Politics Archives

Tuesday

29 Mar 2022

How Boris misled MPs over partygate

The significance of today’s announcement by the Met Police that 20 individuals who unlawfully attended parties in Downing Street and the Cabinet Office will be fined is that it confirms the Prime Minister misled the House of Commons on 8 December. On that date he told Sir Keir Starmer, Labour’s leader: What we don’t know, of course, is whether the Prime Minister knowingly misled the House of Commons ‘I have been repeatedly assured that the rules were not broken. I repeat that I have been repeatedly assured since these allegations emerged that there was no party and that no Covid rules were broken.’ We now know there were lots of parties, and

Nigel Jones

How Sunak sunk himself

Whatever his myriad faults and foibles, Boris Johnson has the one essential quality that Napoleon demanded of his generals: luck. A few weeks ago, the Prime Minister was on the point of being dethroned by his own MPs. Today, thanks to two men, Vladimir Putin and Rishi Sunak, he strides the stage again, basking in the praise of president Volodymyr Zelenskyy as Ukraine’s most doughty and effective international defender. Johnson owes his survival and resurrection to his firm response to Putin’s brutal invasion, but also to the abrupt political implosion of the colleague who was being lined up – not least by himself – to succeed him: Chancellor Rishi Sunak.

Steerpike

Guto gets the gang back together

As the Met begins dishing out fines for partygate, the new regime in No. 10 is focusing on the future. Boris Johnson’s Oxford chum Guto Harri was brought in at the beginning of last month to steady the ship as Director of Communications. His early interventions proved a little unorthodox: giving an interview on his appointment, retweeting John Major’s criticism of his successor and rocking up Downing Street wielding a Tesco shopping bag with healthy goods. Now though, it seems Harri has settled down and begun to prepare for the future. First, he raided his old firm Hawthorn Advisors to recruit his former colleague Oscar Reddrop as the new No. 10 head of

Katy Balls

Do the No. 10 partygate fines spell trouble for Boris?

Partygate is back in the news as Downing Street braces itself for a bumpy few weeks. This morning, Scotland Yard has announced that twenty fixed penalty notices will be issued for breaches of Covid rules in No. 10 as part of the first stage of the findings of the Metropolitan Police investigation: The investigation into allegations of breaches of Covid-19 regulations in Whitehall and Downing Street has now progressed to the point where the first referrals for fixed penalty notices (FPN) will be made to ACRO Criminal Records Office. We will today initially begin to refer 20 fixed penalty notices to be issued for breaches of Covid-19 regulations. The ACRO Criminal

Monday

28 Mar 2022

Katy Balls

‘Do you think people are stupid?’ Rishi Sunak grilled by MPs

After unveiling his spring statement on Wednesday, Rishi Sunak found himself under attack from all sides: his personal approval ratings dived amid a media backlash and criticism from his own side. So, the Chancellor’s appearance this afternoon before the Treasury Select Committee on paper made for a painful session. Over the course of several hours, the committee of MPs quizzed him on whether he thought people were ‘stupid’ when it came to his pre-election tax cut, the impact of Brexit on trade and why he had borrowed a Sainsbury’s worker’s Kia for a publicity shot. When it came to the latter question, Sunak admitted that his team has asked a supermarket worker

Steerpike

NHS accused of exploiting forced labour

There’s a mutiny underway in Westminster. After years of revelations about the conditions of Uighur Muslims in China’s Xinjiang province, momentum is building behind plans to stop the government buying health goods made in the region. On Wednesday, MPs will vote on an amendment to the health and social care bill, tabled by former Tory chief whip Lord Blencathra. It would ban NHS procurement from regions where the government believes there to be a ‘serious risk of genocide’. Ministers have already tried to buy off the rebels by proposing a review of health supply chains but ringleaders fear these don’t go far enough. And now Mr S has seen evidence

