Politics

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

Wednesday

6 Oct 2021

What was the point of Boris’s speech?

17 min listen

Marking the end of the conference, Boris Johnson gave what James Forsyth describes as ‘the most Boris speech possible’. The Prime Minister set out his ambition for ‘radical and optimistic conservativism’ and won over the crowd with his characteristic jokes. The Conservatives are in a strong position, but was the speech enough to retain support across the country amid a fuel crisis and labour shortages? And was the lack of concrete policies a problem? Isabel Hardman speaks to Katy Balls and James Forsyth.

Andrew Tettenborn

Sturgeon is playing politics in her fight with the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court judgment striking down a couple of Acts of the Scottish parliament has been greeted with typical outrage from the SNP. Nicola Sturgeon has been busy fulminating that she is now ‘unable to fully protect children’s rights’. But the First Minister shouldn’t be surprised by this legal defeat: there was little chance of it going any other way. In spite of Sturgeon’s fury, the two Acts in question were not actually very significant. The more high-profile one sought with much fanfare to incorporate into Scots law a treaty little-known to most of us outside the progressive establishment, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The other was aimed at incorporating

Ross Clark

Levelling up is Johnsonian cakeism

Until this morning, few people in Britain will have heard of the works of Wilfredo Pareto (1848-1923). Now, thanks to prime ministerial recommendation, his name is suddenly on everyone’s lips. Maybe he was even the inspiration for the name of Boris Johnson’s one-year-old son. Pareto, apparently, is the inspiration behind the whole idea of ‘levelling up’ But was it good idea to raise the memory of the Italian economist and political philosopher? Pareto, apparently, is the inspiration behind the whole idea of ‘levelling up’. The slogan, implied the PM, is derived from the concept of ‘Pareto Improvements’ — improvements, he said, which can raise the quality of one person’s existence

The Spectator

The real issue facing trans people isn’t pronouns

It’s a strange reflection of our times that with so much else at stake, the leaders of both main parties have been asked, at their party conferences, whether they think that only women have cervixes. Both men prevaricated. Sir Keir Starmer declared this is ‘something that shouldn’t be said’. Boris Johnson avoided the question altogether. It is a straightforward biological fact that only women have cervixes, but simply stating it was more than the Prime Minister and the leader of the opposition were prepared to do. Rosie Duffield, a Labour MP, faced such a ferocious backlash after making this statement that she felt she could not safely go to the

Isabel Hardman

Boris’s speech was comedy, not policy

Last week, Keir Starmer derided Boris Johnson as a ‘trivial man’ in his Labour conference speech. Today in his own address to his party in Manchester, the Prime Minister decided to lean into that description. He didn’t bother to give a serious speech He didn’t bother to give a serious speech groaning under the weight of meaty policies. There was just one announcement in the whole 45-minute offering: a £3,000 ‘levelling up premium’ to send maths and science teachers to schools in deprived areas. This will have come as a surprise to many of Johnson’s own Cabinet colleagues, who had expected that a policy-light conference would end with a speech

Sam Leith

Boris Johnson’s speech was a triumph

If you were listening to the Prime Minister’s keynote address to party conference, you would not for a second have suspected that the country’s petrol stations were empty, its service industries hopelessly short of staff, its pigs being slaughtered on farms for want of abattoir workers and its Christmas turkeys on the line. You would have left the hall with the sense that here was a nation in boisterous good health and irrepressible high spirits. That, among other things, was why Boris Johnson’s speech was a triumph. No doubt the factcheckers will rip it to tatters. No doubt there will be grumbles among hostile political scientists about its vagueness on

James Forsyth

Boris is sprawling across the centre ground

That was the most Boris Johnson speech imaginable. His supporters at party conference will have lapped it up, they certainly did in the hall — and his detractors will have been infuriated by it. It is clear that the biggest threat to Johnson is events, not Keir Starmer or some internal rival Johnson’s political aim was clear. To sprawl across the centre-ground, to ensure that to outflank him you have to go pretty far to the left on economics and the right on culture. He was the NHS lover who opposes cancel culture. He used jokes not just to emphasise his own points but to attack his opponents too. His claim

