Politics

Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.

Thursday

20 Jan 2022

Did Tory whips blackmail Red Wall MPs?

9 min listen

As the Prime Minister has a stay of execution after the pork pie plot came to nothing, today allegations are flying that Tory whips have been using unsavoury methods to threaten wavering MPs into line. Christian Wakeford, the newly defected Labour MP to Bury South, says that whips threatened to withdraw funding from a local school; while William Wragg claims that MPs have been blackmailed with information about their private lives. But how much of this is true, and how much, as some in SW1 are saying today, is this just a part of being a whip? On the podcast, James Forsyth points out how some of this comes down

Matthew Lynn

Has Macron shot France’s energy industry in the foot?

Gas prices are soaring. Europe could be about to witness electricity shortages. Power companies are collapsing by the day, and, on top of all that, the government is set to phase out traditional energy to meet its net zero target. So might think that a cable to ship in cheap, greener electricity from the other side of the Channel is something of a knight in shining armour. Yet the government blocked the proposal today, and it was absolutely right to do so. Britain may need all the electricity it can get its hands on right now — but the last thing it should do is increase its dependence on Macron and Putin. Britain

Damian Reilly

Against Dominic Cummings

I’m no Westminster insider, but there comes a point when you have to consider that perhaps Carrie Johnson was right about Dominic Cummings. That point for me arrived in May last year when, without giving any indication he might be the one at fault, Cummings unblinkingly described to a parliamentary committee his relationship with his former boss, Carrie’s husband the British Prime Minister: ‘The heart of the problem was, fundamentally, I regarded him as unfit for the job and I was trying to create a structure around him to try and stop what I thought were extremely bad decisions, and to push other things through against his wishes. And he

Steerpike

Michael Fabricant’s hapless help

Oh dear. Tory loyalists have been out in force the past two days, desperate to save Boris Johnson’s flailing premiership. Mr S has heard of at least one boosterish Boris-backer quoting the words of Margaret Thatcher in November 1990: ‘I shall fight on, I fight to win!’ Unfortunately, as another MP muttered back: ‘Maggie resigned two days later.’ An excruciating interview by the Prime Minister on Tuesday backfired spectacularly, while the efforts of party whips to ‘encourage’ colleagues have resulted in Will Wragg denouncing them as ‘blackmail’ before his select committee today. Still, cometh the hour, cometh the Fabricant. The honourable member for Lichfield has been doing his level best to dig

Steerpike

The SNP’s bullying hypocrisy

The ‘baby-faced assassin’ has struck again. William Wragg, the backbench Boris-basher, lobbed another grenade at the door of No. 10 today with his comments at the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee about the tactics being used by the Johnson regime. Wragg, who possesses the name of a septuagenarian but the appearance of an adolescent, claimed that his party’s whips are trying to undermine colleagues opposed to the current leadership. He told an ashen-faced Steve Barclay that No. 10 staff, special advisers and government ministers had said there would be embarrassing stories released to the press if MPs did not support the Prime Minister. Wragg also claimed No. 10 had threatened to withdraw funding

Tristan Kirk

Boris’s excuse didn’t wash for these Covid lockdown rule breakers

As Boris Johnson battles to survive the Partygate scandal and faces widespread anger from the public and his own MPs, he is still hoping his apology over the Downing Street festivities will be enough. But the Prime Minister has to face up to the fact that, for thousands of people around the country, saying sorry or offering excuses for Covid lockdown rule breaking didn’t cut it. Many ordinary Brits were criminalised for breaking the law during the pandemic, sometimes in very sad and desperate circumstances. The case of a 23-year-old woman from Eltham, in south east London, draws a striking parallel with an accusation levelled against the Prime Minister over the Downing Street

Steerpike

Kent Tory Burns Sturgeon

It’s Burns night on Tuesday and after two years of pandemic politics, what better time to celebrate the Union? Yesterday evening Tory unionists piled into the opulent splendour of the the Cavalry and Guards Club for the London branch of the Scottish Conservatives’ annual celebration of the national poet. Steerpike’s spies were in attendance to enjoy the traditional bagpipes and whisky, with Dame Eleanor Laing delivering a magisterial toast to the haggis in her wonderful Paisley accent — a job for which her stints in the Speaker’s chair have certainly proved good training. Scottish leader Douglas Ross was the star turn, having found himself caught between a Holyrood/Westminster tug-of-war in recent days after

