Politics

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

Monday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Will the vaccine reduce public support for lockdown?

The vaccine news today is good, and better than would have been expected even a month ago. The Public Health Scotland data indicating that four weeks after the first dose of the Oxford / AstraZeneca vaccine there is a 94 per cent reduction in the risk of hospitalisation is phenomenal (the figure for Pfizer/BioNTech is 85 per cent). It suggests that the vaccines should deliver on the ‘protect the NHS’ part of the government’s strategy. This will lead to more Tory pressure on Boris Johnson for a faster easing of lockdown. The argument will go that given the data is better than expected, the pace of lockdown easing should be sped

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Has Carrie divided No. 10?

15 min listen

Yet more personnel changes have happened in Downing Street, with Oliver Lewis the latest to depart. The weekend papers were full of briefings that Carrie Symonds is the reason for the latest strife. Cindy Yu talks to Katy Balls and Fraser Nelson about how much truth there is in that.

Geoffrey Owen

Is this Dominic Cummings’ biggest legacy?

The government’s decision to set up a new research funding agency, to be known as the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA), marks an important break in UK science and innovation policy – potentially more important than any recent government initiative in this field. The aim, as the Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng explained last week, is to fund high-risk, high-reward research, ‘supporting ground-breaking discoveries that could transform people’s lives for the better.’ As part of this mission, the chief executive of ARIA will be free to choose which areas to research and which projects to fund without direction from ministers. It is this independence from political and bureaucratic control which

Nick Tyrone Nick Tyrone

Boris is the true heir to Blair

Boris Johnson’s political recovery in the last couple of months has been nothing short of remarkable. Not that he was ever down and out, of course, but having got a Brexit deal that both Farage and Starmer backed, followed by the success of the vaccine rollout, the Prime Minister once again looks unassailable.  As for the Labour leader, things look much less rosy. But what hasn’t been said in the criticism of Starmer is that what has mostly caused the leader of the opposition’s dip is not his own incompetence but the Prime Minister’s recent good form. This has made me realise something about Boris: he bears a lot of comparison with one former prime

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Scottish Tories are wrong to oppose voting for prisoners

The Scottish Tories don’t mean to be the way they are. Sometimes they just can’t help it. They are being that way again over plans to let some prisoners vote in the forthcoming Scottish parliament elections. I am not convinced those elections should be going ahead at all in the middle of a pandemic but, if they are to, there are good reasons for prisoners to be enfranchised. The Tories intend to force a vote at Holyrood on Wednesday against allowing those serving custodial sentences of less than 12 months to participate in the May 6 election. MSPs voted last February to extend the franchise in order to comply with

Geoff Norcott Geoff Norcott

Do we really want lockdown to end?

Despite it being highly unfashionable to change your opinion, my lockdown stance has shown agility. For most of last year I was a ‘lockdown sceptic’. Not quite retweeting Piers Corbyn’s views on 5G, but equally not thrilled about spending every morning doing star jumps with Joe Wicks. I suspected lockdowns may ruin our children’s future forever, but was keen to not to be called a granny murderer. However, there was something about the words ‘deadly new strain’ which had an effect on me. Say what you want about epidemiologists, they know how to scare people. So I settled into being what I’d call a Covid ‘Centrist Dad’. Lockdown wise, I

Sunday

Katy Balls Katy Balls

What to expect from Boris Johnson’s lockdown roadmap

When Boris Johnson stands at the despatch box on Monday afternoon to unveil his roadmap for ending the lockdown, those hoping for a big bang moment in ending restrictions will be left disappointed. Instead, the Prime Minister will announce a very gradual easing of the lockdown stretching to the summer – with Johnson reserving the right to make it even slower should the data go the wrong way. Having been stung by previous promises to avoid further lockdowns, the roadmap will be more cautious than members of the Conservative party’s Covid Recovery Group would like.  The plan is to be signed off by ministers ahead of Johnson announcing it in the Chamber and addressing the nation on Monday evening.

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows roundup: Hancock says vaccine data indicates ‘reduction in transmission’

The national vaccine rollout is continuing unabated, with over 17 million adults now having received a first dose. The government has even brought forward its target date for all adults to be offered a jab from September to the end of July. Hancock said that, although it was still early days, the success of the rollout did seem to be having a visible effect on the rate of re-infection: MH: We have seen early data [showing] that there’s a reduction in transmission from those who get the jab… There are signs that the numbers in hospital are falling much more sharply than they were in the first wave. There’s further

Steerpike Steerpike

Matt Hancock’s Sky News dig

Two regular faces have been rather absent from Sky News of late: morning anchor Kay Burley and political editor Beth Rigby. The pair were taken off air – Burley for six months and Rigby for three – after they were accused of breaching social distancing rules at Burley’s birthday bash.  So, Mr S was intrigued by Matt Hancock’s appearance this morning on Ridge on Sunday. When Sophy Ridge put to the Health Secretary that many people were confused as to why all adults would receive the jab by the end of the July but they couldn’t book a holiday, Hancock replied: ‘Well I know that everyone at Sky News is keen

Alec Marsh

Princess Eugenie and the perilous business of baby names

Naming a child turns out to be one of the hardest things you can do. The secret to nailing it is to avoid choosing something outlandish or freakish at one extreme – but then sidestep the trap of settling on something profoundly mundane at the other. Unless you are a rock star or a tech billionaire, for instance, it best to avoid the following: Tree-stump, Treble Clef, or a non-verbal sign that was formerly adopted by the artist Prince when he was still a going concern – these are not the imprimatur available to the majority of us who have to occupy terra firma. And yet… and yet, you don’t

Patrick O’Flynn Patrick O'Flynn

Can Labour capture the spirit of the post-war era?

