Politics Archives

Wednesday

15 Sep 2021

David Paton

Will vaccinating teenagers really prevent disruption to schools?

After the JCVI recommended against offering vaccines to children aged 12 to 15 on health grounds, the government asked the four chief medical officers to consider the broader case, including the impact on schooling. As we know, the government has now accepted the chief medical officers’ recommendation: that all 12 to 15 year olds should be offered one dose of Pfizer on the grounds that doing so will reduce disruption to education. The government has released details of the modelling that underpins that rationale. The approach was first to estimate the number of infections with and without vaccination under different scenarios of infection spread. Next, they used this to model

Steerpike

Watch: Shamima Begum begs for forgiveness on breakfast TV

It’s amazing what the collapse of a caliphate will do to a girl. Shamima Begum popped up on GMB this morning sporting a Nike baseball cap, pink nail varnish and a sleeveless top to ask the British public for forgiveness. The former London schoolgirl who ran away to Syria in 2015 has spent the past two years, err, trying to get back into the UK after it turned out that life in the Islamic State was not quite the land of milk and honey she envisaged. Begum told hosts Susanna Reid and Richard Madeley that she had no idea that Isis was a death cult, stating baldly that: ‘I thought it was an Islamic community’ before adding ‘I

Steerpike

BBC promote convicted arsonist

The BBC has been plunged into a fair few impartiality controversies recently. But while such rows can often be a matter of subjectivity and taste, you would hope that Corporation staff would draw the line at promoting a convicted arsonist accused of orchestrating a ‘terrorist campaign’ against Oxford University. Yikes. This latest BBC East drama hails from Cambridgeshire and was caused by Auntie’s coverage a fortnight ago of an animal rights protest outside a facility that breeds dogs for laboratory research. Activists have been protesting outside Marshall BioResources against such breeding for the past two months, with 15 arrests made at the time the Beeb published its original article. Among those protestors interviewed

Alex Massie

Humza Yousaf has revealed a dark truth about the SNP

American journalist Michael Kinsley once observed that in Washington DC a ‘gaffe’ should be understood as a moment in which a politician or public official inadvertently blurts out a truth it would have been better, and certainly wiser, to leave unsaid. By that standard Humza Yousaf, currently serving as health secretary in the Scottish government, is a mighty friend to journalists. Pondering the meaning and significance of what has become known as the Alex Salmond affair, Yousaf told the comedian Matt Forde that the conflict between Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon was ‘really upsetting because it could have done our cause a hell of a lot of damage – it still

Tuesday

14 Sep 2021

Katy Balls

Johnson’s reshuffle rumours won’t go away

When Boris Johnson was asked at this week’s Covid press conference whether he could rule out an imminent cabinet reshuffle, he didn’t give anything away. The Prime Minister joked that it was a question for the chief medical officer before avoiding offering an answer himself. While Johnson may take the view that the focus on a reshuffle was a distraction from his Covid winter plan announcement, it’s also the case that the constant rumours are starting to become a serious distraction for ministers, aides and civil servants. Given the decision to hold a reshuffle is down to one person, predicting the timings of any such shake-up is a fool’s game. But there is once again feverish speculation that a reshuffle could

Freddy Gray

What will inflation mean for Biden and America?

17 min listen

Freddy Gray sits down with The Spectator‘s economics editor Kate Andrews to discuss the American economy. During the pandemic, inflation grew rapidly – but the latest reports show that it is on its way down again. Is this just a dip before another spike? And is the Met Gala the right venue for championing the poor?