Steerpike

Harry and Meghan’s tax wheeze

Money is very important to Harry and Meghan – as evidenced by their multi-million dollar deals with a string of top companies. Not for them, ‘go woke, go broke’: their philanthropic vehicle Archewell raised less than £37,000 for their charities up until June last year, with more being spent on legal fees to dissolve their previous UK effort, Sussex Royal. Still, this hasn’t stopped their website gushing about the couple’s ‘shared purpose, global action’ and ‘leading the way with compassion.’ Its mission statement proclaims passionately that ‘our core purpose is to uplift and unite communities — local and global, online and offline — one act of compassion at a time.’ Talk about

Steerpike

Devi Sridhar concedes defeat

Amid all yesterday’s defection drama, it was easy to miss that Boris Johnson announced the scrapping of his ‘Plan B’ Covid measures. Such a move has not gone down well among the more hysterical elements of Covid Twitter who appear to see the restoration of civil liberties as a dastardly Tory plot to privatise the NHS. The SNP MP for Central Ayrshire Dr Philippa Whitford spoke for such elements when she called the announcement ‘crazy’, asking ‘Would you slash your seatbelt or airbag in the middle of a car crash?’ Not all of Whitford’s nationalist fellow travellers agree though. For Professor Devi Sridhar, an ardent supporter of ‘Zero Covid’ and lockdowns appears to

Lionel Shriver

Joe Biden’s Civil War re-enactment

We can’t blame American progressives for yearning to relive the civil rights movement. Those were heady days. Opposition to segregation — real ‘structural racism’ — placed you conspicuously on the proverbial right side of history. Joining the cause was like shooting up moral heroin. So maybe it’s predictable that when talking up his two voting rights bills in Atlanta last week, Joe Biden evoked the 1963 bombing of a black church in Alabama and MLK’s storied march in Selma two years later. Yet it’s one thing to wax nostalgic, quite another to insist that it’s still 1965 — much less 1865. Biden’s speech recalled a Civil War re-enactment, with polyester

Andrew Tettenborn

A Covid amnesty won’t save Boris Johnson now

Timing is everything in politics. Partygate showed the usually sure-footed Boris at his most careless and inept, dwarfing even his run-in with the Commissioner for Standards that cost him North Shropshire last month and (one suspects) helped lose him Bury South on Wednesday. But the British electorate can be very forgiving. When it elected Boris it did not mind too much about his tendency to get things wrong on points of detail, seeing him instead as the man who saw what had to be done, was honest about it and got on with the important part of the job. At the time the scandal broke about the ‘drinks cabinet’ at

Wednesday

19 Jan 2022

James Forsyth

Is Boris safe for now?

14 min listen

Last night rumours were flying around Westminster that letters of no confidence from Tory MPs were pouring in and Boris might be leaving sooner rather than later. But with the surprising crossing of the aisle by MP for Bury South, Christian Wakeford, it appears that old party tribalism may have stayed some hands. ‘While a coup against a leader is one thing defecting is quite another.’ – James Forsyth Katy Balls talks with James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman about all of today’s political drama, from Keir Starmer’s ‘very good‘ jokes to David Davis’s public call for Johnson to ‘in the name of God go!’ Subscribe to The Spectator‘s Evening Blend

Steven Fielding

Is this the start of a Labour revival?

Few may know of Baron Howarth of Newport. But in 1995, on the eve of the Conservative party conference, as plain old Alan Howarth he became the first Conservative MP to directly defect to the Labour party. Today, just ten minutes before PMQs, Christian Wakeford became the fourth Tory MP to join the Labour benches. His timing was excruciatingly cruel for a Prime Minister visibly sinking under the weight of his many contradictory obfuscations over ‘partygate’. Howarth had been an MP since 1983, a junior minister and a strong supporter of Margaret Thatcher’s reforms: he was no wet. His defection was a body blow to the already embattled John Major

