Time to heed Frost’s criticisms and change your approach, Downing Street is warned

LORD FROST’S allies have hit back at Downing Street and claimed that the peer was responsible for the Government’s “few concrete achievements”.

The former Brexit minister provoked a backlash from No10 at the weekend after his comments last week urging the Prime Minister to “set a clear policy direction between now and the party conference”. He called for tax cuts as part of a policy overhaul.

However, a source close to Boris Johnson said that he was “pontificating like an armchair general” after walking away from government, while The Sunday Times quoted a source saying he was someone who could “talk the talk but not walk the walk”.

“It’s like a footballer who hasn’t scored a goal for a decade watching in the crowd and complaining that the striker has missed the target,” the source was quoted as saying of Lord Frost, who quit the Government over concerns about the “direction of travel”.

A friend of Lord Frost said: “It’s a bad sign if allies of the PM are attacking Lord Frost, the man who delivered Brexit and a zero-tariffs free trade agreement, one of this government’s few concrete achievements.

“In government, Frosty argued against the tax rises, against the unrealistic green energy policy, against dropping the one-in one-out rule on new regulations, and finally against Covid vaccine passports.

“He was overruled on all and left government as a matter of principle as a result. It obviously makes no sense to suggest now that he could have achieved different outcomes by staying.

“Lord Frost clearly wants the Prime Minister, and the Government, to succeed. The best thing to do would be to

‘PM’S allies are attacking Frost, who delivered Brexit and a zero-tariffs free trade agreement’

listen to his criticisms of policy, which seem widely shared, and to change the Government’s approach.”

No10 is thought to have been particularly irked by the Tory peer’s article in The Telegraph last week where, just days after Mr Johnson won his confidence vote, he warned that the Prime Minister needed to deliver a new Conservative vision for Britain or risk being forced out by autumn.

Lord Frost predicted that another attempt to oust Mr Johnson could come after the Conservative Party conference in early October. He called for tax rises to be reversed, VAT on energy bills to be slashed and the formulation of a “10-year Conservative plan” for changing Britain.

Coming from a Johnson ally, albeit one who has criticised policy decisions since leaving the Cabinet in December, the message highlighted that the Prime Minister remains in political danger.

It came as Henry Kissinger questioned Mr Johnson’s leadership over the “execution” of Brexit as the Government prepares to rip up the Northern Ireland Protocol.

The veteran US statesman, commended the Prime Minister’s “astounding” achievement in altering “the direction of Britain on Europe”, which he predicted would go down as “one of the important transitions in history”.

However, the 99-year-old told The Sunday Times Magazine that “it often happens that people who complete one great task can’t apply their qualities to the execution of it”, a skill which he suggested “is how to institutionalise it”.

He went on to say that the quality of leadership more generally is not “appropriate to the challenge”.

It comes a week after Mr Johnson survived a vote of no confidence in his premiership, with a record proportion of Conservative MPS voting against him.