Politics

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

John Connolly

Minister quits over Dominic Cummings’s lockdown trip

Douglas Ross, the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, has announced that he is resigning from his government position, following the controversy over the Number 10 adviser Dominic Cummings’s trip to Durham during the lockdown. In a letter outlining his reasons for resigning, Ross acknowledged that while Cummings’s decision to travel to Durham may have been ‘well meaning’ and intended to be in the best interests of his family: ‘Mr Cummings’s interpretation of the government advice was not shared by the vast majority of people who have done as the government asked.’ Ross added that he could not tell constituents who had lost family members and were unable to visit their

Steerpike

Listen: Bishop taken to task over anti-Cummings tweet

What should one expect from a spiritual leader? Knowledge of the scripture? Care for his flock? Or perhaps even a degree of humility? It seems Dr John Inge, the Bishop of Worcester, has added political punditry to his list of holy attributes. (You may remember Inge for previous divine interventions, such as suggesting that a no-deal Brexit would go against Christ’s teachings.) This time, though, it seems Dominic Cummings is the subject of his pious ire.  Inge was invited on to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme to discuss his criticisms. But it seems that all did not go to plan after interviewer Justin Webb asked whether it really was appropriate for bishops to be

Cindy Yu

Has Cummings done enough to calm Tory MPs?

12 min listen

In an unprecedented press conference today, Dominic Cummings explained the circumstances in which he took his family to Durham, and the exact timeline. He struck a sincere tone, but stopped short of apologising. Has he said enough to stem the backlash?

Melanie McDonagh

Dominic Cummings’s lockdown critics will never be happy

Happy now? Thought not. Dominic Cummings has delivered his statement and answered questions but still the critics aren’t appeased. Not at all. In fact, the tenor of the questions that were put to him suggested that quite a few of the journalists lucky enough to be socially distancing in the Downing Street rose garden, plus those listening at a distance, hadn’t been listening to a word he said. Didn’t he realise that there were people out there who hadn’t seen their elderly parents or grandparents for months and how would they feel knowing that he’d been gadding up to Durham to see his? There were parents with dependent children who could

Katy Balls

Dominic Cummings’s revealing press conference

Dominic Cummings spent the sunny Bank Holiday Monday answering questions from journalists in the Downing Street rose garden. After days of negative headlines and a growing backlash from Tory MPs over allegations that the Prime Minister’s senior aide broke lockdown rules, Cummings took the unusual step in order to try to explain the rationale behind his movements.  The senior No. 10 aide stopped short of apologising for his actions. Instead, he said that while he understood why people were questioning his decision to travel 260 miles to Durham after believing he could soon fall ill with coronavirus, he thought he had made the right decision given the circumstances: I think reasonable people may well disagree about how

Brendan O’Neill

The real Dominic Cummings scandal

The media’s Dominic Cummings story has completely collapsed. He did NOT go to Durham a second time, which was reported on the front page of the Sunday Mirror and the Observer. He did NOT have any physical contact with family members. The police did NOT talk to the Cummings family about the Covid lockdown guidelines. Cummings did NOT carry on doing things that everyone else had stopped doing — he even missed the funeral of his uncle who died from Covid. He did NOT leave his London home for leisure reasons — he left it because he was receiving death threats as a result of media demonisation. He was very

Dominic Cummings: Why I travelled to Durham

This is a transcript of Dominic Cummings’ statement: Around midnight on Thursday, the twenty sixth of March, I spoke to the prime minister. He told me that he tested positive for Covid. We discussed the national emergency arrangements for No.10, given his isolation and what I would do in No. 10 the next day. The next morning, I went to work as usual. I was in a succession of meetings about this emergency. I suddenly got a call from my wife who was at home looking after our four year old child. She told me she suddenly felt badly ill. She’d vomited and felt like she might pass out. And

Patrick O'Flynn

Boris Johnson is no coward for backing Dominic Cummings

The failure of Boris Johnson to sack Dominic Cummings exposes him as a coward, according to the Daily Mirror today, The paper says the Prime Minister was ‘scared to act’ against his chief adviser as it continues to go for his jugular. Its visually quite powerful front page also damns him as a cheat – or perhaps it means Cummings is a cheat for allegedly breaching the lockdown rules. Anyhow, let us park the ‘cheating’ accusation, whoever it is aimed at, and focus our attention on cowardice. It’s a very curious charge to level at Johnson and almost the opposite of the truth. Inspecting Johnson’s political CV, one could certainly mount a

Nick Cohen

Boris Johnson will regret standing by Dominic Cummings

Boris Johnson is a populist who no longer understands the populace. Dominic Cummings pretends to be an anti-elitist but cannot see how lethal the slogan ‘one rule for me and another for everyone else’ is to him and the elite he serves. Their government and the Vote Leave movement it grew from once had a crass genius for simple slogans that cut through – £350 million for the NHS, Get Brexit Done, Stay at Home. Boris Johnson’s slogan was Cummings ‘acted responsibly, legally and with integrity’ when he packed up his family, drove 250 miles, stayed near parents and siblings and, according to a witness, went off on family walks. 

