Politics

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

Friday

Katy Balls Katy Balls

What Boris Johnson’s coronavirus diagnosis means for the government

Boris Johnson has tested positive for coronavirus. The Prime Minister took a test for the virus on Thursday at the advice of Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty after experiencing mild symptoms. As a result Johnson is now self-isolating in 10 Downing Street, a spokesman said: ‘After experiencing mild symptoms yesterday, the Prime Minister was tested for coronavirus on the personal advice of England’s Chief Medical Officer, Professor Chris Whitty. The test was carried out in No 10 by NHS staff and the result of the test was positive. In keeping with the guidance, the Prime Minister is self-isolating in Downing Street. He is continuing to lead the government’s response to coronavirus.’ So,

Katy Balls Katy Balls

The Lisa Nandy Edition

30 min listen

Lisa Nandy is the Labour MP for Wigan and former shadow energy secretary. She is one of the remaining three contenders for Labour leader. On the podcast, she talks to Katy about her childhood ambitions, cross-party friendships, and the worst advice she’s ever been given.

Anthony Browne

Corbyn is wrong to say coronavirus proves the need for socialism

Jeremy Corbyn’s claim that the Conservative government’s economic response to the coronavirus package shows that his policies were right proves what an astonishingly poor grasp of economics he has. The economic rescue package has involved a massive increase in spending and borrowing, and also a temporary part nationalisation of people’s wages – both things he has argued for. But the circumstances are totally different and what helps in an unprecedented crisis can be massively damaging if carried out in normal times. In medicine, some life-saving treatments can be life-threatening if inflicted on a healthy patient. If someone’s heart has stopped, it can be right to put electric pads on their

Thursday

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

The Chancellor’s warning about the state of Britain’s finances

The Chancellor’s emergency package for the self-employed is one of the most generous schemes to be offered worldwide so far, covering up to 95 per cent of the UK’s self-employed workforce. The details of the scheme, explained here, include a taxable grant worth up to 80 per cent of one’s profits over the past three years, capped at £2,500pm – notably on par with salaried workers who earn, on average, £340 more each month than self-employed workers. There were plenty of potential pitfalls and unnecessary giveaways the Treasury managed to dodge: wary of dishing out cash to super-wealthy contractors and consultants, the Chancellor has only opened the scheme to workers trading with profits up to

Kieran Mullan

The front line: how the NHS is preparing for battle

39 min listen

How prepared is the NHS for the coming battle with coronavirus (1:20)? Plus, what will Britain look like after the epidemic (12:20)? And last, just how are children so good at make-believe (29:25)? With Dr Max Pemberton, Dr Kieran Mullan, James Forsyth, William Hague, Mary Wakefield and Piers Torday. Presented by Cindy Yu and Katy Balls. Produced by Cindy Yu and Gus Carter.

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Rishi Sunak offers support for self-employed – but there could be a sting in the tail

After a week of speculation, the Chancellor used today’s coronavirus press conference to unveil the government package to help the self-employed. Announcing the new measures, Rishi Sunak said that the reason for the delay had been the sheer complexity of having to come up with a new payment system that could cover such a diverse workforce and not fall victim to fraud.  The new self-employed income support scheme means the self-employed can receive up to £2,500 per month in grants for three months. Sunak said the package covers 95 per cent people who receive the majority of their income from self-employment. Those who are not eligible include individuals with company profits over £50,000 and

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Two ways the coronavirus crisis will change Britain’s relationship with China

Coronavirus, and the response to it, is going to change a lot of things about UK politics. Perhaps, the biggest shift will come in this country’s attitude to China. I write in the magazine this week that the desire for supply chain security, and particularly for medical goods, will lead to a national policy aim of manufacturing more here. In the same way that policy makers wanted to achieve ‘food security’ after World War Two, coronavirus will lead to a desire for ‘medical security’: that’ll mean the ability to produce medical equipment, vaccines and drugs here. When I asked one influential government figure what the most significant change brought about by

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Surge in US welfare claims shows the devastating impact of Covid-19

No one has modelled an economic lockdown before: no one knows what to expect. But the daily data is shocking, and points to a huge economic effect. In Britain, nearly 500,000 people applied for welfare (Universal Credit) over the last nine days. In America, the number of people applying for unemployment benefits surged to an unprecedented three million last week.  What has yet to be calculated (but urgently needs to be) is the human cost of all this We simply have not seen anything like this before, not even during the financial crash: the Covid crash has led to 3,283,000 claims – quadruple the previous record-high of around 700,000 in 1982. This

John Keiger John Keiger

‘Germany will pay!’ is Macron’s coronavirus mantra

In his broadcast to the nation ten days ago, president Macron tub-thumped his war campaign on coronavirus. Six times he repeated the word ‘war’. Yesterday, he visited the front: Mulhouse in Alsace, on the Franco-German border, where France’s largest virus cluster is overwhelming the region’s hospitals. Live TV saw him, masked up, in an army field hospital, surrounded by soldiers in combat gear. From there he spoke again to the nation. France, he intoned, was at war in this region, a region scarred by past wars. By remaining united France would defeat the coronavirus enemy. And he launched military ‘Operation Résilience’ to take the combat further. Macron’s advisors have allegedly been

Joanna Rossiter Joanna Rossiter

What does coronavirus mean for the climate ‘crisis’?

