Politics

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

Monday

Steerpike Steerpike

Parliament’s £82k bill to harass Betty Boothroyd

In the wake of recent scandals, Parliament last year began a series of ‘Valuing Everyone’ training sessions to ‘combat bullying, harassment and sexual misconduct.’ In November they were made compulsory but last week it emerged that the Lords standards commissioner has launched investigations into around 60 members who are yet to take the training including none other than the much loved nonagenarian Betty Boothroyd, the former Commons speaker. The news has sparked an outcry as Boothroyd is recovering from recent open heart surgery and at the grand age of 91 is an unlikely candidate for the next ‘Pestminster’ scandal. Broadcaster Timandra Harkness tweeted wryly that: ‘Surely, as an ex-Tiller Girl and veteran politician, she

Sunday

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round-up: I ‘absolutely believe and trust’ the PM, says Truss

Liz Truss – I ‘absolutely believe and trust’ the PM on Downing Street refurbishment The International Trade Secretary Liz Truss was the government’s chief spokesperson this morning, meaning that she would be the lightning rod for the questions raised by Dominic Cumming’s latest blog post. The most incendiary part of the blog concerned the Prime Minister’s designs on refurbishing his Downing Street flat. Cummings claimed that Boris Johnson’s initial hopes to fund the renovation with money from the pockets of Conservative donors were ‘unethical, foolish, possibly illegal and almost certainly broke the rules on proper disclosure’. Though the reported £200,000 cost was ultimately covered by Johnson, an initial £58,000 put

Steerpike Steerpike

David Ward plots another comeback

Much has changed in the world of politics since May 2015 but one thing certainly hasn’t – former MP David Ward is still causing problems for the Liberal Democrats. The one term wonder achieved little in his year five stint in Parliament other than notoriety for a 2013 website post to mark Holocaust Memorial Day in which claimed he was ‘saddened that the Jews, who suffered unbelievable levels of persecution during the Holocaust, could within a few years of liberation from the death camps, be inflicting atrocities on Palestinians in the new State of Israel and continue to do so on a daily basis in the West Bank and Gaza’. He was subsequently temporarily suspended from

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Where will the latest Downing Street psychodrama end?

When No. 10 briefed three newspapers on Thursday night that Dominic Cummings was behind a series of damaging leaks against the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson hoped the move would put him on the front foot and calm the government lobbying row. Instead, that decision appears to have spectacularly backfired. After Cummings hit back with an explosive blog, the newspaper briefing has reignited the Downing Street civil war and led to a plethora of stories on the No. 10 power struggle. The Sunday front pages make for distressing reading for the Prime Minister – ranging from ‘MPs fury over Downing St sleaze claims’ to concerns within No. 10 over fears Cummings has a ‘bombshell dossier’. No. 10 is

Carl Heneghan et al

The vaccines worked. We can safely lift lockdown

We are writing as scientists and scholars concerned about the confused and contradictory directions currently being promoted in the management of the Covid-19 pandemic. We are being told simultaneously that we have successful vaccines and that major restrictions on everyday life must continue indefinitely. Both propositions cannot be true. We need to give more weight to the data on the actual success of the vaccines and less to theoretical risks of vaccine escape and/or surge in a largely vaccinated population. It is time to reassess where we are and where we go next. Phase One of the Covid-19 vaccination programme will shortly be completed, with every vulnerable adult in the

Sam Armstrong

Beijing’s agents tried to recruit me on LinkedIn

‘We are an international headhunter company, your profile attracted me,’ began the remarkable message I received on LinkedIn. My newfound interlocutor, ‘Mr Zha’, explained in broken English that, ‘one of our partner in China looking for a freelancer researcher, helping them write some papers they will pay 1500-3000 USD for 6-10 pages. Contact me if you are interested. I can send you the [job description].’ To many such an approach might seem inconspicuous and hardly worth mentioning. After all, isn’t this precisely the sort of engagement that LinkedIn is designed for?  But when you work for a foreign policy think tank, business offers like these are highly unusual: our work is

