Politics

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

Tuesday

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Easing Covid rules for Christmas comes with a risk

Ministers have been keen to stress that Christmas this year will not be normal. Boris Johnson went so far to say on Monday that it ’tis the season to be ‘jolly careful’. However, as expected, there will be a softening of the current rules. Following a Cobra meeting this afternoon, the UK government and devolved administrations have agreed on a joint approach to socialising over the Christmas period. The rules will be relaxed so that people can form a ‘Christmas bubble’ made up of three households for the period from December 23 to 27. During this time, travel across the UK will be permitted, including between tiers so that people can meet

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Tory MP defends arrested lockdown protestor

The Tory MP and former 1922 committee chair Charles Walker appears to have become involved in a lockdown protest outside Parliament today. The MP was outside the House of Commons when he witnessed an elderly woman being arrested by police. In response, Walker told the officers that their arrest was an ‘outrage’ and was not necessary: Walker then appeared in the House of Commons to make a point of order. He said that the woman had been taking part in a peaceful protest outside Parliament before she was carried ‘spread-eagle’ to a police van. He described the arrest as a ‘disgrace, un-British’ and ‘unconstitutional’ and called on the Prime Minister or

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Should London be split into different tiers?

What will the new map of tiers look like when England exits lockdown next week? It certainly won’t be the same system we left behind when we went into lockdown on 5 November. For one thing, we have been told that restrictions are tightening and that more areas will be shunted into Tier 3. The epicentres of new infections at the moment are not as much in the cities as relatively low-income suburban and semi-rural areas in Lincolnshire and North Kent. Swale (528 new infections per 100,000), East Lindsey (467) and Boston (433) currently top the infection charts. Liverpool by contrast — the first place to go into Tier 3 —

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Will there be a Tory revolt over Tier 3 restrictions?

13 min listen

The Prime Minister announced yesterday that the nationwide lockdown would come to an end on December 2. In the updated tier system, pubs and restaurants will be closed at the highest level of restrictions, but gyms and non-essential shops will remain open. Isabel Hardman speaks to Katy Balls and James Forsyth about whether Conservative MPs will accept the changes.

Steerpike Steerpike

Laura Pidcock stages walkout of Labour NEC

After a brief spell in the Labour hinterland after losing her Durham seat in 2019, the former MP and Corbynite Laura Pidcock returned to frontline politics this year, after being elected to the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC). Unfortunately though it didn’t take long for the former Durham MP to once again indulge in the Labour left’s favourite pastime: factional infighting. At an NEC ‘away day’ today, Pidcock and 12 of her colleagues decided to stage a digital walkout of the Zoom meeting, after the committee elected Margaret Beckett to be chair of the committee. The group appeared to be particularly aggrieved that Beckett had described herself as a ‘moron’

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Another Tory revolt looms, this time on cladding

It’s becoming increasingly difficult for Boris Johnson to keep track of the many different revolts within his own party. There are the groups pressuring the government on its response to coronavirus, on its treatment of Northern seats, and on Brexit. Now there’s a new row brewing on a completely different matter: cladding. As Emma Byrne recently explained, this scandal has been building for months, but ministers seem to be doing very little about it. Currently, there are hundreds of thousands of people stuck in properties which have flammable cladding similar to that used on Grenfell Tower. Many of them are facing eye-watering bills of tens of thousands of pounds because

Katy Balls Katy Balls

How MPs lost their pay rise

When Rishi Sunak gets up at the despatch box tomorrow to announce his spending review, the Chancellor is expected to commit to a public sector pay freeze — with NHS workers exempt. Ever since this was first reported in the media, the idea has met heavy opposition from Labour while Tory politicians have had to get used to being asked on air why their own pay is set to go up at a time when the bulk of public sector workers’ pay is not. That well-trodden answer tends to go along the lines of ‘it’s a matter out of our control as Ipsa (the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority) sets MPs’ salaries’.

Monday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The problems with Boris Johnson’s ‘freedom pass’

In one of his early lockdown press conferences, the Prime Minister suggested that those who tested positive for Covid could be released from lockdown because they’d be immune. The idea of an ‘immunity certificate’ was then dropped, as it raised obvious questions of unfairness: would you really have a caste of immuno-privileged people exempt from the lockdown rules?  But now the idea seems to be back. The Sunday press reported on an Orwellian-sounding ‘freedom pass’ that would be granted to those who complied with a government-mandated testing regime. A source told the Sunday Telegraph that such a pass would ‘allow someone to wander down the streets and if someone else asks why

Steerpike Steerpike

Ian Blackford polices the border

In case you missed the memo, it’s now illegal to cross the border to Scotland unless you have a ‘reasonable excuse’ that meets the First Minister’s requirements. Nicola Sturgeon’s new law – which limits the number of people who can travel from England to Scotland – is said to be aimed at protecting public health north of the border.  Luckily Sturgeon has her close allies on standby to support her in policing this new restriction. Step forward Ian Blackford. The SNP’s leader in Westminster is so devoted to the cause that he has even taken to social media to look out for those who may have fallen foul. After a man posted

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Tiers until March, Boris tells MPs

Boris Johnson’s statement to the Commons announcing the end of the national lockdown was meant to hit an optimistic note. However, he faced two hurdles when it came to achieving this.  Firstly, his internet connection in No. 10 broke down and Johnson was cut off from MPs midway through the session. Secondly, the measures he announced in place of the national lockdown can’t really be described as a great liberation; social distancing is here for the foreseeable future. What’s more, those who find themselves in the new ramped up Tier 3 – with the tiers for each area to be announced on Thursday – could struggle to see much difference at all with what

