Boris Johnson ‘calling off the dogs’ from attacking privileges committee report

Published

2 years ago

June 17, 2023

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Boris Johnson has dramatically made a double retreat from all-out verbal war with Rishi Sunak over the damning report which concluded he lied to MPs over partygate.

First, he has ordered his closest allies in the Commons not to vote against the privileges committee report that proposed a 90-day suspension if he had still been an MP.

In a major U-turn, the former prime minister has told his supporters “it’s time to come together and move on” and “turn down the temperature and calm down”.

Partygate report: The key findings of privileges committee that sealed Boris Johnson’s fate

Secondly, Mr Johnson appears to have steered clear of political controversy in his new Daily Mail column by writing – bizarrely – about his battle to lose weight and trying a slimming “wonder drug”.

With MPs braced for another blistering attack on the privileges committee, Mr Johnson has chosen instead to write about using injections to stifle his cravings for cheddar and chorizo.

Mr Johnson does, however, write that when middle-aged MPs lose weight they may be about or launch a leadership bid, a bid close allies have told Sky News he may launch after the next election.

His decision to “call off the dogs” – as MPs are calling it – and avoid a bruising confrontation in a Commons debate on Monday was revealed to Sky News by his close ally Sir James Duddridge MP.

“Boris’s view has changed,” said Sir James. “I spoke to him and he said the vote is not going to make any difference and it’s time to come together and move on.

“We want to turn down the temperature and calm down. I don’t think there’s going to be a vote. Very few people are going to turn up because it’s only a one-line whip.”

But another close ally told Sky News: “Don’t rule out Boris going for leader of the Opposition after the next election. He’s going to go submarine for now. For now, he wants to regain the reputation as the columnist everybody loves.”

Mr Johnson’s Daily Mail column, which the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments complained it was not told about until 30 minutes before the paper announced it, in a “clear breach” of the ministerial code, is rumoured to be worth a big six-figure sum.

The column began: “I first thought that something was up when I saw that a certain member of the cabinet had miraculously changed his appearance. He had acquired a new jawline. His neck emerged without effort from his collar.

“When he rose from his chair at the cabinet table, that chair no longer tried to cling longingly about his hips. I got it! He had lost weight, stones and stones of belly…”

Beth Rigby analysis:
Johnson verdict a blow to Sunak’s hopes of maintaining peace in the Tory civil war

Though the ex-prime minister did not name the cabinet minister, it is understood to be Nadhim Zahawi, who was education secretary and then briefly became chancellor under Mr Johnson after Mr Sunak resigned.

But in what could have been a jibe at the slender Mr Sunak, who the ex-prime minister’s allies accuse of stabbing Mr Johnson in the back when he quit, he said he thought of Julius Caesar and wrote: “Let me have men about me that are fat,’ said the Roman dictator, shortly before his assassination. ‘Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look’.”

Mr Johnson added: “If an otherwise healthy middle-aged man displays sudden weight loss, I reasoned, there are only two possible explanations. Either he has fallen hopelessly in love, or else he is about to mount a Tory leadership bid.

“Then one of those colleagues came up and whispered the truth – that there was an entirely separate explanation. He had access, he said, to a wonder drug. ‘It stops you wanting to eat,’ he said.

The second colleague is understood to be Mr Johnson’s close ally and former Cabinet Office fixer ally Nigel Adams, who he attempted to send to the House of Lords and who, like the former prime minister, has resigned as an MP, forcing a by-election in his Selby and Ainsty constituency.

Mr Johnson wrote: “I consulted the doctor, and he told me that I was an ideal candidate for these appetite-suppressing drugs.

“It’s a cinch, said the doctor. All you need to do is inject a tiny dose of clear Ozempic fluid into your abdomen, once a week, and hey presto – no more raiding the fridge at 11.30pm for the cheddar and chorizo washed down with half a bottle of wine.

“He wrote out the prescription, I zoomed to the chemist’s; and though I was frankly a bit taken aback by the cost, what the hell, I said to myself, think of the benefits to health.

