” he said. Clark went on:
However, I was dismayed by the findings of the Sue Gray report of a wider culture in Downing Street and in particular shocked by the disrespect shown to staff by some people working there. I always considered it an honour to serve the nation and it should be especially so in Number 10 Downing Street and it is unacceptable to hear such reports as this.
There is a wider context. Although he was not my choice of Leader, Boris Johnson was particularly well placed to bring the country together again after what was a very bruising and divisive period in our national life whilst Brexit was agreed. As mayor of London, he successfully represented the whole of the capital with energy and skill. I am convinced that such an approach is needed now: to have a government which seeks actively to reduce the stresses and strains that have divided us. The jubilee celebrations show how much people want to come together in pride in our country.
Updated
Nadhim Zahawi, the education secretary and one of the founders of YouGov, has commented on the claim, repeated by Chris Curtis today (see 11.48am), that he told the YouGov chief executive, Stephan Shakespeare, in a call during the 2017 election campaign, that he would demand his resignation if YouGov polling suggesting the election would end in a hung parliament turned out to be wrong. Zahawi does not deny making the comment, but insists it was a joke.
This was clearly a joke between two good friends, who had previously been business partners for several years.
— Nadhim Zahawi (@nadhimzahawi) June 8, 2022
Stephan continues to be one of my closest friends and at no point since leaving YouGov in 2010 have I had any influence on the company. Suggesting otherwise is untrue. https://t.co/P25sh0fCNN
Updated
Theresa May urges Javid to proceed 'with care' in reforming NHS management
Theresa May, the Conservative former prime minister, told Sajid Javid to proceed “with care” in reforming NHS management.
Responding to his statement on the health and social care leadership review (see 2.10pm), May said:
This is an important review. Can I just say to [Javid] that there have been regular radical changes in the management of the NHS throughout my 25 years in this house so I suggest he proceeds with care in relation to this.
May seemed to be referring in particular to the Health and Social Care Act 2012, which was one of the most controversial pieces of legislation passed by the coalition government. Many of its provisions had to be reversed in a new Health Act passed in the last session of parliament.
Updated
Sajid Javid, the health secretary, told MPs that he would introduce “culture change from the top of the system to the frontline” following a review of health and social care leadership.
In a statement on the review, that was led by Gen Sir Gordon Messenger and Dame Linda Pollard, Javid said it proposed “a once-in-a-generation shake-up of management, leadership and training”, as well as showing how health and social care could be “a welcoming environment for people from all backgrounds”.
He went on:
We cannot seize this opportunity and deliver the change that is so urgently needed without the best possible health and care leadership in place because great leaders create successful teams and successful teams get better results.
So a focus on strong and consistent leadership at all levels, not just on those who have the word leader in their job title, this will help us in our mission to transform health and care and to level up disparities and patient experiences.
Updated
Here is my colleague Peter Walker’s story from PMQs.
YouGov denies suppressing poll in 2017 because it was too pro-Labour, saying sample too skewed to make it reliable
YouGov has issued a statement denying the claims from Chris Curtis that it suppressed a poll during the 2017 election because it was too favourable to Labour. (See 11.48am.) In a statement on the Curtis allegations, a company spokesperson said:
Chris Curtis’s allegation that we suppressed a poll because the results were “too positive about Labour” is incorrect. There was a poll run by Chris following the debate in Cambridge on 31st May 2017. When reviewed by others in the YouGov political team, it was clear that the sample of people who watched the debate significantly over-represented Labour voters from the previous election. We take our responsibilities as a research organisation seriously and we could not have published a poll from a skewed sample that favoured any party. No serious polling organisation would have published this. The idea that YouGov would suppress a poll that was “too positive about Labour” is plainly wrong – as evidenced by the fact that in the 2017 election YouGov published an MRP model showing Labour doing significantly better compared to most other polling organisations.
Updated
PMQs - snap verdict
TL:DR On the basis of this PMQs, nothing much has changed. Boris Johnson was about as glib and boosterish as he usually is and, even though he suffered a severe blow to his authority on Monday night, when 41% of his MPs voted to boot him out, if you did not know that (and if you ignored the references to it at PMQs) you would not have thought, watching him today, that Johnson was any more diminished than he was at any other time in recent weeks.
