Politics Archives

Monday

24 Jan 2022

Boris’s partygate troubles mean a welcome dilemma for Starmer

The last time a Conservative government was in the midst of a crisis like partygate, Labour had a choice. Should it stick or twist? Should it passively allow Conservative voters, who had kept the party in power for more than decade, to drift away from John Major, thanks to his troubles over the economy, ‘sleaze’ and the EU, hoping they would remain with Labour come a general election? Or should it make a bold and positive case for why they could actively support Labour? Both approaches held dangers. Under John Smith, Labour opted to let nature take its course. At the time, it was described as a ‘one more heave’ strategy. It had merit:

Steerpike

Serpentine swimmers slap down Matt Hancock

Oh dear. As part of his comeback tour, Matt Hancock is trying every trick to aid his post-Gina rehabilitation. There has been talk of a self-justificatory book, cringeworthy Twitter clips of him doing meet and greets, an appearance at the Capital Jingle Bell Ball in a dreadful turtleneck, backbench interventions and even talk of him mounting a leadership bid. But it seems one of Hancock’s stunts has backfired somewhat, after the master of the breast stroke was last week spotted taking a dip in the open-water swimming site of the Serpentine. For while Hancock, a guest of member and fellow former minister Lord Bethell, was keen to milk the conveniently-placed photographer’s snaps for all

Cindy Yu

How damaging are Nusrat Ghani’s claims?

16 min listen

Over the weekend the MP Nusrat Ghani accused the government of sacking her because allegedly her Muslim faith was an issue, and they thought she didn’t defend the Conservative party’s charges of Islamophobia more. In the week of the release of the infamous Sue Gray report into Partygate how are the Tories dealing with these two scandals? ‘The whip’s office is caught between Sandhurst and a HR department.’ – James Forsyth Cindy Yu is joined by James Forsyth and Katy Balls to unpack the weekend’s revelations. And if you are interested in learning more about Nasrat Ghani’s Journey to become an MP do listen to Katy’s interview with her from

Katy Balls

When will Johnson discover his fate?

As concerns rise in government over the possibility of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, Boris Johnson is facing problems both abroad and domestically. The UK is withdrawing staff from the British embassy in Ukraine while ministers are attempting to manage expectations over how far the government will go in the event of an incursion — with a military response viewed as very unlikely. But back home, this is viewed as the week that could decide the Prime Minister’s fate over partygate. As for the contents of the report, the scope of the inquiry has been widened out once again While there is still no confirmed date for the publication of Sue Gray’s report

Steerpike

Where next for ‘party Marty’?

Westminster is gearing up for ‘Sue Gray week’ as the top civil servant is due to finally release her long-awaited findings into ‘partygate.’ There’s been much speculation as to how bad the forthcoming report will be for Boris Johnson and his gang, with both political appointees and civil servants expected to be implicated. TheTelegraph reports that Downing Street police officers have been interviewed about what they saw on the nights in question while the Sunday Times claims that Johnson’s former aide Dominic Cummings will be grilled today. While Mr S awaits the publication of the report’s findings with interest, it’s clear that one or two people’s careers in Whitehall have already been badly hit by

Matthew Lynn

The WFH bubble has burst

We would work over Zoom. We would all exercise on our Peletons. We would order in organic vegetable boxes, stream live shows, and network globally from our kitchens. At the height of the pandemic, with most of the major economies locked down, a group of work-and-live-from home companies boomed. And yet, right now that is starting to turn. The headlines might be dominated by stories of a stock market crash. In fact, however, something else is happening. The WFH bubble is bursting. There are a whole series of reasons why the stock market has turned very wobbly this month. Inflation is soaring and central banks, led by the Federal Reserve,

Sam Leith

Downflood: the Good Ship Boris is sinking

In Sebastian Junger’s book The Perfect Storm, there’s a near-matchless description of how big boats go to the bottom. ‘The crisis curve starts out gradually and quickly becomes exponential,’ Junger writes of a boat wallowing and taking on water in a big sea: The more trouble she’s in, the more trouble she’s likely to get in, and the less capable she is of getting out of it, which is an acceleration of catastrophe that is almost impossible to reverse… If there’s enough damage, flooding may overwhelm the pumps and short out the engine or gag its air intakes. With the engine gone, the boat has no steerageway at all and turns

