Politics

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

Steerpike

Is it one rule for Sky News, another for everyone else?

Kay Burley is hardly what you would call a ‘sympathetic personality’ – but Steerpike is a magnanimous sort and he can’t help feeling a little sorry for her on this chilly winter’s morning. The poor presenter is having a miserable time because, having spent much of the year berating others for their failings vis Covid, she has been caught breaching the stop-the-spread rules herself in order to celebrate her 60th birthday. Who doesn’t deserve a little bit of a dinner out — or two — to celebrate becoming a sexagenarian (her special day is actually on December 17th, but hey who’s counting)? The trouble is Kay and her pals, including

Robert Peston

Did false data lead to lockdown?

When shaping policy to protect us from Covid-19, the government relies on data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to provide the scientific basis for its actions. The weekly ONS coronavirus survey is supposed to be the information gold standard — and in particular it underpinned Boris Johnson’s controversial announcement at the end of October to put England back into national lockdown. No other course of action seemed sensible, given that the ONS survey on 30 October showed the incidence of coronavirus in the community in England had surged from 4.3 per 10,000 people on 3 October to 9.52 on 17 October, the latest date for data then available.

Steerpike

Has Kay Burley just been cancelled?

It’s a big morning for news in the UK as the first patients receive the Pfizer coronavirus jabs and Brexit deadlines loom. So, one would have imagined Kay Burley would be front and centre of her self-titled morning breakfast show. Apparently not. Mr S was curious to note Burley’s absence on today’s show — with Sky News’s Sarah Hewson instead broadcasting from Coventry University Hospital, where the first vaccinations are taking the place. It appears Burley has been deemed a safety risk after Guido broke the news that the Sky News anchor had breached social distancing rules with her 60th birthday celebration. Her crime? Burley is alleged to have gone over the permitted rule of

Robert Peston

Deal or no-deal? The choice is Boris Johnson’s

If you voted for Brexit, did you think it was a state of pure and perfect national independence, or did you think that given how connected the UK is to the EU – economically, diplomatically, in respect of security – it might be a bit of a fudge and compromise? Is Brexit an absolute state of putative grace – or a place on a spectrum, somewhere between Switzerland and Norway, which are semi-independent, and North Korea, which is wholly independent? Because your answer will help you determine whether or not you think Boris Johnson is being reasonable in rejecting the EU stipulation that the UK should not weaken its environmental,

James Forsyth

Can Boris’s dash to Brussels secure a Brexit deal?

The upshot of Boris Johnson and Ursula von der Leyen’s conversation this evening is that the pair will meet in Brussels in the ‘coming days’ to see if they can resolve the remaining ‘significant differences’ on the level playing field, governance and fish. Presumably this meeting will take place before the European Council on Thursday. Johnson and von der Leyen are being left with a lot to resolve in their summit. This isn’t going to be simply about finding a compromise on fish but on sorting the three issues that have bedevilled the negotiations from the start. Optimists will point to how negotiations on the withdrawal agreement last year seemed

Katy Balls

Is the chance of a Brexit deal diminishing?

12 min listen

It looks like Brexit talks could finally be coming to a head. After Boris Johnson and Ursula Von Der Leyen decided that efforts to reach an agreement should continue, negotiators spent the weekend bartering over fishing rights and the level playing field. The pair are set to have another call later today, but can it break the impasse? Katy Balls speaks to James Forsyth.

Steerpike

Watch: vaccine minister rules out ‘immunity passports’

This morning the new vaccine deployment minister, Nadhim Zahawi, appeared to change his tune when it comes to the use of ‘immunity passports’ for the British public. After telling the BBC last week that UK residents might need some proof of their Covid vaccination status to dine out at a restaurant or attend a sporting event, Zahawi rolled back his comments on Spectator TV. In a Q&A following his keynote speech at The Spectator’s Health Summit (held in partnership with MSD), Zahawi told broadcaster Alastair Stewart that so-called ‘immunity passports’ were not actually on the cards: ‘There will not be an immunity passport. I may have misspoken or it was conflated

James Forsyth

Talks resume in a final bid for a Brexit deal

The Brexit negotiations are continuing in Brussels this morning. But Michel Barnier’s briefing to EU member states suggests that little progress was made yesterday. Boris Johnson and the Commission President Ursula von der Leyen are due to speak this evening. It seems highly unlikely that there’ll be a deal for them to bless in that call. Rather, it will again come down to whether their conversation can lead to a breakthrough in the negotiations, which is surely going to have to come from some creativity rather than just the two sides going over the same well-trodden ground again. I had thought that today really was the deadline on Brexit because

