Politics

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

Tuesday

Steerpike Steerpike

Truss channels her inner Thatcher

Since Liz Truss was appointed Foreign Secretary in Boris Johnson’s reshuffle, she has upped the ante when it comes to the visual element of the job. As well as appointing a new special adviser focussed on social media (who can no doubt compete with Rishi Sunak’s own social media whizz kid Cass Horowitz), Truss rarely misses a photo opp whether it’s for Instagram or tomorrow’s front pages.  Today is no exception. After warning this morning ahead of a meeting of Nato counterparts in Latvia that a Russian incursion into Ukraine would be a strategic mistake, Truss appears to have adopted the view that a picture can say a thousand words. The Foreign Secretary

Annabel Denham

The economic impact of the latest Covid restrictions

We don’t yet know whether the Omicron variant will drastically accelerate the spread of coronavirus, or whether it will circumvent parts of the immune system. Nor can we be sure that the ‘light’ coronavirus restrictions announced at the weekend will be enough to combat the new strain. We can be certain, however, that these measures will come with an economic cost that politicians are, at least publicly, understating. Face masks are once again compulsory in shops and on public transport in England, and UK arrivals will need to take PCR tests within two days of landing, isolating until they get their result. But the major economic threat stems from the

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Covid restrictions have gone on for too long

We can’t carry on like this. We can’t keep resurrecting restrictions every time a new Covid variant emerges. We can’t keep suspending certain liberties whenever this blasted virus mutates. Somehow we have got stuck in a spiral of doom and kneejerk authoritarianism, and we urgently need to find a way out of it. People, of course, will say it’s only mask-wearing in shops and on buses. It’s only a PCR test if you’re coming back from overseas. It’s only mandatory quarantine if you come into contact with someone infected with the Omicron variant. These are hardly onerous regulations. And Boris says they’ll be temporary. They will be reviewed in three

Monday

Steerpike Steerpike

Exclusive: Zemmour will run for President

It may be the worst kept secret in France but Eric Zemmour will tomorrow announce his candidacy for his country’s presidential election, according to a source on his campaign team.  It is, in one sense, confirmation of the obvious: it’s been clear for some months now to everyone who follows French politics that Monsieur Z is running for the Élysée Palace in 2022. His supposed book promotion tour was nakedly a series of political campaign rallies. Two days ago he released a campaign; now it is about to become official.  But the timing is nonetheless interesting since Zemmour has had a difficult few days. The polls suggest his soaring popularity has lost

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Starmer’s attention-grabbing shadow cabinet reshuffle

Keir Starmer has a new front bench. He has conducted his second reshuffle in the space of a year, but this time he’s actually managed to get the changes he was after.  A key theme of this reshuffle has been giving Labour a better chance of being heard. Many of the departures today have involved figures who were underperforming in key roles: Nick Thomas-Symonds, for instance, was very well-liked in the party but struggling to get much purchase even against Priti Patel’s growing political mess on human trafficking in the Channel. He has now been replaced by Yvette Cooper, who has done this brief before and who has grown even

Daniel Lightman

Does cricket have an anti-Semitism problem?

The row over racism at Yorkshire County Cricket Club has also shone a spotlight on anti-Semitism in the cricketing world. Andrew Gale, the Yorkshire head coach and former captain, has been suspended for having sent a tweet which said: ‘button it, yid’.  Azeem Rafiq, the former Yorkshire spin-bowler who blew the whistle on racism, was found to have sent a Facebook message in which he labelled a fellow cricketer as a ‘Jew’ for being reluctant to spend money at a team dinner, and went on to assert: ‘Only Jews do (that) sort of shit ha’. The comedian Mike Yarwood once quipped: ‘I was doing the smallest books in the world.

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Why is the Treasury blocking a helpful health reform?

