Stephen Daisley is a Spectator regular and a columnist for the Scottish Daily Mail
What is really going on here? The via dolorosa Boris Johnson is trudging along is about more than Dominic Cummings’s actions and the Prime Minister’s refusal to acknowledge they were wrong, let alone ask the bloke for his ticket. The government’s Covid-19 messaging has been eviscerated, health guidance undermined, public goodwill forfeited and political capital
Boris Johnson is not the only one catching flack from his parliamentary party over Dominic Cummings. Scottish Conservative MSPs are ‘in despair’ at Jackson Carlaw’s leadership on the row and believe he is currying favour with Downing Street in hopes of securing a peerage down the line. On Sunday, the Scottish Tory press office released
It’s not often a politician calls a press conference to sneer openly at the voters but Boris Johnson has always done things his own way. The Prime Minister’s performance this afternoon was a careful, considered declaration of contempt at all those chumps stupid enough to obey the rules he laid down for them. They thought
Here’s the nub of Boris Johnson’s Dominic Cummings problem: ‘It’s one rule for Dominic Cummings and one rule for the rest of us.’ That’s what the anonymous member of the public who dobbed him in to the cops told the Guardian. The words could have come out of Cummings’ own mouth for they are the
Sarah Smith is the Scotland editor of BBC News. On Monday night’s Ten O’Clock News, she was in the middle of a ‘live’ from Glasgow on Scotland’s divergent lockdown arrangements when she said this: Nicola Sturgeon has enjoyed the opportunity to set her own lockdown rules and not have to follow what’s happening in England
China is a bully and the sooner the West understands that, the sooner we can begin to push back. Beijing has banned beef imports from four Australian abattoirs and slapped tariffs of up to 80 per cent on the country’s barley exports. The dictatorship is citing trumped up hygiene and safety concerns, but these are
In the two generations since Watergate, the image of the journalist has gone from that of plucky truth-seeker to sensationalist and partisan hack. Somewhere along the way the fresh-faced idealists of All the President’s Men gave way to the dissociative anti-hero of Nightcrawler. Corporate-driven news values? Probably. Phone hacking? Definitely. But what grates more is
The new Hate Crime Bill proposed by the Scottish Government is a sweeping threat to freedom of speech and conscience. The draft law radically expands the power of the state to punish expression and expression-adjacent behaviour, such as possession of ‘inflammatory material’. It provides for the prosecution of ill-defined ‘organisations’ (and individuals within them) and
You know those stories about how the EU is banning busty barmaids or Bombay mix that turn out to have an estranged relationship with the truth? This isn’t one of them. On its face, the headline ‘Palestinian terrorists can legally take part in EU-funded activities’ seems so absurd as to be obviously false. Yet the
The Daily Telegraph is considered the voice of the Conservative grassroots – so today’s splash will have driven a sliver of ice into minister’ veins. Here is the new leader of the opposition, a knight of the realm no less, urging the government to get a grip of the Covid-19 outbreak in care homes. ‘We owe
The news that Iran interfered in the Scottish independence referendum is not terribly surprising. The Islamic Republic, along with Russia and China, was an early entrant into the fake news market, weaponising social media to spread misinformation. The object is to destabilise Western democracies domestically and thus weaken their ability to act on the international
If you have been troubled by the government’s failure to get tough on the country responsible for our present malaise, never fear. The Foreign Office has issued a joint statement with ten EU members warning this regime of ‘grave consequences’ for its ‘standing in the international arena’. That’ll put Beijing in its place. Well, not
How do you share a platform without sharing a platform? Step forward Diane Abbott, Schrödinger’s anti-racist, to explain this feat of quantum Corbynism. On Wednesday, the former shadow home secretary and colleague Bell Ribeiro-Addy participated in a virtual meeting of the continuity Corbyn group ‘Don’t Leave, Organise’. Also taking part were expelled Labour members Tony
Does Laura Perrins want me dead? The conservative commentator is coruscating about the government’s Covid-19 response. She abhors the lockdown and demands it be lifted immediately. ‘This lockdown and the extension on the 7th is the biggest error in British politics since WW1,’ she says. I am in the ‘at high risk’ group three times over and would
After three stalemate elections in a year, Israel finally has a government. Incumbent prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and opposition leader Benny Gantz signed a pact on Monday which will see them take turns at being premier. It’s nice when people share. The most immediate concerns for Israelis are how the new administration will handle the
When it comes to China, Dominic Raab says: ‘We can’t have business as usual after this crisis’. Business as usual is China masking the beginnings a deadly pandemic that has infected more than two million and killed 150,000 worldwide. Business as usual is Beijing covering up the existence of a new coronavirus for six crucial days
The Jewish Chronicle might be rescued but if it is, it’s not going to be pretty. The world’s oldest Jewish newspaper announced, alongside the Jewish News, that it was going into liquidation on the eve of Passover. A few days later however, the paper’s current owner, the Kessler Foundation, unveiled a bid to take both titles
It was all going so well for Sir Keir Starmer. He won the Labour leadership handsomely, appointed a fresh shadow cabinet, and was riding a wave of blessed non-scrutiny thanks to Covid-19. He had begun to make amends to the Jewish community for his party’s racist vendetta against them and there was a solid chance
Passover is a time of miracles and redemption so it is perhaps fitting that a Pesach that began with news of the liquidation of the Jewish Chronicle could end with the world’s oldest Jewish newspaper being rescued. In a statement issued today, the JC revealed that its owner, a charity called the Kessler Foundation, has
Coronavirus is bringing out the best in some public services and the worst in others. I’m still being a snob about clapping for the NHS — it’s not British and you can’t make me think it is — but there’s no doubt health service staff have put in an absolute shift and their unhesitating dart
