Why won’t Keir Starmer reveal his donors?
11 min listen
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All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
Thursday
Coronavirus is putting politics on hold
The coronavirus is putting politics on hold. The Budget, as I say in this week’s magazine, will be a much less dramatic event because of it. Given the level of economic uncertainty the virus is creating, it would be sensible to wait for the autumn Budget — when the situation should be clearer — before
Watch: Boris struggles to say if he’ll change nappies
After a prolonged spell of avoiding media interviews, Boris Johnson finally came out of hiding today and appeared on breakfast television. The Prime Minister was interviewed by Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield on ITV’s This Morning. And while Boris handled questions on the coronavirus, flooding and the Priti Patel bullying scandal with relative ease, in the end it was a
Could coronavirus change British politics?
Even if the Covid-19 coronavirus does not become a mass killer on the scale of, say, the Spanish Flu in 1918, the mere possibility of such severity still carries huge weight. Just the potential for a disastrous pandemic demands a response whose seriousness and nature will have political and social implications. Even in this first
Is Boris Johnson serious enough to take on the coronavirus?
Boris Johnson’s handsome election victory was only three months ago, but already it feels like a relic from another age. The coronavirus requires him to be everything he is not: serious, attentive to detail and respectful of expertise and public servants. He may not be ‘yesterday’s man’, because no replacement is in sight. But he
Wednesday
Starmer and Long-Bailey fail to impress on Andrew Neil
At the beginning of the year Lisa Nandy became the first Labour leadership candidate to subject herself to a grilling by Andrew Neil. It took almost two months, but this evening the two other candidates left in the race, Keir Starmer and Rebecca Long-Bailey, finally appeared on the show as well. And while both survived
Why were there so many loyal questions at PMQs today?
This week’s Prime Minister’s Questions had Tory MPs bursting out of their seats to ask Boris Johnson some lovely easy questions. There were more than usual whose contribution to the session was merely to ask him to agree with them that he had the right priorities and was doing a great job. Claire Coutinho, recently-elected
Bye bye Bloomberg
‘I’m a believer in using data to inform decisions,’ Michael Bloomberg said in a statement as he ended his campaign. ‘After yesterday’s results, the delegate math has become virtually impossible – and a viable path to the nomination no longer exists.’ And like that, he’s gone. Perhaps the most extraordinary story of the 2020 campaign
Why the Free Speech Union is taking on an Oxford college
The Free Speech Union has submitted a letter of complaint to the Rector of Exeter College after the Oxford history professor Selina Todd was barred from addressing a conference at the college on Saturday. Todd was stopped from speaking about the women’s liberation movement at an event that she had helped organise after trans activists complained about some of her views. The
PMQs: Boris bats off Priti protests
The PM defended his Home Secretary as opposition members tried to force her resignation, live on TV, at PMQs. Priti Patel, in a muted fuchsia dress, sat on the Treasury bench nestled snugly between Jacob Rees-Mogg and the Prime Minister. This casual arrangement cannot have been more deliberate. Here she is, announced the seating-plan, and
Leadsom delivers a parting shot at Bercow
Andrea Leadsom has just given a rather long and very comprehensive personal statement in the Commons following her sacking in last month’s reshuffle. She took no parting shots at Boris Johnson at all, preferring instead to focus any anger on former Speaker John Bercow, with whom she had a very long-running feud. Why did she
Why Boris Johnson still backs Priti Patel
10 min listen
Could Joe Biden be the Hillary Clinton of 2020?
The 2020 struggle for the White House is shaping up to look a lot like the 2016 contest. Once more the Democratic field is narrowing to Bernie Sanders and an establishment Democrat who lays claim to Barack Obama’s legacy—this time Obama’s vice president, Joe Biden, rather than his first secretary of state, Hillary Clinton. And
Will Japan ban its ‘offensive’ Rising Sun flag at the Tokyo Olympics?
Ant and Dec have done most things in their long careers in light entertainment. But the versatile duo broke new ground last week when they infringed on international diplomacy by wearing Japanese Rising Sun flags on their headbands in a skit with singer Anne-Marie. The use of allegedly offensive WW2 era imagery forced programme makers
Why the Tories won’t give Priti Patel up without a fight
Another day, another set of allegations against Priti Patel. When the Home Secretary’s top civil servant Sir Philip Rutnam resigned over the weekend, he used a public statement to accuse Patel of intimidating behaviour towards staff. Since then, more allegations have surfaced over her behaviour dating back to roles in other departments. Today The Sun reports
Biden surges on Super Tuesday
The luck of the Irish was finally with Joseph Biden. Dismissed as a loser by much of the US political class, Biden had never won a primary until South Carolina. Next he had a super-duper day on Super Tuesday, clobbering Bernie Sanders in state after state. Sanders may take Texas and California, but Bernie is
What’s behind Biden’s Super Tuesday victory?
