Politics Archives

Wednesday

26 Jan 2022

Steerpike

Jacob Rees-Mogg offers up another laughable defence of Boris

It’s a mark of the government’s desperation that, less than two weeks after his disastrous performance on Newsnight, Jacob Rees-Mogg was wheeled out on the same show again last night. Having done his bit for the Union by dismissing Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross suggesting he wasn’t a ‘very significant figure,’ the Somerset MP has now decided to rewrite the British constitution. He told Newsnight that if Boris Johnson goes, ‘a change of leader requires a general election’ as the UK is now effectively a ‘presidential system’ and ‘the mandate is personal rather than entirely party’. This is news, of course, to Rees-Mogg’s Conservative colleagues in Parliament. Will more ministers be willing to

Brendan O’Neill

Who cares about partygate?

Does anyone else feel uncomfortable with the idea of the police investigating the elected government? I have laughed and fumed at partygate as much as the next upstanding citizen of the United Kingdom. I’ve moaned to mates about the PM partying on the same day I sat in a park with one other person and several tinnies. I’ve shared all those memes featuring Boris looking dishevelled as he ‘comes down from another house party’ or showing bright nightclub lights blaring inside Downing Street as cops stand nonchalantly at the door. But the Metropolitan Police snooping around the seat of political power? The unelected armed wing of the state poring over

Tuesday

25 Jan 2022

Steerpike

Commons’ staffers in bonus boost

Inflation, fuel prices and a looming cost of living crisis: it’s a grim economic outlook for many out there. Fortunately, MPs are doing their bit to help, namely by giving extra cash handouts to the staffers in the offices. Steerpike has spotted that almost a million pounds – £951,000 – was shelled out in ‘reward and recognition’ payments last year, according to the 2020/21 figures from the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA). A follow up request from Mr S has established the identity of the most generous bosses in parliament, with Sir Keir Starmer in the top ten of the 352 MPs who sanctioned such payments last year. Top of the

Katy Balls

Downing Street braces for Sue Gray’s party report

It’s groundhog day in Westminster as once again hacks and ministers ask: when will Sue Gray’s report come out? On Tuesday morning it seemed as though the publication of the investigation would be delayed indefinitely. After the Metropolitan police announced plans to launch a criminal investigation into a number of the alleged parties after the Cabinet Office passed on evidence, there had been indications from inside government that the report would not be published until the police investigation was over — which could take months. Any hopes Johnson had to use the publication of the report to draw a line in the sand and move on now seem overly optimistic

Steerpike

Watch: Ian Hislop kicks off at Commons committee

It seems Bonfire Night has come early this year. First there were fireworks in the chamber after Labour tabled an Urgent Question on Sue Gray’s investigation into ‘partygate.’ And this afternoon Private Eye editor Ian Hislop had quite the argy bargy with Tory grandee Sir Bernard Jenkin over at the Standards Committee. Hislop was one of a number of journalists called up before MPs in the aftermath of the Owen Paterson scandal to give evidence on sleaze-related scandals. And the long-serving Have I Got News For You panellist was on feisty form as he locked horns with Sir Bernard, one of those who voted to let Paterson off the hook in November.

James Forsyth

The Met’s partygate probe has left the Tory party in limbo

The Metropolitan Police’s decision to investigate lockdown parties undoubtedly makes things more serious for Downing Street. It is now harder to argue, as some supporters of Boris Johnson had begun to do privately, that these matters are fundamentally too trivial to account for a Prime Minister departing if the police have been called in to investigate. The Met’s investigation also looks like it will delay publication of Sue Gray’s report. A large group of Tory MPs were waiting for the Gray report before deciding whether or not to send in a letter, though many had in reality already decided what they were going to do. What will they do now

Michael Moszynski

Boris will never regain his election winning magic

Even as the partygate stories continue to mount, some of Boris’s defenders still leap to his defence. This dwindling group of supporters believe the campaign to oust Boris is orchestrated by the PM’s enemies who have an axe to grind. Well, I worked on the Brexit campaign, played a part in helping Boris secure the leadership of the Conservative party and have been one of his staunchest supporters – until now. Make no mistake: I am – or was – a big fan of the Prime Minister. Boris’s stellar achievements in getting Brexit done and delivering the UK’s world-leading vaccination programme cannot be taken away. When voters handed him a landslide majority in December 2019,

Katy Balls

What does the police probe mean for Boris?

