Politics Archives

Tuesday

30 November 2021

How concerned should we be about Omicron?

Ministers accused of overreacting to the Omicron variant will feel vindicated by the comments of Moderna chief executive Stéphane Bancel. In an interview with the FT, Bancel said he expects his company’s vaccine to suffer a ‘material drop’ in efficacy against Omicron – on the grounds that the new variant has 32 mutations to its spike protein. The protein, which the virus uses to attach itself to human cells, is targeted by the Moderna vaccine. The vaccine seemed to cope with previous variants – but they had fewer mutations. Bancel said the company’s scientists had told him: ‘This is not going to be good.’ Yes, it will be possible to re-design the vaccine to cope with Omicron, but it will take several months.

Isabel Hardman

What’s the aim of Labour’s second reshuffle?

10 min listen

Yesterday Keir Starmer's Labour Party announced a new reshuffle of its shadow cabinet. It just coincidentally happened on the same day Angela Rayner gave a big speech on Tory sleaze, leading some to speculate on friction within the party.'What you can't avoid is that they ultimately decided to do the reshuffle on a day where Angela Rayner, the deputy leader was trying to make a big statement that would lead the news.' - Katy BallsIsabel Hardman talks with Katy Balls and James Forsyth about Labour's key moves, as well as the latest updates on the new Omicron variant and the plans to thwart it. Subscribe to The Spectator's Evening Blend email, from Isabel Hardman and Katy Balls, for analysis of the day's political news and a summary of the best pieces from our website. Go to spectator.

Katy Balls

Could there be a Tory upset in North Shropshire?

As the government turns its attention to the new Covid variant, the ramifications of the Owen Paterson sleaze row are not quite done yet. After a difficult few weeks for the Prime Minister and his team in 10 Downing Street, Boris Johnson's approval ratings have fallen both with the general public and Tory members. The latest ConservativeHome poll puts Johnson in negative ratings for the second time since the last election among the Tory grassroots — on -17.2. In a way, it's hardly surprising Johnson's standing has fallen given the combination of problems facing the government — from tax rises to small boats and the Paterson row. The question is, will it hurt the Tories at the ballot box? There are two by-elections on the horizon that the Tories are on paper predicted to hold.

Steerpike

Truss channels her inner Thatcher

Since Liz Truss was appointed Foreign Secretary in Boris Johnson's reshuffle, she has upped the ante when it comes to the visual element of the job. As well as appointing a new special adviser focussed on social media (who can no doubt compete with Rishi Sunak's own social media whizz kid Cass Horowitz), Truss rarely misses a photo opp whether it's for Instagram or tomorrow's front pages. Today is no exception. After warning this morning ahead of a meeting of Nato counterparts in Latvia that a Russian incursion into Ukraine would be a strategic mistake, Truss appears to have adopted the view that a picture can say a thousand words. The Foreign Secretary has been photographed riding in a tank in Estonia.

Annabel Denham

The economic impact of the latest Covid restrictions

We don’t yet know whether the Omicron variant will drastically accelerate the spread of coronavirus, or whether it will circumvent parts of the immune system. Nor can we be sure that the ‘light’ coronavirus restrictions announced at the weekend will be enough to combat the new strain. We can be certain, however, that these measures will come with an economic cost that politicians are, at least publicly, understating. Face masks are once again compulsory in shops and on public transport in England, and UK arrivals will need to take PCR tests within two days of landing, isolating until they get their result.

Brendan O’Neill

Covid restrictions have gone on for too long

We can’t carry on like this. We can’t keep resurrecting restrictions every time a new Covid variant emerges. We can’t keep suspending certain liberties whenever this blasted virus mutates. Somehow we have got stuck in a spiral of doom and kneejerk authoritarianism, and we urgently need to find a way out of it. People, of course, will say it’s only mask-wearing in shops and on buses. It’s only a PCR test if you’re coming back from overseas. It’s only mandatory quarantine if you come into contact with someone infected with the Omicron variant. These are hardly onerous regulations. And Boris says they’ll be temporary. They will be reviewed in three weeks’ time. So calm down, yeah? This misses the point.

Monday

29 November 2021

Steerpike

Exclusive: Zemmour will run for President

It may be the worst kept secret in France but Eric Zemmour will tomorrow announce his candidacy for his country's presidential election, according to a source on his campaign team. It is, in one sense, confirmation of the obvious: it's been clear for some months now to everyone who follows French politics that Monsieur Z is running for the Élysée Palace in 2022. His supposed book promotion tour was nakedly a series of political campaign rallies. Two days ago he released a campaign; now it is about to become official. But the timing is nonetheless interesting since Zemmour has had a difficult few days. The polls suggest his soaring popularity has lost a little momentum. His trip to London on the 19 and 20 November was fraught with aggravation.

