Politics Archives

Friday

12 Nov 2021

Shock poll gives Labour six-point lead

Tory nerves about the effect of the sleaze scandal will only be increased by a poll out in today’s Daily Mail showing Labour ahead by six points. This is a big turnaround from the last ComRes poll which had the Tories three points ahead. It is the biggest lead Labour has had since Keir Starmer became leader. It suggests that this self-inflicted wound is doing real damage to the Tories. Now, this is obviously only one poll and we will have to see whether this shift is sustained. A YouGov poll in this morning’s Times has the two parties level on 35 per cent each. But that same poll has 60

Max Jeffery

Can British troops fix Poland’s migrant crisis?

17 min listen

British troops have been deployed to the Polish border as part of a ‘reconnaissance’ mission, as Poland tries to stop migrants crossing from Belarus. Belarus’s president, Alexander Lukashenko, backed by Russia, is flying Syrian, Iraqi and Yemeni citizens into his country and encouraging them to cross the border into Poland. As the United States turns away from Europe and the Middle East and towards Asia, does Britain think it can to take its place? Meanwhile, Britain is having its own migrant crisis, with 1,185 people crossing the English Channel by boat yesterday – a record number. It brings the number of people crossing the Channel this year to more than

Kate Andrews

Eighteen months of inflation is not ‘transitory’

The big central banks have been insisting for months now that the rise in inflation is temporary, and will fade once the great awakening of the world economy starts to settle down. The Federal Reserve, Bank of England and the European Central Bank have looked on as inflation has overshot their forecasts. But when the opportunity to tame it with an interest rate hike approaches, the banks pass it up, reiterating instead that it is ‘transitory’ — the monetary equivalent of ‘it’ll be fine’. With inflation now at a 30-year high in the United States — 6.2 per cent — it’s starting to look like a pretty big bump. But should

James Forsyth

Gove gets into gear

‘This government ends if the red wall reverts back to type and we lose 45 seats then end up in hung parliament territory,’ warns one secretary of state. This comment is a reminder of how vital it is for Boris that levelling up is seen to be a success. The rewards of getting it right are considerable. The Tories’ reward for that would probably be another decade in power: one cabinet loyalist says, ‘The boss wants to see a world where Labour are shut out. We consolidate the red wall.’ Michael Gove and Andy Haldane have found inspiration in 15th-century Florence But fixing regional disparities isn’t easy: it is hard to find

Gavin Mortimer

A troubling tide of anti-Semitism is sweeping Britain and France

A day after the Israeli ambassador to Britain, Tzipi Hotovely, was harassed as she left the London School of Economics, a murder trial in France reached its grisly conclusion. Yacine Mihoub was handed a life term after being convicted of stabbing 85-year-old Mireille Knoll multiple times and then setting her body alight in March 2018. The elderly woman, a Holocaust survivor, had known Mihoub since he was a boy, but he still snuffed out her life because she was a Jew. An accomplice claimed Mihoub screamed ‘Allahu Akbar’ as he stabbed Knoll. It was a murder almost identical in nature to that of Sarah Halimi, slain in the same arrondissement of

Steerpike

Now Jolyon faces legal action

Like Rembrandt or Michelangelo, Mariah or Britney, Jolyon Maugham is a performance artist simply known by his first name. The journey of this Rumpole of remainers from obscurity to Twitter fame was slow but steady. He first hit the headlines during the Ed Miliband years when, as Labour’s non-dom adviser, he was revealed to have represented multiple so-called ‘celebrity tax dodge film schemes.’ Then came Brexit and his reinvention as the High Priest of remainier. In 2017 he announced plans for his own party – ‘Spring’ – and his intention to hold a 28-day festival at a Maidenhead football stadium, with each day dedicated to the national dress and cuisine of a different EU member state. Christmas 2019 saw Maugham’s magnum opus: splashing the front

Stephen Daisley

It’s time for Boris to turn back the Channel migrant boats

There is a sentence in the latest BBC report on English Channel migrant crossings that is just exquisite. Thursday saw 1,000 people arrive in Britain unauthorised — a new record — and the story on the Corporation’s website explains how UK Border Force boats, as well as lifeboats, ferried the arrivals to Dover. However, it added: ‘A Whitehall source accused France of losing control of the situation.’ It’s a line worthy of Swift. Britain is seeing record levels of illegal migration, the Home Office is running a maritime Uber service, and somehow it’s all the French’s fault. Some wonder why the Boris Johnson era hasn’t produced any great political satire

Thursday

11 Nov 2021

Max Jeffery

Why won’t Boris apologise?

