Politics

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

Thursday

24 Mar 2022

Steerpike

Ferries boss sinks under MPs’ fire

The best dramas in British broadcasting are only found on one channel these days. Parliament TV has hosted its fair share of unsavoury characters over the years but today a new villain joined the rogues’ gallery. Step forward P&O Ferries chief executive Peter Hebblethwaite, who joins the likes of Philip Green, Fred Goodwin and Mike Ashley in being hauled up before a select committee for a ritual grilling. Hubris, folly and lashings of corporate jargon were on the menu today as Hebblethwaite – whose firm sacked 800 staff last week – was duly sliced, diced and skewered before a panel of distinctly unimpressed MPs. Joint committee chairman Darren Jones got things off to a flying start when the Labour

Stephen Daisley

The SNP’s ferry mess

Eight years ago, and with the independence referendum one month away, the Clyde’s last commercial shipyard went into administration. The collapse of Ferguson’s not only threatened the jobs of 70 shipbuilders: it was an inconvenient symbol of industrial decline right as the SNP was trying to parlay rhetoric about an independent Scotland being ‘one of the world’s wealthiest nations’ into a Yes vote on polling day. The Scottish government intervened and quickly arranged for a billionaire adviser to then First Minister Alex Salmond to buy Ferguson’s. One year later, the Scottish government awarded Ferguson Marine, as it now was, a £97m fixed price contract to build two ferries but the

Ross Clark

Can we trust economic models?

Rishi Sunak shared a delightful moment of honesty on the Today programme on Thursday. Mishal Husain asked him how households will cope if, as the Office for Budget Responsibility has forecast, energy bills rise by a further £830 a year – on top of the rises already due to take effect in April. No, no, no, said the Chancellor, you can’t believe the OBR forecast on energy prices: ‘They just take what the market expectation is at a given time, and since they closed their forecast actually the forecast for energy bills in the autumn has come down by £400.’ It was a fair point. Except, if the Chancellor doesn’t think

Debbie Hayton

At least Boris Johnson knows the difference between men and women

As a paid-up member of the Labour party, it’s rare that I agree wholeheartedly with a Conservative politician. But Boris Johnson has spoken some much-needed common sense in the gender debate. ‘When it comes to distinguishing between a man and a woman,’ the PM told MPs yesterday, ‘the basic facts of biology remain overwhelmingly important.’ Boris is right: biology does matter. I’d actually go further and say that the basic facts of biology are all that matters. Like other sexually dimorphic species we are male or female, and that alone distinguishes men from women. We all know this but – in an astonishing departure from reality – these basic truths are denied by

Steerpike

Rishi Sunak and the art of politics

The sound of chinking glasses and merry laughter greeted Steerpike yesterday as he made his way through the Westminster village. Rishi Sunak might have placed an edict on Treasury staff holding their traditional office drinking session while watching him deliver his spring statement but clearly some just decamped to SW1’s watering holes instead. What better way to greet the biggest fall in living standards in any single financial year. One baby-faced apparatchik was overhead remarking: ‘That went alright, didn’t it?’ Less than 24 hours on, Mr S isn’t so sure that’s the judgement of the commentariat…. Still, at least the Treasury gang appear to have kept their drinking relatively under control,

Katy Balls

Is Sunak’s spring statement starting to unravel?

The Chancellor woke this morning to a grim set of headlines as the newspapers chew over his spring statement. Despite dangling the carrot of an income tax cut by 2024, most papers focus on the OBR’s projection that inflation will lead to the biggest fall in living standards since records began in the 1950s. While left-leaning papers such as the Guardian accuse Sunak of forgetting the poorest in society, the papers on the right aren’t that much better for him. The Express asks about the ‘forgotten millions’, while the Telegraph roundly criticises his economic package. The Daily Mail has run with a slightly more welcome tone for Sunak but ultimately calls for more tax cuts

