Meanwhile, here's @BorisJohnson doing for Blackpool what the Jolly Fisherman did for Skegness.
Uncanny.
"These are probably not words I would use myself." Ardent Brexiteer and ex Cabinet minister Theresa Villiers on @BorisJohnson comparing Brexit vote to war in Ukraine. @BBCRadio4#BroadcastingHouse
.@RishiSunak tells @sophieraworth Ukraine and Brexit vote can't be compared, but quickly suggests the PM wasn't comparing them either.
"Clearly those two situations are not directly analogous..He was not directly comparing those two things."
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Includes this intel. Sunak privately told colleagues recently: “The public won’t blame us for the petrol rises, but they will blame us for the tax rises.”
But it feels like No.10 hv persuaded him since to cut fuel duty [as well as tweak NI thresholds].
One Tory MP: “He was bragging in the [Commons] tea room about his new home in California...Even some of us MPs are having to cut our cloth because of these massive energy bills, but he sometimes just sounds like an out of touch millionaire.”
My Omicron has not quite omi-gone, but it's on it's way I hope.
Under the radar almost, over the past few months unions have been defeating attempts at 'fire and rehire', while winning pay/pensions fights
A few examples in my piece:
Key line from No.10 official on bills: “We’ve set out the package for April + we think that’s going to be enough.”
Tory MP: “It’s a tricky one to think how much money you want to throw at it versus how much misery you will allow" @ChaplainChloe@HugoGye
The piece has some strong defences of the Home Secretary, who has shifted her stance on refugees as the Ukraine crisis has grown.
But it also has some withering criticism of both her and @BorisJohnson.
I've been told that early in the crisis, an email chain in the Home Office contained a memo setting out that the Home Secretary's priority was UK national security.
DI is now getting the recognition but also the funding it needs.
The extra funding is something the late Dr Brian Jones, the real star of the Hutton Inquiry I was privileged to meet + befriend, always told me he wanted.
Here's a taster of what he was like
“I lost everyone and lost the meaning of life...I want to achieve the maximum repost by the press of my grief." Sergii Perebeinis, whose wife Tatiana and children Nikita, 18, and Alise, 9, were killed by Russian mortar fire fleeing Irpin.
Utterly heart breaking account by Sergii. He was in Donbass visiting his mother, who had Covid. His wife and kids had their apartment block shelled so fled on foot.