James Forsyth
@JGForsyth
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One senior figure on the '22 tells me that they now favour a delegation going to tell Boris Johnson that it is over, and that they'll change the rules if he won't resign.
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That statement from Brandon Lewis is going to be quoted back at the UK for years to come by countries we criticise.
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The UK will not request an extension to the Brexit transition period
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Sarah Gilbert and the Oxford team's achievement is just remarkable. Has completely changed the outlook for this country, and will have huge benefits in the developing world given how cheap and easy to store it is. Rarely has so much being owed by so many to so few.
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Most of those who backed the Benn Act did so because they wanted to stop Brexit. But some did so because they genuinely wanted to leave—but with a deal. Last 48 hours, though, have highlighted what a strategic miscalculation they made: they've actually made ‘no deal’ more likely.
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On Boris Johnson’s condition, I am told the problem is that the symptoms are persistent and refusing to clear up. They are, I am informed, not getting worse.
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It would be good for our politics, and for Boris Johnson’s relations with Tory MPs, if he withdrew the Savile line today. It isn’t the tone that we should want for our national debate.
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What was missing from Boris Johnson's speech was an attempt to prepare the public here for the fact that sanctions that can hobble the Russian economy will also cause us pain, they'll push up energy prices and send inflation still higher. People need to be prepared for that.
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Government now think the peak of this virus will be the week beginning the 12th of April, not mid May.
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One consequence of there being a deal is that Brexit is now settled. It won't be undone in our lifetimes, or I suspect ever.
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Khalid Mahmood has resigned from the Labour front bench saying that 'A London-based bourgeoisie, with the support of brigades of woke social media warriors, has effectively captured the party'.
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Not to sound overly prim, but there’s something deeply depressing about a mainstream party having ‘bollocks to’ anything as their slogan. It does nothing for civility and makes the public square a less pleasant place.
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Sturgeon, who is normally so fluent, is flannelling here.
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Remarkable achievement by Oxford scientists to find a cheap, widely available drug that is so effective at reducing death from Covid among those who require oxygen. It, along with the vaccine work, is a reminder of what a huge asset to this country our universities are.
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Twice @afneil has transformed the British media landscape. I have a feeling that in years to come we will look back and see tonight as the beginning of the 3rd transformation he has ushered in.
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Tories have sold conference advertising to the Port of Dover which is using it to warn of 17 mile queues there if there's no Brexit deal
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The silence with which the Tory benches are listening to Starmer is telling.
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Very disappointing, and really quite wrong, that Whitty and Vallance aren’t taking questions.
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Munira Mirza, the Downing Street head of policy, has resigned over Boris Johnson’s Jimmy Savile attack on Keir Starmer
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Boris Johnson’s decision to take the whip off the 21 rebels on the Benn Bill shocked SW1. It was brutal but it was also essential to persuading Leave voters that the Tories under Boris Johnson meant business on Brexit. He wouldn't be winning this majority if he hadn't done that.
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Any Tory MP who votes for the extension legislation next week will not be allowed to stand for the party at the next election. Number 10 have decided to treat it as they would a confidence vote
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This has been an ugly session of PMQs. Arguing with the Speaker is rarely a good look for a Prime Minister.
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English cricket owes a huge thank you to Pakistan and the West Indies for rescuing the summer. Hope we tour both places soon and push for a far fairer distribution of the game’s revenues.
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Number 10 source saying that if, as they expect, their Brexit offer fails in the next few days it won’t be revived. Instead, Tories will fight election on ‘no more delays, get Brexit done immediately’
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Didn’t expect David Cameron to come out of Ruth Davidson’s press conference worse than Boris Johnson, but this quote from her is brutal ‘referenda should be used to affirm public opinion but not as a way for political leaders to fail to lead’.
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I think this from Ian Blackford is the worst speech I have ever heard in the Commons.
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Given that misleading the House is a resigning matter, it is v serious for the Speaker to be accusing the government of misleading the House. It is another sign of how bad relations are getting between the Speaker and the PM.
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83% of French office workers are back at their desk, 76% of Italians, 70% of Germans but just 34% of Brits.
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Always striking how Boris Johnson thanks the public for its cooperation during the lockdown, rather than threatening further restrictions if the rules aren’t obeyed. He instinctively appreciates that such restrictions on liberty can only be enforced by consent in a free country.
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Big moment as former First Minister of Northern Ireland David Trimble declares that the new Brexit deal is ‘fully in accordance with the spirit of the Good Friday Agreement’
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The tragedy of John Bercow’s behaviour is that even when he goes, the chair will never fully recover its reputation for impartiality.
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The British government’s analysis is that the disruption caused by coronavirus means that the costs of leaving the EU single market without a trade deal are lower than they have ever been. This means the UK will take a tough line in these negotiations
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Think Corbyn looks rather petty with this refusal to engage in any chit chat with Boris Johnson on the way down to the Lords.
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UK has worried about a scenario like this unfolding with vaccines for quite some time. This is why they insisted on Oxford partnering with a UK headquartered company.
