Politics

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

Tuesday

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

Can the Tories really come together in Boris’s absence?

Sympathy for Conservative politicians rarely overwhelms their political opponents. But everyone with the interests of the country at heart (not to mention a modicum of human decency) should try to put themselves in their place. Imagine being a government minister. You are in a crisis like nothing you have encountered before. Unlike every political storm you’ve trudged through, the pandemic has no foreseeable end. A temporary emergency is one thing. Most people are capable of handling short-term privation, and can repeat dozens of clichés about the need to grit our teeth, tighten our belts and keep calm and carry on. But no government in the world has a viable coronavirus

Steerpike Steerpike

No. 10’s Trump snub

Donald Trump was one of the first world leaders to voice his support for poorly PM, wishing him a speedy recovery and calling Johnson ‘a great gentleman’. At last night’s White House press briefing, the US President went a step further, telling reporters that he had personally instructed private medical staff to assist Boris Johnson. Trump said: I’ve asked two of the leading companies… They’ve come with the solutions and just have done incredible jobs – and I’ve asked him to contact London immediately. They’ve really advanced therapeutics… and they have arrived in London already. The London office has whatever they need. We’ll see if we can be of help. We’ve contacted

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Boris Johnson ‘stable’ and not on a ventilator, No. 10 says

Boris Johnson has been stable overnight and is breathing without mechanical assistance, his official spokesman said this afternoon. He has received standard oxygen treatment and ‘remains in good spirits’. He does not have pneumonia. There have been questions over whether Downing Street had been overly reticent about quite how unwell the Prime Minister has been, and whether it was right that the full picture wasn’t on offer. The spokesman insisted that No. 10 has been ‘fully frank’ about the Prime Minister’s condition throughout and that the change yesterday from ‘in hospital as a precaution’ to Johnson being moved to intensive care was because his symptoms worsened yesterday afternoon. Raab will

Robert Peston Robert Peston

The nerve-wracking task of governing without the PM

I had been puzzling about why for most of the past 12 days, until last night, the PM and his advisers had been insisting – in tweets, short videos and statements – that he was still running the show, in spite of the evidence that he was seriously and worryingly under the weather. The answer, which is conspicuous this morning, is that although Dominic Raab has been asked by the PM to deputise for him when chairing important committees, including Cabinet, he is not ‘in charge’, in the way that a PM appointed by HM the Queen (and a Tory leader elected by Tory MPs and party members) would always

The Spectator

Full list: senior government figures affected by coronavirus

Boris Johnson, who has tested positive for coronavirus, was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit of St Thomas’ Hospital in London on Monday night, after his symptoms worsened. According to Number 10 officials on Monday, Boris remains conscious and was moved to the ward as a precaution in case he requires ventilation. The Times reports today that he has not been intubated and only needed four litres of oxygen – the normal threshold for intensive care is 15 litres. Below are the cabinet members and senior government figures who have also been impacted by the virus so far:  Boris Johnson, Prime MinisterTested positive for coronavirus – currently in hospitalMatt Hancock, Secretary of State for Health and

Ashoka Mody

The coronavirus crunch leaves Europe facing terrible choices

On February 28, I wrote a piece with a premonition: ‘Italy: the crisis that could go viral.’ On March 10, I did a follow-up with a more urgent message: ‘Italy will need a precautionary bailout—a financial firewall—as the coronavirus pushes it to the brink.’ A lifetime has passed since then and the incoming data for Europe and, especially, Italy, is grimmer than anyone could have anticipated. But the framework that guided the economic and financial analysis of my two earlier pieces remains a useful way of tracking this unfolding crisis. These are its four elements: Besides the widespread and persistent domestic economic shock, as in the great influenza pandemic, the

Monday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Prime Minister taken into intensive care

Last night, Downing Street announced that Boris Johnson is now in intensive care at St Thomas’ Hospital after his condition deteriorated. He is not on a ventilator currently but has been moved there in case he needs one.  This is the statement from No. 10: Since Sunday evening, the Prime Minister has been under the care of doctors at St Thomas’ Hospital, in London, after being admitted with persistent symptoms of coronavirus. Over the course of this afternoon, the condition of the Prime Minister has worsened and, on the advice of his medical team, he has been moved to the Intensive Care Unit at the hospital. The PM has asked

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Dominic Raab kicks coronavirus exit strategy into the long grass

After Boris Johnson’s admission to hospital, Dominic Raab tried to use Monday’s daily press conference to reassure the public that the Prime Minister was still firmly in charge: ‘I can tell you that the PM had a comfortable night in hospital, and he’s in good spirits. He’s still in hospital under observation. He is being given regular updates on developments, and he continues to lead the government. I can reassure the British people that the Government remains united in a single overriding priority, which is to defeat the coronavirus and see this nation through the challenge ahead.’ However, the message was complicated by the Q and A. Raab – who as first secretary of

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Who is running the government?

16 min listen

With Boris Johnson currently hospitalised with no sign of release any time soon, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab is the ‘designated survivor’. But at today’s press conference, he admitted he hadn’t spoken to Boris Johnson since Saturday. So who is running the government?

Robert Peston Robert Peston

What will a coronavirus ‘exit strategy’ look like?

At the daily press briefings of senior ministers, the medical and the scientific advisers, there is a reluctance to talk about a timescale for an ‘exit strategy’ from these unprecedentedly severe restrictions on our freedom to move around and see people – and even to discuss what that strategy might look like. The understandable priority is to get us to commit wholeheartedly to the surrender of these basic rights so that the incidence of the virus can be slashed and many lives can be saved. Among the senior medical and scientific advisers, who seem to be steering pretty much everything right now, any initiatives that aren’t about immediate virus suppression

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Is Keir Starmer’s shadow cabinet really a rejection of Corbynism?

