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. Afternoon summary Boris Johnson has said “absolutely nothing and no one” will stop him continuing in office, during his first prime minister’s questions since an unconvincing victory in a confidence vote among Tory MPs. Sajid Javid has said he would like to see the government “do more on tax cuts”, adding to the pressure on Johnson from senior Conservatives after the damaging revolt over his leadership. More talks will be held this week between unions and rail industry leaders in an attempt to avoid a week of national strikes that will shut down much of Britain’s rail network in late June. YouGov suppressed polling in last few weeks of the 2017 election campaign because it was too positive about Labour, a senior former employee has said. Boris Johnson has been warned by his Irish counterpart that ditching the post-Brexit deal on Northern Ireland would be a “historic low point”, citing the outbreak of war in Ukraine as a reason why international law must be respected. Priti Patel’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda as soon as next week is facing a legal challenge under emergency proceedings launched in the high court on Wednesday. The Scottish government has been urged to “come clean once and for all” about whether it has the power to legislate for a second independence referendum at Holyrood. Alok Sharma, the UK cabinet minister who led last year’s Cop26 climate summit, is in the running to be the UN’s global climate chief, at a crucial time for international action on greenhouse gas emissions. 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. Perhaps most significantly of all, the letters page is devoted to letters almost exclusively criticising Johnson. 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. 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”. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.