James Kirkup

Starmer won’t talk about sex and gender. That’s a problem

Sir Keir Starmer doesn’t want to talk about penises. He’s going to have to do it anyway, and he’s not going to be alone. The Labour leader was interviewed by LBC’s Nick Ferrari on Monday, becoming the latest journalist to test Starmer on questions of sex and gender. Ferrari asked, can a woman have a penis? Starmer’s verbatim response, offered with a pained expression and sorrowful intonation: Nick, I’m not… I don’t think we can conduct this debate with… you know… I just… I don’t think, erm, discussing this issue in this issue helps anyone in the long run. What I want to see is a reform of the law as

Steerpike

Tory MPs in stand off over Will Smith

Ding, ding, ding! It’s fight club time in the Tory party. In the blue corner it’s Simon Hoare. And in the, er, other blue corner it’s Dehenna Davison and Sir Iain Duncan Smith. The subject of today’s rumble in the Westminster jungle is Will Smith’s jab at Chris Rock at last night’s Academy Awards ceremony. Well, they do say politics is showbiz for ugly people… Hoare was early out of the blocks this morning to engage in some ritual macho chest-beating. The Northern Ireland select committee chair scoffed, ‘I’d just hope if someone thought it in good taste to make a joke at the expense of a medical condition of my wife then I’d get

Steerpike

Is Cressida Dick’s stand-in any better?

Goodbye and good riddance: that’s the message from City Hall to Cressida Dick. The Metropolitan police Commissioner was unceremoniously deposed last month by Sadiq Khan after five scandal-filled years in post. Following a protracted dispute over her exit package, the Home Secretary has today confirmed that Dick will be leaving her job in April months before her replacement is named. Priti Patel added that Dick’s deputy Sir Stephen House will temporarily cover as head of the force until a permanent replacement can be found. Who is Sir Stephen, you ask? Well House was the first head of Police Scotland upon its 2012 merger until, that is, his career was brought to

Cindy Yu

Can the UK become energy independent?

15 min listen

During the tail end of his Europe trip, President Biden stated of Vladimir Putin ‘for God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.’ This was quickly walked back by his staff saying that the US had no plans for regime change in Russia. But with the potential of the Russia Ukraine situation turning into long-term conflict, the UK needs to adjust its priorities, particularly when it comes to energy. Whether that future is in wind, nuclear, or fracking. Cindy Yu talks to James Forsyth and Katy Balls.

Steerpike

Second Tory minister ambushed by cake

Partygate is back in the news after a month of headlines about Ukraine. The Met Police has begun interviewing key witnesses, with more than 100 questionnaires distributed to unlucky staff in Whitehall and No. 10. Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak and even the Cabinet Secretary Simon Case have been told to submit evidence for the Met’s investigation: if they are found to have broken the law, they could be issued with a fixed penalty notice. Good luck using that ‘soft on crime’ line on Sir Keir at the next election. Steerpike wonders how each unlucky recipient will justify their shenanigans on their police form. Hopefully, they’ll do better than the defence mustered by Tory

Katy Balls

How much trouble is Rishi Sunak in?

When Rishi Sunak unveiled his Spring Statement last week, he was clear both publicly and privately that it marked a turning point: from now on, tax cuts will be prioritised over public spending. It was the Chancellor’s chance to chart a path back to a smaller state, which he later described to Tory MPs as a ‘clear conservative plan’. Yet a few days on as Sunak continues to face criticism over the measures he did – and didn’t – announce, pressure for higher spending is once again growing. Over the weekend, Sunak found himself on the receiving end of a number of hostile briefings from cabinet colleagues and allies of Boris Johnson. Sunak’s personal ratings

Sunday

27 Mar 2022

Aaron Gasch Burnett

Germany’s progressives have a Putin problem

Eighty-nine years ago this week, the German Social Democrats in the Reichstag cast the only votes opposing Adolf Hitler’s dictatorial power grab, the Enabling Act. Today’s SPD members often cite that moment as the proudest in their party’s 146-year history. With a memory like that, there is something awkward about the current SPD Chancellor’s position. Olaf Scholz is now having to come to terms with decades of SPD appeasement towards the dictator in Moscow. Before Putin’s invasion, Russian doves could be found across the German political spectrum, but Scholz’s now-ruling SPD has an especially long and developed history of Kremlin cosiness. The party has been at the centre of German

