The former Downing St communications director argues that Johnson has “taken charge” of a situation that was “out of control”.
“The Prime Minister has not intervened in any way,” adds the Energy Secretary. “The House of Commons Commission made all the decisions.”
Party activists could be forgiven for wondering if he would now rather have Starmer in Downing Street than Sunak.
He joins Dorries and Johnson in leaving Parliament.
“He’s quitting as much on his own terms as he can, given the essentially zero political wriggle-room he had left.”
It means there will be a by-election in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, which he will not contest.
We need an honest debate about the right balance between transparency and security on the one hand, and the need for quick decision-making and private deliberation on the other.
The former Brexit Secretary, and leadership candidate, was talking to Camilla Tominey.
The caravan seems to have moved on a bit. But while the former Prime Minister is clearly a divisive figure, the average panel member also feels some sympathy for him.
Asked who is stitching him up, the former Prime Minister replies that “somebody, somewhere, thinks it’s sensible to do this. I don’t.”
This book will delight many of those who see the Brexit PM as a disgrace.
We once again need to make the case for free markets, free speech, and free people. We need to particularly reach young professional people and get them to join our cause.
If you bluntly tell your officials to do their jobs, you are accused of bullying; if, like Braverman, you are by nature polite, you find yourself undermined in other ways.
And this is the fundamental problem: it allows us to dodge a broader long-term industrial strategy, precisely because the short-term labour fix is so easy.
Sceptics will make valid points about this finding but there are good reasons to accept the picture at face value. It has him taking 50 per cent of the vote to Labour’s 33 per cent.