Politics

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

Monday

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

The shameful hounding of Carrie Symonds

Who’s really harassing Carrie Symonds? We have no proof that her boyfriend Boris Johnson is. One surreptitiously recorded late-night row does not add up to evidence of an abusive relationship. But we have plenty of proof that leftists are. That’s the great irony of the Boris-tape controversy: Boris-bashers claim merely to be concerned for Ms Symonds’ welfare but in truth many of them seem hell-bent on making her life a misery. Ask yourself what kind of person puts up posters outside a young woman’s flat mocking her lover. That’s what some of Ms Symonds’ neighbours have done. They attached posters to metal railings showing Boris looking ridiculous, alongside the words:

Steerpike Steerpike

Snap election? Brexit party interviews parliamentary candidates

The current competition to become leader of the Conservative party and prime minister may be dominating the papers at the moment, but it’s clear that some parties are already thinking about the next race to Number 10. Mr S understands that the Brexit party are stepping up their preparations for a general election this week, and are interviewing potential parliamentary candidates today. The party plans to pick 650 candidates to contest every single seat in the next UK election, to capitalise on its recent success in the European elections (which saw it win the most seats in the UK) and current polling, which puts it close behind or ahead of

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Jeremy Hunt capitalises on Boris Johnson’s troubles

When Jeremy Hunt was announced as the candidate who would join Boris Johnson in the final two for the Tory leadership contest members’ vote, there were cheers amongst members of the Johnson camp. The view was that, unlike Gove, Hunt would prove a gentle opponent who Boris would have little bother shrugging off. However, after a weekend of bad headlines for the former mayor of London involving a late night incident with his girlfriend Carrie Symonds, that theory can now be called into question. Johnson refused at the first membership hustings to say why police were called to Symonds’s flat in the early hours of Friday. While that refusal went

Sunday

Matthew Taylor

Sunday Shows Roundup: Nicola Sturgeon – Boris Johnson would be ‘disastrous’ for the Tories

Nicola Sturgeon – Boris Johnson will be ‘disastrous’ for Conservatives This morning Sophy Ridge interviewed the Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, and the discussion soon turned to the race for who will be the UK’s next Prime Minister. True to form, Sturgeon did not hold back when giving her estimation of frontrunner Boris Johnson: .@NicolaSturgeon tells #Ridge that @BorisJohnson is seen in Scotland as one of the "principle politicians who are responsible for the mess we are in over Brexit". Follow the latest on Sunday politics here: https://t.co/2UHrk8F7tZ pic.twitter.com/Oz408GvOqA — Politics Hub with Sophy Ridge (@SkyPoliticsHub) June 23, 2019 NS: I think he will be devastating, disastrous for the Conservatives

Lucy Vickery

Spectator competition winners: ‘The hour is come: Now, Gods, stand up for Boris!’ (Shakespearean soliloquies from would-be prime ministers)

For the latest literary challenge you were invited to submit a Shakespearean soliloquy delivered by one of the contenders for the Tory leadership in which they consider their pitch for the top job. During the 2016 leadership contest, Shakespearean references were flying round. Alex Salmond likened Michael Gove to ‘Lord Macbeth’, and when Boris Johnson announced his withdrawal from the scrum he paraphrased the words of Brutus, saying that now was ‘a time not to fight against the tide of history but to take that tide at the flood and sail on to fortune’. This time round, Boris has — so far, at least — been publicly reticent and most

Saturday

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Holyrood’s trans rights pause is a good thing

A revolution stopped in its tracks is an uncanny sight. After impatiently pursuing reforms to the Gender Recognition Act (GRA), the Scottish Government has suddenly hit the brakes. Shirley-Anne Somerville, SNP social security minister, announced the halt in a statement to the Scottish Parliament on Thursday. Although Nicola Sturgeon, at her minister’s side for support, remains committed to ditching medical diagnosis in favour of self-identification, she has made substantial concessions to feminist dissenters.  The proposed three-month wait for a gender recognition certificate will be extended by a ‘mandatory three-month reflection period’. The 16-week public consultation held in 2018 will be superseded by a ‘full consultation on the precise details‘ of