“So for weeks I jabbed my stomach, and for weeks it worked. I must have been losing four or five pounds a week – maybe more – when all at once it started to go wrong.

“I don’t know why, exactly. Maybe it was something to do with constantly flying around the world, and changing time zones, but I started to dread the injections, because they were making me feel ill.”

And perhaps revealing too much information, he added: “One minute I would be fine, and the next minute I would be talking to Ralph on the big white phone; and I am afraid that I decided that I couldn’t go on.

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“For now I am back to exercise and willpower, but I look at my colleagues – leaner but not hungrier – and I hope that if science can do it for them, maybe one day it can help me, and everyone else.”

Mr Johnson’s column will reinforce the view of many Conservative MPs that he aims to return to the Commons at the next election – and indeed mount a new leadership bid, whether he is leaner and fitter or not.

World

Donald Trump says tariffs will be cut after ‘amazing’ meeting with Xi Jinping

Published

13 hours ago

October 30, 2025

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Donald Trump says tariffs will be cut after 'amazing' meeting with Xi Jinping

Donald Trump has described crucial trade talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping as “amazing” – and says he will visit Beijing in April.

The leaders of the world’s two biggest economies met in South Korea as they tried to defuse growing tensions – with both countries imposing aggressive tariffs on exports since the president’s second term began.

Catch up on Trump-Xi meeting

Aboard Air Force One, Mr Trump confirmed tariffs on Chinese goods exported to the US will be reduced, which could prove much-needed relief to consumers.

It was also agreed that Beijing will work “hard” to stop fentanyl flowing into the US.

Semiconductor chips were another issue raised during their 100-minute meeting, but the president admitted certain issues weren’t discussed.

“On a scale of one to 10, the meeting with Xi was 12,” he told reporters en route back to the US.

Xi a ‘tough negotiator’, says Trump

The talks conclude a whirlwind visit across Asia – with Mr Trump saying he was “too busy” to see Kim Jong Un.

However, the president said he would be willing to fly back to see the North Korean leader, with a view to discussing denuclearisation.

Mr Trump had predicted negotiations with his Chinese counterpart would last for three or four hours – but their meeting ended in less than two.

The pair shook hands before the summit, with the US president quipping: “He’s a tough negotiator – and that’s not good!”

It marks the first face-to-face meeting between both men since 2019 – back in Mr Trump’s first term.

There were signs that Beijing had extended an olive branch to Washington ahead of the talks, with confirmation China will start buying US soybeans again.

American farmers have been feeling the pinch since China stopped making purchases earlier this year – not least because the country was their biggest overseas market.

Chinese stocks reached a 10-year high early on Thursday as investors digested their meeting, with the yuan rallying to a one-year high against the US dollar.

Analysis: A fascinating power play

Sky News Asia correspondent Helen-Ann Smith – who is in Busan where the talks took place – said it was fascinating to see the power play between both world leaders.

She said: “Trump moved quickly to dominate the space – leaning in, doing all the talking, even responding very briefly to a few thrown questions.

“That didn’t draw so much as an eyebrow raise from his counterpart, who was totally inscrutable. Xi does not like or respond well to unscripted moments, Trump lives for them.”

On Truth Social, Mr Trump had described the summit as a gathering of the “G2” – a nod to America and China’s status as the world’s two biggest economies.

While en route to see President Xi, he also revealed that the US “Department of War” has now been ordered to start testing nuclear weapons for the first time since 1992.

World

Tens of thousands killed in two days in Sudan city, analysts believe

Published

17 hours ago

October 30, 2025

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Tens of thousands killed in two days in Sudan city, analysts believe

Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the Sudanese city of Al Fashir by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in a two-day window after the paramilitary group captured the regional capital, analysts believe.

Sky News is not able to independently verify the claim by Yale Humanitarian Labs, as the city remains under a telecommunications blackout.

Stains and shapes resembling blood and corpses can be seen from space in satellite images analysed by the research lab.

