Politics

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

Thursday

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Boris Johnson sets the bar for any lockdown easing

The Prime Minister used his appearance at the daily government press conference to confirm that the UK is past the peak of coronavirus infections. However, those hoping for a rapid easing of the lockdown are to be left disappointed. Johnson spoke of the need to avoid a second peak and promised a menu of options to be unveiled next week. He said that this would still not include specific dates as any easing will depend on infection data. As James says in this week’s Spectator cover piece, data will be crucial to informing these decisions. The underlying principle that will guide these decisions: the rate of infection – also known as the ‘R’ rate. Johnson said that the country’s virus reproduction rate

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Lockdown sceptics might be wrong, but let’s still listen to them

Does Laura Perrins want me dead? The conservative commentator is coruscating about the government’s Covid-19 response. She abhors the lockdown and demands it be lifted immediately. ‘This lockdown and the extension on the 7th is the biggest error in British politics since WW1,’ she says. I am in the ‘at high risk’ group three times over and would quite like to go on living, if you don’t mind.  I follow Perrins on Twitter because, although we agree on almost nothing, I like to hear what the co-editor of the Conservative Woman thinks about the affairs of the day. In recent weeks, however, my finger has hovered indignantly over the ‘unfollow’ button as she

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Can a South Korean approach help Britain defeat coronavirus?

The government now has a plan for how it intends to get out of this crisis. It is, as I say in the magazine this week, to drive the coronavirus transmission rate down as low as possible and then stay on top of it through a ‘track, trace and test’ approach. In other words, the government is going to go South Korean on the virus. For this approach to work, you need accurate data – something which has been sorely lacking to date. But the hope in Whitehall is that clarity is on the way. The Office for National Statistics is undertaking a mass random testing programme that should provide the

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

We crave certainty over Covid-19. There isn’t any

One of the strangest developments to have occurred during this very strange time is that the Prime Minister’s special adviser, Dominic Cummings, may have attended a meeting of some people. Worse, various politicians are suggesting that he may have actually said something at this meeting. Very senior people are insisting that if Mr Cummings did say something at this meeting, even if we have no idea as to what it was he said (‘Can you fetch the Gummy Bears please, Mary, I think this going to be a long one’ or ‘Sorry, Zoom is on the blink again’), then he shouldn’t have done so. The Prime Minister’s special adviser attending

Shanker Singham

China’s coronavirus cover-up shows it can’t be trusted

‘Hide your capacities, bide your time’, China’s former leader, Deng Xiaoping, famously once said. Few in the West understood what he meant then. But they understand it today. The coronavirus outbreak has brought home the reality that China does not play by global rules. It’s time for countries committed to open, liberal democracy, free trade and free markets to accept the reality that China is not a partner but a strategic competitor. The coronavirus cover-up of the emergence of the disease might even have included lax standards in laboratories as the US Embassy had complained of. These are the actions you would expect from the Chinese Communist Party, a crony

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Boris Johnson’s cautious path out of lockdown

Ever since Boris Johnson was admitted to hospital on 5 April, the government has been in a holding pattern. No big decision could be taken without the Prime Minister, but he was in no position to make one. He is now back at work, though, and has a plan for what to do next. Put simply, it is to drive the coronavirus transmission rate — the reproduction number, or ‘R’, which shows the expected number of infections directly generated by one case — down as low as possible and then stay on top of it through a ‘track, trace and test’ approach. In other words, the government is going to

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

Rishi Sunak must stick to his guns

Was the Chancellor wrong to guarantee only 80 per cent, rather than 100, of ‘coronavirus business interruption loans’ to keep small- to medium-sized companies afloat? Rishi Sunak’s announcement this week of fully guaranteed micro-loans for the smallest companies seeking to borrow up to £50,000 was reported as a partial climbdown in the face of pressure from the CBI and many of his own MPs to do away with the on-risk slice of the larger scheme, which provides loans of up to £5 million through 40 accredited banks — but which many would-be borrowers have claimed is a bureaucratic nightmare. Readers certainly confirm that picture. One in the motor trade tells

Wednesday

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Could Remdesivir eliminate the need for a coronavirus vaccine?

Over the past few weeks the government’s scientific advisers have indicated that the only real way out of the coronavirus crisis is a vaccine – until then a high degree of social distancing will have to remain. Given that no-one expects a vaccine to be ready for deployment for another year at the very earliest, this would have very serious implications for the economy, and for society at large. But there is another possible route out of social distancing – not so good, but possibly available a lot more quickly. This is for an effective therapeutic drug to emerge. It would not stop anyone contracting the virus but could improve

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Why shouldn’t Cummings attend SAGE?

One of the key committees advising the government is SAGE — the Scientific Advisory Group on Emergencies. At the weekend, there was a rumpus after the Guardian reported that Dominic Cummings had been present for some of its meetings; though given the enormity of what was being discussed there would have been problems if no one from Downing Street was at these meetings. Last night, Bloomberg reported on the SAGE meeting of 18 March. Alex Morales and Suzi Ring wrote that Dominic Cummings had at that meeting raised questions, including asking ‘why a lockdown was not being imposed sooner’. I am informed that at that meeting Tim Gowers, a Cambridge maths professor and

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Keir Starmer’s PMQs performance was painfully wooden

‘Such happy news amid such uncertainty’. The Speaker began PMQs with this tribute to Carrie and Boris’s baby. But his talk of ‘happy news amid such uncertainty’ might have referred to MPs tuning in via webcam whose living areas have been denuded of clutter. Last week, viewers got an eyeful of their MPs’ soft furnishings which proved a major distraction from politics. Honourable members have now realised that their utterances are much less interesting than their wallpaper. Today most of them appeared in plain white surroundings. Cheryl Gillan, a rare exception, had set up her camera in what looked like a magical grotto decorated with turquoise box-files. The first secretary,

