Politics

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

Friday

Steerpike Steerpike

Corbyn fundraiser tops £120,000

Who would have thought that a man worth a reported £3 million would need a donation page? Apparently, his supporters do. After suggestions that Panorama journalist John Ware could take legal action against the former Labour leader, Corbynites have taken it upon themselves to set up a fund to help Jeremy in case of a legal dispute. The page has already received over £120,000 in donations. You’ve got to hand it to the Corbynistas; it’s an impressive last-ditch attempt to stay relevant.

Katy Balls Katy Balls

The rise of the Red Wall ‘WhatsApp Warriors’

As Boris Johnson marks a year in Downing Street, one of his biggest achievements to date had been the destruction of Labour’s red wall. In the 2019 election, the Prime Minister succeeded in turning many seats in the Midlands and North blue for the first time. At cabinet this week, he referred to them as his ‘blue wall’ MPs, a nod to his desire to keep the once Labour heartlands Tory. However, as I say in this week’s magazine, the new intake’s first few months have been bumpy and this has repercussions for party management. The 2019 intake barely had time to set up their offices before they were sent back to

Thursday

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

What is Russia’s plan to unleash chaos?

39 min listen

As the long-awaited Russia report is released this week, we discuss Russia’s plan to unleash chaos (00:45). Plus, does Boris Johnson have a management problem with his new MPs? (14:30) And last, the pains of dating during lockdown (28:30). With Russia journalists Owen Matthews and Mary Dejevsky; the Spectator’s deputy political editor Katy Balls; Conservative Home’s editor Paul Goodman; Sunday Telegraph columnist Madeline Grant; and author James Innes-Smith. Presented by Cindy Yu. Produced by Cindy Yu and Pete Humphreys.

Steerpike Steerpike

How to avoid being heckled: A guide by Boris Johnson

#BorisFarewellTour. That’s the hashtag that has been trending on Twitter all morning as the Prime Minister headed north of the border to try and salvage the Union. His journey around Scotland began this morning in the Northern Isles of Orkney to a less than enthusiastic response. So how does a leader go about a tour to ‘save the Union’ in a country where your net approval ratings are -100? Mr S thinks Boris’s team has found the answer: Find safety in the serene (and empty) countryside of Orkney to deliver his press conference. This isn’t so far removed from Johnson’s old election tactics when the Prime Minister abandoned three campaign

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Nicola Sturgeon’s care homes catastrophe

Nicola Sturgeon is fond of telling Scots that the prevalence of Covid-19 is ‘five times lower’ in Scotland than in England. Or at least she was, until the Office for Statistics Regulation released a statement calling her data source ‘unclear’ and adding that ‘we do not yet have evidence to support the validity of these comparisons’. The SNP has been retailing the notion that Sturgeon’s response to the pandemic far outstrips that of Boris Johnson. The public may be on her side, but the facts are not. One of the starkest — and deadliest — failures in handling coronavirus has been the Scottish Government’s care homes strategy. Initially at least,

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Can Johnson save the Union?

‘UK Prime Minister visits Scotland’ shouldn’t really be a news story. But so infrequent have prime ministerial visits been in recent years that it is. The fact it is news that the Prime Minister is in Scotland today has allowed Nicola Sturgeon to fire off a bunch of rather sarcastic tweets about how, given his polling numbers, Johnson’s visit is a birthday present to her. No. 10’s aim should be to make prime ministerial visits to Scotland so frequent that they cease to be regarded as events in and of themselves. But the battle for the Union must not just be fought in Scotland. At the 1922 committee last night, Johnson

Steerpike Steerpike

Corbynites turn on Starmer

As MPs head home for the holidays, Keir Starmer goes into the recess having put clear water between himself and his predecessor. As well as apologising to anti-Semitism whistleblowers, Starmer declared at Prime Minister’s Questions that the party was under ‘new management’. That management appears to be landing well with voters –  with Starmer leading over Boris Johnson on the question of who would make the best prime minister in a recent Opinium poll. So, surely the Labour party is delighted with the turn in fortunes since that disastrous election result in December? Alas, not. Rather than this being viewed as the nail in the coffin for the Corbyn project, several devoted activists are predicting disaster

James Forsyth James Forsyth

How long will we have to wear masks for?

From tomorrow, you’ll have to wear a mask in shops as well as on public transport. There is a case to be made for masks at this point in time, both in terms of slowing the spread of the virus and giving people the confidence to go out. But one of the things that does, understandably, worry people is that this temporary measure could become permanent – just think of income tax. It is one thing to be required to wear a mask now, but quite another for it to become a part of our everyday wear for decades to come. All of which makes a parliamentary answer from the Department

Daniel DePetris

Is Trump toning himself down for re-election?

The last time a U.S. President lost re-election, the year was 1992 and the victim was George H.W. Bush. President Donald Trump is currently doing everything in his power to make sure he isn’t the first incumbent in 28 years to vacate the White House after a single, four-year term; if that means ditching the improvisation and unconventionality he wears on his lapel every day, so be it. That Trump gave two consecutive press conferences, on 21 and 22 July, about the coronavirus now rampaging the American South and West is not surprising. You may remember this past April, when Trump and his advisers thought it would be a good

The Spectator

New fault lines are appearing in the EU

Anyone who imagined that the departure of Britain would make for more harmonious EU summits in future will have been disabused of this belief by the four days of meetings to establish an EU coronavirus recovery fund, which came within an hour of being the longest on record. Agreement was reached on a €750 billion package — just over half of which will be made up of grants and the rest loans — but not before the French President, Emmanuel Macron, had reportedly thumped the table and accused a group of countries of putting the entire European project at risk through their refusal to sign for an even higher sum.

