Politics

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

Thursday

Steerpike Steerpike

Gove addresses Westminster rumours

The wine was flowing at last night’s Policy Exchange summer soirée as attendees unburdened themselves of the stresses of the past eighteen months. Party season is at full swing at present but the great and the (not so) good of SW1 were all present to pay tribute at the court of the ‘most powerful Dean in Westminster’ – PX director Dean Godson and his team of wonks.  With the invite promising merely ‘a senior government minister’ Steerpike was delighted to see Michael Gove, one of the most talked about men in Westminster, take to the stage as the night’s keynote speaker. Gove, who recently announced he was divorcing wife Sarah, has been

James Kirkup James Kirkup

The truth about Nick Gibb, history and ‘dead white men’

In 1983, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a great American sociologist and politician, wrote: ‘Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.’ Then the internet happened. Anyone who has spent five minutes online, especially on a social media site, is aware that everyone now has their own facts, carefully chosen to support whatever argument or narrative they favour. Any contested issue that’s debated online (i.e. all of them) sees people on different sides of the argument adduce statistics, quotations and any other material helpful to their cause. Take this stuff far enough and you get people prioritising subjective experience above objective fact. Oprah Winfrey captured the subjective, hyper-individual

Wednesday

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

What are the limits of Boris’s ‘levelling-up’ agenda?

No doubt Boris Johnson has many qualities but the only one that comes to mind is this: he is not a conservative. That realisation may be dawning a little late on his more spirited supporters, who gave short shrift to anyone making this point during the flaxen-haired dauphin’s campaign for the crown, but it sunk in some time ago with his savvier opponents.  Boris’s non-conservatism is not the primary obstacle to the Labour party (or the broader left) regaining parliamentary power. But it is an added hindrance that could be done without. However, it also presents an opportunity to use a nominally Tory government to advance policies that wouldn’t ordinarily

Ross Clark Ross Clark

When will Boris get serious about balancing the budget?

Should we be pleased that net government borrowing for June came in below expectations, at £22.8 billion – £5.5 billion less than June 2020? Should we see it as a sign that the economy is recovering a little faster than had been hoped? That is the spin being put on the public borrowing figures released this morning. An alternative, and less rosy, view might come from examining two figures in particular. Firstly, while borrowing is down compared with June 2020, public spending is actually up. Over the month the government spent £84.1 billion of our money, £2.5 billion more than in the same month a year earlier. Balancing the budget

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Why isn’t Starmer properly scrutinising the government?

13 min listen

On the 80th anniversary of Prime Minister’s Questions, viewers were treated to a distinctly lacklustre performance today. James Forsyth argues that Starmer’s questions are still too long; and proper scrutiny is not helped by the technical issues that accompanied the Prime Minister’s virtual contribution. Isabel Hardman talks to Katy Balls and James Forsyth.

Annabel Denham

The problem with polling

If you did an opinion poll about opinion polls, chances are most people would recognise the limitations of market research, offer some unfavourable views of pollsters and deride the uses to which their work is sometimes put. Yet if you asked politicians and the media whether polls deserve our attention, they would almost unanimously agree. Even after Brexit. Or Trump in 2016. Or the eye-popping poll earlier this month that found that one in five Brits support having a nationwide 10 p.m. curfew permanently in place, regardless of whether or not the pandemic is still raging. Polls have major shortcomings. Even if pollsters avoid leading questions and interview the perfect cross-section

Sam Ashworth-Hayes Sam Ashworth-Hayes

It’s no surprise younger voters are losing faith in democracy

There is an idea of the state that argues that the role of government is to act as a benevolent social planner, redistributing resources for the benefit of the population as a whole. British governance has more in common with Mancur Olson’s concept of the stationary bandit, a tyrant with a captive population and a desire to maximise the wealth he can extract. The only twist is that rather than a group of warriors seizing wealth by force, Britain works to the benefit of a large number of elderly pensioners thanks to their tendency to reliably turn out at the polls. To very briefly recap, years of austerity cuts combined

Steerpike Steerpike

Will Peta be given a veto on all UK policy?

