Politics

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

Thursday

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

The troubling truth about Boris’s partygate inquisition

There is something faintly ridiculous about the Privileges Committee’s report on partygate. Sixteen pages in, you encounter the following sentence: ‘We have evidence that trestle tables were set up for drinks to be laid out.’ You have barely caught your breath from this nightmarish vision of a trestle table being erected in the Downing Street garden before you are informed that there is evidence that, at another get-together, ‘a cake and alcohol were provided’. It gets worse. In the annex to the report we learn of ‘platters of sandwiches’. Was there no end to the Bacchanalian debauchery of the Boris Johnson regime? Surely I am not alone in thinking this

Steerpike Steerpike

Red Wall voters prefer a pint with Starmer over Sunak

Nicola arrested, Boris now seatless, Nadine’s on the warpath and the Tories are in the mire. These days life seems pretty sweet if you’re Keir Starmer. You can even U-turn on your flagship policy on the Today programme and have it completely forgotten about by the time of the Six O’Clock news. And now a new survey commissioned by Mr S brings more cheer for the Labour leader. Starmer’s first priority upon replacing Corbyn – other than tackling antisemitism – was winning back the Red Wall and it seems his efforts have not been in vain. A new poll for The Spectator by Redfield and Wilton of 1,200 voters shows

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Boris Johnson took us for fools. Now we have proof

No one wants to talk about the pandemic anymore. Not even partygate. Understandably so: we’ve all put hard work into suppressing and burying miserable memories over that two-year period. Why dredge it all back up?  But as one of the people in this country who still deeply cares about partygate – the hypocrisy of it, the abuse of power – I simply want to say that today’s report from the Privileges Committee into whether Boris Johnson misled parliament is remarkable. It’s a delivery of justice that the Sue Gray report wasn’t: one which some of us have quietly been holding out for.  If you don’t have hours today to go through the full 30,000

Steerpike Steerpike

Tory MP: ‘Put Boris in the stocks’

The Privileges Committee report is out today and the reaction is just what you’d expect. Nadine Dorries has taken to Twitter, declaring that any Conservative who votes for the report ‘is fundamentally not a Conservative’ and threatening deselections for those who do. Brendan Clarke-Smith has attacked its ‘spiteful, vindictive and overreaching conclusions’; Paul Bristow claims that ‘few are brave enough’ to admit that they ‘clearly go way too far.’ But Steerpike’s favourite response to all of this is that offered by close Boris ally Sir James Duddridge. He sarcastically offered an elegant solution to Johnson’s woes – one that might even enjoy Rishi Sunak’s report. Duddridge tweeted earlier today: Why

Katy Balls Katy Balls

How damning is the Privileges Committee’s report?

11 min listen

We have finally got the results of the Privileges Committee’s report into whether Boris Johnson deliberately misled parliament, and it doesn’t make for comfortable reading for the former prime minister. The 30,000-word document finds that he committed multiple contempts of parliament, including deliberately misleading the house, deliberately misleading the committee, breaching confidence, impugning the committee and the democratic process of the house and ‘being complicit in the campaign of abuse and attempted intimidation of the committee’. What will these findings mean for Boris? And what has the reaction been in parliament?  Katy Balls speaks to Isabel Hardman and James Heale.   Produced by Cindy Yu and Oscar Edmondson.

Patrick O’Flynn Patrick O'Flynn

Let’s not follow Boris down his path as ‘Britain’s Trump’

The Commons privileges committee report into the conduct of Boris Johnson is completely damning. All the kerfuffle about whether the committee was justified in devising a new intermediate category of mendacity defined as ‘recklessly misleading parliament’ turns out to be irrelevant. The entire seven-strong committee, including the four Tory members on it, have found that Johnson deliberately misled parliament on multiple fronts. Johnson’s dissembling and purveying of falsehoods while prime minister is judged so serious that, had the blond bombshell hung around to take his punishment, the committee’s recommendation would have been a suspension from the Commons ‘long enough to engage the provisions of the Recall of MPs Act’. We have

