Politics

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

Patrick O'Flynn

Do Tories know the truth about Boris Johnson?

Exactly 40 years ago tomorrow, four Labour party grandees issued the Limehouse Declaration, signalling ‘the re-emergence of social democracy in Great Britain’. The declaration, made on a windswept bridge near the east London home of Dr David Owen, marked the formation of a Council for Social Democracy, that soon became a fully-fledged political party, the SDP. The ‘gang of four’ very nearly succeeded in breaking the mould of British politics, as their moderation hit the spot with millions of voters who opposed Thatcherism but also recoiled from Labour’s radical socialist agenda of the time. But they were thwarted, first by Britain’s first past the post electoral system that made gaining

Protests for Navalny sweep Russia

The protests began in Vladivostok, on Russia’s Pacific coast, and spread Westwards across 85 cities across the country’s nine time zones. The ritual was familiar enough from the last major wave of protests in the summer of 2019 – several thousand banner-carrying protesters calling for the release of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, an overwhelming show of force by the police, baton charges, cracked heads, mass arrests. By the end of the day over 2000 protesters had been detained, forty policemen and thousands of protesters injured.  So Navalny got, in one sense, what he wanted. By voluntarily returning from Berlin, where he had been recovering from Novichok poisoning, Navalny has indeed

We could be understating the ‘Kent’ Covid strain

‘Our estimate which is that the risk of death increases by 30 per cent is itself uncertain. We think it could be anywhere between 10 per cent and 50 per cent according to our analyses,’ said Dr Nick Davies, the author of one of the studies referenced in Friday’s Downing Street press conference, during an interview on Radio 4. Between listening to the press conference last night and Dr Nick Davies, you could be forgiven for thinking that this latest development is all rather tentative and possibly merely a quirk of statistics that is – as yet – no cause for alarm. The controversial way the figures were presented; briefed

Katy Balls

How will history remember Brexit?

25 min listen

In his upcoming book, the historian Robert Tombs writes that Brexit may not be the historically significant event we think it is. On the podcast, Katy Balls speaks to him and James Forsyth about just how history will remember Brexit, and what are the future events that can still change our memory of it.

Word of the week: Sceptic

Definition: A person who questions the beliefs of others Lord Sumption, is a sceptic. The former Supreme Court judge has questioned the government’s lockdown policies and raised uncomfortable questions: ‘are we punishing too many for the greater good?’; ‘is the life of my grandchildren worth more than my own, because they have much more of it ahead?’ These are moral questions about the value that we place on each life, as well as the price that we are prepared to pay to prevent death. There are no easy answers.  But now is not the time for debate. The enlightenment spawned an array of critical thinkers, sceptics and dissenters. By testing

The banality of Matt Haig

It doesn’t seem like a bad time to be Matt Haig. He’s written multiple bestselling books, including the reputation-making memoir Reasons to Stay Alive about his own experience of severe depression. His latest, The Midnight Library, is proving impossible for everyone but Richard Osman and JK Rowling to knock out of the bestseller charts. There’s a movie adaptation of one of his novels on the way. And we now know that his high-profile admirers run all the way to royalty (well, ex-royalty): Meghan and Harry chose him as one of the guests for their holiday edition of their podcast ‘Archewell’, to offer ‘inspiration, perspective, and reflection’ for these difficult Covid

‘Smart’ motorways are an accident waiting to happen

If I could wave a wand and reverse just one government policy it would be the expansion of so-called ‘smart motorways’ in the face of what seems the iron determination of the Department for Transport to press ahead with them. These are motorways where the hard shoulder is incorporated into the motorway to create an extra lane – a loss supposedly compensated for with periodic refuges for breakdowns. If you wondered why stretches of the M4 are shut most weekends for works, this is what they are doing. The consequences of such supposed ‘improvements’ can be lethal. The latest evidence comes from a Sheffield inquest, where the coroner, David Urpeth,

Katy Balls

‘Feathers have been ruffled’: Life after Cummings at No.10

Boris Johnson used today’s press conference to issue sobering news: warning that the new Covid strain may be more deadly. The better news? The vaccines that have been approved are likely to be as effective against the new strain as the original. There were also figures to suggest things are slowly improving: the R number has fallen to a rate of between 0.8 and 1. And 5.4 million people, around one in ten of the adult population, have now received their first dose of the vaccine. Yet despite the good news on the vaccine rollout, there is little in the way of optimism in 10 Downing Street this week. Instead, advisers and