Isabel Hardman

Starmer’s attention-grabbing shadow cabinet reshuffle

Keir Starmer has a new front bench. He has conducted his second reshuffle in the space of a year, but this time he’s actually managed to get the changes he was after. A key theme of this reshuffle has been giving Labour a better chance of being heard. Many of the departures today have involved figures who were underperforming in key roles: Nick Thomas-Symonds, for instance, was very well-liked in the party but struggling to get much purchase even against Priti Patel’s growing political mess on human trafficking in the Channel. He has now been replaced by Yvette Cooper, who has done this brief before and who has grown even more in stature as chair of the Home Affairs Committee.

Daniel Lightman

Does cricket have an anti-Semitism problem?

The row over racism at Yorkshire County Cricket Club has also shone a spotlight on anti-Semitism in the cricketing world. Andrew Gale, the Yorkshire head coach and former captain, has been suspended for having sent a tweet which said: 'button it, yid'. Azeem Rafiq, the former Yorkshire spin-bowler who blew the whistle on racism, was found to have sent a Facebook message in which he labelled a fellow cricketer as a 'Jew' for being reluctant to spend money at a team dinner, and went on to assert: 'Only Jews do (that) sort of shit ha'. The comedian Mike Yarwood once quipped: 'I was doing the smallest books in the world. Famous Jewish cricketers, Australian etiquette, that kind of thing.

Isabel Hardman

Why is the Treasury blocking a helpful health reform?

The Health and Care Bill is having a predictably stormy passage through parliament, popping up in the Lords next week for its second reading. If you'd paid only cursory attention to its closing stages in the Commons then you might be forgiven for thinking the legislation is largely about reform to social care and privatisation of the NHS. In reality, the social care policy was inserted at the last minute, and it's only an amendment covering the cap on care costs, while privatisation has become something left-wing politicians like to warn is about to happen regardless of what's in the bill before them (more on that here). It is not cheap to train a health worker.

Ross Clark

Boris could pay a heavy price for his tax hikes

Given the enthusiasm for tax cuts usually shown by Conservative MPs it is remarkable how few of them have, in public, raised objections to the government’s loose fiscal policy. True, the Prime Minister’s announcement of a hike in National Insurance ostensibly to pay for social care, elicited squeals from the back benches, yet last month’s Budget drew only muted objections. This was in spite of claims by the Resolution Foundation that the Budget will cost an average household £3000 a year – if you take into account the effect of higher prices as businesses seek to pass on their higher tax bills to consumers.

Andrew Tettenborn

Poland steps up its legal fight against Europe

Poland's legal wrangles with Europe show no sign of ending. Back in September, the Polish Constitutional Tribunal determined that some parts of EU law might be contrary to the country's constitution. Now the tribunal has lit another firework: doing the same in respect of the European Convention on Human Rights (the ECHR). Is this just another round in the war between the European elite and the ruling political party, the PiS (which is cordially detested in both Brussels and Strasbourg)? You'd be forgiven for thinking so. Yet this latest wrangle is much more significant, since it opens up an entirely new front.

Katy Balls

Starmer’s reshuffle goes wrong again

Keir Starmer would have been hoping for a case of second time lucky today as he reshuffles his front bench again, following a botched attempt in the aftermath of the local election results. Back then, the Labour leader got off to a bad start when he tried to move his deputy Angela Rayner from one of her briefs. She refused and then the whole reshuffle ground to a halt. In the end, Rayner ended up with more jobs than she started. This time around there are similar hints of trouble. Rayner has spent her morning giving a speech on Labour's plan to clamp down on outside interests (my piece from earlier this month explains why she is fronting this campaign) which her supporters saw as headline news.

Katy Balls

How is the government handling Omicron?

10 min listen

We are slowly learning more and more about this new Covid variant, but it could be weeks before we know just how contagious and harmful it could be. Wasting no time, over the weekend the government has banned travel from certain countries and tightened domestic Covid measures. 'It's fair to say that ministers are anxious enough to bring back things that they have developed a personal resistance too.' - Isabel HardmanTo discuss the ramifications of Omicron Katy Balls talks to James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman.Subscribe to The Spectator's Evening Blend email, from Isabel Hardman and Katy Balls, for analysis of the day's political news and a summary of the best pieces from our website. Go to spectator.com/blend to sign up.

