Politics

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

Sunday

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round-up: Covid Plan B will not involve furlough

Rishi Sunak – Plan B will not involve furlough This Wednesday will see the Chancellor’s second budget of the year. As always, the contents are hotly anticipated, but Rishi Sunak was reluctant to give too much away this morning. It has been reported that the new Health Security Agency is sounding out local authorities about the implementation of the government’s ‘Plan B’ for trying to control the coronavirus over the winter months. Andrew Marr asked Sunak if Plan B meant a return to a scenario very much like the one experienced this time last year: RS: The Plan B that we’ve set out does not involve the same type of

Thomas Lorman

How to beat Orbán? Copy him

Opposing Viktor Orbán is a formidable task. Support for his coalition hovers at around the 40 per cent mark while the parliamentary system makes it harder for opposition parties to break through. By 2018, all of the opposition parties, most of which are firmly on the left, realised they were individually incapable of breaking through. They began fielding joint candidates and had some early success when Gergely Karácsony won the mayoralty of Budapest. So they agreed late last year to select a common candidate for the prime ministership at next spring’s elections. Last weekend, a political outsider, Péter Márki-Zay, became the candidate. Márki-Zay’s appeal comes from the idea that he

Michael Simmons Michael Simmons

Will Sajid Javid really fire 106,000 unvaccinated NHS workers?

When Sajid Javid was interviewed at Tory party conference recently, he was asked if he’s going to start firing unvaccinated NHS staff, given that care workers are about to lose their jobs under ‘no jab, no job’ rules. He said he was considering it, which would be quite a move. The unjabbed may make up a small percentage of the NHS workforce of 1.6 million people. Today’s Sunday Times says that he has decided to press ahead by introducing legislation that will make vaccinations ‘a condition of employment’ for health workers. This would follow what Joe Biden has done in America — where all medical employees face vaccine mandates and companies with more

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Is Rishi ready to splurge?

Is Rishi Sunak losing his battle within the Cabinet to promote fiscal responsibility? We’ll find out this week, when he unveils his Budget and three-year Spending Review on Wednesday, but there were hints this morning that more spending is coming down the track. Speaking to Andrew Marr on BBC One, Sunak laid out the principles that guided his Budget process this time round: ‘Strong investment in public services, driving economic growth by investing in infrastructure, innovation and skills, giving businesses confidence and then supporting working families. Those are the ingredients of what makes a stronger Budget and that’s what we will deliver next week.’ This is not the language of

Simon Clarke

It’s time to prepare for winter Covid restrictions

Earlier this week, the health secretary Sajid Javid said in a Downing Street press conference that the government was not yet ready or willing to activate its Covid ‘Plan B’. His announcement came after the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) argued last week that Plan B measures – such as mandatory masks, working from home and vaccine passports – should be prepared for now to reduce the need for tougher restrictions in the winter. Both Sage and the health secretary will have been keeping a close eye on the number of Covid infections, hospitalisations and deaths, all of which have been rising steadily this month. The worry, of course, is

Peter Apps

The dark side of ‘insulating Britain’

Let me start with some statements of fact. The planet is heating up dangerously fast with devastating consequences for everyone that lives on it and if we don’t stop pumping carbon into the atmosphere we have no future as a species. In the UK, a major source of our carbon emissions comes from homes and a large part of that is because we burn gas whenever we put the radiators on. Each UK household emits around 2.7 tonnes of carbon every year heating their home. That’s utterly unsustainable and must stop. To some the answer is to insulate our homes so tightly that we no longer need to use much

Saturday

Annabel Denham

Boris Johnson should trust the market to solve climate change

In a 368-page document published this week, the government announced its strategy to cut emissions to net zero by 2050 and confirmed its target for all electricity to come from low carbon sources by 2035.  It’s difficult to imagine worse timing for the release. An energy crisis is exposing the failures of decades of massive state meddling in the market. Insulate Britain have been picnicking on the M4 and M25. And on Wednesday a leak of documents showed Saudi Arabia, Japan and Australia are asking the UN to play down the need to move rapidly away from fossil fuels. None of this has weakened the Prime Minister’s resolve, though that’s

Douglas Murray

Douglas Murray, Owen Matthews, Lionel Shriver

29 min listen

On this week’s episode, we’ll hear Douglas Murray on how the Prevent scheme has lost sight of its founding intention. (00:43) Then Owen Matthews on Rome’s rubbish. (12:35) And finally, Lionel Shriver gives her review of Dave Chappelle’s transgressive new Netflix Special. (19:20) Produced and presented by Sam Holmes

Steerpike Steerpike

LSE takes £1.5 million from China

Boris Johnson might insist that the UK will not ‘pitchfork’ Chinese investment but it seems not everyone in government agrees. Liz Truss, the new Foreign Secretary, has made headlines today for saying what many on her back benches believe — that Britain cannot be dependent on China and allow it a role in our nuclear plants or the G7.  That fundamental divide on how to approach Beijing is not merely confined to Westminster, but rather something that extends across industry, civil society and of course, academia. One of the ways the Chinese Communist Party has sought to extend its overseas cultural influence is by Confucius Institutes. They run educational and cultural

