Politics Archives

Thursday

28 Apr 2022

Steerpike

Ben Wallace attacks Westminster drinking

Emerging blearily from his hangover this morning, Steerpike was greeted with the dulcet tones of a Cabinet minister, gravely intoning on Times Radio about the perils of Westminster drinking. Recent revelations about MPs’ behaviour, they suggested, raise more fundamental questions about the culture at the very heart of our democracy and the temptations available to our honourable members. Who was this model of moderation, you ask, this totem of temperance? Why, none other than Ben Wallace, the Forces’ Flashheart, sent out to deliver a sermon to self-restraint on behalf of, er, Boris Johnson’s government. The Defence Secretary – whose work on Ukraine has led to him being tipped as a possible dark horse leadership candidate

Katy Balls

The Nadine Dorries Edition

46 min listen

Nadine Dorries is the Secretary of State for the Department of Culture, Media and Sports and MP for Mid Bedfordshire. After leaving school at 16, Dorries went on to become a nurse and an entrepreneur before entering politics at the age of 49. She was a minister in the Department of Health during the pandemic, and in her current role is leading five bills at DCMS through Parliament, including the controversial Online Safety Bill. On the podcast, she talks to Katy Balls about her plans for the BBC and Channel 4, why she believes much of the criticism against her comes from those unable to accept her background, and where

Wednesday

27 Apr 2022

Sam Leith

Stephen Dodd: Beautiful Star – Yukio Mishima

38 min listen

In this week’s Book Club podcast, our subject is the Japanese writer Yukio Mishima – whose novel Beautiful Star is being published in English for the first time this month. My guest is its translator Stephen Dodd, who explains the novel’s peculiar mixture of profound seriousness and humour, and its mixture of high literary seriousness with, well, flying saucers. He tells me about Mishima’s sheltered life and shocking death, his place in Japanese literary culture, and the way the hydrogen bomb hangs over this remarkable and strange novel.

Cindy Yu

Will MPs be hit by another sleaze scandal?

14 min listen

The chief whip Chris Heaton-Harris has started an investigation after a female Tory MP reported that she had seen a male colleague watching pornography in the House of Commons. This comes in the wake of the Mail On Sunday‘s Angela Rayner/Basic Instinct story, and of the Sunday Times’s investigation that three current cabinet ministers are under investigation for #MeToo claims. Will more allegations come out of the woodwork in the coming days? Cindy Yu talks to Katy Balls and James Forsyth.

Lloyd Evans

Tory MPs have a strange way of showing their disdain for Boris

That was a barmy idea. Sir Keir Starmer led on macroeconomics at PMQs and attacked the government over its economic failures. But next week’s elections are for local authorities which have no influence over the national coffers. It’s as if Sir Keir wanted to change the subject and talk about anything other than Labour’s ability to deliver local services. He seemed ill-at-ease and disengaged. In need of a battery recharge. Very little stomach for the fight. And he relied on pre-scripted insults rather than improvising his comebacks. When Boris defended the Tory record with a list of memorised statistics, Sir Keir jeered at him: ‘These must be the Oxford Union

Steerpike

Will MPs be hit by #MeToo again?

It’s groundhog day in Westminster as sexual ethics becomes the topic of conversation once again. There have been a flurry of stories in recent weeks about the behaviour of honourable members in parliament, none of which have particularly edifying. First there were the revelations about the disgraced ex-MP Charlie Elphicke and the subsequent suspension of his (still-serving) colleague David Warburton over allegations of drug abuse, sexual misconduct and the failure to declare a loan. Then Imran Ahmad Khan was convicted of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy – prompting Crispin Blunt’s extraordinary intervention. The Sunday Times then reported at the weekend that three cabinet ministers are among 56 MPs facing allegations of sexual misconduct after being referred

Steerpike

Revealed: Putin’s sloppy naughty list of MPs

Russia’s intelligence operation has let Vlad down once again. Moscow’s top spooks and apparatchiks used to be feared and admired in equal measure: dark arts, double agents, defections and disinformation – it all sounded terribly impressive. Yet that daunting reputation is just one of the many Russian casualties which perished in Putin’s Ukraine expedition. Repeated intelligence failings have cost Russia far more blood and treasure than was initially anticipated, with Putin ordering the imprisonment of the security services’ leadership in retaliation. Still, there is one high-profile figure from the recent past who escaped such punishment: step forward Jeremy Corbyn Sadly though it seems Putin hasn’t managed to lock up all his incompetent

Isabel Hardman

PMQs: The return of Pestminster?