Steerpike

Esther McVey’s curious new alliance

Whether it's Labour and Plaid in Wales, the SNP and Greens in Scotland or Red Wallers and free-marketeers within Westminster, it's an interesting time for political alliances at present. But Mr S brings news of a fresh new cross-party effort to raise the eyebrows of even those cynical veterans of the ChangeUK years. Esther McVey – the true-blue Tatton Tory torch-holder of the Thatcherite flame – is spearheading calls to regulate music streaming under the auspices of the #BrokenRecordCampaign. The former Cabinet minister has been drumming up support for the initiative, penning enthusiastic op-eds for the Times and rounding up 44 Conservative MPs to co-sign a letter calling on Boris Johnson to 'level up' the music industry.

Sam Leith

The forever ‘war on Christmas’

It seems to get earlier each year, doesn’t it? It's not yet even December, and the Mail on Sunday has splashed on 'NOW THE WOKE ‘BLOB’ TRIES TO BAN CHRISTMAS'. Lordy be. I say this every year and every year my woke comrades fail to learn. We have a leak, a chatty flake, I say. Someone’s feeding our plans to the Mail on Sunday, I say. We need a major overhaul of woke blob op-sec if we’re ever going to get this whole Christmas-banning thing done, I say. And do they listen? To be honest, I thought we were onto a good one this time. It was subtle. As the paper reports, our attempt to ban Christmas came in an innocuous guise.

Sunday

28 November 2021

Robert Peston

Javid’s contact tracing optimism looks misplaced in the fight against Omicron

Sajid Javid told Andrew Marr this morning that it would be possible to quarantine the contacts of those with Omicron, because the new Covid variant comes up negative for the 'S' gene in PCR tests (what he called 'S gene drop out'), unlike Delta. I had already been told about this helpful characteristic of some PCR tests, which would allow rapid detection of Omicron relative to Delta. But I was also told that just a portion of tests carried out by NHS Test and Trace had the ability to check for the S gene. I made inquiries and the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) gave me this statement: '50 per cent of the Lighthouse laboratory network carrying out Pillar 2 community testing can assess samples for S gene target failure.

Charles Moore

Why are editors sharing a platform with Miqdaad Versi?

Next week, the Centre for Media Monitoring publishes its report on ‘British Media Coverage of Muslims and Islam 2018-2020’. Its launch webinar will be addressed by, among others, Mark Easton of the BBC, Alison Phillips, editor-in-chief of the Mirror, and Emma Tucker, editor of the Sunday Times. The CfMM, run by Miqdaad Versi, is a project of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) which, though arguing there is no one Islam, tries to insist that all media coverage of the subject must have its approval. Muslims, like all believers nowadays, often have just cause for complaint about secular ignorance of their religion, but Miqdaad’s CfMM is something else The MCB’s stance is much more Islamist (i.e.

Melanie McDonagh

What the BBC show trial of Michael Vaughan tells us

After dropping Michael Vaughan in punishment for what he said (or might not have said) many years ago, the BBC has now given him the chance to explain himself. It took the form of Dan Walker, a BBC1 Breakfast host, confronting the accused with examples of his wrongthink and hearing his defence. That defence is pretty academic now, given that Vaughan has already been dropped from covering the Ashes this winter and may now disappear from the screens entirely. But it has given us an example of what may now lie ahead in the cancel culture we are adopting. Ten years after the Tweets comes the outrage. Then the cancellation. Then, last of all, the show trial. It was unpleasant seeing Vaughan, a former England cricket captain, squirming on the hook as Walker went through the charge sheet.

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round-up: Brits will take mask-wearing ‘more seriously’

Sajid Javid: we’re ‘nowhere near’ renewed social distancing Health Secretary Sajid Javid found himself back in the hot seat this morning after a week which saw the discovery of the new ‘Omicron variant’ of the virus in South Africa. Yesterday, Boris Johnson confirmed that there were at least two cases of this variant already in the UK, despite suspending flights from the country and ordering new quarantine measures to be put in place. Trevor Phillips spoke to Javid about whether the latest strain could mean a return to many of the measures that have previously been in place, such as social distancing. However, Javid insisted that, beyond the new mask mandate, the government would not be taking any knee-jerk reactions as a response: https://twitter.