Is there a need for a temporary PM? Today’s front pages very much sum up the the mood of the nation and the political issues created by the continued hospitalisation of the prime minister who has been in intensive care now for a second night. All this comes at the height of the biggest peacetime emergency that the UK has seen in generations. A huge issue that will have to be decided in the coming days and weeks is how…
What a strange period this is and it is hard to see things in perspective. That the man leading the fight against the virus is seriously ill after getting it himself is totally shocking and makes me for one feel very uneasy and worried. The lockdown seems to have been going on for an eternity as we try to find something positive with each new set of daily virus statistics. We can’t even take those numbers as giving the whole…
Mike Smithson
That the man who just four months ago led the Conservatives to their biggest General Election Victory in decades should now be in intensive care with the coronavirus brings home the sheer magnitude of what the world is facing and why governments are going to extraordinary lengths to try to impede it. This is a killer and at the moment there’s no way of of stopping it. What makes him being afflicted more striking is that Boris is in his…
Boris Johnson was taken to ICU at St Thomas’s Hospital about 7pm. He remains conscious, ICU is a precaution in case he needs ventilation. Dominic Raab asked to deputise for PM if necessary. — Tom Barton (@tombarton) April 6, 2020
"I spoke to the PM on Saturday, [that] was the last time I spoke to him," says Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab Boris Johnson is in hospital with "persistent symptoms" of coronavirus https://t.co/OIh7EwyqSR pic.twitter.com/HDmG3ygnUP — BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) April 6, 2020 This seems a touch odd – if PM is really in regular touch, and Raab really is in charge, shouldn't they have talked to each other in the last 24 hours ? https://t.co/j5bnc4rId2 — Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) April 6,…
The challenges ahead for the new leader Labour has a new leader. And soon a new Shadow Cabinet. Starmer will not be short of advice, most of it unasked for. Momentum have already started. Would that Starmer gives them the answer Attlee gave Harold Laski: “A period of silence from you would be most welcome.” If not, perhaps a link to this tongue lashing from Alan Johnson would do. So let’s join in. Should he go for unity – healing a divided and demoralised party? Magnanimity…
There was similar movement on the Johnson exit date market. Raab is Johnson’s designated stand-in. This makes me uneasy about political betting but inevitably some punters will look to anything to turn a buck. I’m also not convinced that the market is reading this right. If there is a need a replacement PM then that would surely be a decision for the whole cabinet. I’m sure everybody on PB wishes Boris a speedy and full recovery. Mike Smithson