Politics

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

Thursday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Could local lockdowns cost Boris Johnson the north?

When the lockdown tiers are announced, it is inevitable that huge swathes of the north will be under much tighter restrictions than the south. It is not hard to see how a divided Britain translates into political trouble, as I say in the magazine this week. Labour and northern leaders will claim that support packages would be more generous — and the situation better handled — if it was the south that was bearing the brunt. ‘It’ll be like flooding,’ warns one cabinet minister. ‘People will say: they’d take it more seriously if it was happening in Surrey.’ There’s a Tory worry that this situation could provide Labour with a

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Who won the VP debate?

15 min listen

Democratic Senator Kamala Harris and vice-president Mike Pence yesterday battled it out in the VP debate. Ms Harris accused the Trump administration of ‘ineptitude’ and ‘incompetence’ in its response to coronavirus, while Mr Pence said Biden’s plans to tackle climate change would ‘crush American jobs’. But who came out on top? Freddy Gray speaks to Kate Andrews.

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

The collapse of the Cambridge Analytica conspiracy theory

So there you have it. Cambridge Analytica was ‘not involved’ in the 2016 EU referendum. The digital marketing firm that Remainers love to hate did not swing the British electorate towards Leave, as we were constantly told. In the words of the Guardian, no doubt uttered through gritted teeth, Cambridge Analytica did not ‘directly misuse data to influence the Brexit referendum’. These are the conclusions of the Information Commissioner’s extensive three-year investigation into Cambridge Analytica. Throwing a big bucket of cold water on the chattering-class belief that Cambridge Analytica stealthily and probably illegally harvested people’s online data in order to manipulate our minds and make us vote Leave, the Information

The Spectator

Now the Tories must make it their mission to repair the country

The centrepiece of Boris Johnson’s speech to Tory party conference this year was his Damascene conversion to the merits of wind farms. Some people used to sneer and say wind power wouldn’t pull the skin off a rice pudding, he said — referring, of course, to himself, writing in 2013. Now, his post-Covid plan for Britain is wind farms powering every home by the end of the decade. But the Prime Minister was right first time. When he was dismissing wind power, it was eye-wateringly expensive and was forecast to stay that way for the foreseeable future. No one envisaged, then, how global competition and technology would force prices down.

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Veeps shall inherit the earth

‘Who am I? Why am I here?’ That was how Vice Admiral James Stockdale began the 1992 televised vice-presidential debate. It’s now regarded as a famous gaffe, yet Stockdale’s questions reflect the way most viewers feel about ‘veep’ debates. Who are these people? Why am I watching? Four years ago, 37 million Americans tuned in to watch now Vice President Mike Pence argue with Senator Tim Kaine, Hillary Clinton’s running mate. Even the most ardent followers of American politics would struggle to remember a single phrase. Last night felt different. It’s hard to claim that Pence, the Vice President, vs Kamala Harris, the running mate of former vice president Joe

Charles Clover

How to stop trawling from trashing the North Sea

Recently Greenpeace dropped a boatload of granite boulders on to Dogger Bank, a permanent threat to any boat that attempts to drag a trawl net across the sandy sea-bottom. One of the biggest boulders had my name painted on it, because Greenpeace asked and I said yes. And in saying yes, I crossed a line that I have never crossed before in 40 years of writing about the environment. I joined the activists, in I hope a measured way, because it’s so very important to give the North Sea a chance to revive itself. Dogger Bank is the ecological heart of the North Sea and it played a large part

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Divided nation: will Covid rules tear the country apart?

‘From this evening, I must give the British people a very simple instruction — you must stay at home,’ Boris Johnson declared on 23 March. At the beginning of the pandemic, when infection levels first began to rise, the country was all in it together. The prescription was a national one, and the Prime Minister could speak to the nation as one. Though infection levels have begun to surge again, the restrictions are now specific and local. The PM can no longer address the country as a whole, and this poses a problem for him. Last time, at least, there could be no claims that the Tories were favouring one

Wednesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The SNP’s deepening Salmond scandal

Tiresome things, words. And it is even more tiresome when people insist they retain their traditional meanings. Thus I suppose one may sympathise with Peter Murrell, chief executive of the SNP and — for this is not irrelevant to the subject being discussed here — husband to Nicola Sturgeon. In January 2019, Alex Salmond was arrested by Scottish police officers and charged with 14 offences, chiefly of a sexual nature. Salmond was later, as we all know by now, acquitted on all counts that eventually made it to court (though one of those, a charge of sexual assault with intent to rape, was found not proven). But on the day

Katy Balls Katy Balls

What’s behind Sturgeon’s coronavirus crackdown?

12 min listen

Nicola Sturgeon today announced that 3.4 million Scots will be placed under increased Covid restrictions, with bars and restaurants shutting across a central belt which includes Glasgow and Edinburgh. What’s behind the crackdown, and could similar measures be announced in England? Katy Balls speaks to Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth.