James Heale James Heale

Three things we’ve learned from the Partygate report

The Privileges Committee has today published its findings on whether Boris Johnson deliberately misled MPs over Partygate. The House of Commons voted for such an inquiry, fourteen months ago: its members now have a 100-page, 30,000 word report to trawl through. It makes for damning reading. It finds that Johnson committed multiple contempts of parliament, including deliberately misleading the House, breaching confidence and ‘being complicit in the attempted intimidation of the committee’.   They conclude that ‘there is no precedent for a Prime Minister having been found to have deliberately misled the House’ and therefore recommend a 90-day suspension for him: one of the longest in parliamentary history. An attempt

Coffee House

Full text: Boris Johnson’s response to the Privileges Committee’s report

This morning the Privileges Committee published their findings of their investigation into Boris Johnson’s conduct in the wake of the partygate scandal. They found that Johnson had misled the House of Commons and said that, had he not resigned as an MP, they would have recommended a 90-day suspension for him. As part of their report, the Committee published Johnson’s response to their findings along with their own comments. Here is Johnson’s response in full: Purported response of Mr Johnson to the Committee’s warning letter, received by the Committee on 12 June 2023, with Committee comments. My assurances to the House on 8 December 2021 My personal knowledge that the

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The partygate report is damning for Boris Johnson

The Privileges Committee has published its report on whether Boris Johnson deliberately misled parliament over partygate. It is damning. The 30,000-word document finds that he committed multiple contempts of parliament, including deliberately misleading the house, deliberately misleading the committee, breaching confidence, impugning the committee and the democratic process of the house and ‘being complicit in the campaign of abuse and attempted intimidation of the committee’. The committee, consisting of seven MPs including four Tories, had to update its conclusions after Johnson resigned, saying that it would have recommended a 90-day suspension of the former prime minister. But it has now recommended that he should not be granted a former members’

Mark Galeotti Mark Galeotti

Putin is lining up a lengthy list of scapegoats for his war

Lately Vladimir Putin has been strikingly unwilling to subject himself to any serious debate about his war in Ukraine. On Tuesday, he came the closest yet, spending more than two hours talking to war correspondents working for either the state media or nationalist social media channels. It was hardly an inquisition, but there were some interesting insights into his thinking to be gleaned. Despite the clear evidence of a steady contraction in the Kremlin’s aspirations and expectations from the original intent to conquer the whole of Ukraine, he refused to accept that the goals of the ‘special military operation’ had changed in any way. Rather, he asserted, that although they

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Why hasn’t Nadine Dorries resigned yet?

Nadine Dorries has this evening explained why she isn’t yet resigning as an MP, after she initially quit ‘with immediate effect’ last Friday. The Mid Bedfordshire MP had gone mysteriously quiet after her announcement, prompting Downing Street to suggest that she was letting her soon-to-be-former constituents down. She has now revealed that she is waiting for a subject access request to the House of Lords Appointment Committee, Cabinet Secretary and Cabinet Office.  I understand from friends of Dorries that she is ‘desperate to resign’ and is upset about having to remain in place while she waits for the subject access request to be returned, but that a lawyer in her

Steerpike Steerpike

Did an MP on the Privileges Committee break lockdown rules?

The Privileges Committee are all set to deliver their report into whether Boris Johnson lied to parliament – but there’s a sudden, last-minute twist in the tale. Guido Fawkes – that enduring sore on the national body politic – has revealed tonight that Bernard Jenkin, a member of the panel, attended a lockdown-breaking bash for his wife during the pandemic. It’s prompted Johnson to demand his resignation from the committee, hours before it’s set to deliver a judgement on him. Sir Bernard has denied attending ‘any drinks parties during lockdown’ – including an event hosted by Deputy Speaker Eleanor Laing in December 2020. Yet now Nadine Dorries (who else?) has

Steerpike Steerpike

Support Sturgeon or quit, says Humza

Just when they thought they were out of the woods, the SNP have been pulled right back in. Following Nicola Sturgeon’s sensational arrest on Sunday, reports have emerged that First Minister Humza Yousaf is willing to exhaust all options in a bid to get his party under control — and has gone so far as to tell his MSPs to back Sturgeon or quit the party. No Privileges Committee investigation for her to worry about… There’s only so many times a First Minister can be called ‘weak’ before he snaps. Three separate sources have told the Times that, at a private meeting in Holyrood, Yousaf issued veiled threats to his politicians, primly

Winston Marshall

Tony Diver: Government’s secret censorship unit and the truth about the Lockdown Files

36 min listen

Tony Diver is part of the investigations team at the Telegraph who exposed the Government Counter-Disinformation Unit. The unit operated during the pandemic to suppress speech deemed dangerous. Tony explains how and why the government operated with social media companies to silence dissenters on lockdown, masks and more. They also discuss the Lockdown Files and the upcoming Covid inquiry.

