Politics Archives

Tuesday

24 May 2022

The unspoken argument behind a windfall tax

The Financial Times story on Rishi Sunak looking at a possible windfall tax on energy firms captures how difficult such a tax is for any government, especially a Tory one. Because it begs questions why, when electricity suppliers suffered unsustainable losses in autumn and winter, when under the price cap they suffered huge and unsustainable losses – what you might call a reverse windfall – they were allowed to go bust. If you believe in capitalism and competition, you believe in swings and roundabouts: windfall profits in good times are the obverse of extreme losses in the bad. Kwasi Kwarteng repeated that mantra as failing electricity suppliers would not be

James Forsyth

Have any lessons been learnt from the Pen Farthing debacle?

Partygate is inevitably dominating in Westminster today – and will do so again tomorrow when the Gray report is likely to be published. But the attention on partygate should not obscure today’s Foreign Affairs select committee report on the handling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan. It is devastating, and should lead to a period of deep reflection in King Charles Street – and across Whitehall – of how badly things went wrong. The nature of the Afghan withdrawal shames our country: it was more scuttle than orderly evacuation. There are many shocking things in the report. But perhaps the most shocking is how the UK government failed to plan for

Steerpike

SNP U-turn on power-sharing deals

Shock, horror! Another principled SNP stance has crumbled at first contact with the prospect of power. For much of the past three weeks the nationalists in Scotland have been screaming blue murder about opposition groups negotiating pacts on local authorities where the SNP are the largest party, to lock them out of office. Such deals between the Tories, Lib Dems and Labour should, perhaps, be unsurprising given that Nicola Sturgeon’s followers are still committed to the break-up of the UK. But that hasn’t stopped the First Minister’s lackeys from crying foul play every time a new deal has been announced. Take South Lanarkshire where the SNP won 27 of the council’s 64 seats but

Annabel Denham

There’s never been a better time to ditch the net zero agenda

The cost of living crisis is confronting Westminster elites with the stark reality of some of the dubious policy choices they’ve recently made. Last week, the government was forced to postpone its ban on buy one get one free deals on ‘junk food’. The foolishness of outlawing cheap food – a policy Boris Johnson adopted after his spell in intensive care – has been laid bare now that inflation has risen to a 40-year high. Soaring energy bills ought to give proponents of eco-austerity similar pause for thought. Dozens of retail energy companies have gone bust in recent months. We are shipping fracked gas from the US while banning the

Patrick O’Flynn

Boris has his enemies to thank for surviving partygate

The surest way to put people off an opinion they might otherwise agree with is to get somebody they actively despise to articulate it. Yet this is what the anti-Boris Johnson political class proposes to do repeatedly in the House of Commons on Sue Gray Day, perhaps as early as tomorrow. One does not have to be equipped with the clairvoyant powers of a Gypsy Rose Lee to envisage the moralistic huffing and puffing from Keir Starmer or the death stares and withering, shivering condemnation of Theresa May that will occur as they pound away at the lockdown partying antics of Boris Johnson and his team. Leaked photographs of Johnson

Steerpike

‘A disaster’: Six damning revelations from the Afghanistan inquiry

Away from the shenanigans of partygate pictures, a rather more sobering publication has today been released by the Foreign Affairs Committee. The dozen-strong panel of MPs has issued one of the most damning parliamentary reports in modern times, describing Britain’s evacuation from Afghanistan as ‘a disaster and a betrayal of our allies that will damage the UK’s interests for years to come.’ The 66-page report said Afghan allies and British soldiers were ‘utterly let down by deep failures of leadership’ in the government during last August’s evacuation of Afghan translators and others who worked alongside British troops for more than 20 years. The cross-party inquiry found that ‘mismanagement’ of the evacuation as the Taliban quickly

Stephen Daisley

Are the Australian election results a bad sign for the Tories?

