Politics

Tensions between Westminster and the devolved parliaments have been a constant feature of the Covid pandemic. Up in Edinburgh, the First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has made full use of the crisis – hinting constantly at closing the English border and peppering her daily press conferences with pointed jibes at London.  Such actions are of course merely in keeping with the SNP’s penchant for power grabs and undermining the Union. In April the party’s Holyrood manifesto included a section grandly titled ‘global affairs’ boasting about their plans to engage with the ‘Scottish diaspora’ and the establishment of a ‘Scottish Council for Global Affairs.’ Foreign policy is, of course, a reserved power for Westminster. But

It is already known that there will be a campaign of booster shots in the UK this autumn to boost immunity among the over-50s. But it now looks like the government is planning one for autumn 2022 as well. Steven Swinford reports in the Times today that the UK has ordered 35 million doses from Pfizer for next year. The number of doses ordered suggests that the government wants to have the option in 2022 of giving a booster shot to everyone in clinical groups 1-9: the over-50s. Swinford reports that the government was prompted to act, in part, by the fact that the EU has already placed an order

Earlier this week, Mr S brought you the BBC’s internal guide to talking about climate change and how to win audiences over to the ‘correct’ side of the issue. Now he can report that the Corporation’s commissars of language appear to have also redefined what it means to be gay. That redefinition comes in the BBC Style Guide, the in-house guide to words last updated in November. In light of the Corporation’s increasingly desperate attempts to win over younger audiences, Auntie’s description of ‘homosexual’ might raise some eyebrows given its definition as: ‘Homosexual means people of either sex who are attracted to people of their own “gender.”‘ Eagle-eyed readers will note the controversial use of

Hatun Tash is recovering well after being assaulted at Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park last month. The attacker, who is still at large, appeared to aim for her neck, but Hatun deflected the knife so that it broke off in the folds of her clothes. Her bandaged right hand and scarred forehead are the only visible clues of her near escape. She tells me she started watching footage of the incident but couldn’t bring herself to finish. ‘All I can say is, it wasn’t my time.’ She speaks with the calm of a woman who has faced death before. In May, a mob surrounded her screaming for her blood. Last October,

It’s not just David Cameron who has been making a mint from his time in No. 10. The BBC’s revelations yesterday that the Old Etonian earned around £7 million from Greensill came just days after Theresa May’s eponymous company published its first set of accounts since being incorporated in November 2019. Cameron’s successor has chosen to focus her efforts on public speaking – an interesting choice perhaps given her infamous 2017 conference coughing fit. While the pay on the after-dinner circuit doesn’t quite match up to the stratospheric dividends of Greensill lobbying, May will take comfort from the fact she can at least expect to command high fees for years to come – something

It’s A-level results day today as students across the country eagerly await their results. But for Gavin Williamson the day began with a morning media round worthy of an F as the education secretary repeatedly refused to tell LBC host Nick Ferrari what he got in his own exams. The South Staffordshire MP seemed to be taking a leaf out of the Partridge playbook as he extolled the virtues of his alma mater Bradford university in the 1990s, laughing and talking over Ferrari as the latter inquired as to whether the matter was in fact a ‘state secret.’ Results day last year was dominated by the fall out from the exams