Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Friday

Isabel Hardman

The Treasury’s big NHS gamble

How can the government really promise to clear the NHS backlog when it isn't investing in the necessary staff to carry out the treatments? That's the question many in the health service are asking after this week's Spending Review. Sure, the Chancellor announced a £5.9 billion commitment on capital spending, which will increase bed capacity, set up more diagnostic centres and improve technology and data systems, but these don't make sense unless you have the people working in them. The government had led the health world to believe that it would offer some kind of financial clarity on workforce in the Spending Review.

Cindy Yu

Should the NHS be prescribing e-cigarettes?

11 min listen

The new year is fast approaching and if your resolution is to quit smoking, the taxpayer will now cover the cost for your new vape. Opinions differ on the podcast as to whether this is a good idea. Cindy Yu talks with Isabel Hardman and James Forsyth about this new scheme as well as looking at Labour's reaction to the Budget and our growing tensions with France.

John Ferry

Nicola Sturgeon is flailing in response to the Budget

The big tax and spend budget. More Gordon Brown than George Osborne. Sunak's spending spree. However you wish to describe it, one thing is clear: Rishi Sunak's budget marks a radical departure from previous Conservative chancellors. And while it might have ruffled the feathers of some Tories, it’s also causing problems for the SNP. In some ways the break from Tory convention is no surprise. Calls by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 2020 for rich countries to spend their way out of the pandemic – and then further calls this year to shell out to boost recovery – signalled a new economic orthodoxy that Sunak has tapped into. Austerity is passé. Fiscal activism is the new normal.

Steerpike

The tragic embarrassment of Sir Nick Clegg

If you thought Nick Clegg's career reached its nadir with the 'I'm sorry' video then think again. The former Deputy Prime Minister is re-enacting the stunning success of his political career out in Silicon Valley where he's paid £2.7 million a year to sell his soul to Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg and the rest of the Facebook – today rebranding as Meta – cabal. Whereas Sir Nick is all too familiar for us here in Britain, Americans were not au fait with the former Lib Dem leader when he was appointed as vice president of the social media behemoth back in 2018. But all that has changed in the last month, with Clegg becoming a familiar face to millions stateside thanks to his near-constant cringing appearances on American networks.

Cindy Yu

Podcast special: turning the red wall green

51 min listen

These days the Conservative party is not just associated with the colour blue - it’s also the winner of the red wall seats; the pursuer of a green agenda. But do these new identities, achieved under Boris Johnson, all fit together? In particular, critics often label tackling climate change as a middle class pursuit, not what ‘real people’ around the country are concerned with. And indeed, the Treasury and BEIS have put the costs of net zero at £70bn a year, so what does that mean for the less well off in society, especially those in the Tories’ new constituencies in the red wall?This discussion was recorded at Conservative Party Conference on October 5.

Damian Thompson

Did a ‘mafia’ of liberal cardinals pressure Benedict to resign?

30 min listen

In this episode of Holy Smoke, I interview Julia Meloni, author of The St Gallen Mafia: Exposing the Secret Reformist Group Within the Church. It's the first detailed study of the self-described 'mafia' of liberal cardinals who worked tirelessly to prevent and then undermine the pontificate of Benedict XVI. The book contains many disconcerting revelations, and also well-sourced speculation that the group's founder, the Jesuit scholar Cardinal Martini of Milan, may have visited Benedict shortly before his own death in order to pressure him to resign.

Mary Dejevsky

Don’t blame boomers for destroying the planet

A new charge has been added to the long list of ways in which we baby-boomers have supposedly blighted the prospects of the millennials. Along with our reluctance to downsize (despite the lack of decent retirement homes), the gold-plated pensions in our bank accounts (hollow laughter to that), and the future bequests we are squandering (less on cruises than on extortionate 'social care'), is now this: 'we' trashed 'their' planet. At least as infuriating as the charge itself is how many of my fellow boomers go along with it. This is in spite of recent research, from King’s College London, showing that older people are just as concerned about climate change as the young. It also ignores the reality of what we have actually done to look after the planet.