12 min listen

After the government abandoned plans to overhaul the Commons standards rules, Rishi Sunak has said the government needs to ‘do better’. Will the PM show some contrition soon? Max Jeffery talks to James Forsyth and Katy Balls. On the podcast, James Forsyth says: ‘He really doesn’t like apologies, never has done. So when he doesn’t apologise he gives the story legs.’

Max Jeffery

What did Tzipi Hotovely make of the LSE protest?

Footage of Tzipi Hotovely, Israel’s ambassador to the UK, being confronted by pro-Palestinian protesters outside the London School of Economics spread around the world this week. A video shared on Twitter showed the Ambassador, who was giving a speech at the university, being rushed into a car by her security team as police held back protesters. But what did Hotovely make of it? Speaking on Spectator TV this week, Hotovely said her team were told about ‘a big pressure to cancel the lecture’ beforehand, and that the protests were ‘outrageous’ and ‘shouldn’t have happened’. Hotovely is on the right of Israeli politics, but the grim scenes that unfolded outside the LSE united the Tories

Steerpike

Commons Covid costs revealed

It’s been a tough eighteen months for staff in the Commons. Afflicted by Covid in the initial first wave, mothballed by restrictions and virtual proceedings, forced to dance to Mogg congas and mask up with face coverings, the Palace of Westminster has rarely felt like itself this past year-and-a-half. And now Mr S has found the figures to show Covid’s cost to the Commons after Parliament was forced to close its doors to visitors in March 2020. Income from paid-for tours slumped from £2.1 million in 2019-20 to nil in 2020-21, according to a recently parliamentary answer by the House of Commons Commission. Staff had estimated to receive some £2.4 million, a

Lara Prendergast

Court of Chaos: Boris’s style of government isn’t working for him — or his country

43 min listen

In this week’s episode: Who is advising the PM? In our cover story this week, our editor Fraser Nelson takes a deep dive into No. 10 politics and finds a court of chaos inside. With a large parliamentary majority, an extremely young team and the departure of Domonic Cummings is there anyone left in the Conservative party who can stand up to the Prime Minister? Fraser talks on the podcast with former Conservative party chairman, Kenneth Baker on the reign of King Boris. (00:45) Also this week: Should the West be prepared to defend Taiwan?Tensions over the island of Taiwan are rising at an alarming rate. In The Spectator this

Matthew Lynn

The EU’s threats against London have been exposed as bluster

Francois Hollande could hardly have been clearer in his intentions. In the immediate aftermath of the 2016 vote that took the UK out of the European Union, the French president was adamant that the City of London would have to lose one of its most important strategic assets, the right to clear trades denominated in euros. ‘The City, which thanks to the EU was able to handle clearing operations for the eurozone, will not be able to do them,’ he thundered. ‘It can serve as an example for those who seek the end of Europe…It can serve as a lesson.’ In reality, like so many of the EU’s threats, it was

Damian Reilly

The cynical brilliance of Boris Johnson’s green conversion

Does Boris Johnson really believe, as he told COP26 a few days ago, we’re at ‘one minute to midnight’ on the man-made climate change doomsday clock, and that ‘if we don’t get serious about climate change today, it will be too late for our children to do so tomorrow’? I ask only because in 2013 he used his Daily Telegraph column to write: As a species, we human beings have become so blind with conceit and self-love that we genuinely believe that the fate of the planet is in our hands – when the reality is that everything, or almost everything, depends on the behaviour and caprice of the gigantic

