The opposition is right to recognise that a dangerous international climate demands closer security partnership with the EU

For most of the period since the decision was taken to leave the EU, British politicians have overestimated how much thought the continent gives to Brexit. Once shock at the referendum result receded, relations with the UK came to be seen as a technical problem to be solved by hard-headed negotiation.

At critical moments, when deadlines neared, Brexit leapt up the agenda. After the treaties were signed, they dropped right down, overtaken by the other issues facing a large bloc with many borders and problems. That represents a perverse kind of victory for Boris Johnson and his chief negotiator, David Frost. The deal they signed was so skewed against British interests that Brussels has little incentive to reopen the settlement.

Needy former UK PM visibly struggled when some of Abbott’s (bonkers) points drew a bigger cheer than his at rightwing event

A couple of housekeeping notes before we head to the meeting of titan minds that was Boris Johnson and Tony Abbott at the Canada Strong and Free Network. CSFN is a kind of Canadian PopCon , where the right wing go to cheer each other on as they curse the woke. Except, unlike so many alt-right talking shops, it’s got almost 20 years under its belt. There are probably people in it who remember a time before wokery, when political correctness had merely gone mad. We will hear a lot of words that sometimes seem to describe the throughline from early 00s conservatism to what we see before us today, but if you tried to actually draw that line, it would look like the cloud of hair and flies around Pig-Pen’s head .

The disgraced former UK prime minister no longer looks like a man whose Spads have ruffled his hair on purpose before he steps on to the stage, for “charm”. His dishevelment feels much more authentic and bedded in, like a man who’s already been kicked out but doesn’t know it yet because he hasn’t been home, and stands in contrast to the pin-neat Tony Abbott, who also has a neater, less contradictory mind.

Speaking at Canada event, former PM laments state of Tory party saying it is ‘mad’ that party of Winston Churchill is ‘banning cigars’

• UK politics – latest updates

Boris Johnson has attacked Rishi Sunak’s smoking ban , calling it “absolutely nuts” in a lament about the state of the Conservative party in Britain.

Speaking at an event in Canada on Wednesday night, Johnson said it was “mad” that the party of Winston Churchill was “banning cigars”.

Levelling up secretary says he should have been upfront with then-PM David Cameron about his role in the leave campaign

The levelling up secretary, Michael Gove, has admitted “moral cowardice” during the Brexit campaign by not being upfront with David Cameron about his role in the leave campaign.

In an interview for the Political Currency podcast with George Osborne and Ed Balls, Gove said he was initially reluctant to take a prominent role in the campaign, but had been persuaded to by the Vote Leave campaign coordinator, Dominic Cummings.

Inherent flaws and political churn doomed Boris Johnson’s signature policy – and it was hobbled through bureaucracy and high inflation

• No progress made on half of levelling-up targets
• Report card: how the Tories’ pledges stack up today
• ‘We’re forgotten about here’: the broken promises

Last February, the Treasury lost patience with Michael Gove.

The levelling up secretary had just given a speech in Manchester during which he announced £30m to pay for improvements to substandard housing . Officials had already blocked him from using that speech to announce a larger pot of money for local authorities, and then they decided to stop him allocating any capital spending of £30m or more without Treasury approval.

Five years after the Tories won over the ‘red wall’ with a pledge to restore deprived areas, voters in the north-east say they’ve given up waiting for change

• No progress made on half of levelling-up targets
• Report card: how the Tories’ pledges stack up today
• Britain’s levelling up agenda stymied from the start

Two days after his landslide election victory in 2019, Boris Johnson practically crowdsurfed into Sedgefield cricket club. Jubilant fans at the venue in Stockton-on-Tees, County Durham, craned for a photo, one thrust upon him their family pet, and another begged him to sign a copy of the Northern Echo, headlined: “Tory tsunami from the Wear to the Tees”.

“There was an absolutely huge buzz in the place,” said Jean Gillespie, 69, in the same function room this week, whipping out her phone to show a picture with the former prime minister: “I got a snog and a selfie.”

Former PM’s meeting with President Maduro, in capacity as hedge fund consultant, is under further scrutiny

Labour is demanding answers over what the party said was “potentially serious impropriety” by Boris Johnson after it emerged that the former prime minister met the Venezuelan president in his role as a consultant for a hedge fund.

Nick Thomas-Symonds, the shadow Cabinet Office minister said there were concerns that Johnson may have breached the ministerial code in a letter to Oliver Dowden, the deputy prime minister and Cabinet Office minister.

Hearts and minds must be won in the run-up to the renegotiation of a charter that will determine the next decade of public broadcasting

With just three years to go until the renewal of its charter, after 14 years of political assaults and in a time of convulsive change, the BBC has to prove its fitness for the next 10 years of public broadcasting. Hence a wide-ranging speech this week by its director general, Tim Davie, outlining the way forward. Opinions vary as to whether this was a timely show of mettle or a once great institution gasping its last. What was clear was that the path ahead will involve yet more swingeing cuts on top of the £500m annual reduction already forced on the corporation by a two-year licence fee freeze – which ends next month – compounded by inflation.

The breadth of the challenge facing the corporation was underscored by a trio of core objectives designed to sprinkle reassurance in all political directions: the pursuit of truth with no agenda; an emphasis on British storytelling; and a mission to bring people together. All three may be admirable, but the latter two were somewhat undermined by a podcast interview with the showrunner of Doctor Who, for decades a standout example of British storytelling that brings people together. Talking about the value of a production partnership struck with Disney two years ago, Russell T Davies said that it was crucial to the show’s survival, because the end of the BBC was “undoubtedly on its way in some shape or form”.

Labour leader and deputy Angela Rayner hail parts of former prime minister’s flagship domestic policy priority and say Sunak ‘killed it at birth’ while chancellor

Official figures have confirmed that the UK economy went into recession at the end of last year, after the latest estimate found it contracted in the last two quarters of 2023, Phillip Inman reports.

Good morning. Keir Starmer is launching Labour’s local elections campaign this morning, and to mark the event he has discovered his inner Boris Johnson. He has written a joint article with Angela Rayner , Labour’s deputy leader, praising the ambition behind levelling up, Johnson’s flagship domestic policy priority.

Where you are born often dictates where you end up. That people from Blackpool have a life expectancy of ten years fewer than those in Westminster is a travesty. Instead of pitting areas against one another and relying on the square mile of the City of London to keep the UK economy afloat, we’ll tackle Britain’s regional divide and match the ambition people have for their community. It will be at the heart of our mission-led government.

It’s understandable that working people might have become disillusioned or cynical, because one of the biggest tragedies of the past 14 years is the sense that things can’t change. But they can and they will.

Whitehall under the Tories has become too passive and overly centralised. We will turn that on its head, delivering a far more active central government willing to give local leaders the levers needed to turbocharge their areas. We will change the relationship. Partnership in pursuit of common national missions, not buck-passing and division.

Our Take Back Control Act will entrust power to local leaders, who know their area best and have skin in the game. We will widen English devolution so that every community is taking advantage of the opportunities it brings. We will deepen devolution so combined authorities have a path to gaining powers over transport, skills, housing and planning, employment support, energy and can get a long-term integrated funding settlement in return for exemplary frameworks for managing public money. This will enable local leaders to develop powerful local growth plans that attract specialist industries and enhance their local strengths.