It wasn’t that Johnson was particularly good. His main aim was to assure people that he was ploughing on with delivering for the public – he had “barely begun”, he claimed, channelling the Carpenters (see 12.04pm) - and he dismissed Angela Eagle’s question about the no-confidence vote by claiming internal opposition to him was just an unfortunate byproduct of the fact he had taken “very big and very remarkable” decisions. As an analysis of his plight, this is almost wholly wrong. Tory opposition to him is largely driven by concerns about his conduct and morality, not policy, or even Brexit (which does qualify as a “very big and very remarkable” intervention). But it got him through Eagle’s (very pertinent) question.
After that, Johnson had to take six questions from Starmer on health. Johnson’s response, as usual, was to quote figures about NHS investment, and to attack Labour for not voting for the health and social care levy. He even resurrected the false claim about the government planning to build 40, or 48 (it depends if you include hospitals already planned before the Johnson announcement), new hospitals. (Other parts of government will not use this language, because it’s untrue; the levelling up white paper, for example, talks about the government’s “ambitious programme of hospital building upgrades”). Johnson’s problem is that, even if his statistical boasts were all true, he is now so discredited as a messenger that many voters will just not believe him anyway. But he was on stronger ground attacking Labour; the public assume that a Labour government will invest more in the NHS than a Tory one, but most people would be hard-pressed to identify a single Labour health policy that differentiates them from the government and Starmer certainly did not come up with one today.
Starmer has been getting lousy reviews from the Twitter commentariat today. These are from Sky’s Beth Rigby, the i’s Paul Waugh and the Spectator’s James Forsyth.
Johnson with the bit between his teeth today & with clear message to those 148 MPs who voted against him: I'm going nowhere. KS's efforts on calling out PM on NHS batted away. Perhaps Labour decided they better of with wounded BJ in power & personal attacks no longer necessary
— Beth Rigby (@BethRigby) June 8, 2022
His troops, rebels and loyalists alike, were always going to be behind @BorisJohnson today but he is enjoying himself at #PMQs.
— Paul Waugh (@paulwaugh) June 8, 2022
Clearly delighted at Starmer’s failure to land blows and dismissive of Blackford.
Is that good or bad for the Tory party long-term? Discuss
Kindest explanation for that performance is that Starmer thinks Labour is best served by Johnson remaining in place
— James Forsyth (@JGForsyth) June 8, 2022
As I judged it, Starmer’s performance was fine/OK rather than poor. But I follow PMQs on TV. I’m told by colleagues watching in the chamber that, from where they were sitting, it was all very flat. His best moment came (as it often does) when he used his final question to personalise the issue. Perhaps he should frame more of his questions in personal terms.
On the plus side, though, Starmer was asking the right questions. NHS performance figure are very poor at the moment and millions of people will have had their own experience recently of having to wait much longer than usual to to see a doctor. This situation is unlikely to improve soon and it is hard to see how this won’t be a big election issue. If so, Johnson will need better answers than he provided today.
Updated
Kenny MacAskill (Alba) says Belgium has a social tariff for the poorest energy customers. Should we do the same here, and end the injustice of pre-payment meters?
Johnson says the government is helping 8m households with £1,200 of support. That is the supporting being given right now. The government can do it because of the strength of the economy, and the tough calls it got right.
And that’s it. PMQs is over.
Updated
Barbara Keeley (Lab) says other European countries are waiving visas for the Ukrainian symphony orchestra, but not the UK. Will the UK match what our EU neigbours are doing and waive the visa fees?
Johnson says Keeley should bring this case to the Home Office. He says many MPs are hosting Ukrainians in their own homes.
Tulip Siddiq (Lab) asks about a 13-year-old Ukrainian send back to her home in Ukraine, which is under siege, because the Home Office would not process her visa application.
Johnson says the Home Office will look at this. But it has processed more than 120,000 visas for Ukrainians, he says.
Updated
Afzal Khan (Lab) says he would have more sympathy for the claim the PM is getting on with the job if it started in the first place. He says Johnson claimed recently the Passport Office was processing passports in four to six weeks. But the Passport Office says it is taking up to 10 weeks, and many of his constituents are having to wait longer.
