Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.
14 min listen
In her Telegraph column this week, Katy Balls writes about the Chancellor who everybody loves. But the road to No. 10 is not easy – what are the pitfalls Rishi Sunak could face in the months ahead? Cindy Yu talks to Katy and James Johnson, former pollster at No 10 and co-founder of J.L. Partners.
How does a Labour leader going into an election with only around 200 MPs to his name become prime minister? Well, the conventional answer is that he doesn’t, as Neil Kinnock demonstrated in 1987. Kinnock stuck around for a second go in 1992, but still couldn’t get over the line. We can tell from Sir Keir Starmer’s utterances this week that he is not really a sticking around type of bloke. We can also tell that he has identified a path to Downing Street that, while rocky and full of potential pitfalls, might just be navigable. In his audacious conference speech on Tuesday, Starmer explicitly set himself a punishing goal
The Liberal Democrats are putting a motion to their virtual conference this weekend to end the party’s commitment to trying to rejoin the EU. This will annoy many of their activists. It will convince some pro-Europeans that the time to rip up their membership cards is now (and, for many others, to feel smug about having always doubted the party). So what’s the upside? There isn’t one. Instead, this is another in a long line of useless moves by the party, built on trying to get people who will never like the Lib Dems to change their minds. To make matters worse, the motion is predictably wishy washy in what it sets
For some time now, there has been talk about a challenger television to rival Sky and the BBC. Now it’s official: GB News will launch early next year – under the chairmanship of Andrew Neil, who will be its flagship presenter. He is leaving the BBC and will join a new team of about a hundred journalists, in what is the most important television launch in Britain for a generation. GB News is raising between $55 million and $65 million – and the lead investor is Discovery Inc, which is behind Discovery Channel and Science Channel. It’s stumping up about a quarter of the cash. It looks as the fundraising will be oversubscribed, building a pretty big warchest to
Earlier this month, the prospects for a Brexit deal did not look good. The talks weren’t making progress. But there is now cautious but growing optimism in Whitehall that there will be a deal, I say in the Times this morning. The British side now view the remaining problems as being more about process than substance. One source close to the negotiations tells me: ‘There’s no doubt that the tone has improved but we really need to begin the intensive talks to resolve the final tricky issues. We’re keen to begin now, but at the moment the EU keeps blocking these talks and demanding more process. The real risk now
15 min listen
Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee, has tabled an amendment to the government’s Coronavirus Act to force a vote in Parliament on any new restrictions. A cross-party group of 40 MPs have signed the amendment, including moderate Tories like Damian Green and Iain Duncan Smith. But why have they chosen to move against No. 10? Cindy Yu speaks to James Forsyth and Katy Balls.
The tighter Covid restrictions introduced this week, along with larger fines for people who gather in groups of more than six or fail to self-isolate, followed a press presentation in which Sir Patrick Vallance and Professor Chris Whitty produced a graph showing new infections doubling every seven days until mid-October, when there would be 50,000 cases a day. Though Sir Patrick said it was ‘not a prediction’, it was widely treated as such. But are cases really doubling every seven days? The daily figures for new confirmed cases are not the best guide to this, as they do not even nearly capture all infections. Moreover, they are partly a function
Are Covid cases doubling or not? And if so, in what time frame? If you listened to Boris Johnson and chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance, you’d be forgiven for being confused. The Prime Minister said this week: ‘The chief medical officer and chief scientific adviser warned that the doubling rate for new cases could be between seven and 20 days.’ In fact, Vallance had said this: ‘At the moment we think that the epidemic is doubling roughly every seven days.” And added, “It could be a little bit longer – maybe a little bit shorter – but let’s say roughly every seven days.’ So what’s going on? In order to understand what is happening,
During the first Covid wave, the government secured emergency powers that allowed it to put in place new restrictions without parliamentary scrutiny. Those powers are up for renewal next week, but as James Forsyth writes in this week’s cover piece, a number of Tory MPs are unhappy about this. They are trying to force the government to put a parliamentary lock on any future restrictions. Sir Graham Brady, chair of the 1922 Committee of Conservative backbench MPs, is leading the effort. Last night, he told Andrew Neil on Spectator TV that he believes he has enough to defeat the government if it come to a vote: ‘I think we have got the numbers.