The Health and Care Bill is having a predictably stormy passage through parliament, popping up in the Lords next week for its second reading. If you’d paid only cursory attention to its closing stages in the Commons then you might be forgiven for thinking the legislation is largely about reform to social care and privatisation of the NHS. In reality, the social care policy was inserted at the last minute, and it’s only an amendment covering the cap on care costs, while privatisation has become something left-wing politicians like to warn is about to happen regardless of what’s in the bill before them (more on that here). It is not

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Boris could pay a heavy price for his tax hikes

Given the enthusiasm for tax cuts usually shown by Conservative MPs it is remarkable how few of them have, in public, raised objections to the government’s loose fiscal policy. True, the Prime Minister’s announcement of a hike in National Insurance ostensibly to pay for social care, elicited squeals from the back benches, yet last month’s Budget drew only muted objections. This was in spite of claims by the Resolution Foundation that the Budget will cost an average household £3000 a year – if you take into account the effect of higher prices as businesses seek to pass on their higher tax bills to consumers. Today, however, Mel Stride, former Treasury

Andrew Tettenborn

Poland steps up its legal fight against Europe

Poland’s legal wrangles with Europe show no sign of ending. Back in September, the Polish Constitutional Tribunal determined that some parts of EU law might be contrary to the country’s constitution. Now the tribunal has lit another firework: doing the same in respect of the European Convention on Human Rights (the ECHR). Is this just another round in the war between the European elite and the ruling political party, the PiS (which is cordially detested in both Brussels and Strasbourg)? You’d be forgiven for thinking so. Yet this latest wrangle is much more significant, since it opens up an entirely new front. The ECHR is separate from the EU; it and the Human Rights

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Starmer’s reshuffle goes wrong again

Keir Starmer would have been hoping for a case of second time lucky today as he reshuffles his front bench again, following a botched attempt in the aftermath of the local election results. Back then, the Labour leader got off to a bad start when he tried to move his deputy Angela Rayner from one of her briefs. She refused and then the whole reshuffle ground to a halt. In the end, Rayner ended up with more jobs than she started. This time around there are similar hints of trouble. Rayner has spent her morning giving a speech on Labour’s plan to clamp down on outside interests (my piece from earlier this month explains

Katy Balls Katy Balls

How is the government handling Omicron?

10 min listen

We are slowly learning more and more about this new Covid variant, but it could be weeks before we know just how contagious and harmful it could be. Wasting no time, over the weekend the government has banned travel from certain countries and tightened domestic Covid measures. ‘It’s fair to say that ministers are anxious enough to bring back things that they have developed a personal resistance too.’ – Isabel Hardman To discuss the ramifications of Omicron Katy Balls talks to James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman. Subscribe to The Spectator’s Evening Blend email, from Isabel Hardman and Katy Balls, for analysis of the day’s political news and a summary of

Steerpike Steerpike

Esther McVey’s curious new alliance

Whether it’s Labour and Plaid in Wales, the SNP and Greens in Scotland or Red Wallers and free-marketeers within Westminster, it’s an interesting time for political alliances at present. But Mr S brings news of a fresh new cross-party effort to raise the eyebrows of even those cynical veterans of the ChangeUK years. Esther McVey – the true-blue Tatton Tory torch-holder of the Thatcherite flame – is spearheading calls to regulate music streaming under the auspices of the #BrokenRecordCampaign. The former Cabinet minister has been drumming up support for the initiative, penning enthusiastic op-eds for the Times and rounding up 44 Conservative MPs to co-sign a letter calling on Boris Johnson to ‘level

Sam Leith Sam Leith

The forever ‘war on Christmas’

It seems to get earlier each year, doesn’t it? It’s not yet even December, and the Mail on Sunday has splashed on ‘NOW THE WOKE ‘BLOB’ TRIES TO BAN CHRISTMAS’. Lordy be. I say this every year and every year my woke comrades fail to learn. We have a leak, a chatty flake, I say. Someone’s feeding our plans to the Mail on Sunday, I say. We need a major overhaul of woke blob op-sec if we’re ever going to get this whole Christmas-banning thing done, I say. And do they listen? To be honest, I thought we were onto a good one this time. It was subtle. As the

Sunday

Robert Peston Robert Peston

Javid’s contact tracing optimism looks misplaced in the fight against Omicron

Sajid Javid told Andrew Marr this morning that it would be possible to quarantine the contacts of those with Omicron, because the new Covid variant comes up negative for the ‘S’ gene in PCR tests (what he called ‘S gene drop out’), unlike Delta. I had already been told about this helpful characteristic of some PCR tests, which would allow rapid detection of Omicron relative to Delta. But I was also told that just a portion of tests carried out by NHS Test and Trace had the ability to check for the S gene. I made inquiries and the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) gave me this statement: ’50 per

Charles Moore Charles Moore

Why are editors sharing a platform with Miqdaad Versi?

