Politics Archives

Tuesday

9 Mar 2021

Labour’s TikTok paranoia

As if the Labour party didn’t have enough to worry about with its withering opinion poll ratings, yesterday’s Times reveals that party officials are warning MPs of another potential danger: malicious TikTok parodies. The paper reports that Sir Keir himself is one of several Labour MPs whose names have been used by hard-left TikTok pranksters keen to cause trouble for the party’s Leadership. One user is apparently impersonating a shadow cabinet minister while using the antifa-linked slogan ACAB (all cops are bastards). Labour is now apparently lobbying the Chinese-owned video giant to remove the false accounts to avoid confusion. Well, quelle surprise really. For all its runaway viral success (with some

Matt Dryden

It’s time to take Britain’s Incel terror threat seriously

Far-right and Islamist extremism are both cause for concern in Britain today. But there’s another threat which all too often slips under the radar. Referrals to the UK government’s Prevent programme in 2019/20 presenting a ‘Mixed, Unstable or Unclear’ ideology accounted for 51 per cent of all referrals ‒ up from just 11 per cent in 2016/17. This represents a significant rise for the third consecutive year. Despite this, emerging ideologies – especially Inceldom – still aren’t receiving the attention they warrant. The term ‘Mixed, Unstable and Unclear’ describes instances where individuals exhibit a combination of elements from multiple ideologies (mixed); shift between different ideologies (unstable); or where there appears

Steerpike

Watch: Piers Morgan storms off his own show

Oh dear. Things got rather heated in the GMB studio this morning when discussing Harry and Meghan’s bombshell Oprah interview, which aired in the UK last night. On the show, presenter Alex Beresford laid into Piers Morgan for his treatment of Meghan, and suggested that his behaviour had been ‘absolutely diabolical’. This appeared to get under Morgan’s skin, who ended up storming off his own show. Watch here:

Rupert Darwall

Who’s cashing in on the climate emergency?

‘The climate transition presents a historic investment opportunity,’ says BlackRock CEO Larry Fink. ‘What the financiers, the big banks, the asset managers, private investors, venture capital are all discovering is: There’s a lot of money to be made in the creation of these new [green] jobs,’ chimes in presidential climate envoy John Kerry. Fink concedes that the economy remains ‘highly dependent’ on fossil fuels. He also asserts that BlackRock is ‘carbon neutral today in our own operations’. It’s a claim open to challenge. ‘If a company or individual says to me they are net-zero, I know it is complete crap,’ tweeted Glen Peters, research director of the Oslo-based Centre for International Climate

Nick Tyrone

Labour has stumbled into the royal culture war

Given Starmer’s aim of getting red wall voters back on side, Labour should not have touched the Harry and Meghan debate with a bargepole. It is a massively loaded cultural issue that can only hurt them. And yet it seems they couldn’t help themselves. Kate Green, the shadow education secretary, has said in a television interview that Meghan’s claims of racism should be ‘fully investigated’ by the Palace. This is exactly the kind of move that leaves only confustion when trying to work out about what Starmer is trying to accomplish. I feel like I’m the only person who lives in Great Britain who doesn’t really care that much either way

Steve Bickley

What Roy Greenslade gets wrong about the IRA’s bomb warnings

There are plenty of reasons to object to the journalist Roy Greenslade’s secret support of the IRA, which he now admits to harbouring during his long Fleet Street career. But as a former police officer involved in counter-terrorist search operations during the height of the Troubles, there was one thing in particular that is hard to take: his view on who was responsible for the casualties from IRA bombings. In his article republished in the Sunday Times, Greenslade said: ‘In Belfast, in discussions with republicans, I heard about the beginnings of what came to be known as “the dirty war”, the security forces’ use of collusion, the deliberate failure by the

Monday

8 Mar 2021

Isabel Hardman

Will reopening schools set back Boris’s lockdown timetable?

