All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Keir Starmer, aided and abetted by Boris Johnson’s many internal enemies within the Conservative party, has managed to get into the public consciousness the idea that if Boris Johnson attended a ‘party’ during lockdown, he should resign. There are a number of good reasons that the Tory party might feel it was time for a new
Whips are made for leadership crises. They are a party leader’s early warning system; they can sniff out plots before they get going. So it is, as I report in this week’s magazine, far from ideal for Boris Johnson that relations between him and the whips office remain strained. The problem dates back to the Owen Paterson
You have to feel for the Scottish Conservatives. The current No. 10 dramas have placed them all in an invidious position, following Douglas Ross’s call yesterday for Boris Johnson to resign over partygate. Ross of course is the Scottish Conservative leader, with seats in the parliaments of both Westminster and Scotland. This means that every Tory north
As if there wasn’t enough drama in parliament today. Peers and MPs have just been warned that a suspected agent working for the Chinese government has been trying to infiltrate the Palace of Westminster, in a plot that wouldn’t seem out of place in a James Bond film. Talk about The Spy Who Loved Xi. MI5 has now released
Douglas Ross is a ‘lightweight’. The head of the Scottish Tories is ‘not a big figure in the Conservative party’. These two assessments were issued on Wednesday evening in separate broadcast appearances by Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Leader of the House and the most biddable boot boy in Westminster. That Downing Street would be displeased by
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After a hard PMQs for Boris Johnson which included multiple MPs calling for his resignation, the cabinet took to the media to show support for their embattled leader… though some took a bit longer than others. ‘Notably, Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss took quite some time. I think they both got round to it by
Political parties are very much in vogue at the moment so naturally Gina Miller had to get in on the act. Steerpike’s favourite millionaire barrister has launched her long-awaited centrist initiative this morning, hailing the advent of the ‘True and Fair party’ before an audience of just, er, thirteen people – unlucky for some. Mr S
Planting trees is not usually a controversial activity, especially in the eco-conscious twenty-first century. But as ever, the rules are different where Israel is concerned, and government sanctioned forestation is currently threatening to tear apart the country’s delicately balanced coalition government. As is often the case in the region, the problem lies in competing claims
Lawyers with an awkward agenda can be a thorn in the government’s side in Scotland as much as in England. Last year, for example, they persuaded the Court of Session to refuse a green light to Nicola Sturgeon’s bright idea for a unilateral Indyref2; and in a much higher profile case a couple of years
The mood in Westminster this morning is febrile as Tory MPs plot to consider their leader’s future. Facing questions over partygate, plunging polls and mutinous ministers, can anything save Boris Johnson? Well, yes, but perhaps salvation comes in an unlikely form. For in another typically brilliant intervention, Lord Adonis — Britain’s most ironically titled peer — has reminded Boris-doubters what they stand
Ideas, as a fictitious terrorist once said, are bulletproof. This might be stretching the truth a little, but at the very least they are not easily slain. So long as they appeal to someone’s sentiments or self-interest, no amount of logical dismemberment is enough to put them down for good. The zombie stalking the discourse
In this age of social media, it’s live by the tweet and die by the tweet. And when a Tory PM is in peril, such shenanigans take on an importance of semi-constitutional significance as ministers rush (or hesitate) to signal their allegiances. The most ominous sign for Boris Johnson yesterday was how quiet his Cabinet
You know it’s bad when Rees-Mogg does the media round. Ever since his disastrous interview on Grenfell in the 2019 election, Tory party managers have been keen to keep the Old Etonian’s performances on national television to a minimum. But given both the dire straits in which Boris now finds himself and the half-hearted backing of
When Michael Gove addressed Tory MPs on Wednesday evening at a meeting of the 1922 committee, he began with a tribute to Boris Johnson. After a rocky few days for the Prime Minister in which he has apologised to the House for attending a drinks party in the Downing Street garden during lockdown and faced calls from his
Why should anyone feel insulted when they are described as ‘eloquent’? Priyamvada Gopal, professor of post-colonial studies at Cambridge University, felt moved to speak on behalf of David Olusoga when I used that very compliment to describe him. In an article for the Daily Telegraph, I argued that Olusoga’s testimony in the trial of the ‘Colston Four’
Once again, people are getting their knickers in a twist over Enid Blyton. Such is the capacity for outrage these days, the same accusations are recycled on a biannual basis. This time around it’s The Magic Faraway Tree that’s in the spotlight. For those unfamiliar, this 1943 tale features a fantastical array of plots and