16 min listen

The latest in the scandal of Downing Street parties points to the Prime Minister’s own birthday, where a gathering took place in the Cabinet Office. Whilst this has been played off by a Downing Street spokesperson as being on ‘the edges of a work event’. Cressida Dick announced this morning that events at No.10 during lockdown have now been deemed serious enough to deserve a police investigation. How long does this now go on for? It could make the May election results terrible for the Tories, prompting more MPs to write a letter of no confidence.‘Someone close to Boris Johnson said to me that this idea to ‘delay to Gray’

Steerpike

Michael Ellis gets another grilling

Another day, another party, another Urgent Question – and another dreadful outing for Michael Ellis. The Paymaster-General was sent out again, just three hours after the Met Police confirmed it would be probing ‘partygate.’ Deploying the finest lawyerly evasions and the best of his oleaginous charm, Ellis spent a gruelling 45 minutes fending off a barrage of outraged opposition MPs. Highlights include the Member for Northampton North appearing to indulge in existentialism by questioning the very meaning of the word ‘party’. He mused to colleagues that ‘If whilst at work, someone eats a piece of cake for ten minutes, I don’t think conclusions can be drawn from that’ and suggesting that ‘Ten minutes of eating cake and

Robert Peston

Can the Tories afford to grant Boris Johnson a reprieve?

This was supposed to be the week of judgement for Boris Johnson and assorted Downing Street officials about whether they had breached Covid rules by holding parties. But they have won a temporary reprieve, because Sue Gray – the senior civil servant investigating the alleged rule-breaking parties – will delay publication of her report until the Met Police has conducted its own investigation of whether the Covid laws were breached and whether fixed penalty fines should be levied. The big question is whether the decision of Met Commissioner Cressida Dick, to investigate, and the associated stay of judgment for the Prime Minister, is good or bad for him. My judgement,

Steerpike

Extinction Rebellion target MPs’ offices

The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill is making its way through the final stages of the parliamentary process — and not a moment too soon it seems. For the legislation, which aims to deter direct action protests, might be called into action to deal with the latest shenanigans of Extinction Rebellion. Leaked documents obtained by Mr S reveal that the ‘eco-activists’ are planning another ‘mass resistance’ action day for 9 April, with the group aiming to have at least 3,000 so-called ‘Rebels’ arrested on that day alongside a demonstration in Hyde Park. According to the ‘XRUK Strategy 2022,’ the emphasis this spring will be on what XR is calling ‘Local Coup D’etat

Steerpike

British Council’s Russian détente

It’s all gone a bit Pete Tong down in the Crimea. Russia and Ukraine are tooling up on both sides, with the Western powers claiming there will be ‘unprecedented’ sanctions against Russia if it were to invade. Ben Wallace is set to meet with his Russian counterpart for crisis talks; the UK is among those nations shipping hundreds of anti-tank weapons out to Ukraine. The mood music is grim: the rhetoric sombre. Yet there are those in London who are adopting a breezier approach to the current quandary. For the British Council, considered by many to be a key soft power extension of UK foreign policy, appears to have taken the prospect of imminent European

Katy Balls

Met Police to investigate parties in Downing Street

Boris Johnson’s team thought that the biggest problem they would encounter this week was Sue Gray’s report into allegations of parties at Downing Street in breach of Covid restrictions. However, they now also have a police investigation to deal with. This morning, the Met Police commissioner Cressida Dick confirmed that the police will investigate parties in No. 10. Giving evidence to the London assembly this morning, Dick said her force had launched a criminal investigation into the allegations triggered by information provided by the Cabinet Office from Sue Gray’s investigation. Dick said: ‘As a result of information provided by cabinet office and my officers own assessment I can confirm (the) Met is

