Boris Johnson ‘calling off the dogs’ from attacking privileges committee report
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.
Sir James said Mr Johnson’s views have changed
“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…”
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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.
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New weight loss drug – how does it work?
“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
Iran says it’s carried out ‘mighty and successful’ attack on US base – as Qatar air defences ‘thwart assault’
Iran claims it has carried out a “mighty and successful response” to “America’s aggression” after launching missile attacks on a US military base in Qatar and Iraq.
The attack comes after the US dropped “bunker buster bombs” on three key nuclear sites in Iran over the weekend.
Iran’s response this evening is the latest escalation in tensions in the volatile region.
Qatar has said there were no casualties at the al Udeid base following the strikes and that its “air defences thwarted the attack and successfully intercepted the Iranian missiles”.
People in Qatar’s capital, Doha, had stopped and gazed up at the sky as missiles flew and interceptors fired.
Follow latest: Iran attacks US bases
Iran had announced on state television that it had attacked American forces stationed at the al Udeid airbase.
A caption on screen called it “a mighty and successful response” to “America’s aggression” as martial music played.
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Iran releases video after attack on US base
Initial reports claimed Iran had also targeted a base housing US troops in western Iraq, but a US military official later told Reuters news agency the attack in Qatar was the only one detected.
A US government official said the White House and US defence department was “closely monitoring” the potential threats to its base.
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump was in the Situation Room in the White House with his team following the Iranian strikes.
Traces are seen in the sky over Qatar after Iran’s armed forces targeted the al Udeid base. Pic: Reuters
He later said in a post on Truth Social that the missiles were a “very weak response”, which the US “expected” and “very effectively countered”.
He added: “Most importantly, they’ve gotten it all out of their ‘system,’ and there will, hopefully, be no further HATE.
“I want to thank Iran for giving us early notice, which made it possible for no lives to be lost, and nobody to be injured.
“Perhaps Iran can now proceed to Peace and Harmony in the Region, and I will enthusiastically encourage Israel to do the same.”
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a post on X: “We have not violated anyone’s rights, nor will we ever accept anyone violating ours, and we will not surrender to anyone’s violation; this is the logic of the Iranian nation.”
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The attacks came shortly after Qatar closed its airspace as a precaution amid threats from Iran.
Just before the explosions, Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian wrote on the social platform X: “We neither initiated the war nor seeking it. But we will not leave invasion to the great Iran without answer.”
Kuwait and Bahrain briefly shut their airspaces after the attack, news agencies in each country reported.
Iraq also shut its airspace, while Oman Air suspended some flights in the region.
The Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways said it is rerouting several flights today and tomorrow due to restrictions in parts of the Middle East.
Three of Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities – Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan – were targeted in US airstrikes on 22 June.
The prime target of the attacks was Iran’s most advanced facility at Fordow, suspected of being used to enrich uranium close to what’s needed for a nuclear bomb.
Satellite images from the aftermath of the US strikes suggest at least six bombs were dropped there.
Satellite imagery of Fordow after the US bombing. Pic: Maxar Technologies
The secure nuclear facility, home to Iran’s main enrichment site, is buried deep under a mountain.
So exactly how much damage was done is unknown, perhaps even to Iran, which appears to have evacuated the site. The specific location of the strikes and the bombs used gives us an indication.
America used the 30,000-lb Massive Ordnance Penetrator bomb, or a GBU-57 – commonly known as a “bunker buster”.
The bunker buster is the only missile that had a chance of destroying the Fordow facility, and American planes were needed for them to be used.
Blueprints from Iran’s Nuclear Archive, which date from before 2004 and were seized by Israeli spies in 2018, suggest the bombs targeted the tunnels under the Fordow site.
Blueprints of the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant suggest tunnels run through the mountain. Pic: Google Earth
The access tunnels overground lead to a 250 metre long hall which is thought to contain the uranium enrichment centrifuges, and well as the location of what is thought to be ventilation shafts.
Iran is thought to have likely moved any enriched uranium from the facility before the strikes occurred. But if the ventilation shafts were hit, that would allow the bombs to penetrate as far as possible and hit the centrifuge hall itself.
Iran’s major nuclear facilities seriously damaged, if not completely destroyed
The loss of industrial-scale centrifuge “cascades” used to enrich uranium will certainly derail any imminent deadlines in weaponisation the Islamic Republic may have set itself – more on that below.
