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By ELENI COUREA
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TUBE STRIKE: A metro strike will cause “serious disturbances” and the closure of several stations today, according to TfL, which discourages travel to the capital.
Good Monday morning. This is Eleni Courea, in the Playbook seat for the first part of this week.
In case you missed his farewell, Friday was Alex Wickham’s last day as a Playbook publisher after a two-year career that saw him break a series of scoops to set the agenda and deliver analysis. essentials in your inboxes at 7 a.m. every morning. As we recruit our next publisher, I’ll be emailing a few days a week, as will the rest of our Playbookers star team Esther Webber, Emilio Casalicchio and Annabelle Dickson, and journalist Andrew McDonald. As always, you can email me with any tips (or ask for ProtonMail / Signal).
With a couple of critical by-elections around, the prospect of a Conservative and Labor leadership contest this summer, and speculation about an early general election, should be a pretty quiet few months. Let’s crack.
** A message from Amazon: This week we are in Westminster to talk about retail sustainability, logistics and technology. Amazon is a co-founder of The Climate Pledge, a group of more than 300 organizations that are committed to zero carbon by 2040, 10 years before the Paris Agreement. Find out more here. **
DRIVE THE DAY
BRADY CRUNCH: Conservative MPs returning to Westminster are preparing for the prospect of a critical vote to decide the fate of Boris Johnson this week, even the Prime Minister’s allies suggest it’s now a matter of when, not if.
Altrincham Postcard: Among those returning to parliament after spending a long weekend talking to voters at Jubilee Garden parties and village festivities is Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 committee who moments is the only person in the world. who knows if the required 54 letters of censure have been filed.
This morning’s break: Less than an hour ago, ITV’s Paul Brand tweeted: “Conservative rebels expect Sir Graham Brady to make a statement this morning announcing that there will be a censorship vote on Boris Johnson. Only Brady knows the exact details, but this is as certain as anyone thought there was a vote. “
Rebel Camp: Last night, Playbook spoke with Tory rebel leaders, as far as they are concerned, who provisionally indicated that they believed they had reached the threshold. “The chances we’ve made it are better than 50/50,” one letter author said. “I think he was hit last week, but Graham was never going to say anything before the Jubilee,” according to another.
Game Status: The consensus has been reached that Brady will have stopped any announcements during the Jubilee weekend, so if the cards are written, today is the first day we know. Brady kept his characteristic sphinx silence when Playbook approached him last night.
When not: Several journalists, including FT’s Seb Payne, Guardian’s Jess Elgot and Bloomberg’s Kitty Donaldson, spotted a change of mood among the Prime Minister’s allies who admit that no matter what happens today, a vote of confidence is now a matter of time. . Business Minister Paul Scully admitted last night on Channel 4’s Andrew Neil program that the party “can have a vote of confidence” on Johnson’s leadership, but insisted: “If it happens, the Prime Minister, I know, will face off. “
How will things go ?: Theresa May’s 2018 experience is instructive. Brady told BBC Breakfast at the time that he had called May on Tuesday night when he reached the threshold to “consult her on how the process should be arranged and what the timetable could be”, within the parameters of the rules of the party. May wanted a speedy resolution, so the announcement was made immediately on Wednesday morning, he went to the 1922 committee at 5 p.m. to present his case, and a vote was taken between 6 p.m. and 5 p.m. 8 pm, and the result was made public shortly afterwards. .
That is to say, we could see a very similar sequence of events this week, suggesting that the number 10 will have some discretion about the exact day of the vote. In his reading of the weekend, Tim Shipman of the Sunday Times said that Wednesday has already been written by the 1922 executive.
Answer # 10: Expect to see a “love bombardment” of hesitant Conservatives at No. 10, with some speculation by 2019 that members of its intake could be offered ministerial jobs as part of the effort to keep them sweet. Meanwhile, Ben Riley-Smith of the Telegraph reports that the Prime Minister’s allies warn that there could be early general elections in their attempts to dissuade MPs from submitting letters of censure.
