Politics

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

Thursday

Steerpike Steerpike

COP26 hit by yet another strike

It’s just ten days to go before COP26, the green gathering described by Ed Miliband as ‘the most consequential summit that has ever taken place anywhere in the world.’ The eco-equivalent of Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam is set to begin in Glasgow next Sunday, with delegates jetting in from across the globe to hobnob, hector, hum and haw at the UN’s climate change conference. So, ahead of His Holiness, Joe Biden, various Western satraps and other panjandrums gracing us with their presence, Mr S thought he’d provide an update on how things are going in the host city. It turns out all is not well in Dear Green Place, where local bosses seem to be intent on re-enacting the Winter of

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Plan Z: the rise of Éric Zemmour

The fact that Éric Zemmour hasn’t yet declared himself a candidate in next year’s French presidential election is a bit of a joke. A Harris poll last week put him on 17 per cent, ahead of all other rivals to President Emmanuel Macron. And he’s holding rallies across France at which adoring fans in ‘Zemmour 2022’ T-shirts chant: ‘Zemmour! Président!’ He’s still pretending to be a TV personality on a big book promotion tour. But Mr Z is running and everybody knows it. He has a devoted and surprisingly professional campaign behind him, the nucleus of a political party, conceived with a clear mission: to restore la gloire de la

Jonathan Miller Jonathan Miller

My night in Béziers with Zemmour

Béziers is the ancient winemaking capital of the Occitanie region in the deep south of France and a stronghold of the French right. Its popular mayor, Robert Ménard, a former journalist, was elected as an independent, but with a strong endorsement from Marine Le Pen. Her political movement, the Rassemblement National, formerly the National Front, with historical roots in anti-Semitism, has been powerful here for decades. So is it paradoxical, bizarre, or perhaps evidence of a more profound shift of social and political tectonic plates, that last Saturday night thousands of Biterrois turned out at the Zinga Zanga theatre to cheer Éric Zemmour, a Parisian Jewish intellectual, author and television

The Spectator

The government’s net zero strategy doesn’t add up

The commitment to reach ‘net zero’ emissions by 2050 is the most expensive government proposal in modern history. Yet it was rushed through parliament with minimal debate or scrutiny, thanks to a last-minute pledge by Theresa May in 2019, weeks before she left office. She had no credible plan, just a lofty ambition without costings. It has taken the government two-and-a-half years to come up with a proposal — and it is not convincing. The Net Zero Strategy document published this week opens with the Prime Minister’s trademark optimism. ‘We can build back greener, without so much as a hair shirt in sight,’ he writes. ‘In 2050, we will still

Steerpike Steerpike

Emily Sheffield out as Evening Standard editor

Oh dear. It was less than six months ago that Mr S was remarking on the number of onetime George Osborne acolytes now ensconced at the Evening Standard . But the winds of change now appear to be blowing through the corridors of Northcliffe House as owner Lord Lebedev has today unceremoniously axed the paper’s editor Emily Sheffield after just 15 months in the role. An email was sent out to Standard hacks this morning, informing them all that Sheffield was stepping down by ‘mutual agreement’ along with the obligatory platitudes for her ‘role in turning the Evening Standard Digital First.’ The former Vogue writer gets a column in the paper as a consolation prize, with

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The problem with ‘David’s law’

Two members of parliament have been killed in the past five and a half years. This, one long-serving MP laments, is the kind of statistic you would expect in a failing state. One of the shocking things about Sir David Amess’s murder is that many MPs weren’t surprised by it. Parliamentarians are acutely aware that when they are away from the Palace of Westminster, with its armed guards and security scanners, they are a soft target. Their job requires them to mix with the public and that involves a certain level of risk. One senior Tory MP points to how during the Troubles in Northern Ireland, MPs who were thought

Wednesday

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Javid says no to restrictions – for now

Is the government considering activating its ‘plan B’ Covid plans? Not yet.  After the Business Secretary played down talk of new restrictions this morning, Sajid Javid used today’s press conference to confirm that he would not be implementing the back-up plan ‘at this point’. However, the Health Secretary suggested that further measures – namely vaccine passports, work-from-home orders and mask mandates – could not be ruled out if the data substantially worsens. The main message from the press conference: get vaccinated There was a marked change in tone from Javid since the days soon after his appointment as Health Secretary when he declared that there was ‘no going back’. He said that

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Did Starmer win PMQs?

