Politics Archives

Monday

11 Jan 2021

Six things we need to know about the vaccine rollout

We are supposedly getting a lot more data on the numbers of us being vaccinated, later on Monday. What’s less clear is whether we will be getting data that is useful. Here is what we should be told on a granular daily basis, to reinforce confidence both that the vaccination operation is efficient and effective and to provide hope that the end of this social and economic misery is a realistic prospect: 1. Numbers vaccinated per day should be published. 2. This number should be broken down between first and second dose so that we know how many are protected to the maximum possible. 3. The status of those vaccinated

Jamie Njoku-Goodwin

How we can save our summer

The crisis facing hospitals is truly awful and cannot be understated. But while the short term situation is grim, it is important that we detach the immediate challenges from the post-vaccine outlook. They are radically different landscapes and must be addressed separately. Before enough people are vaccinated against Covid-19, we can’t pull any punches in cracking down on the virus. This is not just because of the increased transmissibility of this new variant, or the huge challenges facing the NHS, but because with the vaccine being rolled out we are so close to success against this awful virus. The lower the infection rates, the sooner we can relax restrictions properly.

Nick Tyrone

This lockdown is the worst yet for parents

Lockdown is no fun for anyone, but spare a thought for those of us with kids. The third lockdown has, once again, made full-time teachers of parents. But this time, things are much harder. Why? Because during the current restrictions, teachers have been turned into a sort of truancy police force. ‘Important information. If your child is working from home, they MUST register online daily by 9:00 by submitting at least one assignment….a follow up attendance phone call will be made for those pupils who have not submitted.’ This was the text I received several times last week from my two elder children’s school. Of course it’s right that kids still received

Sunday

10 Jan 2021

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows roundup: Keir Starmer – nurseries ‘probably should be closed’

Keir Starmer – Covid restrictions ‘may not be tough enough’ Sir Keir Starmer was in the hot seat this morning as the latest of Andrew Marr’s series of interviews with the major party leaders. Marr’s first question to Starmer was about the government’s heightened Tier 5 restrictions. The conversation comes at a time when the UK’s official Covid-19 death toll has passed 80,000, and with the Office for National Statistics reporting figures showing that as many as one in 50 people have had the virus over the last week of 2020. Marr asked if the restrictions were tough enough to slow the spread: KS: They are tough, and they’re necessary…

Saturday

9 Jan 2021

Kate Andrews

Trump’s social media ban creates a host of problems for Big Tech

Facebook and Twitter’s decision to suspend Donald Trump is, legally speaking, fairly clear-cut. Both are private companies which set the rules on who is – and isn’t – allowed to use their sites. Even if you’re the leader of the free world you have no automatic right to a Twitter account. The same logic applies to Parler – the self-described ‘unbiased’ social media platform – which has been booted off Google’s app store over its refusal to remove ‘egregious content’. As with Facebook and Twitter, Google Play is perfectly within its rights to select what apps it will and will not host. But that doesn’t mean there won’t be serious consequences that arise from these decisions. Frustrations from

Katy Balls

Is Nigel Farage’s new party about to make waves?

17 min listen

Brexit is done, but Nigel Farage may well remain an influential force in British politics. With his rebranding of the Brexit Party to ‘Reform UK’ approved this week, Katy Balls talks to James Forsyth and Patrick O’Flynn, former Ukip MEP, about whether or not Sinoscepticism and lockdown-scepticism are enough for Farage to build a new movement.

