Politics Archives

Sunday

24 Apr 2022

Why the Tories can’t replace Boris with a Remainer

Readers of a certain vintage will remember the 1980s heyday of the light entertainment show Blind Date. A series of well-scrubbed young men and women would compete to be taken out by a potential paramour who was hidden on the other side of a screen. They would begin their moment in the spotlight with a tightly-scripted introduction in which they would offer their name and where they were from. The mass television audience, who had the advantage of being able to see each contestant, would very often form an instant impression based on these few seconds of exposure and its own prejudices. I have often thought this merciless formula is

Andrew Willshire

Partygate isn’t a constitutional crisis

As you may have gathered despite the understated media coverage, Boris Johnson became the first serving Prime Minister to be found to have broken the law when he was issued a fixed penalty notice (FPN) by the Metropolitan Police for breaching Covid-related laws on gathering for non-work purposes. There has been much written about this in the press, with distinguished commentators and historians declaring variously that it is a ‘constitutional crisis’, that ‘a law-breaker cannot be a law-maker’ and all shades of outrage between. They may well be right that Boris Johnson’s position is untenable, politically speaking. But they are wrong to say this is a legal or constitutional crisis.

Saturday

23 Apr 2022

Steerpike

Whitehall swells its army of consultants (again)

The government seems keen to conduct something of a war on Whitehall. Jacob Rees-Mogg, the minster for government efficiency, has even taken to leaving calling cards in empty offices in order to encourage civil servants to return to their workplaces. But hybrid working isn’t the only problem facing the civil service: a more costly issue, perhaps, is the spiralling bill to taxpayers of Sir Humphrey’s army of outside advisers brought in to aid Whitehall’s finest. For total government expenditure on external consultants increased by 70 per cent in the last five financial years, rising from £717 million in 2016/17 to £1.2 billion in 2020/21. This is despite a National Audit Office report

James Forsyth

Why are most Tory MPs so quiet over partygate?

18 min listen

At the beginning of the year, letters from Conservative MPs looked to be reaching the 54 threshold needed to trigger a no-confidence vote in Boris Johnson. Most would think a fixed penalty notice from the Met would bring us at least back to those levels. And though there have been some full-throated calls of support and condemnation of his leadership from his parliamentary party, the majority have remained conspicuously quiet. James Forsyth asks Katy Balls and Fraser Nelson why?

Andrew Lilico

Has Boris really lied yet about partygate?

Labour MPs and parts of the media are currently exploring, as part of the partygate scandal, whether if you repeat often enough that someone has lied, you can make that an accepted fact, even if you do not have a shred of evidence or reason to believe it. The latest example came in the Commons this week when MPs referred Boris Johnson to the privileges committee for potentially misleading parliament. The problem is that Boris Johnson did not lie about having received birthday greetings from work colleagues between work meetings. His team literally briefed the event to the press on the day it occurred. In June 2020, during the height

Cindy Yu

Jonathan Miller, Cindy Yu and Laura Freeman

21 min listen

On this week’s episode, Jonathan Miller says that whoever wins France’s election on Sunday, the country is going to the dogs. (01:00) After, Cindy Yu says that China’s online censors are struggling to suppress critics of the Shanghai lockdown. (07:47) And, to finish, Laura Freeman reviews a Walt Disney exhibition at the Wallace Collection. (12:06) Entries for this year’s Innovator Awards, sponsored by Investec, are now open. To apply, go to: www.spectator.co.uk/innovator

Friday

22 Apr 2022

Steerpike

Police probe dozens of ‘offensive’ online posts

Online offence is back in the news after a man received a suspended sentence of 10 weeks for sending a ‘grossly offensive’ viral video of a cardboard model of Grenfell Tower being burned on a bonfire. It’s an issue that the Tory party have mixed views on: many of its MPs claim to stand for free speech but Nadine Dorries’s Online Safety Bill aims to restrict abusive content, with obvious potential ramifications. So how much police time is currently being spent on investigating offensive online posts? Well, Mr S has seen some Freedom of Information requests which point to the issue being of increasing concern to our boys in blue. Between 2020 and 2022

Steerpike

Express poach Sun man

The Express – home of the Crusader, William Hickey and Ann Widdecombe’s columns. Lord Beaverbrook’s baby has enjoyed its ups and downs over the decades but has its fans in Westminster, with Tory backbenchers organising a special virtual ‘Blue Collar Conservatives’ together back in 2020. And while the daily newspaper has undergone something of a rebrand in recent years, under its ‘Labour-supporting, Remain-voting ex-Sunday Mirror editor’ Gary Jones, the Sunday equivalent has had a vacancy in the editors’ chair since January, when Michael Booker defected to GB News. But three months on, the post has finally been filled. The veteran political editor of the Sun on Sunday David Wooding has been poached, making him Fleet Street’s newest editor at the

Steerpike

Another day, another SNP scandal

Dogs bark, cows moo and the SNP duck their failings. It seems as though every day brings fresh revelations about Nicola Sturgeon’s regime in Scotland as more and more questions are asked about her party’s record in office. The only novelty is the sheer range of scandals which can outrage, shock and rile: last week it was the terf war and her plans to rig the electorate. Today it’s ferries and the news that, once again, proper records were not kept of the Scottish Government’s mismanaged takeover of the Ferguson shipyard. For Audit Scotland has now demanded a fresh review about how an initial £97 million deal for two vessels spiralled into a quarter of

Fraser Nelson

Earth Day – and the untold story of environmental progress

It’s Earth Day today, the anniversary of the 1970 event that kick-started the modern environmentalist movement. in her recent column, my colleague Mary Wakefield wrote how a ‘dark green’ orthodoxy of negativity is being taught in schools with kids being given an unduly gloomy view of the world. But that’s perhaps inevitable when the “act or die” message of the original Earth Day is perpetuated even after the arguments behind it have collapsed – without anyone really explaining, or tracking, the new facts. The premise of the first Earth Day was plausible at the time: that the world’s resources would be drained in proportion to population growth so health improvements that cut infant mortality would lead

Katy Balls

What’s behind Boris’s trip to India?

