Politics

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

Wednesday

Steerpike Steerpike

Sturgeon pushes for independence (again)

It’s Groundhog Day in Holyrood. Amid criticisms about her administration’s underwhelming ‘Programme for Government,’ Nicola Sturgeon has returned to her favourite hobby house: Scottish independence. Much like ABBA’s reunion, the First Minister combined some new tunes with her greatest hits, declaring that May’s election was an ‘undeniable’ mandate for such a plebiscite by the end of 2023 ‘once the Covid-19 crisis is passed’. Steerpike is not surprised at Sturgeon’s choice of priorities, preferring to have her civil servants devote their energies to indyref2 rather than letting Scots take their masks off when sat on a train. The SNP and its acolytes have had no compunction in undermining the Union at every opportunity throughout the pandemic; a strategy that

Joanna Williams

Lindsay Hoyle is right to give scruffy MPs a dressing down

MPs are making their way back to Parliament with an order from Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle ringing in their ears. In the post-Zoom world, they must smarten up their appearance. ‘Members are expected to wear business attire in and around the Chamber,’ Hoyle reminded them.  ‘Jeans, chinos, sportswear or any other casual trousers are not appropriate. T-shirts and sleeveless tops are not business attire,’ continued his memo. ‘Men are encouraged to wear a tie, and jackets must be worn.’ Good for you, Mr Speaker! Perhaps you could send a similar directive to the rest of the country too. After 18 months of working from home, it’s not just MPs who

Steven Fielding

When will the real Keir Starmer stand up?

Who is Keir Starmer, and what does ‘Starmerism’ stand for? Well into his second year as Labour leader and most Britons remain unsure. It’s not as if Starmer hasn’t spent a lot of time and effort – and so many words – in trying to define himself: he was even interviewed by Piers Morgan for an hour on ITV to highlight his human side.  But something has gone wrong. Is it the message or the messenger? Or is the difficult Covid-dominated times in which he became leader that is to blame? Whatever the reason for Starmer’s curiously forgettable leadership, it is now imperative that Starmer starts to make a clear and positive

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The red herring at the heart of Boris’s tax hike

One of the most dubious and meaningless parts of today’s health and social care plan is the pledge that the new tax will be a ‘legally hypothecated levy’ – ring-fenced so that the money raised can only go to health and social care services.  It’s dubious in the same way that the Tory manifesto pledge not to raise taxes turned out not to be worth the paper it was printed on. And it’s meaningless because a government that wants to unlink the tax could just pass a law doing that – and no legal ring-fence can stop it. It’s also worth remembering that the ring-fence around health and social care is

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Boris dodges a tax hike Tory rebellion – for now

After emerging relatively unscathed from his appearance in front of MPs, Boris Johnson addressed the public in a bid to sell his plan to raise taxes as part of a a new health and social care levy. Given that polling suggests broad support for the proposals, the press conference was – at least on paper – the easier outing of the two. Appearing alongside Health Secretary Sajid Javid and Chancellor Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister tried to justify his decision to break a manifesto pledge and raise national insurance in order to clear the NHS backlog and fund social care.  Johnson said he was fully aware it meant reneging on an election promise – but

Steerpike Steerpike

War of words engulfs Chinese ambassador’s visit

Boris Johnson may be focusing on the NHS backlog but for some of his parliamentary colleagues there’s another logjam to be addressed: an excess of invites to belated summer shindigs. Among the various soirees flying around, one caught Steerpike’s eye: the All Party Parliamentary Group on China’s reception next Wednesday on the Commons terrace pavilion. The guest of honour at the wine-fuelled bash will be none other than the Chinese ambassador to the UK Zheng Zeguang, Beijing’s man in London. The APPG on China is chaired by Tory Richard Graham but understandably the invitation sent by his group has naturally not gone down well with those Conservative colleagues sanctioned by the regime earlier this year. One

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Johnson’s tax hike won’t fix social care

Another day, another tax hike. This is presumably not how Boris Johnson saw his first term in office going; he’s reneged on manifesto promises left and right, including one that defines modern Conservatism: a healthy scepticism of tax rises. The new health and social care levy of 1.25 per cent for employers and employees (so, really, a 2.5 per cent levy) is now part of an emerging trend. This is not a one-off tax, but the follow-on from a March Budget that included £25 billion worth of tax hikes. In fact, it’s record-breaking. The levy is estimated to raise an additional £12 billion a year extra for the Treasury’s coffers.

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Boris Johnson is the ‘Queen of Mean’

Leona Helmsley died 14 years ago so it is surprising to find her setting fiscal policy for the UK Government. When the New York real estate billionaire, dubbed the ‘Queen of Mean’, was on trial for tax evasion in 1989, her housekeeper testified that Helmsley had told her ‘only the little people pay taxes’.  This government, lacking any discernible philosophy of its own, appears to have adopted Helmsleyism, for it too believes it is the little people who should bear the tax burden. Indeed Helmsley, who commissioned upgrades to her $11m mansion then tried to leave the contractors with the bill, would probably admire the sheer chutzpah of what No. 10

Damian Reilly Damian Reilly

Emma Raducanu can save tennis

Something perfect at the death of summer: Emma Raducanu in full flight, smoking winners up the lines and progressing without dropping a set into the last eight of the US Open at the improbable age of 18. The very best, in tennis as in all sports, almost without exception, make it look beautiful – it’s why we can’t take our eyes off them (because beauty is an element-bending superpower). Raducanu makes playing tennis look beautiful. As she waits to receive serve, poised and utterly focused, it can appear as if she has arrived on court straight from the pages of a fashion magazine. There is an unmistakeable Hollywood quality, too,

Steerpike Steerpike

Five more lowlights from Australia’s Covid fight

It was less than a fortnight ago that Steerpike wrote of Australia’s various missteps in its long fight with Covid. Since then, the (not so) Lucky Country has introduced a smorgasbord of extra restrictions to add to its various rules and regulations already in place, with Prime Minister Scott Morrison himself admitting that ‘this is not a sustainable way to live in this country.’ Below Mr S presents his list of some of the more egregious of these… Tracking Few Covid innovations have generated as many headlines as that of South Australia’s home-based quarantine. The state has developed and is now testing an app to enforce its quarantine rules which – in the words of the Atlantic

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Are we trapped in an inflationary spiral?