Johnson says 91% of people are gettting a passport within six weeks. More staff are being hired. And the strength of demand is a sign of the strength of the economy, he says.
As for travel chaos, he says Labour has not yet criticised the RMT over its proposed rail strike.
Johnson says 'nothing and no one' will stop him carrying on as PM and delivering for British people
I have beefed up the post at 12.04pm with the full quotes from Angela Eagle and Boris Johnson.
Johnson said “nothing and no one” would stop him carrying on as PM.
And what I want her to know is that absolutely nothing and no one, least of all her, is going to stop us with getting on delivering for the British people.
You may need to refresh the page to get the update to appear.
Updated
Colum Eastwood, the SDLP leader, asks Johnson for a commitment that he will not break international law.
He is referring to the Northern Ireland protocol, and this report about concerns that disapplying parts of the protocol might be illegal.
Today, we hear reports that the prime minister refused to consult the first Treasury counsel on his plans to rip up the protocol.
I know this question might be redundant given he might not be around very much longer, but given the prime minister’s casual record of casual law-breaking, will he give a commitment to the people of Northern Ireland that he will not be breaking international law any time soon?
Johnson says the reports Eastwood has seen are not true.
I can tell him that the reports that he has seen this morning are not correct. And what I can also tell him is that the most important commitment that I think everybody in this House has made is to the balance and symmetry of the Belfast Good Friday agreement. That is our highest legal international priority and that is what we must deliver.
Updated
SNP's Ian Blackford tells Johnson 'it's over' for him
Ian Blackford, the SNP leader at Westminster, says Johnson is a lame duck PM presiding over a divided party in a disunited kingdom.
Week after week I’ve called on this prime minister to resign. I’ve been met with a wall of noise from the Tory benches. I thought they were trying to shout me down ... when all this time it turns out that 41% of them have been cheering me on.
Let’s be clear, at least the numbers don’t lie. 41% of his own MPs have no confidence in him. 66% of MPs across the house don’t support him, and 97% of Scottish MPs want the minister for the union shown the door.
We now have a lame duck prime minister presiding over a divided party in a disunited kingdom. How does the prime minister expect to continue when even unionist leaders in Scotland won’t back him?
Johnson says he wants to thank Blackford for his “characteristic warm words”. He says Blackford is a benefit to unionism.
Blackford says Johnson is acting like the Black Knight in Monty Python saying it’s just a flesh wound.
The prime minister is acting like Monty Python’s black knight, running around declaring it’s just a flesh wound. And no amount of delusion and denial will save the prime minister from the truth, this story won’t go away until he goes away.
For once in his life he needs to wake up to reality. Prime minister it’s over. It’s done. The prime minister has no options left but Scotland does.
Scotland has the choice of an independent future. It’s not just the prime minister that we have zero confidence in, it’s the broken Westminster system which puts a man like him in power.
Can the prime minister tell us how it is democratic that Scotland is struck with a prime minister we don’t trust, a Conservative party we don’t support, and Tory governments we haven’t voted for since 1955?
Johnson says Blackford wants independence. But our country is independent, he says. That would only be reversed if we had “the disaster of a Labour/SNP government” taking the UK back into the EU.
Updated
Sir Oliver Heald (Con) says, changing the subject, he wants to address “sewage overflows”. This generates some laughter, probably from MPs who feel that we’ve had quite a lot of that already.
Starmer says “raising taxes because you have failed to grow the economy isn’t a plan for the NHS”. Things are getting worse, he says. But the government is changing the rules to cover this up.
He says he spoke to a footballer who had to crowdfund for an operation, because otherwise he would have to wait two years. And he says he spoke to someone whose mother died while they waited for an ambulance. The government is “utterly unable to improve the NHS”.
Johnson says MPs will feel sympathy for these people. But the government is making colossal investments in the NHS, he says. He accuses Starmer of not retracting his claim that the UK had the worst Covid record in the EU. The mission of the government is to unite and level up the whole country, he says. He mentions his tutoring programme, his literacy targets, plans to expand home ownership, and making the UK the enterprise centre of Europe. He will get on with his job, he says, and he hopes Starmer gets on with his.
