All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
The mood in Westminster has gone somewhat quiet over the past two days, after Christian Wakeford’s defection on Wednesday stopped the momentum of Tory plotters in parliament. But for a few hours yesterday, passions came alive once more – this time on an issue of policy. Foreign Office minister Amanda Milling was dragged to the
The Partygate drama is temporarily paused as Tory MPs wait for Sue Gray to deliver her report. But even once it is out, what happens to Boris Johnson and the Conservative party is far from clear. One Tory MP with a foot in both the rebel and loyalist camps predicts ‘trench warfare for several weeks’
What can Boris Johnson and the Tories learn from Tony Blair? While Labour’s former leader remains deeply unpopular – and indeed ultimately fell over a grave misjudgement – he was the UK’s last successful prime minister. Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Theresa May and, now, Boris Johnson exist in his shadow. The PM would be wise then to look to Blair’s rise
It takes some doing to make a census interesting. So congratulations to the National Records of Scotland (NRS). NRS, which administers the decennial survey, is facing a judicial review over its guidance on the document. On the question of sex, it states that ‘if you are transgender the answer you give can be different from what
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Freddy Gray and Lionel Shriver discuss Joe Biden’s first year at the helm of the United States, and whether he is capable of tackling the challenges poised by Vladimir Putin, rampant inflation and his own capacity for gaffes.
The statistical shenanigans of the SNP have been highlighted by Mr S before but it’s always worth highlighting when the nationalist Holyrood government gets it wrong (again). At First Minister’s Questions yesterday, Nicola Sturgeon told colleagues that England’s infection rate is 20 per cent higher than that of Scotland, according to ONS figures. A surprising figure, given
I knew what ‘anxiety’ meant when I was in primary school. But it was not a word I had cause to use regularly, as I moved from my pastel coloured class-room to my David Cassidy-filled suburban bedroom. Today, however, ‘anxiety’ is our children’s word of the year, according to the Oxford University Press. We can’t
Can the British army afford to take on Russia? That’s the burning question that has been left after Defence Secretary Ben Wallace announced this week – to surprisingly little fanfare – that the UK is sending 30 elite troops and 2,000 anti tank weapons to the Ukraine. Wallace clearly intended to send a message to Moscow
To an old Westminster lag like me, there is something slightly grating about MPs complaining about nasty whips and political intimidation. I’m thinking about William Wragg, who says the government is ‘blackmailing’ MPs to support Boris Johnson and suggested the police should get involved. Wragg says that MPs are facing threats over constituency funding and
The defection of Christian Wakeford to Labour has put a spring in the step of the left-wing party. Apparently it marks the start of their revival. Give it two years and Keir Starmer will be waving from the steps of Number 10. That’s one scenario. A more likely one is that the good people of
It’s all a bit of a soap opera over at No. 10. Tears, screams, tantrums, mess everywhere — and that’s just Boris’s children Wilf and Romy. The papers are full of talk of ‘the good king with bad advisers’ as various sources speculate that one or more of the whips’ office, special adviser team and the
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As the Prime Minister has a stay of execution after the pork pie plot came to nothing, today allegations are flying that Tory whips have been using unsavoury methods to threaten wavering MPs into line. Christian Wakeford, the newly defected Labour MP to Bury South, says that whips threatened to withdraw funding from a local
Gas prices are soaring. Europe could be about to witness electricity shortages. Power companies are collapsing by the day, and, on top of all that, the government is set to phase out traditional energy to meet its net zero target. So might think that a cable to ship in cheap, greener electricity from the other side of
I’m no Westminster insider, but there comes a point when you have to consider that perhaps Carrie Johnson was right about Dominic Cummings. That point for me arrived in May last year when, without giving any indication he might be the one at fault, Cummings unblinkingly described to a parliamentary committee his relationship with his
Oh dear. Tory loyalists have been out in force the past two days, desperate to save Boris Johnson’s flailing premiership. Mr S has heard of at least one boosterish Boris-backer quoting the words of Margaret Thatcher in November 1990: ‘I shall fight on, I fight to win!’ Unfortunately, as another MP muttered back: ‘Maggie resigned
The ‘baby-faced assassin’ has struck again. William Wragg, the backbench Boris-basher, lobbed another grenade at the door of No. 10 today with his comments at the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee about the tactics being used by the Johnson regime. Wragg, who possesses the name of a septuagenarian but the appearance of an adolescent, claimed that
As Boris Johnson battles to survive the Partygate scandal and faces widespread anger from the public and his own MPs, he is still hoping his apology over the Downing Street festivities will be enough. But the Prime Minister has to face up to the fact that, for thousands of people around the country, saying sorry or offering
