Politics

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

Thursday

Steerpike Steerpike

Why is YouTube censoring David Davis?

Oh dear. Today sees the resumption of hearings by a joint committee of MPs and peers into the Online Safety Bill to update regulate of social media companies. And, with exquisite timing, one of those Silicon Valley giants has created something of an online storm by censoring one of the most respected backbenchers in the House of Commons. The MP in question is David Davis – widely regarded across the House for his staunch support of civil liberties. Davis has been one of the most ardent critics of ‘vaccine passports,’ warning that they are unwarranted and unnecessary in the battle against Covid. Now a speech he made to the pressure group

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

The mendacity of Priti Patel’s immigration Bill

You are a journalist, a satirist, a campaigner, an opposition politician. For years you work to create the flash of light, the moment of revelation, when the veil falls and the world can see the wickedness you have fought in all its ugliness. And then… Nothing. You think you have exposed lies and corruption. You expect society will turn on the powerful now it knows the truth. But the only truth you have revealed is that the public doesn’t care and their leaders know it. ‘J’accuse!’ you cry. ‘So what?’ comes the reply. The mask is off. The state will treat genuine refugees as criminals. Next week ought to reveal

Wednesday

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Ripping up the Northern Ireland protocol is diplomacy in action

Lord Frost’s Lisbon speech represents the most cogent argument yet for replacing the Northern Ireland protocol. So naturally it has been buried under a slurry of snark, solemn head-shaking and breathless indignation. It is worth stepping back from the noise. Switch off the shouty man on LBC, mute the ‘this is not normal’ people on Twitter, and avoid at all costs the catastrophist-analysis of the academic-activists. You will miss nothing. In fact, read Frost’s speech for yourself. It was meant to send a message about the protocol and it does so directly. The Irish are our neighbours. It is in both our countries’ interests that we maintain and enhance the ties

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Is the economic recovery still on track?

Compared with July, August’s GDP boost looks much healthier — but that’s not saying much. Originally thought to have stagnated at 0.1 per cent, the economy in July actually shrank by 0.1 per cent, according to the latest update from the Office for National Statistics. If inflationary pressures continue to surge, the Bank may have no choice but to act Still, August’s GDP increase of 0.4 per cent puts the economy back on the upwards trajectory, now estimated to sit 0.8 per cent below pre-pandemic levels. Despite so-called ‘freedom day’ arriving halfway through July, people continued to socially distance in order to avoid being mandated back into their homes. A

Steerpike Steerpike

Lib Dems give youth a chance

William Hague was only 16 when he burst onto the political scene with his famous conference speech. But even the future Tory party leader would seem like a veritable grandfather compared to those in youth politics these days. For now the Liberal Democrats have given the green light to a 12-year-old to run in their party’s annual youth wing elections currently being held this month.  The political neophyte in question is Aneirin Keysell, a schoolboy from Richmond-upon-Thames running to fill the post of non-portfolio officer. His self-effacing manifesto notes that:  I don’t have any real qualifications but I am very well versed into the world of current affairs and I am aware of

Jonathan Miller Jonathan Miller

Macronism is dead

President Emmanuel Macron was in an expansive mood this week as he presented his vision for France 2030 from the Elysée palace before an audience of business leaders and students. Macron is incapable of brevity. In a slick production that must have cost a fortune, presented to a fawning hand-picked audience, he spoke for two hours. His elocution was framed by a slick, Tik-Tokish video recalling the 30 glorious years of French economic growth and grand projects after the war. Macron is nothing if not busy. He’s just been on a series of pre-election grand tours, dispensing billions of euros in promises like confetti. That includes a proposed repair of

Nick Rosen

Living off grid is the best way of weathering the EFFing crisis

The EFFing crisis continues to bite. We hear dire warnings that the average household is set to pay hundreds of pounds more this winter for their energy use. Yet thousands of Brits remain blissfully unaffected. I know because I am one of them: among the 150,000 UK residents who live off-grid – that is, without any mains utilities. This means I manage my own water supply, provide all my own power and deal with my own waste. Most people consider us at best eccentric and at worst crazy. But in a time of increasingly unaffordable energy, living off grid is a wise decision. You’ll find us living behind hedgerows, at the

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Can Frost renegotiate the protocol?

