Politics Archives

Wednesday

13 Jan 2021

Parliament matters more than ever after Brexit

My contention in this speech is that it is our constitution that makes us prosperous and that returning powers to Westminster from Europe will boost our economic growth. But explaining why our nation has been so successful over the centuries relies first on recognising the existence, and then identifying the nature, of an unseen dark matter which lies at the heart of British governance. I fear this missing link, this secret ingredient, has not received sufficient acknowledgement – despite its presence being detected by many members of the Study of Parliament Group over the years. It will certainly help rebut Lord Hailsham’s assertion that governments in Britain tend towards undermining

Ian Acheson

Northern Ireland is still plagued by terrorism

It’s slow business for global terrorists these days with all the targets banged up under Covid house arrest. But there’s one place in the United Kingdom where it has been pretty much business as usual for violent extremism. Northern Ireland’s police service has just released its security assessment for 2020. This contains some startling information for a place with roughly the same population as Hampshire. Last year there were 39 shooting incidents and two security related deaths, the same number as in 2019. The number of bombings – which include viable devices defused by the army – actually rose year on year to 17, with 8 happening in Belfast. Imagine

Rakib Ehsan

What lessons can we learn from the case of Khairi Saadallah?

Khairi Saadallah is a name that should not be forgotten in a hurry. Found guilty of the murders of James Furlong, David Wails, and Joe Ritchie-Bennett, Saadallah was yesterday given a whole-life jail term for the June 2020 terrorist attack in Reading’s Forbury Gardens. He will never leave prison. We shouldn’t, though, remember Saadallah’s name because of his crimes, but in order to learn lessons from the catalogue of blunders that left him free to kill. While the whole-life prison sentence handed is welcome, the case of Khairi Saadallah represents a fundamental failure of epic proportions in the British justice system. Saadallah was previously convicted for a string of knife-related offences and racially-aggravated

Tuesday

12 Jan 2021

Steerpike

Priti’s lockdown muddle

At tonight’s Covid press conference, the Home Secretary Priti Patel sought to defend the coronavirus restrictions against suggestions that the law was confusing and hard to follow. She said: ‘The rules are actually very simple and clear. We are meant to stay at home and only leave home for a very, very limited number of reasons’. What were those reasons? A list followed, including: ‘outdoor recreation but in a very, very restricted and limited way, staying local, I’ve said that several times over the last week.’ Except, outdoor recreation was specifically deleted as a deemed reasonable excuse to leave home by the regulatory amendments bringing into effect the national lockdown.

Katy Balls

Priti Patel’s enforcement warning

As the government’s ‘enforcement week’ rumbles on, Priti Patel addressed the nation on Tuesday evening over the need for the public to play by the rules. While the Home Secretary was keen to praise the vast majority of people who have followed the lockdown rules so far, she said a minority were ‘putting the health of the nation at risk’ by flouting the restrictions. With the daily death toll at 1,243 (the number of people who have died within 28 days of a positive coronavirus test in the UK), Patel stressed that the pandemic was at a very dangerous point and everyone would need to play their part — whether voluntarily or not. The

Isabel Hardman

Ministers can no longer ignore the problems Covid has exposed

Tuesday’s cabinet meeting discussed the usual topics of Covid and the Brexit transition period, but at the end, Boris Johnson told ministers he had asked Sir Michael Barber to conduct a rapid review of government delivery ‘to ensure it remains focused, effective and efficient’. Downing Street’s readout of the meeting said the Prime Minister told his colleagues that ‘it remains important to ensure that work continues to ensure that we build back better from the pandemic’. Barber, currently chair of the Office for Students, set up the first ‘delivery unit’ in Downing Street in 2001, and has even written a book on How to Run a Government. He will be

Ross Clark

Measuring the impact of stay-at-home lockdown measures

With Covid-19 cases still rising a week into the third lockdown (and after several weeks of Tier 3 restrictions in London and the South East) the questions are inevitably being asked: why isn’t lockdown reducing transmission of the virus and do we need even more stringent rules, whatever they might be? While some studies claim to have quantified a beneficial effect from lockdown measures during the first wave of Covid-19, a study at Stanford University questions this. Dr Eran Bendavid and Professor John Ioannidis studied the imposition of ‘non-pharmaceutical interventions’ (NPIs) in ten countries and have reached the conclusion that while less-restrictive NPIs (which include social distancing and appeals to

Isabel Hardman

Do Covid rules need to be clearer?

