Wounded Boris: I’m getting on with job
BORIS Johnson promised new measures to boost home ownership and defended his record in office as he faced MPs for the first time since being wounded by a revolt by Tories against his leadership.
The Prime Minister insisted he is getting on with the job despite 148 of his own MPs saying they have no confidence in him.
Mr Johnson said the Government will be “expanding home ownership for millions of people” and “cutting the costs of business”.
The Prime Minister is expected to use a major speech this week to set out housing plans, with speculation that the Right to Buy could be extended for housing association residents and a wave of modular or “flatpack” homes could also be built.
The move will form part of a plan by Mr Johnson to reassert his authority after surviving Monday’s confidence vote despite the revolt by 41% of his MPs.
Mr Johnson said his administration will create “high-wage, high-skilled jobs” for the country.
“And as for jobs, I’m going to get on with mine,” he told the Commons in a rowdy session of Prime Minister’s Questions.
The Prime Minister was greeted with cheers by supporters but, in the first question, Labour’s Dame Angela Eagle said Mr Johnson is “loathed” – including by his own party – and asked him to explain “if 148 of his own backbenchers don’t trust him, why on earth should the country?”
Mr Johnson replied that he had “picked up political opponents all over” because “this Government has done some very big and very remarkable things which they didn’t necessarily approve of”.
“And what I want her to know is that absolutely nothing and no-one, least of all her, is going to stop us with getting on delivering for the British people.”
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer focused on the NHS during his exchanges with Mr Johnson, seizing on the blue-on-blue spat between Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries and senior Tory Jeremy Hunt during Monday’s confidence vote.
Ms Dorries, a Johnson loyalist, claimed that Mr Hunt, a critic of the Prime Minister, had left the country “wanting and unprepared” for the Covid-19 pandemic during his long tenure as health secretary.
SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford likened Mr Johnson’s reaction to surviving the confidence vote to the black knight in Monty Python And The Holy Grail, who claimed his mortal injuries were just flesh wounds.
Sir Keir also quoted from former minister Jesse Norman’s no confidence letter to Mr Johnson in which he said the Government “seems to lack a sense of mission”.
In a raucous Commons chamber, with Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle forced to intervene to calm proceedings, Sir Keir told Mr Johnson: “Pretending no rules were broken didn’t work. Pretending the economy is booming didn’t work. And pretending to build 40 new hospitals won’t work either.”
The Prime Minister defended his record, telling MPs: “We are making colossal investments in our NHS, we are cutting waiting times, raising standards, paying nurses more, we are supporting our fantastic NHS.”