Inside Politics: Game, set, match

New poll for The Independent shows Tories on course to lose general election as Boris Johnson pledges more Nato troops and funding for Ukraine, writes Matt Mathers

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Andy Murray and Emma Raducanu crashed out of Wimbledon yesterday in a bad day for British tennis. Is Boris Johnson on set to lose game, set and match at the next election? Our exclusive poll today suggests so.

Inside the bubble

Commons action gets underway from 9.30am with transport questions followed by any urgent questions. Mark Spencer has the weekly business statement after any other ministerial statements and a procedure committee statement. Then the main business will be backbench debates on Iran’s nuclear program and Pride in the UK.

Daily Briefing

Empty threats

There is more bad news for Boris Johnson this morning as he prepares for day two of the Nato summit in Madrid. An exclusive poll for The Independent shows that the Labour Party is on course to win the next general election, with the party falling just shy of an overall majority. The prime minister is also at risk of losing his own seat – the latest in a series of surveys to suggest both of those outcomes.

In recent weeks, there has been speculation that No 10 could hold a snap general election to allow Johnson in a bid to help Johnson shore up his position. The PM himself refused to be drawn on the matter when speaking to reporters in Madrid, although a source close to him appeared to rule it out. “The PM won an 80-seat majority, people want us to use it to get s*** done, rather than hold another vote,” they told us.

One does suspect, however, that if Johnson thought he could win a snap poll, then he would have no issue with going to the country. But all the recent evidence – including our survey – points in the opposite direction. Johnson holding a general election would be political suicide – and the empty threats to do so were used to bring wavering Tory MPs into line in supporting the PM through the Partygate scandal. Whether or not any Tories were gullible enough to believe them is another matter.

Liz Truss, out on the broadcast round earlier, said the government is “not speculating about elections” but refused to rule out a snap poll. She told Sky News: “We are focused on delivering for the British people. We’re facing the worst war in Europe for decades, we’ve got the aftershock of the pandemic, which is having huge effects around the world and inflation, on people’s incomes, on economic growth. We are spending our time focused on dealing with those challenges, not speculating about elections.”

After a short hiatus amid the G7 and Nato summits, stories about Johnson’s future are slowly creeping back into the papers and news websites following the news that Labour MP Harriet Harman has been confirmed as the chair of the Commons probe investigating whether or not the PM misled parliament when told MPs that all rules were following in Downing Street during Covid lockdowns. Of course, we now know that is not true – it is the job of Harman and the privileges committee to determine if Johnson knew what he was saying was untrue.

The Daily Telegraph reports that No 10 fears a “kangaroo court” in the investigation while rebel Tory MPs – at risk of sounding like a broken record – are hatching a fresh plot to oust the PM by taking over the 1922 Committee of backbenchers which could change the rules on a leadership contest (he is safe for 12 months after winning the last time).

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Nato latest

Johnson has shown strong leadership on the war in Ukraine and was leading the way again yesterday when it was announced that Britain would commit more troops to Estonia to defend Nato’s eastern flank in the face of increasing aggression by Vladimir Putin, who he said was a prime example of “toxic masculinity”.

After reiterating calls for the UK to increase its military spending, Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, suggested that at least 1,000 extra troops could join an enlarged force in the Baltic state, though he stressed that final details would have to be worked out in the months ahead. Wallace, also in Madrid for the Nato summit, took a pop at Putin too, calling him a lunatic with small man syndrome.

The senior cabinet minister suggested the true proportion of defence spending was less than 2.3 per cent of GDP. No 10 said defence spending was projected to rise to 2.3 per cent of output this year, partly due to billions of pounds of support committed to Ukraine.

But the defence secretary told reporters: “[Ukraine support] isn’t core defence spending. I mean, it is not my core budget. It doesn’t buy me any more planes, tanks or ships.” The BBC is reporting this morning that the UK will commit a further £1 billion in military aid to Ukraine.

Earlier, Truss has declined to say if she agrees with Wallace’s plea for a significant increase in defence spending, but said the budget must be “fit for purpose”. Speaking from the Nato summit, she said: “I agree that we need to make sure that all of the Western alliance is spending more on defence and putting more into...supporting our eastern allies. I’m not going to get into details of the negotiations of the spending review.

“I think it is imperative that we do make sure that our defence budget is fit for purpose and also able to deal with the modern challenges like cyber warfare, the issues that we face in space as well.”

On the record

“We are absolutely ready. Let’s come back to the table.”

Maros Sefcovic, EU Commission vice president, says the bloc is ready to get back around the negotiation table.

From the Twitterati

“Boris Johnson’s ‘reverse Heineken effect’. In 2019, he refreshed parts of the UK the Tories could never reach.In 2022, he’s toxifying parts of the UK the Tories never lost.”

i chief politics commentator Paul Waugh on PM.

Essential reading

• Andrew Grice, The Independent: Boris Johnson should know that running away from his problems won’t make them disappear
• Ellie Fry, The Independent: It’s not just the US rolling back women’s rights – Britain is too
• Alastair Campbell, The New European: Labour must challenge the government’s economic myths
• Siamak Namazi, The New York Times: I’m American, why have I been left to rot as a hostage of Iran?

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