Sunday

23 Jan 2022

Matthew Taylor

Dominic Raab: ‘Serious consequences’ if Russia invades

Dominic Raab – ‘Serious consequences’ if Russia invades Ukraine The Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab took to the TV studios this morning after another turbulent week for the government. Perhaps the most pressing issue on the agenda is deciphering the motives of Vladimir Putin, as a reported 100,000 Russian troops envelop Ukraine’s eastern border. Trevor Phillips asked Raab what was being done in the West to try and face Putin down as the icy Ukrainian winter threatens to heat up: There will be very serious consequences if Russia takes this move to try and invade, but also install a puppet regime… It will involve a range of financial and economic

Steerpike

Science Museum axes slavery exhibits

An iconoclastic spirit has swept much of Britain’s institutions over the past two years. Just last month Mr S revealed that a painting of a fictitious scene from the American Civil War had been removed from Liverpool University’s library, despite it having hung there for decades. And it seems the university is not alone in its efforts, with Steerpike discovering that London’s Science Museum has removed no fewer than eight exhibits for historical or political insensitivity reasons. Among the items are three objects from the vast collection of pharmaceutical entrepreneur Henry Wellcome, including two nineteenth century slave whips and a German man-catcher which pulled riders off horseback. All were removed after curatorial work uncovered that

Bruce Anderson

It’s time for Boris Johnson to go

The partygate farce drags on. Do we have a government, sustained by a dominant political party or do we have an ill-run children’s playground? The PM has suffered a humiliating loss of authority, which is surely irreversible. He is no longer the First Lord of the Treasury. He has become the first laughing-stock of state. In one respect, Boris Johnson was always an improbable Prime Minister. From Attlee onwards, all post-war premiers could have claimed to be serious people. History might question whether that was really true of Harold Wilson or Tony Blair but at various stages they both dominated British politics. At least for a season, to use a

Steerpike

Was this MP sacked for her ‘Muslimness’?

It’s a bad time to be a Tory whip. Facing briefings of incompetence and allegations of blackmail, backbencher Nus Ghani has overnight added fuel to the fire by claiming she was sacked from her ministerial post because her Muslim faith was ‘making colleagues uncomfortable’. A few hours after the Sunday Times reports surfaced, Chief Whip Mark Spencer stepped forward to reveal himself as the MP about whom such charges were levelled. Ghani, of course, made history in January 2018 as the first female Muslim Minister to speak from the House of Commons dispatch box. A staunch Brexiteer and critic of China, she was surprisingly sacked from her transport brief in the February 2020 mini-reshuffle despite

Ben Sixsmith

‘West Elm Caleb’ and the vindictiveness of a social media feeding frenzy

The saga of ‘West Elm Caleb’ will make you wish that you had never used the internet. It will make you wish that you had never heard of the internet. It is the sort of thing that would make Ted Kaczynski feel vindicated, if his prison guards forced him to look at social media as some kind of esoteric punishment. I will keep the background short and sweet, or, rather, short and sour. On TikTok, last week, various women in New York uploaded videos about a young man, Caleb, who had both ‘love bombed’ and then ‘ghosted’ them — or, in other words, made it seem as if he was intensely

Michael Simmons

Sage ‘scenarios’ vs actual: an update

Given that lockdown was very nearly ordered on the advice of Sage last month, it’s worth keeping an eye on the ‘scenarios’ it published, and how they compare to the situation today. Another week of data offers more food for thought. This week was the period when deaths were supposed to be peaking – so given that no extra restrictions were ordered, it’s interesting to compare the peak the models predicted for this week with what actually happened. Deaths were said by Sage to peak at anything from 600 to 6,000 a day (the latter figure, predictably, hogged the headlines). But on Saturday 262 deaths were reported in England, and

Saturday

22 Jan 2022

John Ferry

The paradox at the heart of Nicola Sturgeon’s green ‘revolution’

