UK Politics

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailA war of words has erupted between Boris Johnson and Tucker Carlson over claims the former prime minister was prepared to debate the controversial right-wing journalist for $1million.Mr Carlson, who this month interviewed Vladimir Putin, said Mr Johnson had demanded $1million for a sitdown interview on the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.But Mr Johnson has disputed Mr Carlson’s account as “untrue”, with allies of the ex-PM saying he had offered to take part in the interview for a $1million donation to Ukrainian veterans’ charities.Mr Carlson also mocked Mr Johnson, joking that ‘his name’s not actually Boris’ It is understood Mr Johnson pulled out after the murder of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.Mr Carlson has been ridiculed in recent weeks over his support for Putin and the Kremlin, having filmed videos praising Russian shopping trolleys and admiring Moscow’s subway system.It came after the former Fox News host sat down for a fawning two-hour interview with the authoritarian Russian leader.Mr Johnson attacked Mr Carlson’s Putin interview, saying it was straight out of “Hitler’s playbook”.He said the American broadcaster had been the “stooge of the tyrant, the dictaphone to the dictator and a traitor to journalism”.And, in a column for Mail+, he accused Mr Carlson of betraying “viewers and listeners around the world” for not taking the Russian leader to task for “the torture, the rapes, the blowing up of kindergartens” in Ukraine, “not once did he even try to dam the flow of lies”.And, speaking to right-wing outlet The Blaze, Mr Carlson hit back at the ex-PM.“Boris Johnson, who was for a short time the Prime Minister of Great Britain… calls me a tool of the Kremlin or something,” he said.He added: “I was annoyed. So I put in a request for an interview with Boris Johnson, as I have many times because he’s constantly denouncing me as a tool of the Kremlin. He says no.”Mr Carlson said after reaching out to “a lot of people who know Boris Johnson” he was told he would do the interview “but it’s going to cost you $1million”.“I said to the guy… I just interviewed Vladimir Putin. I’m not defending Putin, but Putin didn’t ask for a million dollars. So you’re telling me that Boris Johnson is a lot sleazier than Vladimir Putin?“Which is true.”A spokesman for Mr Johnson said: “This account is untrue.”Mr Carlson also mocked Mr Johnson, whose real name is Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson.“His name’s not actually Boris… his name is Alex Johnson, he called himself Boris in high school, so the guy who calls himself Boris is accusing me?” he added. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailConfidence in Britain’s new online safety regime could be undermined by a lack of “tangible” improvement, MPs have warned.Communications regulator Ofcom has been given the job of implementing the regime introduced by last year’s Online Safety Act, which requires providers of online services to minimise the extent of illegal and harmful content.But in a report published on Wednesday, the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee said full implementation of the new rules had been delayed by a year, while the way Ofcom will handle complaints risks leaving the public “disappointed”.The report said: “As the regulatory regime will not be fully implemented until 2026, there is a risk that public confidence in the regime will be undermined if it does not quickly bring about tangible changes to people’s online experience.”(Ofcom) must now continue to be proactively frank with the public over what the Online Safety Act does and does not empower it to do, lest confidence in the new regime be swiftly underminedDame Meg Hillier, Public Accounts CommitteeUnder the new regime, Ofcom will be unable to act on individual complaints and can only step in when there are “systemic concerns” about a provider, nor does it have a mechanism for telling complainants whether their concerns have contributed to any action.Committee chairwoman Dame Meg Hillier said: “Expectations are understandably high for firm guardrails in the hitherto largely unregulated online world.“We know that around two thirds of UK children and adults say they experienced at least one potential online harm in a month in 2022, according to Ofcom, which is to be commended for how swiftly it has moved to take on its new responsibilities.“It must now continue to be proactively frank with the public over what the Online Safety Act does and does not empower it to do, lest confidence in the new regime be swiftly undermined.”The committee said Ofcom was well prepared for its new role, and noted that it had already achieved some success in ensuring a website promoting suicide was blocked for UK users.But full implementation of the new rules has slipped from 2025 to 2026, while the April 2025 deadline for bringing in parts of the regulations relating to illegal harms and protecting children is considered the “bare minimum” required.MPs also called for more clarity on how fees levied on industry would work, suggesting Ofcom would not recover its set-up costs until 2033, and asked for more detail on how it would deal with internet providers who failed to engage with the regulator.With an estimated 100,000 companies subject to regulation, many of which may be small or based overseas, MPs said it may be difficult to contact some providers.No other country has introduced online safety regulation. Ofcom now needs to capitalise on its early progressDame Meg Hillier, Public Accounts CommitteeIf providers refuse to engage with Ofcom over systemic concerns, the regulator will have the power to levy fines of up to 10% of a company’s global revenue and carry out “business disruption measures”.Dame Meg added: “No other country has introduced online safety regulation. Ofcom now needs to capitalise on its early progress.“It must also accelerate its co-ordination with other regulators both at home and overseas, in the recognition that it is at the forefront of a truly global effort to strike the right balance between freedom and safety online.” More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailMPs and Downing Street have demanded evidence to be disclosed in the row between Kemi Badenoch and the former Post Office chief Henry Staunton as the spat was branded as a “deeply embarrassing” political sideshow.Political figures called for the row to be put to one side for the sake of innocent postmasters as the explosive war of words between Mr Staunton and Ms Badenoch continued. Former Conservative peer Baroness Wheatcroft, who is now a cross-bench peer, said the focus should be on the people whose lives have been ruined by the saga. She added: “It really shouldn’t be happening. The issue here is the victims. This isn’t helping them at all… It’s a sideshow.”Labour MP Liam Byrne, chair of the Commons business and trade committee, which is investigating the Horizon scandal, added: “What we could do without right now is a war of words between the secretary of state and the former chairman. What we really need is ministers writing