Politics Archives

Monday

26 Apr 2021

Revealed: How Boris paid for the Downing Street refurbishment

I understand that CCHQ (Conservative Campaign Headquarters) made a payment to the Cabinet Office to cover the initial costs of refurbishing the Prime Minister’s home in Downing Street, and the PM is now repaying CCHQ. There is an audit trail and Cabinet Secretary Simon Case knows about it. This is presumably why he told MPs today that he would do a report on the propriety of how the decoration and furnishing was funded. Downing Street says to me that the PM has now paid for the costs of the refurbishment. But there was a loan to him from the Tory party. And I assume that loan will now have to

Isabel Hardman

Gove’s ‘bodies pile high’ non-denial

This afternoon’s urgent question on allegations of Tory sleaze could have been a rather explosive affair. Instead, it was used by members of all parties to produce a series of rather rubbish slogans for the local and devolved assembly elections next month. The Conservatives wanted to deflect attention from their problems by complaining about a series of things: that the other parties were bad too, that voters didn’t care about this stuff anyway, and that the government was being criticised for trying too hard in the pandemic. Labour and the SNP wanted to nail the Tories and produce similar clips for their campaigns, and the Lib Dems had a number

Kate Andrews

When will vaccines begin boosting the economy?

Britain may be about to go from one economic extreme to another. This winter the OECD calculated Britain suffered one of the highest levels of economic damage in the developed world, compared with the year before, due to its stringent lockdown. Fast forward to spring and the UK’s trajectory for economic recovery is now being revised, with forecasts only moving in one direction: up. Today alone, two heavy hitters boosted their predictions. This morning EY Item Club revised its 2021 growth forecast from 5 per cent to 6.8 per cent – which, if accurate, would see the UK grow at its fastest rate on record, recovering to pre-pandemic levels months earlier

James Forsyth

Simon Case’s answers left us with more questions

Simon Case was determined not to make news at his select committee appearance today. But his sheer desire not to make news told a story in itself as the Commons Public Administration committee got increasingly frustrated with him. The row over who is responsible will rumble on Case dodged a string of questions on the lockdown leak inquiry and then declared, ‘What I can say I have already said to the committee.’ Case did, though, reveal a couple of things. First, it will be weeks not months before the inquiry concludes and the reason he couldn’t say much on it was that while the leak was not criminal, the investigation is using

Matthew Lynn

The EU will regret suing AstraZeneca

Well, that will teach them to go around manufacturing a vaccine against a global virus at cost price, and at record speed. The European Union has today said it is planning to take legal action against the pharmaceuticals conglomerate AstraZeneca for failing to deliver enough doses of the Oxford shot on time. No doubt European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and her team are planning to be exonerated. They will finally be able to demonstrate that the whole vaccine debacle, for which the Commission has taken so much flak, and which has already caused thousands of unnecessary deaths across continent, was all the fault of the Anglo-Swedish company. No doubt the untrustworthy

Kate Andrews

Should we give vaccines to India?

Last spring, scenes in Lombardy, Italy, caused panic in Whitehall: buckling healthcare systems and tents pitched outside emergency centres played a large role in the government’s decision to implement a nationwide lockdown. It was thought that the British public could tolerate many of the consequences of Covid-19, but not the idea that the NHS would be unable to cater to those who needed it. As it happened, the UK’s worst nightmares were never realised. The Nightingale hospitals built to increase capacity were barely used. But what the British government feared most is now taking place elsewhere. India is suffering an exponential growth in infections, with more than 349,000 cases reported yesterday,

Nick Tyrone

The Remainer dilemma of Boris vs Dom

There is something deeply dissatisfying about the latest No. 10 psychodrama. Given this is a crisis that could end Boris Johnson’s political career, it should feel like more of a pivotal moment than it does. Part of the problem is that if you’re a Remainer or a Labour supporter, whose side of the story do you trust here? Do you believe Boris Johnson, the man who fronted the Leave campaign and whose support probably swung the referendum? Or do you believe Dominic Cummings, the evil genius who supposedly manipulated the masses via technical trickery to vote to leave the EU? Of course, ‘neither’ is an option, but not one that