Steerpike

Watch: highlights of Boris Johnson’s conference speech

So that’s it. The end. Tory conference wraps up today with Boris Johnson delivering a policy-light leader’s speech to close the four day Conservative jamboree in Manchester. Surrounded by campaign placards like a traditional electoral rally, Johnson made an hour long speech peppered with talk of ‘building back better.’ And in traditional Boris style, there were, of course, jokes – ones which fortunately landed better than some of the more laboured ones he’s been making at evening receptions. Below are five of the PM’s best moments from his address to the Tory faithful.

The Spectator

Full text: Boris Johnson’s Conservative conference speech

Isn’t it amazing to be here in person? The first time we have met since you defied the sceptics by winning councils and communities that Conservatives have never won in before – such as Hartlepool. In fact it’s the first time since the general election of 2019 when we finally sent the corduroyed communist cosmonaut into orbit where he belongs. And why are we back today? For a traditional Tory cheek by jowler? It is because for months we have had one of the most open economies and societies and on July 19 we decided to open every single theatre and every concert hall and night club in England and

Katy Balls

Johnson’s speech will have reassured his supporters

When Boris Johnson addressed his party in his first in-person conference leader’s speech since winning a majority of 80 seats, he did it in a different hall to the room his ministers have spoken in this week. The larger set not only helped make the Prime Minister’s speech stand out, it also meant that it could take on the form of a rally. The main stage was surrounded by supporters holding placards with various government slogans. It was a theme of Johnson’s rallying speech as he crowbarred ‘levelling up’ and ‘build back better’ (at one point morphing into ‘build back beaver’) into a lively address to his party — aimed at reminding

Robert Peston

How will Boris build his ‘high-wage, high-skill’ Britain?

There are a few problems with Boris Johnson’s big idea, namely that the sharp fall in the supply of unskilled and semi-skilled workers in the UK – triggered by Brexit, reinforced by Covid – will automatically lead businesses to invest, such that the UK’s long history of low productivity and low incomes will end on his watch. His vision, the philosophical heart of his speech to Tory conference this morning, is of a gleaming new ‘high wage, high skill, high productivity economy’ and that ‘we are not going back to the same old broken model with low wages, low growth, low skills and low productivity, all of it enabled and

Cosmo Landesman

Help! I don’t know what a cervix is

With all this talk of private parts, the political has now gotten very personal. Recently, I was having an argument with a male transgender rights activist over Labour MP Rosie Duffield’s claim that ‘only women have a cervix’. I huffed and puffed and pontificated about the ‘undeniable facts of biology and female anatomy’ when it suddenly occurred to me: I haven’t the faintest idea what a cervix is. Yes, I know that only women have them. But what are they? Where are they? What do they do? Can you implant a cervix? Create an artificial cervix? Have cosmetic surgery on your cervix? Search me. Clueless men like me are all

Steerpike

Liz Truss: ‘It’s raining men’

It’s the final day of Tory party conference today, with all eyes on Boris Johnson’s speech at midday. But will all the cabinet be there to watch it, bright-eyed and bushy tailed? Judging from last night’s antics, Mr S suspects that the answer may be: no. Truss, wearing a striking green number, stood out a mile in a sea of identikit Tory boy blue suits Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey was seen belting out ‘The Time of My Life’ at the legendary inHouse comms karaoke party while many of her fellow ministers attended The Spectator’s own champagne-fuelled shindig. But while Tom Tugendhat and Michael Gove twirled and spun together

Annabel Denham

It is hard to take Sunak’s jobs plan seriously

At some point, Rishi Sunak is going to need to pick a lane. There is only so long that the Chancellor can claim to believe that excessive borrowing is immoral while borrowing to such excess. His trick yesterday was to make all the right noises about restraint while unrolling a £500 million ‘plan for jobs’. Take away his earnest delivery and it’s still not clear whether he’s the boozer at the bar telling the world about the dangers of alcoholism, or the sensible friend ordering the taxi home. Let’s be fair. Sunak has had to deal with exceptional circumstances in the last 18 months, and is taking steps to cease

