Politics

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

Wednesday

12 Jan 2022

Why Boris might still survive

Haunted. Ashen. Defeated. That’s how the PM looked in parliament this afternoon as he faced the flamethrowers of the opposition. He began with a long apology about the May 2020 party in Downing Street which he said he had attended. And he openly acknowledged the ‘rage’ of the British public. His excuse – embarrassingly flimsy – was that he’d misunderstood the character of the get-together. And he was forced to adopt the lawyerly terms he so decries in others when he referred to the party as ‘the event in question’. So what was it? A wine-tasting? A discreet sherry at sundown? Or a major session with dancing on the tables?

Dr Steve James

Why should I be sacked for refusing the vaccine?

A few months ago, Sajid Javid was asked how he could justify sacking unvaccinated care home workers if they had been infected with Covid and had natural immunity. The Health Secretary replied as if such people were plainly idiots. ‘If they haven’t taken a vaccine — despite all the effort that’s been made to persuade them, encourage them, provide them with information, introduce them to trusted voices — then at some point you have to move on.’ By ‘move on’ he meant thousands of them should be fired. NHS staff are next in line: we have until 1 April to get jabbed or get out. On a recent visit to King’s

Steerpike

Peter Bone’s sly pop at Boris

Peter Bone was up at PMQs today, asking a rare, non-partygate question to our beleaguered Prime Minister on whether he’d abolish the BBC licence fee (answer: no). But not all the Wellingborough backbencher’s maneuverings in Parliament this week seem designed to be so helpful to Boris, as he battles to save his premiership. For Mr S has spotted that Bone has a Private Members’ Bill up in the House of Commons on Friday on… how to replace an incapacitated Prime Minister. As speculation heats up over who could and should replace Johnson, Bone’s timely move seeks to tidy up the question of succession to the post of First Lord of the Treasury. His Bill, which

The Spectator

Boris Johnson owes the country a proper apology

On 20 May 2020, the Metropolitan Police issued a statement on social media which summed up the conditions in the country. ‘Have you been enjoying the hottest day of the year so far?’ it asked. ‘You can relax, have a picnic, exercise or play sport, as long as you are: on your own, with people you live with or just you and one other person.’ To do otherwise, it didn’t have to say, would be a criminal offence. In 10 Downing Street, however, Boris Johnson’s principal private secretary sent out a very different message to more than 100 staff members. ‘Make the most of the lovely weather,’ it said, and

Steerpike

The New York Times gets Britain wrong (again)

BREAKING: Britain is plunging into autocracy. Well, according to the New York Times at least. Steerpike has grown used to the witterings from America’s least reliable news source in recent years, as it seeks to portray the UK as a plague-riddled, rain-drenched fascistic hell-hole on the verge of democratic collapse but where the trains don’t run on time and swamp-dwelling locals feast on legs of mutton. As a pastiche of foreign news coverage, it’s up there among the best – like Scoop without the fiction disclaimer. The latest dispatch from Perfidious Albion is an opinion column published by a little-known left-wing hack, splashed across the front page of the paper’s international edition. According

Isabel Hardman

PMQs: Johnson won’t resign. He’ll have to be removed

Boris Johnson has just made his leadership crisis worse at PMQs. As expected, he started the session with an apology to the public, saying ‘I know the rage they feel with me and with the government I lead’. This sounded promising, but things quickly went downhill, and that was before the questions had even started. Johnson then said ‘there are things we simply did not get right’, claiming that when he attended the party on 20 May 2020, he ‘believed implicitly that this was a work event’ and that he should have sent everyone back inside. He even made reference to the possibility that ‘it could be said to fall

Patrick West

When will firms like Ben & Jerry’s stop lecturing us?

