Today

21 Oct 2021
The problem with ‘David’s law’

Two members of parliament have been killed in the past five and a half years. This, one long-serving MP laments, is the kind of statistic you would expect in a failing state. One of the shocking things about Sir David Amess’s murder is that many MPs weren’t surprised by it. Parliamentarians are acutely aware that when they are away from the Palace of Westminster, with its armed guards and security scanners, they are a soft target. Their job requires them to mix with the public and that involves a certain level of risk. One senior Tory MP points to how during the Troubles in Northern Ireland, MPs who were thought to be in particular danger were offered a firearm for personal protection, and argues that an offer like this should be extended to all MPs today.

The problem with ‘David’s law’

Yesterday

20 Oct 2021

Tuesday

19 Oct 2021

Monday

18 Oct 2021

Sunday

17 Oct 2021
Sir David’s death shows the risks for our representatives

The news that Labour and the Liberal Democrats will not contest the by-election caused by David Amess’s murder is not a surprise; the Tories and the Liberal Democrats took the same approach in Batley and Spen in 2016. (It should give us all pause that there is recent precedent for how parties should behave in a by-election when the sitting MP has been killed.)  The principle they are standing up for is that violence should not change the party-political balance of the House of Commons. But the pragmatic reason that the last thing a town in mourning needs is a fiercely contested by-election is just as potent a factor. More than 36 hours on from the attack on Amess, it is hard to escape the grim conclusion that there can be no perfect security for our elected representatives.

Sir David’s death shows the risks for our representatives

Saturday

16 Oct 2021

Friday

15 Oct 2021
David Amess 1952-2021

David Amess, the MP for Southend West, has died after being stabbed at his constituency surgery. Essex Police say that a 25-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of murder.  Amess had been an MP since 1983, and represented Southend West since 1997. He was a genial parliamentarian, a diligent constituency MP and a doughty campaigner for city status for Southend, regularly asking about the matter at PMQs. Amess’s death after being attacked at his surgery is a tragic reminder of the risks that MPs run when they meet the public in this fashion. Five years ago, Jo Cox was murdered on her way to a constituency surgery in her seat of Batley and Spen. In 2010, Stephen Timms was stabbed at his surgery. A shockingly large number of MPs have received death threats.

David Amess 1952-2021

Thursday

14 Oct 2021
Why Covid means the big state is back

History suggests that when the state expands in a crisis, it doesn’t go back to its pre-crisis level once the emergency is over. After the first world war, the Lloyd George government extended unemployment insurance to most of the workforce, fixed wages for farm workers and introduced rent controls. The second world war led to Attlee's nationalisations, along with the creation of the NHS and the modern welfare state. In the magazine this week I ask if Covid will lead to a permanently bigger state. Last year, state spending exceeded 50 per cent of GDP for the first time since the end of the war. The question for the Conservatives is how quickly that should be reduced, and how active government should be. This philosophical question is what lies behind the row in government over what to do about rising energy prices.

Why Covid means the big state is back

Wednesday

13 Oct 2021

Tuesday

12 Oct 2021
Why Anglo-French relations will only get worse

The French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire has given a very frank interview to the New York Times. It is principally about tensions between Paris and Washington post-Aukus, but it also shows why Anglo-French relations are, sadly, only going to get worse. The UK accepts, as Australia does, that balancing China is going to require US leadership. France thinks its interests are very different. Le Maire tells the paper that, 'The United States wants to confront China. The European Union wants to engage China'. He thinks the key challenge for the EU now is to become 'independent from the United States, able to defend its own interests, whether economic or strategic interests.' (Safe to say, the Baltic states — to name just three — wouldn’t regard this as the EU’s big challenge.

Why Anglo-French relations will only get worse

Monday

11 Oct 2021

Saturday

9 Oct 2021

Friday

8 Oct 2021
The Tories will pay a price for Boris’s housing strategy

One of the themes of Conservative conference was that the government has dropped plans for a radical reform of the planning system, which was designed to get more houses built in the south east. Both Boris Johnson and the new party chairman Oliver Dowden were keen to stress this point. But, I say in the Times today, this is a mistake. The Tories have been spooked by the Chesham and Amersham by-election where the Liberal Democrats ran hard against planning reform and took the seat on a 25 per cent swing from the Tories. Boris Johnson will pay little immediate electoral price for this U-turn. Indeed, at the next general election he’ll probably benefit from it. The 'blue wall' will be a bit more secure if the Tories’ opponents can’t use planning to chip away at it – and Johnson has no desire to court unpopularity.

The Tories will pay a price for Boris’s housing strategy

Thursday

7 Oct 2021
Boris’s hostage to fortune

Most prime ministers would be worried about supply chain shortages. But as became increasingly clear at the Tory party conference in Manchester, Boris Johnson has instead spotted a political opportunity. He denies there is a crisis and claims that the recent ‘stresses and strains’ amount to nothing more than the economy reawakening after lockdown. As for the worker shortages, he believes they are proof of a ‘robust economy’ which will result in people being paid more. This has been the Tories’ theme in Manchester: set up a dividing line between a government that wants workers to be paid more and those who want to ‘reach for the same old lever of uncontrolled immigration to keep wages low’. The Tories are desperate to accuse Labour of drifting back towards free movement.

Boris’s hostage to fortune

Wednesday

6 Oct 2021
Boris is sprawling across the centre ground

That was the most Boris Johnson speech imaginable. His supporters at party conference will have lapped it up, they certainly did in the hall — and his detractors will have been infuriated by it. Johnson’s political aim was clear. To sprawl across the centre-ground, to ensure that to outflank him you have to go pretty far to the left on economics and the right on culture. He was the NHS lover who opposes cancel culture. He used jokes not just to emphasise his own points but to attack his opponents too. His claim that if ‘Captain Hindsight’, Keir Starmer, had been in charge of Columbus’s expedition they would only have discovered Tenerife was a potent example of political humour. But there was a risk in the speech too.

Boris is sprawling across the centre ground

Tuesday

5 Oct 2021

Monday

4 Oct 2021
The Tories have a new-found love for devolution

One of the big draws of this conference is Ben Houchen, the Tory Mayor of Tees Valley. His presence ensures a big audience at any fringe event. Michael Gove heaped praise on him in his speech. He argued that Teesside was where you could see what the Tories mean by levelling up in action. Interestingly, Gove’s praise for Houchen seems to presage a greater Tory shift towards devolution. Gove said that levelling up meant four things, the first of which was strengthening local leadership to deliver ‘real change’. This aspect of the agenda is one of the reasons for the Andy Burnham–Michael Gove bromance. Burnham, who is about to speak at a fringe event here, can see opportunities here to gain more powers for his mayoralty.

The Tories have a new-found love for devolution

Sunday

3 Oct 2021
Boris’s tetchy Marr interview showed the risks he is taking

Boris Johnson's rather testy interview with Andrew Marr this morning revealed the political gamble that he is taking. Johnson is calculating that the electoral benefits of higher wages will cancel out the public irritation with supply chain issues caused by labour shortages. During the interview, he repeatedly stressed that he thought that the UK’s low wage growth and stagnant productivity was, in part, because of the UK’s use of cheap, imported labour and that he wasn’t going to go back to that ‘old failed model’. When Andrew Marr pushed on how long these supply chain problems would go on for, Boris Johnson did not give a straight answer. So far, the government appears to have paid no political price for the petrol crunch.

Boris’s tetchy Marr interview showed the risks he is taking

Saturday

2 Oct 2021

Friday

1 Oct 2021
Useful links
More from The Spectator
About us
Subscribe
Useful links
About us
More from The Spectator
Subscribe