Over the past six years, Saudi Arabia and its allies have – not always accurately – dropped western-built munitions worth billions of pounds on both military and civilian targets in Yemen. On Monday, the Houthis, the Zaidi militia they are fighting, hit back. The Houthis claimed to have struck a number of targets in the UAE
It’s Burns night on Tuesday and after two years of pandemic politics, what better time to celebrate the Union? Yesterday evening Tory unionists piled into the opulent splendour of the the Cavalry and Guards Club for the London branch of the Scottish Conservatives’ annual celebration of the national poet. Steerpike’s spies were in attendance to enjoy
Money is very important to Harry and Meghan – as evidenced by their multi-million dollar deals with a string of top companies. Not for them, ‘go woke, go broke’: their philanthropic vehicle Archewell raised less than £37,000 for their charities up until June last year, with more being spent on legal fees to dissolve their previous
During a rare press conference on Wednesday, which lasted well over an hour, President Joe Biden told the press corps that he ‘didn’t believe the polls’, said he’d ‘over-performed’ in his first year, accomplishing more than any president in history in his first year, scolded RealClearPolitics reporter Philip Wegmann and blamed the country for somehow
Amid all yesterday’s defection drama, it was easy to miss that Boris Johnson announced the scrapping of his ‘Plan B’ Covid measures. Such a move has not gone down well among the more hysterical elements of Covid Twitter who appear to see the restoration of civil liberties as a dastardly Tory plot to privatise the
Timing is everything in politics. Partygate showed the usually sure-footed Boris at his most careless and inept, dwarfing even his run-in with the Commissioner for Standards that cost him North Shropshire last month and (one suspects) helped lose him Bury South on Wednesday. But the British electorate can be very forgiving. When it elected Boris
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Last night rumours were flying around Westminster that letters of no confidence from Tory MPs were pouring in and Boris might be leaving sooner rather than later. But with the surprising crossing of the aisle by MP for Bury South, Christian Wakeford, it appears that old party tribalism may have stayed some hands. ‘While a
Few may know of Baron Howarth of Newport. But in 1995, on the eve of the Conservative party conference, as plain old Alan Howarth he became the first Conservative MP to directly defect to the Labour party. Today, just ten minutes before PMQs, Christian Wakeford became the fourth Tory MP to join the Labour benches.
If Boris Johnson manages to cling on to his job, he’ll have much more than the parties of lockdowns past to worry about. Britain’s cost of living crisis is worsening still, with CPI inflation rising by 5.4 per cent in the 12 months leading up to December last year. This has, once again, outpaced consensus, surging
Does Boris lie? Well, yes, of course, he’s a politician. That’s the standard response to the honesty question. And in some circumstances, we forgive MPs for telling whoppers. Christian Wakeford, elected as a Tory for Bury South, has just joined the Labour party and effectively admitted that he told a pack of lies to voters
Partygate may be what does for Boris but it was the North Shropshire by-election which triggered the landslide. The fallout from the disastrous decision to contest Owen Paterson’s suspension by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards has fuelled the anger and discontent which now leaves Johnson clinging on the precipice. For in losing a constituency which had
An MP crossing the floor just before PMQs is the stuff of prime ministerial nightmares. But, oddly, Christian Wakeford’s defection might, in the very short term, have helped Boris Johnson. MPs hate defectors and so Tory MPs will unite in condemnation of Wakeford. His decision also makes it easier for Johnson’s allies to raise questions
You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist who mutters regularly about ‘sheeple’ to find the timing of Boris Johnson’s latest Covid update rather suspicious. This afternoon, he followed his dramatic Prime Minister’s Questions session with an announcement about the end of restrictions which had been introduced to slow the spread of the Omicron variant.
Labour have made much of Christian Wakeford’s defection today. The party is keen to show it has moved on from the Corbyn era, with some pointing to Wakeford’s staunch support of the Jewish community in Bury as proof that Starmer has successfully detoxified Labour’s brand. It’s the first direct Tory defection to Labour in 15 years and gave
Today’s PMQs was as dramatic as you might expect. It began with the spectacle of Bury South MP Christian Wakeford being cheered as he crossed the floor to the Labour benches. Sir Keir Starmer was in a joyful mood, as you might also expect. What was striking was how energised Boris Johnson was in his
The stench of death clings to Boris Johnson. Bury South MP Christian Wakeford has crossed the floor to join Labour. David Davis has told him to resign ‘in the name of God’. Tory MPs reportedly continue to hand in letters of no confidence to the 1922 Committee. Once they reach 54, there will be a