Is anyone else fed up of corporate virtue-signalling? From banks boasting of their commitment to diversity and equality, to train companies changing their liveries to the rainbow flag, or supermarket chains proclaiming they are fighting racism, enough is enough. Thankfully, the moneymen who matter to big businesses – and whom they might actually listen to – are now finally speaking out. Fund manager Terry Smith and leading shareholder in Unilever – owner of the notoriously woke ice cream firm Ben & Jerry’s – has attacked the company for its underperformance, pointing a finger at its obsession with political posturing. ‘Unilever seems to be labouring under the weight of a management which

Steerpike

Watch: Starmer calls for Johnson to resign

It’s unfortunate for Boris Johnson that one of his worst appearances at PMQs has coincided with one of Keir Starmer’s best. The Leader of the Opposition has clearly had his cornflakes today as he tore into the shambling PM and did what many of his party have been wanting for months: calling on Johnson to resign. The embattled premier was initially somewhat helped by Lindsay Hoyle’s intervention to call for order but Starmer doubled down in his supplementary questions. He referenced the resignations of Matt Hancock and Allegra Stratton and noted Johnson said the former was ‘right to resign’ for breaking Covid restrictions. Sir Keir also cited one particularly moving case of a lady

Steerpike

Watch: Boris apologises for No. 10 party

It’s probably the most difficult PMQs he’ll ever have to face. Boris Johnson is on the back foot today over reports on a garden party which went on in No. 10 in May 2020. Just before he faced questions from MPs, Johnson took the opportunity to finally apologise to the House and to the country, telling them ‘I know the rage’ the public ‘feel towards me’ and saying ‘I must take responsibility. No. 10 is a big department with the garden as an extension of the office’ but ‘I believed implicitly this was a work event. Will that be enough? Here’s the full text of what Boris had to say: ‘I want to

Stephen Daisley

To save the Union, ignore Gordon Brown

As he blasts his way through the remaining support beams of the UK constitution, Gordon Brown is doing more to deliver Scottish independence than the SNP. The former Prime Minister is reportedly poised to recommend that Labour adopt ‘devo max’ as a policy, which would see the SNP-run Scottish parliament handed yet another tranche of powers. Only defence and foreign policy would remain in the hands of Westminster: everything else would be at the whim of Nicola Sturgeon. The theory is that by increasing the powers of Holyrood, the Scots’ appetite for independence will be sated. But is no evidence for this, and 23 years of evidence against it. From

Steerpike

Party-planners troll No. 10

Westminster’s finest are gathering today ahead of Boris Johnson’s much-awaited appearance at Prime Ministers’ Questions. The embattled premier is expected to be grilled shortly in the Commons about the garden party which took place in No. 10 in May 2020, following a morning media round blackout by the government in recent days. Yet while the House should be full today, government whips should not expect many of those on the Tory benches to be there in support. Some tell Mr S they are just there to watch the blood sport, putting in prayer cards to witness the unfolding drama in Parliament. Far more telling than the attendance rate is the number of Tories willing to put

Rod Liddle

The sooner Boris is gone the better

People seem surprised and a little doubting that the Prime Minister is incapable of remembering if he attended a party in his own back garden in May 2020. It does not come as much of a shock to me, seeing as he has difficulty remembering how many children he has. Beneath that albino mop resides a brain comprising plasma in a perpetual turbulent flux, like you get in one of those tokamaks used in the pursuit of nuclear fusion energy. Except Boris’s brain does not have the correct-strength magnets to hold it all in place, just a skull. As a consequence he possesses no judgment and nothing in the way

James Forsyth

It’s getting worse for Boris

Talking to Tory MPs this morning, it is clear that the mood today is even worse than yesterday. Even one of those MPs closest to Boris Johnson thinks that it is now 50/50 whether enough letters go in to force a no confidence vote. Ironically, the improving Covid numbers are changing the calculus for some Tory MPs about a contest. A few weeks ago, even the most ardent Boris critics didn’t think you could have a no confidence vote, given the situation with the soaring Omicron variant. But now it is somewhat in retreat, and that restrictions are likely to go on 26 January giving hostile MPs the chance to do so. PMQs today

Steerpike

Who is Sue Gray?