Schools in England have gone back today, with pupils taking lateral flow tests and being asked to wear masks in order to keep the risk of infections as low as possible. Today Boris Johnson held a special press conference to mark what he described as an ’emotional’ moment in the exit from lockdown. He said that the ‘overwhelming feeling is one of relief’ and that the ‘greater risk now is keeping them out of school for a day longer’. There are rumblings about whether the current plan for lifting restrictions is sustainable He praised teachers for getting schools ready and for teaching throughout the lockdown period, and parents for homeschooling

James Forsyth

Can Boris sustain his royal silence?

Boris Johnson is clearly determined to avoid being dragged into this Harry and Meghan story. At his press conference this afternoon, he said that he has the ‘highest admiration for the Queen’ but emphasised that he wouldn’t be commenting on the story. One can understand why Boris Johnson doesn’t want to get involved in this intra-family row; it is hard to see how Keir Starmer’s opining on the matter is going to help him politically. But Johnson’s line might prove difficult to hold. The racism charge against the royal family is incendiary. It is worth noting that Oprah Winfrey has said that Harry has told her that neither the Queen nor

Steerpike

Revealed: Nigel Farage’s Brexit dividend

He may be leaving the political stage but new figures show Nigel Farage won’t be short of a bob or two. Just hours after announcing his retirement from frontline politics on Saturday night, the former Brexit party leader said he was joining fan video app Cameo — where viewers pay celebrities to record personalised video messages. With 141 members of his ‘fan club’ and a price of £75 per vid, Farage looks set to rake in the takings for his burgeoning media empire under the auspices of Thorn In The Side Ltd. But should his Cameo career take a while to come together, Mr S suspects Farage will do just fine.

Steerpike

Minister’s Sussex snub

What does No. 10 think about Harry and Meghan’s Palace intrigue? Perhaps we can glean some insight from the comments of environment minister and close friend of Boris and Carrie. Zac (now Lord) Goldsmith is the first minister to publicly criticise the spurned royal couple, tweeting that ‘Harry is blowing up his family’. The Duchess of Sussex also comes in for criticism — with Goldsmith writing ‘What Meghan wants, Meghan gets’. Mr S wonders who ever else could that sentiment apply to? Update: A message of support from Truss?

Julie Bindel

The Green party’s woman problem

At the Green party spring conference this weekend, a motion which sought to introduce a party policy on women’s sex-based rights was defeated. A whopping 289 delegates (out of 521) voted to not include biological females in the party’s list of oppressed groups. All the motion aimed to do was simply add a paragraph to the Green party’s ‘Our Rights and Responsibilities Policy’. The motion reads: ‘This is to include the protected characteristic of sex as currently our Record of Policy statements supports the other eight characteristics (age, disability, gender reassignment, sexual orientation, race, maternity, religion/belief, marriage/civil partnership) but not that of sex discrimination – aimed primarily at women…’ The

Katy Balls

Will the government respond to Harry and Meghan interview?

13 min listen

The government has so far kept quiet about Harry and Meghan’s shocking interview with Oprah, in which – among other revelations – the couple claimed that a member of the royal family made racist comments about their son Archie’s skin colour. But with Boris Johnson set to host a government press conference at 4pm today, will he respond? Katy Balls speaks to James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman.

Steerpike

Fact check: why isn’t Archie a prince?

Viewers watching Harry and Meghan’s interview with Oprah last night were treated to a host of bombshells on everything from the couple’s secret marriage to the gender of their new baby. Allegations levelled by the pair include claims that a member of the royal family made racist comments about Archie’s skin colour and that the firm stopped Meghan from getting help for her mental health. One claim that can be rebutted however is the issue of why Harry and Meghan’s son Archie does not have the title of prince like Prince George or Princess Charlotte. In her interview, Oprah Winfrey asked Meghan if her son was denied the title of

