Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Friday

Katy Balls

The three problems facing Boris Johnson

Boris Johnson may be celebrating the birth of a baby daughter but that doesn't mean the pressure on him is eased. Instead, the Prime Minister is fighting on three fronts going into the weekend. The first is the alleged Downing Street parties with more claims emerging that there were several events. While cabinet secretary Simon Case is investigating, it's already looking tricky for key Downing Street staff, with ITV reporting that Downing Street director of communications Jack Doyle gave a speech and handed out awards. While No. 10 figures suggest a speech is a pretty regular occurrence, the real issue with the claims is that Doyle is the person who will have been in charge of the communications over the party claims — and the No. 10 line is no such party occurred.

Thursday

Steerpike

Revealed: Whitehall’s £33 million WFH spend

Throughout much of 2021, ministers have been keen to get civil servants back into Whitehall. Oliver Dowden called for mandarins to 'get off their Pelotons and back to their desks'; his fellow Tory Jake Berry has accused them of 'woke-ing from home.' But the civil servants themselves have proved somewhat reluctant to do so, with Dave Penman, the leader of the FDA trade union, suggesting ministers instead should be celebrating the civil service… making the most of new technology whilst making savings for the taxpayer.

Ross Clark

Has Boris seen the Omicron data?

There was nothing but gloom about the Omicron variant at yesterday’s No. 10 press conference. But with reporters preoccupied with last year’s Christmas parties, no one thought to bring up a statement by Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the WHO, who earlier told reporters that there is ‘some evidence that Omicron causes milder disease than Delta, but again it’s still too early to be definitive.’  You don’t want to make decisions before you have good evidence, but if it does turn out that Omicron is a milder disease, won’t the government’s efforts to suppress it with travel bans and restrictions be counter-productive?

Steerpike

Saint Jacinda’s war on fags

It is a curious irony that the West's leading progressive icon is probably the most authoritarian leader in the free world today. Since sweeping to power in 2017, the New Zealand prime minister has been repeatedly lauded by the London intelligentsia as the ideal model of a liberal, centrist premier. This is despite the blessed Jacinda's stock response to every public policy crisis being to restrict or ban the offending phenomena in question. After Christchurch it was guns; for Covid it was lockdowns, with bans on the unvaccinated. Now Ardern has stumbled onto the solution to smoking: why not simply ban cigarettes?

Lara Prendergast

Deaths of despair: how Britain became Europe’s drugs capital

37 min listen

In this week’s episode: Is there any substance to the government’s new drugs agenda?In The Spectator this week Fraser Nelson writes the cover story on the government’s new 10 years drugs plan and finds that while on the surface this seems like a new war on drugs, it might actually have some thoughtful and effective policies buried within it. Fraser is joined on the podcast by Christopher Snowden, the head of lifestyle economics at the Institute of Economic Affairs. (00:52)Also this week: Can Islam save Britain’s churches?Britain has for a long time now has been becoming a more and more secular nation. This has meant that many churches that used to have full pews are at risk of turning into luxury flats or another Tesco Express.

Imogen Marchant

Not all Durham students want to silence Rod Liddle

A week on from Rod Liddle's appearance at a dinner at Durham university's South College, the fallout continues. Yesterday, my fellow students gathered outside the college, brandishing signs saying ’No hate’ and 'Principal without principles’. Their target? The college's head, Tim Luckhurst, who made the fateful decision to invite Liddle to speak and then to call students who walked out 'pathetic'. Now students are calling for Luckhurst to apologise – and resign.  As a Durham finalist, I’m fed up. The university has released more communication about Rod-gate in the last three days than I have received all term about what is going to happen with my exams.

Steerpike

Hillary Clinton’s latest masterclass

It's been a tough few years for poor old Hillary. Since losing the 2016 contest to Donald Trump, the 'most qualified candidate in history' has mostly dedicated herself to collecting honorary degrees and blaming the Russians for Brexit. But now the former Senator has sallied forth for her biggest blunder since Benghazi to present her own 'Masterclass' on the skills she's developed throughout her career. Lesson one: how to lose a presidential election. In a short trailer released yesterday, Clinton gushed about how she intended to publicly read for the first time the victory speech she would have given had she not, er, lost to Trump.

