Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Thursday

Ciaran Martin

The heist: nobody is safe from Russia’s digital pirates

37 min listen

What is the true threat of ransomware both to our governments and us individually?(00:30) Also on the podcast: What are the Italian ‘Green Pass’ Protests?(15:14) And finally… is it harder to be the good Samaritan in the modern world?(25:28)With former head of the national cyber security centre Ciaran Martian, white-hat hacker Tommy DeVoss, journalist Manfred Manera, former WHO scientist Francesco Zambon, Spectator contributor Cosmo Landesman and The Revd Lucy Winkett.

Kate Andrews

The NHS has never been the ‘envy of the world’

Usually when the Commonwealth Fund releases its ‘Mirror, Mirror’ study of healthcare systems, it makes waves across the UK media. You might not recognise the formal title of the study, but you’ll be familiar with its findings: this outlier research tends to rank the UK National Health Service as one of the best healthcare systems in the developed world. It’s a hallowed report for much of the UK medical community and commentariat, reaffirming their unquestioning devotion to the NHS as a truly unique system and the ‘envy of the world’.

Steerpike

Guy Verhofstadt claims Olympic gold for the EU

Who is on top of the gold medal table at the Tokyo Olympics? China? The United States?  According to former European parliament Brexit chief Guy Verhofstadt, it is, in fact, the European Union that is triumphing at the games. While you have to go down to seventh place in the Olympics leader board to find an EU country (Germany), Verhofstadt appears to have his own scoreboard:  'Fun fact,' he wrote on Twitter: 'EU combined has more gold medals than US or China'. Verhofstadt went on to say that he would 'love to see the EU flag next to the national on athletes’ clothes'.

Gavin Mortimer

A word of warning for Brits flocking to France

So as of Sunday Britons will flock to France in their 'tens of thousands'. That is what is being reported this morning after the government's announcement that double-jabbed tourists returning from France will no longer have to quarantine. The Daily Mail, playing the party pooper, tempered the good news with a warning that Brits may have trouble finding accommodation with 'a particular shortage of gîtes and hotel rooms in the south of the country'. Having visited the Pyrenees and Lake Annecy in recent weeks I can confirm that the popular destinations are chock-a-block with French, Germans, Dutch, Scandinavians and Belgians. Imagine how I felt, watching the final of the European Championships, in the bar of a French campsite.

James Forsyth

Don’t pick a fight with the SNP

Since the Holyrood elections in May, the campaign for Scottish independence has been noticeably quiet. But that is about to change. This autumn Nicola Sturgeon will try to push the issue to the top of the agenda once again. The expectation in Edinburgh is that Sturgeon will soon unveil a governing agreement with the Greens, which would give her pro-independence government a formal majority in the Scottish parliament. With that under her belt, and with her activists increasingly impatient for action, she may move to introduce an independence bill. This would be a deliberate provocation. The constitution is a matter for Westminster — and it is very hard to see how the Scottish parliament could legally bring about a second independence referendum.

Wednesday

Katy Balls

UK moves towards child vaccination

It's been confirmed today that those aged 16 and 17 in the UK are on course to be offered Covid vaccines within weeks. The announcement came after the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) unveiled new recommendations in favour of a first dose of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine for this age group — stating that it would 'provide good protection against severe illness and hospitalisation'. Sixteen and 17-year-olds will not require the consent of their parents to take up the offer — with a decision on whether a second dose will be required will be made later.

Katy Balls

Why has Boris snubbed Sturgeon?

10 min listen

Boris Johnson is visiting Scotland today, but has declined an offer from Nicola Sturgeon for a meeting. Why doesn't the PM want to meet with the First Minister, and, after a period of relative quiet, is independence back on the agenda for Sturgeon's government? Katy Balls speaks to James Forsyth.

Steerpike

Why is the EU attending the butcher of Tehran’s inauguration?