11 min listen

Boris Johnson has been criticised for taking a bike ride in the Olympic Park, seven miles away from Downing Street. Should the government make the Covid rules clearer? Isabel Hardman speaks to James Forsyth and Katy Balls.

Steerpike

Alok Sharma’s difficult job adjustment

It can be hard work adjusting to a new position. Just ask Alok Sharma, who was appointed as full-time President of the UN climate change conference, COP26, last week. Sharma had been running the conference alongside his role as Business Secretary of State, but it was felt that the climate shindig, which will be the diplomatic event of the year, needed a minister’s full attention. So Sharma became full-time president and Kwasi Kwarteng was promoted to Business Secretary. Could Sharma be having a little trouble letting go though? Mr S spotted that in today’s Cabinet meeting, which took place on Zoom, the COP26 president still appeared to be sporting his

James Kirkup

Just give them cash: a solution to the free school meal box row

The pandemic has not been kind on either libertarians or people in poverty. The libertarian argument that the state should generally leave people alone to make their own choices has not often succeeded as government, largely backed by the electorate, has chosen to respond to a collective risk with collective action, even if some of that action is compelled. For people on low incomes, Covid-19 has meant more economic hardship and an increased chance of death. It has also meant that their children are more likely to go hungry. At the Social Market Foundation, we reckon 16 per cent of children – nearly two million – went short of food last

Matthew Lynn

The EU’s vaccine shambles is turning into a re-run of the euro crisis

Rewind a few months, and it was all meant to be very different. With Covid-19 rampant across the world, the European Union would take charge of sourcing vaccines from the major drugs companies. Its massive buying and regulatory power, coupled with its finely-tuned administrative machine, would make sure its 440 million people were protected from the virus before anyone else. It would be a magnificent demonstration of the whole point of the organisation. The trouble is, not only has the project already started to come off the rails, it is getting worse with every day that passes. Europe’s vaccine alliance is crumbling with potentially far-reaching consequences. Europe’s vaccine alliance is

Nick Tyrone

Tony Blair is deluding himself on a ‘De Gaulle-style comeback’

Tony Blair has made a tentative return to the heart of British politics by offering Matt Hancock strategic advice on the vaccine rollout. But does the former prime minister’s ambition stretch further than this? More than a decade after leaving office, Blair is said to keen on a ‘De Gaulle style comeback’. For Blair’s critics, it’s an apt comparison. De Gaulle was the so-called ‘father of Europe’, who led Free France during the war years of the Vichy government. He later disappeared into the political wilderness after 1946 before staging a dramatic return a little over a decade later, eventually becoming president for ten years. So could Blair emulate De Gaulle? You can

Monday

11 Jan 2021

Isabel Hardman

The delicate balancing act of lockdown messaging

Matt Hancock spent Monday evening trying to explain a very delicate tension to the public. There’s the good news of the vaccine and his determination that all four of the most vulnerable priority groups will be vaccinated by mid-February. And then there’s the bad news that in the meantime, coronavirus is spreading and we haven’t yet seen the worst of its impact on the NHS. So alongside announcing that more than 2.3 million people across the UK have had their first dose of the vaccine, Hancock warned at Monday night’s Downing Street press briefing that unless the public sticks to the rules, he will have to tighten restrictions on meeting others for

Steerpike

Did Boris’s bike ride breach lockdown rules?

