Politics Archives

Friday

7 Jan 2022

What the Capitol riots and the plot to stop Brexit have in common

It’s not often that browsing the genteel aisles of Waterstones reminds you of madmen storming the Capitol in buffalo-horn helmets, but that’s the buzz I got as I briskly scanned the History shelves. I happened on a slender volume called How To Stop Brexit, written by Nick Clegg. I’d never heard of the book (a realisation that probably attaches to quite a lot of books by Lib Dem leaders) so I pulled it out, with curiosity. The text, I thought, must be a new thing, written since we finally Brexited and Clegg joined Facebook. But no: it was published in 2017. It seems I was holding a kind of revolutionary pamphlet, advising

Thursday

6 Jan 2022

William Moore

Rip it up: the vaccine passport experiment needs to end

38 min listen

In this week’s episode: Is it time to rip up the idea of vaccine passports? In The Spectator’s cover story this week, our economics editor Kate Andrews writes about her disdain for the idea of vaccine passports after being exposed to their flaws first hand. She joins the podcast along with Professor Julian Savulescu from the University of Oxford. (01:01) Also this week: Is Covid putting a spotlight on understudies? In this week’s Spectator, Sarah Crompton champions the understudy as one of the heroes of the pandemic. These are the community of stand-in actors who have kept productions alive during Covid. She is joined on the podcast by Chris Howell,

Steerpike

Is Molly-Mae a Thatcherite?

She is the glamorous blonde who’s the talk of the town. Enterprising, ambitious, sharp-elbowed, with a career that embodies the Fiat 500 Tory dream. A charismatic, self-made woman whose free market philosophy of selfish individualism will make her the toast of Thatcherites everywhere. No, not Liz Truss; but rather Love Island contestant Molly-Mae Hague. For the Foreign Secretary isn’t the only liberty-lover able to make a splash they days. Mr Steerpike’s favourite reality TV star has caused something of a ferocious backlash this week with her comments on a podcast preaching the virtues of hard work and equal opportunity. Hague has managed to spark the ire of the social media socialists by declaring that: You’re given one

Isabel Hardman

Who let the Mogg out?

10 min listen

In yesterday’s Cabinet debate, Jacob Rees-Mogg called on Boris Johnson to abandon the planned hike in national insurance, amid warnings of a looming cost of living crisis. This is not the first time the leader of the Commons has criticised the government following his opposition to tougher Covid restrictions. Might this be a sign that Rees-Mogg is going to jump before he is pushed? ‘After the Patterson affair, there is now a clear distance between No.10 and the whips office. As we both know Isabel, when that is the case, that is when Parliament begins to unravel quite quickly’ James Forsyth. Also on the podcast, the decorations to the Downing

Andrew Tettenborn

Have we reached peak human rights?

After the Colston debacle, you might be forgiven for having missed the other legal story that broke this week. The European Court of Human Rights has dismissed the complaint in the Ulster ‘gay cake’ case, so the decision in favour of the baker will stand. In case you need reminding, seven years ago a Belfast gay rights activist called Gareth Lee asked Ashers, a high-class bakery, to produce a cake inscribed with the phrase ‘Support Gay Marriage’ for an event he was organising. The bakery owners refused, citing Presbyterian religious scruples, whereupon Lee sued for discrimination. He lost. Our Supreme Court held that he had not been discriminated against because he

Steerpike

Read in full: the Lord Geidt letters

At long last, the flatgate letters are out. Boris Johnson has today been cleared by his ethics adviser Lord Geidt of deliberately misleading an investigation into the funding of his Downing Street flat refurbishment – despite being accused of acting ‘unwisely’. Geidt had previously cleared Johnson of breaking the ministerial code over allegations of soliciting a donation from Lord Brownlow but a recent Electoral Commission investigation revealed previously unknown WhatsApp messages between Brownlow and Johnson. But while Geidt says the emergence of the ‘lost’ WhatsApp message ‘caused me to test my confidence in my earlier conclusions’, Johnson maintains the texts did not undermine previous assurances that at ‘no point in the eight months until late February 2021’ was he