9 min listen

Boris Johnson has met his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi to discuss defence, energy and trade ties. Will he be able to secure a trade deal with India?Meanwhile back at home, Boris Johnson faces an investigation by the Commons Committee of Privileges over claims he misled Parliament on partygate. All to be discussed as Katy Balls speaks to James Forsyth and Fraser Nelson.

James Forsyth

Tory MPs are trapped in partygate limbo

The Tory party is in stasis. Currently, Tory MPs aren’t prepared to move against their leader. But they don’t want to look as though they are trying to cover for him, either – which is why the government had to drop its amendment yesterday. As I say in the Times this morning, the loudest sound at Westminster at the moment is the silence of Tory MPs who are trying to avoid saying anything either way. Tory MPs are exhausted by partygate, it has been rumbling on for more than five months now and the Times reports that the privileges committee investigation likely won’t conclude until the autumn. Tory MPs just

Ross Clark

Boris is choosing to make you poorer

If Boris Johnson is forced from office by his own MPs, partygate will only be part of the story. Another huge part of it will be his failure to appreciate the full scale of the cost of living crisis now washing over millions of households – especially his reluctance to address the issue of energy bills. Asked on his Indian trip whether he would consider removing the levies which make up around 25 per cent of electricity bills and around 4 per cent of gas bills he replied: I want to do everything we can to alleviate the cost of living, but there is a lot of prejudice against the

Katy Balls

Generation spent: can renters be better protected?

34 min listen

The cost of living is rising, as is the cost of renting. Zoopla estimates that rents are rising at the fastest rate in 14 years, which means that the average rent in the UK is now over £1000 a month.This is partly a pandemic effect, especially in London as people return to offices. But Covid has also shaken people’s financial security – the Citizens Advice Bureau found that more than one in three renters felt insecure about their ability to stay in their tenancy during the pandemic. And women were disproportionately impacted – during the pandemic, mothers were more likely to be put on furlough or even lose their jobs.Rising

Thursday

21 Apr 2022

Steerpike

Boris’s grumpy grilling

Boris Johnson’s India trip hasn’t got off to the best of starts. Seeking to escape domestic woes, the Prime Minister jetted off to the subcontinent yesterday, only to face a fresh row about the Commons U-turn on the parliamentary investigation into Partygate. And Johnson’s irritation at the prospect of yet another inquiry was palpable in an interview he gave to Sky’s Beth Rigby earlier today. Throughout the ten-minute long grilling, the PM sighed exaggeratedly, rolled his eyes, looked at his watch and barely concealed his disdain at his interrogator’s questions. He asked Rigby ‘how many’ times she would ask him about Covid parties, claiming that: ‘You promised to get on, you did

James Forsyth

Boris’s problem is bigger than partygate

Today has been a double blow to Boris Johnson. First, he now faces an investigation by the Privileges Committee into whether he deliberately misled the house when he said that the Covid rules were followed in Downing Street. At the very least, this means that this story – which is exhausting Tory MPs – won’t end with the publication of the Gray report. Second, the U-turn has shown that Tory MPs aren’t prepared to go all in on defending Johnson. Most Tory MPs will keep their counsel until after the local elections next month The new whipping operation has generally received positive reviews from Tory MPs. But the amendment it put down

Isabel Hardman

The new inquiry proves partygate isn’t going away

The Commons has approved – without a vote – a motion calling for Boris Johnson to face an investigation into whether he misled the House over partygate. Labour’s motion, supported by other opposition parties, means the Privileges Committee will start an inquiry after the Metropolitan Police’s work on the lockdown parties has concluded. There was no vote because the government opposition to this motion, which was still active even this morning collapsed at the last minute, and it was easy from the debate to see why. It lacked the drama of a vote at the end, but the speeches themselves compensated for that. As Katy reported earlier, Steve Baker became the

Cindy Yu

Why did No. 10 U-turn on the vote?

13 min listen

The government’s response to Labour wanting to refer the Prime Minister to the Privileges Committee – who could then rule that he mislead the Commons – has been messy. At first, Conservative MPs were to be forced to vote with the government against the motion, but No. 10 then changed its position, saying it would be a free vote. Why the U-turn? Cindy Yu talks to James Forsyth and Katy Balls.

Steven Barrett

No, Boris Johnson didn’t mislead parliament

The PM did not lie to the House of Commons. Now, ordinarily what goes on inside the House of Commons is not for lawyers like me to adjudicate. The 1688 Bill of Rights says ‘Freedome of Speech and Debates or Proceedings in Parlyament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any Court’. So normally I would stay silent. But we are facing a very interesting constitutional crisis. Because whether someone lies is really a legal question. It has a test as law. A lie is defined in the dictionary as a factual statement that is untrue and made with intent to deceive. In the leading case of R v Lucas

Katy Balls

Steve Baker abandons Boris. Will more MPs follow?

Will Boris Johnson live to regret his trip to India? As the Prime Minister gets on with government business abroad, he is facing a hostile parliamentary party with a string of Tory MPs coming out to call for him to go. MPs are debating Labour’s call for an inquiry into whether Boris Johnson misled parliament. The Tory discomfort over the issue is evidenced by the fact the whips have changed their position on that vote several times – eventually concluding that it will be a free vote. The expectation among ministers is that this will mean many MPs will just miss the vote and Labour’s motion will pass. But more worrying