Christopher Snowdon

Is this the real reason Boris introduced Covid restrictions?

If a day is a long time in politics, 36 hours is a lifetime with this government. On Tuesday morning, Dominic Raab told the BBC’s Today programme: ‘We don't think Plan B is required. Why? Because of the success of the vaccine programme.’ It was a reasonable analysis and a sound conclusion. The UK has delivered an incredible 120 million Covid vaccines in the last year, including 21 million booster doses in the last few months. In South Africa, the epicentre of the Omicron outbreak, only 25 per cent of the population has been fully vaccinated and almost no one has had a booster shot.

Dalibor Rohac

The battle for Ukraine has already been lost

Forget the 'commitment' of the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Ukraine’s sovereignty, the EU’s 'firm and decisive' support, and Liz Truss's vow to 'stand firm' with Ukraine. The hard truth is that the West has already lost, or rather abandoned, Ukraine. Even if it is not overrun by Russian tanks this winter, the Kremlin has a free hand to destabilise, threaten, and undercut Ukraine – including by intensifying the conflict in Ukraine’s east. After all, that war, initiated by Vladimir Putin, has been ongoing since 2014. And for all the tough rhetoric, countless sanctions, and the two bargains struck in Minsk, Russia continues to occupy Crimea and treat Donbas as its own territory.

Katy Balls

Backbench anger at Boris Johnson is at fever pitch

Boris Johnson has had a chaotic 48 hours. After a Downing Street press conference video leaked which saw aides joke about a No. 10 Christmas party, the Prime Minister has lost a senior aide, faced new allegations about illegal parties, announced new Covid restrictions, had the electoral commission rule that his refurbishment of the Downing Street flat broke electoral law and – last but not least – welcomed a baby daughter. Of all these developments, it’s the double whammy of questions over No. 10 staff breaching the rules, combined with the decision to bring in new rules for the general public, that has the potential to cause the Prime Minister the biggest political headache.

Steerpike

Fact check: Boris Johnson’s wallpaper claims

For Boris Johnson, every day seems like a season finale. Just this morning the Prime Minister has been pilloried with questions about parties, seen his wife Carrie give birth for the second time and landed Tory members with a £17,800 fine for his Downing Street flat renovation. The Electoral Commission concluded its eight month probe into how the refurbishment was financed by accusing the Conservative Party of failing to 'keep a proper accounting record' around the £52,000 donation from Lord Brownlow to pay for the work. A Tory spokesman has said the party is considering whether to appeal and will make a decision within 28 days. Even if his party decides not to appeal, the PM's troubles on 'flat-gate' are by no means at an end.

Robert Peston

The problem with No. 10’s drinking culture

One challenge for the Cabinet Secretary Simon Case in deciding whether a group of people drinking together is a party is that there was something of an evening drinking culture in 10 Downing Street, especially on Friday nights and especially in the press office. He'll have to begin his adjudication of the propriety of Downing Street parties by deciding whether a group of people routinely drinking at their desks in the office constituted a breach of lockdown rules. According to a government source: ‘The Number 10 press guys drink at their desks on a Friday evening... that goes on for hours, but still fielding calls/emails etc, so just got old school Fleet Street vibes.

Patrick O’Flynn

Boris cannot ask us to sacrifice more freedoms

If Boris Johnson is brought down by his team’s lax attitude to the Covid restrictions they imposed on everyone else then Keir Starmer will be fully entitled to claim a share of the spoils. For yesterday Starmer, or more likely a scriptwriter with real political nous, delivered an understated killer of a line at PMQs. It was the kind of line that gets people thinking and gains weight as the hours pass. The Labour leader reminded Boris Johnson:  Her Majesty the Queen sat alone when she marked the passing of the man whom she had been married to for 73 years. Leadership, sacrifice – that is what gives leaders the moral authority to lead. Does the Prime Minister think he has the moral authority to lead and to ask the British people to stick to the rules?

