Politics Archives

Tuesday

7 Sep 2021

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

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

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

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

6 Sep 2021

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

Steerpike

Another Tory tech blunder

Oh dear. Longtime readers will recall that it was just three years ago that the Conservative conference app was revealed to have a major security flaw. The private data of senior party members – including cabinet ministers – was accessible to anyone that logged in as that particular conference attendee, with the phone numbers of Boris Johnson and others being made accessible. Johnson’s picture was changed to one featuring a pornographic image; Michael Gove’s to that of his formerTimes boss Rupert Murdoch. Three years on, attendees for next month’s conference will be hoping security measures have been enhanced – especially as this year’s shindig is likely to require all attendees to show proof of

Freddy Gray

What will the new Texan abortion law mean for the pro-life movement?

18 min listen

With Texas’s controversial new ‘heartbeat’ law seemingly left unchallenged by the Supreme Court the abortion debate is hotting up in the States yet again. Will this success lead the pro-life movement to attempt to get similar laws on the books in other states? Freddy Gray talks to Mairead Elordi, an investigative journalist for the Daily Wire.

Brendan O’Neill

Brexit Britain needs Hilary Mantel

Hilary Mantel knows her history. Her trilogy of novels on the life of Thomas Cromwell made that clear. Those dazzlingly successful books brought Tudor history to life in all its monstrous glory. So it’s a tad surprising that Ms Mantel appears not to understand the history of the European Union. This brilliant mind seems to think this political body, which has only been in existence since 1992, is synonymous with Europe itself, which has been around for a fair bit longer than that. Ms Mantel has got diehard Remainers hot under the collar with comments she made in an interview with La Repubblica. She slammed Brexit as the handiwork of

James Ball

Priti Patel’s war on encryption is doomed

The modern world has an unfortunate habit of making life difficult for those working to keep us safe. For the police, security services and others, so many inventions seem to be created just to make it more difficult for them to see who’s up to no good. Take envelopes, for one. Envelopes make it much fiddlier to see what’s in the letters we send to one another – and they could show anything: that envelope could contain financial fraud, revenge porn, or even be plotting a murder. What is it hiding? Modern Britain is unreasonable to state snoopers in so many other ways too. Inconsiderately we put locks on our

Katy Balls

Are the Conservatives still a low tax party?

11 min listen

With the vaccine secretary Nadhim Zahawi declaring on the radio that the Conservatives were a ‘party of fair taxation’, could the government be looking at rebellion from its right with its new plans for tackling the social care crisis? Katy Balls in conversation with James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman.

Steerpike

Why is Sturgeon hiding behind the JCVI?

For much of its 58-year long existence, the scientists who sat on the government’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) lived a life of happy obscurity. But now the poor men and women who make up its membership have been thrust into the limelight amid furious Whitehall rows over whether 12 to 15 year-olds should be given the Covid vaccine. Members of Boris Johnson’s government are said to disagree with the JCVI’s rulings but have had their hands tied by the committee’s status as a statutory basis for giving advice in England and Wales – though intriguingly not Northern Ireland or Scotland. Judging by Nicola Sturgeon’s recent comments however, you would be forgiven for not

Patrick O’Flynn

Why are Boris’s tax rises so popular?

It is a curious thing to exclude a vast group of generally quite well-heeled voters from funding a policy innovation that they will benefit from more than any other group. One might almost call it blatant favouritism. But Boris Johnson’s plan to pay for a big increase in resources going into social care long-term and the NHS short-term amounts to just that. By opting for a National Insurance increase to fund his proposals, the PM is ensuring that nobody over the state pension age of 66 will have to put their hands in their pockets. Neither will the extra financial burden fall on so-called ‘unearned’ income such as dividends on

Steven Barrett

Lord Sumption was right to quit the Supreme Court

There used to be a saying: ‘never discuss religion or politics’. That was just a societal rule, a prudent tip for an enjoyable evening. But that principle is also in our constitution. This is a fact recognised by the Supreme Court — and particularly by Lord Sumption — earlier this year. Sharing your political opinions is, for some people, a breach of constitutional obligations. The UK is odd, some think, in having the constitution that we do. Far younger states with bright and shiny constitutions, written in single documents, seem to look down on our frumpy older version. But if we are playing constitutional top trumps, the UK scores near

Katy Balls

Is Boris weaponising reshuffle rumours?