Matthew Lynn

Matthew Lynn, Will Knowland and Mary Wellesley

18 min listen

On this week’s episode, author and financial columnist Matthew Lynn begins by arguing that the EU has already botched its Covid vaccine rollout. (00:25) Then, Will Knowland, formerly an English teacher at Eton, explains why he was dismissed from the school and criticises its ‘stifling monoculture’. (08:20) And finally, Mary Wellesley reflects on the lives of 13th-century hermits. (13:55)

Patrick O’Flynn

Rosie Duffield’s re-join remarks will haunt the Labour party

Every party keeps on file a list of rash things politicians in other parties have said that can be used against them at a later date. Way back when I was directing Ukip’s 2014 European parliamentary campaign, I built up a ‘helpful contributions’ folder containing print-outs of gaffes and embarrassing admissions made by pro-EU MPs and MEPs. Conservative Campaign Headquarters probably has at its disposal a far more sophisticated and comprehensive digital system for logging the own-goals of its adversaries. But one thing is certain, someone will imminently be inputting an entry marked something like ‘Duffield, R. – Labour’s plan to re-join the EU’. Because Rosie Duffield, the Labour MP

Robert Hutton

Boris shouldn’t be allowed to forget cosying up to Trump

Eighteen months ago, I had the pleasure of telling Lee Cain, Boris Johnson’s now departed head of communications, about the nickname that the American president had come up with for Britain’s new Prime Minister: ‘Britain Trump’. My amusement was matched by the look of horror on Cain’s face. This was very much not the label that Number 10 wanted for their man in 2019, and it’s even less so in 2021. The coincidence that both men rose after uprisings at the polls in 2016 is just that, they argue – a coincidence. The ‘Johnson isn’t Trump’ case is well made by James Forsyth in the Times, and it’s right, as far

Charles Holland

Boris’s latest lockdown rules are more baffling than ever

When Boris Johnson rolled back the legal restrictions over summer as Britain emerged from the first lockdown, he was clear that enough was enough: ‘Neither the police themselves, nor the public that they serve, want virtually every aspect of our behaviour to be the subject of the criminal law…After a long period of asking…the British public, to follow very strict and complex rules to bring coronavirus under control…we will be asking [people] to follow guidance on limiting their social contact, rather than forcing them to do so through legislation’. Alas (as Boris Johnson keeps saying), trust in people doing the right thing voluntarily, rather than under legal obligation, turned out to

Friday

8 Jan 2021

Stephen Daisley

Alex Salmond has declared war on Nicola Sturgeon

This is a big deal. The Times says it has had advanced sight of Alex Salmond’s evidence to a Scottish parliament inquiry on sexual harassment and it makes for uncomfortable reading for Nicola Sturgeon. The former SNP leader is allegedly accusing his one-time protege of misleading the Holyrood parliament and contravening the ministerial code. If true, that would be the end of Sturgeon’s premiership. The inquiry stems from a botched probe into sexual harassment allegations lodged against Salmond relating to his time as Scottish First Minister. Salmond denied the accusations and took the Scottish government to the Court of Session, Scotland’s highest civil court, where Lord Pentland ruled that the

James Forsyth

Alok Sharma’s difficult diplomatic task for COP26

There’s been a mini reshuffle this evening. Alok Sharma has become the full-time head of COP26, the UN climate change summit the UK is hosting in Glasgow this November, and Kwasi Kwarteng has replaced him as Business Secretary. Sharma will continue to be a full member of the Cabinet. Anne-Marie Trevelyan, who was Secretary of State for International Development until the department was merged with the Foreign Office, takes on Kwarteng’s old job as Minister of State for energy. The decision to make Sharma the full-time president of COP26 is a recognition that it simply isn’t possible to do the job while trying to hold down another position. A huge

Steerpike

Watch: Sky’s Adam Boulton clashes with Trump campaigner

It certainly doesn’t seem like things are calming down in America anytime soon, after the recent mob takeover of Capitol Hill. At least Mr S got that sense when tuning in to Sky News today. On the show, Sky’s Adam Boulton was speaking from Washington to Erin Elmore, a former Trump campaign spokesperson, who was dialling in from Jupiter, Florida. The interview began civilly enough, as the pair discussed the recent invasion of the Capitol building and acts of violence which had taken place. It didn’t take long though for the discussion to become rather heated as Elmore attempted to link the Senate invasion to the violence in US cities during