Why the Welsh Tory leader has to go

For a party that is so obsessed with bursting the ‘Cardiff Bay Bubble’, the Welsh Conservatives certainly enjoy the Senedd’s tearoom. This week reports emerged that Tory members of the Senedd, including party leader Paul Davies, drank alcohol on Welsh parliament premises, days after a ban on serving it in pubs took effect. A Senedd commission report confirmed today there was a ‘possible’ breach of rules and referred the incident to Cardiff city council and the standards commissioner. It’s miserable timing for the Tories, coming four months before an election. All parties involved insist they haven’t broken any Covid rules. But while Labour’s Alun Davies has been suspended by his party, the Tories involved have

Katy Balls

Boris Johnson warns that new Covid variant could be more deadly

Those in the lookout for good Covid news will found precious little of it in Boris Johnson’s latest Covid press conference. Although the Prime Minister had cause for optimism in the form of the vaccine rollout – over 5.4 million people have now received their first dose of the vaccine, one in ten adults, – the overall message was of difficult times ahead. Johnson said there was evidence to suggest that the ‘Kent variant’ not only spreads faster but is deadly. The PM pointed to data assessed by scientists on the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group which, he said, suggested the variant could be up to 30 per cent more deadly than the original.  Chief Scientific

Nick Tyrone

Has Covid killed the EU’s dream of open borders?

‘All non-essential travel should be strongly discouraged both within the country and of course across borders,’ Ursula von der Leyen, head of the European Commission, has said. As a result of the Covid crisis, the dream of open borders across the continent of Europe has never seemed so imperilled. Meanwhile, a post-Brexit Britain has the ability to flex its borders as much as it chooses. To some Brexiteers, this alone makes Brexit worth it. The Schengen agreement was signed in 1985 and became pan-EU in 1999, meaning that, from then on, any country without an opt-out needed to allow free movement of people from any other signatory country (almost all

Katy Balls

Is the Cabinet divide on Covid back?

11 min listen

The Guardian reported today that the Department of Health is considering offering a £500 isolation fee to encourage more people with symptoms to get tested. But the Treasury hit back fast saying that they had not seen these proposals and that the idea was ‘bonkers’. Katy Balls talks to James Forsyth and Fraser Nelson about what the row says about the conversations behind the scenes.

The BBC needs to face up to the truth about the licence fee’s future

It won’t come as much of a surprise to learn that the National Audit Office thinks the BBC faces ‘significant’ uncertainty over its financial future due to changes in viewing habits. The NAO’s findings are about as ground-breaking as your average anodyne Beeb drama, but they do tighten the cilice on a funding model that is impossibly outdated in the 21st century.  In the past decade alone, there has been a 30 per cent decline in BBC TV viewing; on average, the amount of time an adult spent watching broadcast BBC TV fell from 80 minutes per day in 2010 to 56 minutes in 2019. When it comes to younger

Melanie McDonagh

The courts, the bishops and the troubling case of a dying man

It’s not every day a Polish bishop asks an English bishop to write to Matt Hancock to plead for the life of a Polish citizen living in England, but that’s what’s happened this week. Last year, Mr RS, as he’s known, had a heart attack, went to hospital in Plymouth and was given hydration and nutrition through tubes into his body. The hospital withdrew this support after a court ruling earlier this month. RS’s wife and children, living here, wanted the hydration and feeding stopped; his Polish mother and sisters wanted it maintained. The Court of Appeal has sided with his wife and children, while the European Court of Human

Isabel Hardman

When will Boris come clean to Tory MPs about the length of lockdown?

This evening’s Downing Street coronavirus press briefing showed that ministers are still focused on enforcement of existing restrictions, rather than introducing even tighter curbs. Home Secretary Priti Patel announced £800 fines for people attending house parties, which will double for each repeat offence, up to a maximum of £6,400. Patel said the police would target the ‘small minority that refuse to do the right thing’, and warned that the police were increasingly enforcing the rules.  Speaking alongside her, NHS England regional medical director for London Dir Vin Diwakar issued a moral warning to members of the public who think it is acceptable to flout the rules. He said:  ‘Breaking the

Lara Prendergast

Biden time: can he stop America’s ‘uncivil war’?

35 min listen

Can Joe Biden unite America? (01:05) Why is the UK’s vaccine rollout its most important economic policy? (12:10) And how can re-enactments bring history to life? (22:15) With The Spectator’s economics correspondent Kate Andrews; US editor Freddy Gray; political editor James Forsyth; Capital Economics chairman Roger Bootle; re-enactor Chris Brown and historical consultant Justin Pollard. Presented by Lara Prendergast. Produced by Max Jeffery, Alexa Rendell, Sam Russell and Matt Taylor.

Cindy Yu

Will the English lockdown last past Easter?

12 min listen

No 10 refused to rule out the possibility today, and the Health Secretary has also refused to be drawn on whether or not the vaccinating the most vulnerable would provide the roadmap out of lockdown. Cindy Yu talks to James Forsyth and Katy Balls about the possibility that England’s lockdown will last into the summer.