Politics

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

Friday

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

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Has Macron stolen Boris’s G7 thunder?

10 min listen

Emmanuel Macron has said wealthy nations should begin donating up to five per cent of their vaccines to Africa. It comes as Boris Johnson hosts a virtual G7 today – Joe Biden’s first multilateral meeting. Has the French president stolen Boris’s thunder? Cindy Yu speaks to James Forsyth and Katy Balls.

Thursday

Lara Prendergast Lara Prendergast

Power jab: the rise of vaccine diplomacy

44 min listen

How are China and Russia getting ahead in the great game of vaccine diplomacy? (00:50) Has the US press lost its way? (11:30) Why is Anglo-Saxon history making a comeback? (27:20) With The Spectator‘s broadcast editor Cindy Yu; journalist Owen Matthews; Harper’s publisher Rick MacArthur; The Washington Post‘s media critic Erik Wemple; journalist Dan Hitchens; and Sutton Hoo archaeologist Professor Martin Craver. Presented by Lara Prendergast. Produced by Max Jeffery and Matt Taylor.

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Why Starmer is no modern day Beveridge

15 min listen

Today’s speech from the Labour leader was billed to be ‘Beveridge-style’. On the podcast, Kate Andrews tells Katy Balls and James Forsyth why it was nothing of the sort, and they strategise what Starmer should have said.

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Can Keir Starmer cut through?

It’s been a difficult few weeks for Sir Keir Starmer with left-leaning commentators and MPs lining up to criticise the Labour leader. Among recent complaints include the idea that Starmer plays it too safe, has not held the Tories to account despite the high Covid death toll and has failed to make much of an impression on the general public. The polls also point to problems – with Savanta ComRes finding Boris Johnson has had a 5 point rise on the question of best Prime Minister in its monthly political tracker. Today Starmer attempted to turn the page by setting out his approach on the economy. As Kate reports on Coffee House, this included the establishment of ‘British

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The EU needs to stop punishing Britain for Brexit

There have always been those on the European side who believe that for the EU project to succeed, Brexit must fail and must be seen to fail. So it is a problem that the first major act of Brexit Britain — going its own way to obtain and approve vaccines — appears to have been a success. For this reason, EU leaders must cast doubt on the achievement. As I say in the magazine this week, look at how Clément Beaune, Macron’s Europe Minister, went out of his way to tweet out his criticisms of the UK approach. (To be fair, there is a Brexiteer version of this hostile sentiment.

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Starmer’s fundamental economic mistake

Keir Starmer’s speech on economic recovery, delivered at Labour’s Southside HQ on Thursday, was hyped as one of the most pivotal moments of his leadership so far. A Labour insider told Politico it had been ‘six months in the making with a huge amount of work going into it’. It was designed to establish a clear ‘fork in the road’ between the Conservatives’ and Labour’s economic visions, both in the short term — leading up to the Budget next month — but also in the future, as Starmer pledged to shape the economy ‘to look utterly unlike the past’. But for a speech that was supposedly months in the making,

Nick Tyrone Nick Tyrone

Keir Starmer is attacking a Tory party that no longer exists

There has been a bit of a commentariat pile-on against Starmer in the last couple of weeks; not just from the usual suspects but from centrist types who might normally be supportive of the Labour leader. Given that as background, one would have hoped that Keir Starmer would have used his speech today on a ‘New Chapter for Britain’ to launch something of a comeback. Unfortunately, the speech didn’t really work as I think it was intended. On the whole, it felt a little like something the Labour leader had been chivvied into delivering due to recent negative press, as opposed to a set of ideas that had ripened enough

Alex Massie Alex Massie

There is something rotten in Scottish politics

It is now two years since Nicola Sturgeon accepted the need for a parliamentary inquiry into how, and why, her government’s investigation into Alex Salmond was so thoroughly tainted by apparent bias it was unlawful.   Ever since then, she has repeatedly promised that both she and her government will fully co-operate with the Holyrood committee — set up to investigate the Scottish government’s response to claims of sexual misconduct against her predecessor. Many hollow promises have been made in the still-short history of the Scottish parliament but few have been emptier than this.   It is necessary to insist upon what the committee is not investigating: it takes no view on

The Spectator

Vaccines are working – so why isn’t society reopening?

When the Prime Minister sets out his ‘roadmap’ for easing Covid restrictions on Monday, it will be against a backdrop that is both better and worse than could have been imagined six months ago. Worse because we have gone on to suffer a second wave of the disease that has seen almost as much excess death as the first wave. But better in the sense that we have vaccines that are in use and more effective than many hoped, with first doses given to 15 million people — almost a third of the adult population. On several occasions last year, Boris Johnson referred to vaccines as the cavalry coming over

James Forsyth James Forsyth

It is time to make friends with the EU

On Monday morning, Clément Beaune, Emmanuel Macron’s Europe Minister, clipped out the section of his media interview criticising Britain’s vaccination strategy and posted it on Twitter. He declared: ‘What is happening in the UK is not something I envy. It is a strategy of massive acceleration which also means taking more risks because the Covid situation is much worse there.’ Such remarks are becoming something of a habit for Beaune. He fired off tweets lambasting Brexit in the days after the deal was done and grinned broadly in an interview this year when he was questioned about reports that British cabinet ministers had asked him to tone it down on

Wednesday

Katy Balls Katy Balls

What’s behind David Frost’s promotion?