Thursday

Nick Cohen

Rishi Sunak’s new age fantasy and the great Tory con

Failure corrupts as much as power does, and when the powerful fail they make others pay for their disappointment. To understand why this government lashes out at all who contradict it like a drunk throwing haymakers in a pub car park, remember that, by their own standards, today’s Tory ministers are abject failures. Nothing about their time in office has turned out the way they expected. Traditionally, the left accuses Labour governments of selling out. In front of the mirror, when nobody is watching, today’s Conservative ministers can accuse themselves.

Steerpike

The looming showdown over Owen Paterson

Rising taxes, middling growth, the spectre of inflation – there's much at present to get Tory MPs annoyed. But it's not just the Budget that's got some of them exercised this week; a damning report into Owen Paterson by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards has wound up many on the backbenches. The former Cabinet minister has hit back strongly against claims that he had 'repeatedly' used his position to benefit two companies who paid him as a consultant, with Paterson calling on colleagues to waive Parliamentary privilege so he can challenge the inquiry's findings in the courts. Jacob Rees-Mogg today told MPs that the Commons will debate and vote on Paterson's 30-day suspension from Parliament on Wednesday.

Isabel Hardman

How was the Budget received?

11 min listen

The Budget was revealed yesterday, but what do Rishi Sunak's conservative colleagues make of it? To discuss this, another row with the French about fish, and the end of the Covid travel red list, Isabel Hardman is joined by James Forsyth and Katy Balls.

Lara Prendergast

Cop out: Boris’s battle to save the climate summit

32 min listen

In this week’s episode: Can Cop26 deliver on its grand promises? In our cover story this week, Fraser Nelson assesses the state of the upcoming Cop26 summit in Glasgow and questions their very effectiveness in dealing with climate change in a world of global players with very different priorities. He is joined on the podcast by reporter Jess Shankleman, who is covering Cop26 for Bloomberg. (00:48)‘This one’s in Glasgow, but you’d best think of it as the Edinburgh Festival for environmentalism. Lots of fun, lots of debates, lots of protests, lots of street action, but not really any much of concrete substance.’ – Fraser Nelson Also this week: Is it moral to bribe your child to go to church?

Steerpike

Another COP-up: MSPs can’t get beds in Edinburgh

Oh dear. Ahead of the UN climate change summit in Glasgow on Sunday, Steerpike can bring fresh news of another COP-related blunder. Plagued by strikes and rejected by Greta Thunberg, the eco-jamboree is now afflicted by a lack of affordable accommodation, with ministers in the Westminster government unable to find rooms to stay. Savvy Glaswegians have not been slow to cash in, demanding £600-a-night to rent two-bedroom houses from desperate delegates. And now it transpires that inept administrators in Edinburgh are not exempt from the perils of poor planning.

Steerpike

Sir David Amess’s dog wins Westminster dog of the year

There are few events Steerpike enjoys more than Westminster dog of the year. The competition returned today – post-Brexit and post-Covid – for the first time since 2018, with dozens of MPs entering their pooches. Hosted by the Kennel Club and Dogs Trust, it aims to raise awareness of canine-related issues and offer parliamentarians a chance to compete for the prize of top dog in SW1. This year's event though was, understandably, overshadowed by the killing of Sir David Amess, a life-long dog lover and long-standing supporter of the awards. He entered his French bulldog Vivienne into this year's competition just weeks before his death.

Matthew Lynn

Rishi Sunak has blown his premiership

The amount the state takes out of the economy will rise to the highest level in 70 years. An unreformed public sector will be showered with cash, with the health service allowed to spend whatever it likes. A tax system that was already creaking under the weight of its own complexity has just been made slightly more complicated, and it has been made a lot less competitive. The Chancellor Rishi Sunak with his usual panache sailed through his Budget yesterday. The problem, however, is this. While he might get away with pushing up taxes and spending for now, sooner or later it is going to catch up with him. And in truth, he has just blown his premiership.

