Politics

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

Thursday

17 Sep 2020

Cindy Yu

Where’s Boris? A government at sea

37 min listen

From Covid to Brexit to even the culture wars, Boris’s performance seems to have been lacklustre. Where is the effervescent leader he was promised to be? (00:45) Sweden’s violent crime is spiking – and are politicians afraid to say why? (16:45) And on the other side of the world, why are the Japanese so much happier to wear masks? (27:55) With Spectator Editor Fraser Nelson; Director of Political Insight Stewart Jackson; journalist Paulina Neuding; the FT’s Nordic Bureau Chief Richard Milne; Professor Jordan Sand; and Spectator Assistant Editor Lara Prendergast. Presented by Cindy Yu.

Katy Balls

Faith in the government is wearing thin

As the government tightens coronavirus restrictions across swathes of the north east, Boris Johnson is facing his worst polling on the issue since the crisis began. According to a YouGov poll, approval of government handling of coronavirus is at its lowest: -33, compared to -18 last week. Coffee House understands this broadly tallies with internal government polling. Those privy to the findings of recent focus group polling say that a common complaint is the lack of a long-term plan for Covid. Ministers expect the polling to get worse before it gets better. The fact the government’s coronavirus testing system is already buckling is a sign of trouble ahead. Speaking to MPs today, head of test and

James Forsyth

Why didn’t the government learn from Scotland’s test shortage?

This country is better prepared for any ‘second wave’ of Covid than it was for the first. But as I say in the magazine this week, a second wave will be far more difficult for the government politically than the first one was. There’ll be no rally round the flag effect this time. The public expect the government to be prepared. The growing anger over testing is an example of this change. This country has the ability to test far more people than it did back in March. But there is mounting irritation about how many people in coronavirus hotspots are being told either that there are no tests available

Kate Andrews

What’s the logic behind local lockdowns?

One in seven Britons is now under increased lockdown restrictions, after a return of measures in the north-east added an additional two million people to the list. Those in Northumberland, Newcastle, Sunderland, North and South Tyneside, Gateshead and County Durham will not be able to mix with other households (outside of support bubbles) from midnight, while restaurants, bars and pubs will be subject to a 10 p.m. curfew. Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced the latest lockdown measures in the House of Commons this morning, citing a rise of Covid-19 cases in the area. Despite more than ten million people in the UK now being subject to some level of increased

James Kirkup

Why is my Northumberland being locked down?

I am from Northumberland. You might have heard of the place, or even been there: the glorious coastline is increasingly popular for holidays, though the Cheviot Hills (even more deserving of attention) are less well-known. Often, the county is lumped into a bigger mass known as ‘the north-east’. Which I suppose makes a certain sense, given the basic geography and accents that – at least to outsiders – sound broadly similar. (I might return to this another day, but the idea that the accent of the Upper Coquet Valley sounds anything like, say, that of Sunderland is actually comical.) Northumberland is a curious construction as a local authority area. It’s

Steerpike

Failing Grayling finally gets a break

Chris Grayling recently went down in history as the one of the only men able to lose a rigged election. The former Transport Secretary had been lined up by No. 10 to chair the intelligence and security committee, but ended up being rejected by his fellow committee members when his Tory colleague, Julian Lewis, decided to vote for himself instead. But now things are looking up for failing Grayling. Grayling has got himself a new job advising a ports company for the hefty sum of £100,000 a year. Before critics get too outraged, it’s important to take into account that this is for an exhausting seven hours of work per week.

John Keiger

How the EU is breaking its own Lisbon Treaty

That the European Union takes to the moral high ground on international law when it suits it is hardly new. Nor is its infringement of international treaties, even when they are its own. For six months now, the European Union has been in breach of its fundamental international treaty: the 2007 Lisbon Treaty. Brussels has fallen foul of Article 341 and Protocol 6 – or what might be called the ‘Alsace-Lorraine protocol’ – of what is officially known as the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). This section of the treaty permanently situates the European Parliament’s plenary seat in the Alsatian capital of Strasbourg. But since March 2020, the European Union

Fraser Nelson

Where’s Boris?