Exercise is a dangerous game these days. As two women recently discovered, drive five miles for a walk at a beauty spot complete with two cups of coffee and you can find yourself fined £200. Meanwhile, alarm inside government at the number of people out and about despite the ‘stay at home’ message has led to tighter restrictions being considered by No. 10. So, it’s fair to say there’s a lot of curiosity in Westminster over a bike ride Boris Johnson embarked on over the weekend. Evening Standard reporter Sophia Sleigh spotted the Prime Minister cycling around the Olympic Park in Stratford on Sunday afternoon — seven miles from No. 10. The guidance

Kate Andrews

A lockdown crackdown is no walk in the park

Jessica Allen and Eliza Moore had a bad experience with the Derbyshire police last week. The two women met for a socially distanced walk roughly a five-mile drive away from their home. This resulted in the pair being ‘surrounded’ by police officers, who fined them £200 for leaving their local area and drinking takeaway coffee, which the officers classified as a ‘picnic’. Since the story broke last week, the police force has backed down significantly and are reviewing their policies as a result of the incident. Allen and Moore were not, it seems, breaking any laws (although No. 10 and other departments remain unsure about how this fits into government guidance).

Patrick O’Flynn

Why Reform UK’s Scotland launch was a flop

Scots may be getting vaccinated against Covid, but they already have the highest rate of immunity to the appeal of Nigel Farage to be found anywhere in the UK. So it was not a particular surprise that Farage today stayed away from the launch of the Scottish offshoot of his new entity, Reform UK. Instead it was left to party chairman Richard Tice to unveil the identity of the leader of Reform UK, Scotland. The sitting MSP Michelle Ballantyne, who stood unsuccessfully for the leadership of the Scottish Conservatives less than a year ago before going independent, has become the Scottish leader of Reform UK, without needing to win a single

Katy Balls

Has lockdown fatigue set in?

13 min listen

Chris Whitty said that hospitals will face ‘the worst weeks of this pandemic’ in a broadcast round this morning, as he implored Brits to keep social contact ‘to an absolute minimum’. It comes as the government is considering even stricter restrictions to improve compliance. Katy Balls speaks to Isabel Hardman and James Forsyth.

Steerpike

Scottish Covid advisor’s devolution fake news

The professor of public health, Devi Sridhar, has had an interesting part to play in Scotland during the Covid pandemic. A champion of severe restrictions and a ‘zero-Covid strategy’, Sridhar sits on the Scottish government’s Covid-19 advisory group, where her role is to help Nicola Sturgeon stamp out the virus. At times though, it has almost seemed like Sridhar has ended up resembling more a personal cheerleader for the First Minister than an impartial advisor. The Edinburgh university professor frequently praises the First Minister’s ‘wise words’, her ‘strong leadership’, and ‘decisive action’ in tackling the virus. And, the single time that Sridhar did seem to contradict Sturgeon’s official policy, the academic

Isabel Hardman

Starmer wants to change Labour, but are voters even listening?

Inevitably, Keir Starmer’s main intervention today has been on Covid, with the Labour leader calling for more restrictions within the next 24 hours. But he made this demand as part of his first major policy speech as leader – and there was more in it than just Covid curbs. Starmer has decided he wants to spend the next few months talking about several topics the Labour party has veered away from over the past decade or so. Chief among them is the economy, with the leader and shadow chancellor keen to use the time they have now before the next election to start making it normal for Labour to bring

Katy Balls

The next Tory debate is on post-vaccine restrictions

When the third national lockdown came to a vote in parliament last week, only 12 Conservative MPs voted against the measures. This was a far cry from the second lockdown – which saw a rebellion of over 50 – and the mood at that time. Back in November, members of the Covid Recovery Group – made up of Tory MPs sceptical of tighter restrictions – were warning that a third lockdown would see a rebellion in the three-figure mark. So, what’s changed? Speak to former lockdown rebels and it’s a mix of factors that has provoked a rethink. The approval of several vaccines means that there is now a reasonable argument