Inside Politics: Travel rules anger and Johnson poll slump

Conservative backbenchers hit out at plans for ‘amber watch list’ as PM loses support among Tory faithful, writes Matt Mathers

(PA)

Flipping brilliant. Team GB’s Charlotte Worthington performed an incredible 360 backflip to take gold at the BMX event in Tokyo yesterday. The trick had never before been landed in a competition, securing another piece of history for the former chef. Back in the bubble, Boris Johnson wakes up in a bit of a spin this morning over foreign travel rules. And a new poll shows his popularity among the Tory faithful has plummeted.

Inside the bubble

Parliament is in recess.

Coming up shortly:

- Digital infrastructure minister Matt Warman on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme at 8.30am

-Labour’s chairwoman Anneliese Dodds on Times Radio at 8.35am

Daily Briefing

LET’S FLY AWAY: Last week, the government announced that fully vaccinated travellers from the US and the EU no longer need to self-isolate on arrival to the UK. Now chancellor Rishi Sunak wants a further reopening and has written to Johnson calling for an immediate end to restrictions in order to boost the economy. In his letter to the PM, who is said to be on board with the idea, Sunak warns the UK is out of step with its “international competitors” and at risk of losing out on business to countries such as the US. “Rishi and the PM are concerned that we’ve got the benefit from vaccinating so many people and yet we are an outlier in terms of how draconian we are about travel,” a senior government source said. Ministers are set to meet later this week to discuss travel rules for August and it’s expected a number of countries will move from amber to green on the government’s traffic light system, with the new rules likely to come into force on 8 August.

CHECK YOUR TRAVEL: Cabinet level discussions are taking place about creating a new “amber watch list”, which could see holiday hot spots such as Spain, France and Italy move to the red list with little warning, causing travel chaos for Britons. The ongoing saga over travel rules will dominate the news agenda this week and is all over several of this morning’s papers. The Times says there is a Tory backbench revolt brewing as some MPs and the travel industry are angry at the “inexplicably complicated” plans. “The government has used the vaccine dividend to make some positive strides in the last few weeks, making it easier for those travelling in and out of the UK. This is not the time to be adding further complexity, uncertainty and anxiety to an already beleaguered sector,” Huw Merriman, chairman of the Commons transport committee, said. TheTelegraphalso has the story on its front page and says the PM is under growing pressure from his cabinet to ease travel rules. Elsewhere, Johnson is facing growing discontent over his plans for vaccine passports for entry to domestic venues and events.

CRASH LANDING: Only a few months ago it seemed as though our Teflon-coated PM was untouchable. With the country seemingly concerned only with vaccines and getting out of the pandemic – and none of Labour’s attacks really landing – Johnson was riding high in the polls with what looked like an unassailable lead. But things look to be changing. A new poll by the Conservative Home website found that his net satisfaction has dropped from plus 39 points the previous month to plus three. Today’sisplashes on the story, which comes just weeks after a YouGov survey showed the Conservatives lead over Labour had been cut to four, with most other pollsters showing the gap had been significantly cut. So what’s causing the shift? The general consensus seems to be that the government’s vaccine bounce is beginning to wear off. Johnson and Sunak’s initial bid to dodge quarantine last month may also have had an impact.

WORK TO DO: Things have been looking up for Keir Starmer and Labour lately. But millions of voters who left the party still don’t know what the former director of public prosecutions is all about, and what Labour could offer them if it was in government. That’s according to a sobering internal analysis by Starmer’s new strategist and former pollster, Deborah Mattinson. “It was not downbeat but it was obvious from what she said that we cannot win without getting these people back, and we can only do that if we are clearer what we are about. We need core messages that appeal,” one frontbencher told The Observer. The aforementioned polls are good news for Starmer, but Mattinson’s analysis underlines the fact there is still a long way to go for Labour.

MORE SLEAZE: The chair of the Labour Party is calling on the Conservatives to publish a list of ministers who have met party donors through a secretive club. Anneliese Dodds has written to Conservative co-chairwoman Amanda Milling demanding the party “come clean” about the level of access afforded to financial backers as part of the so-called “advisory board”. It comes after the party’s chairman was accused of making money from organising meetings between wealthy businessmen and the Prince of Wales – his uncle. Ben Elliot, the Duchess of Cornwall’s nephew, is said to have introduced clients of his concierge company Quintessentially to the future king – but only after they spent tens of thousands of pounds on a membership scheme, according to a report in The Sunday Times.

LONG WAY OFF: The government’s 2050 target date of reducing the UK’s net carbon emissions to zero is “too far away”, Johnson’s climate change spokespersonAllegra Stratton has said. Ms Stratton said that the science was clear that faster action is needed to bring down greenhouse gas emissions in order to stop global temperature increases by 2030. Her comments are likely to alarm backbench Conservative MPs who fear that voters are being asked to shoulder too great a financial burden to give the UK a world-leading role in the fight against climate change.

On the record

“Every bit of society is moving in tandem towards this net zero in 2050, but let’s be honest that’s too far away. Net zero is the glide path. What we have to be doing more quickly – the science is clear...we have to be changing our carbon emissions output right now, so that we can stop temperature increase by 2030.”

COP26 spokesperson Allegra Stratton on achieving net zero emissions.

From the Twitterati

“Beat wishes to Carrie Johnson. Will this be 7 or 8 children fathered by Boris Johnson? At least we should hear no more lectures from Tory MPs about people having too many kids.”

Daily Mirror associate editor Kevin Maguire on PM’s baby news.

Essential reading

• John Rentoul, The Independent: Why has Boris Johnson’s popularity suddenly plummeted
• Layla McCay, The Independent: Northern Irish patients cannot be collateral damage in Brexit haggling
• John Harris, The Guardian: Brexit and Covid have created the perfect moment for the politics of crackdown
• Aris Roussinos, UnHerd: The walls are going up across Europe