Saturday

Steerpike Steerpike

Sir Alistair Graham’s rentaquote renaissance

Few in Westminster have emerged with any credit from the fallout of the Greensill saga. A pandora’s box has now been opened with the lobbying activities of politicians both past and present now considered fair game. But one man who is clearly enjoying himself is the ubiquitous Sir Alastair Graham, the former chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life. Graham left his post in 2007 but 14 years on is still very much the go to man for lobby hacks in need of a quote. Always ready to express shock and anger at the latest misdoings of those awful politicians, the onetime trade unionist has had a career

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Boris’s vaccine propaganda film jumps the gun

Westminster’s much anticipated summer blockbuster dropped last night: ‘A Beacon of Hope: The UK Vaccine Story’ was released on 10 Downing Street’s Twitter and YouTube accounts just after 6pm. The video was teased on Twitter on 10 March, featuring a dramatic score and a tagline ‘coming soon’, raising questions as to how ‘soon’ it would appear, what its contents might be, and whether releasing a victory video in the middle of the UK’s vaccine rollout was slightly premature. Now we have some of those answers. The roughly 30 minute video features the pandemic’s most recognisable faces – including Boris Johnson, Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance – as well as far

Philip Patrick Philip Patrick

Olympics’ organisers could regret banning ‘taking the knee’

Knee-taking and fist-raising protests have been banned at the upcoming Tokyo Olympics, with the International Olympic Committee warning athletes who flout the rules that they will be punished. The IOC clearly hopes this will mean the delayed and accursed Olympics – already set to be loaded with a slew of joy-killing Covid restrictions – can take place without the additional burden of political controversy. That’s the theory, but could it all backfire? At first glance it looks as if the IOC has been clever. Rather than issue a top-down declaration, they canvassed 3,500 athletes asking whether the current Rule 50, which bars all political demonstrations on the podium (not specifically the knee or the

Patrick O’Flynn Patrick O'Flynn

Can Cummings really hurt Teflon Boris?

Seldom have so many keyboard warriors and political activists professed so much dissatisfaction towards the government of the day. For some left-wing bloggers and tweeters, the number one cause of outrage of the moment is so-called ‘Tory sleaze’, a subject to be added to an already formidably long list of gripes towards Boris Johnson that includes Brexit, the claim that Britain is not very racist and his alleged unforgivable bungling of the Covid crisis. On the right, there is now, if anything, an even wider array of issues igniting fury towards the Prime Minister. These range from the ongoing suspensions of normal civil liberties to an allegedly ‘ruinous’ green agenda; from

Debbie Hayton

In praise of the LGB Alliance

Once upon a time an organisation was established to campaign for gay and lesbian rights. They faced opposition from the outset. They were widely condemned, even called out as a hate group when they talked about same-sex attraction. When they sought charitable status, a petition was launched, urging the Charities Commission to reject the application. Tens of thousands of people signed it. But this was not the dark days of the 1980s, when Section 28 stopped councils and schools ‘promoting the teaching of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship’. This is now. LGB Alliance was formed in 2019 to promote the elimination of discrimination on the grounds of sexual

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

What lessons can we learn from the Post Office scandal?

How could the subpostmaster scandal, in which hundreds of small business owners had their lives ruined after being wrongly accused of taking money from the Post Office, have gone on for so long?  The subpostmasters were sucked into a nightmare when the Post Office installed a new accounting system called Horizon to replace old manual accounting practices. They found that their tills just weren’t balancing. Some tried to top up the difference from their own money, but the discrepancies mounted until some stretched into tens of thousands of pounds.  When they asked for help from the Post Office, they were told they were the only people having trouble. They weren’t

