Adam Boulton: Long Johnson is still plaguing the Tories – Sunak needs to take decisive action
Those worried about the health of British politics have diagnosed a new disease at Westminster.
Chris Patten, a grandee from the Conservative establishment, spotted what he called “Long Boris” last summer.
Weeks after Boris Johnson announced his resignation as prime minister, Lord Patten, a former party chairman and former BBC chairman, lamented the persistent “corrupting and debilitating impact of Johnson’s premiership on British politics and government.”
As with ‘SARS-Covid-19’ there was some debate as to how the condition should be named in general conversation.
Eventually, “Long Johnson” was settled on rather than the more familiar “Long Boris”.
The commentator Paul Waugh listed some of the symptoms of Long Johnson he saw in the bloodstream of the Conservative party: “A debilitating condition that led it to lose its sense of taste, decency and direction.”
Long Johnson hit fever pitch with the Conservative party’s short-lived collective decision to select Johnson’s preferred candidate, Liz Truss, as the next prime minister. That quickly burnt itself out.
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On taking office Rishi Sunak tried to shake off Long Johnson by promising that his government would be one of “integrity, professionalism and accountability” at all times. It is not proving so easy for the new prime minister to escape unwanted legacies from his predecessor-but-one.
Questions of probity over two men who were promoted by Johnson, Nadhim Zahawi and Richard Sharp, have combined to create the biggest political crisis of Sunak’s short premiership.
According to Raphael Behr, political columnist on The Guardian, the “Zahawi episode is a symptom of Long Johnson, the chronic, recurrent, debilitation of government by a pathogen that still circulates in the ruling party long after the original infection has been treated”.
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Analysis: Labour says PM ‘too weak’
The embarrassments Sunak is grappling with are debilitating hangovers from the Johnson era, so is the fumbling way the prime minister is dealing with them.
Nadhim Zahawi had the reputation at Westminster of a comparatively competent and personable minister, one of those credited with the successful roll-out of the vaccine programme. But as often with politicians who become conspicuously wealthy there was much gossip about his finances.
His wealth was generated as a co-founder of the polling company YouGov before he became an MP.
Scrutiny of Zahawi’s finances sharpened when he became Chancellor of the Exchequer, the politician responsible for the nation’s finances and tax system. In seeking the truth, journalists received what they considered to be aggressive threats of libel from lawyers acting for Zahawi, designed to suppress allegations, some of which have been confirmed as accurate.
It is now known that while he was Chancellor, Zahawi quietly negotiated a tax settlement totalling some £5m, including a penalty of more than £1m, with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) for which he was the minister responsible.
Zahawi says his mistake was “careless but not deliberate”. Jim Harra, the head of HMRC, told MPs this week: “There are no penalties for innocent errors in your tax affairs.”
There is no pressing reason why Boris Johnson should have made Zahawi chancellor. Nor does the haste with which the appointment was made suggest that the prime minister or his officials, led by the Cabinet Secretary, had sufficient time for due diligence looking into his suitability for this most sensitive financial post. Yet their green light then effectively gave him a free pass to prominent ministerial ranks under both Truss and Sunak.
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‘Questions need answering’ in Zahawi case
By late last year scrutiny by an honours committee elsewhere in Whitehall reportedly held up a proposed knighthood for Zahawi.
In the past, when serving prime ministers have announced their intention to resign, other ministers have stayed in post until the successor is chosen. He or she then assembles their own cabinet team. This has been so even when threatened ministerial resignations force out a prime minister, as happened to both Tony Blair and Boris Johnson.
Once he announced he was going, Johnson could have said that he was not accepting resignations and that all ministers would stay on in the interim. That is not the way Boris Johnson behaved. He used his dying powers of patronage to settle scores and to try to influence the outcome of the leadership election.
He fired Michael Gove and then he troubled the ailing Queen to appoint an entirely new temporary cabinet for the few weeks of the leadership contest. Johnson promoted Zahawi to the Treasury, thus crucially depriving Rishi Sunak of the status of high office during the leadership battle, while Truss luxuriated in the great office of state of foreign secretary.