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The SNP is using Covid to bury bad news

This, everyone agrees, is no time for politics as normal. We are – all of us – engaged in a great national struggle. Partisanship is for yesterday and tomorrow; these are different times and the ordinary rules of politics have been suspended. Even so, the occasional green shoot of normality can still be seen and for some of us this is a joyous thing indeed. So yesterday I was delighted to see the Scottish government announce that an inconvenient and controversial review of Scottish education, due to be led by officials from the OECD, will not report its findings until June 2021 at the earliest. Elections to the Scottish parliament

Matthew Lynn

It’s no bad thing that the airline industry will never be the same again

British Airways is laying off 12,000 staff. Virgin Atlantic is desperately looking for a buyer. Air France-KLM is being bailed out by the French and Dutch governments, Lufthansa is getting rid of planes, and Airbus is furloughing workers. The once mighty airline industry is in terminal trouble, with massive state support now required to keep it alive. Rishi Sunak hasn’t stepped in with his chequebook yet, but, heck, it is only Wednesday and it is probably somewhere on his ‘to-do’ list for the week. But hold on. Sure, we want to rescue most industries and bring them back to life as soon as practically possible. That is certainly true of

Steerpike Steerpike

Ask the experts: Twitterati caught out over Boris’s PMQs absence

Oh, the joys of Twitter, brimming with experts ready to share their razor-sharp analysis of the day’s events. Today’s question? Why Boris Johnson wouldn’t be doing Prime Minister’s Questions. The social media site was this morning awash with pundits speculating as to the reason for the PM’s last minute absence and delivering their blistering hot takes on what the non-attendance means.  The real reason, however, became obvious just minutes after No. 10 confirmed that the PM would not be attending the weekly Commons grilling – Johnson’s fiancé Carrie Symonds has just given birth.  Not that the Twitterati were able to wait a few minutes to gather their thoughts. Here is Mr S’s pick

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The complicated question of Boris’s paternity leave

Earlier this month Boris Johnson was in hospital fighting for his life, this morning he was there for the arrival of new life: his partner Carrie Symonds gave birth to a healthy baby boy this morning. David Cameron took paternity leave when his daughter Florence was born in 2010 and Tony Blair took a ‘paternity holiday’ when his son Leo arrived in 2000. But the timing of this birth, in the middle of a national crisis, undoubtedly complicates the question of Prime Ministerial paternity leave. This is particularly the case given that Boris Johnson’s rapid return to Downing Street post-hospitalisation was driven, in part, by frustration that things weren’t happening

Robert Peston Robert Peston

Why the furlough scheme needs to be redesigned

The road to that unmentionable destination, the lockdown ‘exit’, is long and will take at least nine months. Which means economic recovery will be longer still. And that requires the Chancellor to plan now to make the decline and recovery as benign as possible. Probably the most important economic therapy (and certainly the most expensive) has been the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, which has persuaded hundreds of thousands of businesses to retain millions of employees on their books, rather than sacking them – but which urgently needs a redesign for the next phase. That is what business leaders and some ministers tell me. And they have a point. There are

Anna Bailey

Now who’s cherry picking, Michel Barnier?

Donald Tusk just couldn’t resist. It was September 2018, and an informal European Council summit was taking place in Salzburg. As the leaders relaxed after lunch, someone snapped a photo of Tusk offering a tray of small cakes to the then British prime minister, Theresa May. Tusk posted the picture to his Instagram with the caption: ‘A piece of cake, perhaps? Sorry, no cherries.’ The joke/dig (depending on your point of view) worked because everyone knew what was being referred to. Ever since Article 50 had been triggered in March 2017, the British side had been attempting to ‘cherry pick’ – to try and gain the advantages of EU membership

James Kirkup James Kirkup

The Commons speech that deserves to be heard

Every now and then, the House of Commons sees one of those speeches, a moment when an MP, generally a backbencher, speaks with power and clarity and honesty. Speeches that deserve to be heard far beyond parliament, partly because of what they say and partly because of how it’s said. Speeches that give politics a good name. Often these speeches are from relatively new MPs, people who have not yet established their name or reputation beyond the narrow confines of Westminster. A few years ago, Johnny Mercer, then a new member, made one of those speeches when he spoke about his combat experience in Afghanistan. More recently, Rosie Duffield last

Tuesday

Katy Balls Katy Balls

A warning from Germany on lockdown easing

Those ministers hoping Boris Johnson’s return to work will herald an imminent easing of lockdown measures face an uphill struggle. With the Prime Minister meeting colleagues this week to solicit advice before deciding which restrictions can be eased, news from Germany is likely to bolster those arguing for a more cautious approach. Only a week after its easing began with the reopening of shops and schools, Germany may have to re-tighten its lockdown because the virus is spreading too fast. The country’s virus reproduction rate – measuring how many the average person with Covid-19 infects – has increased to 1.0. Any value above 1.0 is seen as leading to an

Steerpike Steerpike

Six of the best moments from the first virtual House of Lords

The House of Lords may be the place of hereditary peerages, woolsacks and arcane procedures, but today the Chamber ventured into the 21st century when it trialled virtual proceedings for the first time, using Microsoft Teams. Peers across the country dialled in to a giant conference call chaired by the Lord Speaker, as ministers fielded questions from living rooms and kitchens. And while things went surprisingly well considering the the average age of the House is 70 and the technology was being used for the first time, there were a handful of rather amusing incidents along the way. Here are Mr Steerpike’s favourite moments from the first session: The missing minister