Scott Morrison’s Liberals were absolutely thrashed in the Australian elections this weekend. The party’s vote collapsed, and there were big-name defeats, with the man touted as Morrison’s successor – Josh Frydenberg – ousted in Kooyong, a suburb which had been in the party’s hands for 121 years. Whatever went wrong for the Morrison government, Saturday’s results might have relevance closer to home, even if teasing out domestic lessons from elections on the other side of the world is problematic. Australia is a different country, with a different political culture and a different electoral system. Scott Morrison was also an unloveable figure — stolid, gaffe-prone and not outwardly empathetic. When women marched

Steerpike

Tory MPs play leadership hokey cokey

It’s groundhog day in Westminster, where the leaked images of a No. 10 leaving party have prompted the re-emergence of some of the Prime Minister’s most vocal yet indecisive critics. Cometh the hour, cometh the carpers as veteran Sir Roger Gale and Scottish satrap Douglas Ross returned to their familiar place in the headlines yesterday by attacking Boris Johnson once again. Mr S would have much more sympathy with both Gale and Ross if they both didn’t seem to keep changing their minds on Johnson’s future. Take Sir Roger – a veteran backbencher and longtime Boris-basher. He submitted a letter of no-confidence in the PM to 1922 chair Sir Graham Brady as far back as May 2020

Monday

23 May 2022

Katy Balls

Partygate’s final chapter could be the most damaging yet

There was relief in Downing Street last week when the police concluded their investigation into Covid rule breaches across government. Despite being investigated for several alleged incidents, the Prime Minister only received one fine – for an event involving birthday cake in the middle of the day. Boris Johnson was not fined in relation to the more serious allegations of events in breach of Covid rules – which included late night drinking and partying in the No. 10 flat. Only that sense of optimism may prove short lived. It also serves as a reminder to MPs of the risks of backing Johnson when they don’t know what else could come out.

Steerpike

Partygate pictures are finally released

As Westminster waits for Sue Gray to release her report, ITV has got there first. The broadcaster released images this afternoon of one of the Downing Street parties during lockdown – specifically the 13 November 2020 leaving drinks for Lee Cain, Boris Johnson’s former director of communications. Bottles of alcohol and party food are pictured on the table in front of the Prime Minister, with eight people pictured standing closely together, as well as the photographer. In several of the photographs, Boris Johnson appears to be making a speech and raising a toast, with half a glass of fizz in his hands. On a chair sits his red box, and on the table

Steerpike

Revealed: Durham students’ woke culture commission

It looks like Steerpike’s favourite students are it again. Six months after the furore about Rod Liddle’s speech at South College, members of Durham University’s student body have published a fabulously self-lacerating screed about their seat of learning. For on Friday, Durham’s Students’ Union (SU) released a 48-page ‘Culture Commission’ which seeks to ‘articulate what “Durhamness” really means.’ And it transpires that it, er, doesn’t mean much good, given the university’s ‘deep-rooted classism, racism and misogyny’ in the words of its authors. The report was headed by departing SU president Seun Twins because – in her words – ‘I was tired of being shipped out at every agenda item or

Isabel Hardman

What do we know about the Sue Gray report?

13 min listen

It’s finally happening! This is the week the infamous Sue Gray report into partygate will be released. Details are few and far between, although we do know that the Prime Minister will be mentioned by name in the document. Mutterings from Tory HQ are that this is not going to be a good week for the government but not the end of Boris Johnson. Only time will tell. Isabel Hardman talks with Katy Balls and James Forsyth.

Steerpike

Four of Jamie Oliver’s worst moments

The policemen who guard the Downing Street guards are used to rag-tag protesters rocking up and chanting in their faces. But Friday afternoon brought with it a more well-heeled crowd than usual, as a myriad collection of 200 kids and campaigners rocked up in Whitehall to protest the government’s U-turn on the obesity strategy. And at the centre of this bourgeois brouhaha was of course, the familiar face of Jamie Oliver, holding aloft an ‘Eton mess’ in true twee fashion. Oliver was incandescent at Johnson’s decision, as he told the crowd beneath his own Union Jack umbrella, leading them in a chant of ‘Eton!’ to which they replied ‘mess!’ Subtlety

Steerpike

Remainers in meltdown over Union Jacks

The Jubilee weekend looms next month. For some, it’s a chance to toast the monarchy; for others, simply an extra day off work. And for a small minority of Twitter-crazed loons, it’s yet more proof that the UK is goose-stepping down the path of fascism. For the unfurling of Union Jacks on London’s Regent Street, ahead of next month’s celebration, is proof to some of Boris’s more hard-of-thinking critics that a totalitarian regime is in the offing. After images of the UK’s national flag were posted online this morning, a hardcore band of diehard Remainiacs went into something of a meltdown, furiously tweeting their rage to such an extent that the phrase ‘Nazi Germany’ was

Sam Leith

Should a trans woman inherit a peerage over their older sister?