Earlier, after Sunak emerged as the person most likely to replace Johnson, he became the subject of damaging leaks about his US Green Card and his wife’s non-dom status. The Metropolitan Police coincidentally tarnished the teetotal Sunak’s reputation, and blunted the impact on Johnson, by issuing them both with fixed penalty notices for breaking COVID regulations at the “ambushed with a cake” Johnson birthday party in the cabinet room.
Sunak experienced the hard way the phenomenon, now hitting Zahawi and Sharp, that friendship with Johnson often has adverse consequences.
Richard Sharp insists that he was appointed the chairman of the BBC on merit after a rigorous selection process. There is no reason to doubt his perspective. When I knew him at university, more than 40 years ago, he was an exceptionally decent and considerate person. He went on to build a highly successful career in finance alongside generous voluntary contributions to public service and charity.
Men with known political affiliations such as Michael Grade, Gavyn Davies and Marmaduke Hussey have been appointed to the BBC chair by other prime ministers. But Boris Johnson made the final decision over Sharp, after he and his allies had previously broken with precedent by conjuring up culture wars and pre-endorsing friends and allies such as Paul Dacre and Charles Moore for top posts in the media, normally viewed as apolitical – unsuccessfully it turned out.
Johnson used his patronage to appoint Peter Cruddas to the House of Lords, someone who had helped him out with his personal finances. Richard Sharp says he “simply connected” people, who then facilitated an undeclared personal £800,000 overdraft guarantee for the prime minister.
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Zahawi should ‘stand aside’
Richard Sharp and cabinet secretary Simon Case may genuinely have decided this was immaterial to Sharp’s BBC application but is that the way Boris Johnson sees things? Several enquiries into Sharp’s appointment are now under way. Johnson’s benefactor Sam Blyth is an old friend of Sharp.
The inquiries will doubtless ascertain whether Boris Johnson knew of this obliging distant cousin’s existence before Sharp introduced him to the cabinet secretary.
Long Johnson is also evident in the way the government is handling these potential scandals.
Quick resignations and moving on are things of the past. Following a pattern which became familiar during the Johnson era, Sunak has presided over, and sometimes joined in, denials that have turned out to be inaccurate, playing for time by calling for further inquiries after awkward facts are established.
Sir Keir Starmer had a two-pronged attack at PMQs: “We all know why the prime minister was reluctant to ask his party chair questions about family finances and tax avoidance, but his failure to sack him, when the whole country can see what is going on, shows how hopelessly weak he is.”
Sizeable minorities in parliament and perhaps even more in the Tory membership are not loyal to Sunak and hanker for a return of Johnson. This limits Sunak’s ability to lead firmly.
With his oblique reference to the great wealth of Sunak’s family, the leader of the opposition went further, implying that the prime minister is really just one of them – sharing similar values, or the absence of them, to Johnson and Zahawi and the same acquisitiveness.
Only urgent decisive action by Sunak can demonstrate that he has beaten the plague of Long Johnson.
Donald Trump has announced a 10% trade tariff on all imports from the UK – as he unleashed sweeping tariffs across the globe.
Speaking at a White House event entitled “Make America Wealthy Again”, the president held up a chart detailing the worst offenders – which also showed the new tariffs the US would be imposing.
“This is Liberation Day,” he told a cheering audience of supporters, while hitting out at foreign “cheaters”.
Follow live: Trump tariffs latest
He claimed “trillions” of dollars from the “reciprocal” levies he was imposing on others’ trade barriers would provide relief for the US taxpayer and restore US jobs and factories.
Mr Trump said the US has been “looted, pillaged, raped, plundered” by other nations.
Pic: AP
His first tariff announcement was a 25% duty on all car imports from midnight – 5am on Thursday, UK time.
Mr Trump confirmed the European Union would face a 20% reciprocal tariff on all other imports. China’s rate was set at 34%.
The UK’s rate of 10% was perhaps a shot across the bows over the country’s 20% VAT rate, though the president’s board suggested a 10% tariff imbalance between the two nations.