Are we heading for a 1970s-style inflationary spiral? Not according to Catherine Mann, former chief economist at Citigroup, who argues that we are now less exposed to fluctuations in oil prices than we were then. She also makes the case that businesses are more reluctant to put up prices and that the link between inflation and wages is weaker than it was in the years of high inflation when wages often rose three or four times a year and prices in the shops were jacked up more frequently than now. Her opinion matters because she is the latest recruit to the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee, which is charged

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Why didn’t Tory MPs oppose Boris’s tax hike?

Boris Johnson has just announced his plans to increase National Insurance by 1.25 per cent for both workers and employers to fund extra spending on the NHS and social care. Johnson framed the measure as necessary to deal with the backlog that had built up during Covid. He claimed that without action hospital waiting lists would reach 13 million. He said that he didn’t break his manifesto promise lightly but that a ‘global pandemic was in no one’s manifesto’.  Of course, the problem with this argument is that the tax promise, as well as the commitment that no one would have to sell their house to pay for social care,

Annabel Denham

No, Britain isn’t a gerontocracy

Outrage over the government’s National Insurance hike is wholly justified. It is absurd to have the working-age population foot the bill for social care while those over state pension age with substantial incomes and assets don’t contribute. It is regressive, reneges on a 2019 manifesto pledge and is nothing more than a sticking plaster to heal the festering wound that is our social care system. As for employer NI, this is a crude payroll tax that discourages employment at the margin and which will translate into lower wages down the line. But the insistence by inter-generational warriors that we increasingly live in a gerontocracy, where the needs of the young

Patrick O’Flynn Patrick O'Flynn

Boris and Priti can’t blame France for the Channel migrant crisis

The sun is beating down again, the waves are less choppy in the English Channel and the small boats full of irregular migrants are pouring across once more. At least 1,000 men, women and children were reportedly spotted landing on the south coast yesterday. If these numbers are correct, it would have shattered the previous daily record of 828, recorded on 21 August. But Home Office sources were today briefing that was an over-estimate and the likely official number will be about 740, merely the second highest daily total ever. The graphs plotting the staggering acceleration of this traffic make grim reading indeed – this is one curve that has never

Robert Peston Robert Peston

Why Johnson’s tax gamble will pay off

Boris Johnson’s announcement today, promising he will fix the £15 billion hole in health and social care, may well be the decision that determines his and his party’s fate at the next election — and, by implication, Keir Starmer’s reaction will also determine his destiny.  Probably the most important point is that after the 18 months we’ve had, most people would argue that putting the NHS and care for the elderly and vulnerable on a stable financial footing should be the Prime Minister’s number one priority.  Johnson’s critics would say he shouldn’t break two important manifesto pledges to pay for it Johnson’s critics would say he shouldn’t break two important

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Can Johnson win round his social care critics?

Is Boris Johnson’s social care plan about to sail through the House of Commons? Today the Prime Minister will unveil the details of the package he is proposing. After putting his plans to the cabinet, it will be set out in the Commons before a 5 p.m. press conference where Johnson will appear alongside Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid. There are rumours afoot that No. 10 then may opt for a vote in the Commons this week at short notice — in a bid to push the plans through before the rebels have time to get organised. However, slightly raining on Johnson’s parade is the fact that cabinet ministers have so far

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Javid’s cash boost can’t fix a battered NHS

The new £5.4 billion cash boost for NHS England is the easy bit of a very tricky situation for the health service and the politicians trying to work out how to deal with it. As Health Secretary Sajid Javid made clear on Monday, while the money will help deal with the backlog in treatment caused by the pandemic, it won’t do so immediately. He said that waiting lists would go up before they started to go down because people are still coming forward for treatment. Javid has been pitch-rolling for a dreadful winter ever since he took on the job, warning almost immediately that waiting lists could reach 13 million.

Robert Peston Robert Peston

Will Johnson’s cabinet of cardboard cutouts make a stand?

Cabinet government has become a very degraded thing. When I checked last night, cabinet ministers had still not been told whether the PM’s planned breaches of his 2019 manifesto would even be on the formal agenda for discussion at the 8.30 a.m. cabinet meeting today. But as of last night, Boris Johnson is going ahead with: a manifesto-breaking 1.25 per cent National Insurance hike to raise around £10 billion and fill the £15 billion hole in health and social care provision; a new cap-and-floor system, based on Dilnot, to limit to roughly £80,000 the amount an individual would have to contribute to their own care (the cap) and to protect approximately

Monday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

On Afghanistan, Boris Johnson has escaped again

Boris Johnson took a strangely upbeat tone when he updated MPs on Afghanistan this afternoon. He argued that British planning for the US withdrawal had been months in the making and that the evacuation effort had exceeded expectations with twice the number of people getting out than had been expected.  He even made some big promises, saying repeatedly that every MP who had contacted the Foreign Office about Afghans who still need assistance would receive a response ‘by close of play today’, and adding that councils taking in refugees would get the funding they needed. Johnson was even rather combative with Defence Select Committee chair Tobias Ellwood, scolding him for