The right is usually much better than the left at harnessing the awesome power of the folk memories that surround Britain’s heroic second world war struggle. The idea of British exceptionalism at its most evocative moment between 1939 and 1945 was crucial to Brexit and crucial to securing popular backing for the Falklands War a generation earlier too. So for Keir Starmer to base his economic pitch for power not on modern monetary theory or any other piece of leftish guru-jargon, but instead on drawing parallels with the reforming post-war Labour administration of Clement Attlee is smart politics. The Attlee government has a powerful mythology of its own that adds

Saturday

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Boris’s climate conundrum

13 min listen

While coronavirus has dominated the last year in politics, domestic issues are creeping back onto the agenda. Near the top of the list is reaching Net Zero by 2050 – not least because climate-conscious Joe Biden is now in the White House. Can Britain hit its target? Katy Balls speaks to James Forsyth and Sam Lowe, senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform.

Steven Barrett

No, Hancock’s PPE contracts haven’t been ruled ‘unlawful’

The High Court has said the government acted unlawfully. It is important that is understood, because ‘unlawful’ is a word that can easily mislead. Above all, no one should accidentally think the Court has said that any of the PPE contracts are unlawful. They are not. What the Court has said is that because, on average, the contracts were published on a website after 47 days, the Department of Health and Social Care was unlawful because it promises to publish within 30 days. The government promised 30 days and 47 days is more than 30: that is unlawful. PPE was needed because of the pandemic and, due to the global

Gus Carter Gus Carter

Inside the Tory party’s China split

Back in 2005, Boris Johnson wrote that among geopolitical gloomsters, China was becoming the ‘fashionable new dread’. They were obsessed with the idea that this ‘incubator of strange diseases’ was angling to become ‘the next world superpower’ — ‘China will not dominate the globe’ he concluded. The China question is now the most fashionable new dread in Boris Johnson’s Tory party. Within the space of a few short years, the country has gone from a mid-level concern, via Cameron and Osborne’s ‘golden era’ to becoming an existential rival. And where once the country was of interest only to a few dusty old Sinologists, now it is the cause célèbre for

Friday

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Turbulence in Downing Street as another Vote Leave aide departs

Boris Johnson has lost a longstanding aide from 10 Downing Street this evening with Oliver Lewis quitting as head of the Union unit. Lewis had only been appointed to the job two weeks ago having previously worked on the Brexit negotiations. His resignation comes after a week of bubbling tensions in No. 10 over recent personnel changes.  Last Friday, Johnson announced that Simone Finn would be his deputy chief of staff and former Michael Gove aide Henry Newman his new senior adviser. These appointments were the first significant moves since Dan Rosenfield was named chief of staff in the wake of Dominic Cummings and Lee Cain’s departure. The Vote Leave duo left their roles late

Professor Angus Dalgleish

The NHS is still in desperate need of reform

Along with many of my colleagues, I have been arguing for years that the current structure of the NHS cannot survive. Giving the health service endless money won’t make a significant difference, unless its core structures are changed. It is therefore very interesting to see that Matt Hancock, in the middle of the pandemic, has unveiled a package of major changes to healthcare, the essence of which is to reverse the Lansley reforms. One of the reforms the health secretary is taking aim at is the purchaser/provider split, which I have identified in the past as one of the ‘four crumbling pillars of the NHS’. The split involves regional panels

Joanna Rossiter Joanna Rossiter

Does Nicola Sturgeon really want to fly the EU flag?

The news that Nicola Sturgeon has asked for the EU flag to be flown every day from the Scottish Parliament building won’t come as a surprise to those familiar with her much-documented Europhilia. Indeed, when Britain was edging ahead in the vaccine race, she threatened to publish confidential information about the UK’s vaccine supply in order to offer support to Brussels, potentially undermining our vaccine deals. The fact that she was prepared to do this in order to cosy up to the EU tells you everything you need to know about the SNP’s particular brand of nationalism. What’s most bizarre about Sturgeon’s focus on the EU is that she lives

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Boris tries to mute Angela Merkel

Boris Johnson today hosted a virtual meeting of the G7, with representatives dialling in from around the world to discuss the equitable distribution of vaccine doses. But while the group may claim to represent almost half of the world’s GDP, it’s clear the heads of state are still struggling with Zoom as much as everyone else. At the meeting, Boris Johnson’s opening remarks were interrupted by a chatting Angela Merkel, leading the PM to call for the German Chancellor to be muted.  Mr S isn’t sure that will go down well in Berlin… Watch here:

Steven Fielding

Is ‘Starmerism’ an empty project?

Keir Starmer is an extremely methodical politician. Like the mills of God, he might grind slow, but he grinds exceedingly small. Once the Labour leader sets his mind to an objective – such as ridding his party of the taint of anti-Semitism – he is implacable. Just ask the Corbynite wing of the party, who have seen Corbyn suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party and Rebecca Long-Bailey exiled to the backbenches. In the same way Starmer has unremittingly set out to win back those Red Wall voters Labour lost to Boris Johnson in the 2019 general election. We have consequently heard much of his belief in the family and of