Politics Archives

Wednesday

30 Mar 2022

Inside the all-Tory MP team bonding dinner

On the same day that Tory MPs gathered for an all-parliamentary team-bonding dinner to boost morale, Scotland Yard announced that 20 fixed penalty notices will be issued in the first batch of fines for Covid-breaches in 10 Downing Street. The timing wasn’t exactly encouraging given the dinner was planned as a way to help mend ties between No. 10 and MPs. The event follows a fractious few months with the Owen Paterson debacle (which saw No. 10’s botched attempt to spare the former Tory MP a suspension over a lobbying breach) and partygate. Not that the issue of the rule of law came up when around 250 MPs dined at Westminster’s Park Plaza Hotel

Isabel Hardman

Are we falling out of love with the NHS?

Clap for carers now feels like ancient history. Public satisfaction with the NHS is at its lowest since 1997, according to a new study out today. The British Social Attitudes Survey finds overall satisfaction with the health service at just 36 per cent, a record-breaking fall of 17 points since 2020. People often relate to the health service through GPs and their experience of A&E. The latter has experienced a record-breaking 15 point fall, now at 39 per cent satisfaction, its lowest level since the BSA started asking questions about A&E in 1999. It’s worth remembering that in 1997, when public satisfaction with the NHS as a whole was at just 34

Steerpike

Now the statue-topplers come for abolitionists

Susan Aitken, we meet again. The worst council leader in Britain is back in the news. What, pray, is it this time? Has Aitken finally fixed the rats which ran riot before COP26? Are Glasgow’s finances now back in order? Will the 500 taxi trips on expenses be refunded now? Good God, no. For Aitken is above such petty, mundane trifles. Instead she has decided to focus on the issues that really matter: problematic statues and the eighteenth century slave trade. The Glasgow slavery audit has finally reported this month and identified eight statues in the city as representing people connected to the Atlantic slave trade. Apparently, gifts inherited from those

Steerpike

Tory MP comes out as trans

Jamie Wallis has had an eventful time at Westminster since joining the Commons two-and-a-half years ago. Within weeks of being elected, Wallis faced accusations of being the co-owner of a ‘sugar daddy’ dating website. Then last year, Wallis was arrested on suspicion of driving while unfit after a collided with a lamppost in Llanblethian, Vale of Glamorgan. Now the Welsh MP has released an early-morning statement on the matter, which gives some context to recent troubles. Wallis claims to have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria, having felt this way since childhood. Having expected to ‘leave politics well before I ever said this out loud’,’ the news almost emerged in April 2020 when someone tried blackmailing Wallis for £50,000,

Tuesday

29 Mar 2022

Kate Andrews

Is this the end of borrow and spend?

Since the spring statement last week, Rishi Sunak has been dealing with complaints from all sides: the right have been arguing he should have been bolder with tax cuts, the left insists more support is needed to help people with the rising costs. With the Office for Budget Responsibility projecting the biggest fall in living standards since records began, rumours of U-turns and further announcements started bubbling over the weekend. The media, the opposition, and even some Tory MPs have been asking Treasury representatives over and over again: is that all? In a keynote address hosted by the Institute of Economic Affairs this morning, chief secretary to the Treasury Simon

Isabel Hardman

Labour is falling into the Tim Farron trap on sex and gender

What do you remember about Tim Farron’s time as Lib Dem leader? Was it the position he created for his party on a hard Brexit? Or what he had to say about gay sex? He quit the leadership in June 2017, saying he had concluded that ‘remaining faithful to Christ’ was incompatible with being a political leader. It followed a general election campaign in which Farron, a committed evangelical Christian, was repeatedly asked about his views on homosexuality. The reason the questions kept coming, as I said at the time, was that Farron refused to give a full answer to them. Did he think gay sex was a sin? ‘We

Isabel Hardman

Will we find out who got fined?

11 min listen

Partygate is back in the news with fines being issued by the Metropolitan Police to twenty individuals. But this is not the end of the matter, this is only the first batch of fines and the full Sue Grey report is still to come. Is this scandal still enough to bring down the Prime Minister or have the party and the public moved on? Isabel Hardman talks with James Forsyth and Katy Balls.

