Politics Archives

Tuesday

10 May 2022

With Tommy Banks

24 min listen

Tommy Banks is the youngest ever UK Michelin-starred chef, awarded in 2013 when he was aged 24, and is the owner of the restaurant The Black Swan which Tripadvisor named the best restaurant in the world. On the podcast, Tommy talks to Lara and Liv about how he turned to food after his dreams of being a professional cricketer were dashed, his struggles with imposter syndrome, and his new canned wine business Banks Brothers. For more recipes and recommendations, sign up to The Spectator’s free monthly food and drink email, The Take Away, at www.spectator.co.uk/oliviapotts

James Forsyth

The key line in Prince Charles’s Queen’s Speech

Today’s Queen’s Speech will mostly be remembered as Prince Charles’ first. His delivery was strikingly flat; it would be hard to discern what he thought of any measure as his tone remained the same throughout, as it should do. Given how much we know of Charles’s views on various issues – too much given his constitutional position – people will always be looking for clues as to his view on this or that issue. The speech was mostly as expected. The problem for the government is that the biggest issue facing the country is the cost of living crisis, but you can’t solve that through legislation: parliament can’t just pass

Alexander Larman

This isn’t the beginning of the Charles Regency

One of the cruellest and most accurate remarks made about Prince Charles is that he is less king-in-waiting and more the perennial prince, forever hanging about in his mother’s shadow and increasingly desperate to assume the throne. Yet he is now 73 years old, and will be the oldest monarch to ascend the throne since William IV, who became king aged 64 in 1830. This is a source of endless frustration to Charles. Newspaper briefings by well-placed courtiers have suggested he longs for greater involvement in the day-to-day running of ‘the Firm’, perhaps even culminating in an official Regency, given his mother’s declining health. If Charles wishes to be beloved,

Coffee House

Full list: every bill in the Queen’s Speech

After 73 years of waiting, Prince Charles today delivered his first speech from the throne in the House of Lords to mark the State Opening of Parliament – watched on by Her Majesty in Windsor via television. Charles was escorted by Prince William, after the Yeoman Warders concluded their traditional search of the Palace of Westminster. The Palace of Westminster was fully owned by the sovereign until 1965 when the Queen agreed to hand over control of the Commons and the Lords. The Crown still retains technical ownership of some parts, such as the robing room, with the last monarch to live there being Henry VIII. Some 21 bills were announced

Andrew McQuillan

The DUP is failing to learn any lessons from Sinn Fein’s victory

Is the DUP intent on compounding the disaster of its recent election defeat which saw Sinn Fein returned as Northern Ireland’s largest party? It certainly seems that way. In the aftermath of that result, the DUP, the TUV (Traditional Unionist Voice) and other loyalists have been quick to point out that the unionist designation remains the largest at Stormont, albeit marginally. They argue that polling continues to show a majority in favour of Northern Ireland staying within the UK. This has been used to downplay Sinn Fein’s achievement last week. But this complacency is dangerous. Contrary to the predictable hyperbole of recent days, a united Ireland is not imminent. Sinn Fein’s victory

Christian Wolmar

What the UK can learn from the demise of British Rail

British Railways lives again. Well sort of. The Queen’s Speech is expected to contain plans for a Transport Bill, the centrepiece of which is the creation of Great British Railways which will take over many aspects of the nation’s rail system. However, before the nostalgics start dusting off their Ian Allan Locospotters’ annual, this new beast will be nothing like the old one. British Railways was much more than just a railway. It owned a series of 29 superb hotels next to stations around the country including Turnberry and Gleneagles and their adjoining of golf courses; it organised holidays on stationary coaches in dozens of locations; and it ran ferries

Steerpike

The SNP whips’ office scandal

It was Enoch Powell who remarked that ‘the House of Commons without whips is like a city without sewers.’ And it seems that the piping has sprung a leak, given the amount of excrement that’s been flying around Westminster in recent months. In January it was the Tory whips and their chief Mark Spencer, who faced allegations of intimidation and Islamophobia from disgruntled wards. And now it’s the turn of the SNP, those custodians of probity and standards in public life. For Patrick Grady – the party’s former chief enforcer at Westminster – is one of two nationalist MPs facing claims of sexual harassment. An SNP staffer says the Glasgow North MP

