Politics Archives

Wednesday

10 November 2021

The sinister targeting of Israel’s ambassador at the LSE

A mob waving flags and chanting slogans hounds a Jewish leader, forcing her to be bundled into a car and driven off for her own safety. These were scenes that might have been expected on 9 November 1938, when the ‘Kristallnacht’ pogroms raged across Nazi Germany, marking the beginning of the Holocaust. Instead, they took place 83 years later, on 9 November 2021, outside that august institution, the London School of Economics, in the heart of the British capital. The recent BBC series Ridley Road smugly suggested that antisemitism in this country was confined to decades past; real life is far more worrying. Antisemitic, you say? That’s a bit strong.

Steerpike

Welsh Labour politician: Poor people don’t go to football games

Wales doesn't get much love from the national press these days. Among the three devolved assemblies, Cardiff Bay is very much the odd man out, not sharing the historic tensions of Stormont or the modern ones of Holyrood. The Labour government there has been in power since the Senedd's creation; Plaid Cymru's big push for independence fell flat in May, with the nationalists gaining just one seat despite excited expectations. But while Mark Drakeford was praised for his handling of the Covid pandemic – being comfortably re-elected off the back of it – in recent months his administration's authoritarian measures have begun to grate somewhat.

Tom Slater

Harry and Meghan, the term ‘Megxit’ isn’t sexist

Just when you thought Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s collective victim complex couldn’t get any more vast and cavernous, up they pop again to make clear, in pained tones, just how persecuted this multimillionaire formerly royal couple believe themselves to be. We already knew that their allies think ‘Megxit’ was all about racism. That their departure from the monarchy, freeing them up to cut lucrative deals in the United States, was forced by their supposedly racist treatment by the tabloids. Now we learn it was also all about misogyny, and that the term ‘Megxit’ is itself shot through with hatred for the Duchess of Sussex.

James Forsyth

Boris Johnson will struggle to contain this sleaze row

A week ago today, Tory MPs were getting increasingly nervous about Downing Street’s plan to stay the guilty verdict against Owen Paterson. Despite warnings from various senior MPs, the government pressed on – and the result has been a firestorm about second jobs, with Geoffrey Cox now facing Labour calls for an inquiry into his conduct. We are a week in and the scandal shows no sign of abating It is hard to see how Boris Johnson gets off the hook he has caught himself on. If he tries to resolve this scandal with a set of strict new curbs on outside interests he will infuriate a considerable number of his own MPs.

Steerpike

Prince Harry: I predicted the Capitol coup

Prince Harry is a man of many talents. He's an eco-obsessed ethical banker whose firm invests in the oil and gas industry. He's an audiobook entrepreneur with a company that doesn't produce any content. And he's a privacy-obsessed recluse, except for when he's making yet another public speech on his chosen issue of the day. But among his many gifts is something hitherto unknown: it appears that Harry is something of a psychic. For today the exiled royal has revealed that he predicted the January 6 attack on the US Capitol building.

Philip Patrick

Is climate change scepticism growing in Japan?

Fumio Kishida, the newly-installed Japanese prime minister, could have been forgiven for giving COP26 a miss. The opening ceremony in Glasgow coincided with the general election he was fighting back home. But Kishida, having won the election, did make the trip, where he gave a speech broadly but not unreservedly supportive of international efforts to cut Co2 emissions. The reward for his restrained tone and tepid assurances? Japan was named ‘fossil of the day’ by the Climate Action Network group, an ‘honour’ bestowed on countries deemed insufficiently devoted to the cause.

Brendan O’Neill

Abolish the Lords!

So three million quid gets you a seat in the House of Lords? That’s according to the latest revelations about our sleazy second chamber. According to a Sunday Times and Open Democracy investigation, people who give big bucks to the Conservative party are virtually assured a seat on the red benches. Wealthy benefactors seem to be ‘guaranteed a peerage if they take on the temporary role as the party treasurer and increase their own donations beyond £3m’, the report says. It stacks up. Fifteen out of 16 Tory party treasurers have been offered a seat in the Lords. And 22 of the party’s main financial backers, including those who have doubled up as party treasurer, have been offered seats.