Parliament is back today and the Prime Minister is facing an autumn filled with problems. Boris Johnson had hoped to use the last week before the summer recess to reset his premiership by announcing reforms to social care, more money for the NHS and potentially reshuffling his top team. Instead, he found himself in self-isolation after coming into contact with Sajid Javid, who had tested positive for Covid. Now there are plans afoot to use the first week back to return to unfinished business. Once again there are rumours of a reshuffle — while Johnson is expected to finally unveil his social care plans on Tuesday. They too are not without

Steerpike

Now even Sir Alan Duncan turns on Stonewall

Covid has meant it’s been a tough old year for the charity sector – but few have had it worse than Stonewall. Accused of misrepresenting the law, pilloried by its co-founder Matthew Parris and facing an exodus of Whitehall departments from its diversity scheme, the LGBT rights organisation has few allies left. Now even Sir Alan Duncan, the second-rate politician turned third-rate diarist, has turned his guns on the charity – despite being heralded on Stonewall’s website as the first openly gay Conservative MP. The ex-Rutland and Melton Tory, whose memoirs fired more shots at his colleagues than a Maxim gun, mounted a rare defence of the government’s decision to withdraw funding

Sunday

5 Sep 2021

Steerpike

Hunt saboteurs try to hijack National Trust AGM

It’s been a busy year for the National Trust. The charity, which boasts more than five million members, has rarely been out of the headlines amid criticisms of its restructuring programme and controversial report on properties with links to colonialism. And now a fresh fight looms over hunting ahead of next month’s annual general meeting. A proposed motion calls for the Trust, the UK’s largest private landowner, to outlaw all legal trail hunting on its land. The charity’s board of trustees are yet to take a position on whether to back the proposal but have said they ‘are keen to hear the views of the membership on this subject.’ It will be the second

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round-up – we’re ‘determined’ to reform social care, says Nadhim Zahawi

No one could argue that there hasn’t been anything to talk about since the Sunday shows made their last appearance in July. From Afghanistan to vaccine passports, the government has had plenty on its plate, and the latest thorny issue to hit the headlines is the government’s plan to reform the social care system. It is being reported that a rise in the rate of National Insurance is practically a done deal, despite an explicit Conservative commitment not to do so in 2019. Andrew Marr took the Vaccines Minister Nadhim Zahawi to task over the government’s record on its promises: NZ: We’re determined to reform the social care system… We

David Loyn

The West is being played by the Taliban

There have been some curious juxtapositions in Afghanistan this week. On the one hand, the under-19 Afghan cricket team was allowed to leave for a planned tournament in Bangladesh, as if things were normal, while on the other there was a sinister military parade taking place in Kandahar this week. After the lines of horsemen in flowing white robes, a deliberate image of Islamic warrior superiority, came the fleets of captured Humvees. And at the side of the procession lay a car packed with a bomb, suicide vest, and large plastic bottles of explosives from a roadside bomb. This is a government-in-waiting promoting terrorist weapons that indiscriminately kill civilians. And

Steerpike

What’s in store for MPs this new term?

Like the end of school holidays, Steerpike suspects MPs will be greeting the end of summer recess with mix feelings. New masters, new subjects and frequents tests of one kind or another – all beckon with Parliament’s return tomorrow. Amid frenzied talk of reshuffles, a punishing timetable will no doubt be leaving some Tories full of unease. Others no doubt will be relishing Parliament’s return. For the 2019-intake, this will be their first extended period in the Commons without Covid restrictions – having barely clocked up three months’ attendance on the hallowed green benches before the pandemic took hold. This could be their chance to show-off their skills and get noticed by

Adewale Maja-Pearce

Who really owns the Benin Bronzes?

Should the British Museum return its priceless collection of Benin Bronzes? For years, the museum has stood firm in its refusal to hand back artwork looted from the ancient kingdom of Benin, in what is now southern Nigeria. In doing so, it has defied the trend set by regional institutions in Britain, such as the university of Aberdeen. Earlier this year, the university confirmed that it would repatriate a bust of an Oba, or king of Benin, which it has had since the 1950s. As a result of refusing to take a similar stance, the British Museum has been heavily criticised – but there is a strong case to be made that its