Monday

9 May 2022

Robert Peston

Why Starmer had to put his job on the line

Keir Starmer had no option but to say – as he has done – that he will resign if fined for breaching Covid rules, as I already pointed out on Friday when Durham police announced it was investigating whether his beer and curry last April was work sustenance or an illegal party. There were two reasons why he had to put his job on the line. First, he would never get over the charge of grotesque hypocrisy had he failed to do this, given that he and his party have repeatedly and urgently called on Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak to quit, after they received fixed penalty notices for attending the PM’s birthday

Stephen Daisley

Starmer must go – and take Boris with him

Sir Keir Starmer has spent the past 24 hours in the witness protection programme. After the Mail on Sunday published an itinerary of the now infamous visit to Durham, complete with a gathering for beer and curry, the Labour leader’s version of events appears to be in doubt. This afternoon he was a no-show at an Institute for Government event. Then he turned up at a press conference at 4 p.m. and took a gamble: No rules were broken — I’m absolutely clear about that — but, in the event that I’m wrong about that and I get a fixed penalty notice, I’ll do the right thing and step down.

James Forsyth

Starmer’s beergate gamble

Keir Starmer has just confirmed in a press conference that he will resign if issued with a fine by Durham police over his curry and beer on the campaign trail last year. Starmer is adamant that he has broken no rules, that he merely had something to eat while working late. In his statement, Starmer said he would resign if fined as ‘the British public deserve politicians who think the rules apply to them’. In a clear attempt to draw a contrast with Boris Johnson, he said he wanted to show that not all politicians are the same. Durham police now find themselves holding the fate of the Labour leader

Brendan O’Neill

Starmer’s beergate woes show why we need a lockdown amnesty

Do you really care that Keir Starmer had a curry and a beer while working late in April last year? Be honest. Does the image of Sir Keir tucking into a masala with colleagues keep you up at night? Do you find yourself distracted from the cost-of-living crisis by visions of Starmer having a San Miguel? Would you like to find out more about what’s happening in Ukraine but you can’t, because your mind keeps getting dragged back to that shocking grainy photo of the Leader of the Opposition holding a bottle of beer? Look, I get it about the hypocrisy. I get it that Starmer bored us all rigid

The Spectator

Read: Vladimir Putin’s victory day speech in full

The following is The Spectator’s translation of Putin’s speech for victory day 2022. Most respected citizens of Russia, dear veterans, comrade soldiers and sailors, sergeants and petty officers, midshipmen and ensigns, comrade officers, generals and admirals: I wish you all a happy great victory day! The defense of our homeland – when its fate hung in the balance – has always been sacred. With such feelings of genuine patriotism, Minin and Pozharsky’s People’s Militia rose up for the motherland, advanced to attack on the field of Borodin, fought the enemy on the outskirts of Moscow and Leningrad, Kyiv and Minsk, Stalingrad and Kursk, Sebastopol and Kharkov. Just as in those

Steerpike

Tories seek more spinners

There’s a new regime in Downing Street: the City Hall gang is taking over. The arrival of Guto Harri as No. 10 director of communications in February brought with it a fresh approach to media. Out went the broadcasting boycotts: in came a less hostile style willing to take more risks – the fruits of which could be seen in Boris Johnson’s Good Morning Britain interview with Susanna Reid last week. But despite the arrival of several new special advisers, it seems that Harri’s hiring spree is not done yet. For the backroom boys over at CCHQ are seeking a new ‘video and film manager’ for the party’s new base in