18 min listen
Tuesday
Corbyn snaps a selfie with new Tory MP
Nothing brings people together quite like a late night kebab. That was certainly the lesson that Mr Steerpike learnt on Tuesday evening when the Westminster Village descended on the British Kebab Awards. The annual meat-based bash saw politicians, hacks and restauranteurs rub shoulders at the Park Plaza hotel in Waterloo. But Mr S wasn’t the only one
Israeli voters have reasserted an iron law of politics – Bibi always wins
‘Bibi Melech Yisrael’ they chanted at the Likud victory rally. ‘Bibi, king of Israel’. The Israeli media, the organised left and the international community have been reacquainted with the lesson they keep forgetting: never write off Benjamin Netanyahu. With counting so far putting Likud on 36 seats, he has achieved his best ever result as
The civil service definition of bullying has changed over the years
In my 37 years in the Diplomatic Service, I neither witnessed nor experienced what I considered to be bullying. There were senior officials who took regular pleasure in finding fault with a cutting remark. Others swore like troopers. I was the speechwriter to three Foreign Secretaries. One of them told me, with a sardonic laugh,
The government’s political capital is waning
Upon how many fronts can a government fight at any one time? Political capital has a short-enough half-life as it is without the risk of it being diluted through simultaneous multiple battles. Concentration of political firepower matters. At a rough count, Boris Johnson’s ministry is currently fighting the civil service, the media, the European Union
Humdrum Hancock is the perfect face for coronavirus
Readers of a certain vintage may remember that during the Falklands War a hitherto unknown official at the Ministry of Defence became something of a celebrity. Ian McDonald, who passed away last year at the age of 82, was a dry-as-dust Whitehall official from the days when civil servants actively tried to avoid the limelight.
Macron lacks Boris’s Napoleonic flair
‘I’d rather have lucky generals than good ones’, Napoleon – or Eisenhower – was supposed to have said, ‘they win battles’. Emmanuel Macron is a good general, but not a lucky one. Since he stood for the presidential election in May 2017, he has demonstrated strategic ability in identifying the reforms France needs to modernise its
Full text: Boris Johnson releases coronavirus battle plan
The government has released its official action plan to deal with the coronavirus epidemic, warning people that ‘we are all susceptible to catching this disease’. During a press conference at Downing Street this morning, the Prime Minister told reporters that the government’s plan involved four phases: ‘contain, delay, research, mitigate’. Boris Johnson said: ‘Let me be absolutely clear
Britain must fight the EU’s nanny state urges
The UK government has given the EU a Brexit deadline of four months. No. 10 is threatening to walk away from the negotiating table if a broad outline for a Canada-style trade agreement cannot be reached by the summer. But the UK isn’t really being as radical as it might first appear. For a start, the withdrawal agreement already
What is the government’s coronavirus battle plan?
11 min listen
Liz Truss urges the WTO to become a global force for free trade
What does Britain stand for post-Brexit? What is our role in the world? Mr Steerpike often wonders: it’s not as if Johnson’s administration has always been entirely forthcoming. For all the talk about opening up to the world, being a proud beacon of economic liberalism, the government has been opaque as to what that means.
Monday
Coronavirus could cost Britain as much as the 2008 crash
UK and Scottish government modelling shows that the economic and fiscal costs of a Covid-19 epidemic could be on a par with the costs of the 2008 banking crisis. According to a senior government source: ‘that is what our modelling shows’. If millions were unable to work and significant numbers of businesses unable to trade
Priti Patel under investigation – as Tory MPs rally to her defence
Since Sir Philip Rutnam resigned as the Home Office permanent secretary, alleging that Priti Patel had created a climate of fear in the department, the Home Secretary has kept a low profile and made no public comment. Today the government were forced to formally respond to the claims thanks to an urgent question from Jeremy
Why has Mayor Pete dropped out?
22 min listen
What the UK wants from a trade deal with the USA
On Monday, the Department for International Trade released its negotiating objectives for a UK-USA free trade agreement. The 184-page document explains in detail what the UK wants to get out of a trade deal with America. The British government will try to angle the talks, which begin this month, towards securing a comprehensive arrangement – that is,
Sunak’s leaked tax plan sends precisely the wrong message
It is too expensive. It mostly goes to Southerners who already have plenty of money. And it doesn’t even work very well, while the money would be better spent elsewhere. As the Chancellor puts the finishing touches to his Budget, the leaks suggest that the most generous tax relief for entrepreneurs will either be curbed,