Friday

Robert Peston Robert Peston

Cummings’s attack spells big trouble for Boris

When No. 10 briefed newspapers on Thursday that Dominic Cummings was the source of leaks of the Prime Minister’s text conversations with Sir James Dyson and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, and pointed to Cummings as the ‘chatty rat’ who leaked news of the November lockdown, I said this looked like an exercise in mutually assured destruction. And so it has turned out. The PM’s former chief aide — who was closer to Boris Johnson than anyone till he was forced out at the end of last year — has issued a statement that explicitly brands Johnson as ‘unethical’ and implicitly calls him a liar. Cummings says he does

Gus Carter Gus Carter

A new blitz of Dom-bombs

10 min listen

After damning accusations in the papers that Dominic Cummings leaked a series of the Prime Minister’s texts, the former No 10 aide has wasted little time in hitting back. In a blog this afternoon, he attacks the Prime Minister and those closest to him. Gus Carter speaks to Katy Balls and Fraser Nelson.

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Boris hits back in his war of words with Cummings

Downing Street has hit back in its war with Dominic Cummings, after the former aide published an explosive blog post about leaks and ‘possibly illegal’ plans to renovate the Prime Minister’s flat using donations. A No. 10 spokesperson this evening said: ‘This government is entirely focused on fighting coronavirus, delivering vaccines and building back better.’ And then on the allegations Cummings made about the renovation of the flat: The kindest interpretation is that this is the Prime Minister’s preferred way of working ‘At all times, the Government and Ministers have acted in accordance with the appropriate codes of conduct and electoral law. Cabinet Office officials have been engaged and informed

Steerpike Steerpike

The top three Dominic Cummings bombshells

Three national newspapers last night splashed on No. 10 source claims that Dominic Cummings was responsible for WhatsApp leaks about Boris Johnson’s government. Less than 24 hours later the former chief adviser has opted to return fire, unleashing a 1,091 blog post in vintage Cummings style.  It begins in typically combative style – ‘the Prime Minister’s new director of communications Jack Doyle, at the PM’s request, has made a number of false accusations to the media’ – going on to rebut reported claims in recent months. You can read the full version here but below are the top three ‘Dom bombs’ picked out by Steerpike: 1) Cummings claims Henry Newman was

Dominic Cummings

Dominic Cummings: I am not the Downing Street leaker

Dominic Cummings has released the following statement on his website: The Prime Minister’s new Director of Communications Jack Doyle, at the PM’s request, has made a number of false accusations to the media. 1. Re Dyson. I do have some WhatsApp messages between the PM/Dyson forwarded to me by the PM. I have not found the ones that were leaked to Laura Kuenssberg on my phone nor am I aware of being sent them last year. I was not directly or indirectly a or the source for the BBC/Kuenssberg story on the PM/Dyson texts. Yesterday some No. 10 officials told me that No. 10 would make this accusation and told me

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Is Biden really going to squeeze the rich?

17 min listen

The Biden administration has announced that it will hike the highest rate of income tax and almost double capital gains tax to pay for its enormous spending plans. But will they stop there, or are more taxes on the less well off coming down the line? Freddy Gray speaks to Kate Andrews.

Steerpike Steerpike

Merkel’s vaccine nationalism threatens India

You might have thought that Europe’s leaders would be wary of handing Brussels greater powers, given the various mishaps of the EU’s vaccine procurement and roll out scheme since January. But for German Chancellor Angela Merkel the sorry episode has served less a chastening warning about the dangers of Euro integration than a justification for a more centralised state. Speaking earlier this week in a video conversation with European People’s party group leader Manfred Weber, Merkel aligned herself with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen whose handling of the pandemic has been widely criticised. The outgoing chancellor said ‘it is good’ that VdL wants more power to coordinate and regulate health issues, saying ‘I believe

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Is Dom out to get Boris?

17 min listen

Downing Street insiders have accused Dominic Cummings of being behind a series of lobbying leaks. But why is the Prime Minister’s team turning on the former adviser, and will he hit back? Cindy Yu speaks to Katy Balls and Fraser Nelson.