Nathaniel Raymond, executive director of Yale Humanitarian Labs, said: “In the past 48 hours since we’ve had [satellite] imagery over Al Fashir, we see a proliferation of objects that weren’t there before RSF took control of Al Fashir – they are approximately 1.3m to 2m long which is critical because in satellite imagery at very high resolution, that’s the average length of a human body lying vertical.”

Mini Minawi, the governor of North Darfur, said on X that 460 civilians have been killed in the last functioning hospital in the city.

The Sudan Doctors Network has also shared that the RSF “cold-bloodedly killed everyone they found inside Al Saudi Hospital, including patients, their companions, and anyone else present in the wards”.

World Health Organisation (WHO) chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said it was “appalled and deeply shocked” by the reports.

Satellite images support the claims of a massacre at Al Saudi Hospital, according to Mr Raymond, who said YHL’s report detailed “a large pile of them [objects believed to be bodies] against a wall at one building at Saudi hospital. And we believe that’s consistent with reports that patients and staff were executed en masse”.

In a video message released on Wednesday, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo acknowledged “violations in Al Fashir” and claimed “an investigation committee should start to hold any soldier or officer accountable”.

The commander is known for committing atrocities in Darfur in the early 2000s as a Janjaweed militia leader, and the RSF has been accused of carrying out genocide in Darfur 20 years on.

Sources have told Sky News the RSF is holding doctors, journalists and politicians captive, demanding ransoms from some families to release their loved ones.

One video shows a man from Al Fashir with an armed man kneeling on the ground, telling his family to pay 15,000. The currency was not made clear.

In some cases, ransoms have been paid, but then more messages come demanding that more money be transferred to secure release.

Muammer Ibrahim, a journalist based in the city, is currently being held by the RSF, who initially shared videos of him crouched on the ground, surrounded by fighters, announcing his hometown had been captured under duress.

He is being held incommunicado as his family scrambles to negotiate his release. Muammer courageously covered the siege of Al Fashir for months, enduring starvation and shelling.

The Committee to Protect Journalists regional director Sara Qudah said the abduction of Muammar Ibrahim “is a grave and alarming reminder that journalists in Al Fashir are being targeted simply for telling the truth”.

World

At least 30 killed after ‘unprecedented’ Hurricane Melissa ravages through Caribbean

Published

18 hours ago

October 29, 2025

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At least 30 killed after 'unprecedented' Hurricane Melissa ravages through Caribbean

At least 30 people have died after Hurricane Melissa tore through the Caribbean on Wednesday.

The Red Cross said early indications show the storm has been a “disaster of unprecedented catastrophe”.

Storm Melissa has so far ravaged through Jamaica, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Cuba.

At least 34 are estimated to be dead in the Caribbean, with eight of those in Jamaica, one in the Dominican Republic and 25 in Haiti.

This was down from a previously reported 40.

‘Heartbreaking’ aerial footage reveals scale of destruction

Later on Wednesday, the Jamaican government confirmed four people – three men and one woman – had been killed. This figure later rose to eight.

Local government minister, Desmond McKenzie, said: “They were discovered after being washed up by the flood waters generated by the hurricane.”

Devastating aerial footage shows towns destroyed by the storm.

The Jamaican prime minister, Andrew Holness, travelled to St Elizabeth, where the first deaths were reported, to inspect the storm’s impact.

Sharing aerial footage of battered homes, he wrote: “The damage is great, but we are going to devote all our energy to mount a strong recovery.”

The storm made landfall in Cuba in the early hours of Wednesday morning before leaving mid-afternoon, heading towards the Bahamas.

‘Whole communities are underwater’

Alexander Pendry, British Red Cross global response manager, said: “News is already coming through that whole communities are underwater and that the damage left by the strong winds has been devastating.

“The Jamaica Red Cross has been proactively supporting communities by preparing essential supplies and managing shelters. Their priority now is to reach people with aid as soon as possible.

“Across the Caribbean, Red Cross teams have been mobilising as Melissa continues its trajectory across Cuba, Dominican Republic and Haiti.”

He added: “Tragically, experience tells us that the impact on communities and individuals will be shattering and long lasting.

“We will be here for as long as people need us.”