The news that David Frost is to be a Minister of State in the Cabinet Office and full member of cabinet has set the cat among the pigeons in Westminster this evening. The UK’s lead Brexit negotiator had previously been lined up to be national security adviser. However, it was eventually decided that he did not have the right experience to take on the role and he was instead appointed as Johnson’s representative on Brexit and International Policy. That Frost is to join the cabinet is a significant promotion — and it’s a promotion that is already causing ripples across government with various briefings doing the rounds on reported unrest in Downing Street.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

David Frost will need to learn to work with the EU

Boris Johnson has made his Brexit negotiator David Frost a full member of the Cabinet and the UK chair of both the partnership council, which manages the UK/EU trade deal, and the joint committee, which handles the Northern Ireland protocol. Frost’s appointment is a recognition that someone is needed at the heart of government to handle the EU relationship – that it can’t be treated as simply a Foreign Office matter, and that it needs to be a full-time job (Michael Gove had previously been the UK chair of these committees). The challenge for Frost will be to get out of the negotiations mindset. The withdrawal negotiations and the trade

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

Labour’s damning silence on Brexit

The Labour party has updated the old metaphysical question: ‘If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?’ It ought to be protesting on behalf of all who are suffering because of Brexit. It ought to be throwing the government’s broken promises back at it and ramming home the message that voters cannot trust Boris Johnson. And yet, listen as hard you like, you cannot hear a sound. If no one can hear Labour opposing, is it really an opposition? The Brexit debacle is drowning once viable business sectors in bureaucracy and threatening what peace and prosperity Northern Ireland

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Boris Johnson’s OJ Simpson gag

Boris Johnson was in Wales today visiting a mass vaccination centre – as part of the government’s victory lap after meeting its target of giving 15 million people their first vaccine dose by mid-February. The occasion was perhaps the perfect opportunity to highlight the good work the government has done on vaccines in recent months. The Prime Minister though appeared to have somewhat darker preoccupations on his visit.  While struggling to put on a disposable glove at the centre, the PM joked that he felt like OJ Simpson, who infamously ‘struggled’ to put on a glove at his murder trial. Mr S isn’t sure that’s a comparison Number 10 aides will be wanting

Nick Tyrone Nick Tyrone

Where are Keir Starmer’s ideas coming from?

Exactly what a Keir Starmer government would look like in terms of policy still remains a mystery to most people. During his leadership campaign Starmer ran on a platform consisting of ‘ten pledges’, which were essentially just reheated Corbynism. Without publicly disavowing them, Starmer seems to have been trying to move away from these pledges toward something that represents a solid break with his predecessor since winning the leadership contest. Yet we still don’t have a clear idea on what that would look like in real terms. Starmer has defined himself so far not on who he is, but rather, who he is not. To this end, Starmer’s people are

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Will the economy really rebound after lockdown?

Bank of England chief economist Andy Haldane last week described the UK economy as a ‘coiled spring’ waiting to rebound just as soon as lockdown restrictions are eased. But is it a spring like the one on which Zebedee from the Magic Roundabout used to bounce around, or is it like a Slinky – the toy you place at the top of the stairs and watch, fixated, as it furls and unfurls itself right down to the bottom? Haldane, it is fair to say, sees it much like the former. He describes the economy as full of ‘pent-up financial energy’. While the bank sees lockdown number three causing output to

Tuesday

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

The SNP’s education ‘stitch-up’

For anyone who assumes the SNP government’s secrecy and obstruction is limited to inquiries into itself and its past leaders, the fate of a major report into Scottish education is an instructive tale. Curriculum for Excellence (CfE), introduced in 2010, was the SNP’s grand idea for better learning in Scottish schools. Its ‘progressive’, ‘child-centred’ philosophy was contentious among teachers but was eagerly bought into by educationalists, educrats and teachers’ unions. Dissenters were generally caricatured as stuffy old reactionaries who wanted children bolted down in rows, facing a blackboard, as an authoritarian dominie catechised them in the rote memorising of formulae, dates and rules. Needless to say, the caricatures turned out

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Will rapid testing bring back nightclubs?

9 min listen

Nadhim Zahawi this morning said that scientists are working on rapid Covid tests to reopen large events. The vaccine deployment minister said that ‘new technologies’ are being trialled at the Porton Down laboratories, and ruled out the government introducing vaccine passports. Cindy Yu speaks to Katy Balls and James Forsyth.