Boris Johnson’s Tories Stumble as Senior Minister Forced to Apologize
Johnson’s Tories Stumble as Senior Minister Forced to Apologize
Boris Johnson will try to get his campaign back onto the front foot on Wednesday, after a day of reverses that saw one of his most senior ministers forced to apologize for his comments about a 2017 London tower block fire.
The prime minister will travel to see Queen Elizabeth II before returning to his Downing Street residence to formally mark the start of the election campaign. Johnson, who twice failed to persuade Parliament to allow him to have an election before succeeding at the third attempt, will say he didn’t want an election, according to his office.
“I don’t want an election,” he’ll say. “No prime minister wants an early election, especially not in December. But as things stand we simply have no choice -- because it is only by getting Brexit done in the next few weeks that we can focus on all the priorities of the British people.”
Tuesday was dominated by comments from the prominent Conservative Brexiteer and Leader of the House of Commons Jacob Rees-Mogg that some of the 72 people who died when flames engulfed the Grenfell Tower might have survived if they’d shown “common sense” and ignored fire service instructions to stay in their apartments.
“I think if either of us were in a fire, whatever the fire brigade said, we would leave the burning building,” Rees-Mogg told LBC radio.
His remarks stoked anger among victims’ families as well as in Downing Street, which is keen not to fuel opposition jibes that the ruling Conservative Party is out of touch. Rees-Mogg revels in his image as a member of the English upper classes.
On Tuesday, Rees-Mogg told the Evening Standard that he meant to criticize the fire department’s advice to stay put rather than the people who adhered to it.
‘Authority Figures’
His fellow Tory Andrew Bridgen later explained: “What he is actually saying is, he would have made a better decision than the authority figures who gave that advice.”
It was the first major gaffe of the Conservative campaign to secure a parliamentary majority on Dec. 12. Grenfell is located in the key marginal seat of Kensington and Chelsea, a former Tory stronghold that the party lost to Labour in 2017. The blaze occurred days after that election, and the local Conservative-run council was heavily criticized for failing to do enough to help victims.
In another setback for the Conservatives, the country’s most senior civil servant blocked the Treasury from publishing costings for the opposition Labour Party’s policies. According to a Treasury official, the announcement had been ready to go, but after complaints from Labour, Cabinet Secretary Mark Sedwill refused to let it go ahead.
Battleground Speeches
Johnson will mark the start of his campaign with a rally in the West Midlands, central England. It’s a sign of how both parties see the fight that Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn will be speaking earlier in the same part of the country.
“For me, real politics isn’t about shouting matches in parliament,” he’ll say. “For me, real politics, the politics I stand for, is about sharing power and wealth with people who don’t have a lot of money and don’t have friends in high places -- to take control of their own lives. My job as leader, and my party’s job, is to champion those people, and bring about real change.”
The ongoing spat within Johnson’s Conservatives over Brexit claimed another scalp Tuesday, when former Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond said he is quitting Parliament following his expulsion from the Tory party.
Hammond, who was thrown out for opposing Johnson’s Brexit strategy, said he couldn’t run in the election as a Conservative -- and ruled out running as an independent against the party he joined 45 years ago.
The situation left him “saddened,” Hammond said in a letter to his constituents posted on Twitter, adding a rebuke of the Tories’ direction under Johnson. In the past, he said, the Conservative Party had “always had room for a wide variety of opinions and been tolerant of measured dissent.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Jessica Shankleman in London at jshankleman@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Tim Ross at tross54@bloomberg.net, Stuart Biggs, Robert Hutton
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