Politics

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

Wednesday

Matthew Lynn

The great Bounce Back fraud bonanza

Fake companies set up under false names. Phantom employees invented to claim compensation. Start-ups trousering loans for ventures that don’t exist. Meals that were never eaten. The British economy has been in a bad place for the last six months. But it turns out one small corner of the economy has been flourishing: defrauding the public purse. The Chancellor’s extraordinarily generous range of schemes to keep businesses afloat may have been necessary to prevent a complete collapse in output. But they have also proved a bonanza for spivs, chancers and con men, and that too will have a cost. We learned today that the ‘Bounce Back’ loan scheme may well

Katy Balls Katy Balls

PMQs: Starmer sets a Covid trap for Johnson

The next battle over coronavirus restrictions is shaping up to be the 10 p.m. hospitality curfew. Sir Keir Starmer raised the issue at Prime Minister’s Questions this afternoon, asking Boris Johnson whether he was able to provide any scientific evidence for the measures — which mean all restaurants and bars must close by 10 o’clock. The Prime Minister responded by saying the case for the curfew remains the same as it was when Labour supported the policy two weeks ago.  While Johnson managed to successfully use the session to highlight Labour uncertainty over certain measures — from the curfew to the rule of six — today’s outing also laid the groundwork for Starmer to cause

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Are Biden’s poll numbers really soaring?

10 min listen

The latest national poll from CNN puts Joe Biden 16 points ahead of Donald Trump. Has the President’s short stint in hospital dented his re-election chances, or is an unsettled news cycle and an unrepresentative sample skewing the numbers? Freddy Gray speaks to Marcus Roberts, director of international projects at YouGov.

Robert Peston Robert Peston

Ministers close to closing northern pubs and restaurants

We are at a critical moment in the second surge of coronavirus. Ministers, scientists and officials are deeply concerned about the rate at which Covid-19 is increasing in the North West, North East and Yorkshire and Humberside: they believe the daily quantum of infection is doubling every five to seven days in large chunks of northern England. They see the course of the virus as very similar to what happened in Italy in the first phase of the illness, where infections were concentrated in the north. Ministers are therefore feeling their way towards imposing more severe restrictions on socialising in those areas. They are likely to impose closure of all hospitality

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Will the British judiciary finally stand up to China?

Broadly speaking, there are two ways to respond to Communist China’s national security law. First, there is the Tony Chung way. Chung, a 19-year-old activist, set up a pro-independence movement and became the first person arrested under the repressive legislation, imposed on Hong Kong by Beijing’s dictators earlier this year. Then there is the Lord Hodge way. The deputy president of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom (SCOTUK) has been appointed to the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal (HKCFA) and as such may help to apply the national security law. Lord Hodge is not the first British jurist to take up a non-permanent post on the special administrative

Tuesday

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Is Trump really ‘feeling great’?

14 min listen

A Covid-positive Donald Trump returned to the White House yesterday evening after spending 72 hours at the Walter Reed hospital. After landing on the south lawn in a helicopter, the President removed his mask and waved to the media below, flanked by American flags. He later tweeted: ‘FEELING GREAT!’ But has Trump really recovered? Freddy Gray speaks to Amber Athey.

Patrick O’Flynn Patrick O'Flynn

Can Boris Johnson solve the Tory lockdown split?

The great Pixar animated film ‘Monsters, Inc.’ tells the story of Sulley, a fluffy-haired, broad-shouldered and rather cuddly monster who creates energy by scaring children in their beds but then discovers that vastly more energy can be generated by making them laugh instead. I offer this not as a rival to Boris Johnson’s new plan to make wind energy power the whole of Britain by ‘harvesting the gusts’, but because it has lately seemed to many observers that the Prime Minister has been on a reverse journey to that undertaken by Sulley. The tousled, broad-shouldered Boris started his Tory leadership generating political energy by means of cheering us all up

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Are politicians abandoning the ‘circuit break’?

How popular are circuit breakers? The latest Covid-19 news from Ireland would suggest support varies dramatically between the scientists and politicians. Speaking on RTE, Leo Varadkar revealed the National Public Health Emergency Team had recommended moving to ‘level 5’, which would have amounted to a ‘circuit break’ and another shutdown of the Irish economy. Pushing back, Varadkar told the national broadcaster that outstanding questions about the effectiveness of a temporary shutdown could not be answered to his satisfaction: ‘We didn’t feel it had been thought through properly. For example, we asked for some comfort that four weeks might be enough… They weren’t able to give us that comfort.’ This is

Robert Peston Robert Peston

Boris’s speech was all sunshine and no substance

Probably the most significant feature of Boris Johnson’s speech at the Tory conference is what it said about him rather than what he said. To put it another way, the Prime Minister seemed bouncier than he has in many months, thanks — he said — to shedding 26 pounds of flab since falling seriously ill with Covid-19. But this was not a speech that will be remembered for much else, partly because Johnson wants us to set our sights on 2030 whereas millions of us are more fixated on who will be in work or in decent health tomorrow. Only some will be offended by Boris Johnson’s 2030 country: the

Nick Tyrone Nick Tyrone

What does Boris Johnson’s Tory party stand for?

