Politics

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

Thursday

The Spectator

The virus threat has changed. Now Test and Trace must too

Under what circumstances can a government restrict the liberty of the people? An example was given last year: in a public health emergency, to contain a pandemic which threatens to overrun the health service. Opinions may differ on how close we came to this in March 2020, but the question remains relevant now. Is there any realistic threat, today, of the NHS being overwhelmed? And if not, why is Test and Trace still pinging and confining thousands of people every day? When the Test and Trace system was introduced in May last year, it was supposed to prevent another lockdown. In the absence of a vaccine (there was no guarantee

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

Beware Boris’s sinister crackdown on free speech

A Conservative government that boasts it is a defender of free speech against the attacks of ‘the woke’ is about to impose the severest censorship this country has seen in peacetime since parliament abolished press controls in the 1690s. In an extraordinary power grab – which is all the more extraordinary for the absence of opposition – ministers want to silence views that carry no criminal penalty. This is more than a much-needed crackdown on racial attacks on black footballers or incitements to violent crime or any other crime; it is an unmerited attack on free speech. The government’s draft Online Safety bill imposes a ‘duty of care’ on internet companies to remove content that

Mark Galeotti Mark Galeotti

The real reason Putin targeted HMS Defender

When military personnel talk of ‘theatres’ they mean a zone of conflict. Moscow seems to take the term increasingly literally, though, regarding spin as an essential tool of martial statecraft. This was especially visible in yesterday’s claims that its Border Guard ships fired warning shots and Black Sea Fleet Su-24 bombers dropped OFAB-250 fragmentation bombs because the Royal Navy destroyer HMS Defender ‘intruded’ onto Russia’s ‘territorial waters.’ After which, Moscow smugly noted, Defender ‘left’ those waters. Except that very little of that seems to be true. First of all, the waters in question were off Cape Fiolent, at the southern tip of the Crimean peninsula. By international law, the waters

Wednesday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Five years later will we ever truly move on from Brexit?

13 min listen

It’s the five year anniversary of when the UK decided to leave the European Union and while the opposition are looking to try and put the referendum behind them, the government still seems keen to put any UK success squarely on the shoulders of Brexit. ‘There is an asymmetry in British politics now between about who wants to keep talking about it and who doesn’t’ – James Forsyth But with nationalist sentiment rumbling on in both the north and west are the Conservatives ignoring the battles to come? And also are the prospects of vaccine passports looking better? James Forsyth and Katy Balls discuss… with another surprise visit from Fraser

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

PMQs: Boris feels more threatened by Sir Ed than Sir Keir

At PMQs Sir Keir Starmer led on the tricky subject of rape. He cornered the PM with a precisely worded four-part question about the fact that 98 per cent of reported rapes don’t lead to criminal charges. The PM countered that Labour had recently voted against a bill that toughened up sentences for violent sexual offenders. Sir Keir had war-gamed this in advance. And how he pounced. ‘What provision, what clause, what chapter or what words of that bill will do anything to change the fact that 98.4 per cent of reported rapes don’t end up in a charge?’ Without hesitation, Boris said, ‘Section 106 and 107 of that bill

Jack Brown

The unfairness of London’s Remainer reputation

Today marks five years since the United Kingdom voted to Leave the European Union. London, as we all know by now, voted the opposite way to the rest of England — by a margin of 60 to 40 per cent. Ever since then, the capital has been portrayed as remote and out of touch, culturally disconnected from the rest of the nation. Brexit is often explained as the victory of the long-ignored Rest of England where the ‘real people’ live. In 2019, Dominic Cummings told reporters to ‘get out of London, go and talk to people who are not rich Remainers’. But is London really so different to the rest

Steerpike Steerpike

Joanna Cherry loses her seat

Oh dear. While all eyes in Westminster were on the dispatch boxes at Prime Minister’s Questions today, it appears an unsightly scuffle was going on just out of sight. Joanna Cherry, the onetime SNP darling sacked from her party’s front bench in February, has accused the Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey of ‘unacceptable behaviour.’ In a series of tweets shortly after the session ended, Cherry claimed that Davey, buoyant after last Thursday’s by-election triumph in Chesham and Amersham, had tried to dislodge her from her perch on the Commons green benches. She wrote on Twitter that: ‘There are no reserved seats in @HouseofCommons at present yet Ed Davey just

