Politics

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

Thursday

Ross Clark Ross Clark

The future of the Euro is uncertain

A decade ago, Europe clambered out of the 2008/09 financial crisis only to fall into the sovereign debt crisis of 2010. As the global economy rebounded, Greece, Italy and Spain all had to be bailed out by the ECB as investors lost faith in their ability to carry on servicing their loans. Deep economic cuts imposed in Greece as a condition of the bailout threatened political stability. Could it be about to happen again? Will Europe climb out of the very deep economic hole created by the Covid pandemic only to slide into a hole of sovereign debt? For the moment, that seems a distant question because the Covid hole

Wednesday

Steerpike Steerpike

Crossrail’s criminal blunder

The team behind London’s Crossrail are well used to attracting negative publicity. Last summer it was reported that the new Elizabeth line will open more than four years late and over budget almost £4bn than originally planned, having been originally due to start operating in December 2018. Now though the infrastructure wonks appear to have made a fresh blunder of a non-budgetary nature after erecting a two kilometre mural in Newham to cover the Elizabeth line. The artwork is called ‘Newham Trackside Wall’ and will be officially in July. But it appears that, unusually for Crossrail, the artwork has been delivered before schedule and is already enraging local residents with the poetry

Louise Cooper

The squeeze on tax havens is only just beginning

The message from the budget last month was clear – at some point in the future the Chancellor is going to raise taxes. A lot. The announced increase in corporation tax rate from 19 per cent to 25 per cent from 2023 is a sign of things to come. And yet the overall tax take has already increased substantially since the Thatcher lows of the late 1980s. The amount of tax the government raises is already equivalent to 35 per cent of GDP, the highest level since 1969. And prior that that, as the chart above shows, you have to go back to 1948/9 for years when the tax take was this

Steerpike Steerpike

Len McCluskey’s £18 working class breakfasts

Trade union Unite are back in the news again after a brief hiatus following the end of the Corbyn melodrama last year. Outgoing general secretary Len McCluskey is facing questions about the £98 million of members’ money spent on building a four star Marriott hotel complex and conference centre in Birmingham which will house union offices. Despite a reported initial estimate of £7 million, the building costs ballooned to £57 million before construction began, with the key contract being awarded to Flanagan Group — run by McCluskey ally Paul Flanagan. This morning ‘Red Len’ showed he still has plenty of life left in him as he hit back at the

Steerpike Steerpike

When will No. 10 release their vaccine movie?

Last month the Downing Street Twitter account released a sixty second trailer for a forthcoming film heralding the triumphant success of Britain’s vaccine story. Titled: ‘A Beacon of Hope: The UK Vaccine Story’ with the tagline ‘Extraordinary. Unexpected. Fantastic’ the brief clip featured Chris Whitty, Patrick Vallance, Jonathan Van-Tam and other familiar faces from the Covid press conferences talking about how the UK raced ahead of other countries in the battle to vaccinate its population. Four weeks on and no further details about the home-made film are yet to be published. No television studios have expressed public interest in broadcasting the docu-drama, having shown no initial enthusiasm prior to the

Henry Hill

Could Holyrood ever be abolished?

Although Alex Salmond and his Alba party have understandably been getting most of the attention, the separatists aren’t the only side riven with divisions over a new challenger. Unionist relations, especially between the Conservatives and partisans of George Galloway’s ‘All for Unity’ outfit, grow more rancorous by the day. To the former, the latter resemble little more than a band of egotists hell-bent on clawing their way into Holyrood even if the result is fewer pro-Union MSPs. The latter, having largely abandoned their original idea of ‘uniting to win’, are pitching themselves to angry Unionist voters as a chance to clear out the old guard and have a ‘real opposition’.

Nick Tyrone Nick Tyrone

Sadiq Khan’s cannabis stunt is typical of his empty gesture politics

Sadiq Khan’s decision to launch a commission looking into decriminalising cannabis is a perfect advert for his time as London mayor. It shows all too clearly that Khan values empty gesture politics over getting on with his day job. Don’t get me wrong: legalising cannabis seems a smart idea. It is, after all, a waste of police time and effort stopping the trade of drugs which are widely used and cause comparatively limited harm. But is it any of Khan’s business to focus on this issue? ‘It’s time for fresh ideas to reduce the harms drugs and drug-related crimes cause to individuals, families and communities,’ said Khan this week. ‘If re-elected, I’ll establish a London

Patrick O’Flynn Patrick O'Flynn

Flip-flop Starmer has been unmasked

A lot of politicians go through phases with phrases – falling back on buzzwords and self-coined instant cliches when seeking to set out a thought to interviewers or people that they meet. Often this becomes the subject of private jokes between their spin doctors – with sneaky glances and wry smiles greeting the umpteenth rolling out of the latest favoured soundbite. Keir Starmer has a classic just now, a belter of a mixed metaphor to boot. He cannot wait, he tells people, ‘to take off the mask and open the throttle’. The saying has such an irresistible air of Accidental Partridge that I’d be surprised were it not to have

Steerpike Steerpike

George Osborne gets another new gig

What do you get for the man who has everything? Newspapers, banking, venture capital, think tanks and speaking engagements – former Chancellor George Osborne has done it all since he left Parliament in 2017 and earning himself a considerable fortune in the process. So it seems only right that the former Evening Standard editor has now chosen to splash some of that cash on an engagement ring for longtime girlfriend Thea Rogers. Osborne opted to follow the example of Benedict Cumberbatch and go for a traditional announcement, placing a simple notice of the forthcoming nuptials in the Times today which reads: ‘Miss T Rogers and Mr G Osborne. The engagement is announced between Thea and