Katy Balls

Why Rishi Sunak’s sleaze row apology matters

Sorry may be the hardest word for Boris Johnson but that isn’t the case for certain members of his cabinet. After the Prime Minister refused once again in an appearance at the COP26 summit to apologise for backing Owen Paterson in a row over a proposed suspension for a lobbying breach, his ministers are finding their voice. This morning Rishi Sunak broke his silence on the issue. In an interview with the BBC, Sunak was asked about the current Tory sleaze row and former cabinet minister Geoffrey Cox’s outside earnings working in a tax haven. He replied: ‘I’m not familiar with specific details of that case. It wouldn’t be right

Steerpike

More shameless Sturgeon selfie summitry

If your poll rankings are tanking, your government is mired in sleaze and you can’t run a functioning health service, there’s only one thing for it: head to COP26 for a photoshoot. Leaders on both sides of the border have adopted this approach in recent days, with Boris Johnson heading to the eco-jamboree in a doomed attempt to ward off questions about Paterson-gate. But it’s Nicola Sturgeon’s attention-seeking antics which have caught Steerpike’s eye, given the amount of photos the First Minister has been posting all over Twitter. Mr S of course was among the first to report on Sturgeon’s selfless summitry, just two days into into the fortnight-long farago of

Patrick O’Flynn

Starmer will struggle to capitalise on this sleaze row

‘You’re an accountant. You’re in a noble profession. The word “Count” is part of your title,’ the corrupt impresario Max Bialystock tells the neurotic bean-counter Leo Bloom in The Producers. Just a few weeks ago MPs from all parties had convinced themselves of something similar as they came together to pay tribute to David Amess. MP after MP spoke movingly about how they were all in it for the best of motives and how the public realm would be better served if everyone cut out ad hominem attacks on political opponents. Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner even put out an apparently heartfelt statement of regret about having described Boris Johnson’s

Steerpike

Labour MP’s Red Lion trip

It seems that Labour MPs have difficulty handling their drink these days. Unlike the old school union bruisers who could happily sink half a dozen pints before speaking in the chamber, the current crop seem to be less adept at maintaining their composure after a Pinot or two. For last night – just as various newspapers were reporting an inebriated Charlotte Nichols had to be carted off in a wheelchair on a Remembrance Day trip to Gibraltar – another of Nichols’ colleagues was busy embarrassing themselves at the Red Lion. The wine-swilling MP in question appeared to have adopted a ‘For the many, not the few’ attitude to drink. So intoxicated was the sloshed

Douglas Murray

MPs aren’t the elite – faceless bureaucrats are

I see that the most boring conversation in the nation is back. The one even worse than people in the country telling you that the only real difficulty in getting to their part of Gloucestershire/Norfolk/the Orkneys is the drive out of London. I refer to, of course, the reform of the House of Lords. The debate is perennial because there is no good answer to it. The ‘cash for peerages’ scandal comes around every few years because it is unsolvable. If you don’t offer inducements for political donations then what sane person would give millions of pounds to a political party? Besides which, all the constitutional alternatives are worse. The

James Forsyth

Can Boris weather this new storm?

The row over MPs’ outside interests has landed Boris Johnson in one of the most uncomfortable positions a prime minister can be in: he has to choose between being on the wrong side of public opinion and his own backbenchers. What makes matters worse is that his own misjudgment got him into this position. Even a ministerial loyalist admits that: ‘It’s up there with the biggest mistake.’ The government’s attempt to block the standards committee’s guilty verdict against Owen Paterson and change the rules surrounding MPs’ conduct was so brazen that it has, inevitably, created a row about second jobs for MPs. If Paterson had, as the committee recommended, been

Wednesday

10 Nov 2021

Cindy Yu

Is Britain a corrupt country?

13 min listen

Boris Johnson today has said that Britain is not a corrupt country, but what does it mean that he felt the need to say that? On today’s Coffee House Shots, Fraser Nelson points out that there is no clear firebreak to the present string of sleaze stories; and James Forsyth estimates that around a quarter of MPs have some kind of external earnings. So what more will come out of the woodworks? Cindy Yu talks to Fraser, James and Katy Balls.