James Forsyth

What this Budget tells us

The Budget and the spending review gave the clearest indication yet of what the post-Covid government might look like. During the height of the pandemic, government spending exceeded 50 per cent of the economy for the first time since 1945-46. Even this year, public spending will be higher than when Denis Healey had to seek a bailout from the International Monetary Fund in 1976. Such spending has long-lasting consequences. The tax burden is now at its highest level in terms of GDP since the 1950s and is likely to stay high for some time. It will take quite an effort to return the government to its pre-pandemic size. The risk is that the UK’s ageing population will make this task particularly difficult.

George Osborne

My night of nostalgia with Boris and co.

Rishi Sunak had a pre-game Twix and a Sprite to prepare for this week’s impressive Budget. I used to have a cup of very sugary tea. It was a tip from our joint mentor, William Hague. It coats the throat in preparation for speaking in a rowdy chamber. Even then my voice would be hoarse by the end of an hour’s Budget statement. It’s hard to convey just how noisy it is standing there with a couple of hundred adults screaming at you from a few feet away. But on Wednesday the House of Commons seemed quieter than it used to be on these big days. I’m not sure why. With taxes going up, spending rising and government intervening in industry, you’d think there would be lots for Labour MPs to shout about.

The Spectator

Rishi Sunak’s change of direction

The Conservative party has always sold itself to voters as the party of low taxation, but it has now pushed taxes higher than any post-war Labour government dared. High spending was the tool the Prime Minister reached for at every turn in the pandemic, leaving Britain with one of the biggest post-Covid bills in Europe. His recovery plan was to part-nationalise care homes, taxing the working poor to protect the assets of the wealthy. Taxes are now heading to a 70-year high. Not Conservatism, it seems, but its inversion. Rishi Sunak’s Budget this week marks a potential turning point in this narrative.

Katy Balls

The Tory blame game over COP26 has already started

Just a few months ago, the view inside Downing Street was that the COP26 summit would be a national morale booster. The Coldplay singer Chris Martin was mentioned as a potential headline act and there were excited discussions about giving the event a cute mascot. Now, the headlines are about rail strikes, bin men running away from rats on rubbish-strewn streets in Glasgow and the Prime Minister declaring that recycling doesn’t work. Even the mascot, Bonnie the seal, has been called ‘rat-like’ by government sources. ‘It’s hideous,’ says a member of a foreign delegation. Just as the technical climate negotiations have hit stumbling blocks, so too have No. 10’s other ambitions for COP.

Steerpike

Watch: the UN’s latest climate cringe

With the Pope out, Greta on strike and even the Queen unwell, COP26 is short of much in the way of international glam. So now desperate apparatchiks at the United Nations have come up with their latest ingenious wheeze: creating a 15-foot CGI animated dinosaur to front its apocalyptic warnings about humanity's looming extinction. The two minute clip features a (presumably) blood-thirsty tyrannosaurus taking to the podium at the UN General Assembly to deliver a banal speech lecturing humanity on its shortcomings, somehow restraining itself from devouring the surrounding smorgasbord of plenipotentiaries.

Wednesday

Katy Balls

Rishi Sunak’s low tax pitch to MPs

Is Rishi Sunak a low tax chancellor? He certainly likes to tell anyone who will listen that he is. Yet his actions tend to suggest the opposite. The tax burden is currently on track to reach its highest level since the early 1950s, and while Sunak unveiled one big tax slash in the Budget in the universal credit taper rate cut, the main thrust of Sunak's announcements was spend, spend, spend. Tonight Sunak addressed Tory MPs at a meeting of the 1922 committee. After announcing £150 billion in extra public spending, Sunak sought to convince his party that, despite this, he was committed to lowering taxes.