Some Tories are shouting “more”, but it does not sound very authentic.
Updated
“Oh dear,” says Starmer. He says pretending no rules were broken did not work. Pretending the economic is moving won’t work. And pretending 48 new hospitals are being build won’t work either.
He says Johnson wants to change the NHS contract, so patients can wait two years, not one year, for treatment.
Why won’t the PM scrap his plans to green light inadequate NHS standards?
Johnson claims Starmer’s line of attack is not working. He says standards in the NHS have been raised. Waiting times have been cut for those who have to wait the longest. The government is using its economic strength to invest in the NHS. The government is on target to recruit 50,000 new nurses thanks to the investments Labour opposed.
Updated
Starmer says cancer waits have been going up for 10 years. So Johnson cannot blame the pandemic.
He says Johnson claims “paint jobs and refurbs” were the same as new hospitals.
Patients are at risk because of the failure to fix inadequate buildings.
Johnson says this line of attack is “satirical”. Labour was the author of the PFI scheme that bankrupted hospitals. He claims he is building 48 new hospitals, the biggest capital programme in the history of the NHS, he says. But Labour opposed the health and social care levy, he says.
Updated
Starmer quotes from the letter sent by the Tory MP Jesse Norman on Monday saying the government lacks a big plan. Once-loyal MPs do not believe the PM, Starmer says.
He says it is not just access to GPs; there is a problem with access to cancer services, he says. He says 135,000 extra people are waiting for cancer tests. Is there a better description of this service than “wanting and inadequate”?
Johnson says the diagnostic hubs have cut the times for cancer tests. More staff are being hired because of the investment he made. But “the party of Bevan” opposed this.
Updated
Starmer says Johnson seems to agree with Dorries. Johnson promised 6,000 more GPs. But the health secretary says that won’t happen. People cannot get to see GPs. If GP access was wanting before the pandemic, what is it now?
Johnson says Starmer is wrong. He says there are record numbers of doctors in training. There are more nurses this year than last year, and 72,000 in training. That is because of the investment put in that was opposed by Labour.
Keir Starmer says he does not know if they noise that greeted Johnson when he arrived as cheering or booing.
Why did Nadine Dorries says the NHS was unprepared for the pandemic.
He is referring to a Twitter thread from Dorries attacking Jeremy Hunt.
Johnson says all over the world governments were not prepared for the pandemic. But it had the fastest vaccine rollout in the world, he says.
Johnson claims he has alienated 148 of his Tory MPs because his government has done 'big, remarkable things'
Angela Eagle (Lab) says this week’s events have shown how loathed the PM is - “and that’s only in his own party”.
If 148 of the PM’s own backbenchers do not trust him, why on earth should the country?
Johnson says in a long political career “I have of course picked up political opponents all over”. That is because the government has done some “big, remarkable things”, he says.
He says nothing, least of all Eagle, will stop him delivering for the British people.
UPDATE: Eagle said:
This week’s events have demonstrated just how loathed this prime minister is and that’s only in his own party.
As his administration is too distracted by its internal divisions to deal with the challenges we face, can the prime minister explain if 148 of his own backbenchers don’t trust him why on earth should the country?
And Johnson replied:
I can assure her in a long political career so far - barely begun - I’ve of course picked up political opponents all over and that is because this government has done some very big and very remarkable things which they didn’t necessarily approve of.
And what I want her to know is that absolutely nothing and no-one, least of all her, is going to stop us with getting on delivering for the British people.
Updated
Johnson says it is carers week and he wants to thank carers for the work they do. Through its work on adult social care, the government will continue to support carers.
Boris Johnson enters the chamber, to very loud cheering from what sounds like a small cohort of Tory MPs.
Updated
PMQs
PMQs is about to start.
Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question.
YouGov suppressed debate polling during 2017 election because it was too favourable to Corbyn, former employee claims
Chris Curtis, the pollster who is now head of political polling at Opinium but who used to work for YouGov, has published a thread on Twitter this morning claiming that YouGov suppressed some polling during the 2017 general election because it was too favourable to Labour.
