Parliament

Given the extraordinarily low expectations, Prime Minister’s Questions went reasonably well for Boris Johnson today. That is partly because it was a pointless session: everyone is waiting for the publication of the Sue Gray report, so most likely it will be forgotten very quickly and will make no difference to the main event (whenever that comes). Most likely it will be forgotten very quickly Johnson decided to make a forceful argument that he and the government were focused on more important things than cakes and parties. He lectured Keir Starmer for raising the matter at all when he was busy bringing the west together to threaten Russia with the toughest package of

It’s been a pretty dreadful week for security at the Palace of Westminster. First, there was the admission that a Chinese spy suspect, Christine Lee, had donated thousands of pounds to Barry Gardiner’s office where her son, Daniel Wilkes, was employed as a member of staff. His access to the parliamentary estate was not revoked until he resigned yesterday, with Wilkes still being listed as a member of Gardiner’s Microsoft Teams group as recently as last night. It comes four months after Met police officer Wayne Couzens was convicted for the murder of Sarah Everard, with Priti Patel announcing on Tuesday that a new inquiry will look at whether any ‘red flags

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 a security threat warning of a specific spying threat targeted by Labour donor Christine Lee. She has been a long-time funder of Labour MP Barry Gardiner’s office through her law firm Christine Lee & Co, which also works for the Chinese Embassy in London. Donations began in September 2015, soon after Gardiner joined Jeremy Corbyn’s frontbench. They included £182,284

Boris Johnson will this evening face his largest Tory rebellion yet as the issue of vaccine passports comes to a vote in the House of Commons. Today MPs will vote on various aspects of the government’s Covid Plan B proposals — much of which has already come into force. There will be four votes: one on face masks being mandatory in venues like the cinema and theatre; another on daily lateral flow testing to avoid self-isolation if you are a close contact of a positive Omicron case; a third on mandatory vaccination for NHS staff and finally — and most controversially — the introduction of vaccine passports.  The Spectator has a live tally of

The British commentariat has not covered itself in glory in its reaction to Dominic Raab’s proposed reforms to judicial review. The Times reported yesterday that the government is planning to introduce a novel legislative tactic, the ‘Interpretation Bill’, to try to shift the balance of power back towards parliament. To be clear: there is no prospect of ministers being given the power to strike down court judgments they dislike. In fact, the core of the proposal is perfectly orthodox. The proper way for parliament to change the law is through legislation, and an Interpretation Bill is legislation. It would need to be passed in the normal way, and MPs would

Boris Johnson didn’t enjoy his two hours in front of the Liaison Committee this afternoon, and not just because he was asked repeatedly about his handling of the Tory sleaze row. He also struggled with questions about what his government was up to more generally, and appeared at times exasperated with the select committee chairs who asked them. Having spent the past couple of months riffing on Kermit the Frog’s mantra that ‘it’s not that easy being green’, it seemed Johnson was starting to realise that it’s also not that easy being Prime Minister. There is just so much to do, after all. Perhaps his workload was the reason Johnson was,

A week ago today, Tory MPs were getting increasingly nervous about Downing Street’s plan to stay the guilty verdict against Owen Paterson. Despite warnings from various senior MPs, the government pressed on – and the result has been a firestorm about second jobs, with Geoffrey Cox now facing Labour calls for an inquiry into his conduct. We are a week in and the scandal shows no sign of abating It is hard to see how Boris Johnson gets off the hook he has caught himself on. If he tries to resolve this scandal with a set of strict new curbs on outside interests he will infuriate a considerable number of his

MPs have voted in favour of overhauling their own watchdog after its decision to ban a senior Tory backbencher from the House of Commons. The committee on standards found that former minister Owen Paterson had breached lobbying rules and recommended he be suspended from the House for 30 days. However, the government backed an amendment to the vote on his suspension — normally treated as a formality — that will now see a new committee set up to fix ‘potential defects’ in the way the current disciplinary system works. Detractors of the cross-party body have accused the standards commissioner, Kathryn Stone, of anti-Tory bias. Paterson himself has said that the protracted

Lindsay Hoyle is, to put it mildly, on the warpath. The Speaker is now giving almost daily statements in which he complains about the government’s habit of making announcements to the media rather than in parliament. Last week he was furious that Health Secretary Sajid Javid had held a Downing Street press briefing on Covid instead of coming to the Commons. Yesterday he granted four urgent questions as punishment for the latest round of briefings. Today he was back fulminating again, telling the chamber that the government was breaking its own ministerial code by giving Budget announcements to the press first. He continued:  I want the House and especially the

The Speaker was annoyed again today when the government only offered the Commons a Covid update after the Health Secretary’s press briefing yesterday. Labour hauled vaccines minister Maggie Throup to the chamber for an urgent question. Before she had a chance to answer, Lindsay Hoyle scolded her superiors. ‘This is not acceptable and, as I have warned the government, in those circumstances, I will allow the House the earliest opportunity to hear from a minister: in this case by an urgent question,’ he said. He added that Sajid Javid should not have been speculating about whether MPs should wear masks without coming to talk to MPs themselves in the Commons:

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

What with an energy crisis, a fuel crisis and a food crisis, you would think MPs have enough on their plates. But word reaches Mr S that our long-suffering elected representatives have now been hit by a shortage of crucial goods as the supply chain chaos resonates in the halls of Westminster.  Ministers used to working late on the parliamentary estate – burning the midnight oil on a diet of KitKats and Mini Cheddars – will have been horrified to discover that their favourite snacks are currently denied to them, as they work to tackle Britain’s various crises. For this week signs appeared on Parliament’s vending machines, informing staffers that: Due to a continuing

Today was the first PMQs clash between Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer in a packed Commons chamber. Starmer tried to pin down Johnson on whether he could guarantee that no one would have to pay their home to fund their care. Johnson dodged the question. But Starmer was limited by the fact that Labour can’t say how it would raise funds for the NHS backlog and social care, allowing Johnson to claim that Labour has no plan. Starmer is a naturally cautious politician, but his caution is leaving the field clear for Johnson on social care. Things would have been more difficult for the Prime Minister today if Labour was explicitly

This morning Playbook has revealed details about the plans – codenamed Operation London Bridge – for the sad day when the Queen passes away. But while the outlet’s excellent write-up reveals much about the preparations involved for Her Majesty’s death, Steerpike noted that one detail about the behind the scenes work was somewhat glossed over: advanced plans for the royal coffin to lie in state at Westminster Hall. Codenamed ‘Operation Marquee’ – a moniker last used for the Queen Mother’s ceremony in 2002 – the plans have been kept tightly under wraps for decades and will run with military precision, judging by its expenditure. Between 2010 and 2020 some £2.6 million