Kristina Murkett

Vaccine passports are a kick in the teeth for young people

After a year in which young people have lost their jobs, been denied time in the classroom and at university and not been allowed to see their friends, could they now be penalised again? Boris Johnson said we ‘have to be very careful how you handle this and don’t start a system that is discriminatory’ when vaccine passports, or ‘Covid status certification’, were raised at a briefing this week. Yet it’s hard to imagine a more grossly unfair, discriminatory system than introducing vaccine passports before young people have the opportunity to be vaccinated. Young people have sacrificed so much for a disease that they are relatively invulnerable to. Nearly half of those people furloughed

Dr Jade Norris

The creeping authoritarianism of the Covid-19 restrictions

How can a country abide a government that consistently says one thing and then does the exact opposite? Whether it’s lockdown two, lockdown three, or masks in schools, the government has consistently stated one thing and then changed its mind months, weeks, or even hours later. This not only exacerbates the problem of trust in politicians, but in ‘the science’, which they have clutched as a shield to cower behind whilst making political decisions. The latest example is the shifting of the goalposts around when lockdown will finally end. Ministers began by saying they would ‘cry freedom’ when the vulnerable were vaccinated, but now it seems entirely possible that we

Joel Diggory

Now isn’t the time to ‘decolonise’ the curriculum

Who will educate the educators, when the educators get things wrong? This week, one of Britain’s leading teaching unions passed a motion to ‘decolonise’ all subjects in the secondary school curriculum: not just history or English, but all subjects, including food technology, computer science, geography, and maths. Black history must be ‘fully embedded’ across the curriculum, NASUWT’s president, Michelle Codrington-Rogers, said. What started out as a laudatory attempt to teach black students that their history is much more than slavery and colonialism, has led to a sad, pathetic, hyperbolic overreaching. Black Maths? What is that? The only name of any mathematician I ever learnt at high school was Pythagoras, and no one

Arabella Byrne

How to solve Joe Biden’s dog problem

Pity poor Major Biden, First Dog of the United States, FDOTUS for short. Thrust first from the lowly surroundings of a shelter in Delaware then on to the porticoes of the Biden HQ and finally the White House, he appears to be experiencing teething problems as he adapts to his new life. And teeth are, quite literally, the problem. Prone to biting, the German Shepherd has now been found guilty of two biting incidents having first injured a member of the Secret Service and now a White House staffer whilst out on one of his walks. But this is not all. Major is also suspected of pooing outside the Palm

Tuesday

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Watch: SNP’s ‘creepy’ party broadcast

Tonight the Scottish National party released its latest party political broadcast on Twitter. Featuring a young red-haired woman sitting on a stool, striding around a stage, it flashes various images onto the back of a screen complete with melodramatic background tones. Ignoring the Scottish government’s own record of the last 14 years on health, education, social mobility and every other matter of public policy, it asks: ‘Who will care? When you see your mother, your father, your brother, your sister, your grandpa and nan, how can we get governments that care about them. The governments that we can trust to work tirelessly for Scotland, day after day after day.’ At

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Starmer will regret his submission to liberal intolerance

Keir Starmer obviously regrets visiting Jesus House last week because of the furore it has caused in his own party. But he will likely come to regret his reaction even more. The Labour leader posted a full apology for the Pentecostal church visit, saying: ‘I completely disagree with Jesus House’s beliefs on LGBT+ rights, which I was not aware of before my visit. I apologise for the hurt my visit caused and have taken down the video. It was a mistake and I accept that.’ The whole thing is, as Brendan O’Neill points out, rather awkward, given Starmer chose to visit this church during a key Christian festival and given

Steerpike Steerpike

No. 10 director of communications: runners and riders

Last month Mr S was first to report that Downing Street veteran James Slack was off to the Sun after four years in No. 10. Slack, who survived the transition from May to Johnson but had only served as Lee Cain’s replacement since January, was well-regarded from his time as the Prime Minister’s official spokesperson and viewed by the lobby as a ‘safe pair of hands.’ Attention now turns to who will replace Slack in the role. Key attributes needed for the role will be the strength to work gruelling 18-hour days, unflappability under relentless questioning about interiors and the experience to manage Westminster’s unruly press pack. Since the role was created

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Alex Salmond is a gift to the Unionist cause

If Alex Salmond and his new Alba party did not exist, pro-Union parties would find it necessary to invent them. Perhaps, of course, that is what has happened. Be that as it may, Salmond’s emergence from the swampy waters of his own disgrace is the best thing to have happened for Unionism in a long, long time. Salmond may be an innocent man in the eyes of the law, but he is not a good one in the eyes of the public. Remarkably, he is less popular in Scotland than Boris Johnson. That reflects, doubtless, the manner in which Nicola Sturgeon’s friends and agents have turned against him and the

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Is Boris being ‘honest’ on vaccine passports?

12 min listen

The government needs to be ‘honest’ about vaccine passports, Labour’s shadow health minister Jonathan Ashworth said today. Boris Johnson yesterday said the ‘certificates’ would not be needed for pubs or shops, but a recent paper from the government said venues could scrap social distancing rules if they’re used. Cindy Yu speaks to James Forsyth and Katy Balls about the proposals.

Andrew McQuillan

Why is nobody talking about Northern Ireland?

It is depressingly appropriate that a weekend which started on Good Friday was one which illustrated the shaky foundations of the agreement which brought a form of peace to Northern Ireland. Twenty three years on from that landmark deal, discontent among the Province’s unionist and loyalist community is beginning to mount. Violence once again erupted on the streets of Derry last night. It was a repeat of the ugly scenes that played out over Easter weekend in Belfast’s loyalist Sandy Row area. Petrol bombs were flung and a total of 32 police officers were injured. The latest spark is mounting unhappiness among unionist pro-British groups at the Northern Ireland Protocol.