Read about the latest political news, views and analysis
13 min listen
On this week's episode, we’ll hear Matthew Lynn’s thoughts on how the gas shortages could lead to a very cold winter. (00:51) Then, Tanya Gold with a critical take on critics. (04:41)And finally, James Innes-Smith bigs up the bungalow.
Whether it's reports of fire, asbestos, falling stonework, creaking sewers or dodgy electrics, the dilapidated state of the Palace of Westminster is all too well known. After years of dither and delay, work has belatedly begun on a Restoration and Renewal programme to bring Parliament into the twentieth century – and thereafter (hopefully) into the twenty-first. Among the projects currently being undertaken is an overhaul of the notoriously unreliable parliamentary lifts. Slow, creaky and installed well before existing safety legislation, the elevators are being replaced as part of a two phase strategy which will see £5.05 million spent on refurbishing 11 lifts identified as a priority by the end of 2022 and then a further estimated £35.
12 min listen
The former housing secretary, Robert Jenrick delivered a warning to his former colleagues in government yesterday that a failure to build new homes will cost the Conservatives down the line. Cindy Yu is joined by James Forsyth and Katy Balls to discuss this, as well as the update to Covid holiday restrictions and the sad passing of James Brokenshire.
Two years ago life seemed so sweet for Jeremy Corbyn. The magic Grandpa was the leader of a Labour party that was just three points behind in the polls, heading into a snap election which his devoted cheerleaders thought would sweep him into power. Now though, all that has changed. Stripped of his party whip, embarrassed by his brother Piers, facing loss in his Islington safe seat and eclipsed in the affections of his party's left-wing, Jezza must be wondering if it was all worth it. Still, Mr S can bring news of one ray of light for the septuagenarian socialist. Corbyn was cleared yesterday by Parliament’s sleaze watchdog following allegations he did not properly declare financial support given to him for legal disputes involving anti-Semitism.
The Spectator’s Washington editor interviewed Donald Trump this week. The full article will appear shortly, but here is an excerpt of their conversation: On the FBI going after parents who protest against critical race theory Amber Athey: I'd love to get your reaction to Attorney General Merrick Garland mobilising the FBI against parents who oppose CRT at local school board meetings. Donald Trump: Well, I'm very surprised that he'd do it. The local boards have gone out of their way to really take over the school system and to do things that a lot of the parents disagree with — I would say almost all of the parents disagree with. It's shocking what they're doing. So I was surprised to see it. The school boards have really been changing. They first, they changed for the worse.
For many years, the EU has posed as a kind of overbearing imperial leviathan, which insists its law has to prevail over that of the states that make it up. Now its bluff appears to have finally been called: the Polish constitutional court in Warsaw ruled yesterday that some EU laws are in conflict with the country’s constitution. Understandably, Brussels is not happy. But what can it do about it? The background to all this is a spat between Brussels and Warsaw about whether Poland’s machinery for appointing judges to its own courts is EU-compliant. Brussels says it is not, because under it judicial impartiality cannot be guaranteed. This, it says, is contrary to EU law – and it has a judgment of the EU Court of Justice to back it up.
31 min listen
Dehenna Davison is the MP for Bishop Auckland, and a rising star in Boris Johnson's 2019 'red wall' intake. On this episode, recorded just after Conservative party conference, Dehenna tells Katy about what it was like to lose her father to a pub brawl so young, getting her work marked in Latin by Jacob Rees-Mogg and her plans to go to a Taylor Swift concert with the Foreign Secretary Liz Truss.
10 min listen
Although Boris won over the audience during his conference speech, the opinion polls might say otherwise. Starmer's voice of reason could be starting to resonate with the public as the cost of living continues to rise. Underlying tensions with businesses are also still bubbling. Are they really to blame for labour shortages? And what now is the biggest threat facing the Tories? Cindy Yu speaks to Katy Balls and James Forsyth.
'If you want a friend' growled Michael Douglas in Wall Street 'get a dog.' Gordon Gekko's words about the fierce world of finance could just as well apply to the dog-eat-dog world of Westminster, where young pups and old hounds scrap to be top dog. And it seems quite a few MPs have followed the example of the fictitious banker, judging by the number of entries to this month's Westminster Dog of the Year competition. The much-loved award is hosted by the Kennel Club and Dogs Trust and aims to highlight the 'unique role dogs play in society' and provide MPs with the opportunity to raise canine-related issues.
Is it any wonder that children and young adults are going down with ‘eco-anxiety’ , as claimed in an opinion piece in the BMJ this week? One of the pieces of evidence it cites is a survey published in 2020, which claimed that 57 per cent of child psychiatrists had dealt with patients who were feeling anxious about climate change. It would be easy to dismiss this as another case of the ‘snowflake generation’ lacking the toughness of their forebears. But even if it is true that earlier generations of children, such as those brought up during the second world war, seemed to cope much better with the genuine threat of being wiped out by the nightly bombing of British cities, I think we ought to take it seriously as a mental health issue.