The allegations are potentially very damaging to YouGov, which for years has been one of the most respected companies in UK polling. (It pioneered the use of online panels for polling, which is the technique now used by most of its competitors.) There have long been suspicions about it on the left, because it was founded by two Tories - Stephan Shakespeare, a former aide to Jeffrey Archer, and Nadhim Zahawi, now the education secretary - but the reputation of a polling company depends on the reliability of its polls and until now there has been no evidence of the company slanting polls to help the Conservatives.
But Curtis alleges that this did happen in 2017. You can read his thread in full here.
During the 2017 election the polls showed the Tory lead over Labour narrowing rapidly, but the poll that generated huge excitement was a YouGov MRP poll suggesting the election would result in a hung parliament. (MRP, or multilevel regression and poststratification, is a technique that uses polling to estimate election results on a constituency by constituency basis, by making allowance for the demographic composition of different seats.) Curtis says this caused a huge stir.
And then we released the MRP. This was probably the worst possible idea. The MRP was actually showing exactly the same thing as our standard polls would have, but it was the first time anybody had said "hung parliament".
— Chris Curtis (@chriscurtis94) June 8, 2022
So rather than doing what we should have done - pointing out that traditional polls were showing the gap was narrowing dramatically and this is something to be taken seriously - it was "new experimental methodology" that showed it, which was therefore dismissed.
— Chris Curtis (@chriscurtis94) June 8, 2022
Curtis says it has already been reported that this MRP poll provoked a backlash from the Conservatives. He says Zahawi called Shakespeare to say that, if the MRP poll turned out to be wrong, he would demand his resignation as CEO.
But Curtis also claims this then led to the firm suppressing a debate poll that was too favourable to Jeremy Corbyn.
And this meant our polling and coverage was a lot worse for the rest of the campaign. We did a fantastic debate poll in the hours following the debate that Corbyn took part in. The results were stark - Corbyn won by a country mile, and one in four Tory voters thought he was best.
— Chris Curtis (@chriscurtis94) June 8, 2022
But despite having written the story and designed the charts, we were banned from releasing the story because it was too positive about Labour.
— Chris Curtis (@chriscurtis94) June 8, 2022
Curtis says on election night some of the YouGov pollsters expected to be sacked after the election. But then the result came in, which vindicated their work.
YouGov has been approached for a comment.
UPDATE: YouGov has denied suppressing the poll because it was too favourable to Labour. See 1.39pm for its full response to Curtis’s allegation.
Updated
Unilaterally abandoning Northern Ireland protocol would be 'historic low point' for UK, says Irish PM
Micheál Martin, the taoiseach (Irish PM), has said that if Britain decides to unilaterally abandon the Northern Ireland protocol, that will mark a “historic low point”.
The UK government is expected to publish the bill fleshing out its plans to give ministers the power to disregard parts of the NI protocol shortly, and in an address to the European parliament Martin said that instead London should be working with Brussels to find an alternative approach. He said:
I have said many times that there are solutions to practical problems under the protocol if there is a political will to find them. But that requires partnership. It requires the UK government to engage with good faith, seriousness, and commitment.
Unilateral action to set aside a solemn agreement would be deeply damaging.
It would mark a historic low point, signalling a disregard for essential principles of laws which are the foundation of international relations. And it would, quite literally, be to the benefit of absolutely no-one.
Without a spirit of partnership, there would have been no peace process in Northern Ireland.
Without trust, without engagement, without a willingness to see things from the point of view of others, there would have been no Good Friday agreement, no quarter-century of peace in Northern Ireland in which young people have been able to grow and to flourish as themselves.
All of us in positions of leadership owe it to them not to treat lightly what was so hard-won.
Updated
Javid joins calls for tax cuts after revolt against Johnson
Sajid Javid also used his morning interviews to say he wanted the government to go further on tax cuts. My colleague Rowena Mason has the story here.
NHS needs to modernise, says Javid, as he defends Blockbuster/Netflix analogy
Yesterday, in a presentation to cabinet on the need for NHS reform, Sajid Javid, the health secretary, said the UK had “a Blockbuster healthcare system in the age of Netflix”. In an interview with BBC News this morning, Javid stressed that his reference to moving to a Netflix model did not mean he favoured charging for NHS services. Asked if he meant people need to pay a Netflix-style subscription for the NHS, he replied:
Not at all. I’m very proud of that we’ve got an NHS that is free at the point of use, paid out of our general taxation, there for all of us when we need it.