Interesting example of UK's new emphasis on ‘national self-sufficiency’ in medical supplies. I understand the Oxford vaccine was going to be developed by Merck, a German company, until HMG stepped in and said it must be done with a UK headquartered company, hence AstraZeneca deal.
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Jacob Rees-Mogg tells @afneil that people will think a general election is necessary with a change of prime minister.
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For thirty-odd years, ‘Tories split over Europe’ has been one of the staples of British politics. But today pretty much every Tory MP will vote in favour of the trade deal with which the UK will leave the EU. The split has finally been resolved.
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Ian Austin has had the courage to see 2 things that many others are wilfully blind to. 1). This Labour party isn’t the same as the one we are used to in British politics. 2). Elections are a choice & if you don’t think Corbyn is fit to be PM you have to vote for another party.
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Very interesting story, the U.K. did send AstraZeneca vaccines to Australia after Italy and the EU blocked an Astra delivery to Australia
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No flight from Belarus will be allowed to land in the UK, in response to the forced landing of a Ryanair flight yesterday, Dominic Raab announces.
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Those close to Boris Johnson are becoming increasingly concerned that the numbers are there in the Commons for a 2nd referendum
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Cummings is one of those rare individuals who has bent the arc of history. He has been crucial, if not indispensable, to several moments in this country’s recent history
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If Coronavirus cases do level off post week of April 12th, then restrictions could be lifted relatively soon. One close colleague says that Boris Johnson ‘knows they’re necessary, but he really hates them’ and so would like them gone as soon as is feasible.
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Some reading for John McDonnell, The Spectator leader from 22nd January 1965: ‘We live as free men, speak as free men, walk as free men because a man called Winston Churchill lived’
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There is going to be a row over Kwasi Kwarteng telling @afneil that the public are beginning to question the impartiality of judges.
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Most incendiary comment of Tory conference so far comes from Kate Hoey, who says she’s glad that Boris Johnson has labelled the Benn Bill the Surrender Bill because in Northern Ireland they know all about ‘no surrender’.
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Absolutely devastating @afneil piece on the BBC’s wilful blindness to how Bashir secured the Diana interview
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A remarkable week in UK politics. Withdrawal Agreement sails through the Commons and an agreement to get Stormont back up and running. The election has truly broken the deadlock.
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138k people vaccinated in week 1. 18.5 million people are regarded as being vulnerable to 'severe Covid19 and over 25 million people are in the phase 1 priority list for the vaccine. Once phase 1 is done, you should have prevented 99 percent of deaths and hospitalisations.
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At a time when we have handed the state so much power, it must be used lightly and proportionately. The Met’s actions in Clapham tonight clearly fail that test.
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U.K. government’s private view is that those countries that have imposed the severest restrictions will see coronavirus flare back up as soon as they are eased
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Suspect change is coming to Electoral Commission after news the Met has ended its probe into Darren Grimes & Vote Leave’s Alan Halsall. A senior Whitehall source tells me, ‘The Electoral Commission has been extremely incompetent for years’ and that ‘profound changes are needed’.
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Salmond accuses figures in the SNP and the Scottish Government of pressuring the police and witnesses ahead of his trial.
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Striking how much the Queen referenced the war there. Not just the mention of her address to evacuee children but also the lovely, elegant reference to Dame Vera Lynn at the end. Given her generation, it shows how serious she thinks the current situation is.
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Who in Number 10 thought it was sensible to turn down a request for a meeting from 12 Caribbean countries over the Windrush issue? Bad at the best of times, but in this of all weeks monumentally foolish.
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A fascinating Number 10 take on the state of the Brexit talks. In short, they expect the negotiations to end in failure this week, ‘those who think Merkel will help us are deluded, and Downing Street’s view on why Leo Varadkar’s calculations are wrong
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.Gove's statement to the Commons is going to be something.
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Cummings’ view is that SW1 is reading the situation wrong. He told SPADs last night, ‘Pundits focus on the bubble and they think Corbyn passing a bill for another delay is a victory, the public will not agree. SW1 rarely understands how the public think about such things. .
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Given the denials he made, hard to see what credibility Richard Burgon has left now that this video has emerged
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Boris Johnson needs more MPs in the chamber. This socially distanced House removes the PM’s biggest structural advantage at PMQs, having noisy supportive MPs behind him.
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If I was Theresa May, I might be beginning to wonder if a referendum might be my best chance of passing this deal as it really doesn’t look like the Commons is going to vote for it.
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Jackie Baillie & Murdo Fraser heads & shoulders above the rest of the committee in the Salmond inquiry. News from the first 1/2 of the session is Salmond's claim that 3 other people know that the name of one of the complainants was given to his former CofS, which Sturgeon denies.
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The EU is now insisting AstraZeneca use production from its UK sites to make up the shortfall in its supplies to the EU. This is likely to kick off a row as the UK went to great lengths to ensure it had 1st refusal on all the Oxford vaccine produced here
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Even the Liberal Democrats are condemning the EU's invocation of Article 16.