The government’s flagship Animal Sentience Bill is (slowly) making its way through parliament, with Monday afternoon seeing the Defra select committee take evidence from a range of experts. Steerpike has covered the proposed legislation extensively in recent months, detailing the concerns of peers about its plans to create a powerful Animal Sentience Committee which would judge the effect of government policy on the welfare of animals. A similar bill was pulled by the then Environment Secretary Michael Gove three years ago after MPs noted it would open every government policy to judicial review. Monday’s session will have done little to assuage such fears after Dr Penny Hawkins of the RSPCA implied that the proposed new

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

PMQs: The tragedy of Richard Burgon

PMQs is sixty years old. Speaker Hoyle opened the proceedings with a reminder that the weekly cross-examinations began in July 1961. Boris wasn’t there. Well, he was, but via Zoom. A televised shot of his head was beamed from Chequers to a flat-screen screwed to a high gallery. This was unfortunate for Sir Keir Starmer who needed to tackle the blond amplitude of Boris in person. Instead, he had to wrestle with an image, to punch at a vacancy and to skewer a shimmering square of coloured pixellations. It was like headbutting a cushion. Sir Keir was armed with some excellent complaints about the government’s ping debacle. Millions of citizens

Matthew Lynn

Boris’s Brexit deal isn’t worth sacrificing Northern Ireland for

There will be chaos at the borders. Food will run out at the supermarkets. Travellers will face long queues, and companies yet another round of disruption. As the UK lays the groundwork for breaking with the Northern Ireland Protocol, we will hear plenty of scare stories about how it might mean losing the Free Trade Agreement with the European Union. There is an element of truth in that, of course. The EU may well decide that if we are not sticking to the Protocol then the free trade deal has to go as well. But there is a flaw in that argument, and it is not exactly a minor one. In

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Will the EU accept the UK’s Northern Ireland protocol changes?

The UK has just revealed a list of the changes it wants to make to the Northern Ireland protocol. These are not minor tweaks. They would, as David Frost said, require ‘significant changes’ to the protocol. Frost says that the UK wants ‘to open discussion on these proposals urgently.’ But it is hard to imagine the EU being keen to renegotiate the protocol. They will point out that the current British Prime Minister signed this agreement and likely repeat their demand that the protocol must be implemented. So what happens next? The current grace periods run until the end of September so there is unlikely to be an immediate confrontation. But come

Nick Tyrone Nick Tyrone

Is Starmer’s Labour plotting to reopen the Brexit deal?

Brexit is done and dusted, but when it comes to playing politics on the UK’s departure from the EU, the Labour party is still managing to get itself in a muddle. Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, is the latest Labour frontbencher to send confusing messages about Brexit to voters.  Starmer’s party, we are told, wants to come to an arrangement with the European Union on recognition of professional standards, something Boris Johnson’s deal lacks. Labour is also seeking a bespoke veterinary agreement with the EU to overcome problems inherent in the Northern Ireland Protocol as it stands. The party also wants to make it easier for British bands to tour on the continent. Yet

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Parliament needs PMQs back to normal

PMQs today descended into chaos. Boris Johnson was beaming in from Chequers, where he is self-isolating, and there were predictable tech gremlins. These disrupted the flow of the session and rendered it close to useless as a means of holding the Prime Minister to account.  PMQs is meant to be the most difficult half an hour of the parliamentary week for the executive, the moment when its arguments are tested. But today’s session descended into Johnson sounding like a train traveller going through a series of tunnels as he repeatedly asked whether the House could hear him or said that he hadn’t quite heard the question. Danny Finkelstein, a man