Nick Tyrone

If Boris agrees a Brexit deal, Labour should vote it down

It now seems more likely than ever that the UK will leave with no deal at the end of the year. But let’s imagine for a moment that I’m wrong and the UK and the EU manage to overcome their substantial differences. It would then have to be voted on in Parliament – and Labour should vote it down. Why? Because the deal put before the Commons would not be between Brexit and Remain. That ship has long since sailed. It would instead be between the thin deal Boris Johnson will have agreed with the EU and the choice of leaving with no deal whatsoever. Whichever way Parliament votes, we leave the transitional

Robert Peston

Inside the no-deal reasonable worst case scenario

I’ve been passed the government’s ‘reasonable worst case scenario planning assumptions to support civil contingencies planning for the end of the transition period’. The 34-page document describes itself as a ‘challenging manifestation of the risk in question’ but ‘not an extreme or absolute worst case scenario’. A government source confirmed the official sensitive document, which was written in September, still underpins contingency planning. It is ‘not a forecast’ but a ‘reasonable’ assessment of what could happen to us if, in the next day or so, talks collapse on a free trade agreement with the European Union and the negotiations can’t be rescued. Also, as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster

Katy Balls

Johnson’s ‘last throw of the dice’ in Brexit talks

The UK’s chief negotiator David Frost has arrived in Brussels for last-minute talks with the EU’s Michel Barnier. After a phone call between Boris Johnson and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen on Saturday failed to break the deadlock, these latest talks are being billed within government as a ‘last throw of the dice’. The main differences that remain are on level playing field and fishing. As senior Brexiteers call on Johnson not to blink and cabinet ministers voice their support in the papers for no-deal if the Prime Minister sees it fit, the likelihood of no-deal is viewed to have increased in recent days. Senior government figures on the UK side now

The House of Lords must stop blocking Boris’s Brexit bill

Boris Johnson’s internal market bill is back in the House of Lords next week, but will peers let it through?  The bill gives the government an express power (a written one in a statute) to break an international treaty. The Lords do not like that the government might break a specific treaty. Where you stand on those are political, not legal questions — so not for a lawyer like me to answer. But what is for law, is to firstly recognise (whether peers like it or not) that the power to break a treaty, does exist. Think of it like a physical thing; it is in our constitution and we’ve lost track of

A Grantham statue is the least Margaret Thatcher deserves

Grantham in Lincolnshire has an interesting history. Newton went to school there. Turner produced several paintings of local scenes. During the last war, the town, set in flat countryside ideal for airfields, made a significant contribution to the bombing of Nazi Germany. In private, the most famous person ever to be born in the town might well have said: ‘jolly good thing too.’ Margaret Thatcher never found it easy to forgive what happened during the war. A lot of people still do not find it easy to forgive her. Some locals are now complaining about a proposal to add laurels to their town by erecting a statue to this greatest

Sunday shows round-up: Brexit talks ‘in a very difficult position’

Sophy Ridge was joined this morning by the Environment Secretary George Eustice. The first item on the agenda was the reconvening of post-Brexit trade talks after negotiators failed to reach an agreement last week. Eustice confirmed that EU demands on access to British coastal waters and on state aid were still the key barriers to a deal: GE: These [talks] are… in a very difficult position, there’s no point denying that… There was some hope early last week… at one point it looked like there might be a breakthrough… We’re going to continue to work on these negotiations until there’s no point in doing so any further. ‘We will see’

Katy Balls

Brexit talks resume despite ‘critical issues’

Brexit talks are back on between the UK and EU after a brief break. Both sides paused talks on Saturday due to remaining differences on level playing field rules, governance and fishing rights but the hope was that a phone conversation between Boris Johnson and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen would help to break the deadlock. While a deal is yet to be agreed, that call has led to both sides agreeing to return to the negotiating table. Following the conversation, Johnson and von der Leyen released a joint statement promising a ‘further effort’ would be made in the search for a Brexit deal: In a phone call today on the on-going negotiations

Only France would try to blow up the Brexit talks

That France was the country to throw a grenade threatening to blow up the UK-EU trade talks just as they were about to pass the finish line, does not come as a surprise to seasoned euro-watchers. No other EU member would so brazenly promote its own domestic self-interest at the cost to other EU members such as Germany and Ireland. To the British it has echoes of de Gaulle saying ‘non’, when vetoing the UK’s first attempts to join the Common Market. Many of the EU’s problems and (in my view) the ultimate reason Brexit happened, is down to a fundamental cause that is little remarked on in the UK.

James Forsyth

Ursula von der Leyen’s tricky Brexit negotiation

It was always going to be the case that a Brexit deal would require an intervention from Boris Johnson and the Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. But today’s conversation between the pair is going to have to do more work than either side would have liked. Rather than nudging a deal over the line, this phone call is going to have to give the talks a proper shove. Von der Leyen has the more difficult task today. Johnson is speaking on his own behalf, von der Leyen is speaking for 27 governments, including one – France – that is publicly threatening to veto any deal it doesn’t like. But