Yesterday

11 May 2022

Tuesday

10 May 2022
The key line in Prince Charles’s Queen’s Speech

Today’s Queen’s Speech will mostly be remembered as Prince Charles' first. His delivery was strikingly flat; it would be hard to discern what he thought of any measure as his tone remained the same throughout, as it should do. Given how much we know of Charles’s views on various issues – too much given his constitutional position – people will always be looking for clues as to his view on this or that issue.  The speech was mostly as expected. The problem for the government is that the biggest issue facing the country is the cost of living crisis, but you can’t solve that through legislation: parliament can’t just pass a bill to return inflation to its two per cent target. There are a slew of bills to do with crime – both offline and online – and protest.

The key line in Prince Charles’s Queen’s Speech

Monday

9 May 2022
Starmer’s beergate gamble

Keir Starmer has just confirmed in a press conference that he will resign if issued with a fine by Durham police over his curry and beer on the campaign trail last year. Starmer is adamant that he has broken no rules, that he merely had something to eat while working late. In his statement, Starmer said he would resign if fined as ‘the British public deserve politicians who think the rules apply to them’. In a clear attempt to draw a contrast with Boris Johnson, he said he wanted to show that not all politicians are the same. Given how hard it was to see how Starmer could have survived as Labour leader if he had been fined, today’s move gives Starmer some control back over the situation and means he still has a way to contrast himself with Johnson on the whole partygate issue.

Starmer’s beergate gamble

Sunday

8 May 2022
Jacob Rees-Mogg pulls his punches over beergate

On the inaugural Andrew Neil show on Channel 4, Jacob Rees-Mogg was strikingly adamant that there were no easy solutions to the current cost of living crisis as increasing public spending would be inherently inflationary. This argument has intellectual force but is difficult to make politically. It was interesting, though, how keen Rees-Mogg was to lean into it. Equally noticeable was Rees-Mogg’s desire not to pile into Starmer on the whole question of his campaign trail curry and beer when tier 2 restrictions were in place. In contrast to Nadine Dorries, Johnson’s other most loyal Cabinet ally, Rees-Mogg was arguing for something close to a general indulgence on these issues so the country could focus on cost of living the ‘pre-eminent issue’ facing the country, in Rees-Mogg's words.

Jacob Rees-Mogg pulls his punches over beergate

Saturday

7 May 2022

Friday

6 May 2022
Is Boris Johnson losing the south?

The great Tory success in 2019 was winning a host of new seats while keeping hold of their traditional southern heartlands, including many seats that had voted Remain. But the local election results will increase concern among Tory MPs that these seats are becoming vulnerable. The Tories have in the last couple of hours lost control of Maidenhead, Huntingdonshire, and Wokingham. Talk to Tories in these types of places and they cite a variety of reasons for their difficulties. Some say that these voters don’t like levelling up – they suspect it is code for taxing them more so that more can be spent in the Tories’ new northern seats. Then, there is a more general complaint that No. 10 pays more attention to the newest parts of the Tory coalition.

Is Boris Johnson losing the south?

Thursday

5 May 2022
Local elections: Boris Johnson faces his first post-partygate test

The polls have now closed in this year’s local and devolved elections. The parties – and their leaders – face a nervous wait for the results. For Boris Johnson, this is the first electoral test since he was fined by the police for breaking his own Covid rules. Tory MPs will be watching nervously to see how much damage has been done. CCHQ have done a canny job of expectation management, suggesting that the loss of 800 seats – which would be a truly diabolical night for the party – should be seen as par. But there is real Tory nervousness about how bad results might be in the south. I suspect that Tory MPs in Lib Dem facing seats will be more nervous once these results are in. Johnson’s allies are hopeful that there will be some reasonable results in the north and the Midlands to take some of the sting out of these loses.