11 min listen

There was a sombre tone as Boris Johnson faced Keir Starmer at the despatch box for PMQs. This was seen as one of the Labour leader’s most successful outings as he emphasised finding common ground on tackling certain issues like online abuse, extremism and terrorism Cindy Yu is joined by Katy Balls and James Forsyth

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

The unstoppable pessimism of Ian Blackford

Peace reigned at PMQs today. That was the plan, anyway. Both leaders agreed to sheath their weapons and to blunt their sabres in honour of the late Sir David Amess. But one-upmanship started to break through almost immediately. The issue on which they agreed to agree was internet extremism. Sir Keir Starmer saluted the ‘collaborative spirit’ of the House and cited an instance of violent footage which had ‘stayed online because it didn’t contravene the guidelines.’ Boris promised to strengthen the rules and to make companies accountable for extremist content on their sites. ‘I’m glad he’s taking this new tough line,’ added the PM, hinting that Sir Keir is as

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Is inflation slowing?

Whatever happened to the inflation surge? Last month, when the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) surged to 3.2 per cent, the country started fretting about a return to the 1970s. This month’s CPI figure, though, has fallen to a not-very-1970s like 3.1 per cent. Forty five years ago inflation, on a slightly different measure, peaked at over 20 per cent. So are we really heading for an inflationary surge? It turns out that the biggest contribution to this month’s slight fall in CPI is in restaurant prices. This might come as a surprise to people running restaurants — yesterday the Food and Drink Federation complained of a ‘terrifying’ rise in the

Andrew McQuillan

Dennis Hutchings and the problem with a Troubles amnesty

The death of the former solider Dennis Hutchings from Covid-19 during his trial for attempted murder is yet another example of the complex legacy problem which besets Northern Ireland. Hutchings, who was 80 years old, was accused of killing John Pat Cunningham, 27, in County Tyrone in 1974. Hutchings’ supporters – which includes a broad swathe of unionist politicians, the Tory MP Johnny Mercer and the wider veteran community – regarded his prosecution as a disgrace. The 80-year-old, kept alive by dialysis, was dragged to Belfast from Cornwall for the non-jury trial. After his death, Hutchings’ lawyer argued he would still be alive had he not been compelled to go to

Steerpike Steerpike

Fact-check: is the NHS at risk of being overwhelmed by Covid?

Is it time for another lockdown? Matthew Taylor, the chief executive of the NHS Confederation, is urging ministers to implement sweeping ‘plan B’ winter measures, saying that immediate action is required to prevent the NHS ‘stumbling into a crisis’ arguing that ‘we should try to achieve the kind of national mobilisation that we achieved in the first and second waves, where the public went out of their way to support and help the health service.’ Similar arguments were made to justify the first lockdown – with apocalyptic SAGE scenarios suggesting hospitals would be overwhelmed with a need for 138,000 ventilators (vs a supply of 6,800 ventilators) with a potential need

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Can green growth supercharge the north?

55 min listen

Will the green agenda really create new jobs – or will the cost of net zero dampen economic growth? Katy Balls, the Spectator’s deputy political editor is at Conservative Party Conference for a live recording with: Will Gardiner, CEO of DraxJake Berry MP, chair of the Northern Research GroupBim Afolami MP, chair of the Parliamentary Renewable & Sustainable Energy Group  Shevaun Haviland, Director General of the British Chambers of CommerceBen Houchen, Tees Valley Mayor

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: MPs extend the Coronavirus Act without a vote