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Am hearing Tories now giving up on a majority as they see more of the London results.
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Increasingly clear from the polls that the unwinding of the vaccine bounce and the self-inflicted sleaze scandal are hurting the Tories
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Despite an audience that skewed left, Boris Johnson turned in a pretty decent performance. He got his key messages across and sounded reasonable rather than bombastic. Suspect Tories will be very happy with that.
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Boris Johnson’s attack on Keir Starmer over his reluctance to explicitly say that schools are safe to return to, rather took the wind out of the Labour leader’s sails.
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Major row brewing between whips office and Number 10. Sounds like one of May's team was telling ministers they could abstain and not be sacked at the same time as the whips were trying to get these ministers to vote with the government. Am told whips absolutely incandescent.
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At 1922 meeting just now, Boris Johnson told Tory MPs that ‘they [Labour] are trying to drive us off the word surrender because they know it is cutting through’. Clear he is not going to stop using the phrase.
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If the Tory rebels had been organised enough to hold off on the no confidence ballot until after the by elections, the world would look very different this morning.
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If I was a Tory whip, I would be very worried about those 2 spoilt ballot papers. Means 2 Tory MPs can't stomach the idea of any of these candidates as PM which is another sign that there's trouble ahead.
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The country should give itself a pat on the back, more than four hundred thousand volunteers in 24 hours.
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The falling Tory poll rating suggests that there is little electoral future for the party unless it gets Britain out of the EU. This is the sine qua non of any Tory recovery.
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The problem for the government is that the markets are now pricing on a u-turn, so if they don't u-turn they will be in a worse position than they were 24 hours ago.
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Tory MPs who vote for the extension legislation will be barred from standing for the party at the next election
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The Tory party needs to be a broad church. But it is worth noting that while the Labour 8 have left over anti-Semitism and fears about Corbyn’s suitability to be PM, these three Tories are leaving over policies that were in the 2017 manifesto.
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Tory grandee tells me that Jeremy Corbyn now has the ‘Tory party in the palm of his hand’.
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It is the travelling back to Scotland by train after testing positive for Covid that is truly mind blowing.
SNP MP admits bringing Covid to parliament
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The highly effective Oxford jab has completely changed the outlook for the UK and, because it is cheap and easy to distribute, it will do much of the heavy lifting when it comes to vaccinating the world. Rarely has so much been owed by so many to so few
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This is very significant, if the Oxford vaccine does cut transmission considerably then we could be on course for a more comprehensive--and rapid--easing of restrictions than currently expected.
Further analysis also shows that the #OxfordVaccine may have a substantial effect on coronavirus transmission, with 67% reduction in positive PCR swabs among those who have been vaccinated:
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Understand the UK will nominate Liam Fox to be Director General of the World Trade Organization.
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Government should have said all this on Friday night. Dominic Cumming’s explanation makes his actions far more relatable. Think fair to say that there is a clear explanation for both of the trips in Durham and his reason for going there in the first place is understandable.
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To say that Bercow is enjoying this would be an understatement of epic proportions.
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This is the most hopeful news you’ll read this evening: Oxford study suggests coronavirus might be far less deadly than thought
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Lindsay Hoyle accuses the government of ‘total disregard’ for the chamber in not making a statement on the new coronavirus restrictions and calls on Matt Hancock to apologise to parliament.
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That question from Alasdair Allan was jaw-dropping. How can a parliamentarian not believe in parliamentary privilege?.
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Not sure that Jimmy Savile line was wise, didn’t fit the moment.
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Dom Cummings has been talking about the threat of pandemics for sometime. So, am sceptical of the idea he was someone downplaying the danger of coronavirus
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Cummings is one of those rare individuals who has bent the arc of history. From the Euro to Brexit, this country's path might have been very different without him
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Unionist tactical voting gets Jackie Baillie over the line in Dumbarton and may deny the SNP an overall majority.
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Boris Johnson says after a further look at the data there is ‘increasing confidence’ that the vaccines work on the Indian variant.
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If it wasn’t so serious, the SNP’s David Linden’s inability to answer @afneil’s questions about how an independent Scotland would handle its fiscal deficit would be funny.
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Hartlepool suggests that the 2019 election was not a freak result driven by voter’s desire to get Brexit done & their fear of Jeremy Corbyn but rather part of a realignment of English politics, and that things might get even worse for Labour in these areas
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There's hasn't been a vote in the Commons chamber for a month now. Quite remarkable.
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The alarm in government is that flu & Covid is just the half of it. This winter the government could be dealing with flu, Covid, flooding, mass unemployment and all the issues arising from the end of the Brexit transition period
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Oxford / AstraZeneca--and Pfizer--are both reducing the likelihood of hospitalisation among the over 70s by 80%. Very effective, not quasi-ineffective as Macron claimed.
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Interesting example of UK's new emphasis on ‘national self-sufficiency’ in medical supplies. I understand the Oxford vaccine was going to be developed by Merck, a German company, until HMG stepped in and said it must be done with a UK headquartered company, hence AstraZeneca deal.
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