Isabel Hardman

Javid avoids Tory fightback – for now

Tory MPs were not happy when Sajid Javid unveiled the Covid winter plan in the Commons this afternoon. They’re dissatisfied with the government holding so many powers – such as vaccine passports, further lockdowns and other restrictions – in reserve as part of its Plan B, which will be activated this winter if cases breach what the NHS can cope with. The Health Secretary explained Plan B thus: ‘It is absolutely right that the government have a contingency plan, and the trigger, so to speak, for plan B, as I mentioned in my statement, would be to look carefully at the pressures on the NHS. If at any point we deemed them

Steerpike

Watch: Sturgeon’s soft-balls up

Oh dear. It was less than a week ago that Nicola Sturgeon mixed up two of her SNP backbenchers in the Holyrood chamber and gave pre-emptive answers to their questions, thus appearing to be clairvoyant. Now the same thing has happened again today. Asked by one of her MSPs for an update on the establishment of a Covid-19 inquiry, the First Minister gave an answer solely on education and reducing risk of outbreaks in schools. Baffled parliamentarians heard the following exchange: Question: Thank you very much Presiding Officer. Can the First Minister provide an update on the work being conducted to establish an independent public inquiry into the handling of the coronavirus pandemic in Scotland?

Katy Balls

What are Javid’s winter Covid plans?

13 min listen

Health Secretary Sajid Javid today laid out his two plans for dealing with Covid this winter. The first, Plan A, proposes a booster shot for everyone over 50, combined with the flu jab. This would also see contact tracing continue, along with self-isolation for the infected and financial support for those isolating. Plan B proposes vaccine passports and mask mandates in certain settings. To discuss how this was received in the Commons, Katy Balls is joined by Isabel Hardman, James Forsyth and, making a surprise appearance, Fraser Nelson.

Annabel Denham

The misguided experiment of British childcare

Everybody agrees that childcare in Britain is an unholy mess. According to a new study, tens of thousands of parents are desperate for ‘radical change’. And yesterday, after a petition bemoaning childcare costs received 112,907 signatures, Labour’s Catherine McKinnell kicked off a Westminster Hall debate to address funding and affordability. Her answer, inevitably, was more state spending — on nurseries, parents, even an independent review. But the awkward truth is that more state interference makes childcare more expensive. We already pour £6 billion of taxpayer money into the sector each year, and the results are miserable. The quality is often poor, staff retention a perennial battle, and closures common. In

Stephen Daisley

From Neil to Nigel: the descent of GB News

I can’t claim to know any behind-the-scenes rivalries or boardroom brouhaha motivating Andrew Neil’s departure from GB News but I am glad to see him go. Neil is out at the still ill-defined channel which can’t decide whether it’s a populist classical-liberal network, standing up to authoritarian cancel culture, or a British version of Fox News. It excels at neither. Given wobbly ratings, staff departures and one instance of very off-brand knee-taking, it’s not entirely surprising that Neil has finally had his fill and walked away. He was not only chairman but the underwriter of the promise — issued in his opening monologue — that the channel would dissent from

James Forsyth

Can booster shots help Britain avoid another lockdown?

For weeks now, ministers have been getting increasingly frustrated by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation’s failure (JCVI) to back a wide-ranging programme of booster shots. Today it has finally recommended a third dose for everyone in clinical groups one to nine, which is, essentially, everyone over 50. Sajid Javid, the Health Secretary, has already accepted the recommendation and the programme will begin next week. Will this be enough to prevent the need for another lockdown? The booster programme should prevent the waning immunity problem, which was one of the reasons why Israel was hit by an unexpected fourth wave. The government is relying very heavily on boosters to avoid more restrictive

Steerpike

Changing fortunes for the Osborne family

George Osborne might be famous for collecting jobs but is he having any success with them? Since leaving the Treasury in July 2016, the onetime master of British politics seems to have acquired a reverse Midas touch. Having quit as an MP at the 2017 election – when Theresa May’s setbacks meant he could have been first in line to succeed her – Osborne has tried his hand at various gigs with, err, varying degrees of success. As editor of the Evening Standard, Osborne’s reign witnessed falling circulating, dozens of job cuts and losses which ran into the tens of millions. His long-awaited book ‘The Age of Unreason’ is still

Ross Clark

Is the inflation panic over? Probably not

So, is the post-Covid inflation panic over? That is how it looked last month, when the government’s preferred inflation index, CPIH, fell to 2.1 per cent from 2.4 per cent a month earlier. We will have the latest news on Wednesday morning, but for the moment it appears that consumer prices inflation hasn’t taken off like we feared. It is a similar story in the US, where inflation fell back from 5.6 per cent in July to 5.3 per cent in August. The fact that house prices have risen so strongly throughout the deepest recession in modern times ought to be a warning sign Yet there are good reasons to suspect that the summer