Tuesday

9 November 2021

Steerpike

Passholder privilege: the MPs turned consultants

Westminster is full of stories at present of politicians cashing in. But while much of the attention thus far has focused on the excesses of current MPs like Andrew Mitchell and Geoffrey Cox, will it soon be the turn of former MPs to be in the firing line? Already, questions have been asked as to whether Owen Paterson will request the parliamentary pass to which he is entitled – something denied by friends of the (now former) MP for North Shropshire. The passes give access to the Palace of Westminster, without having to register any kind of outside interests. Perfect then for a political consultant.

Steerpike

Watch: Hoyle’s mix-up in race debate

Oh dear. It's not been the best of weeks for Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle. First, there was the debacle over the Standards Commissioner all of last week. Then Hoyle's plans to review existing standards procedures leaked on Sunday – something no doubt of deep embarrassment to the Speaker, in light of his constant criticisms of ministers briefing policy to the press before Parliament.And now, Hoyle has made something of an unfortunate gaffe in a parliamentary debate on the racism row at Yorkshire County Cricket Club. Attempting to call Labour MP Imran Hussain, the sexagenerian Speaker mixed him up to instead produce the fictitious MP 'Mohammad Hussain' – prompting muted rebukes from Hussain's colleagues in the chamber.

Matthew Lynn

Has JP Morgan changed its tune on Brexit Britain?

Supermarket shelves are bare. There may not be enough turkeys for Christmas. Wages and prices are rising. And the government is sinking into a pit of sleaze. As if that were not enough, the EU is about to launch a full-scale trade war against the country. Following the day-to-day news, you could well be forgiven for thinking the British economy was sinking into permanent chaos, doomed to replay the dark days of the 1970s. But hold on. Amidst all this gloom, the world’s biggest and most powerful investment bank, JP Morgan, says now is the time to be buying British.

Steerpike

Standards chief slaps down shadow Home Secretary

International espionage: what a glamorous life it all must seem. You join the service, hoping to match wits with Her Majesty's foes, full of dreams of Bond-like action sequences and Le Carré-esque intrigue. And instead you end up having to write to Labour MPs, begging them to stop sending you so many irrelevant letters for their own political purposes. For Jonathan Evans, the former Director-General of MI5, that is indeed the sad fate that has befallen him. Having held the post of Chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life since 2018, Lord Evans has been bombarded in recent months with a flurry of letters from Labour shadow ministers, urging him to probe dastardly Tory MPs for various indiscretions.

Posie Parker

Jess Phillips and Labour’s ongoing women problem

Last week, Intelligence Squared put on a debate called ‘Is Labour unelectable?’ Unsurprisingly, Labour MP Jess Phillips spoke against the motion – yet in doing so she managed to prove exactly why Labour are in fact hopelessly sunk. The key moment was when Spiked’s Ella Whelan challenged Phillips for having quote tweeted and then promptly deleted an article that was supportive of Kathleen Stock, the philosophy professor hounded out of her job for her audacious view that women deserve some of their own spaces. 'This is worth a read. Thoughtful and gentle,' said Phillips on Twitter, though apparently she quickly decided it wasn’t worth a read and removed the tweet. Some accuse Phillips of being a typical politician, fickle and lacking conviction.

Louise Gray

Why are COP26 delegates turning their noses up at haggis?

As if negotiating a global climate deal into the early hours was not enough, delegates at COP26 have to worry about whether the haggis, neeps and tatties they enjoyed for lunch is destroying the planet. The COP26 menu tells delegates that each serving of the traditional Scottish dish generates 3.4kg of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e). It is the heaviest carbon footprint on the COP menu, worse even than the Scottish beef burger (at 3.3kg CO2e). Unsurprisingly, many climate-conscious delegates in Glasgow are turning their noses up at the Scottish national dish, and not just because they realised it was lamb offal. Perhaps they have good reason to be snobby?

Max Jeffery

Should MPs have second jobs?