But what I mean by that particular comment is it needs to modernise. We need to make sure that we keep modernising that we have a NHS that is looking out towards the 2048, not one that was designed for 1948.
And the Blockbuster analogy is that, for those those that remember Blockbuster, is that it failed to modernise, it failed to adapt to changing trends in markets, and therefore it wasn’t able to serve its customers and did not survive.
No one wants to see that kind of thing happen to something as important as the NHS.
And that means making sure that the NHS is looking at the latest demographics, our ageing population, the changes in the burden of disease use - for example, we have more dementia and certain types of cancer today than ever before - and also medicines and the latest technology.
Updated
Javid urges RMT to 'act like adults' and find 'sensible solution' to avert need for rail strike
As my colleague Gwyn Topham reports, rail workers are to strike for three days in late June, in a move that is likely to halt much of the national rail network across Britain for a week.
Asked about the proposed strike in his morning interviews, Sajid Javid, the health secretary, urged union leaders to “act like adults”. He told the Today programme:
When it comes to these strikes, it is very disappointing what the unions have said, because it’s not just going to cause misery for the travellers, but it’s actually, I think, the wrong outcome for the workers as well.
Because anyone working in this industry, any industry for that matter, you want it to be sustainable for the long term. It’s not possible to keep giving it the same level of support it got during the pandemic.
Javid said the government would be looking at “options” it could use to use legislation to limit the impact of strikes on passengers. But he went on:
But the most important thing right now would be for the union leaders to get around the table with the industry leaders and just basically act like adults and just to come to a sensible solution.
According to PA Media, talks between Network Rail (NR) and the RMT rail union in the hope of averting the strike are expected to be held in the next few days.
Changing rules to allow new no-confidence vote in PM within 12 months would be ‘grossly unfair’, says Javid
Good morning. And sorry for the late start.
Today we’ve got the first PMQs since the no-confidence vote on Boris Johnson. PMQs is often seen as a pointless pantomime, but it does function as a test of a leader’s authority with their parliamentary colleagues. Mostly it ends in a “draw” (Tory supporters think Johnson “won”, Labour supporters think the same about Keir Starmer), but sometimes a leader can put in a performance so memorable that it does shift preconceptions, at least a bit. Today we should get a better sense of quite how much Johnson has been hamstrung by having 148 of his MPs vote against him.
Johnson said yesterday that he hoped the no-confidence vote would draw a line under the leadership crisis, but it is already obvious that this is not happening. Some Tory MPs are already speculating about the possibility of changing the leadership election rules, which currently say that after winning a no-confidence vote a Conservative leader should not have to face another for another 12 months. Sajid Javid, the health secretary, was on the interview circuit this morning, and he claimed changing the rules in this way would be “grossly unfair”. He told Times Radio:
I think most people would think if you changed the rules it would be grossly unfair, it would be the wrong thing to do. So I wouldn’t support that.
We have very clear, transparent rules and that’s important, that they’re clear and transparent.
And if anyone wants to exercise the current rules, which they did, that’s totally their right and I respect my colleagues for that, but the decision has been made.
And I think what everyone wants to now see is that you end this sort of speculation and we just get on with the job.
I will post more from Javid’s interviews shortly.
Here is the agenda for the day.
12pm: Boris Johnson faces Keir Starmer at PMQs.
After 12.30pm: Sajid Javid, the health secretary, is expected to make a Commons statement on a review of health and social care leadership.
After 1.30pm: Michael Gove, the levelling up secretary, opens the debate on the levelling up and regeneration bill.
2.30pm: David Neal, independent chief inspector of borders and immigration, gives evidence to the Commons home affairs committee.
4.10pm: Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, the DUP leader, gives evidence to a Lords committee on the Northern Ireland protocol.
I try to monitor the comments below the line (BTL) but it is impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer questions, and if they are of general interest, I will post the question and reply above the line (ATL), although I can’t promise to do this for everyone.
If you want to attract my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter. I’m on @AndrewSparrow.
Alternatively, you can email me at andrew.sparrow@theguardian.com.
Updated