Katy Balls

Inside Operation Save Boris

Will Boris Johnson still be Prime Minister in a year’s time? It’s the question that haunts Johnson’s closest allies. After news broke on Monday evening of another lockdown event in the form of a birthday celebration in Downing Street when social gatherings indoors were banned, Johnson is once again on the backfoot. With MPs frustrated by the damaging drip-drip nature of the leaks, Johnson doesn’t just need to survive Sue Gray’s report into partygate, he also needs to show his party he can change. When the latest allegations emerged, Johnson loyalists such as Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries were quick out the blocks to say this event simply amounted to cake in the

Monday

24 Jan 2022

Steerpike

Boris Johnson’s lockdown birthday

‘Wait for Sue Gray’ has been the mantra on every ministers’ lips these past few weeks. But with just days to go before the senior civil servant is due to deliver her findings on ‘partygate’ how much longer can that line continue to hold? For this evening ITV have dropped yet another bombshell: Boris Johnson had a birthday party during lockdown in June 2020 despite rules forbidding social gatherings indoors. Up to 30 staff celebrated in the cabinet room where his wife surprised him with a cake, with Lulu Lytle — the designer who was doing up the Prime Minister’s flat at the time — among those who came down to the

Steerpike

Gavin Williamson’s new gig

With his Whips’ Office in crisis, how Boris Johnson must be wishing he’d kept Gavin Williamson in government. The former Chief Whip was praised for the political intelligence operation he ran during both the 2016 and 2019 Tory leadership elections when he helped secure victories for Johnson and his predecessor Theresa May. Now though Gavin – or Sir Gavin, as he is reportedly set to become – is left lolling on the backbenches, defending himself against attacks from Labour defectors about the methods he employed while in office. Still, the ex-Education Secretary clearly sees his former brief as his calling, given his desire to educate the public on his work in

Steerpike

Watch: Blow for Boris as Treasury minister quits

Some rare fireworks in the House of Lords this afternoon. Lord Agnew, the minister responsible for Whitehall efficiency, has just resigned his ministerial posts after he told peers he was unable to defend the Treasury’s record. Responding to an Urgent Question by Labour, he strongly criticised the UK government’s ‘lamentable track record’ in tackling fraud in a flagship state-backed coronavirus business loan scheme. The bounce back loan scheme handed out £47 billion, of which £4.9 billion was fraudulently claimed, the Business department estimates. It has a target to recover just £6 million from organised crime over three years. It’s the sheer waste here – billions of taxpayers’ money wrongly handed out –

Steven Fielding

Boris’s partygate troubles mean a welcome dilemma for Starmer

The last time a Conservative government was in the midst of a crisis like partygate, Labour had a choice. Should it stick or twist? Should it passively allow Conservative voters, who had kept the party in power for more than decade, to drift away from John Major, thanks to his troubles over the economy, ‘sleaze’ and the EU, hoping they would remain with Labour come a general election? Or should it make a bold and positive case for why they could actively support Labour? Both approaches held dangers. Under John Smith, Labour opted to let nature take its course. At the time, it was described as a ‘one more heave’ strategy. It had merit:

Steerpike

Serpentine swimmers slap down Matt Hancock

Oh dear. As part of his comeback tour, Matt Hancock is trying every trick to aid his post-Gina rehabilitation. There has been talk of a self-justificatory book, cringeworthy Twitter clips of him doing meet and greets, an appearance at the Capital Jingle Bell Ball in a dreadful turtleneck, backbench interventions and even talk of him mounting a leadership bid. But it seems one of Hancock’s stunts has backfired somewhat, after the master of the breast stroke was last week spotted taking a dip in the open-water swimming site of the Serpentine. For while Hancock, a guest of member and fellow former minister Lord Bethell, was keen to milk the conveniently-placed photographer’s snaps for all

Cindy Yu

How damaging are Nusrat Ghani’s claims?

16 min listen

Over the weekend the MP Nusrat Ghani accused the government of sacking her because allegedly her Muslim faith was an issue, and they thought she didn’t defend the Conservative party’s charges of Islamophobia more. In the week of the release of the infamous Sue Gray report into Partygate how are the Tories dealing with these two scandals? ‘The whip’s office is caught between Sandhurst and a HR department.’ – James Forsyth Cindy Yu is joined by James Forsyth and Katy Balls to unpack the weekend’s revelations. And if you are interested in learning more about Nasrat Ghani’s Journey to become an MP do listen to Katy’s interview with her from