12 min listen

In an attempt to save the Northern Ireland Protocol, the EU has promised ‘very far reaching’ changes which are due to be revealed tomorrow. Dominic Cummings has also piled into the debate, suggesting that Boris ‘never had a scoobydoo what the deal he signed meant’. He also claimed that it was ‘always the plan’ to tear up the Brexit deal, which has grown tensions with Ireland. Meanwhile, Matt Hancock has a new job. But will he be invited back into the cabinet soon? To discuss this, Katy Balls speaks to James Forsyth.

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Cummings throws a spanner in the Brexit works

Is Dominic Cummings about to derail the government’s plans for a new Northern Ireland protocol? That’s the concern inside government as Boris Johnson’s former adviser shows that he still has the ability to change the political weather from afar. On Tuesday night, there was renewed hope that a solution could be found between the UK and EU on the Northern Ireland protocol. David Frost’s speech in Lisbon was less confrontational than expected and had received cautious praise from diplomats for its more constructive passages. However, as the European Commission prepares to present its proposals for easing the current checks on businesses trading across the Irish Sea, a spanner has been thrown in the works in the

Steerpike Steerpike

Raab’s £367-a-day race to save his seat

Poor Dom Raab. First he lost the Foreign Office and now he has to share his house with Liz Truss – the woman who replaced him in last month’s reshuffle. The demoted minister has had a torrid few months, with the fall of Kabul, his Whitehall office briefing against him and then an enforced move to the Ministry of Justice with the consolation prize of ‘Deputy Prime Minister’ – a title which now irritates him so much that he snaps at anyone who uses it to address him.  Still, a loss of office isn’t the only thing on Raab’s mind in recent months. Ever since the shock Chesham and Amersham by-election result

Steerpike Steerpike

Remainers throw tantrum over lawsuit credit

Jolyon Maugham is a man of many talents. He’s a talented tax barrister, who helped enrich various millionaires via celebrity tax dodge film schemes. He’s a serial joiner of political causes, boasting more parties than Hugh Hefner though, sadly, with far less joy. And, of course, he is the remain-supporting QC who ended up on the front page of the Financial Times for bragging about battering a fox to death on Boxing Day with a baseball bat while wearing his wife’s satin green kimono. Sadly though, for all his many, many qualities, FBPE’s answer to Babe Ruth does not appear to count humility among them. The millionaire windmill enthusiast is never knowingly undersold online, regularly

Steven Barrett

The ECJ’s credibility is in tatters

Is the European Court of Justice (ECJ) a properly independent court? The damning verdict of two respected EU law academics on an episode involving the ECJ suggests it is not. This debacle also undermines the EU’s legal criticisms of Hungary and Poland – and raises worrying questions about how the Northern Ireland Protocol will be enforced. The sorry saga dates back to the aftermath of the Brexit vote, when one of the ECJ’s 11 advocates general, Eleanor Sharpston, was sacked. Sharpston had every legal right to carry on. After all, ‘she’ didn’t Brexit, the UK did; she also has EU citizenship and is an outstanding EU lawyer. Unsurprisingly she took legal action

Tuesday

Katy Balls Katy Balls

David Frost’s protocol diplomacy

As a general rule in post-Brexit politics, when David Frost makes a public intervention on the Northern Ireland protocol, it tends to dampen rather than soothe UK-EU relations. Frost, charged with improving the protocol, is a divisive figure in Brussels who is seen to catch flies with vinegar rather than honey. His speech was expected to be an escalation in the current war of words between the two sides. In the end, the talk itself was slightly less confrontational than expected. Frost effectively declared the Northern Ireland protocol dead and called on the EU to work with the UK Frost effectively declared the Northern Ireland protocol dead and called on the EU to