Patrick West

The BBC is right to ditch the ‘Bame’ label

Broadcasters in the UK have declared they will no longer use the acronym BAME to refer to black, Asian and minority ethnic people. Following a report by the Sir Lenny Henry Centre for Media Diversity, the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 have committed themselves to avoiding this catch-all term 'wherever possible', in favour of more specific terms to describe ethnicity. This is good news.  Last year a task force set up by UK Music, which represents the commercial interests of the sector, called the term 'outdated and offensive'; this latest report concluded that it could cause 'serious insult'. Quite so. The categorical term 'BAME' might as well have been called 'Miscellaneous', in crudely lumping together all non-white people.

Steerpike

Javid tells Boris: compulsory jabs are ‘unethical’

He’s only been at the health department for less than six months but has the Saj already gone native in the role? Steerpike hoped that the fetishisation of lockdowns, restrictions and social distancing had disappeared with the ejection of Matt Hancock from government. But last night the panicked package of measures in response to the Omicron variant has many backbench Tories in a state of near fury, with one messaging Mr S to complain that Plan B is 'simply awful.' Fortunately, while Boris Johnson appears to now be a fully signed-up member of the Blob – telling his press conference that ‘we’re going to need to have a national conversation about the way forward’ on the unvaccinated – there are signs of some resistance within the government.

Gus Carter

How much trouble is Boris Johnson in?

Just how bad is it for Boris Johnson? In some ways it's difficult to tell, this is a prime minister who seems almost unable to exist without a crisis.  But last night's new Covid rules — mixed up with the unending stories about Downing Street parties in the depths of lockdown — seem to have ushered in a different level of Westminster discontent. It's more the timing than anything else. On Tuesday morning, the Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab said 'We don’t think that Plan B is required'. On Wednesday evening the PM implemented Plan B. What happened?  During those intervening 36 hours, the data on Omicron only seemed to have improved.

Fraser Nelson

Deaths of despair: how Britain became Europe’s drugs capital

If progress is ever made in the ‘war on drugs’, it will be thanks to people like Lorna Hughes. She runs a community centre in the Bell Foundry council estate in Loughborough. It was set up by residents appalled at how their neighbourhood had sunk into an underworld of drugs and crime. They wanted someone there keeping an eye out and helping those who needed it. One of the disused flats, a burnt-out drugs den, was converted into an office and the Marios Tinenti Centre was born. I went to visit a few weeks ago and Lorna talked me through her job. If she sees anyone doing drugs, she calls the police. If thugs are menacing people on the estate, she helps the residents lodge antisocial behaviour orders. If an addict wants help, she liaises with charities.

James Forsyth

The Tories have no answer to the Channel crossings crisis

One of this government’s favourite tactics is to act as if the beginning of its time in office was the general election of December 2019. This means it can dodge the usual charge against any party that has been in power for more than a decade: why haven’t you fixed the problem already? Some problems, though, have clearly got much worse since December 2019. One of those is the situation in the Channel. Five years ago, pretty much no one was attempting to cross it illegally on a small boat. So far this year, more than 25,000 migrants have arrived via this route. Last month, 1,185 landed in one day: a new record. The crisis poses a particular problem for the government for two reasons. First, Boris Johnson has made much of taking back control of Britain’s borders.

Paul Dacre

If I were in charge of Ofcom…

‘You can appoint your own chief executive,’ boomed the PM over a rather sad bottle of wine. He was asking if I would like to chair the media regulator Ofcom because, he declared, he was determined to do something to end the usual suspects’ control of our public bodies. It was soon apparent that I couldn’t appoint my own chief executive. Or take people with me. And as all the key positions at Ofcom are chosen by ‘independent’ panels, the chairman’s role is heavily circumscribed. So why bother? The answer was I was fascinated by the societal implications of the Online Safety Bill that Ofcom will implement.