Prime Minister’s Questions opened with Sir Keir Starmer and Boris Johnson agreeing that the anonymous briefing about Angela Rayner was unacceptable. The Labour leader speculated that Johnson would have ‘whipped his backbenchers to scream and shout – and that’s fine’, before demanding that he send a ‘clear message that there’s no place for sexism or misogyny’. Johnson has been consistent on this point, rushing to distance himself from the story as soon as it emerged. It has, though, sparked a wider debate about sexism in misogyny in parliament which is likely to dominate the agenda into next week too: on which more below. Starmer’s questions, though, were dominated by the cost of

Isabel Hardman

The dark side of the ‘protect the NHS’ slogan

The High Court’s ruling today that the government broke the law on the discharge of patients to care homes in the early days of the pandemic further undermines the claim by the then Health Secretary Matt Hancock that ministers had thrown a ‘protective ring’ around the sector. The case was brought by two relatives, Cathy Gardner and Fay Harris, of care home residents who died after testing positive for Covid. Their argument was that six policies in place at the start of the pandemic represented ‘one of the most egregious and devastating policy failures in the modern era’. The fathers of Gardner and Harris were among the 20,000 people in

Steerpike

Sturgeon’s government broke the law (again)

The finest QCs in all of Twitterdom have made much out of the Johnson government, firing off law suits at the drop of the hat. But while token victories at London’s High Court are trumpeted as earth-shattering defeats for the wicked Tories, the shenanigans of Nicola Sturgeon’s government in Scotland get far less publicity in the Fleet Street press. For this week the SNP regime was (again) found guilty of breaching laws regarding freedom of information. For the Scotsman newspaper has won a decisive victory this week, forcing ministers to publish legal advice they received about a second independence referendum after a thirteen-month battle between the paper and the Scottish Government. It will be the first

Ian Acheson

Why prisons are still failing to stop Islamist terror

Johnathan Hall QC has done the state a service. His cogent report on prison terrorism, published today, compliments and advances work I started in 2016 to alert the government to the profound problems in how we manage ideologically motivated offenders in our jails. Hall’s report critically examines the contemporary threat of violent extremism from within the prison walls – where at the last count reside some 230 offenders convicted of terrorist offences and a greater number who are at risk of radicalisation or already radicalised. The vast majority of these offenders are motivated by Islamist extremism which explains his report’s focus. He begins by making two stark points, obvious to

Steerpike

Mail hits back at Speaker

After cross-party condemnation and a Commons summons by Lindsay Hoyle, it was only natural that the Mail would hit back over its Angela Rayner story. The Daily Mail has today ridden to the rescue of its sister newspaper the Mail on Sunday, aiming a double-barrelled blast at both the Speaker and Labour’s deputy leader. In a typically strident front page splash, it roars ‘No, Mister Speaker!’ declaring that David Dillon, the editor of the Sunday paper, will not appear before Hoyle to explain a report which suggested Rayner tries to distract Boris Johnson at PMQs, in the manner of Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct. The Daily Mail claims that three more MPs have now

Tim Knox

The NHS is failing us all

While MPs compete to shout the loudest in their support of the UK’s health services (‘save our NHS!’), the British public has fallen out of love with it. More people are now dissatisfied with the NHS than are happy with it. This is true across all ages, income groups, sexes and voters of different political parties. Support for the NHS is now at the lowest level for a quarter of a century. The public is right, the NHS is just not that good. Compare it, as I have done in a new report published today, with the health systems of 19 similarly well-off countries and it is hard to come to any other conclusion.