Steerpike

Lord Lebedev burns Keir

Labour has been indulging in a ritual bout of moralising over the Tories’ Russian connections. Having first tried to exploit the issue of wealthy British Russians donating to the party, now the opposition has turned its guns on a new target instead. Step forward ‘friend of the stars’ Evgeny Lebedev, the bearded proprietor of the Evening Standard and Independent. Rich, well-connected, the son of a former KGB agent, Lebedev was an obvious target for those probing Kremlin connections in the UK. In their eagerness to get the government on the back foot, Labour has today tabled a Humble Address motion on Lebedev. If successful, it will force the government to publish information on the decision to give

Robert Peston

How Boris misled MPs over partygate

The significance of today’s announcement by the Met Police that 20 individuals who unlawfully attended parties in Downing Street and the Cabinet Office will be fined is that it confirms the Prime Minister misled the House of Commons on 8 December. On that date he told Sir Keir Starmer, Labour’s leader: What we don’t know, of course, is whether the Prime Minister knowingly misled the House of Commons ‘I have been repeatedly assured that the rules were not broken. I repeat that I have been repeatedly assured since these allegations emerged that there was no party and that no Covid rules were broken.’ We now know there were lots of parties, and

Nigel Jones

How Sunak sunk himself

Whatever his myriad faults and foibles, Boris Johnson has the one essential quality that Napoleon demanded of his generals: luck. A few weeks ago, the Prime Minister was on the point of being dethroned by his own MPs. Today, thanks to two men, Vladimir Putin and Rishi Sunak, he strides the stage again, basking in the praise of president Volodymyr Zelenskyy as Ukraine’s most doughty and effective international defender. Johnson owes his survival and resurrection to his firm response to Putin’s brutal invasion, but also to the abrupt political implosion of the colleague who was being lined up – not least by himself – to succeed him: Chancellor Rishi Sunak.

Steerpike

Guto gets the gang back together

As the Met begins dishing out fines for partygate, the new regime in No. 10 is focusing on the future. Boris Johnson’s Oxford chum Guto Harri was brought in at the beginning of last month to steady the ship as Director of Communications. His early interventions proved a little unorthodox: giving an interview on his appointment, retweeting John Major’s criticism of his successor and rocking up Downing Street wielding a Tesco shopping bag with healthy goods. Now though, it seems Harri has settled down and begun to prepare for the future. First, he raided his old firm Hawthorn Advisors to recruit his former colleague Oscar Reddrop as the new No. 10 head of

Katy Balls

Do the No. 10 partygate fines spell trouble for Boris?

Partygate is back in the news as Downing Street braces itself for a bumpy few weeks. This morning, Scotland Yard has announced that twenty fixed penalty notices will be issued for breaches of Covid rules in No. 10 as part of the first stage of the findings of the Metropolitan Police investigation: The investigation into allegations of breaches of Covid-19 regulations in Whitehall and Downing Street has now progressed to the point where the first referrals for fixed penalty notices (FPN) will be made to ACRO Criminal Records Office. We will today initially begin to refer 20 fixed penalty notices to be issued for breaches of Covid-19 regulations. The ACRO Criminal

Monday

28 Mar 2022

Katy Balls

‘Do you think people are stupid?’ Rishi Sunak grilled by MPs

After unveiling his spring statement on Wednesday, Rishi Sunak found himself under attack from all sides: his personal approval ratings dived amid a media backlash and criticism from his own side. So, the Chancellor’s appearance this afternoon before the Treasury Select Committee on paper made for a painful session. Over the course of several hours, the committee of MPs quizzed him on whether he thought people were ‘stupid’ when it came to his pre-election tax cut, the impact of Brexit on trade and why he had borrowed a Sainsbury’s worker’s Kia for a publicity shot. When it came to the latter question, Sunak admitted that his team has asked a supermarket worker