She’s the name that’s on everyone’s lips in Westminster. As Tory ministers flounder to defend their beleaguered leader over partygate, their oft-repeated line ‘let’s wait for Sue Gray’s inquiry’ has elevated the little-known civil servant investigating No. 10’s parties into something of a Delphic oracle, the woman whose judgements could make or break a Prime Minister. But just who is the mandarin dubbed by her colleagues ‘Deputy God?’ Gray is, in some respects, a classic Whitehall mandarin. Now in her mid-sixties, she’s spent the bulk of her career climbing the rungs in the civil service since the 1970s, with stints in the Transport, Health and DWP ministries. Yet what distinguishes

Nick Cohen

The Tories hold themselves in contempt

If by the end of today 54 members of the parliamentary Conservative party have not handed in the letters required to trigger a leadership contest — or if the cabinet has not told Boris Johnson he must resign — the Tories will have revealed their contempt for the public. The mob is fickle, they will be thinking. Granted, today’s opinion polls are dreadful — two-thirds of those questioned thought he should go. But their calculation will be that the voters can always be persuaded to ‘move on’. And no one is better than using a promise he intends to break, a stunt devoid of meaning, a bridge to nowhere or a phantom high-speed railway line

Ed West

The mind virus killing academia

We lost a giant last month with E.O. Wilson’s passing. A man who stood on Darwin’s shoulders, Wilson had that rare distinction of inspiring a whole discipline in the form of evolutionary psychology. The great sense of loss did not seem to be shared by Scientific American, however, which soon afterwards put out a piece reflecting on the ‘complicated legacies of scientists whose works are built on racist ideas’. Among the ‘problematic’ aspects of Wilson’s work, the author argued, was the ‘descriptions and importance of ant societies existing as colonies’. This was ‘a component of Wilson’s work that should have been critiqued’ because ‘context matters’. Scientific American is not Teen

Tuesday

11 Jan 2022

Katy Balls

Boris Johnson is running out of road

There has been no good news for Boris Johnson today. After an email leaked on Monday evening showing that the Prime Minister’s Principal Private Secretary Martin Reynolds invited over 100 staff to a drinks party in the No. 10 garden in May 2020, the Prime Minister has come under fire from his own side. Downing Street has refused to deny reports that both Boris Johnson and his wife Carrie were present at the event. Instead, all No. 10 will say is that Sue Gray’s inquiry into alleged Covid rule breaking at various Downing Street parties is ongoing. The atmosphere in the Commons has been notably muted. The Tory benches were rather quiet when

Steerpike

Tories move to stop dodgy donors

Amid all the hubbub of cheese, wine and garden parties, it can be hard to focus on non-Covid matters. Still, one Tory MP appears to have managed it, given the decision of Jesse Norman today to table an amendment to the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill. Norman, whose motion is seconded by a trio of well-respected colleagues — Sir Robert Buckland, Robert Halfon and Damian Green — wants universities to declare all donations over £50,000 from foreign donors and list those sums in an annual register published by the Office for Students. Mr S has spent much of the past fortnight banging the drum about the millions being given in donations and grants to the

Robert Peston

How will Boris punish himself if his No. 10 party did break the rules?

The final arbiter of whether Boris Johnson should be punished or sanctioned for allegedly breaking lockdown rules by attending that bring-your-own-booze Downing Street party is not the second permanent secretary at the Cabinet Office Sue Gray, even though she has been given the delicate task of investigating what happened. Under the British system, the ultimate judge and jury of whether any minister should be punished is the Prime Minister. And that means only the PM can decide his own fate. Gray will set out what happened, presumably – in the words of one of her colleagues – ‘with her admirable clarity’. Another official said of Gray: There is only one

Steerpike

Watch: MP breaks down in tears during partygate debate

To look at the House of Commons this morning, you’d have thought Labour won the last election. The green benches on the government side were bereft of the usual Tory hordes, while the opposition was crammed with jeering Labour backbenchers. The reason? The Speaker Lindsay Hoyle had granted an Urgent Question on the subject of No. 10’s parties in May 2020, following yesterday’s revelations by ITV. Boris Johnson was busy elsewhere so the call went out for the Paymaster-General. Poor Michael Ellis was sent out for the most thankless task since the Charge of the Light Brigade, armed only with his legal training in dodging, ducking, deflecting and evading difficult questions. After a predictable