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Boris Johnson has finally commented on the accusations of a Downing Street garden party held in the first lockdown. Yet his defence – ‘I believed implicitly that this was a work event’ – has satisfied nobody. On the episode, James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman give their verdict. ‘When I started my career I spent a
In May 2020 Douglas Ross resigned from Boris Johnson’s government. Though only a junior minister in the Scotland Office – Ross was not at that time a member of the Holyrood parliament or leader of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist party – Ross was still the most senior figure to resign in protest at how
A nudge on interest rates from the Federal Reserve. A gradual winding down of quantitative easing. No more stimulus cheques flying out of the White House window. And rising energy prices dropping out of the annualised headline rate. This was meant to be the month when the spurt of inflation in the United States turned
Haunted. Ashen. Defeated. That’s how the PM looked in parliament this afternoon as he faced the flamethrowers of the opposition. He began with a long apology about the May 2020 party in Downing Street which he said he had attended. And he openly acknowledged the ‘rage’ of the British public. His excuse – embarrassingly flimsy
When the world’s number one tennis player Novak Djokovic found himself locked in a Melbourne hotel because he’d entered Australia without being vaccinated, he sent out an urgent request for gluten-free food. The 34-year-old Serbian — currently at the centre of a furious dispute over his right to stay for the Australian Open — is
A few months ago, Sajid Javid was asked how he could justify sacking unvaccinated care home workers if they had been infected with Covid and had natural immunity. The Health Secretary replied as if such people were plainly idiots. ‘If they haven’t taken a vaccine — despite all the effort that’s been made to persuade them,
Peter Bone was up at PMQs today, asking a rare, non-partygate question to our beleaguered Prime Minister on whether he’d abolish the BBC licence fee (answer: no). But not all the Wellingborough backbencher’s maneuverings in Parliament this week seem designed to be so helpful to Boris, as he battles to save his premiership. For Mr S has spotted
On 20 May 2020, the Metropolitan Police issued a statement on social media which summed up the conditions in the country. ‘Have you been enjoying the hottest day of the year so far?’ it asked. ‘You can relax, have a picnic, exercise or play sport, as long as you are: on your own, with people
BREAKING: Britain is plunging into autocracy. Well, according to the New York Times at least. Steerpike has grown used to the witterings from America’s least reliable news source in recent years, as it seeks to portray the UK as a plague-riddled, rain-drenched fascistic hell-hole on the verge of democratic collapse but where the trains don’t run on
Boris Johnson has just made his leadership crisis worse at PMQs. As expected, he started the session with an apology to the public, saying ‘I know the rage they feel with me and with the government I lead’. This sounded promising, but things quickly went downhill, and that was before the questions had even started.
Is anyone else fed up of corporate virtue-signalling? From banks boasting of their commitment to diversity and equality, to train companies changing their liveries to the rainbow flag, or supermarket chains proclaiming they are fighting racism, enough is enough. Thankfully, the moneymen who matter to big businesses – and whom they might actually listen to
It’s unfortunate for Boris Johnson that one of his worst appearances at PMQs has coincided with one of Keir Starmer’s best. The Leader of the Opposition has clearly had his cornflakes today as he tore into the shambling PM and did what many of his party have been wanting for months: calling on Johnson to resign.
It’s probably the most difficult PMQs he’ll ever have to face. Boris Johnson is on the back foot today over reports on a garden party which went on in No. 10 in May 2020. Just before he faced questions from MPs, Johnson took the opportunity to finally apologise to the House and to the country,
As he blasts his way through the remaining support beams of the UK constitution, Gordon Brown is doing more to deliver Scottish independence than the SNP. The former Prime Minister is reportedly poised to recommend that Labour adopt ‘devo max’ as a policy, which would see the SNP-run Scottish parliament handed yet another tranche of
Westminster’s finest are gathering today ahead of Boris Johnson’s much-awaited appearance at Prime Ministers’ Questions. The embattled premier is expected to be grilled shortly in the Commons about the garden party which took place in No. 10 in May 2020, following a morning media round blackout by the government in recent days. Yet while the House should
People seem surprised and a little doubting that the Prime Minister is incapable of remembering if he attended a party in his own back garden in May 2020. It does not come as much of a shock to me, seeing as he has difficulty remembering how many children he has. Beneath that albino mop resides