Next week, the Centre for Media Monitoring publishes its report on ‘British Media Coverage of Muslims and Islam 2018-2020’. Its launch webinar will be addressed by, among others, Mark Easton of the BBC, Alison Phillips, editor-in-chief of the Mirror, and Emma Tucker, editor of the Sunday Times. The CfMM, run by Miqdaad Versi, is a project of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) which, though arguing there is no one Islam, tries to insist that all media coverage of the subject must have its approval. Muslims, like all believers nowadays, often have just cause for complaint about secular ignorance of their religion, but Miqdaad’s CfMM is something else The MCB’s

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

What the BBC show trial of Michael Vaughan tells us

After dropping Michael Vaughan in punishment for what he said (or might not have said) many years ago, the BBC has now given him the chance to explain himself. It took the form of Dan Walker, a BBC1 Breakfast host, confronting the accused with examples of his wrongthink and hearing his defence. That defence is pretty academic now, given that Vaughan has already been dropped from covering the Ashes this winter and may now disappear from the screens entirely. But it has given us an example of what may now lie ahead in the cancel culture we are adopting. Ten years after the Tweets comes the outrage. Then the cancellation.

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round-up: Brits will take mask-wearing ‘more seriously’

Sajid Javid: we’re ‘nowhere near’ renewed social distancing Health Secretary Sajid Javid found himself back in the hot seat this morning after a week which saw the discovery of the new ‘Omicron variant’ of the virus in South Africa. Yesterday, Boris Johnson confirmed that there were at least two cases of this variant already in the UK, despite suspending flights from the country and ordering new quarantine measures to be put in place. Trevor Phillips spoke to Javid about whether the latest strain could mean a return to many of the measures that have previously been in place, such as social distancing. However, Javid insisted that, beyond the new mask mandate,

Patrick O’Flynn Patrick O'Flynn

Labour needs its own answer to the Channel crisis

Given the complexities of modern government, with all its pitfalls and unforeseeable reverses, pointing out when ministers have made a mess of things is certainly an important part of the repertoire of opposition – the equivalent of a boxer’s jab in our pugilistic political system. But the ‘it’s a shambles’ method of politics can only take an opposition party or its leader so far. On the rare occasions that Labour has talked about illegal migration across the English Channel since Boris Johnson became PM and Priti Patel was appointed Home Secretary, this has been its favoured line of attack. Earlier in the month Keir Starmer told BBC Radio 4: ‘The

William Nattrass William Nattrass

Lockdown resentment is growing in Europe

‘Traitors to the nation,’ read placards carried by protestors in Prague this week, depicting government figures who have imposed new lockdown restrictions on the unvaccinated. Anger has been bubbling under the surface in eastern and central Europe. But as new lockdowns are imposed and governments consider making vaccines compulsory, this resentment is now threatening to burst out into the open. Czech protests have been mild compared to the unrest seen in other European countries. Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte described recent riots in Rotterdam as ‘pure violence,’ with police firing warning shots at protestors and inflicting multiple injuries. In Brussels, tear gas and water cannons were used to contain a

Saturday

Andrew Lilico

The problems with Boris Johnson’s mask mandate

Today the government has said that for the next three weeks it will be mandatory to wear masks in shops and on public transport, pending a review. It was already mandatory to wear a mask on the tube, as a condition of travel. So to avoid mixing up ideas, let’s focus on the new mandate from the government: that people will have to wear masks in shops. Imposing a requirement that anyone entering a shop must wear a mask, whether the shop wants to accept them or not, is a straightforward imposition on human liberty. We have accepted huge infringements upon our liberties over the past 21 months. We did