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

Is it too late to jump on the gold bandwagon?

The price of gold has been rising since the earliest virus reports from China in December. Adherents regard it as a hedge against inflation, bad government, economic turmoil, weak currencies and negative real returns on financial alternatives, all of which are present threats. For pessimists, this week’s headlines — above-inflation pay rises for 900,000 UK public-sector workers, the EU’s €750 billion debt-fuelled recovery package, the WHO’s report of 260,000 new Covid cases in a single day — all represent arguments for this ultimate safe-haven holding. Too late to jump on the bandwagon? I’m no natural pessimist and (as I’m about to reveal) I’m a hit-and-miss forecaster, but I do see

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Boris’s red wall problem

When Boris Johnson met with his cabinet in person for the first time in four months on Tuesday, his aim was simple: to boost morale. He was conscious that the replacement of normal meetings with virtual ones had led to ministers feeling muted. He believed that giving everyone some face-to-face time would help, and pushed hard for an actual meeting. Johnson won that argument, even if the cabinet did have to meet in the faded grandeur of the Foreign Office’s Locarno Suite to allow everyone to be socially distanced. This is not what Johnson’s team envisaged when he won his 80-seat majority in December. They assumed with a majority that

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Could Scotland sink the Johnson dream?

When the cabinet met on Tuesday in the Locarno Suite of the Foreign Office, one item was top of the agenda: the Union. The reason? Over the past four months, support for both Nicola Sturgeon and Scottish independence has risen. There is genuine worry in government that a few wrong moves could see Scotland on a path to independence. ‘It’s the biggest single threat to the stability of this government,’ warns a minister. In order to prevent this a plan is underway. Boris Johnson is visiting Scotland today where he will outline new funding while there will be wider efforts to visibly strengthen ties between Westminster and the devolved governments.

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The end of lockdown is just the start of the domestic abuse crisis

The number of people – particularly women – seeking help for domestic violence soared during the coronavirus lockdown. We’ve known that for a while. But there has been an assumption that as lockdown eases, so will the pressure for abuse victims. New figures from the charity Refuge suggest that this assumption is wrong.  There has been an assumption that as lockdown eases, so will the pressure for abuse victims In June, the National Domestic Violence Helpline saw a 77 per cent increase in calls, while there was a 54 per cent rise in the number of women needing a place in a refuge from the last week in June to the

Wednesday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Boris Johnson’s post-Covid agenda

Boris Johnson’s end of term address to Tory MPs offered a preview of what the government wants its agenda to be this autumn. He told the backbench 1922 committee that his generation had ‘had it far, far easier’ in terms of getting on the housing ladder. He argued that they had to ‘build, build, build’ to ensure that the younger generation had the same opportunities. He emphasised that nothing could be more Conservative than that.  If the virus remains in retreat, the government will be able to turn to this new agenda The Prime Minister’s tone suggests that he is preparing to face down any backbench opposition to the government’s

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

PMQs: Boris and Keir scrap over Corbyn’s legacy

There was an urgent question about jobs at PMQs today. One job in particular. The questioner, Maria Miller, was concerned that she hadn’t yet been hired to head a government department. She made her bid for promotion by strewing petals and scented bouquets at Boris’s feet. She reminded us that on Friday, 24 July, the nation will celebrate the first anniversary of his outstanding leadership. She hailed his genius as a recruiter of cops and nurses. She extolled his mission to tackle ‘the regional inequalities we still have in this country’. And she described his feelgood phrase, ‘levelling up’, as a ‘vision’ which, she hoped, would guide him ‘through every

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Starmer vs Corbyn

14 min listen

Keir Starmer was keen to put clear blue water between himself and Corbyn’s Labour party today, on both the apology to anti-Semitism whistleblowers and the Russia report. Will this cut through to the voters? Cindy Yu talks to James Forsyth and Katy Balls.

Tracey Brown and Carl Heneghan

Boris Johnson needs to be more open about Covid’s risks

The Prime Minister wants us back to normal by Christmas. If he is serious, then his government needs to take a big step forward in how it communicates evidence on Covid-19 with the public. Every day we get new insights about the coronavirus from research and statistics. Yet, for some reason, the government is holding its cards close to its chest about how it is assessing new scientific developments, and how this may affect policy decisions. Government communications currently seem to avoid telling people where their risks from Covid are actually low. There is a general reluctance to speak openly about how risk is assessed and the trade-offs there are

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Starmer uses PMQs to put distance between himself and Corbyn

In the last Prime Minister’s Questions before the summer recess, Keir Starmer put the most distance between himself and his predecessor to date. On the day the Labour party agreed to pay damages to seven former employees who sued the party in an anti-Semitism row, the Labour leader used his appearance opposite Johnson to make a statement that the party has changed since the days of Corbynism.  When Starmer asked the Prime Minister whether Russia Today’s licence ought to be revoked in light of the ISC Russia report, Johnson suggested he was on tricky ground going on the attack over Russia Today given the number of times Jeremy Corbyn had appeared on it.