It’s House of Lords reform, Jim, but not as we know it. Matilda Simon has applied to contest the next by-election for hereditary peers, in the hope of taking her hereditary seat as Baron Simon of Wythenshawe. Matilda, Lord Simon? Here, in one story, is a positively combustible mix of the 21st and 11th centuries. Matilda began life as Matthew Simon – becoming on the death of her (then his) father the second Baron Simon of Wythenshawe. But she has since transitioned and become Matilda Simon. And the Lord Chancellor last week approved her claim to the peerage and therefore gave her permission to stand the next time a seat

Nigel Jones

Is this the week Boris Johnson’s luck finally runs out?

‘Is he lucky?’ Napoleon demanded to know of one of his generals. When Sue Gray’s partygate report is released in the coming hours, we’ll soon find out if the luck Boris Johnson has enjoyed during his rise to the top continues. Given that Boris managed to escape from the Met police investigation into the festivities that played out in Downing Street during the pandemic with just a single fine, it seems unlikely the PM’s luck is about to run out. It marks a miraculous turnaround from just a few months ago when it looked almost certain that partygate would bury Boris. Yet Boris’s detractors ignored one thing: time and time again throughout

Sunday

22 May 2022

Steerpike

Jeremy Hunt’s lockdown yarns

Jeremy Hunt is currently enjoying something of a renaissance – all the more interesting in light of Boris Johnson’s ongoing difficulties. The former Health Secretary has been touring the TV studios recently, promoting his new book Zero: Eliminating Preventable Harm and Tragedy in the NHS. It aims to ‘reduce the number of avoidable deaths to zero and in the process save money, reduce backlogs and improve working conditions.’ An ambitious goal, to say the least. Allies of Hunt though have been keen to stress that such activities are absolutely, positively, NOT part of any leadership manoeuverings – even if he doesn’t rule out another bid in future. Hmm. Still, it can’t helped but be noticed that the Tory

Steerpike

Ben Wallace lashes out at the Mirror

It looks like Ben Wallace had sugar on his cornflakes today. The Defence Secretary has gone ‘full tonto’ this morning at the Sunday Mirror over a story in today’s newspaper about the amount of cash his department is spending to send the kids of top army officers to leading public schools. The paper says that last year some £1.5 million was handed over by the Ministry of Defence to schools like Eton, Harrow and Ampleforth, as part of the long-standing Continuity of Education Allowance. This covers 10 per cent of boarding school fees for forces parents so spouses can accompany them on overseas postings. But what really seems to have riled Wallace is

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round-up: windfall tax ‘not off the table’

This week the minister doing the morning media round was Nadhim Zahawi, who faced questions over the probe into Partygate, school bullying and the possibility of a ‘windfall tax.’ Nadhim Zahawi – Boris Johnson ‘did not interfere’ in the Sue Gray report The Education Secretary spoke to Jo Coburn about the long-awaited Sue Gray report. Coburn asked Zahawi to explain why the Prime Minister had had a meeting with Gray, and if there was a risk of undue influence: A windfall tax ‘is not off the table’ Sophy Ridge asked Zahawi about whether the government was moving towards a potential windfall tax on oil and gas companies: Raheem Bailey bullying

Ross Clark

It’s time for Boris to take on the rail unions

Imagine if we gave the rail unions what they really wanted, and renationalised the railways. Would they then leave us alone and get on quietly with the job of driving trains, clipping tickets and so on? Like hell they would. Thankfully, Nicola Sturgeon has just tried this very human experiment, so that the Westminster government does not have to. On 1 April, railway services north of the border were taken back into public ownership so that, as the unions would put it, passengers could once again be put first and profits no longer drained away by nasty private companies rewarding their evil shareholders. And the result? Er, a national rail