Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.
13 min listen
It’s been revealed that two more parties took place in No. 10 during the pandemic. This time, on the eve of Prince Philip’s funeral. While the Prime Minister was not at this event, is No. 10’s party culture coming straight from the top? Max Jeffery is joined by Katy Balls and James Forsyth.
Oh for heaven’s sake, come off it. British politics has long had a comfortable relationship with the absurd but this week – not yet over, its revelations not yet exhausted – takes a very pretty biscuit nonetheless. I do not imagine that ‘Downing Street apologises to the Queen for party revels’ is quite the kind of headline Conservative prime ministers dream of. And while Boris Johnson has a copper-clad alibi for the suitcase-of-booze party in as much as he was at Chequers that night, it remains the case – as has always been the case – that a government is led from the top. Consequently, the character of the man
There’s an inherent contradiction at the heart of liberal thinking that perpetually raises its head. It’s one which has become ever-more pronounced in our age of ultra-progressive politics: the tension between equality and liberty. Many progressives think you can have both. Alas not. You can only have either, or a greater emphasis upon one at the expense of the other. This contradiction has once more been made evident today amidst reports of a lecturer who says he is the latest victim of ‘cancel culture’. James Treadwell, a professor of criminology at Staffordshire University, says that he is ‘being investigated for transphobia’ after his employer received ‘formal and official’ complaints about
‘We failed’. An editorial in Ekstra Bladet, Denmark’s leading tabloid, berates the Fourth Estate – including itself – for failing to hold ministers to account during the pandemic. Worn down by repeated warnings of ‘the dormant corona monster under our beds’, Ekstra Bladet claims Danish journalists mostly took the government line. ‘We have not been vigilant enough at the garden gate when the authorities were required to answer what it actually meant that people are hospitalised with coronavirus and not because of coronavirus,’ the paper told its readers. Ekstra Bladet’s accusation is that the Danish media did not properly question hospital admissions data, which appears to show that many of the country’s Covid hospitalisations might have
The UK has long been aware of the risk of cyber-attacks emanating from China. Back in 2007, the head of MI5 Jonathan Evans warned hundreds of British businesses about Chinese cyber-operations targeting the UK. Yet the risk from Chinese spies operating in the UK is less well understood. This is why it came as such a shock to so many when MI5 warned MPs and peers this week that the lawyer Christine Lee was allegedly seeking to influence parliamentarians on behalf of the Chinese Communist party. A law firm that bears Lee’s name made political donations totalling £675,000, of which £584,177 were ‘donations in kind’ to the office of Labour MP Barry Gardiner. She also received a Points
It seems that Boris Johnson has adopted something of a curious approach to Covid regulations. No, not the Downing Street parties, but rather his attitude towards self-isolation. For the PM’s official spokesman revealed yesterday that one of Johnson’s relatives — either his wife Carrie or one of the children he has living at Downing Street — has tested positive for Covid, meaning that he will not be making any appearances until next week. The embattled Tory leader will instead remain in No. 10 as he fights to save his crumbling premiership, conducting mainly virtual meetings until next Wednesday. His spokesperson told lobby hacks that: In line with the guidance, he’s reducing contacts, he’ll be working from No. 10, doing the
Nearly two years after the UK experienced its biggest economic collapse in 300 years, the economy has returned to pre-pandemic levels. GDP is estimated by the ONS to have grown by 0.9 per cent in November, almost twice what had been expected – making it 0.7 per cent larger than it was in February 2020. The US and Sweden managed to pass pre-pandemic levels last spring. China took just a few months. But Britain, whose economy fell further than almost any developed country in 2020, is catching up. Britain, whose economy fell further than almost any developed country in 2020, is catching up The below chart shows how UK growth
So, how many is that now? ITV have just revealed that Boris Johnson had a 56th birthday bash in the middle of the first lockdown — the latest in a list of illicit parties that have come to light over the past two months. By Steerpike’s count there have been reports of at least *sixteen* parties which allegedly broke Covid restrictions as they changed repeatedly throughout the pandemic. Most of these gatherings were held in No. 10 Downing Street but other Whitehall departments also got in on the act. Below is a timeline of all the alleged soirees, shindigs and not-so-socially distanced jamborees held in SW1 over the past two years… 15 May 2020: An image was published
If any single image epitomised the sacrifices that millions made during the pandemic, it was that of the Queen, masked, black-clad and entirely alone, in a pew at Windsor Castle on 17 April 2021, at Prince Philip’s socially distanced funeral. For those who regard Her Majesty as the exemplar of the public servant, who has done her best for her country for nearly seventy years, it was an almost heartbreakingly poignant representation of loss. Even for republicans, the image of the then-94-year old woman mourning her husband of 73 years was deeply affecting on a human, as well as a symbolic, level. It was unsurprising that Keir Starmer invoked the
Tory associations are about to become central to Boris Johnson’s fate. Even before last night’s Telegraph story revealing how a party was held in Downing Street the night before Prince Philip’s socially distanced funeral, several Tory MPs told me that their associations were putting pressure on them to be more critical of the Prime Minister. This is now increasing. One member of the government payroll tells me he is coming under huge pressure from his association to act. Lots of Tory councillors are up for re-election in May and so risk being the first to face the anger of the voters At the moment, only five Tory MPs have publicly
The biggest surprise in Thursday’s security warning about a Chinese agent seeking to influence British politicians is that it came as a surprise at all. The Chinese Communist Party operates a vast and growing influence operation in Britain, which has pretty much been allowed free rein. The warning came from MI5 in the form of an ‘interference alert’ sent to House of Commons Speaker, Sir Lindsey Hoyle, which he then passed on to MPs. It warned that Christine Lee, a lawyer, was ‘knowingly engaged in political interference activities on behalf of the United Front Work Department of the Chinese Communist party.’ Lee was accused of attempting to influence several MPs
24 min listen
Michelle Donelan was elected in 2015 as a Conservative MP for Chippenham. Since then, she has been re-elected twice and has risen in her political roles. Starting as a member of the education select committee and becoming a whip, to then being appointed a minister, first of children and families, and then in the latest cabinet reshuffle, becoming minister of state for higher and further education. On the episode, Michelle talks about how she had decided on a career in politics at the age of six, working for World Wrestling Entertainment, and what surprised her when she first entered politics.