Steerpike

Wanted: head of Labour party fundraising

Whether it’s in government or outside it, financial management has often been Labour’s weak spot. In recent years though the party has struggled to balance its own budgets, let alone those of the country, with fundraising from wealthy donors being (understandably) more difficult during Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. Electoral Commission figures published last week show that in 2019 the Lib Dems managed to outspend Labour by more than £2.3 million during that year’s general and European elections even with the might of the trade unions backing Jezza. Despite a change of leader, problems still remain with reports last summer that the party risked facing bankruptcy over the legal bill for antisemitism cases and

Katy Balls

Where will the Downing Street psychodrama end?

21 min listen

The Downing Street psychodrama continues today, with the Daily Mail reporting that Boris Johnson said he would rather see the ‘bodies pile high in their thousands’ than order a third lockdown. Where will the war between the PM and his former adviser Dominic Cummings end? Katy Balls speaks to Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth.

Patrick O’Flynn

When will there be another right-wing insurgency?

Almost the whole of the British political class failed to understand that the rise of Ukip after the 2010 general election was not some fringe irrelevance but was in fact likely to have major consequences. Academics Robert Ford and Matthew Goodwin were two of a select band of political futurologists who were onto the Ukip advance early. By the time their insightful book Revolt on the Right was published, Ukip had already forced an EU referendum pledge out of David Cameron and the book was therefore read by many dumbfounded Westminster insiders as if it were a crammer for a module that had unaccountably not been covered in the standard

Andrew Tettenborn

Priti Patel must tread carefully when lecturing police on hate crime

Any gunslinging sheriff can tell you that if you shoot from the hip you may hit the target but not quite with the precision you wanted. Priti Patel, very much a minister to draw first and ask questions later, is in much this position with her challenge to the police establishment over the weekend on its policy of recording all non-crime hate incidents. Most of what she said is spot-on; but in two respects she may have to think a little more carefully. The problem with the present police policy, as Matthew Parris trenchantly pointed out in this week’s Spectator, is that even if you never break the law it

Robert Peston

The truth about Boris’s ‘bodies pile high in their thousands’ comment

There is an incredible amount of hysteria and noise being generated by the conflict between Boris Johnson and his former chief aide, Dominic Cummings. So maybe it is useful for me to share what I know about three big claims: 1) The charge that Prime Minister did say he would rather see ‘bodies pile high in their thousands’ than order a third lockdown (as reported in the Daily Mail); 2) The cabinet secretary Simon Case still believes Cummings may be the ‘Chatty Rat’ who leaked details about November’s lockdown; 3) the refurbishment of the Prime Minister’s flat was originally to be funded by Tory party donors, even though on Friday the Prime

Steerpike

Parliament’s £82k bill to harass Betty Boothroyd

In the wake of recent scandals, Parliament last year began a series of ‘Valuing Everyone’ training sessions to ‘combat bullying, harassment and sexual misconduct.’ In November they were made compulsory but last week it emerged that the Lords standards commissioner has launched investigations into around 60 members who are yet to take the training including none other than the much loved nonagenarian Betty Boothroyd, the former Commons speaker. The news has sparked an outcry as Boothroyd is recovering from recent open heart surgery and at the grand age of 91 is an unlikely candidate for the next ‘Pestminster’ scandal. Broadcaster Timandra Harkness tweeted wryly that: ‘Surely, as an ex-Tiller Girl and veteran politician, she

Sunday

25 Apr 2021

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round-up: I ‘absolutely believe and trust’ the PM, says Truss

Liz Truss – I ‘absolutely believe and trust’ the PM on Downing Street refurbishment The International Trade Secretary Liz Truss was the government’s chief spokesperson this morning, meaning that she would be the lightning rod for the questions raised by Dominic Cumming’s latest blog post. The most incendiary part of the blog concerned the Prime Minister’s designs on refurbishing his Downing Street flat. Cummings claimed that Boris Johnson’s initial hopes to fund the renovation with money from the pockets of Conservative donors were ‘unethical, foolish, possibly illegal and almost certainly broke the rules on proper disclosure’. Though the reported £200,000 cost was ultimately covered by Johnson, an initial £58,000 put

