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Isabel Hardman
Isabel Hardman
The death of David Amess has no easy answers

Why has the political debate following Sir David Amess's killing moved so swiftly to focus on civility in politics? It's a reasonable question that a lot of people – including my colleague Sam Leith – have been asking. The police are treating Amess's death as a terrorist attack, and yet other MPs have been talking about the need to stop online abuse and to encourage a more open political culture. The link between people shouting at their MPs about how they voted and the motives of Islamist terrorists is, to put it politely, somewhat unproven. Politicians are always high-value targets for terrorists in any country, regardless of how mean or otherwise the rest of society is to them. People were much more deferential towards MPs when the IRA was busy trying – and in two cases, succeeding – to kill them.

The death of David Amess has no easy answers
Isabel Hardman
Isabel Hardman
The death of David Amess has no easy answers

Why has the political debate following Sir David Amess's killing moved so swiftly to focus on civility in politics? It's a reasonable question that a lot of people – including my colleague Sam Leith – have been asking. The police are treating Amess's death as a terrorist attack, and yet other MPs have been talking about the need to stop online abuse and to encourage a more open political culture. The link between people shouting at their MPs about how they voted and the motives of Islamist terrorists is, to put it politely, somewhat unproven. Politicians are always high-value targets for terrorists in any country, regardless of how mean or otherwise the rest of society is to them. People were much more deferential towards MPs when the IRA was busy trying – and in two cases, succeeding – to kill them.

The death of David Amess has no easy answers
Isabel Hardman
Isabel Hardman
The death of David Amess has no easy answers

Why has the political debate following Sir David Amess's killing moved so swiftly to focus on civility in politics? It's a reasonable question that a lot of people – including my colleague Sam Leith – have been asking. The police are treating Amess's death as a terrorist attack, and yet other MPs have been talking about the need to stop online abuse and to encourage a more open political culture. The link between people shouting at their MPs about how they voted and the motives of Islamist terrorists is, to put it politely, somewhat unproven. Politicians are always high-value targets for terrorists in any country, regardless of how mean or otherwise the rest of society is to them. People were much more deferential towards MPs when the IRA was busy trying – and in two cases, succeeding – to kill them.

The death of David Amess has no easy answers
Steerpike
Steerpike
The SNP’s ferries disaster

The ship of state continues to run aground in Scotland, judging by the latest transport related fiasco to embroil Nicola Sturgeon's government. Not content with refusing Westminster's cash to fix his roads and admitting he has 'no idea' why rail unions are striking, SNP transport minister Graeme Dey has extended his incompetence beyond the boundaries of land. The under-fire appointee is facing questions about yet another ferries farrago after two more ships were this week declared out of action, further disrupting crucial services.

The SNP’s ferries disaster
Katy Balls
Katy Balls
How serious is the government about Net Zero?

The green agenda is leading the news today with Boris Johnson on a PR mission to sell his environmental plans to the country (and sceptical Tory MPs) ahead of next month’s Cop26 summit. Several documents are published today, including the much-delayed Heat and Building strategy, the Net Zero strategy and the Net Zero review which is meant to offer some idea of how much exactly the whole agenda will cost. Those braced for eye-watering figures and stark consumer choices however may need to reassess.

How serious is the government about Net Zero?
Ross Clark
Ross Clark
This heat pump scheme is a bung to the rich

Who does the government think will be the 90,000 lucky people who succeed in pocketing £5,000 grants to replace their gas boilers with heat pumps? Just-about-managing homeowners in ‘Red Wall’ seats who strained every sinew to buy a draughty two up, two down – or well-off homeowners with nice period houses, lots of capital and three cars on the drive? Here’s a little clue: even taking into account the £5,000 grant it will still cost upwards of £5,000 to install the heat pump itself, plus another £10,000 for insulation and to install larger radiators – so it is really not an option for the first group.

This heat pump scheme is a bung to the rich
Thomas Fink
What Prince William gets wrong about space travel

Time was when 'to boldly go where no man has gone before' was not just a line from Star Trek. It was a national dream. Space exploration transcended political divisions. When Nasa pulled off the first moon landing, the world watched in awe. Last week, the Star Trek actor William Shatner was blasted into space on one of Jeff Bezos’s rockets. Yet there was no shared wonder. Instead, there was criticism. Scientists have more pressing problems to solve, argued detractors.

What Prince William gets wrong about space travel
Nick Cohen
Nick Cohen
Why does Boris Johnson keep on winning?

For his critics, Boris Johnson offends the notion that the British are a sensible people so deeply we feel we no longer understand much of our country. How, we wonder, can so many voters support an obvious phoney? How does a prime minister who makes it up as he goes along get away with it? The fraudulent promises of rising living standards, the national self-harm of Brexit, the deliberate exacerbation of tensions in Ireland and the treatment of former friends in Europe as enemies have produced an anti-Johnsonian culture. Its brilliant satires and devastating newspaper columns are as ferocious and outraged as the anti-Thatcherism of the 1980s – and just as ineffective. A report released today by Labour Renaissance throws a bucket of cold realism over our fevered rages.

Why does Boris Johnson keep on winning?

Yesterday

18 Oct 2021
James Kirkup
James Kirkup
In praise of MPs

My first full-time job, at the age of 18, was working for an MP. In the following 27 years, almost my entire career has been spent in or near Westminster. I know and have known lots of MPs. To coin a phrase, some of my best friends are members of parliament. This, of course, means I’m biased on the topic of MPs, inclined by reason or familiarity to think well of them as a group. But it also means, I hope, that I have a bit of knowledge — knowledge that might be worth sharing as the Commons remembers Sir David Amess and James Brokenshire. It’s hard to generalise about an inherently diverse group, but MPs as a whole are not, in an important way, like the rest of us. To reach the Commons requires a type of drive and motivation that most people lack.

In praise of MPs
Isabel Hardman
Isabel Hardman
MPs gather to pay tribute to Sir David Amess

Boris Johnson announced this afternoon that Southend will receive city status as a tribute to the campaigning work of Sir David Amess, who was killed. Sir David's best known Commons contributing was Inserting Southend's bid to become a city into any question, no matter how tenuous, and it seemed an inevitable way of the government marking his death. MPs paying their respects to the Southend West MP have all focused on his dedication to his constituency, but also on his kindness.

Sunday

17 Oct 2021
Roger Kimball
Christopher Steele – the spy who loved himself

Delicious. Christopher Steele, the single most discredited actor in the entire Trump-Russia collusion nonsense, is set to be interviewed on Monday by ABC's George Stephanopoulos, the single most pompous of all the brood of lying, self-important American talking heads. I know that there is stiff competition for that first title. After all, Steele had to beat out former FBI director James ‘Higher Loyalty’ Comey and other security state frauds such as John Brennan, Andrew McCabe, Lisa Page, Peter Strzok and James Clapper. But Steele wins, hands down, because his so-called dossier — full of micturating prostitutes and other fantasies — was the stink bomb that really got the Russia Collusion story going. Remember the dossier is opposition ‘research’, secretly commissioned and paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

Christopher Steele – the spy who loved himself
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