Steerpike

Starmer: I’ll quit if I’m fined

You can tell the trouble that Sir Keir Starmer is in by the desperation of Sun hacks in finding fresh curry puns. Whether it’s ‘backed into a korma’ or ‘bhaji smugglers,’ the Labour leader’s ongoing troubles over ‘Beergate’ has caused a run on puns over at London Bridge. The latest twist in the ongoing saga is the news that Sir Keir is discussing his possible resignation with shadow cabinet colleagues if Durham Police decide to fine him over the April 2021 gathering in which he and party workers enjoyed curries and beers. The investigation is expected to take between six to eight weeks, with the force establishing a special six-man source to probe whether the

Ross Clark

Crypto is dead

When Britain voted for Brexit, Macron boasted that Paris would eat the City of London’s lunch. It didn’t quite work out that way, with most league tables continuing to put London as the number one or two financial centre, with not a single EU city in the top ten. Emmanuel Macron’s government has now announced that it has invited Binance, a crypto exchange site, to set up a European HQ in Paris. You have to ask: has Macron leapt on a bandwagon which has already started to lose its wheels? The warning sign for cryptocurrencies is not so much that they have crashed – Bitcoin is down 50 per cent from its peak last

James Forsyth

How much trouble is Keir Starmer in?

11 min listen

As pressures mount over claims that Keir Starmer broke lockdown rules, the Labour leader has just pulled out of a keynote speech he is due to give today. How much trouble is he really in? Katy Balls looks at Starmer’s future in a blog on Coffee House today. Also on the podcast, what will be the fallout from the Sinn Fein victory in Northern Ireland? Brandon Lewis heads to Belfast today to press for the return of a fully functioning government. Katy Balls speaks to Isabel Hardman and James Forsyth.

Katy Balls

How much trouble is Keir Starmer in?

Ahead of Thursday’s local elections, there had been talk among MPs that it could serve as a referendum on partygate and lead to questions about Boris Johnson’s future as leader. Instead, it’s Keir Starmer who is facing questions about Covid breaches and how long he will stay in post. After Durham Police announced on Friday that they would investigate the so-called Beergate event – when he was pictured drinking a beer indoors in Durham with Labour staff last April while the rest of England was under stage 2 Covid rules – new details have come to light. This taps into a worry among some Tory MPs and ministers that Starmer could actually

Sam Leith

Starmer’s beergate troubles won’t get Boris off the hook

It looks on the face of things as if Sir Keir Starmer is coming unstuck over that blurry photograph of him with beer in hand after a day campaigning in Durham during lockdown. His claim that no rules were breached on that occasion – like the earlier claims that Angela Rayner wasn’t there and that the curry was a spontaneous, ambushed-by-a-curry type of curry rather than a planned, party type of curry – is looking shakier than Shakin’ Stevens with the DTs. Beergate, thanks to new revelations in the Mail On Sunday, seems to have legs. But where do those legs, I wonder, take us? Let’s suppose that everything that

Sunday

8 May 2022

James Forsyth

Jacob Rees-Mogg pulls his punches over beergate

On the inaugural Andrew Neil show on Channel 4, Jacob Rees-Mogg was strikingly adamant that there were no easy solutions to the current cost of living crisis as increasing public spending would be inherently inflationary. This argument has intellectual force but is difficult to make politically. It was interesting, though, how keen Rees-Mogg was to lean into it. Equally noticeable was Rees-Mogg’s desire not to pile into Starmer on the whole question of his campaign trail curry and beer when tier 2 restrictions were in place. In contrast to Nadine Dorries, Johnson’s other most loyal Cabinet ally, Rees-Mogg was arguing for something close to a general indulgence on these issues so

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round-up: Starmer guilty of ‘rank double standards’, Raab lambasts

Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab was tasked with the government’s media round this morning, and he used the opportunity to take aim at the Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, accusing him of hypocrisy after Durham Police said they will re-investigate the so-called ‘Beergate’ affair. A leaked Labour party document appears to suggest that Starmer and his colleagues did not return to working after a scheduled dinner, which lasted for over an hour. Raab stopped short of calling for Starmer to resign, but piled on the pressure for him to account for exactly what happened on that night: Local elections were ‘a mixed bag’ In other political news, the results from the local elections