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Jan 18 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
My take on all that no-confidence letter speculation. 1) disenchantment with Boris Johnson among Tory MPs - especially the 2019 intake - continues to grow. Don’t believe all that “it’s plateauing”, “there’s not much anger from voters” stuff you can read in some places. 2) Sir…
Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 committee of backbench Tory MPs, is not in a position to announce a confidence vote in Boris Johnson. He is still some way short of the 54 no-confidence letters needed to trigger a ballot. My guess is he is short…
circa 10 letters. 3) But if all the MPs threatening to put in letters actually do so, the 54 threshold may be breached in next few days. 4) my hunch is that the threshold won’t be breached before Sue Gray publishes her report into Downing Street parties. As I said…
earlier tonight, her report could be published on Friday. 5) All of this means Boris Johnson could well be fighting for his political life - to keep his job - next week.

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More from @Peston

Robert Peston Profile picture
Jan 7
.⁦@Dominic2306⁩ says there was a rule breaking drinks party in Downing St on 20 May 2020 (not the garden drinks that have been reported) and that there is a confirmatory email trail. A new alleged partygate scandal for Sue Gray to investigate
And here is @Dominic2306 detail about the alleged 20 May party. He explains that he however encouraged Downing St staff to work in the garden, and that is the background to the 15 May Guardian photo
Cummings also criticises the PM for failing to prioritise the manufacture and distribution of antivirals, against his advice, which would he says have significantly reduced Covid hospitalisation rates. Full Cummings blog here dominiccummings.substack.com/p/parties-phot…
Read 9 tweets
Robert Peston Profile picture
Jan 6
The more I reflect on the exchange of letters between Lord Geidt and @BorisJohnson the stranger it seems. In his decision not to resign, Geidt is relying on his original curious judgement that it is OK for the PM’s lifestyle to be funded by the Tory Party and Brownlow, and that…
the question of when and whether Johnson knew where the money was coming from, and when and whether Johnson disclosed it in the register of ministerial interests, is a second order one. But if that is really so, why not privatise all a PM’s salary and living costs to…
Tory donors? Geidt seems to be suggesting that the privatisation of Downing St would be acceptable - and that the convoluted steps Johnson subsequently took to repay Brownlow and the Tory Party with a personal loan were unnecessary (poor Johnson!). And if Geidt doesn’t…
Read 5 tweets
Robert Peston Profile picture
Dec 18, 2021
Confirmed: Brexit minister Lord Frost will resign from the government at end of year (as per report in @MailOnline). According to a colleague: Frost handed his resignation to @BorisJohnson “earlier this month after opposing the Plan B covid measures in cabinet”. MTF
Frost “was convinced by Mr Johnson to stay until January” says source. Frost was “among the strongest advocates inside for keeping the country open and for avoiding further legislative control measures to deal with the pandemic”. MTF
He is said to have argued that vaccine passports are “an inappropriate measure on principle”. Plus: “he does not believe that a European-style high tax high spend economic model that has been pursued by Downing Street is likely to deliver the benefits of Brexit”. MTF
Read 6 tweets
Robert Peston Profile picture
Dec 8, 2021
The announcement this afternoon of Plan B restrictions on our lives - working from home, vaccine passports - is high risk on public health grounds. Because if the public see the timing as a cynical distraction from the Downing St Xmas party scandal, compliance will…
be even less than it would otherwise have been. And the heat of the anger from Tory MPs, already fuming as they face an onslaught of furious emails from voters about officials partying while they were banned from seeing sick loved ones, will incinerate anyone who…
comes too close. One senior Tory MP told me “with every day that passes, Boris Johnson unfitness to be prime minister becomes clearer”. This is an MP who always opposed Johnson. But every Tory MP I spoke to this morning was 1) demoralised the party happened at all and was…
Read 5 tweets
Robert Peston Profile picture
Dec 1, 2021
Alarming COVID-19 growth rates of probable #Omicron in South Africa’s Gauteng province, that includes Joburg. Already surging on 27 Oct, it accelerated on 29 Oct. This is an area where immunity was supposed to be relatively high. See attached from SA Covid19 Modelling Consortium
The third column is the percentage change compared with three days previously, so for the City of Johannesburg it was a rapid 587.55% on 29 October compared with 517.49% two days earlier.
The first column says whether cases have been rising for five days and the second column is the seven day total number of cases per 100,000 people
Read 5 tweets
Robert Peston Profile picture
Nov 28, 2021
🧵 @sajidjavid told Marr this morning it would be possible to quarantine for ten days in a timely way the contacts of those with Omicron because the new Covid variant comes up negative for the “S” gene in PCR tests (what he called “S gene drop out”), unlike Delta. 1/
I had already been told about this helpful characteristic of some PCR tests, which would allow rapid detection of Omicron growth relative to Delta. But I was also told only just over a third of tests carried out by NHS Test and Trace had the ability to check for the S gene. 2/
So although this characteristic of some PCR tests would help @UKHSA chart the growth of Omicron, it would not achieve just-in-time quarantining of contacts of those infected with Omicron, because for two thirds of Covid positives, gene sequencing would be required. 3/
Read 17 tweets

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