Portia Berry-Kilby

Boris should follow New York’s example and ditch vaccine passports

Is making young people show vaccine passports to get into nightclubs a good idea? Boris Johnson’s motivation in doing so appears to be that this is a good way to entice under 30s to get their jabs. In reality, the policy is illiberal, shows no gratitude for the sacrifices young people have already made during this pandemic, and should go against all of our British sensibilities. There’s also a better alternative: one demonstrated in New York.  I’ve been based in the United States for the past six months and Boris could learn a thing or two from the freedom-loving Yankees. Here, proof of vaccination is not required for entry into nightclubs, as I

Steerpike Steerpike

New poll reveals public back greater censorship

The public’s willingness to back more authoritarian measures has been a constant feature throughout the pandemic. Poll after poll for the past 17 months has suggested strong support for tough restrictions, sanctions, deterrents and lockdowns – perhaps not a surprise in a country where a third of voters backed the use of live ammunition against the 2011 rioters. But is such authoritarianism now bleeding into the cultural sphere too? A new poll for The Spectator conducted by Redfield and Wilton reveals that some 40 per cent of the public would support the government censoring books with content that it deems ‘sexist, homophobic, or racist’. Of the 1,500 surveyed, only 30 per cent would oppose this, with

Charles Moore Charles Moore

Why Dominic Cummings’s attacks on Boris Johnson backfire

Anyone who thinks Boris Johnson lacks statecraft should pay attention to Dominic Cummings’s attacks on him. They often to seem to show the opposite of what Dom intends. Cummings now reveals that, in January 2020, he and his allies were saying: ‘By the summer, either we’ll all have gone from here or we’ll be in the process of trying to get rid of [Johnson] and get someone else in as prime minister.’ In fact, neither happened. By November, however, Cummings was (to use Mr Pooter’s joke) going; Boris stayed. The winner of the then still recent landslide election victory presumably discovered his adviser’s seditious conversations and, reasonably, did not like

Steerpike Steerpike

Six things we’re unlikely to read in Prince Harry’s memoir

In a fresh bid to secure privacy for himself and his family, Prince Harry has announced this week that he is publishing his ‘intimate and heartfelt’ memoirs at the age of 36. The book – ghost-written by JR Moehringer, another of those dastardly journalists – will be published by Penguin Random House late next year and is set to provide ‘the definitive account of the experiences, adventures, losses, and life lessons that have helped shape him.’ The official press release includes this gem from the exiled royal: ‘Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, said: ‘I’m writing this not as the prince I was born but as the man I have

Tuesday

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: The four best ‘Dom bombs’ from his BBC interview

After eight months of confining his thoughts to Substack and Twitter, tonight Dom Cummings went mainstream. His first television interview with Laura Kuenssberg laid bare the tensions that exited throughout Boris Johnson’s first year in government and his growing discontent with how the Prime Minister runs his government. Steerpike has already covered Dom’s role in saving the Queen from meeting a Covid riddled Prime Minister. But here are four more ‘Dom bombs’ revealed in tonight’s interview: 1. Plotting to get rid of the PM days after the election Cummings revealed how his issues with Johnson started even before the pandemic began and that less than a month after the victorious

Katy Balls Katy Balls

How much vaccine coercion will Boris use?

11 min listen

It’s the day after ‘freedom’ day and it’s not entirely clear just how free we are, with the prime minister last night say that from September nightclub goers will have to prove their vaccination status or provide a negative test. But with just the threat of vaccine passports leading to record appointments booked in both Israel and France could this method get us to herd immunity? Katy Balls talks to James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman.

Steerpike Steerpike

Corbyn crashes Corbyn’s protest

Two Corbyns descended on Downing Street today as Westminster was treated to a family reunion. The first, the better-known Jeremy, was there to hand in a petition with nurses and MPs calling for a 15 per cent pay rise for health workers. The second was older sibling Piers, the ever-eccentric disseminator of anti-vaccine materials, who earlier in the afternoon had shouted about his ‘unconditional support for my brother’ outside the nearby Labour party head office. While Jeremy waited patiently to be let into the street on which he once nearly lived, Piers did his best to steal his brother’s thunder, shouting into a microphone ‘No more lockdowns! End the Covid con!’ The