A journey through time: on a bowl of pasta at night and with the help of our journalist Andrew McDonald, the author of your playbook has made a quick summary of what happened to previous Conservative leaders who they faced a vote of confidence among their parliamentary party. :
– Theresa May: She won her vote of confidence with a majority of 83 in December 2018 and survived a few more months before resigning after a catastrophic European Parliament election in May 2019.
– Iain Duncan Smith: Forced to resign after just two years as Conservative leader when he lost a 90-75 vote of confidence in October 2003.
– John Major: unleashed a leadership contest to confront conservative Eurosceptics in June 1995; he defeated his rival John Redwood to be re-elected … and lost the 1997 general election to Tony Blair.
– Margaret Thatcher: She became the only prime minister to be removed from office by a party leadership vote in November 1990. After facing a challenge from later European banker Anthony Meyer the previous year, Thatcher was again challenged by Michael Heseltine. He won by 204 to 152 — not enough to avoid a second round according to the rules of the time — and was persuaded to withdraw by a cabinet revolt.
– Ted Heath: He agreed with the 1922 committee to hold a leadership contest in February 1975 after narrowly losing the general election to Labor, and unexpectedly lost that vote to Margaret Thatcher.
Shady Brady: Jess Elgot of The Guardian has a nice profile of the man who could become the first chairman of the 1922 committee to oversee two censorship votes.
Waiting: It is speculated that Penny Mordaunt could resign as a minister as soon as today as part of an attempt to remove Johnson and stay, according to Matt Dathan of the Times. Meanwhile, Dan Martin of the Mail has quoted quotes from Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi, himself promoted by some as a potential candidate for leadership, warning that “people do not vote for divided teams” and urging their colleagues to ” put back “PM.
Moment of truth: there are between 160 and 170 deputies on the government payroll, according to the IfG count, a useful figure close to the 180 deputies who need to support the prime minister if he wants to win the vote of confidence (which s ‘hope you do it comfortably). However, things will start to look very different if the very fact of a vote makes some ministers opt. “The oscillating votes if there is a vote of censure will be the ministers,” a conservative rebel predicted on Playbook last night. “Many of them will not have said anything, they will be scrupulously loyal in public because they take the collective responsibility seriously, but according to their seat, according to how they value their possibilities in front of another instead of Boris, some of they. I could vote against him. ”
Mandatory health warning: everyone could be wrong, the number of letters could be much less than 54 and we will all be scratching our heads while Brady continues with his daily work and the Prime Minister is preparing to deliver a speech on the construction of ‘houses. If that happens then June 23 is the date of the Wakefield and Tiverton and Honiton by-elections, both of which are now expected to be lost by the Conservatives, is widely regarded as the prime minister’s next flashback. George Parker and Jasmine Cameron-Chileshe of the FT have a fun weekend reading of Tiverton.
Meeting tonight: The Conservative group of One Nation MPs, a 40-member group that now has the power to make or break the Prime Minister, will hold its regular weekly meeting at 6 p.m. There are no prizes for guessing what they might be talking about.
Dossier of doom: a document that marks Johnson as the “Corbyn Conservative” who patrolled the Conservative rebels over the weekend has a good turnover in most newspapers after leaking to journalists like Adam Payne of PolHome and Jonny Riley of Sun. Marked as the “doom dossier” by the Daily Mail, its provenance is unclear and the fact that it was written in the exact style of a Conservative Research Department briefing has raised eyebrows. One MP speculated that it could have been “set up by CCHQ as a leak” (although if that were true, they would probably have bothered to remove the odor by changing the source).
TODAY IN WESTMINSTER
HOUSE OF COMMONS: Sitting from 2.30 pm with questions about work and pensions, followed by any UQ or statement … Deputies will move on to the second reading of the national security bill, which aims to modernize the laws British intelligence … and Labor MP Dan Carden has a postponement debate on the hospitality industry in Liverpool.
IN OTHER NEWS: It’s “Health Week” for No. 10 as the government tries to change the dial, starting with an NHS England announcement that its “one-stop shops” have delivered 1 million checks since it began the launch. “This week we will present the progress made to address the …