Three days late Boris Johnson broke the silence on the agreement that the British Prime Minister made last Monday Rishi Sunak and Chairman of the Commission Ursula von der Leyen on the commercial and legal status of Northern Ireland in the post-Brexit era, which represented a major backlog that the former Prime Minister bequeathed to his successors.

Speaking at an international conference on soft power in London, Johnson said it would be “very difficult” for him to get the deal through in the House of Commons because he felt it was “not helping the UK regain control” of its fortunes and that he was going to extreme lengths. concessions to Brussels. But he acknowledged that people want to end Brexit at some point and hope that Northern Ireland’s largest unionist party, the DUP, will go along with Sunak’s plan to return to local government and break the political impasse in the province. Asked if he plans to return to combat politics, he said: “I find it very, very unlikely that I will be doing anything serious in politics in the future. I’ve already done a lot.”

Despite the rather low-key tone, Johnson’s criticism is unlikely to deter the most hardline Tory Brexiters, as well as the hardiest DUP unionists, from opposing Mr Sunak’s draft agreement. At least that’s what investors seem to have appreciated as the pound lost ground against the dollar and the euro after the former prime minister’s remarks.

A storm from the revelations of former health secretary Matt Hancock during the first period of the pandemic.

Meanwhile, the leak of 100,000 mobile phone messages sent or received by Matt Hancock, Boris Johnson’s health secretary during the pandemic, has caused an uproar. The reports in question were relayed to the Daily Telegraph by Isabelle Oakeshott, a journalist known for her staunch opposition to lockdowns, who collaborated with the former health secretary on his book Pandemic Diaries, published last December.

A Daily Telegraph report shows that Hancock is considering closing schools in the first lockdown period due to a shortage of face masks. Then-Education Secretary Gavin Williamson reacted strongly to the suggestion, accusing teachers of making pretentious references to the lack of masks when “what they are really asking for is the opportunity not to work.” Elsewhere, Hancock is seen rejecting government medical adviser Chris Whitty’s proposal for strict visitor screening and nursing home quarantine, saying it would be inhumane.

Several Conservative MPs criticized Hancock’s naivety in entrusting such sensitive WhatsApp messages to a journalist known for her opposition to austerity measures, while Labor called for speeding up work on a cross-party investigation into the fight against the pandemic. Hancock himself spoke of a “tremendous betrayal” by Oakeshott and claimed that his position had been misrepresented.