Politics

Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.

Tuesday

Steerpike Steerpike

UK Statistics Authority questions Hancock’s figures

Last month, Mr S did a little digging into Matt Hancock’s claims that he managed to reach 100,000 tests a day – finding that Health Secretary had been fudging his figures by including tests that had merely been posted rather than just tests that had actually been completed. The expert verdict is now in, with the UK Statistics Authority pointing out the same problem.   Sir David Norgrove, chair of the monitoring body, has criticised the government’s counting methods, stating that ministers have continued to include posted tests in the figure for tests carried out.  In his letter to Hancock, published this morning, Sir David says: ‘This distinction is too often elided during the presentation

Monday

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

The evidence on school re-openings is being ignored

One of the benefits of the UK exiting lockdown so slowly is supposedly that evidence from other countries can help mould our decisions. If liberalising parts of society in other countries doesn’t cause a Covid-19 flare-up, the UK can proceed with cautious optimism. If lockdown easing leads to a spike in infection rates, the UK can row back its plans before its too late, or put off making changes for a while longer. Around 50 per cent of people polled oppose the partial re-opening Based on this logic, the return of Reception, Year 1 and Year 6 to school today should be warmly embraced, as reports from Denmark over the

Steerpike Steerpike

Is YouTube censoring Peter Hitchens?

Last month, Mr Steerpike wrote about the worrying decision by YouTube to remove a video featuring Karol Sikora, a professor of medicine, from its platform. Sikora appeared to have been targeted because he believed that coronavirus was petering out, and that we could potentially learn from Sweden which did not lockdown to protect itself against the virus. Happily, YouTube reversed the decision shortly afterwards. Unfortunately though, it seems as though the social media company has not changed its policy on coronavirus videos. Today, the free speech show Triggernometry, has claimed that its recent interview with the Mail on Sunday columnist Peter Hitchens appears to have been removed from YouTube search.

Steerpike Steerpike

The over-70s plot a return to the House of Commons

Tomorrow MPs will swap dodgy internet connections and politics by Zoom for a real life journey into the House of Commons. Under government orders, MPs who can are to return to Parliament, as part of the government’s drive to encourage those who cannot work from home to travel to the office. For one group of MPs though, the changes will be more dramatic. At the moment, the government is advising that those over 70 are in a high-risk category and should therefore not really be travelling in to work. So where does that leave the over-70 MPs who can no longer take part in proceedings via video link? And will it change the

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

The lethal combination of Brexit and Covid

The combination of Covid-19 and Brexit is a double whammy. The first was a haymaker that hit Britain from nowhere. The follow up will come when Britain, quite deliberately and with malice aforethought, winds up its fist and punches itself in the face. The economic impact of the virus will be accentuated by the UK leaving the EU without a deal or with a meagre free-trade agreement, warns a grim report, sponsored by the Best for Britain think tank. Business leaders do not generally get much sympathy. Watch any thriller made in the last two decades and as soon as the corporate executive appears on screen you can guess with

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The growing rebellion against quarantine for UK arrivals

The government’s most unpopular policy on its own benches is its plan to make almost everyone arriving in this country quarantine for 14 days. Among backbenchers and the outer cabinet this policy is disliked with an increasing intensity. ‘Colleagues absolutely hate it’, one cabinet minister tells me. Some backbenchers dislike it because it will hit their own constituencies particularly hard – airlines and airports will lay off more staff because of it. Others dislike the ‘Britain is closed for business’ message it sends out. While for a growing number of ministers it has become a focus of their resentment at how policy is made with their minimal involvement – cabinet

Sunday

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Is this why Germany has escaped lightly from coronavirus?

To the question why has Germany had so many fewer deaths from Covid-19 compared with Britain, the Observer usually has only one answer. As the title to an investigation in today’s paper puts it: ‘How a decade of privatisation and cuts exposed England to coronavirus’. Yet buried deep down in an interview in the very same paper, comes an alternative insight, and one which, remarkably, does not involve the Tories in any way. The paper carries an interview with Karl Friston, a neuroscientist at UCL who has been advising SAGE, the government’s scientific committee. In it, he explains how he has been using dynamic casual modelling – a mathematical technique

Steven Fielding

Could Keir Starmer become a populist politician?

It has been a remarkable week. Boris Johnson’s refusal to sack Dominic Cummings for what the vast majority of Britons consider a flagrant breach of lockdown rules has caused his personal ratings to tumble. According to YouGov his party has seen a 15 per cent lead over Labour collapse to just 6 per cent in a matter of days. Johnson’s insistence that Cummings has done no wrong and that the country should move on from the issue and focus on tackling Covid suggests the Prime Minister hopes the fickle British public will eventually lose interest. Perhaps he is right: and with the next election four years away there is still

Charles Moore Charles Moore

Will Lady Hale stand against China’s dictatorship?