Oh dear. If you were trying to design a story to offend Tory England, it would be hard to do better than the idea that there was a party held in Downing Street the night before the Queen had to mourn Prince Philip alone at a socially distanced funeral. But that is what the Daily Telegraph is alleging happened on 16 April 2021. It says that there were two leaving dos there that evening which soon became parties and, when combined, involved around 30 people. This was back when there was no indoor socialising and the rule of six outside. The paper claims that a staff member was sent to a supermarket on
Prince Andrew has been well and truly cut adrift. By his only family. From birth, he was styled His Royal Highness. He will go to his grave unencumbered by it. The removal of the style HRH, at the age of 61, will hurt a son of the Queen who doesn’t wear his royal status lightly. He remains a prince and a duke, but the Falklands veteran has no military titles. The uniform of an admiral he’d asked a tailor to run up will now remain in a wardrobe. Unworn in public. His patronages are gone too. Henceforth, he’s Prince Andrew, Duke of York: the non-royal, royal This is what a
The final judgement, when it came, was phrased with admirable economy. This evening’s statement from Buckingham Palace said simply that: With The Queen’s approval and agreement, The Duke of York’s military affiliations and Royal patronages have been returned to The Queen. The Duke of York will continue not to undertake any public duties and is defending this case as a private citizen. In 42 words, Prince Andrew’s royal career has been extinguished forever. He has been reduced from being someone who was once second in line to the throne to being nothing more than a private citizen, and a publicly disgraced one at that. In 42 words, Prince Andrew’s royal
Well, at least someone’s having a worse week than Boris Johnson. For the Queen has announced this afternoon that Prince Andrew has now been stripped of his military affiliations and patronages that meant so much to them both. The news follows a day after an American judge gave the green light for the Duke of York to face a sexual assault civil lawsuit in the States. The move comes hours after more than 150 military veterans wrote to Her Majesty to ask her to strip Andrew of his honorary military roles amid what they described as their ‘upset and anger.’ The Queen’s statement makes clear that Andrew will ‘continue not to undertake any public duties’ and is defending his
34 min listen
In this week’s episode: Is Boris Johnson done for? In this week’s Spectator cover story, our political editor James Forsyth and our deputy political editor Katy Balls write about Boris Johnson’s perilous position in the aftermath of the Partygate scandal. They join the podcast to predict the Prime Minister’s fate. (00:40) Also this week: Is there a dangerous side to self-improvement? The hashtag manifesting has had billions of impressions on social media in the last year. Younger generations love it and Mary Wakefield explores this viral phenomenon in her column this week. She joins the podcast along with Ally Head, the health and sustainability editor for Marie Claire UK who
Keir Starmer, aided and abetted by Boris Johnson’s many internal enemies within the Conservative party, has managed to get into the public consciousness the idea that if Boris Johnson attended a ‘party’ during lockdown, he should resign. There are a number of good reasons that the Tory party might feel it was time for a new leader, but the notion that attending an at-best semi-licit drinks event in one’s own back garden counts as a grounds to remove a prime minister seems to me to be wildly disproportionate. People say: ‘Those that make laws should not break them.’ And, of course, that it correct. But it doesn’t follow that any PM
Whips are made for leadership crises. They are a party leader’s early warning system; they can sniff out plots before they get going. So it is, as I report in this week’s magazine, far from ideal for Boris Johnson that relations between him and the whips office remain strained. The problem dates back to the Owen Paterson affair. The whips were furious that their chief, Mark Spencer, received so much of the blame when they felt he was just following orders from No. 10. The result, one Johnson ministerial loyalist complains, is that ‘the whips’ office are on a go-slow’. When Labour went on the attack with an urgent question on Tuesday,
You have to feel for the Scottish Conservatives. The current No. 10 dramas have placed them all in an invidious position, following Douglas Ross’s call yesterday for Boris Johnson to resign over partygate. Ross of course is the Scottish Conservative leader, with seats in the parliaments of both Westminster and Scotland. This means that every Tory north of the border now faces a difficult question: which leader do you agree with? Nearly all of Ross’s colleagues at Holyrood agree that Johnson needs to go, with 27 of the 31 (including Ross himself) demanding the PM resign. The four exceptions are Pam Gosal, Dean Lockhart, Oliver Mundell and Graham Simpson, who have thus far refused