Mary Dejevsky

Bloodshed in Kazakhstan could spell trouble for Putin

Russian troops have now arrived in Kazakhstan in a desperate bid to halt the tide of violence that has swept the country. Their arrival is a last resort for the country’s president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev as he fights to maintain his grip on power. But he isn’t the only leader who is eager to quell this unrest: Vladimir Putin will be deeply troubled by what events in Kazakhstan mean for his own leadership. Fuel price rises were the immediate trigger for the unrest in Kazakhstan, but the rapid spread of these protests – from the west of the country, close to Kazakhstan’s oil fields, to numerous towns and cities – shows that something much more fundamental

Freddy Gray

Has America learnt anything from the Capitol riot?

30 min listen

It’s been one year since a large number of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol building in Washington DC to try and prevent the certification of the 2020 presidential election. There are still many questions surrounding that infamous day and to look for some answers Freddy Gray talks with John Daniel Davidson, a senior editor at the Federalist.

Steerpike

Rees-Mogg reveals his reading material

The booster rollout continues at pace but not all Westminster are happy with efforts to increase vaccine take-up. Tory backbencher Danny Kruger popped up in the Commons today to ask the Leader of the House for time to debate compulsory vaccination for NHS workers. All healthcare staff must be jabbed by 1 April or risk facing the sack – one of the so-called ‘Plan B’ measures which Kruger reluctantly endorsed last month after wrestling with his conscience. Kruger began his question by referencing research published by the British Medical Journal shortly after the Commons voted for the package of Covid measures. It found that the effectiveness of a third vaccine wore off after

Steerpike

Bristol refuse to declare David Miller probe costs

Fallen idols are something of a trend in Bristol at the moment. But as controversy rages over the Colston statue toppling, another is brewing at the local university. For staff there are refusing to reveal the costs and identity of the top QC who led the investigation into the long-running David Miller saga. The controversial academic was sacked by the University of Bristol last October, having been accused by the All-Party Parliamentary Group Against Anti-Semitism of ‘inciting hatred against Jewish students’ for his comments about Israel, Zionism and the student Jewish Society. The university launched the QC-led investigation into Professor Miller’s conduct in March 2021, with the lawyer producing an independent report which concluded

Ed West

What really matters in the Covid culture wars?

During the grimmest days of the First Crusade in 1098, the western Christians found themselves besieged by the Turks in Antioch. They had travelled more than a thousand miles from France, and countless fellow believers had died in the almost impossible trek across the known world; now running out of food and water, they were tired, hungry and desperate. At their lowest point, and ready to give into despair, Christian spirits were raised by the arrival of one Peter Bartholomew, a poor man from Provence who claimed he had been visited by the Virgin, promising them victory. The noblemen in charge were suspicious, as Peter was not only an illiterate farmhand

The Spectator

The cost of living – not Covid – could bring Boris down

Two and a half years into his premiership, Boris Johnson has enjoyed no more than a month of that time unencumbered either by Brexit negotiations or the public health emergency. Once Britain is through the worst of the Omicron wave, it would be understandable if the Prime Minister wanted to pursue some kind of political vision. The danger is that, as normality returns, his premiership will be further imperilled by the cost of living. An economic crisis is expected to hit households in April. In that month, National Insurance contributions (NICs) will go up by 1.25 per cent, a direct violation of Johnson’s manifesto pledge to protect voters from tax

James Forsyth

What Boris must do to survive

In recent years, the notion of cabinet government has been a polite fiction. In theory, the prime minister is merely the first among equals when he meets his secretaries of state. In practice, they all owe their position to No. 10 and usually do what they’re told. The situation was summed up by an old Spitting Image sketch showing Margaret Thatcher at a restaurant with her cabinet ministers. She orders steak. ‘What about the vegetables?’ the waitress asks. ‘Oh,’ she replies, ‘they’ll have the same as me.’ For the first two years of Boris Johnson’s premiership, cabinet ministers were more claque than cabinet. ‘How many hospitals are we going to