It was also confirmed that further US tariffs were planned on some individual sectors including semiconductors, pharmaceuticals and critical mineral imports.
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Trump’s tariffs explained
The ramping up of duties promises to be painful for the global economy. Tariffs on steel and aluminium are already in effect.
The UK government signalled there would be no immediate retaliation.
Business and Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said: “We will always act in the best interests of UK businesses and consumers. That’s why, throughout the last few weeks, the government has been fully focused on negotiating an economic deal with the United States that strengthens our existing fair and balanced trading relationship.
“The US is our closest ally, so our approach is to remain calm and committed to doing this deal, which we hope will mitigate the impact of what has been announced today.
“We have a range of tools at our disposal and we will not hesitate to act. We will continue to engage with UK businesses including on their assessment of the impact of any further steps we take.
“Nobody wants a trade war and our intention remains to secure a deal. But nothing is off the table and the government will do everything necessary to defend the UK’s national interest.”
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Who showed up for Trump’s tariff address?
The EU has pledged to retaliate, which is a problem for Northern Ireland.
Should that scenario play out, the region faces the prospect of rising prices because all its imports are tied to EU rules under post-Brexit trading arrangements.
It means US goods shipped to Northern Ireland would be subject to the EU’s reprisals.
The impact of a trade war would be expected to be widely negative, with tit-for-tat tariffs risking job losses, a ramping up of prices and cooling of global trade.
Research for the Institute for Public Policy Research has suggested more than 25,000 direct jobs in the UK car manufacturing industry alone could be at risk from the tariffs on car exports to the US.
The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) had said the tariff costs could not be absorbed by manufacturers and may lead to a review of output.
The tariffs now on UK exports pose a big risk to growth and the so-called headroom Chancellor Rachel Reeves was forced to restore to the public finances at the spring statement, risking further spending cuts or tax rises ahead to meet her fiscal rules.
Read more:
What do Trump’s tariffs mean for the UK?
The rewards and risks for US as trade war intensifies
A member of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), David Miles, told MPs on Tuesday that US tariffs at 20% or 25% maintained on the UK for five years would “knock out all the headroom the government currently has”.
But he added that a “very limited tariff war” that the UK stays out of could be “mildly positive”.
He said: “There’s a bit of trade that will get diverted to the UK, and some of the exports from China, for example, that would have gone to the US, they’ll be looking for a home for them in the rest of the world.
“And stuff would be available in the UK a bit cheaper than otherwise would have been. So there is one, not central scenario at all, which is very, very mildly potentially positive to the UK. All the other ones which involve the UK facing tariffs are negative, and they’re negative to very different extents.”
Israel is beginning a major expansion of its military operation in Gaza and will seize large areas of the territory, the country’s defence minister said.
Israel Katz said in a statement that there would be a large scale evacuation of the Palestinian population from fighting areas.
In a post on X, he wrote: “I call on the residents of Gaza to act now to remove Hamas and return all the hostages. This is the only way to end the war.”
He said the offensive was “expanding to crush and clean the area of terrorists and terrorist infrastructure and capture large areas that will be added to the security zones of the State of Israel”.
The expansion of Israel’s military operation in Gaza deepens its renewed offensive.
The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that had begun in January ended in March as Israel launched various air strikes on targets across Gaza.
The deal had seen the release of dozens of hostages and hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, but collapsed before it could move to phase two, which would have involved the release of all hostages and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
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26 March: Anti-Hamas chants heard at protest in Gaza
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had already issued evacuation warnings to Gazans living around the southern city of Rafah and towards the city of Khan Yunis, telling them to move to the al Mawasi area on the shore, which was previously designated a humanitarian zone.
Israeli forces have already set up a significant buffer zone within Gaza, having expanded an area around the edge of the territory that had existed before the war, as well as a large security area in the so-called Netzarim corridor through the middle of Gaza.
This latest conflict began when Hamas launched an attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, killing around 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostages.
The ensuing Israeli offensive has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.