Ross Clark Ross Clark

There’s no denying the Boris tape was politically motivated

A neighbour records a domestic row through the wall of their flat, takes the recording to a newspaper which then publishes details of the conversation. I wonder what The Guardian would have made of that in 2011 when it was on its crusade against press intrusion which led to the Leveson Inquiry – especially had the newspaper been a red-top. Eight years ago, it was hacking into the messages on mobile phones which caused the controversy – a practice which led to criminal trials and a comprehensive, judge-led inquiry into the ethics of the press. Is it really any less offensive to record a conversation through the walls of a

James Kirkup James Kirkup

This tape will always threaten Boris Johnson

It’s not hard to work out the ‘lines to take’ that are being handed out from Boris Johnson’s team to his surrogates in politics and the media after the police were called to the flat he’s been living in. ‘It’s a private matter. It’s an invasion of privacy. The neighbour who taped the incident, called the cops and tipped The Guardian (yes, The Guardian) clearly has an agenda. This is the same sort of smear they’ve tried against poor old Mark Field. All couples have rows. It was just a domestic. Besides, women commit at least as much domestic violence as men.’ I won’t bother to record here my contempt

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

Boris has to get out of Camberwell

Well! Just when it looked like the only political question anyone would be talking about is the start of the leadership hustings, what do you know? All anyone can think about is Boris Johnson’s row with his girlfriend on Thursday night. The one police were called to. Just after he’d seen off Michael Gove and the leadership contest seemed pretty well sewn up, now this: a proper row a plate-throwing, loud enough for the neighbours to hear every word sort of row. For anyone who hasn’t actually read the details, here’s the Mail’s account: ‘Neighbours told last night how they heard plates and glasses smashing during a “proper tear-up” at

Max Hastings

History will wonder how we trusted Boris with Britain

I am besieged by media folk asking when I shall make good on a four-year-old threat to flee to Buenos Aires should Boris Johnson become prime minister. How can I get on to a flight, I ask, when so many other voters are already waitlisted? In truth, however, we are being served successive courses in a national banquet of self-harm, too grisly to merit jokes. Nobody should blame Johnson for wanting to be prime minister: many unsuitable people do. But there will be infinite historical curiosity about how the Tory parliamentary party could scramble to deliver Britain into the custody of a man whom few of its members would entrust

Friday

Gabriel Radonich

The Spectator Podcast: who is Boris Johnson, really?

This week has seen the continually bizarre spectacle of the Tory leadership contest grind on. Earlier this week Sajid Javid pitched himself as the candidate best placed to ‘make a better Boris’, reflecting the strange reality of a contest in which only one of the candidates really believes they can win. But who is Boris Johnson, really? The man who looks almost certain to be our next prime minister seems to divide opinion like no one else in British politics. Is he a charismatic man of the people, or a phoney demagogue? A progressive liberal or a Brexit extremist covering for the far right? In this week’s magazine, Toby Young

John Connolly John Connolly

The Brecon by-election could be the first real test for Boris Johnson

The incoming prime minister will have a lot on his plate when he finally strolls into Number 10 in July – with a looming Brexit deadline on the horizon and only a threadbare majority in the Commons to deliver a deal or no-deal Brexit. But he will have even less time to relax than first thought, now that a by-election has been triggered in Brecon and Radnoshire. The Welsh Tory MP representing the area, Chris Davies, has been ousted today from his seat after almost 20 per cent of his constituents signed a recall petition to remove him (only 10 per cent of voters needed to sign the petition for

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

The moral arrogance of the Mansion House climate protestors

In last night’s scuffle between Conservative MP Mark Field and a Greenpeace protester, which of them was really behaving in an entitled manner? The story is that it was Field, there in his black tie, drinking and chortling with bankers at a fancy dinner as the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave a speech on the state of British politics. The way Field grabbed the protester by the neck before marching her out of the opulent room is being held up as symbolic of Tory arrogance and privilege. Labour MPs are calling for him to resign. Some even want the police involved, to teach these cocksure men of the entitled Tory