Christopher Snowdon

Nicola Sturgeon’s Covid prohibition

So now we know the threshold at which Nicola Sturgeon pulls the trigger. If the number of daily hospital admissions for Covid-19 exceeds a tenth of the number recorded at the April peak, she will lay waste to the hospitality industry. From Friday, all pubs and licensed restaurants in Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Lanarkshire, Forth Valley, Lothian and Ayrshire and Arran – where two-thirds of Scots live – will be forced to shut their doors for at least sixteen days. So too will snooker clubs, casinos, bowling alleys and bingo halls. In the rest of Scotland, pubs and restaurants will be allowed to serve food and soft drinks – but

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

PMQs: Starmer flaps as Boris adapts

Well that was different. Boris arrived at PMQs as if he were modelling for one of his cartoons. The strands of his famous hairdo were standing up like the quills of a cornered hedgehog. Had he just placed his thumb in a power-socket to get an energy boost? Sir Keir was waiting for him, inscrutable, serpent-like, coiled for the kill. Right now the Labour leader has a host of juicy attack-lines to choose from. But Sir Keir loves a problem crammed with facts and figures and intricate chronologies. Today he and his super-wonks had found just the sort of issue they crave. The test-and-trace system managed to lose 16,000 positive

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Queen comes to Rishi’s rescue

Rishi Sunak received a fair amount of flak this week, after ITV reported that he’d told struggling musicians to retrain and find other jobs. The Chancellor appeared to actually be speaking more generally to the broadcaster about job losses when he said that ‘I can’t pretend that everyone can do exactly the same job that they were doing at the beginning of this crisis.’ But that did not stop a troupe of outraged musicians calling for Sunak’s head, with DJ Calvin Harris even piling in on the Chancellor. Sunak should fear not though, at least one member of the music aristocracy still has his back. Today, Brian May of Queen

Matthew Lynn

The great Bounce Back fraud bonanza

Fake companies set up under false names. Phantom employees invented to claim compensation. Start-ups trousering loans for ventures that don’t exist. Meals that were never eaten. The British economy has been in a bad place for the last six months. But it turns out one small corner of the economy has been flourishing: defrauding the public purse. The Chancellor’s extraordinarily generous range of schemes to keep businesses afloat may have been necessary to prevent a complete collapse in output. But they have also proved a bonanza for spivs, chancers and con men, and that too will have a cost. We learned today that the ‘Bounce Back’ loan scheme may well

Katy Balls Katy Balls

PMQs: Starmer sets a Covid trap for Johnson

The next battle over coronavirus restrictions is shaping up to be the 10 p.m. hospitality curfew. Sir Keir Starmer raised the issue at Prime Minister’s Questions this afternoon, asking Boris Johnson whether he was able to provide any scientific evidence for the measures — which mean all restaurants and bars must close by 10 o’clock. The Prime Minister responded by saying the case for the curfew remains the same as it was when Labour supported the policy two weeks ago.  While Johnson managed to successfully use the session to highlight Labour uncertainty over certain measures — from the curfew to the rule of six — today’s outing also laid the groundwork for Starmer to cause

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Are Biden’s poll numbers really soaring?

10 min listen

The latest national poll from CNN puts Joe Biden 16 points ahead of Donald Trump. Has the President’s short stint in hospital dented his re-election chances, or is an unsettled news cycle and an unrepresentative sample skewing the numbers? Freddy Gray speaks to Marcus Roberts, director of international projects at YouGov.

Robert Peston Robert Peston

Ministers close to closing northern pubs and restaurants

We are at a critical moment in the second surge of coronavirus. Ministers, scientists and officials are deeply concerned about the rate at which Covid-19 is increasing in the North West, North East and Yorkshire and Humberside: they believe the daily quantum of infection is doubling every five to seven days in large chunks of northern England. They see the course of the virus as very similar to what happened in Italy in the first phase of the illness, where infections were concentrated in the north. Ministers are therefore feeling their way towards imposing more severe restrictions on socialising in those areas. They are likely to impose closure of all hospitality

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Will the British judiciary finally stand up to China?

Broadly speaking, there are two ways to respond to Communist China’s national security law. First, there is the Tony Chung way. Chung, a 19-year-old activist, set up a pro-independence movement and became the first person arrested under the repressive legislation, imposed on Hong Kong by Beijing’s dictators earlier this year. Then there is the Lord Hodge way. The deputy president of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom (SCOTUK) has been appointed to the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal (HKCFA) and as such may help to apply the national security law. Lord Hodge is not the first British jurist to take up a non-permanent post on the special administrative

Tuesday

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Is Trump really ‘feeling great’?

14 min listen

A Covid-positive Donald Trump returned to the White House yesterday evening after spending 72 hours at the Walter Reed hospital. After landing on the south lawn in a helicopter, the President removed his mask and waved to the media below, flanked by American flags. He later tweeted: ‘FEELING GREAT!’ But has Trump really recovered? Freddy Gray speaks to Amber Athey.

Patrick O’Flynn Patrick O'Flynn

Can Boris Johnson solve the Tory lockdown split?

The great Pixar animated film ‘Monsters, Inc.’ tells the story of Sulley, a fluffy-haired, broad-shouldered and rather cuddly monster who creates energy by scaring children in their beds but then discovers that vastly more energy can be generated by making them laugh instead. I offer this not as a rival to Boris Johnson’s new plan to make wind energy power the whole of Britain by ‘harvesting the gusts’, but because it has lately seemed to many observers that the Prime Minister has been on a reverse journey to that undertaken by Sulley. The tousled, broad-shouldered Boris started his Tory leadership generating political energy by means of cheering us all up