Tuesday

26 Apr 2022

Steerpike

It’s Nigel vs Piers in the TV ratings war

Once we had Dimbleby and Day: now it’s Nigel Farage and Piers Morgan. The two TV pundits have been trading insults this month ahead of last night’s launch of TalkTV, with both now seen as the figureheads of their two respective network channels. There’s Farage, the self-styled saviour of GB News, which launched in June, and Morgan, the well-remunerated controversialist with an eye for the main chance and a love of a good scrap. The former Daily Mirror editor accused the Brexiteer of trying ‘to sabotage my interview with President Trump in a despicable act of two-faced weasel treachery’ after the two clashed about whether Trump stormed out of his TalkTV interview. Morgan meanwhile proudly trumpeted

Katy Balls

Boris Johnson’s cost of living gamble

What can the government do to ease the cost of living crisis? The Chancellor drew criticism in his spring statement for not doing enough – yet there are ministers, such as Kit Malthouse, who take the view the government has already spent too much. At a recent cabinet meeting Malthouse suggested Johnson and Sunak reopen the spending review and make cuts in the face of rising inflation. Cost of living is now viewed as the number one issue in government – as deputy chief of staff David Canzini has briefed aides. Today Boris Johnson is attempting to show he is on the front foot by chairing a cabinet in which

Isabel Hardman

Can the Cabinet really solve the ‘cost of living’ crisis?

13 min listen

Today a pre-briefing on what Boris Johnson plans to say to the Cabinet about the cost of living crisis was released. He wants them to brainstorm ideas to ease the pain felt by the British public in the face of rising prices of food and energy. The catch, is these have to be non-fiscal ways. Isabel Hardman talks to Katy Balls and James Forsyth about how effective these plans could be and how they may be received by the voters. To keep up to date with the world of Westminster, sign up for unrivalled insight and analysis with Isabel Hardman’s Evening Blend newsletter, delivered to your inbox every weekday evening.

Steerpike

Ukraine triumphs on Russia’s turf

‘Jaw jaw’ remarked Churchill ‘is always better than war war.’ And some of London’s finest jaws were being put to good use last night as the cream of the capital’s consular circuit mingled, chatted and wolfed down canapés at the Diplomat magazine awards. From Namibia to Nicaragua they came, packed into Mayfair’s glitzy Biltmore hotel in Grosvenor Square, ambassadors and High Commissioners aplenty. The attractions of the evening were explained by James Landale, the BBC’s diplomatic editor, moonlighting as Master of Ceremonies for the shindig: ‘This is effectively the diplomatic office party – you can drink and gossip and moan about whoever you want with gay abandon’ as it is ‘the one reception of the year where you

Andrew Tettenborn

Could Shami Chakrabarti torpedo Priti Patel’s Rwanda bill?

Priti Patel’s reforms to the rights of asylum seekers have predictably scandalised the House of Lords. Befitting what is now effectively a club for patricians and liberals who hate Boris Johnson, it duly sent her Nationality and Borders Bill back badly mauled. The Commons excised these amendments in short order; today, the Lords will be asked to restore them. But will it do what it’s supposed to? This is a dangerous moment for the government – not least because Shami Chakrabarti’s proposed amendment could torpedo the whole project. This is because the most sweetly reasonable change her fix is trying to make is also the most potentially catastrophic. For over 70 years the

Lloyd Evans

Lindsay Hoyle should be quiet on Angela Rayner

What’s up with Lindsay Hoyle? On Monday, the Speaker opened the afternoon session of parliament with a statement about the puerile gossip surrounding Angela Rayner. He called the story in the Mail on Sunday, ‘misogynistic’ and ‘offensive to women in parliament.’ Such tasteless yarns, he went on, ‘can only deter women who might be considering standing for election – to the detriment of us all.’ His remedy was to call two meetings. First, a tete-a-tete with Rayner herself. Secondly, a conference with the Mail on Sunday editor and the chair of the press lobby. Several questions arise. The less urgent issue is why he wished to meet Rayner personally? She

Brendan O’Neill

Who’s afraid of Elon Musk?

The meltdown over Elon Musk’s acquirement of Twitter is my favourite world event of 2022 so far. It is delicious. I could sustain myself for years on the sight of commentators and activists wringing their hands to the bone over the possibility that – wait for it – there might be a smidgen more freedom of speech on Twitter once Musk takes over. Probably unwittingly, these raging right-thinkers, these terrified Musk-fearers, have confirmed before the eyes of the world that there is nothing they dread more than free speech, and I cannot get enough of it. It really has become hysterical. The minute Musk hinted, last month, that he wanted