Robert Peston Robert Peston

Mark Field’s behaviour was inexcusable

The video of Mark Field pushing a Greenpeace activist by the neck is so upsetting. Watch as Tory MP for Cities of London & Westminster @MarkFieldUK grabs a Greenpeace protester who interrupted a Philip Hammond speech in London tonight https://t.co/wZTzEC8lKF pic.twitter.com/tJuwCZ1P0X — ITV News (@itvnews) June 20, 2019 The climate-change protestors were, according to the police and friends who were there, wholly peaceful. Why on earth does Field react with such ferocity? The violence of his intervention is quite wrong. Some people are saying Mark Field was justified in shoving the protestor against the wall and then pushing her by the neck. But I don’t think you can have watched the

Thursday

Peter Jones

The perils of popularity

So: Boris triumphans, ready to deliver a 140-seat majority for the Tories and lead the UK out of Europe and on to greater triumphs? The shade of an Athenian statesman might offer a warning. Themistocles (c. 524-459 bc) came from an obscure family, but early on conceived a passion for politics. His father ‘pointing out some ancient triremes, mere hulks abandoned on the seashore, said that was what happened to leaders when the people decided they were irrelevant’. This merely spurred him on. Themistocles flourished in the direct democracy invented in Athens in 508 bc. He built up a following among the poor, was said to know every citizen by

Max Hastings

Diary – 20 June 2019

I am besieged by media folk asking when I shall make good on a four-year-old threat to flee to Buenos Aires should Boris Johnson become prime minister. How can I get on to a flight, I ask, when so many other voters are already wait-listed? In truth, however, we are being served successive courses in a national banquet of self-harm, too grisly to merit jokes. Nobody should blame Johnson for wanting to be prime minister: many unsuitable people do. But there will be infinite historical curiosity about how the Tory parliamentary party could scramble to deliver Britain into the custody of a man whom few of its members would entrust

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes | 20 June 2019

Boris and his team made a mistake by agreeing to take part in Tuesday’s BBC leadership debate. In such decisions, candidates must be absolutely ruthless. It does not matter whether one is accused of ‘running away’ if one does not take part. The only question is, ‘Will going on X improve the candidate’s chances with the relevant electorate?’ The relevant electorate in the Tory leadership campaign is 1. MPs and 2. party members. Nobody else matters, except inasmuch as wider opinions affect those who vote. Boris could easily have reached MPs without going on the BBC debate. He can less easily reach party members, but even then, he can find more

The Spectator

Plan B | 20 June 2019

When Boris Johnson was appointed editor of this magazine two decades ago, an unkind soul said it was like ‘entrusting a Ming vase in the hands of an ape’. The remark encapsulated many people’s worst fears about the man who will almost certainly be Britain’s prime minister in four weeks’ time, if not before: that Boris is an irresponsible joker. Similar warnings were made when he was elected London mayor. His refusal to conform to type encourages a constant expectation of imminent disaster. What if Boris flops in No. 10? Even his supporters can’t be sure he won’t fail: his election as leader is a gamble from a party that

Senay Boztas

What the UK can learn from the Dutch ‘vote for a woman’ initiative

Call me an obnoxious bigot, but here’s a suggestion. Instead of a queue of mostly male Tory leadership candidates getting their knickers in a twist about who is or isn’t a feminist, how about… electing more women who could take part in the race? After years of watching politicians dodge balls like female quotas or all-female candidate lists, a grassroots campaign in the Netherlands has come up with a simple idea. Understand your political system and use your vote better. The Stem op een Vrouw (Vote for a woman) group has been working since 2017 to encourage the country’s 17 million people not just to vote for any old woman.

Robert Peston Robert Peston

Philip Hammond says he will ‘fight and fight again’ to stop a no-deal Brexit

Astonishing scenes at Mansion House tonight. Not the climate change protestors who interrupted Philip Hammond’s speech (though goodness knows how they got through the extraordinary security) but the Chancellor saying he will fight and fight again to prevent Boris Johnson going for a no-deal Brexit (though he did not name Johnson). He said:- “I cannot imagine a Conservative and Unionist-led Government, actively pursuing a no-deal Brexit; willing to risk the Union and our economic prosperity, and a General Election that could put Jeremy Corbyn in Downing Street, to boot. And I will not concede the very ground we stand on. I will fight, and fight again, to remake the case for