Steerpike

David Ward plots another comeback

Much has changed in the world of politics since May 2015 but one thing certainly hasn’t – former MP David Ward is still causing problems for the Liberal Democrats. The one term wonder achieved little in his year five stint in Parliament other than notoriety for a 2013 website post to mark Holocaust Memorial Day in which claimed he was ‘saddened that the Jews, who suffered unbelievable levels of persecution during the Holocaust, could within a few years of liberation from the death camps, be inflicting atrocities on Palestinians in the new State of Israel and continue to do so on a daily basis in the West Bank and Gaza’. He was subsequently temporarily suspended from

Katy Balls

Where will the latest Downing Street psychodrama end?

When No. 10 briefed three newspapers on Thursday night that Dominic Cummings was behind a series of damaging leaks against the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson hoped the move would put him on the front foot and calm the government lobbying row. Instead, that decision appears to have spectacularly backfired. After Cummings hit back with an explosive blog, the newspaper briefing has reignited the Downing Street civil war and led to a plethora of stories on the No. 10 power struggle. The Sunday front pages make for distressing reading for the Prime Minister – ranging from ‘MPs fury over Downing St sleaze claims’ to concerns within No. 10 over fears Cummings has a ‘bombshell dossier’. No. 10 is

Carl Heneghan et al

The vaccines worked. We can safely lift lockdown

We are writing as scientists and scholars concerned about the confused and contradictory directions currently being promoted in the management of the Covid-19 pandemic. We are being told simultaneously that we have successful vaccines and that major restrictions on everyday life must continue indefinitely. Both propositions cannot be true. We need to give more weight to the data on the actual success of the vaccines and less to theoretical risks of vaccine escape and/or surge in a largely vaccinated population. It is time to reassess where we are and where we go next. Phase One of the Covid-19 vaccination programme will shortly be completed, with every vulnerable adult in the

Sam Armstrong

Beijing’s agents tried to recruit me on LinkedIn

‘We are an international headhunter company, your profile attracted me,’ began the remarkable message I received on LinkedIn. My newfound interlocutor, ‘Mr Zha’, explained in broken English that, ‘one of our partner in China looking for a freelancer researcher, helping them write some papers they will pay 1500-3000 USD for 6-10 pages. Contact me if you are interested. I can send you the [job description].’ To many such an approach might seem inconspicuous and hardly worth mentioning. After all, isn’t this precisely the sort of engagement that LinkedIn is designed for? But when you work for a foreign policy think tank, business offers like these are highly unusual: our work is

Saturday

24 Apr 2021

Steerpike

Sir Alistair Graham’s rentaquote renaissance

Few in Westminster have emerged with any credit from the fallout of the Greensill saga. A pandora’s box has now been opened with the lobbying activities of politicians both past and present now considered fair game. But one man who is clearly enjoying himself is the ubiquitous Sir Alastair Graham, the former chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life. Graham left his post in 2007 but 14 years on is still very much the go to man for lobby hacks in need of a quote. Always ready to express shock and anger at the latest misdoings of those awful politicians, the onetime trade unionist has had a career

Kate Andrews

Boris’s vaccine propaganda film jumps the gun

Westminster’s much anticipated summer blockbuster dropped last night: ‘A Beacon of Hope: The UK Vaccine Story’ was released on 10 Downing Street’s Twitter and YouTube accounts just after 6pm. The video was teased on Twitter on 10 March, featuring a dramatic score and a tagline ‘coming soon’, raising questions as to how ‘soon’ it would appear, what its contents might be, and whether releasing a victory video in the middle of the UK’s vaccine rollout was slightly premature. Now we have some of those answers. The roughly 30 minute video features the pandemic’s most recognisable faces – including Boris Johnson, Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance – as well as far