Steerpike

NHS accused of exploiting forced labour

There’s a mutiny underway in Westminster. After years of revelations about the conditions of Uighur Muslims in China’s Xinjiang province, momentum is building behind plans to stop the government buying health goods made in the region. On Wednesday, MPs will vote on an amendment to the health and social care bill, tabled by former Tory chief whip Lord Blencathra. It would ban NHS procurement from regions where the government believes there to be a ‘serious risk of genocide’. Ministers have already tried to buy off the rebels by proposing a review of health supply chains but ringleaders fear these don’t go far enough. And now Mr S has seen evidence

James Kirkup

Starmer won’t talk about sex and gender. That’s a problem

Sir Keir Starmer doesn’t want to talk about penises. He’s going to have to do it anyway, and he’s not going to be alone. The Labour leader was interviewed by LBC’s Nick Ferrari on Monday, becoming the latest journalist to test Starmer on questions of sex and gender. Ferrari asked, can a woman have a penis? Starmer’s verbatim response, offered with a pained expression and sorrowful intonation: Nick, I’m not… I don’t think we can conduct this debate with… you know… I just… I don’t think, erm, discussing this issue in this issue helps anyone in the long run. What I want to see is a reform of the law as

Steerpike

Tory MPs in stand off over Will Smith

Ding, ding, ding! It’s fight club time in the Tory party. In the blue corner it’s Simon Hoare. And in the, er, other blue corner it’s Dehenna Davison and Sir Iain Duncan Smith. The subject of today’s rumble in the Westminster jungle is Will Smith’s jab at Chris Rock at last night’s Academy Awards ceremony. Well, they do say politics is showbiz for ugly people… Hoare was early out of the blocks this morning to engage in some ritual macho chest-beating. The Northern Ireland select committee chair scoffed, ‘I’d just hope if someone thought it in good taste to make a joke at the expense of a medical condition of my wife then I’d get

Steerpike

Is Cressida Dick’s stand-in any better?

Goodbye and good riddance: that’s the message from City Hall to Cressida Dick. The Metropolitan police Commissioner was unceremoniously deposed last month by Sadiq Khan after five scandal-filled years in post. Following a protracted dispute over her exit package, the Home Secretary has today confirmed that Dick will be leaving her job in April months before her replacement is named. Priti Patel added that Dick’s deputy Sir Stephen House will temporarily cover as head of the force until a permanent replacement can be found. Who is Sir Stephen, you ask? Well House was the first head of Police Scotland upon its 2012 merger until, that is, his career was brought to

Cindy Yu

Can the UK become energy independent?

15 min listen

During the tail end of his Europe trip, President Biden stated of Vladimir Putin ‘for God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.’ This was quickly walked back by his staff saying that the US had no plans for regime change in Russia. But with the potential of the Russia Ukraine situation turning into long-term conflict, the UK needs to adjust its priorities, particularly when it comes to energy. Whether that future is in wind, nuclear, or fracking. Cindy Yu talks to James Forsyth and Katy Balls.

Steerpike

Second Tory minister ambushed by cake

Partygate is back in the news after a month of headlines about Ukraine. The Met Police has begun interviewing key witnesses, with more than 100 questionnaires distributed to unlucky staff in Whitehall and No. 10. Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak and even the Cabinet Secretary Simon Case have been told to submit evidence for the Met’s investigation: if they are found to have broken the law, they could be issued with a fixed penalty notice. Good luck using that ‘soft on crime’ line on Sir Keir at the next election. Steerpike wonders how each unlucky recipient will justify their shenanigans on their police form. Hopefully, they’ll do better than the defence mustered by Tory

Katy Balls

How much trouble is Rishi Sunak in?

When Rishi Sunak unveiled his Spring Statement last week, he was clear both publicly and privately that it marked a turning point: from now on, tax cuts will be prioritised over public spending. It was the Chancellor’s chance to chart a path back to a smaller state, which he later described to Tory MPs as a ‘clear conservative plan’. Yet a few days on as Sunak continues to face criticism over the measures he did – and didn’t – announce, pressure for higher spending is once again growing. Over the weekend, Sunak found himself on the receiving end of a number of hostile briefings from cabinet colleagues and allies of Boris Johnson. Sunak’s personal ratings