Yesterday’s measures from the Chancellor were necessary. His timely assistance focused on a new targeted and temporary job support scheme to replace the expiring furlough, easing loan repayment terms for firms and a wider, more flexible VAT regime. One needs to examine the details of these to ensure that they are as comprehensive as they should be. Lest we forget, the Treasury Select Committee highlighted large groups were excluded from help previously. But there was a boldness to the announcements that goes some way to answer those who wanted the Furlough Scheme extended. The Chancellor addressed the immediate need to bridge the gap between the ending of existing support and
Has the coronavirus crackdown gone too far? Some of Boris Johnson’s own MPs certainly think so. This week, Tory MP Edward Leigh accused the government of ‘authoritarianism’ over the decision to impose greater restrictions during this second wave of coronavirus infections. Leigh is right to be concerned: we have seen the rights and privileges that had taken centuries or millennia to achieve indifferently cast aside in the space of six months by public health measures outlined in the Coronavirus Act. We were told in the early days of the pandemic that the measures were necessary to ‘protect the NHS‘ and ‘flatten the curve‘. But while those aims were achieved, I’m
39 min listen
Another Conservative civil war threatens to bubble over, so will the government start taking its backbenchers seriously? (00:55) Plus, the contentious fight over the next Supreme Court nominee (15:25) and what is it like to be in Madagascar during the pandemic? (29:05) With Political Editor James Forsyth; Chair of the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers Sir Graham Brady; Professor Charles Lipson from the University of Chicago; USA Editor Freddy Gray; and writer Jo Deacon. Presented by Cindy Yu. Produced by Cindy Yu and Max Jeffery.
If opposition parties back it, the Brady amendment – which calls for parliamentary votes before nationwide Covid restrictions are introduced – will pass. The signatures to the amendment have just been published and there are enough Tories on the list to wipe out the government’s majority of 80 As I say in the magazine, both the rebels and Tory whips believe that the amendment will pass if the opposition parties do back it. So Boris Johnson is trying to assuage the rebels by offering more statements, more debates and more chances for MPs to question Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance. But these rebels want votes and so are unlikely to be satisfied
Rishi Sunak’s Job Support Scheme may represent the most ambitious programme to socialise or nationalise work in British history – because at a time when so many companies face bleak demand for their goods and services, it subsidises employers to put their staff on short hours, or turn them into part-time workers, as an alternative to sacking them. The Treasury is not publishing estimates of how many employees will be on the scheme over the six months of its existence. But its designers ‘guess’ that there may up to four million people on it – which would cost the Exchequer around £1.2 billion a month or £7.2 billion in total.
In January, Sir Keir Starmer told Border Television’s Peter MacMahon that, look, of course an SNP victory in next year’s Holyrood elections would plausibly constitute a mandate for a second independence referendum. It might, indeed, be argued that the SNP have such a mandate already, there being a pro-independence majority in the current Scottish parliament, to say nothing of the next one. Yesterday, in a series of interviews including one with Sky News’s Beth Rigby, Starmer reiterated this obvious point. There comes a moment when election results must have consequences and an SNP majority or an SNP-Green majority, next May seems an obvious time for such a moment to arise.
The Chancellor’s statement unveiling his winter economy plan offered a reality check on living with coronavirus. Despite pressure from the opposition and a handful of Tory MPs to extend the furlough scheme, Rishi Sunak confirmed that it would come to an end in October. In its place, he announced a new jobs support scheme – whereby the government and firms will top up the wages of workers who are unable to return to full time work but are working at least a third of their hours. This is aimed at making sure businesses with reduced demand keep on their employees. But it’s also an acceptance that jobs in some industries cannot be saved. Those businesses which are unable
13 min listen
After new restrictions were announced this week by the prime minister, Rishi Sunak today unveiled his Winter Economy Plan. Telling the Commons that he ‘cannot save every business’, the chancellor said that the government would pay up to 22 per cent of workers’ wages. The package may be generous, but is it a sign that the government is winding down the scale of its economic interventions? Cindy Yu speaks to Katy Balls and Kate Andrews.
The UK economy is no longer hibernating; it is ‘adjusting’. Today’s measures announced by Chancellor Rishi Sunak are designed to help an economy expected to limp through the coming months, quite painfully in certain areas, hopefully on its way to recovery. But are they enough? The role of the government and the employer has switched: the six month jobs support scheme will see the state contribute to workers’ wages if needed, but now the employer will be paying over 50 per cent of the costs, with the government paying 22 per cent. The critical difference is that employees must be working in order to receive the subsidies: a minimum of a third
If there is one country which has influenced the government’s toughening of Covid restrictions over the past fortnight it is Belgium. It was Sophie Wilmes’ government which, faced with a resurgence of Covid cases in late July, came up with the idea of placing a limit on the size of social gatherings – five rather than the six which Boris Johnson went on to impose in England six weeks later. It was the Belgian government, too, which came up with the idea of setting a curfew for pubs – 11pm rather than the 10pm which will come into effect in England, Scotland and Wales today. At the same time, Belgium
When Boris Johnson announced further lockdown restrictions this week, it was inevitable that Rishi Sunak would again splash taxpayers’ cash. The Chancellor duly delivered this afternoon. But one thing is clear: slowly but surely Sunak is turning the taps off. The Job Support Scheme, which replaces the furlough scheme, means the government will pay up to 22 per cent of workers’ wages. VAT cuts in hospitality and tourism – two sectors which will inevitably be hit hard by the new rules – were also extended. And firms that took government loans will have more time to pay them back. There is some help, too, for the self employed: a government grant