At the beginning of the year Donald Trump’s Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, was forced to hastily cancel a diplomatic trip to Europe, reportedly after top EU officials refused to meet with him following the storming of the US Capitol building. In the aftermath of the event, Luxembourg’s foreign minister suggested that Trump was a ‘political pyromaniac’ and Pompeo soon found that the United States was no longer a welcome presence in the hallowed halls of Brussels. If that was how the European Union admonished America – arguably the most important democracy in the world – one can only imagine the treatment it planned to dole out to the world’s tyrants and dictators this year.

Laura Dodsworth

The war on breathing

'We all have to be responsible for the fact that our health touches upon those who we sit next to and who we share air with. And this is a public health truism that is self-evident,' said health minister Lord Bethell, answering a question about mandating vaccine passports in nightclubs in the House of Lords. Yet according to Brunel University Physicist Dr Colin Axon, medics (and presumably Lords) have a 'cartoonish' understanding of how tiny particles travel through the air. There is a political war on breathing — the very thing that keeps us all alive. And Bethell is not alone. Dr Sarah Jarvis recently told Jeremy Vine, 'Breathing is an offensive weapon if you are infected with Covid.

John Fund

New York’s vaccine passport scheme could have a nasty side effect

The latest French export to the United States is a requirement that people show proof of vaccination to visit indoor bars, concert venues, restaurants and gyms. But will it work? On Tuesday, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that New York City will be the first American metropolis to import the French health pass. Marketed like an upscale perk, the 'Key to NYC Pass' program will begin on 16 August and become mandatory on 13 September. De Blasio is doing his best to sell the pass as a carrot, rather than the stick it really is. But his rhetoric is still ominous. He said: 'It is so important to make clear that if you are vaccinated, you get to benefit in all sorts of ways. You get to live a better life. Besides your health in general, you get to participate in many, many things.

Steerpike

Foreign Secretary in free fall

You might have thought the hire wire act of balancing Britain's overseas interests would be keeping the Foreign Secretary fully occupied this summer. But now Dominic Raab has added skydiving to karate and boxing in his bag of tricks, having signed up to do a sponsored freefall for charity in October. A letter has now gone out to Raab's parliamentary colleagues, who are now eagerly queuing up to pay the Foreign Secretary to jump 15,000 feet out of a plane. Donors listed on the justgiving fundraising page include a 'Rishi' who writes 'Great effort – good luck with the jump!' and one Tobias E – presumably Tobias Ellwood, the select committee scourge of the Foreign Office.

Lynn Barber

‘I’m plagued by worries of disaster’: Dominic Cummings interviewed

I’ve been waiting over a year to meet Dominic Cummings. Any time Mary Wakefield asked me to interview someone for The Spectator, I said: ‘I’d rather interview your husband.’ And she promised he would do it, one day. I began to lose faith, but at last the day dawns. On the way to see him I run into Mary and their son Ceddy outside their home in north London and she takes me to the kitchen to meet Dom. He is friendly, hospitable, takes me to sit in the garden to talk, and gently shoos Ceddy indoors. The one thing everyone, friend and enemy alike, agrees about Dominic Cummings is that he has a habit of telling the truth. So I am quite surprised, to put it mildly, when he tells me that Boris offered him a peerage when he left No. 10. Seriously?

Charlie Peters

Britain isn’t ready for the next wave of returning jihadis

Ever since British jihadists flocked to join Isis in Iraq and Syria, the government has attempted to keep the terrorists away by killing them on the battlefield and stripping the survivors of their citizenship. Those who have slipped through the net and made it back home have faced mandatory deradicalisation programs, or – in the most extreme cases – constant surveillance. But this costly, ineffective strategy has prioritised the rights and freedoms of returning jihadists over the safety of innocent people. And the approach is now likely to face another test, as the 425 or so Isis fighters and spouses who have returned are expected to be joined by their former twisted comrades, who have had their hopes of freedom in Britain bolstered by a recent High Court ruling.