Stephen Daisley

Jackson Carlaw angers Scottish Tories over Cummings row

Boris Johnson is not the only one catching flack from his parliamentary party over Dominic Cummings. Scottish Conservative MSPs are ‘in despair’ at Jackson Carlaw’s leadership on the row and believe he is currying favour with Downing Street in hopes of securing a peerage down the line.  On Sunday, the Scottish Tory press office released a statement from Ruth Davidson’s successor which read in part:  ‘I’ve heard what the Prime Minister has said and it is a situation for him to judge. He has reached a conclusion and we must all now focus on continuing to beat this dreadful pandemic. I want the Prime Minister to be able to continue

Britain’s contact tracing conundrum

If there is hope, it lies in contact tracing. The countries that have successfully managed Covid-19 outbreaks and reopened without second peaks (at least so far) have done so through extensive track and trace infrastructure to prevent recurring outbreaks, sometimes after instituting general lockdown. The UK plan is no different: for weeks, ministers have been talking up efforts to build a UK infrastructure to handle the difficult task of rapidly testing every suspected case of Covid-19, and then quickly contacting everyone they may have recently come into contact with, and testing them too. The effects of these efforts where they work can be dramatic: South Korea had a recent outbreak

Patrick O'Flynn

It’s time for Lib Dems to accept that the party’s over

Who are you backing in the latest Liberal Democrat leadership contest then – Layla ‘you got me on my knees’ Moran or steady Sir Eddie Davey? It’s an academic question really, as I highly doubt it will have punctured your carapace of indifference. The stewardship of what we once referred to as ‘the third party’ – in government as recently as five years ago – is now very much a minority interest. But thanks to pressure from grassroots Lib Dem members – and allegedly there are still more than 100,000 of those – the party’s leadership contest is back on for this summer. A decision to postpone it until after

Coronavirus and the enduring myth of Britain’s ‘Dunkirk spirit’

World War Two remains, for a certain kind of Brit, a living and vital presence. The increasingly-distant memory of our Finest Hour still shapes how many regard Britain’s present and future. How else can we even begin to explain Nigel Farage’s appearance to the sound of air raid sirens at one of his Brexit party rallies? Why else should our current Prime Minister have felt obliged to write a biography of Winston Churchill? It was then no real surprise that during the early weeks of the Covid crisis many hoped for a renewed, if somewhat bogus, ‘spirit of the Blitz’. Then, with the 75th anniversary of VE Day looming, in her

Katy Balls

Boris Johnson’s political gamble over Cummings

11 min listen

Boris Johnson gave an unambiguous defence of Dominic Cummings at today’s press conference. In so doing, the government is gambling that this is a storm they can weather. On the podcast, Kate Andrews discusses their thinking with Katy Balls and James Forsyth.

Stephen Daisley

Boris Johnson’s support for Cummings is really a defence of the elite

It’s not often a politician calls a press conference to sneer openly at the voters but Boris Johnson has always done things his own way. The Prime Minister’s performance this afternoon was a careful, considered declaration of contempt at all those chumps stupid enough to obey the rules he laid down for them. They thought those regulations applied to everyone, regardless of position or connections? What rubes. Addressing Dominic Cummings’ freewheeling interpretation of lockdown guidelines, the Prime Minister said: ’I believe that in every respect he has acted responsibly, legally and with integrity, and with the overriding aim to stopping the spread of the virus and saving lives.’ I don’t

Steerpike

Watch: STV’s deleted ‘Thank you, Nicola’ video

It’s become a common sight to see SNP politicians complaining about journalistic bias against them. Just last week the BBC’s Sarah Smith was in the firing line for suggesting Nicola Sturgeon was ‘enjoying the opportunity’ to set lockdown policy in Scotland different to the rest of the United Kingdom. However, Mr S wonders if the latest STV offering may be more to their taste. This afternoon STV released a video of children thanking the First Minister for keeping them safe. In the somewhat bizarre video, various young children are filming taking part in a joint message of thanks set to soft piano music: The children of Scotland would like to say thank you

Steerpike

Civil servants strike back: ‘arrogant and offensive’

Oh dear. For some time there have been reports of tension between Downing Street and the Civil Service. Now it seems that the latest row over Dominic Cummings has brought things to a head. After Boris Johnson used today’s press conference to provide a full throttled defence of his aide amid allegations that he had breached lockdown guidelines, it appears to have all got a bit too much for one civil servant. Minutes after the press conference came to an end, this tweet was emitted from the official UK Civil Service account: It ought to come as no surprise that it has since been deleted…

Katy Balls

Boris Johnson’s political gamble over Cummings

Despite calls from a growing number of Tory MPs for Dominic Cummings to go over allegations that he breached lockdown guidance, Boris Johnson used today’s press conference to give his senior aide his full backing. In unambiguous terms, the Prime Minister began proceedings by telling the public he had held lengthy discussions with Cummings over the past 48 hours and concluded he had no case to answer to. Of Cummings’s decision to travel 260 miles from London to Durham to self isolate so that he and his family had childcare nearby, Johnson said his adviser had simply ‘followed the instincts of every father and every parent and I do not mark him