Local elections: Boris Johnson faces his first post-partygate test

Wednesday

4 May 2022
Coffee House Shots
Could Labour overtake the Tories in Scotland?
9 min listen

A new poll from ComRes has shown Scottish Labour taking second place in tomorrow's local elections, overtaking the Scottish Conservatives. On the podcast, James Forsyth explains the torrid flip-flop that Douglas Ross, leader of the Scottish Tories, has made over partygate, first calling for Boris Johnson to resign before rowing back ('He thought that the 54 letters triggering a vote of no confidence were on their way in').Katy Balls also talks to Isabel Hardman about the Environment Secretary George Eustice's suggestion that people might buy from cheaper supermarkets in order to deal with the cost-of-living crisis ('The phrase "teaching your grandma to suck eggs" was possibly invented for this piece of advice', Isabel says).

Could Labour overtake the Tories in Scotland?

Tuesday

3 May 2022
Tories braced for ‘Blue Wall meltdown’

Just 48 hours out from polling day and in Tory circles the expectations are that the local election results will be OK in some places and disastrous in others; there are predictions of ‘carnage in Surrey and Oxfordshire’. ‘Things are particularly bad in Scotland, bad in London, not great in the South West, but in the Red Wall marginals the mood is not that bad’ is how one Johnson ministerial loyalist sums up the mood. One cabinet minister predicts headlines about a ‘Blue Wall meltdown’, saying that the ‘the Libs are now detoxified post coalition’ and have, once again, become seen as a safe repository for a protest vote. If the results do turn out like this, then it will reinforce current divisions in the Tory parliamentary party – with MPs in Lib Dem facing marginals particularly anxious about the prospect of Johnson continuing as leader.

Tories braced for ‘Blue Wall meltdown’

Saturday

30 Apr 2022

Friday

29 Apr 2022
The hole at the heart of Boris Johnson’s premiership

No. 10 will be waiting nervously at 10pm on Thursday. Will the end of voting in the local elections bring forward more Tory MPs calling for Boris Johnson to go? At the moment, that seems unlikely: there is a sense among the plotters against the Prime Minister that Thursday is not the right time. So Johnson will move on to the Queen’s speech. But this will reveal another problem for the government. There will be lots of legislation but a lack of a defining theme. This has been a creeping issue for Johnson since his 2019 victory. The two central Tory promises in that campaign were to 'get Brexit done' and to stop Jeremy Corbyn: both were achieved quickly. The lack of a subsequent agenda was obscured by the pandemic, which dominated from March 2020 on.

The hole at the heart of Boris Johnson’s premiership

Thursday

28 Apr 2022
Miss Brexit? Another bust-up is looming

In the past few months, relations between the UK and the EU have been the best they have been since Brexit. Vladimir Putin’s assault on Ukraine reminded the two sides of the need for the world’s democracies to co-operate. It is tempting to hope that relations could continue to improve, especially now that the French presidential election is out of the way. But, as I say in the magazine this week, this is unlikely to happen. The Northern Ireland protocol is about to return to the agenda. The EU thinks that the UK must be made to abide by what was signed, and that allowing London to wriggle out of the letter of its commitments would set a terrible precedent. The British view is that the protocol is causing a crisis for Northern Ireland’s devolved institutions.

Miss Brexit? Another bust-up is looming

Wednesday

27 Apr 2022

Tuesday

26 Apr 2022
Coffee House Shots
Can the Cabinet really solve the ‘cost of living’ crisis?
13 min listen

Today a pre-briefing on what Boris Johnson plans to say to the Cabinet about the cost of living crisis was released. He wants them to brainstorm ideas to ease the pain felt by the British public in the face of rising prices of food and energy. The catch, is these have to be non-fiscal ways. Isabel Hardman talks to Katy Balls and James Forsyth about how effective these plans could be and how they may be received by the voters. To keep up to date with the world of Westminster, sign up for unrivalled insight and analysis with Isabel Hardman’s Evening Blend newsletter, delivered to your inbox every weekday evening. Sign up at www.spectator.co.uk/evening-blend

Can the Cabinet really solve the ‘cost of living’ crisis?

Monday

25 Apr 2022