Ross Clark

What the return of classrooms means for Covid

Will the return of schools reverse, or dramatically slow, the sharp downwards trend in new Covid-19 infections, which is currently falling at more than 30 per cent a week? No one knows for sure, but it seems unlikely that the mass return of schools today will not have some effect on infections in England, especially given that it involves a section of the population that has not been vaccinated. While few children suffer serious symptoms of Covid-19, they can carry the disease — older children, especially. For that reason, a return of unvaccinated children to school is likely to have a greater effect on raw infection numbers than, say, a

Andrew Montford

The hidden cost of Net Zero

‘We cannot allow debt to keep rising’, the Chancellor said to Parliament last week, repeatedly emphasising the need to ‘level’ with the public about the size of the national debt. Strange then that just days later it was revealed that ministers have been doing the opposite when it comes to the costs of the fashionable cause of ‘Net Zero’. Instead government officials deliberately hid ‘more realistic’ estimates which showed Net Zero would cost billions more than publicised, while agreeing amongst themselves that the predicted costs were ‘highly uncertain’. These revelations came about after the Treasury was finally defeated in a two-year battle to prevent me seeing documents I’d requested under the Freedom

Patrick O’Flynn

Why Farage’s successor is ignoring the culture war

The departure of Nigel Farage from the stage does not necessarily mark the end of the ‘revolt on the right’ that has so shaken up British politics over the past decade. Followers of the fortunes of the Brexit party, which has now morphed into Reform UK, will know that Richard Tice has been the coming man for many months. Today Farage’s newly-appointed successor as party leader (the party doesn’t, as yet, do internal elections) sets out the ground on which he has chosen to take on the political establishment — for which one should read ‘nibble away at the Tory vote share’. And Tice has chosen to ignore the fashionable notion

Jonathan Saxty

Britain’s military problem needs an economic solution

Britain’s decline is relative, and is influenced by the fact that within living memory the UK was the world’s hyperpower. Decline though did not relegate the UK to the ranks of some ex-colonial powers like Turkey, but into the league of France, Germany and Japan (hardly disrespectable company). For almost all the post-war period – a few bumpy years notwithstanding – the UK never dipped below number five in the world economy rankings (where it is today). Moreover, it remains (alongside China, France, Russia and the US) one of five permanent UN Security Council members and recognised states with nuclear weapons. Unlike France, the UK has the scaffolding to rebuild

Lloyd Evans

Ben Shapiro’s battle with Hollywood

The sacking of Gina Carano is still creating waves in Hollywood. The martial artist turned movie actress was dropped from the Star Wars spin-off, The Mandalorian, after blocking BLM supporters on Twitter and stating that being a Republican in Hollywood was like being a Jew during the Holocaust. She compounded her sins by suggesting that voter fraud had affected the result of the 2020 election. Her employers, Lucasfilm, dismissed her views as ‘abhorrent’ and accused her of, ‘denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities.’ Carano was also dropped by her management company, United Talent Agency. (So much for ‘united.’) Then came the backlash. The pro-Republican commentator Michael Knowles

Sunday

7 Mar 2021

Isabel Hardman

The pressure on the NHS is only just beginning

Is the row over the government’s plan to award only a 1 per cent pay rise to NHS workers as politically toxic as some suggest? Labour has certainly seized on it, with Sir Keir Starmer saying ‘Covid heroes’ deserve a pay rise. But Boris Johnson today defended the raise, saying: ‘What we’ve done is try to give them as much as we can at the present moment… We’ve tried to give the NHS as much as we possibly can.’ He also pointed to wider government investment aimed at helping the health service cope with the pandemic. The pay ‘rise’ might not be as much of a problem in isolation –

Owen Bennett

The danger of mocking Nigel Farage

He’s gone. Again. Even casual watchers of UK politics will be used to Nigel Farage quitting…and then returning. But this time, he insists it is for real. Except leaving politics does not mean disappearing from public life. ‘I now feel I can do just as much to shift public opinion through media and social media as I can as a campaigning party leader,’ he said in his announcement that he was quitting heading up the Reform Party. He’s right. And his opponents will once again play into his hands because they will fall back onto the same patterns of caricature and derision as they have throughout Farage’s career. An announcement