14 min listen

The Owen Paterson affair has is shining a light on the extra cash MPs earn on top of their £80,000 salary. One MP, Geoffrey Cox, earned nearly £1 million from outside legal work. But is there an argument to be made for allowing elected officials to receive a second income? Max Jeffery is joined by Katy Balls and James Forsyth. On the podcast, James says: 'On principle, I think MPs continuing to earn money from their former professions or former trades is acceptable. They're not trading on the fact that they are an MP.

Katy Balls

Tory MPs are furious at ‘missing-in-action’ Boris

Why did Boris Johnson avoid the Commons chamber on Monday? The official reason for the Prime Minister skipping an emergency debate on MPs' standards is that he has a pre-planned visit. The problem for Johnson is that many of his MPs are taking it as another sign that he is missing in action when it comes to the escalating row over Tory sleaze, following the botched attempt to spare former MP Owen Paterson a 30-day suspension. While opposition MPs had plenty to shout about in that debate – with Labour leader Keir Starmer accusing the government of 'giving a green light to corruption' – it's the Tory benches where Downing Street has the most to worry about.

Andrew Tettenborn

Could the ‘Kathleen Stock’ amendment backfire?

The hounding of Kathleen Stock – who left Sussex university following a concerted campaign against her by trans rights activists – was a disgraceful indictment of freedom of speech on campus. But one remedy for preventing a repeat – the so-called 'Stock amendment' to the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill, now passing through the Commons – isn't the answer. Impetuous legislation is normally bad legislation; unless we think very carefully, we may end up with something ineffective or even counter-productive. At first glance, a simple ban on students piling in to demand the sacking or departure of professors on account of their politics or teaching might look good.

Katja Hoyer

Germany’s ‘day of fate’ is a reminder of the country’s troubled past

The 9 November is often called Germany’s Schicksalstag – Day of Fate. The date punctuates the fabric of the country’s calamitous search for a political identity like no other: from its origins as a constitutional monarchy, through democracy, dictatorship and division. As every year, today too marks a point of introspection for my compatriots. Let's hope they use it well: German democracy has come a long way, but it is far from perfect. On 9 November 1918, Germany’s first democratic experiment as a nation state ended in spectacular failure. Only the third German Kaiser since the country’s inception in 1871, Kaiser Wilhelm was forced to abdicate, and with him fell the German Empire.

Monday

8 November 2021

Steerpike

Watch: Boris attacked by Mark Harper

'Après moi, le déluge.' Owen Paterson may be gone but Boris Johnson is still feeling his presence. This afternoon the Commons gathered for an emergency debate on the debacle of last week, with opposition MPs queuing up to (metaphorically) give the Prime Minister a damn good kicking. Within five minutes the first 'tinpot dictator' taunt had been hurled at the PM; within twenty he was accused of turning Parliament into the Duma of Tsarist Russia. For the absent PM, who is reportedly watching today's debate from a television in his office, it must have made for sobering stuff.But while the opposition brickbats might sting, it will be the contributions from Johnson's own side that give him most pause for thought.

Steerpike

Which Labour MPs earn the most?

Labour has been raising much hue and cry over the Owen Paterson debacle. The party's MPs have lined up to attack the Tories for taking second jobs, with some pointing to the last Labour manifesto, which declared that 'we will stop MPs from taking second paid jobs, with limited exemptions to maintain professional registrations like nursing.' Cantabrigian Corbynista Richard Burgon is meanwhile using the debacle to push his private members' bill to ban second jobs for those in the Commons, a practice he decries as 'MPs cash grabbing from corporate interests and short changing the public.' Strong stuff.

Kate Andrews

Fact check: are the NHS chief’s Covid claims correct?

The seven-day rolling average suggests Covid cases peaked around 23 October and have been in decline for almost two weeks. Despite this, there are frequent claims that Britain’s Covid rates are continuing to skyrocket. So what's going on? As always with the virus, every shift in the data must be taken with a pinch of salt; there’s always a chance things could take a turn for the worse. But some data is set in stone: that is, the virus’s trajectory last year and how it compares to what’s happening now. Today, a strange update was given by Amanda Pritchard, the new head of NHS England.