Ross Clark

No, the pandemic hasn’t proved Corbyn right about free broadband

As with any crisis, Covid-19 has created great opportunities for some – and not just private companies selling PPE to the government at vastly-inflated prices. For some of the left, it has presented a chance to push for policies involving a much greater role for the state. With the government paying the wages of millions of furloughed workers and propping up private businesses forced to close under lockdown rules, what better time than to push for much greater state involvement in all areas of our lives? Typifying this opportunism is an article by Bill Ribeiro-Addy, Labour MP for Streatham, arguing that the crisis in home-schooling shows why Jeremy Corbyn was right

Katy Balls

Covid sparks a major incident in London

Is the NHS at risk of being overwhelmed? That’s a question of increasing concern in Westminster as hospital admissions rise. Sadiq Khan has today declared a ‘major incident’ in London — calling the situation ‘critical’ with the spread of the virus ‘out of control’. With the coronavirus infection rate in London now exceeding 1,000 per 100,000 people, Khan said that the London Ambulance Service was currently taking up to 8,000 emergency calls a day (compared to 5,500 typical for a busy day). It comes as the reported daily death toll on Thursday — 1,162 — reached the highest recorded since April. There’s little, too, to suggest things are about to improve anytime soon. A leak to the Health Service Journal suggested

Katy Balls

Could an overwhelmed NHS stall the vaccine rollout?

13 min listen

Simon Stevens, NHS chief executive, said yesterday that 800 new patients are admitted to London hospitals with Covid-19 every day. Could pressure on the health service force them to delay the vaccine distribution? Katy Balls speaks to Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth.

Nick Tyrone

Starmer’s problem? He cares too much about Labour

There is a thought in some Westminster circles that Keir Starmer has lost the next general election already. Whether it be because of Brexit or Brexit and a bunch of other stuff, including leftover Corbyn baggage, Starmer is doomed as he stands. I believe this view is naïve and the smarter Tories I know don’t buy it for a second. Labour could still win the next election, particularly if the Conservatives get complacent. Yet if they do end up losing their fifth general election in a row, I already know why that will be. There was a moment in the 2015 Labour leadership contest that stands out for me, as

James Forsyth

When will Covid restrictions end?

When we interviewed Matt Hancock this week, he was clear that the government isn’t going for herd immunity through vaccination. Instead, the government is seeking to use the vaccine to protect the vulnerable and break the link between cases, hospitalisations and deaths. Once that is done, the government will start to ease restrictions. Crucially, he was also clear that the government now regards the first shot as the most important metric when counting vaccinations. In his Monday night address, Boris Johnson said that if the government could succeed in giving a first shot to the first four groups in the vaccination programme by mid-February then the government would start ‘cautiously,

Debbie Hayton

Why Williamson’s u-turn won’t affect all GCSE students

The future became more uncertain for hundreds of thousands of youngsters this week when Gavin Williamson cancelled their GCSE exams. But pupils at some of Britain’s top public schools were affected less than their contemporaries in state maintained schools. Why? Because what Williamson did not talk about when he cancelled exams were International GCSEs. Broadly equivalent to domestic exams, and offered by the same exam boards, they are marketed worldwide and, unlike GCSEs, look set to go ahead this summer. Britain’s educational divide has always been fairly stark. And this decision could further widen that gap between rich and poor pupils. As a teacher, I was pleased to hear Williamson tell

Thursday

7 Jan 2021

Ross Clark

How will the markets respond to lockdown?

What a strange non-event was the stockmarket reaction to the announcement of the latest national lockdown. Retailers, leisure companies, travel firms – all was calm. Marks and Spencer was down half a per cent on the morning, while Next was up five per cent on the back of good online results before Christmas. EasyJet was down two percent but International Airlines Group (IAG) was up 0.4 per cent. Cruise operator Carnival was down 0.7 percent but travel group Tui was up two per cent. It was just like any other day, as if nothing had happened on the Covid front. But then maybe that is because nothing much had happened.