Wednesday

5 Jan 2022

Steven Barrett

The Colston verdict is the triumph of values, not law

The verdict is in on the case of the Colston statue in Bristol. Not guilty. Every one of the accused is innocent. And I mean that: everyone is innocent until proven guilty. If found not guilty, they must — at all times — have retained their innocence. But something feels wrong. Eminent lawyers have described the verdict as both absurd and perverse. In the UK we ‘relate’ to law. We aren’t taught it in schools. Our parents, teachers, instead introduce it to us by osmosis. We have a feel for it, a grasp of it. We might have felt we knew what criminal damage was, and we might have felt that

Robert Peston

Boris and Keir have the energy crisis all wrong

Because of soaring gas and oil prices, and the regulations that determine the energy price cap, it is almost inevitable most of us will face a rise in energy bills of between 40 per cent and 50 per cent from April. For a typical household, that’s an increase in bills of around £600 a year — which would be a painful increase in the cost of living even for those on median (middling) earnings. It would leave the average household spending 6.5 per cent of all their disposable income, after tax and benefits, on heating and power — based on official Office for National Statistics figures. That’s one in every

Steerpike

Michael Rosen faces defamation lawsuit

Twitter is a strange place: a rich source of (often unintentional) humour, populated by the puritanical and the po-faced. One such example was provided in May last year, when Dr Pete Newbon, a lecturer in humanities at Northumbria University, ended up being investigated by his employer for making fun of Jeremy Corbyn. His crime? Tweeting a picture of the former Labour leader reading to a group of schoolchildren from Michael Rosen’s We’re Going on a Bear Hunt. Only the image had been photoshopped to show Corbyn holding the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion instead – a classic example of satire. Only Rosen, who is also on Twitter, didn’t take too

Lloyd Evans

What does Angela really make of Boris?

Poor Sir Keir Starmer. He’s having a bad pandemic. The Labour leader was absent again at PMQs. His gifted and charismatic deputy, Angela Rayner, got another chance to display her credentials as his replacement. Rayner, with her necklace of white beads, looked like a duchess launching a battleship. She and Boris flirted constantly, which may not be a good thing. Teasingly he said he knew that she coveted Sir Keir’s job. ‘And I wish her well.’ When she got up she leaned so far across the despatch box that she seemed ready to clamber over it When she got up she leaned so far across the despatch box that she

James Forsyth

Did Rayner get the better of Boris?

11 min listen

The first PMQs of 2022 was a little different. It was Angela Rayner’s turn to step up to the dispatch box whilst Keir Starmer is isolating having tested positive for Covid. Rayner went after Boris Johnson on inflation and the cost of living crisis looming in Britain, criticising the government for refusing to cut VAT on energy bills. Another topic that came up was the pressure on the NHS as a result of the pandemic. NHS Trusts are declaring critical incidents saying they’re not going to be able to perform certain treatments due to high staff absences. ‘The crisis in the healthcare sector is not that anybody is being overwhelmed.

Steerpike

Fact check: are Sadiq Khan’s vaccination claims right?

Sadiq Khan is always on the lookout for any way in to national debate, and this week he has been starting – quite rightly – to focus on the benefits of vaccination. But the key to doing this effectively is not to say stuff that’s not true. Here, he struggles. After the No. 10 press conference, he tweeted out one of Chris Whitty’s graphs claiming that ‘at all ages – the vast, vast majority of people hospitalised with Covid have not yet been vaccinated.’ But is this actually true? In a word: no. Vaccinations reduce your chances of hospitalisation by 88 per cent: they work. But the idea – popular on

James Forsyth

Rayner hits Johnson where it hurts

The first PMQs of the year gave us a preview of the political debate we’ll be having for the next few months. Labour went after the government on inflation. Angela Rayner asked Boris Johnson why he had dismissed fears over it as unfounded back in October: Johnson denied he had said it — which is an odd claim given what he said in that interview. She then punched the Tory bruise, by asking why Johnson wasn’t cutting VAT on fuel, as he had said he would do during the EU referendum. Johnson made the point that this help wouldn’t be well targeted, which is true. But the political pressure for this from