At the end of last week, the Prime Minister invited Tory MPs to a massive conference call, a kind of digital fireside chat to lift their spirits. It was a disaster. First the MPs were astonished to learn that he wasn’t taking questions; then his connection failed halfway through — at which point the callers, who had been ‘muted’, became ‘unmuted’ and started talking loudly and all at once. One of them, Michael Fabricant, started singing ‘Rule Britannia’. When the call came to an end, the MPs were all left wondering the same thing. What’s happened to Boris? Where is the man we thought we voted for? Physically, Boris Johnson

James Forsyth

Why No. 10 fears the second wave

The government is bracing itself for a second wave of coronavirus. Everyone knew the autumn and winter would be more difficult than July and August. But what is depressing ministers is how new restrictions have had to be imposed before the summer is even out. ‘It is going to be a long, hard autumn,’ warns one minister intimately involved in this effort. In many ways this country is better prepared for a second wave than it was for the first. Policy-makers know more about the virus and how it spreads, doctors are better prepared to treat it, the government is better organised than it was before, has better data and

Martin Vander Weyer

The Japan trade deal shows how desperate we are for investment

A small cheer for Liz Truss’s treaty with Japan. It is, says the official press release, ‘the UK’s first major trade deal as an independent trading nation’ — and we must hope, the harbinger of much bigger deals to come. Even on the government’s own analysis, this one claims to deliver just £1.5 billion to the UK economy and an increase in UK workers’ wages of ‘£800 million in the long run’, whatever that means. What it highlights, I’m afraid, is the imbalance between the range of goods and services that the post-industrial UK is actually able to offer foreign partners — and how much more we need from them,

Harry Hudson

Could Trump save the capital letter?

Irrespective of whether Donald Trump ends up being a two-term president, surely no modern political figure has done more to raise the profile of the capital letter. Joe Biden, in contrast, does not seem as enamoured with his caps lock button as the current Tweeter-in-Chief. No more FAKE NEWS, WITCH HUNT or MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN if Biden is in the White House. At one point, Trump’s love of upper case was even mooted as the possible final straw which would lead to a third world war, after the President’s famously cautious tweet in July 2018: ‘To Iranian President Rouhani: NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL

Devon Cross

We should give Trump credit for his foreign policy successes

Various luminaries from the Republican party have begun turning up on social media, on television and in newspapers urging Americans to vote for the Democratic nominee Joe Biden. One group of foreign policy mandarins recently signed a letter declaring that President Trump has ‘gravely damaged America’s role as a world leader’ by aligning himself with dictators, dishonouring the rule of law, imperilling national security and more. I have no involvement with the Trump administration or campaign, and never have. But I beg to differ. Consider the scene on the White House’s south lawn this week, where Trump presided over a historic deal between Israel, the UAE and Bahrain. The Saudis

Nick Tyrone

A second lockdown would be a disaster for Boris

Could Britain be heading for a second lockdown? Boris Johnson says his government is doing ‘everything in our power’ to prevent one, but failed to rule it out if coronavirus cases don’t stop rising. Yet even if the Prime Minister does end up ordering Britain back indoors, it’s worth asking whether he has the political capital to carry out such an order. Amidst a stormy few weeks in which the PM has alienated both wings of his own party, angered the frontrunner to become the next US president and been blasted by most of the press, I’m not convinced. When the first lockdown happened in March, there was a lot of goodwill throughout the