Steerpike Steerpike

Corbyn’s Glastonbury blunder

Jeremy Corbyn is gone but at least we still have the memories. His son Tommy Corbyn shared one earlier from happier times, when Corbyn led the Labour party. Corbyn junior said watching his dad on stage at the festival was ‘one of the proudest moments of my life’: After Jeremy had finished speaking, he said, ‘one of the Glastonbury staff tapped me on the shoulder and said “you know he just got a bigger crowd than Rihanna’.  It was a touching moment, but Mr S spotted a problem. Rihanna has never played Glastonbury. Oh dear. Well, we’ll always have the memories…

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Boris Johnson’s Zoom nightmare

Oh dear. You would think with the Prime Minister still isolating (after coming into contact with a Covid-infected MP) that the Downing Street boffins would have set him up with a decent enough internet connection by now. Unfortunately though, it appears that the PM is still struggling when it comes to the tech. Boris Johnson dialled in virtually to Parliament today to announce his new tiered system for after lockdown. Only things started to go downhill rather quickly when the his audio cut out in the middle of an answer.  The Speaker of the House was left quizzing the PM to see if he’d hit the mute button, before eventually

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

A vaccine won’t solve all our Covid problems

Today’s Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine update has raised hopes that life in Britain could start getting back to normal by spring. But cheers in Downing Street didn’t extend to AstraZeneca’s share price, which fell by nearly three per cent in response to the news. Why the dip in the wake of such good news? AstraZeneca vaccine’s effectiveness – recorded at 70 per cent – is notably lower than its Pfizer and Moderna competitors. What’s more, the 70 per cent figure has been reached by averaging results from two groups who received the vaccine in different doses: a smaller group, who were given half a dose at first, recorded a 90 per cent efficiency rate, and

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Will Oxford’s vaccine bring back normality?

13 min listen

Oxford University’s vaccine could be up to 90 per cent effective, data from phase III trials shows today. With the UK government ordering 100 million doses of the jab, could it mean a return to normality is on the horizon? Katy Balls speaks to Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth.

Nick Tyrone Nick Tyrone

Why is Sadiq Khan talking London down?

Sadiq Khan’s powers as London mayor are relatively limited, but part of his remit is to act as a salesman for London. He is there to talk up the virtues of one of the greatest cities in the world. It was surprising then to see him concede at the weekend that we have to ‘accept the fact that there is potentially an existential threat to central London as we know it.’ This surely is the opposite of what the mayor of London should be saying at this moment in time. It also demonstrates why Sadiq Khan deserves to lose the election in May. Sadiq Khan already lost my vote months ago when he

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Oxford’s vaccine success could mean a return to normal by April

One consequence of the positive Oxford vaccine news this morning is that the UK will shift to a strategy of attempting to vaccinate as much of the adult population as possible. We know from NHS documents obtained by the Health Service Journal that the aim is to have 75 per cent of the population vaccinated by April. If this was the case, all social distancing measures could be ended that month, with even nightclubs open as before. The Oxford vaccine is particularly well suited to a mass vaccination programme. Unlike the Pfizer one, it can be stored at fridge temperature making distribution of it far easier. Rolling this vaccine out

John Connolly John Connolly

What will the new tiered system look like?

Anyone who was hoping that things would go back to normal when the national lockdown ends next month will be sorely disappointed today. This afternoon, Boris Johnson is expected to outline in Parliament a new tougher tiered system, which will come into force on 3 December, when the national lockdown ends. The Prime Minister is then expected to reveal which areas will be in each tier on Thursday, after consulting the latest coronavirus infection data. Most areas are expected to be moved into Tiers 2 and 3. So what will the new tiers actually involve? The papers report this morning that the rules on socialising will stay roughly the same

Sunday

Robert Peston Robert Peston

It will be a three-family, five-day Christmas

Nothing will be decided in a formal sense until all four nations of the United Kingdom are as one. And the decision is slightly harder because Northern Ireland’s leadership wants a Christmas consensus with Dublin. But it is looking highly probable that all four UK governments’ special Christmas exemption from coronavirus restrictions will allow us to socialise with people from two households in addition to our own household over five days beginning on 23rd of December and ending on 27th December. Or to put it another way, for those five days, a typical family will be able to enjoy festive meals indoors with both sets of grandparents, or two groups

Bruce Anderson

What if Thatcher won the 1990 leadership challenge?

Thirty years ago today, Margaret Thatcher was in 10 Downing Street. For almost eleven and a half years, it had been her home and her headquarters. There, she had planned the campaigns which transformed her country, and earned her the right to be ranked with Churchill. He, the greatest war leader: she, the greatest domestic one. But on 23 November 1990, everything was different. The previous day, she had resigned the Leadership of her party. Although she would still be Prime Minister for a few days, until the Tories had chosen a replacement, her principal task in that vestigial interlude was to pack up her possessions and prepare to move

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Keir Starmer should purge Labour of the far-left

Sir Keir Starmer was having such a good year. He broke cover early on to attack the government’s handling of Covid-19 and did so by speaking explicitly to traditional Tory voters. He repeatedly bested Boris Johnson at Prime Minister’s Questions and gave a good first conference speech in the job. He brought his party’s poll numbers to within a hairsbreadth of the Conservatives, just as Number 10 descended into the dullest soap opera this side of The Archers. Even that cringe photo of him and Angela Rayner taking a knee in the Shadow Cabinet room — like your parents after listening to Stormzy for the first time — can be