checks to the hundreds of subpostmasters who need redress, and they’ve been waiting for too long.”It came as:It was claimed that Lord David Cameron’s government knew the Post Office dropped a probe that may have helped wrongly-accused subpostmasters prove there were flaws in the Horizon accounting softwareMr Byrne and Number 10 urged Mr Staunton to provide the relevant papers to back up his claim that senior civil servants gave him a “go slow” order on issuing compensation for victims of the Horizon scandalAnother senior Labour MP, Chris Bryant, said the row “doesn’t quite add up”, adding: “I suspect this story isn’t over”Downing Street said “it was right” for Ms Badenoch to make a statement about the circumstances surrounding Mr Staunton’s departureThe war of words between the Business Secretary and Henry Staunton escalated on MondayThe row began when the former post office boss, who was sacked by Ms Badenoch last month, said he had been told to stall compensation payouts for postmasters affected by the Horizon scandal.But in a statement to the Commons, the business secretary said there was “no evidence whatsoever” of his account and branded it “a blatant attempt to seek revenge” for his sacking.She also claimed he was being investigated over bullying allegations before he was fired as chairman, and that concerns were raised about his “willingness to co-operate” with the probe.Hitting back later on Monday, a spokesperson for Mr Staunton said Ms Badenoch had made an “astonishing series of claims” about the saga and that Mr Staunton had no knowledge of the allegations.It was later reported that ministers in now foreign secretary Lord Cameron’s government were allegedly told that Post Office bosses had dropped a secret investigation that may have helped to prove postmasters’ innocence.The BBC revealed a 2016 internal investigation into how and why cash accounts on the Horizon IT system had been tampered with – which spanned 17 years of records – was suddenly dropped after postmasters began legal action.But despite the investigation, the organisation still argued in court that it was impossible for Fujitsu to remotely access accounts – raising questions about why the government did not intervene.Lord David Cameron’s government reportedly knew the Post Office dropped a probe that may have helped wrongly-accused subpostmasters prove there were flaws in the Horizon accounting software There is no evidence in the documents that then-prime minister Lord Cameron personally knew about the investigation or that it had been ditched.But the revelations suggest the Post Office knew that Fujitsu staff could remotely amend cash balances in branch accounts, even though it later repeatedly claimed this was impossible.And they raise questions over what ministers knew about the Post Office’s internal inquiry and why they allowed it to be junked.A spokesperson for Lord Cameron pointed to his previous comments saying he could not remember being briefed about the Horizon scandal while he was prime minister.The foreign secretary, who was in No 10 between 2010 and 2016 as hundreds of subpostmasters were being pursued, said in January: “I don’t recall in any detail being briefed or being aware of the scale of this issue.”He added that anyone who was involved in government over the last two decades had to be “extremely sorry” for the miscarriage of justice.The Horizon scandal saw more than 700 subpostmasters and subpostmistresses handed criminal convictions between 1999 and 2015 as Fujitsu’s faulty Horizon system made it appear as though money was missing at their branches. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailThe boss of the Bank of England has said Britain’s “very small” recession may already be over in a boost for beleaguered Rishi Sunak.Andrew Bailey told MPs that officials at the central bank think the economy “is already showing distinct signs of an upturn”.And, just days after official figures confirmed Britain had fallen into a recession, Mr Bailey said it was the weakest downturn since the 1970s “by a long way”.Mr Sunak was slammed after the Office for National Statistics said the economy shrank by 0.3 per cent at the end of last year. Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said it left his pledge to grow the economy “in tatters”.The prime minister has come under fire after the UK entered a technical recession last week But, speaking to parliament’s treasury committee on Tuesday, Mr Bailey said: “We have a very precise definition of a recession in this country as two successive quarters of negative GDP growth.”He pointed to the 0.5 per cent cumulative fall in growth last year, adding: “If you look at recessions going back to the 1970s, this is the weakest by a long way because the range, I think, for the numbers for those two quarters for all the previous recessions was something like 2.5 per cent to 22 per cent in terms of negative growth, so minus 0.5 per cent is a very weak recession.”The Bank of England boss also said: “I think there’s two ways that the UK grows, first of all by restoring price stability, that’s a condition for stable growth. I think we’re well on our way to doing that.“The second thing is – and this is part of the narrow path we’re having to walk here – that we’ve got weak supply side growth in this country and we have had for some time. So, clearly, to get faster growth, we do need to see stronger growth on the supply side.”While the recession was described as “technical” by some, because of the limited duration of the dip, Asda chairman Lord Rose said: “If it looks like a duck, it quacks like a duck… it’s a duck. It’s a recession. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a technical recession or not.”Chancellor Jeremy Hunt blamed efforts to tackle high inflation and the recent run of interest rate rises, but maintained that the economy was turning a corner.Jeremy Hunt insisted there is “light at the ed of the tunnel” if the Government sticks to its economic plan. The revelation the UK is in recession led to increased pressure on the Bank of England to cut interest rates. The New Economics Foundation think tank said it was “no surprise” the UK had fallen into recession, “given this government’s mismanagement of the economy and the Bank of England’s panicked interest rate rises”.But now the governor of the Bank of England has hinted that it may cut interest rates sooner as inflation does not need to reach the 2 per cent before they do so. Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey has signalled that inflation does not need to reach 2 per cent before the Bank starts cutting interest rates Mr Bailey told the the treasury committee that although “the quantity side of the labour market remains tight”, the Bank of England will consider progress in pay, labour market and services before making the decision:“But it’s the progress of those three things.“We don’t need inflation to come back to target before we cut interest rates, I must be very clear on that, that’s not necessary.“We’ll be looking for sustained progress on those things to reach that judgment about how long this period of restrictive policy needs to be.” More