Peter Wood

Liberty is the American virus

If I wanted to persuade my fellow Americans to eat more cheese, I would begin by launching a campaign to ban cheese. This might start with the argument cheese clogs arteries or lowers IQ. I’d find some doctors willing to testify that cheese inhibits testosterone, and some other doctors to insist it fouls up estrogen.  Then I would move on to the damage cheese does to the climate: too many cows, goats, sheep — methane, don’t you know. Greenhouse gases. Deforestation brought to you by cheddar. ‘Cheese kills!’ might serve as a motto. Next, I would sort out the cheese-producing states that would have to be melted into submission, perhaps

Friday

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Rishi’s Budget wriggle room

Whisper it, but Rishi Sunak looks to be heading into the Budget next week with the public finances in a far better state than once predicted. The Office for National Statistics update on public sector net borrowing showed September’s total — £21.8 billion — coming in several billion pounds below the Office for Budget Responsibility’s official forecast and economists’ consensus. It fits a trend: total borrowing for 2021/22 is over £40 billion lower than expected, giving Sunak far more leeway than he thought he’d have at the start of the year. On the whole, tax receipts have been higher than forecast, as growth (while somewhat lacklustre over the past few

James Forsyth James Forsyth

No. 10 moves to kickstart the booster campaign

In a move that as important as any in the recent Cabinet reshuffle, Emily Lawson is returning to run the Covid vaccination programme. Lawson headed up NHS England’s vaccination team during the rollout, and after its success, she was moved to take charge of the new Number 10 delivery unit. The hope was that she would bring the rollout mindset to public services more broadly. The delivery unit, modelled on its Blair era predecessor, is meant to ensure that the government actually does what it says it is going to do. Such is its importance that Lawson addressed the first meeting of the newly reshuffled Cabinet. The fact that she is

Steerpike Steerpike

Labour MPs pose with convicted harasser

Irony was officially pronounced dead this week after disgraced MP Claudia Webbe launched an attack on ‘wrong, bad and exploitative’ bosses. Webbe is facing a possible jail sentence after being convicted of harassment last week but is still merrily carrying on as if nothing has happened, regularly launching Twitter attacks on the government and blithely ignoring all calls to resign — even those from the official Labour press office. Still, even Mr S was surprised to learn of Webbe’s latest act of brazenness. This afternoon Labour MPs conducted a photo-call in parliament, with good comrades lining up on the green next to the gates to show their support for Barry Gardiner’s ‘fire

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

What will Sunak reveal in next week’s Budget?

11 min listen

The Chancellor is making final preparations to his Budget, announced next Wednesday. On the podcast, Cindy Yu talks to James Forsyth and Katy Balls about the major themes coming up, and whether this is the moment when Rishi Sunak sees a turn in his popularity.

Steerpike Steerpike

Shock, horror! COP26 has an electric car problem

If absurdity were a source of renewable energy, the COP26 climate change summit might achieve its aim of saving the planet. Yesterday Mr S brought news that local lawyers are set to join rail engineers, transport operators, catering staff and refuse collectors in timing industrial action to coincide with next week’s eco-jamboree. Now Steerpike learns of a fresh crisis afflicting the UN conference: there’s not enough places to power the luxury electric cars needed to ferry delegates around the city. Some 240 Jaguar Land Rover vehicles including its I-PACE SUVs will be laid on by the UK government to move the 120 visiting heads of state and their entourages between

Charles Parton

How to counter China

When another country does something to upset the Chinese Communist party, it gets accused of ‘a Cold War mentality’. This is psychological projection, in Freudian terms, a defence mechanism which projects onto others the negative aspects of one’s own self. But the CCP is right in a way: we should have more of a ‘Cold War mentality’ or at least a ‘values and systems war’ mentality. China is not the Soviet Union. We never co-operated with the USSR on trade and investment or science and technology. We do with China. Indeed the CCP sees itself as fighting a ‘values and systems war’. Xi Jinping, in his first speech to the

Katy Balls Katy Balls

The Nikki da Costa Edition

43 min listen

Nikki da Costa is the former director of legislative affairs at No 10 Downing Street. She served under Theresa May and Boris Johnson and was pivotal in the government’s wrangles with Parliament over Brexit. On the podcast, she talks to Katy about why she and David Davis didn’t quite get on; why she quit May’s government and rejoined under Johnson; and what it was like to carry through her brainchild – the prorogation of Parliament – under scrutiny from the entire country and, eventually, the Supreme Court.

John Ferry John Ferry

Is Brexit making Scexit seem impossible?

This month we’ve seen the UK government introduce temporary visas for butchers after farmers were forced to slaughter healthy pigs, the extension of cabotage rights (whereby foreign lorry drivers can do additional pick-up-and-drop off jobs within a country) and a move to replace Brexit’s controversial Northern Ireland protocol. Supply chain problems can’t all be pinned on Brexit – and you could argue endlessly about which factor, Covid or Brexit, is dominant in the disruption we’re seeing – but most people would agree that leaving the EU single market and customs union has not helped matters. Which brings us to the issue of a Scottish exit from the UK (Scexit). Are

Thursday

Steerpike Steerpike

Is Laura Kuenssberg leaving Westminster?

Is Laura Kuenssberg’s time as BBC political editor coming to an end? That’s the suggestion tonight after the Guardian reported she is in talks to step down from the role and move to a plum gig hosting the Today programme.  Rumours of Kuenssberg’s impending departure have been circulating around Westminster for some time now to little avail. But this time it is being talked up as part of a wider shake up of the Beeb’s lead presenters, with Jon Sopel recently announcing he is ending his US beat and returning to the UK. Rumours of Kuenssberg’s impending departure have been circulating around Westminster for some time now Kuenssberg’s time in