38 min listen
In this week’s episode: with the energy crisis picking up pace who are set to be the winners and losers in this cold war for gas? Domestically we are seeing queues for petrol, rising gas prices all in the face of the Government’s net-zero agenda. And internationally things are looking just as turbulent, with China buying up as much fuel as possible, America becoming more isolationist when it comes to its energy supply, and Russia feeling more powerful in its place thanks to its Nord Stream 2 pipeline. These are the issues that Seb Kennedy, the founding editor of Energy Flux, addresses in his cover piece this week for The Spectator.
Since being appointed to the post of Home Secretary, Priti Patel has made her distaste for drugs clear. During the past two years the Witham MP has accompanied police on house raids, deported foreign dealers, declared war on 'county lines' gangs and threatened 'tough action' on laughing gas. There have been repeated departmental briefings to newspapers about crackdowns on 'middle class drug-users,' with Patel herself telling broadcasters that 'there's no such thing as dabbling in drugs, these are serious offences' – a statement which presumably caused some discomfort among certain ministerial colleagues. Her rapturously received address to the Tory faithful on Tuesday highlighted the Home Office's anti-drugs crusade once again.
Rishi Sunak always said furlough wouldn’t save every job, especially as the pandemic changed the way we live and spend. Now that the scheme – which paid the salaries of millions of workers across the UK – has come to an end, was Sunak right? Early evidence suggests businesses are bringing their employees back to work, either into their old jobs or repurposing them into new roles. According to the BBC, the 31 companies that took at least £1 million of furlough money last month (including airlines, which are still only running around half as many flights as in 2019) aren’t yet planning on making mass redundancies – even though the scheme has finished.
Justin Trudeau likes to present him as the wokest leader in all the west. The Canadian PM has suffered numerous cringeworthy moments during his six year premiership in his efforts to prove his 'right-on' credentials – whether that be correcting women who refer to 'mankind' rather than 'peoplekind' or promising to avoid an economic 'she-cession.' But now, fresh from his feminist triumphs, Trudeau is trying to ingratiate himself with the LGBT+ community. Unfortunately his ventures into allyship have so far proved to be about as successful as his attempts to distance himself from his blackface pictures.
As a clarion call, a sounding of hosannas, a piece of fiery rhetoric to hold puissance over the soul of the nation, 'Build Back Better' is a raspberry. It is a stock that will never sell, a verbal wreck. It lacks zing and pep and, above all, Boris. If Lenin had disembarked from his sealed train and told the frenzied crowds that he would 'Build Back Better', they would have packed him back to the Huns. Having said that, there were times yesterday when Boris riffed on the theme and seemed a bit more himself. ‘Build Back Beaver,’ he said. (Was Carrie backstage?) And even ‘Build Back Burger,’ which sounded encouragingly like the Boris of yesteryear that we have missed so sorely. That’s when a thought struck me.
The biggest story of the Tory conference wasn’t about a gaffe or a controversial statement. It was about something that wasn’t said, and the person who didn’t say it. Rishi Sunak’s silence on net zero is a big deal, as the next few weeks will prove. The Chancellor didn’t mention net zero in his conference speech. So what, you might ask? After all, it’s an environmental thing and he’s Chancellor, right? No. net zero is an economic story, and a big one. It’s about growth, investment, public spending, tax and jobs. According to Sunak’s Treasury: This will be a collective effort, requiring changes from households, businesses and government.
In six years Sajid Javid has had six cabinet jobs. He has been culture secretary, business secretary, communities secretary, home secretary and chancellor — and, just over 100 days ago, he was made Secretary of State for Health. When we meet on stage for an interview at Tory party conference, I ask him about his credentials for the job. He has none. ‘But that’s not unusual for a health secretary,’ he chirps. And experience? He has visited a few hospitals. He then offers the story of his early run-in with the NHS. As a child, he had his appendix removed in hospital. ‘Next thing I remember is being back at home in bed, being cuddled by teddy and feeling much better.’ Soon he was in pain again.
It’s a strange reflection of our times that with so much else at stake, the leaders of both main parties have been asked, at their party conferences, whether they think that only women have cervixes. Both men prevaricated. Sir Keir Starmer declared this is ‘something that shouldn’t be said’. Boris Johnson avoided the question altogether. It is a straightforward biological fact that only women have cervixes, but simply stating it was more than the Prime Minister and the leader of the opposition were prepared to do. Rosie Duffield, a Labour MP, faced such a ferocious backlash after making this statement that she felt she could not safely go to the Labour party conference.
Most prime ministers would be worried about supply chain shortages. But as became increasingly clear at the Tory party conference in Manchester, Boris Johnson has instead spotted a political opportunity. He denies there is a crisis and claims that the recent ‘stresses and strains’ amount to nothing more than the economy reawakening after lockdown. As for the worker shortages, he believes they are proof of a ‘robust economy’ which will result in people being paid more. This has been the Tories’ theme in Manchester: set up a dividing line between a government that wants workers to be paid more and those who want to ‘reach for the same old lever of uncontrolled immigration to keep wages low’.
At last conference season over and Parliament will return on Monday. The Tories finished their annual jamboree yesterday after a slogan-filled four day bonanza of levelling up a built back better Net Zero Global Britain. And along with the warm white wine which usually accompanies such platitudinous speeches came the traditional collection of cranks and protestors outside the conference centre. So from the picket line to the buffet line, here is Mr Steerpike's guide to Tory conference 2021 in pictures...