Kate Andrews

Britain’s cost of living crisis worsens

If Boris Johnson manages to cling on to his job, he’ll have much more than the parties of lockdowns past to worry about. Britain’s cost of living crisis is worsening still, with CPI inflation rising by 5.4 per cent in the 12 months leading up to December last year. This has, once again, outpaced consensus, surging even further past the Bank of England’s most recent official forecast. There’s little doubt left that heavy government spending is playing a significant role in the inflation we’re experiencing now Inflation is now at a 30-year high. And it’s still rising. Capital Economics now estimates a peak of 7 per cent around April, and there

Lloyd Evans

PMQs: Pantomime Starmer wasted his chance

Does Boris lie? Well, yes, of course, he’s a politician. That’s the standard response to the honesty question. And in some circumstances, we forgive MPs for telling whoppers. Christian Wakeford, elected as a Tory for Bury South, has just joined the Labour party and effectively admitted that he told a pack of lies to voters at the 2019 election. Yet Sir Keir Starmer welcomed this proven swindler to the opposition and boasted about his defection at PMQs. Labour crowed with pleasure. Boris tried to silence them by predicting that Bury South would return to the Tories at the next election, ‘under this Prime Minister.’ Hear that? Boris won’t quit. The

Steerpike

Former Tory MP gets revenge on Boris

Partygate may be what does for Boris but it was the North Shropshire by-election which triggered the landslide. The fallout from the disastrous decision to contest Owen Paterson’s suspension by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards has fuelled the anger and discontent which now leaves Johnson clinging on the precipice. For in losing a constituency which had returned Tories for more than 100 years, the PM spooked nervy backbenchers into thinking their seats could be next. Now though, the latest publication of the register of members’ interests has revealed the schadenfreude which others are deriving from Johnson’s North Shropshire woes. For the newly-elected Helen Morgan has declared £28,000 in donations since her triumph there,

James Forsyth

Christian Wakeford’s defection has saved Boris – for now

An MP crossing the floor just before PMQs is the stuff of prime ministerial nightmares. But, oddly, Christian Wakeford’s defection might, in the very short term, have helped Boris Johnson. MPs hate defectors and so Tory MPs will unite in condemnation of Wakeford. His decision also makes it easier for Johnson’s allies to raise questions about the judgement of those pushing for a rapid vote of no confidence in the party leader. Tory MPs who are on the fence about the Prime Minister’s future think Wakeford’s defection has probably made it more likely that the number of letters required for a no confidence vote won’t be reached until after the

Isabel Hardman

The curious timing of Boris Johnson’s Covid announcement

You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist who mutters regularly about ‘sheeple’ to find the timing of Boris Johnson’s latest Covid update rather suspicious. This afternoon, he followed his dramatic Prime Minister’s Questions session with an announcement about the end of restrictions which had been introduced to slow the spread of the Omicron variant. They include an end to a number of measures, including compulsory mask-wearing in public places and guidance to work from home. The short-lived but controversial vaccine certification scheme has also been shelved. If this was a political rather than policy-based move, Johnson will be grateful that the first Tory questions came from Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt

Steerpike

Labour youth reject Tory defector

Labour have made much of Christian Wakeford’s defection today. The party is keen to show it has moved on from the Corbyn era, with some pointing to Wakeford’s staunch support of the Jewish community in Bury as proof that Starmer has successfully detoxified Labour’s brand. It’s the first direct Tory defection to Labour in 15 years and gave Starmer another stick with which to beat Johnson at a gag-filled PMQs. Yet not all in Labour are so keen to welcome the Conservative MP into the fold. For the party’s youth wing has greeted the news by vehemently attacking Wakeford and rejecting him as a Labour representative. Young Labour, the last Corbynista holdout in Starmer’s brave new

Isabel Hardman

PMQs: Johnson comes out fighting

Today’s PMQs was as dramatic as you might expect. It began with the spectacle of Bury South MP Christian Wakeford being cheered as he crossed the floor to the Labour benches. Sir Keir Starmer was in a joyful mood, as you might also expect. What was striking was how energised Boris Johnson was in his responses. Johnson will have had a couple of minutes to prepare for a session about the shock defection of one of his own Red Wall MPs, and he clearly had decided that the best way to deal with this was to fight his way through the session rather than appearing sorrowful. He shouted across the