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

PMQs: Johnson’s inappropriate jab joke

Sir Keir Starmer had a powerful line of attack at today’s Prime Minister’s Questions. He led on the government’s own review of the treatment of rape and sexual violence, which recommended sweeping reforms to the way cases are handled so that the current low rate of charges and convictions can be reversed. Prosecutions have fallen by nearly 60 per cent in four years — to just 2,102 — while convictions have also experienced a similar decline. Today, Starmer pointed out that 98.4 per cent of reported rapes don’t lead to a charge. He repeatedly pressed Johnson on what the government was actually doing beyond apologising for the current situation. It undid

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Is the green list enough to save tourism?

Will there be any new countries on the ‘green list’ when the latest revisions are announced tomorrow? Last time around there was expected to be some kind of relaxation – yet no countries were added to the green list. Instead, Portugal was removed and several countries were added to the red list. However, media minister John Whittingdale certainly seemed to hold hope when interviewed on the Today programme this morning, saying “hopefully it will be possible to increase that number [of countries]”. It is hard to escape the conclusion that the government will face serious difficulties if it does not allow some relaxation. The travel industry is getting restive and

Robert Peston Robert Peston

What can Britain learn from Israel on ending lockdown?

Israel has been the world’s whole-country experiment to establish how, and how fast, Covid vaccination can return life to normal (as much as life is ever normal in a country where there is constant tension over the rights and future of Palestinians). I am in Jerusalem, trying to understand the implications for stability in Israel and peace in the Middle East of a new government where prime minister Naftali Bennett is opposed to any kind of Palestinian state, and the alternate PM Yair Lapid passionately believes a two-state solution is the only answer. I’ll return to that in later reports, though the short answer – according to members of the

William Nattrass William Nattrass

Viktor Orbán goes to war on the European parliament

‘Times have changed, and whereas thirty years ago we believed Europe was our future, today we understand that we are Europe’s future’. Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán has never been one to shy away from controversy when it comes to the European Union. But on Hungarian Independence Day on Monday, he went a step further by presenting an alternative vision for the bloc.  Orbán’s plan involves a major restructuring of the European parliament, which he described as a ‘dead-end’ for democracy. He wants to fix the EU’s democratic deficit by building a ‘democracy of democracies based on European nations’.  In practice, this would mean a reformed European parliament consisting of delegates

Steerpike Steerpike

Five of the worst Remain predictions five years on

It is five years today since the EU referendum. Despite David Cameron’s psephological guru Andrew Cooper predicting a ten point win for In on polling day, we all know what happened next as the Vote Leave team of Boris and Cummings trumped the Britain Stronger in Europe’s brigade of Craig Oliver, Will Straw et al. The UK (eventually) went on to leave the European Union and now five years on, Mr S thought it would be instructive to take a look at five of the predictions that never came true. Households £4,300 worse off The focus of the Remain campaign on Brexit’s economic costs was labelled as ‘Project Fear’ by opponents, with no

Steerpike Steerpike

Who will save parliament’s choir?

Few institutions are as treasured in the Palace of Westminster as the parliamentary choir – though perhaps the terrace canteen’s jerk chicken recipe runs it close. The choir is arguably the best embodiment of the cross-party spirit, in which Tory MPs, Labour peers and House staff members can all sing alongside one another. Or as the choir’s music director Simon Over once quipped: ‘There are just four parties in this choir – Sopranos, Altos, Tenors and Basses and that’s it.’ The choir is best known for its hugely popular Christmas services of festive choral works, seasonal readings and audience carols held every December. But now the future of the choir has been threatened by

Patrick O’Flynn Patrick O'Flynn

Labour’s killer queen is the perfect replacement for Starmer

As Keir Starmer’s re-run of the great Change UK centrist dad experiment sinks deeper into political quicksand, the importance of a party leader being able to project a compelling personality becomes ever more obvious. Even the pinko pundit class that was overjoyed by his election as Labour leader is now close to giving up on Starmer, whose lack of ringcraft reminds us that there is something to be said for career politicians after all. Ambitious shadow ministers with antennae more finely tuned in to the public mood than his are said already to be preparing prospective leadership campaign teams in anticipation of the voters of Batley and Spen delivering a

Andrew McQuillan

Can Jeffrey Donaldson halt the DUP’s civil war?

Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, the Lagan Valley MP, has triumphed in the one-horse race to replace Edwin Poots as leader of the DUP, getting the top job at the second time of asking. Nobody else came forward to instigate a leadership election, meaning that his appointment will be rubber stamped when the party’s electoral college meets this Saturday. Respected at Westminster, Donaldson seems a more plausible fit for high office than the gauche Poots, though both men are remarkably similar; Donaldson, like Poots, is a committed Christian and is a prominent Orangeman. History is never far away from the politics of Northern Ireland. Donaldson’s win coincides with the centenary of the

Kenneth Baker

The Tories risk losing their voter base

The switch from a 16,000 Tory majority to a Lib Dem majority of 8,000 in Chesham and Amersham is a gamechanger. HS2 was a special factor, though even the Lib Dems did not say they would cancel it. But there was real anxiety that the Tory planning changes would threaten local communities. The Tories had a good candidate, but Peter Fleet has since said that many of his electors were concerned that the government’s mammoth spending programmes would lead to higher taxes. The result should come as little surprise. The 2019 local elections gave a clear sense of where things were headed, when a huge number of Tory seats were

Tuesday

Steerpike Steerpike

Listen: Department for Education’s new patriotic anthem

After last year’s A-level results day debacle and the ongoing saga about catch-up funding, Gavin Williamson is one of the bookies’ favourites for the Cabinet chop. The incumbent education secretary has suffered some brutal headlines in the last 12 months and appears to have stumbled on the culture wars as his best bet for ministerial survival, jumping headfirst earlier this month into the Oxford Queen portrait row. Now though Williamson’s department might have overstepped itself in its zeal to promote British values. DfE is ‘encouraging schools across the UK to celebrate One Britain One Nation Day’ on Friday as part a long-running campaign founded by former police chief Kash Singh. It is trying to get

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Who’s being hurt by ‘white privilege’?

14 min listen

While Labour are shuffling people round yet again.. ‘There needs to be a change in messaging from the leader’s office, because otherwise it just looks like he’s rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic.’ – Isabel Hardman And the DUP are getting ready to welcome in their third leader in less than a month… ‘Donaldson is actually in a much stronger position this time round, than if he had won by one vote last time round.’ – James Forsyth A new report seems to show that in education, the group seemingly most negatively affected by the idea of ‘white privilege’ are white, working class children.  ‘I’ve been involved in the social mobility foundation

Andy Cowper

Should Dido Harding really run NHS England?

Dido Harding’s campaign to become the next boss of the NHS in England took a high-profile turn this weekend. ‘Sources close to Dido Harding’ (perhaps ones occupying the same pair of shoes) briefed the Sunday Times about the Conservative peer and ex-boss of the £37 billion Test and Trace scheme pitch as a candidate. (If appointed, the noble Baroness will reportedly resign from the Conservative party and take an indefinite leave of absence from the House of Lords.) Apparently, the health world’s favourite noble Baroness will end England’s reliance on foreign doctors and nurses if she replaces Sir Simon Stevens as the next head of NHS England. This is an interesting and

Steerpike Steerpike

Shadow ministers’ grousing gaffes

Few trends are as little remarked upon in British politics as the strange death of rural Labour. Back in 2001 the party held more than 100 seats in rural England and Wales; today the figure has slumped to just 17. Whereas once both comfortable shires and working class countryside constituencies were red on the map, now such places are seas of blue. In such circumstances, you would have hoped Labour’s frontbenchers would be well briefed on the issues facing the countryside. So Steerpike was surprised therefore to tune into yesterday’s Westminster Hall debate on grouse shooting – prompted by a petition backed by broadcaster Chris Packham’s outfit Wild Justice – and hear