But it has already amassed a sizeable stockpile of highly enriched uranium and may even have already enriched some of it to the 90% or so needed to make fissile material necessary for a bomb.
And despite strikes on industrial scale facilities that have taken decades to generate that stockpile, the material itself weighs less than half a tonne.
Moving it, splitting it up, concealing it, is not beyond the wit of a nation that expected these assaults may be coming.
Iran’s nuclear programme is also more than its large-scale facilities. Iran has been developing nuclear expertise and industrial processes for decades. It would take more than a concerted bombing campaign to wipe that out.
The final steps to “weaponise” highly enriched uranium are technically challenging, but Iran was known to be working on them more than 20 years ago.
Iran also does not require industrial-scale facilities like those needed to enrich uranium, meaning they could be more easily concealed in a network of smaller, discrete lab-sized buildings.
But what’s far from clear is whether Iran had actually taken steps towards weaponisation in recent years.
Recent US intelligence assessments indicated that it hadn’t. Iran’s leaders knew that very significant moves towards making a bomb would be seen as a major escalation by its neighbours and the international community.
For a long time, a key deterrent to Iran developing a nuclear weapon has been an internal political one.
It’s possible of course that position may have been shifting and these latest strikes were designed to disarm a rapidly weaponising Iran.
But it’s also possible the attacks on its nuclear programme may be forcing a previously tentative government to push harder towards making a nuclear bomb.
Fordow is only one of three nuclear facilities targeted in America’s strike, however, and one of seven that have been targeted since the conflict began.
Natanz’s uranium enrichment facility, about 140 km south of Fordow, had been subject to multiple Israeli strikes before America’s advance.
Israeli raids targeted surface buildings, including stores of enriched uranium. However, post-strike radiation monitoring suggested there was little, if any, nuclear material there.
At the weekend, Americans dropped bunker-buster bombs there too, targeting thousands of enrichment centrifuges operating in bunkers below.
Destruction at the Natanz Enrichment Complex from satellite imagery. Pic: Maxar Technologies
Then there is the Isfahan complex. Again, Israeli missiles destroyed a number of buildings there last week. And at the weekend, US cruise missiles targeted others, including the uranium conversion plant.
At the weekend, Americans also dropped bunker-buster bombs there, targeting thousands of enrichment centrifuges operating in bunkers below.
Satellite imagery shows the impact on the Isfahan Nuclear Complex. facility. Pic: Maxar Technologies
Speaking from the White House after the attacks, Donald Trump said facilities had been “completely and totally obliterated”. But experts suggest it could take more to destroy it entirely.
“This is a very well-developed, long-standing programme with a lot of latent expertise in the country,” said Darya Dolzikova, a proliferation and nuclear security expert at RUSI, a UK defence and security thinktank
“I don’t think we’re talking about a full elimination at this point, certainly not by military means.”
The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.
World
Major wildfire on Greek island of Chios leads to evacuations – as officials warn ‘situation remains critical’
Nearly 200 firefighters are battling a major wildfire on the Greek island of Chios.
The fire started on Sunday in three separate locations near the main town, which is also called Chios. The flames were fanned by strong winds and turned into one large blaze.
Local media footage and photos showed firefighters battling towering flames burning through woodland and farmland as night fell. Power cuts have also been reported.
Greek authorities sent fresh evacuation notifications for two areas near Chios town on Monday morning.
People watch a wildfire approaching. Pic: Politischios.gr /AP
Push alerts have been sent to mobile phones in the area urging people to evacuate a total of 16 villages, settlements and neighbourhoods on the outskirts of the town.
“The situation remains critical as firefighting forces are still dealing with many active fronts, several of which being near hamlets,” a Greek government spokesman said.
The fire department said 190 firefighters were trying to control the fire on Monday, with strong winds hampering their efforts.
Pic: Politischios/AP
Some 35 vehicles, five helicopters and two water-dropping planes were also involved in the effort.
A specialist fire department arson investigation team has been sent to the eastern Aegean island to look into the causes.
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Wildfires are common during Greece’s hot, dry summers but authorities have said climate change is fuelling bigger and more frequent blazes.
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Last year, hundreds of tourists and residents were forced to flee wildfires on the holiday island of Kos.
In 2023, forest fires killed at least 20 people in the north of the country and forced 19,000 people to flee the island of Rhodes.
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