Read more:
Father demands protection after Gaza aid workers’ deaths
Anti-Hamas chants heard at rare protest in Gaza
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Bodies of aid workers found in Gaza
Aid group Doctors Without Borders warned on Wednesday that Israel’s month-long siege of Gaza means some critical medications are now short in supply and are running out, leaving Palestinians at risk of losing vital healthcare.
“The Israeli authorities’ have condemned the people of Gaza to unbearable suffering with their deadly siege,” said Myriam Laaroussi, the group’s emergency coordinator in Gaza.
“This deliberate infliction of harm on people is like a slow death; it must end immediately.”
“Liberation day” was due to be on 1 April. But Donald Trump decided to shift it by a day because he didn’t want anyone to think it was an April fool.
It is no joke for him and it is no joke for governments globally as they brace for his tariff announcements.
It is stunning how little we know about the plans to be announced in the Rose Garden of the White House later today.
It was telling that we didn’t see the President at all on Tuesday. He and all his advisers were huddled in the West Wing, away from the cameras, finalising the tariff plans.
Follow the events of Liberation Day live as they unfold
Three key figures are central to it all.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is the so-called ‘measured voice’. A former hedge fund manager, he has argued for targeted not blanket tariffs.
Peter Navarro is Trump’s senior counsellor for trade and manufacturing. A long-time aide and confidante of the president, he is a true loyalist and a firm believer in the merits of tariffs.
His economic views are well beyond mainstream economic thought – precisely why he appeals to Trump.
The third key character is Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary and the biggest proponent of the full-throttle liberation day tariff juggernaut.
The businessman, philanthropist, Trump fundraiser and billionaire (net worth ranging between $1bn and $2bn) has been among the closest to Trump over the past 73 days of this presidency – frequently in and out of the West Wing.
If anything goes wrong, observers here in Washington suspect Trump will make Lutnick the fall guy.
What are Donald Trump’s tariffs, what is ‘liberation day’ and how does it all affect the UK?
And what if it does all go wrong? What if Trump is actually the April fool?
“It’s going to work…” his press secretary said when asked if it could all be a disaster, driving up the cost of living for Americans and creating global economic chaos.
“The president has a brilliant team who have been studying these issues for decades and we are focussed on restoring the global age of America…” Karoline Leavitt said.
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‘Days of US being ripped off are over’
Dancing to the president’s tune
My sense is that we should see “liberation day” not as the moment it’s all over in terms of negotiations for countries globally as they try to carve out deals with the White House. Rather it should be seen as the start.
Trump, as always, wants to be seen as the one calling the shots, taking control, seizing the limelight. He wants the world to dance to his tune. Today is his moment.
But beyond today, alongside the inevitable tit-for-tat retaliation, expect to see efforts by nations to seek carve-outs and to throw bones to Trump; to identify areas where trade policies can be tweaked to placate the president.
Even small offerings which change little in a material sense could give Trump the chance to spin and present himself as the winning deal maker he craves to be.
One significant challenge for foreign governments and their diplomats in Washington has been engaging the president himself with proposals he might like.
Negotiations take place with a White House team who are themselves unsure where the president will ultimately land. It’s resulted in unsatisfactory speculative negotiations.
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Treasury minister: ‘We’ll do everything to secure a deal’
Too much faith placed in the ‘special relationship’?
The UK believes it’s in a better position than most other countries globally. It sits outside the EU giving it autonomy in its trade policy, its deficit with the US is small, and Trump loves Britain.
It’s true too that the UK government has managed to accelerate trade conversations with the White House on a tariff-free trade partnership. Trump’s threats have forced conversations that would normally sit in the long grass for months.
Yet, for now, the conversations have yielded nothing firm. That’s a worry for sure. Did Keir Starmer have too much faith in the ‘special relationship’?
Downing Street will have identified areas where they can tweak trade policy to placate Trump. Cars maybe? Currently US cars into the UK carry a 10% tariff. Digital services perhaps?
US food? Unlikely – there are non-tariff barriers on US food because the consensus seems to be that chlorinated chicken and the like isn’t something UK consumers want.
Easier access to UK financial services maybe? More visas for Americans?
For now though, everyone is waiting to see what Trump does before they either retaliate or relent and lower their own market barriers.
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