Steerpike

David Cameron gets an honour

When you’ve held the highest elected office in the land, subsequent honours might all seem a bit trivial. Gongs, trophies, baubles: what can compare to the premiership? But there is one highly-desired honour which has managed to elude David Cameron – until now. For the Old Etonian this week joins an exclusive club in becoming the 22nd former Prime Minister whose words have now graced the pages of The Spectator. Cameron’s diary about his Poland excursion places him in hallowed company among a select band of his successors. Some 40 per cent of the 55 men and women to have held the post have written for this magazine: quite an accomplishment

James Forsyth

The Chancellor’s difficult choices

The Office for Budget Responsibility was designed to protect the Chancellor from accusations that he is cooking the books. If the forecasts are prepared by an independent body, there can’t be the suggestion – as there often was before the OBR’s creation in 2010 – that they have been politically influenced. But what the OBR cannot do is eliminate uncertainty. In recent years, the likely trajectory of the financial future changed quite a lot from one month to the next: from interest rates and inflation to the Covid pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The OBR itself admits that it had to conduct its work without knowing the full economic

Owen Matthews

Turkey’s dilemma: whose side is Erdogan on?

Istanbul Vladimir Putin’s ill-conceived blitzkrieg in Ukraine has failed thanks, first and foremost, to the guts of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians. British and US-supplied anti-tank weapons have played a crucial role, too. But it’s Ukraine’s Turkish–made TB2 Bayraktar drones that have been the war’s most unexpectedly effective weapon. Unexpected not just because of their battlefield killing power but because the father-in-law of the TB2’s inventor and manufacturer is Recep Tayyip Erdogan – the only European leader to have once described himself as a friend of Vladimir Putin. Erdogan, with a foot in the East and West, has emerged as the war’s key power-broker – and his loyalty is being actively

The Spectator

The return of fiscal conservatism

Next month, Rishi Sunak will break a Tory manifesto pledge by increasing National Insurance as the tax burden heads to a 77-year high. By declining to increase departmental spending for inflation – and using the saved money to cut the basic rate of income tax – the Chancellor has started a cautious fightback against Big Government conservatism. Much has changed in the two years since Sunak took over as Chancellor. Back then, inflation appeared dead and buried: long-term forecasts did not envisage it going above 2 per cent. Sajid Javid, Sunak’s predecessor, said he expected rates to be ‘low for long’ – and planned to borrow and spend on that

Wednesday

23 Mar 2022

Katy Balls

Inside Rishi Sunak’s address to Tory MPs

How has Rishi Sunak’s spring statement landed with Tory MPs? While there were a number of helpful questions from Tory backbenchers in the Commons’ debate this afternoon, a more accurate indicator is tonight’s meeting of the 1922’committee of Conservative backbenchers. The Chancellor addressed around 50 MPs this evening (the one-line whip meant that attendance was lower than normal) where he said his spring statement presented a ‘clear Conservative plan’ that puts the party ‘on the side of hard working British people’. He repeated his comments in the Chamber on tax – heralding his pledge to cut income tax by 2024 as the first income tax cut in 16 years. As for

The Spectator

Rishi’s fightback against big government Toryism

Katy Balls

Is there a stealth tax hidden in the spring statement?

17 min listen

While on the surface there might seem like a lot to like in Rishi Sunak’s spring statement. Yes, the NI tax increase is still there, but the tax threshold to pay it is being raised. And there is even a promise of an income tax cut coming in 2024. But does the spectre of inflation mean that many of these supposed benefits won’t be felt tangibly for the average taxpayer and may even see the amount they give to the government go up? Katy Balls is joined by James Forsyth, Kate Andrews and Fraser Nelson to discuss.