The main thing to say about Boris Johnson’s speech at this year’s online Tory conference is that it captures the present mood of the Conservative party almost perfectly. The problem with that is, that mood is one of confusion and soul searching about what the Conservative party actually exists to do. For a start, there is a need to address the topic of Boris’s missing mojo. This has been talked about to death, and so I will only say that complaints that he wasn’t at his shiny best are a little unfair. He didn’t have a crowd to feed off of today, which in and of itself took the speech’s energy

Matthew Scott

The terrifying consequences of the ‘licence to kill’ bill

Should the Food Standards Agency be permitted to engage in torture in order to put a stop to the sale of horse meat? Should the Gambling Commission have the authority to issue licences to its agents to commit murder with impunity? That would be the astonishing outcome were the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill, which passed its second reading in the House of Commons yesterday, to be enacted in its current form. The justification for the Bill arises out of the real dilemma of how the intelligence services handle undercover agents who may be forced to break the law in order to carry out their work. The purist’s

Andrew Montford

Boris’s wind power pledge won’t be cheap

Boris Johnson likes a big announcement. Back in his days as London mayor, he told us he was going to build a new airport on an island in the Thames estuary and a tree-lined ‘garden bridge’ further upstream. Although not as hare-brained as his more recent plan to build a bridge to Ireland, neither of these schemes ever came to anything. Much of the government’s announcement today of a major green spending spree gives the impression of having been conjured up with the same lack of any serious intent, ‘smart cities’ being an obvious example. However, some of it looks positively alarming. Take home insulation, for example. It sounds so

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Johnson looks to the future while ignoring the present

Boris Johnson’s whole rhetorical style is designed to elicit a response from the audience. So there was something particularly bizarre about him delivering his conference speech to an empty room. At one point, Johnson even imagined how the delegates would be reacting to his announcements if they were there. The speech was a deliberate attempt to be very upbeat. He began by promising conference that by next year’s gathering there would be no restrictions on the size of events even indoors and no social distancing. Johnson’s view is that there’ll be a gamechanger by March: either a vaccine or instant spit testing. But if this is wrong, and there are

Boris Johnson

Boris Johnson: restoring normality is not enough

Boris Johnson delivered his speech today at the virtual Conservative party conference. Below is the full text of his speech, as he pledged to defeat the coronavirus, build back better and ‘improve on the world that went before.’ Good morning conference, I want to begin by thanking you for everything you did at the election, pounding the streets in the middle of winter, prodding leaflets through the letterbox and into the jaws of dogs, to save this country from socialism and to win this party the biggest election victory in a generation. I was going to say how great it is to be here in Birmingham but the fact is that

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Boris Johnson defends his mojo

Boris Johnson had a strong message today during his Tory conference speech, for those who believe he lost his mojo after contracting Covid and being hospitalised. The Prime Minister described claims he has lost his lustre as ‘nonsense’, ‘self-evident drivel’, and even ‘seditious propaganda’ from the kind of people who wanted to stop Brexit being done. Mr S isn’t quite sure that quite describes those unhappy with Boris’s recent performances in the Tory party… To back up his claim that he’s still fighting fit, the PM promised that he’d be more than happy to arm or leg wrestle any doubters. But Mr S was most struck by Boris Johnson’s reference

Steerpike Steerpike

Margaret Ferrier went to church with Covid symptoms

It’s hard to overstate the recklessness of the SNP MP Margaret Ferrier, who last week admitted travelling down to London, after having developed Covid symptoms. Not only did the MP fail to stay at home to prevent potentially spending the disease, she also decided to speak in Parliament, and then decided to travel back to Scotland on the train after receiving a positive Covid test. After the revelations came to light, Ferrier had the whip removed by the SNP, but has not yet resigned as the MP for Rutherglen and Hamilton West. It appears though that the full extent of Ferrier’s disregard for public safety may not yet have been fully

Theo Davies-Lewis

Beg, borrow or steel: the case for saving Port Talbot

Growing up in south Wales, it is hard to escape the past. More than most other tired industrial regions of Britain, there is still a strange nostalgia of days gone by. Heavy industry and manufacturing gave us Tinopolis (Llanelli), Copperopolis (Swansea) and Treasure Island (Port Talbot). Although it is only the latter that has managed to drag itself through economic depression, Thatcherism, and globalisation to the 21st century. Now, at long last, the day of reckoning fast approaches for Port Talbot’s steelworks. At the start of the pandemic, the plant’s owners Tata Steel pleaded for a £500 million government loan. Then it offered up a £900 million stake in the company

Monday

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Matt Hancock vs Stella Creasy

Oh dear. It’s fair to say Matt Hancock isn’t exactly flavour of the month in Westminster. There are plenty of MPs on both sides of the House who blame the Health Secretary for tough restrictions and failures on testing. Matters have only been made worse with the revelation that 16,000 cases of coronavirus went unreported as a result of an administrative spreadsheet error. Hancock appeared at the despatch box on Monday afternoon to face questions from MPs on the blunder. Alas it wasn’t what one could describe as a charm offensive. When Labour’s Stella Creasy put to him that a week had effectively been lost as a result of the mistake

Steve Baker

The uncomfortable truth about white privilege

When on BBC Politics Live this week Jo Coburn asked me about the Sussexes’ comments on structural racism, I knew what I wanted to say and that it would be controversial.  I represent a diverse constituency: Wycombe. When the Black Lives Matter protests were on, it became clear they were striking a chord with local people and especially the young. I wrote at the time that: ‘Black lives matter. I cannot think of anyone who disagrees. And while it would be easy to reply, “all lives matter”, that would be a disservice to the thousands of people who have legitimate grievances about racism. That those grievances evidently continue today, after