Isabel Hardman

Time is running out for the Tories to meet their promises

Will the Conservatives have much evidence that they’ve helped the country recover from the pandemic by the next election? Even though all the indications are that the party will go for a later poll in 2024, they still do not have much time to fix the big holes that have gaped wider as a result of Covid. In many cases, such as the NHS backlog, the holes were already there before the pandemic, which makes them even harder to close up. Education is another policy area where the rhetoric and time left to fulfil it just don’t seem to match up. This morning I asked Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi on

Steerpike

Tony Benn’s heirs storm the City

It is now just six weeks until the first post-partygate test for Boris Johnson’s Tories, with campaigning for the local elections already well underway. Labour under Keir Starmer are feeling confident: ahead in the polls, they know that the cost-of-living crisis will begin to eat away at the respite afforded to Johnson by Ukraine. Indeed there are even fears that the Prime Minister’s own backyard, Hillingdon council, will go red for the first time in nearly 25 years. An early portent of what could be to come was provided on Thursday when England’s most exclusive electorate went to the polls. Elections were held for the Court of Common Council, the main decision-making body of

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round-up: Regime change ‘up to the Russian people’

Nadhim Zahawi – Regime change is Russia ‘is up to the Russian people’ President Biden’s visit to Poland yesterday has caused more than a few ripples in the international community. Referring to Vladimir Putin, Biden declared ‘For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power’. In the BBC studios this morning, Sophie Raworth spoke to the Education Secretary about these remarks, asking if they represented a wider escalation of the war in Ukraine: Strip search of Child Q was ‘appalling’ Turning to matters closer to home, Raworth raised the case of Child Q, the pseudonym given to a 15-year-old black schoolgirl who was strip searched by police at her school

Freddy Gray

Could Biden gaffe us into world war three?

‘I want your point of view, Joe,’ Barack Obama once told his vice-president Joe Biden. ‘I just want it in ten-minute increments, not 60-minute increments.’ Obama understood Biden’s biggest flaw – his mouth runs away with him. He’s a verbal firebomb always threatening to go off. Last night, oops Biden did it again. As he rounded off his fiery speech in Poland against Vladimir Putin and autocracy, he concluded: ‘For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.’ The onset of senility had reduced the dangerousness of Biden’s loquacity The White House, in what is now a familiar routine, issued a quick clarification. The President was not demanding ‘regime change’

Saturday

26 Mar 2022

James Forsyth

White House backtracks on Biden’s claim that Putin can’t stay in power

In his speech in Warsaw today, Joe Biden said of Vladimir Putin: ‘For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.’ This comes after Biden condemned Putin as a war criminal and ‘a butcher’. So, what did Biden mean by this? At first blush, it looks like a call for either a palace coup or a popular uprising in Russia – the two ways that Putin could be ousted from power. But the White House has been quick to downplay the remark, telling US reporters: ‘The President’s point was that Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbours or the region. He was not discussing Putin’s power in

Max Jeffery

Damian Thompson, Jade McGlynn and Nick Newman

24 min listen

On this week’s episode, we’ll hear from Damian Thompson on the Patriarch in league with Putin. (00:58) Next, Jade McGlynn on how Russian TV is presenting the war to its people. (08:46) And finally, Nick Newman asks how should cartoonists respond to war? (17:35) Produced and presented by Sam Holmes and Max Jeffery Subscribe to The Spectator today and get a £20 Amazon gift voucher.

Katy Balls

Are Rishi’s No. 10 dreams dashed?

24 min listen

For the last two years, Rishi Sunak has appeared the frontrunner in any future Tory leadership election. But has his spring statement and damaged his standing within his party and among the public? Katy Balls speaks to Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth about Rishi Sunak’s future and Britain’s economic forecast.