Lloyd Evans

We will never hear the end of Rishi’s tax cut

The bean-counters squared up in the Commons today. Chancellor Rishi Sunak delivered a terse spring statement which contained three major bombshells. And he was answered by Labour’s shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, who unfurled a few surprises of her own. Sunak gave an upbeat assessment of Britain’s economy but warned that our growth is about to be clobbered by Putin’s Ukraine adventure. Sunak expects inflation to peak at 7 per cent, or more. That’s effectively a huge pay-cut for every citizen, not just those in work, and it may nudge us closer to a recession. But he kept the R-word to himself. Sunak seems to enjoy being liked and he was

Steerpike

No. 10 doubles down on trans rights

How will No. 10 fight the next election? After government aides were told at a recent meeting to get election ready, Rishi Sunak’s pledge of an income tax cut by 2024 appears to give an indication of what the pitch could be. But there was another indicator at Prime Minister’s Questions what appeared to be a planted question from 2019-er Angela Richardson on trans rights, Boris Johnson replied: When it comes to distinguishing between a man and a woman, the facts of biology remain overwhelmingly important. The comments are in contrast to the position of his wife Carrie who publicly urged the Tory party to fight for the rights of transgender

Robert Peston

Has Rishi Sunak just destroyed his relationship with Boris?

I said yesterday that I expected the Chancellor to increase universal credit by more than planned. I was misled. I was wrong. Today, Rishi Sunak’s official forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility, is explicit about how painful Sunak’s refusal to increase benefits will be for those who rely on them. It says: ‘Lags in CPI (or inflation) uprating of benefits mean they fall almost five per cent in real terms in 2022-23, reducing their real value by £12bn, and take up to 18 months to catch up fully with higher inflation’. It means those who are unemployed, on very low incomes, or who rely on the state pension, are going to be in

Katy Balls

Sunak highlights the problem with the Northern Ireland protocol

What did we learn from the Chancellor’s spring statement? As James reports on Coffee House, Rishi Sunak’s promise of an income tax cut by 2024 offered a strong indicator of how – and when – the Tories plan to fight the next election. Meanwhile, the OBR’s finding that rising inflation will lead to the biggest fall in living standards since records began in 1950 highlights how even with the new immediate cost of living policies – including a 5p cut on fuel duty – the coming months will be painful for many households. However, aside from cost of living, there was another problem Sunak’s statement highlighted: the Northern Ireland protocol.

Ross Clark

Fact check: What’s the truth about Sunak’s Brexit tax cut claim?

Labour’s Chris Bryant was quick to try to scotch Rishi Sunak’s claim that it was only thanks to Brexit that he was able to remove VAT on a number of home energy improvements, such as the installation of solar panels. Within a few minutes of Sunak making the claim, Bryant had tweeted: ‘Contrary to what Sunak said, there is already a VAT exemption on solar panels and heat pumps already happens in the EU, so this is not a benefit of Brexit.’ After we have left the EU, Brussels wants to copy our example So who is right? Is it Brexit wot gave us our VAT-free solar panels or is

Isabel Hardman

Labour’s economic plan? Reheated Miliband

Rachel Reeves is, as Labour frontbenchers go, pretty experienced. She’s not been in government, but then neither has her leader because there are now young teenagers who have never experienced a Labour government. Reeves has been on and off her party’s frontbench ever since she was elected in 2010, and that long experience was on show in her response this afternoon to the spring statement – in both good and bad ways. This was one of the more confident responses I’ve watched from a Labour frontbencher to an economic statement over their 12 years of opposition. Reeves had a really clever section where she mocked the difference between Rishi Sunak’s reality and

Kate Andrews

Did Rishi Sunak deliver on his tax-cut promise?

Today’s spring statement may not have been a proper Budget – but it could prove to be one of the most significant moments in Rishi Sunak’s time as Chancellor. At a time when families are facing the double-edged sword of soaring bills and wages falling behind inflation, Sunak was under pressure to offer reassurance. But inflation, which we found out this morning is heading for a 40-year high, is also biting the Treasury. The Chancellor’s response to this dilemma came in the form of several major tax announcements, all targeted at reducing costs for the lowest paid. But Sunak also doubled down on less welcome policies which he insisted are vital for