Toby Young

I admit it: I was wrong to back Boris

A friend emailed me earlier this week in despair about the Prime Minister. ‘Boris reminds me of a hereditary king — Edward II or Henry VI — who is so staggeringly incompetent that he must be removed before doing too much damage,’ he wrote. ‘I felt the same way about May but Boris is worse.’ He is not the only person feeling like this. It pains me to say it, but I too have given up on Boris. The final straw was hearing him talk about his plans to create an army of ‘Covid marshals’ last week — Britain’s very own, curtain-twitching version of the Stasi. What on earth happened

Stephen Daisley

The Internal Market Bill isn’t radical enough

The more the SNP decries the Internal Market Bill, the more I warm to it. Initially, I considered it sensible enough but wholly insufficient given the constitutional threat facing the United Kingdom. (Less keen on the law-breaking bit, mind.) But now Mike Russell, SNP constitution minister and professional hysteric, says the Bill will ‘undercut the existing settlement’ by allowing devolved administrations to be ‘overridden by the whim of the UK Secretary of State’ and by permitting ministers to spend ‘in opposition to the Scottish government’ in what he calls ‘an enormous assault on the devolved powers’. Now, that’s more like it. When Russell talks like this, I go to my

Wednesday

16 Sep 2020

James Forsyth

Joe Biden weighs in on the Brexit stand-off

Today has not been a good day for the government. The government’s decision last week to be so explicit that the Northern Ireland clauses of its Internal Market Bill would break international law in a ‘specific and limited way’ has caused all sorts of problems. First, it created a Tory backbench rebellion on the issue. A chunk of Tory MPs felt that the government’s position meant that they just could not support the legislation as proposed. The government has today pacified this rebellion by agreeing to table an amendment ensuring that the Commons would get a vote before these clauses are used. It is not a massive climbdown — the

Fraser Nelson

Has the government’s Brexit plot backfired?

12 min listen

The government’s Internal Market Bill won’t reach the House of Lords until after the October EU Council, James Forsyth tells Katy Balls and Fraser Nelson on the podcast today. This means that the bill won’t become law anytime soon, and provides the government leverage for a deal in that Council. So was this a ploy to get a better deal all along?

Katy Balls

Five things we learnt from Boris’s liaison committee grilling

As the government comes under fire over its Brexit tactics, testing capacity and coronavirus guidelines, Boris Johnson was this afternoon summoned before the liaison committee to answer questions on all of the above. Although dialogue remained civil between the PM and the panel – made up of select committee chairs – there were signs that Johnson might prefer to be somewhere else, at one point rolling his eyes. Here are the five main takeaways from the session: 1. The EU is not negotiating in good faith Earlier today, Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis suggested the EU is negotiating with the UK in good faith. However, it seems the Prime Minister takes a different view. Asked by Labour’s

Lloyd Evans

PMQs exposed Angela Rayner’s two major faults

Sir Keir Starmer did a Greta at PMQs today. Without their leader, Labour invited Angela Rayner to duff up Boris in public. On her feet she announced that this would be ‘the Battle of Britain’. And she believed that ‘the whole country’ would be watching. It was more like a game of hop-scotch between two flirtatious teenagers. The air zinged with puppy-love. ‘I congratulate her on her elevation,’ said Boris, eyeing her up with a Trumpian twinkle. Rayner couldn’t stop smiling as she made a joke about Keir Starmer’s absence which she blamed on failures in the testing system. ‘I heard he’s had a negative test,’ said Boris chattily. ‘I don’t quite know why he’s not here.’

Katy Balls

Boris softens his PMQs approach for Rayner

Boris Johnson faced a new opponent at Prime Minister’s Questions today – Angela Rayner. With Sir Keir Starmer stuck at home waiting for the results of a family member’s coronavirus test (which has since come back as negative), Labour’s deputy took to the despatch box. Her performance led to a notably different approach by Johnson, the PM was notably less combative than he has been against Starmer. Rayner began by putting Johnson on the spot by asking him the hourly rate of a care worker – a question he avoided answering. Her presence also meant more jokes on the Labour side. She had a dig at Dominic Cummings over lockdown, saying: ‘The next time a man with