Steerpike Steerpike

Harry and Meghan become ethical bankers

Broadcasting, writing, life-coaching and speech-making: there seems to be no end to the talents of Harry and Meghan. But now the Sussexes have announced their hitherto unknown ambition to be ‘ethical bankers’, alongside their existing gigs as occasional podcasters, exiled royals and infrequent guests on various Oprah shows.  With all their talk of ‘finding freedom’ abroad, Mr S never realised Wall Street was what Harry and Meghan had in mind In prose worthy of the Pyongyang press, the couple revealed in a fawning New York Times interview that they are joining Ethic, a fintech asset manager in the fast-growing environmental, social and governance space, as ‘impact partners’ and investors. The firm has $1.3 billion (£1

Patrick O’Flynn Patrick O'Flynn

Don’t bet on the EFFing crisis bringing down Boris

Boris Johnson is taking one heck of a risk by making labour shortages a deliberate part of his economic strategy. That, at least, is the conventional wisdom about the Prime Minister in the wake of party conference season.  If things go well, then businesses will raise productivity by investing heavily in new machinery and more training for home-grown workers who currently lack key skills. And then all will be fine for Johnson. But if things go badly, labour shortages will merely fuel rampant inflation, while gaps on shop shelves will become endemic. Key groups of voters will turn on the PM, hastening his demise. I might have found this line of

Steerpike Steerpike

Eco-activists rage at Insulate Britain in leaked messages

For the past month Britain’s roads have been held hostage by Insulate Britain (IB), the direct-action group spun out of Extinction Rebellion (XR). The favoured tactic of the eco-warriors is to initiate roadblocks at which activists glue themselves to roads to make them inaccessible to vehicles. The device has inspired much anger among motorists, with polling suggesting that most of the public believe it only serves to turn voters off IB and its green demands. Now it seems many within the XR movement are themselves growing sick of IB’s road-block methods, amid scenes of ambulances being detained in their traffic jams. Leaked screenshots from one of the WhatsApp groups by

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Rishi Sunak is heading for a lonely autumn

Has Rishi Sunak had to perform an embarrassing climbdown over an energy bailout? That’s the suggestion in the papers this morning as the Treasury considers formal proposals from the Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng to assist businesses struggling with the hike in fuel prices. It comes after a brutal briefing over the weekend in which a Treasury source suggested that Kwarteng was speaking out of turn when he suggested he was in conversation with the Chancellor over a financial package – adding that ‘this is not the first time the [business] secretary has made things up in interviews.’ Since then, Downing Street appear to have rowed in behind Kwarteng, with a

Robert Peston Robert Peston

The real reason Britain failed on coronavirus

The joint health and science super-committee’s report into ‘lessons learned’ on the UK’s coronavirus response may not want to ‘point fingers of blame’ for the grotesque failures, but my goodness it leaves the reader angry and upset. It confirms so much that we knew anyway, namely: 1) The early consensus among ministers, officials and scientists was that ‘herd immunity by infection was the inevitable outcome’. 2) That this led to lockdown being delayed, at a cost of thousands of lives. 3) That there was a ‘serious early error in adopting this fatalistic approach and not considering a more emphatic and rigorous approach to stopping the spread of the virus as adopted

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Why Anglo-French relations will only get worse

The French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire has given a very frank interview to the New York Times. It is principally about tensions between Paris and Washington post-Aukus, but it also shows why Anglo-French relations are, sadly, only going to get worse. The UK accepts, as Australia does, that balancing China is going to require US leadership. France thinks its interests are very different. Le Maire tells the paper that, ‘The United States wants to confront China. The European Union wants to engage China’. He thinks the key challenge for the EU now is to become ‘independent from the United States, able to defend its own interests, whether economic or