On the surface, Keir Starmer’s new shadow cabinet looks like a rejection of Corbynism. Over the past 24 hours, the new Labour leader has sacked most of his predecessor’s allies such as Ian Lavery, Richard Burgon, Shami Chakrabarti and Dawn Butler. But if you run through the list of appointments, and the names of those who remain, this is still a reshuffle designed not to upset Jeremy Corbyn’s allies. There hasn’t been a full clear out, but the faces remaining are largely figures who were never really associated with Corbynism to begin with. Emily Thornberry is still in, but despite being very loyal to the leader, she was never a

The Spectator

Full list: Keir Starmer’s new Shadow Cabinet

Keir Starmer, the newly elected leader of the Labour party, has taken no prisoners with his cabinet reshuffle. Corbyn allies like Richard Burgon are out, and Ed Miliband is back. Here is the full make-up of Starmer’s top team: Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer: Anneliese DoddsFormerly: John McDonnell An Oxford PPE graduate, Dodds is a long time supporter of Starmer’s leadership campaign. She has served as a shadow Treasury minister since July 2017. She had even been tipped for promotion by the former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell in early March, as he said he was ‘hoping she gets a significant role in the new administration’. Dodds is the first woman to be

Katy Balls Katy Balls

How Dominic Raab ended up as de facto deputy

Following the Prime Minister’s admission to hospital on Sunday, Boris Johnson remains in St Thomas’s hospital ‘for observation’. While a No. 10 spokesman insists that he remains in ‘good spirits’ and continues to be in touch with colleagues, questions remain when it comes to whether he will be forced to take a few days out for his recovery. Downing Street has been at pains to say that Johnson remains in charge but in truth his de facto deputy Dominic Raab is already taking on an increased role behind the scenes. The Foreign Secretary chaired the morning coronavirus meeting with the heads of each sub-committee. When Raab was first announced as the so-called ‘designated

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Can Boris really run the country from his hospital bed?

Despite many of his colleagues urging him to take a step back and rest now that he is in hospital, Boris Johnson is continuing to receive his red box of papers while being treated for the persistent symptoms of coronavirus. The Prime Minister’s official spokesman told journalists this lunchtime that the PM ‘remains in charge of the government’, that he has been in touch with No. 10 colleagues, and that he ‘had a comfortable night and he is in good spirits’. Given how sick patients tend to be by the time they are admitted to hospital, it sounds rather odd that the Prime Minister is really attempting to work while

Steerpike Steerpike

Richard Burgon’s greatest hits, 2015-2020

So long Richard Burgon. Yes, Keir Starmer has decided to ‘stand down’ the would-be firebrand. Since Jeremy Corbyn appointed him as a shadow minister in 2015, the dedicated socialist has been a regular source of entertainment to Westminster watchers. So it is with some sadness that Mr S sees him returned to the Labour backbenches.  With that in mind, let’s take a look at his greatest hits: 1. Burgon’s bumbling response to anti-Zionism allegations The former frontbencher took umbrage with newspaper suggestions that he had called Zionism the ‘enemy of peace’, claiming that he had never uttered those words. So he was left somewhat redfaced when footage emerged of him saying

William Clouston

The man who defined Labour’s forgotten past

To read this long-overdue and welcome biography of Peter Shore is to undergo a journey from Labour’s eurosceptic heights in the 1960s to its demise as a party of the nation state in the 1990s. Titled Labour’s Forgotten Patriot, patriotism is a theme which constantly recurs and, to a considerable extent, defined Shore’s political life. Peter Shore has been a rather neglected figure. This is odd since he had considerable influence over Labour politics for two decades and was probably the staunchest defender of Britain’s independence. A Cambridge Apostle, rising star in the Labour Research Department of the 1950s and part author of three consecutive Labour general election manifestos, Shore came

Matthew Lynn

Anneliese Dodds isn’t the woman to steer Labour back to economic sanity

In some ways we will miss John McDonnell. His reheated 1970s student union Trotskyism was always an easy target for a column. From free broadband, to nationalising great swathes of industry, to raising taxes to punitive levels, and banning just abut anything he disapproved of, he managed to come up with a constant stream of terrible ideas. But, hey, never mind. Now there is Anneliese Dodds. The new shadow chancellor may be painted in some places as representing a shift back towards the moderate centre. And yet while she may have endeared herself to working parents on lockdown everywhere with her daughter’s impromptu appearance on Sky News this morning, we

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Government adviser: mass antibody test ‘at least a month’ away

With pressure growing on the government to forge an exit plan out of the current lockdown, antibody tests have been regularly cited by ministers and officials as a means to return to some form of normality. Boris Johnson says a home testing kit which would identify whether an individual has suffered from the disease – and therefore has some form of immunity – would be ‘a game changer’. The government has ordered millions of such tests on the condition that they work.  However, news today from an academic advising the government on antibody testing makes clear that those hoping for a quick resolution are to be left disappointed. Professor Sir John Bell, of Oxford

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: New Shadow Chancellor’s daughter gate-crashes her interview

Labour MP Anneliese Dodds was thrown in at the deep-end yesterday, after it was announced that she had been appointed Shadow Chancellor by the new Labour leader, Keir Starmer. Dodds has never held a top Shadow Cabinet position before, and has only been an MP since 2017. But in the end it was working from home with children in the house, that presented Dodds with her first challenge to navigate. In her first broadcast round as Shadow Chancellor this morning, Dodds was being interviewed on Sky News, when an unannounced visitor strolled into the background of her video to see what was going on. Happily the situation was deftly handled