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Rishi’s PMQs victory counts for nothing

Honours dominated the exchanges at PMQs. Sir Keir asked why the Tories have spent an entire week bickering about which Conservative deserves ennoblement. Rishi claimed that he followed ‘established convention’ in approving Boris’s lavender-list. A bit of a whopper. He clearly didn’t support the candidacy of Nadine Dorries who complained in frothing prose about the ‘sinister forces’ that denied her a peerage. Sir Keir failed to spot Rishi’s clumsy footwork and instead he pretended that the PM approved ‘Johnson’s list’ in full. ‘Too weak to block it,’ said Sir Keir. Rishi shifted tack and mentioned the peerage granted to Labour’s Tom Watson who, he said, ‘spread vicious conspiracy theories that were

Matthew Lynn

The Vodafone-Three merger could be a Brexit win

There are plenty of reasons for viewing today’s huge merger deal between the UK mobile networks of Vodafone and Three with suspicion. It could reduce choice for consumers. It may lead to job losses. And it is possible that they will downgrade their service even more than they already have, cut back on investment, and squeeze more money out of a captive market. Yet that is not quite the whole story. In fact, done right, the merger could even turn out to be a rare Brexit win.  Today’s tie-up between Vodafone and Three was widely expected. The two companies will combine their British networks, and will have 27 million users

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Has Labour really U-turned on childcare?

Is Labour U-turning on another big spending pledge? Last week, shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves scaled back the party’s £28 billion green energy spending plan to take account of a tougher economic picture. Today, reports suggest the party is planning a similar retreat on childcare, dropping plans for a universal system in favour of means testing. Reeves has been warning them that the Tories are upping their attacks on Labour’s spending plans The reality is a bit more complicated. Shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson has made a big play about the party’s childcare offer to parents, to the extent that she told the Sunday Times that it would be ‘like the

Andrew O’Brien

Could cutting inheritance tax keep the Tories in power?

Is cutting, or abolishing, inheritance tax the key to keeping the Tories in power? Inheritance tax is certainly unpopular and is described by some voters as a ‘death tax’. Back in 2007, the Tories were in a similar predicament to the one they find themselves in now: they consistently trailed Labour in the polls. But that year, the party made a surprise announcement, pledging to raise the inheritance tax threshold. The Tories subsequently regained their lead and went on to win the next general election. As the next election looms, and Labour continues to lead in the polls, Conservative MPs are feeling nervous. Some think that a major announcement to

Katy Balls Katy Balls

The plot against the PM

After the implosion of Liz Truss’s premiership, Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak met to discuss which of them should succeed her. Neither wanted to back down to make way for the other. Late one Saturday night, they discussed whether a way could be found that would suit them both. It could not. As they walked out of the room to meet their aides, Johnson joked that Sunak had agreed to be his chancellor (again). Sunak then patted his former boss on the back telling him: see you at the debates. ‘Sparking a needless by-election when we are 15 points behind is close to a defection’ But there were no debates.

The Spectator

Britain must not import America’s abortion culture war

British politicians tend to avoid the issue of abortion. The subject divides America bitterly, yet Britain has opted for consensus. Now and again, however, a debate about abortion flares up – as it did this week after a number of pressure groups reacted with anger to the jailing of a mother of three who induced an abortion when eight months pregnant, using pills posted to her by the NHS. She pleaded guilty under the Offences Against the Person Act of 1861 and will spend a year in jail.  That, according to Clare Murphy, of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, is an outrage. She described Britain’s abortion law as ‘archaic’ and