Throughout the uncertain days of the pandemic, a few things have remained constant: Devi Sridhar will tweet too much, Sadiq Khan will flip-flop a lot and MPs will, once again, vote to extend the draconian provisions of the Coronavirus Act.  The emergency legislation was rammed through Parliament in March 2020 to give the government emergency powers to limit or suspend public gatherings, detain individuals suspected to be infected by Covid and to intervene or relax regulations across a swathe of sectors to limit transmission of the disease. Not for nothing did Steve Baker warn of a ‘dystopian society’. Having been renewed in March this year for a further six months, MPs yesterday voted again for another six

Kenneth Rogoff

The return of inflation

Most economists and central bankers would have us believe that long-term inflation is a technocratic problem that has long been solved. Indeed, today’s millennials and Gen Z have experienced more grade inflation than price inflation, and don’t really understand what all the fuss is about. Markets, which are never terribly good predictors of major turning points in the economy, don’t seem at all worried, either, as measured by the levels of expected inflation implicit in inflation-indexed Treasury bonds. What might everyone be missing? The problem is that controlling long-run inflation is fundamentally a political-economy challenge, not a technocratic one. There is rarely a moment where governments find it convenient to

Mark Galeotti Mark Galeotti

There is no Russia-China axis

You should be careful what you wish for, because you might just get it, so the old cliché goes. In diplomacy at the moment, it seems you should be careful of the threats you prepare for, because you may end up producing them. There is a growing trend in the West towards treating Russia and China as some single, threatening ‘Dragonbear’ (a reference to the two countries’ national animals). This underrates the very real tensions between Moscow and Beijing, but risks pushing them even closer together. The most recent case in point was Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg’s interview in the Financial Times, in which he criticised ‘this whole idea that we

Tuesday

Steerpike Steerpike

COP out: jet-setting of top mandarins revealed

The world is gearing up for COP26, the UN’s climate change conference in Glasgow, due to be held in less than a fortnight’s time. Ahead of the eco-jamboree, ministers and mandarins have been busily telling the rest of us how to live, with the Treasury today unveiling the truth about how much going green will cost: the Net Zero target means by 2030 we can expect to pay £45,000 for a new electric car while the replacement for a gas boiler by 2035 should be between £6,000 to £10,000. Ooft. Still, while the government has suggested saving the planet by not rinsing plates before putting them in a dishwasher or freezing, rather than

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The death of David Amess has no easy answers

Why has the political debate following Sir David Amess’s killing moved so swiftly to focus on civility in politics? It’s a reasonable question that a lot of people – including my colleague Sam Leith – have been asking. The police are treating Amess’s death as a terrorist attack, and yet other MPs have been talking about the need to stop online abuse and to encourage a more open political culture. The link between people shouting at their MPs about how they voted and the motives of Islamist terrorists is, to put it politely, somewhat unproven. Politicians are always high-value targets for terrorists in any country, regardless of how mean or

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The Education edition

41 min listen

Aftershock is an occasional podcast series by award-winning journalist Isabel Hardman. In every episode she asks how we can fix the damage caused by the pandemic to a different part of British society. In this episode, Isabel looks at how schoolchildren have been affected by 18 months of lockdowns and remote schooling. Some have been hit harder than others: in fact, there are now more children missing from school rolls than at the start of the pandemic. Where have these ‘ghost children’ gone? And does the government’s response come anywhere close to being enough to stop Covid from being a blight on the rest of their lives, rather than an

Steerpike Steerpike

The SNP’s ferries disaster

The ship of state continues to run aground in Scotland, judging by the latest transport related fiasco to embroil Nicola Sturgeon’s government. Not content with refusing Westminster’s cash to fix his roads and admitting he has ‘no idea’ why rail unions are striking, SNP transport minister Graeme Dey has extended his incompetence beyond the boundaries of land. The under-fire appointee is facing questions about yet another ferries farrago after two more ships were this week declared out of action, further disrupting crucial services. For those unfamiliar with this sorry tale of ocean-going incompetence, Steerpike is only too happy to provide a refresher. Caledonian MacBrayne (CalMac) is the state-owned operator of passenger, vehicle and ferry services