In some ways it was refreshing to see the radical left brought to heel by the realities of government. Having spent years campaigning to ‘ditch neoliberal economics for good’, this week saw the Scottish Green Party celebrate Shell and BP winning contracts to exploit Scotland’s offshore wind potential for the enrichment of their shareholders. Far from being a strike against neoliberalism, the Greens have provided a ringing endorsement of capitalism’s place in the transition away from fossil fuels. This came on the back of the ScotWind Leasing project, which has seen the Scottish government auction off seabed plots for major offshore wind projects around the Scottish coast. In the first

Patrick O’Flynn

The rampant egotism of Boris’s backbench MPs

The post-war Conservative statesman David Maxwell Fyfe once claimed that loyalty was the Tory secret weapon. Like many of his ideas – he was also a notable advocate of European integration – this one did not stand the test of time. Indeed, it crashed and burned when he became one of the highest profile victims of Harold Macmillan’s ‘Night of the Long Knives’ reshuffle. Jeremy Thorpe wittily characterised that brutal event as showing that a Tory leader was willing ‘to lay down his friends for his life’. These days the disloyalty primarily flows the other way in the Conservative party, with backbenchers increasingly viewing bids to topple the party leader

Friday

21 Jan 2022

Steerpike

Carrie’s campaigners and the Tory Chief Whip

Poor Mark Spencer. The whips’ office and its much-maligned chief have been in the firing line this week over their poor tactics and weak political intelligence, having been accused of deploying bully-boy tactics while conversely failing to protect their embattled PM. Spencer has, reportedly, accepted his fate and the fact he is ‘very much much on his way out’ amid briefings that the whips’ office is to be purged to make amends for Johnson’s errors. Still, Mr S was intrigued to read a page 4 report from the Guardian today, headlined ‘Chief Whip “delaying changes to animal welfare”.’ It claims that ‘senior sources in the Conservative party have confirmed that several policies including

Cindy Yu

Did Boris’s whips go too far?

13 min listen

After Christian Wakeford’s defection to Labour, Boris Johnson looks to be in the clear – for now. The Prime Minister’s backbenchers, though, are still frustrated by the aggressive tactics used by his whips to ensure their support. Is blackmail normal in the Commons, and are their complaints a result of Parliament’s generational divide? Cindy Yu speaks to James Forsyth. ‘If you had turned up in Westminster in the 1970s, you would find whips pushing people up against the wall. I don’t think that goes on today.’ – James Forsyth

Steerpike

Milling flounders on Uyghur debate

The mood in Westminster has gone somewhat quiet over the past two days, after Christian Wakeford’s defection on Wednesday stopped the momentum of Tory plotters in parliament. But for a few hours yesterday, passions came alive once more – this time on an issue of policy. Foreign Office minister Amanda Milling was dragged to the House to answer questions from seething China hawks over the Commons debate on the Uyghur Tribunal’s verdict of genocide. The hapless Milling was appointed to her current post as Minister for Asia in September 2021, after being demoted from her role as Chairman of the Conservative party. And, for all its current difficulties, how Milling

James Forsyth

What happens if Boris wins a no confidence vote?

The Partygate drama is temporarily paused as Tory MPs wait for Sue Gray to deliver her report. But even once it is out, what happens to Boris Johnson and the Conservative party is far from clear. One Tory MP with a foot in both the rebel and loyalist camps predicts ‘trench warfare for several weeks’ as the plotters try to get the 54 letters they need for a no confidence vote in the Prime Minister. As the rules currently stand, if Boris Johnson wins a confidence vote, he is safe for 12 months Not all Tory MPs are convinced that submitting a letter is the right approach though. As I

Wolfgang Münchau

Blair is right: Boris doesn’t have a plan for Britain

What can Boris Johnson and the Tories learn from Tony Blair? While Labour’s former leader remains deeply unpopular – and indeed ultimately fell over a grave misjudgement – he was the UK’s last successful prime minister. Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Theresa May and, now, Boris Johnson exist in his shadow. The PM would be wise then to look to Blair’s rise to power – and his strategic approach to government – to learn some lessons. In a speech yesterday, Blair warned that: Margaret Thatcher was the last Tory leader with an actual agenda ‘There is a gaping hole in the governing of Britain where new ideas should be.’ Blair is right. While Partygate continues to dominate the