Leo McKinstry

A short history of political violence

The ugly attack on Iain Duncan Smith by five protestors at the Tory conference in Manchester has been widely seen as another illustration of how dangerously embittered British politics has become. We now live, it is often said, in a world of deepening friction, hate and intolerance. Angela Rayner’s now notorious rant about Tory ‘scum’ was also seen as a prime example of the spread of ‘cancel culture’, or the way Twitter rage has ruined civilised debate. Ditto the alarming story of Labour’s MP for Canterbury, who refused to attend her own party’s conference in Brighton last week after she received a number of threats. It’s all very unpleasant. Amid concerns

Tuesday

5 Oct 2021

Kate Andrews

Sunak faces the free-marketeers

Rishi Sunak didn’t give too much away tonight when he spoke in the ‘ThinkTent’ at Conservative Party Conference. The Chancellor is known for being cautious with his words, and has been increasingly tight-lipped in the weeks leading up to his October Budget. But his presence at the fringe event was telling in itself. Sunak was only billed for one public fringe event this year, co-hosted by the Institute of Economic Affairs and Taxpayers’ Alliance. Their ‘ThinkTent’ boasts some of the most free-market, libertarian events you’ll find at conference: both organisations are strong advocates for a low-tax, smaller state. So, not necessarily an obvious place to find the Chancellor who has overseen record peacetime

Jonathan Miller

Power fail: French tantrum diplomacy is wearing thin

It’s hard for tabloid journalists to engage in mad hyperbole when politicians seem all too willing to do it for them. Clément Beaume, France’s Secretary of State for European Affairs, has just desperately threatened to turn off the power supply to Britain. Or as Bloomberg so delicately puts it, ‘to leverage [France’s] electricity supplies to the U.K. in an effort to force Boris Johnson’s government to grant access to British fishing waters.’ ‘The Channel Islands, the U.K. are dependent on us for their energy supply,’ said Beaune in an interview on Europe1 radio. ‘They think they can live on their own and badmouth Europe as well. And because it doesn’t

Katy Balls

Tories tussle over working from home

10 min listen

It is day three at the Conservative party conference and, as Isabel says on the podcast, Boris Johnson started the day a ‘little tetchy’ on his morning media round-up. After being told by Nick Robinson to ‘stop talking’ on Radio 4, the Prime Minister clashed with the host when asked about rising wages and inflation. Where the Tories stand on working from home has also been up for debate during the conference. With some ministers eager to get Britons back to their desks, there are whispers that backbenchers don’t agree. Katy Balls speaks to Isabel Hardman and James Forsyth.

Steerpike

Watch: Carrie’s speech on gay rights

It’s the final night here at Conservative party conference. The booze is flowing and events are coming thick and fast. But the one reception which was guaranteed to pack out tonight was the LGBT+ Conservatives night with Carrie Johnson – the only event at which the Prime Minister’s spouse was scheduled to speak. Watched on by her husband standing at the back, Mrs Johnson delivered an unambiguously pro-LGBT+ rights speech in front of a packed audience of eager hacks and passionate activists. The intervention by the former CCHQ director of communications received widespread interest, in light of the government’s stance on issues such as trans rights and gay conversion therapy.

Isabel Hardman

Priti Patel strikes a bullish tone

The theme of Priti Patel’s party conference speech this afternoon was very much ‘large and in charge’. She devoted much of her address to talking about the immigration system, as you’d expect, promising stronger crackdowns on people being smuggled across the Channel in boats. Patel focused on the Vote Leave favourite: taking back control Whereas Boris Johnson and Michael Gove have talked about Britain ‘voting for change’ in 2016, Patel focused on the Vote Leave favourite: taking back control. She told the conference hall this was the key theme of her reforms to immigration, saying: ‘My new plan for immigration is already making its way through parliament. At the heart of