Tom Bower

How Charlotte Wahl Johnson’s troubled life shaped her son Boris

Attractive, accomplished and admired as an artist, friend and mother, Charlotte Wahl’s promising life could have been wrecked, first by cruel sicknesses and then by an adulterous husband. Instead, she bravely defied adversity and found happiness in a second marriage, her four children’s success, her friendships and painting. Her death at 79 will be particularly painful for Boris Johnson, the eldest of her remarkable children. Despite all the pressures, he regularly visited his mother at her comfortable flat in Notting Hill Gate, recognising how much he owed her. In frail health from Parkinson’s and other complications, Charlotte agreed to meet me in September 2019 for the biography I was writing

Katy Balls

Liz Truss’s plan to woo ‘Lidl Tories’

Is Boris Johnson’s government really conservative? In the wake of Boris’s plan to break a manifesto pledge and raise tax, it’s a question many have been asking – and one that a speech today by International Trade secretary Liz Truss aims to address. Truss – who has been tipped for a possible promotion to the Foreign Office amid rumours of a reshuffle – will use the event at Policy Exchange to outline Britain’s new trade policy. Truss will link the UK’s trade policy with the government’s flagship domestic agenda: levelling up. She is expected to say that the ‘path to economic revival does not lie in retreating and retrenching, but in free trade and

Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

It’s not cricket: should we ban Afghanistan from playing?

The Taliban takeover in Kabul left the west flailing. But when it comes to cricket, the new ruling regime in Afghanistan is being shown little mercy. Cricket Australia has announced that it will almost certainly cancel the historic Test match with Afghanistan, which was scheduled to start in November. The reason? The Taliban’s mooted ban on women’s cricket. Australia’s Test captain Tim Paine said it is ‘hard to see’ Afghanistan being a part of next month’s T20 World Cup, implying that the ICC should ban the country and that teams should pull out from facing them in the tournament. The response from Australia emerged after the Taliban cultural commission head Ahmadullah Wasiq said ‘Islam and the

Steerpike

Ministers have the ‘time of their lives’ at karaoke

New York may have the Met Gala but London has Parlioke. As global fashionistas last night crammed into their garish garbs, here in Westminster our political masters were having an evening soirée of their own. Steerpike’s man with a microphone reports that MPs were invited to a select singing bash. Ahead of her speech today at Policy Exchange, international trade secretary Liz Truss warmed up her vocal cords with a touch of karaoke. The equalities minister hosted MPs in Parliament alongside fellow Cabinet attendee Therese Coffey, fresh off a morning media round on Universal Credit cuts. Coffey and others let their hair down with a range of vintage songs including

Monday

13 Sep 2021

Tom Slater

The truth about Extinction Rebellion’s ‘climate warfare’

What have environmentalists got against commuters? Not for the first time a group of bedraggled climate nuts have taken their argument for ‘radical’ action on global warming not to Downing Street or to Parliament Square, but to ordinary people just trying to go about their business. Junctions have been blocked along the M25 near Kings Langley, Heathrow, Swanley, Godstone and Lakeside. This is the work of Insulate Britain, a single-issue Extinction Rebellion offshoot demanding action on home insulation. So far 42 have been arrested. The protesters tweeted that they were ‘disrupting the M25’ to ‘demand the government insulate Britain’. And yet so far their primary achievement has been to infuriate

William Nattrass

Donald Tusk is playing a dangerous game in dismissing Polexit

‘The British showed that the dictatorship of the Brussels bureaucracy did not suit them and turned around and left.’ That’s the verdict of the parliamentary head of Poland’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, Ryszard Terlecki, who has once again brought discussions of ‘Polexit’ to the foreground of Polish politics. Donald Tusk, Poland’s new leader of the opposition, has responded by suggesting this is party politics at work. But he is making a dangerous mistake to dismiss the prospect of a Polish exit from the EU. ‘If things go the way they are likely to go, we will have to search for drastic solutions,’ said Terlecki on Friday, citing Brexit as an example of