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

Why are 16-year-olds being given a vaccine?

10 min listen

Nicola Sturgeon said she expects that the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation will soon be recommending that those aged 16 and above will be offered a vaccine. Is this an acceptance that vaccine certificates and Deliveroo discounts aren't enough to reach herd immunity? Isabel Hardman speaks to Katy Balls and James Forsyth.

Matthew Lynn

Rishi Sunak’s warm words won’t persuade workers back to offices

It will be better for our careers. We will network more effectively, spark ideas off one another, and learn new things from our colleagues, as well as getting a reminder from time to time of how annoying they are.  Chancellor Rishi Sunak took a break today from his usual occupation of dishing out vast sums of free money to remind us all of how much he learned from working in an office. Sunak is urging us all to get back to the skyscraper, shop, warehouse, or whatever, as quickly as possible. But hold on. Sure, there is nothing wrong with a few warm words to that effect – but we need more than that to get us back to the office.

Debbie Hayton

Was this volunteer cancelled by Childline for his views on gender?

When Liz Truss confirmed that the government was committing itself to banning LGBT conversion therapy, there was some bemusement: is the middle of a pandemic really the time for this? The decision was announced back in May, and Truss – who serves as equalities minister – conceded that 'many forms of the practice are already prevented under current legislation'. But this 'new ban', she added 'will ensure that it is stamped out once and for all.' Let’s be clear: coercive and abusive practices need rooting out. But if existing laws doesn’t work, will new ones really help? Or could they have unintended consequences? James Esses – a trainee psychotherapist – worried that normal therapeutic practices could get caught in the net.

Annabel Denham

Should Boris pay people to take the jab?

The steady stream of mixed messages coming from government ministers have been one of the few constants during the pandemic. Boris Johnson's numerous u-turns have been well-documented and widely ridiculed. And while the news that the unvaccinated could be offered 'kebabs for jabs' may not constitute a full volte-face, it certainly flies in the face of the government’s 'junk food' advertising ban. Young people could now be offered discounts on Big Macs if they get vaccinated, but McDonald’s soon might not be able to promote the product on TV before 9pm or online at all. Where's the logic in that? This latest approach on encouraging vaccine uptake makes life difficult for public health experts who are keen on building up the nanny state.

Monday

James Forsyth

NHS app tweaked to slow pingdemic

Mobility data suggests that public behaviour hasn’t changed much since 19 July, so-called ‘freedom day’. One suspects that part of the reason for this is fear of being ‘pinged’. Jeremy Hunt, the former health secretary and chair of the Commons health committee, a fortnight ago called for the double vaccinated to be excused from self-isolation if pinged (this change is only due to happen from the 16 August). Hunt warned that without that, ‘social consent’ for the app might be lost as so many people are forced into isolation. Other Tory MPs have privately argued that the app should be made less sensitive. Today, the government has announced that the app will be tweaked so that fewer contacts will be told to isolate.

Cindy Yu

Boris Johnson’s popularity problem

15 min listen

In a ConservativeHome poll on who should replace Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak came out on top. It comes as the Chancellor is reportedly pushing the PM to relax travel restrictions. Is this a problem for No. 11? Cindy Yu speaks to James Forsyth and Katy Balls.

Katy Balls

Boris Johnson’s popularity problem

The Westminster rumour mill is in overdrive today on the question of whether Rishi Sunak will be Boris Johnson's successor in No. 10. It's not that there's a job vacancy. Instead, the first ConservativeHome poll on who Tory members would like to be the party's next leader has put Sunak out on top, with International Trade secretary Liz Truss in second and Cabinet Office minister Penny Mordaunt a close third. The poll isn't exactly helpful timing for the Chancellor. Given the weekend papers were filled with stories of Sunak calling on Johnson to relax travel rules, anything that fuels talk of leadership manoeuvres is problematic for No. 11.  However, the poll that ought to worry the Prime Minister most doesn't relate to who will eventually replace him.