A strange thing happened as coronavirus reached Europe’s shores. Concepts like ‘net zero’ and ‘climate crisis’ which had previously dominated the agenda vanished overnight.  While the vast majority of people have accepted this change of tack in the fight against the virus, there have been some environmentalists who seem to be put out at seeing their cause shunted down the list of political priorities. Only this week, photos surfaced on Twitter of posters attributed to Extinction Rebellion (which denies any connection to what it calls a ‘fake account’) claiming that Covid-19 was an effective tool in reducing the size of the human race. ‘Corona is the cure, humans are the disease’, the

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

Why is coronavirus being used to try to change abortion laws?

Never let a good crisis go to waste, seems to be the approach of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service to the coronavirus pandemic. It has been promoting a couple of amendments to the Coronavirus Bill – two out of 14 – to allow women to take abortifacient pills at home rather than travel to a clinic to obtain the approval of two doctors, as required by law. At present, a pregnant woman in the first three months of pregnancy would take one of the pair of pills triggering the abortion in a clinic. The amendments, proposed by Liz Barker and Natalie Bennett in the Lords would have had the effect,

Wednesday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The good news that emerged from Boris’s coronavirus press conference

Today was Boris Johnson’s first press conference since announcing that people would only be allowed to leave their homes for a small number of state-sanctioned activities. But in a sign of how fast this crisis is moving, there were few questions on this. Instead, the focus was on testing and why the UK hasn’t managed to ramp it up yet. The government is most excited about the idea of an antibody test that would show who has had the virus. This would transform the situation: it would mean that NHS staff who had had coronavirus could carry on working even if they had symptoms, it would mean we would know

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

How reliable are the coronavirus figures?

The statistics – all of them – have become utterly meaningless, regardless of how dramatically they are presented in our newspapers. We have not been testing with anything like enough numbers to give a true picture of the spread. And so the death rate – not the actual numbers – is also meaningless and ranges from a ludicrous rate to next to nothing. Complicating the picture still further is the growing suspicion that many of us have already had the virus, in late January, and perhaps did not realise it.  These known unknowns, and unknown unknowns, suggest to me that this crisis will diminish rather quicker than many are suggesting.

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Jeremy Corbyn has one last go at overthrowing capitalism

Double bubble at PMQs. With MPs leaving Westminster a week early, the Speaker ruled that two sessions of PMQs should rub up against each other. It was a full one-hour grilling. Boris adopted his ‘Britain in wartime’ pose. He heaped every questioner with praise and gave his answers with theatrical solemnity. Asked about testing-rates, he offered good news on their increasing frequency. ‘From 5,000 to 10,000 to 25,000.’ Trouble is, he said that last week.  Jeremy Corbyn complained that the healthcare supply association is so short of bio-hazard suits that it has to beg for donations on Twitter. Luckily Boris had just come from a meeting with someone in a

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Jacob Rees-Mogg’s unlikely tribute to Jeremy Corbyn

As the House of Commons rises for a premature Easter recess, coronavirus continues to dominate all parliamentary business. However, today also marks Jeremy Corbyn’s final day in parliament as Labour leader – he put in his last Prime Minister’s Questions opposition performance this lunchtime.  While many in Corbyn’s own party won’t be sad to see him go, Jacob Rees-Mogg appears to take a different view. The Leader of the House gave an unlikely tribute to the departing Labour leader: ‘I perhaps have a particular admiration for him which may surprise him. When I was first elected to parliament, there was a distinguished figure who sat at the far end of the opposition benches –

Matthew Lynn

Self-employed workers richly deserve a coronavirus bail-out

It will be impossible to calculate. There will be widespread fraud. And there is no mechanism for sending out the money. As the Chancellor Rishi Sunak scratches around for ways to bail out the UK’s five million self-employed in the same way he has done for employees he faces plenty of obstacles. No doubt his Treasury officials have come up with a list of reasons why any scheme he comes up with won’t work in practise, will prove too expensive, will break the IT system, or can’t be implemented until 2029 at the earliest. But hold on. That’s crazy. In fact, the self-employed deserve their bail-out more than anyone. Sure, it

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Why MPs are talking about a government of national unity again

The idea of a government of national unity appeared to have died when Boris Johnson won a decisive majority of 80 in the December snap election. Prior to that, it was a topic that frequently dominated Theresa May’s premiership and the beginning of Johnson’s. Proponents argued that a government formed of senior figures from each party (sometimes sharing similar views) would be best placed to solve the Brexit conundrum. With Brexit wars now a distant memory thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, the idea has re-entered public debate over the government’s handling of the virus outbreak. A number of commentators have called in recent days for Johnson to be replaced by a team

Tuesday