If China imposes its proposed new draconian security law for Hong Kong on the territory, where would that leave the independent judiciary? So far, genuine independence has been maintained, and Geoffrey Ma, the Chief Justice of the Court of Final Appeal (CFA), has spoken up for proper legal values. But he retires soon, and Beijing, which has not previously interfered, has the power of appointment.  The CFA has on it, at any one time, one ‘nonpermanent’ overseas judge out of an active body of ten, on a monthly annual rotation. These judges are mainly British, and always include the President of our Supreme Court (currently Lord Reed), as well as

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round-up: Sturgeon challenged over care home deaths

Nicola Sturgeon – England’s care home deaths are under-reported Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has argued that the reason for Scotland’s relatively high rate of Covid-19 deaths in care homes could be because the figures for England and Wales are artificially low: NS: It’s often put to me that the death rate for… care homes in Scotland is higher than it is in England and I just don’t believe that that is the case… It’s not for me to explain England’s figures, but I think here there is, at least on the face of it, a question of under-reporting in England. Dominic Raab – UK ‘can’t stay in lockdown forever’

Saturday

Steven Barrett

The German courts have just made Brexit talks easier

The old division of leaver and remainer will not serve the best interests of the country as we go forward. That truth might be emotionally hard to accept, but it will remain true. We need now to adapt to the real challenges the future holds. One of the most pressing is our future relationship with the EU – and that is being negotiated again on Monday. I have written on how we should support the EU given the recent judgment of the German Constitutional Court on the question of the European Central Bank bond scheme. The case is complicated and while I enjoy a good legal fight over complex financial

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Immunity to coronavirus may be far more widespread than thought

Two weeks ago I wrote here about a study by the La Jolla Institute for Immunology in California, which found that between 40 and 60 per cent of people who had never been exposed to SARS-CoV-2 – the virus which causes Covid 19 – nevertheless seemed to develop an immune response to the disease in their T Cells. They appeared to have a cross-reactive immunity which had been gained through exposure to other coronaviruses – those which cause the common cold. Now comes another study providing more evidence of the same phenomenon from a team at the Emerging Infectious Diseases Program from Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore. Nine of 18

John Connolly John Connolly

How will a socially distanced House of Commons work?

12 min listen

MPs are returning to parliament next week, marking an end of the hybrid model that saw most MPs Zooming into parliamentary debates. On the podcast, John Connolly talks to James Forsyth and Katy Balls about the challenges in a socially distanced House of Commons. Get a month’s free trial of The Spectator and a free wireless charger here.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Boris Johnson’s majority is not as big as it first appeared

The last week has shown that Boris Johnson’s majority of 80 isn’t as big as it first appeared, I say in the Times on Saturday. Despite Boris Johnson throwing his full political weight behind Dominic Cummings, forty plus Tories still called for the PM’s senior adviser to go. The problem for No. 10 is that a majority of 80 ain’t what it used to be. It is, roughly, equivalent to a majority of 20-odd a generation ago, which is what John Major had in 1992. That the Tory majority is smaller than it first appeared has profound implications for how Boris Johnson governs. Every policy will now need to be

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

America’s immune system is failing

‘This American carnage stops right here and stops right now,’ said President Donald Trump in his inauguration speech on January 20, 2017. Three and a half years later, in the early summer of 2020, a bout of heavy riots has broken out, like a virus spreading, in cities across America. Minneapolis rioted for days on end. Other cities erupted: in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, New York and Washington. A mob now menaces the White House. Maybe that American carnage is just beginning. This latest unrest, coming as it does in the middle of an ongoing global health crisis and a concomitant economic recession, feels more devastating

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

It is a pity both Trump and Twitter can’t lose

It may be the ultimate Kissinger Dilemma: Donald Trump versus the platform that helped make Donald Trump president. Contemplating war between Iraq and Iran, Henry Kissinger is said to have mused: ‘It’s a pity they can’t both lose.’ It’s a pity Trump and Twitter can’t both lose their current skirmish. On Wednesday, the social media publisher that pretends it’s not a publisher attached a fact-check to a Trump tweet. The President had posted: Trump is concerned that ballot impropriety might cost him re-election, rather than his Covid-19 response or the absence of a wall on the Mexican border. Twitter flagged the tweet with a link, ‘Get the facts about mail-in

James Kirkup James Kirkup

Dominic Cummings is more powerful than ever

Power does not corrupt. It reveals. It was once said of Abraham Lincoln: ‘Nothing discloses real character like the use of power. It is easy for the weak to be gentle. Most people can bear adversity. But if you wish to know what a man really is, give him power. This is the supreme test. It is the glory of Lincoln that, having almost absolute power, he never abused it, except on the side of mercy.’ Dominic Cummings is rarely compared to Abraham Lincoln. But in one aspect, I think that quote now has relevance to the PM’s chief adviser. After surviving this week, he now has power, real and

Friday

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

How the furlough scheme will be rolled back

A dose of economic reality was administered to the public on Friday evening when Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced how the furlough scheme will be rolled back. But far from a short or sharp shock, Sunak unveiled a plan that scales the scheme back gradually over the next five months, as the government continues to pay 80 per cent of furloughed staff salaries, capped at £2,500, over June and July. Come August, however, employers will be asked to pay National Insurance and pension contributions, 5 per cent of total employment costs. In September, employer contributions will increase to 10 per cent of their employees’ salaries which will then rise to 20 per