Politics Archives

Friday

9 July 2021

Don’t blame young people for plummeting vaccination rates

There is a myth in football that you are always most susceptible to letting in a goal after you have just scored one. It’s probably not true but the idea is attractive. At the peak of our achievement we are vulnerable to complacency. Is a similar thing happening with the vaccine programme? The current prevailing narrative is that the declining rates of vaccination are the fault of the under 30s. Government scientists accept that the country is 'close to maximum take-up', with many young people still hesitant about vaccination, the Times reported this week. But is that right? There is probably some truth to the less-than-urgent demand amongst this lower-risk group. But focusing on uptake among young people alone obscures a more obvious issue.

Steerpike

SNP MSP tells Rees-Mogg: ‘You will undoubtedly rot in hell’

It's difficult to keep up with James Dornan these days. Whether it's accusing Lothian Buses of discriminating against Catholics or failing to release information that exonerated Rangers football club, the gaffe-prone Glasweigan has earned himself earned the reputation of being a one man wrecking ball to harmonious community relations. Not for nothing has Steerpike christened him the 'Hate-Finder General.' But now it seems Dornan has been spreading his own brand of hate, judging by a tweet he sent yesterday to Jacob Rees-Mogg who tweeted his support of the Borders Bill to tackle small boat Channel crossings.

Thursday

8 July 2021

Katy Balls

The Trudy Harrison Edition

37 min listen

Trudy Harrison is the Conservative MP for Copeland and currently works as the Prime Minster's Parliamentary Private Secretary. On the podcast, she talks about how when she was younger she always thought she'd be a nanny and how that maternal nature developed into her own childcare business, then local politics and finally the House of Commons. Trudy also bought in a bunch of her own home grown flowers for the podcast team, making her one of our favourite guests ever.

Cindy Yu

Will Sunak scrap the pensions triple lock?

11 min listen

State pensions may rise by 8pc this year due to the Conservative policy of the pensions triple lock. But can the government keep to it, given the extraordinary economic circumstances we are in? Cindy Yu talks to James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman.

James Forsyth

Freedom day will usher in new problems for the Tories

The next few weeks in politics will be dominated by the 19 July reopening, and whether hospitals can cope with the coming increase in the number of patients. But, as I say in the magazine this week, if the lifting of Covid restrictions is successful, then attention will turn to the various backlogs that have built up during the pandemic, most notably in education, the NHS and the justice system. In Whitehall, it is believed that one in four households will have someone on the waiting list by the autumn These backlogs will cause all sorts of political problems for the government. Those affected by them will want them cleared with urgency. But there are both capacity and financial constraints to how fast they can be dealt with.

Matthew Lynn

Why has the EU let German car manufacturers off the hook?

Two billion? Five billion? Perhaps ten billion to make it a nice round number? For colluding on diesel emissions you might think the European Union would hand out a pretty stiff fine to the big German auto-manufacturers. After all, it has hit American tech giants with huge penalties for far lesser transgressions. Yet in the end, its response was predictable: the EU has largely let them off the hook. The reason? It turns out that protecting German auto manufacturers is what the Commission really cares about – and nothing else matters.

Lara Prendergast

How China bought Cambridge

41 min listen

What level of control does China have at Cambridge University? (00:48) Also on the podcast: Will the Church of England’s new plans for modernisation leave us with an institution we even recognise? (10:26) And finally let's talk about Streaking, indecent exposure or proud British pastime of joy and humour? (27:26)With Ian Williams author of ‘every breath you take, a study of China’s surveillance state’; Harry Goodwin, Editor in Chief of The Cambridge Student; Priest Marcus Walker; Dave Male Director of Evangelism and Discipleship for the CoE; writer and amateur streaker Poppy Royds and professional streaker Mark Roberts.

Gus Carter

Travel quarantine scrapped for double-jabbed

International travel rules will be relaxed on 19 June as part of the wider scrapping of social distancing rules and masks. Transport secretary Grant Shapps told the House of Commons that those entering England from green and amber nations will not be expected to self-isolate — provided they are fully vaccinated. In practice, what this means is that British summer holidays have been given the go ahead. France, Spain, Portugal and Italy are all on the amber travel list. Currently, the rules state that returning travellers must isolate for ten days, as well as complete a day two and day eight test. That second test has also been scrapped. The crucial point is that the relaxation is only for those that have been fully vaccinated.

Steerpike

Watch: Jacob Rees-Mogg raps John Barnes

Football fever appears to have infected the Commons, following England's 2-1 win over Denmark last night. Tory backbencher Lee Anderson may still be maintaining his boycott over the team's 'taking the knee' stance but the rest of his parliamentary colleagues have been eagerly following the journey of Southgate's side, judging by the plethora of pictures plastered across various social media sites. Even the hallowed chamber of the Commons itself has not been immune from some dreadful football-related 'puns.' First Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner opened at the dispatch box today with this 'zinger': 'Football is coming home, but I also think the chickens are coming home to roost for this government.' Instant red card for that one.

Wolfgang Münchau

Climate policy will be a casualty of this decade of bungling

The German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung has been publishing leaks from the European Commission of its Fit for 55 programme, a reference to the 55 per cent CO2 reduction target for 2030. A critical part of that programme is the so-called carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM). The idea is to a keep a level playing field with non-EU companies, who may not be subject to the same carbon taxes and fees as EU producers. The scheme is limited initially to the following sectors: electricity, iron and steel, cement, aluminium and fertilisers. Companies in some sectors will get free allowances, to be phased out over time, to protect them from possibly unfair competition. The tax is a levy on importers. Those not exempt will have to pay for CBAM certificates.

Andrei Lankov

Lil’ Kim: should the West prepare for chaos in North Korea?

On 24 June, North Korean state TV aired a short interview with an unnamed Pyongyang resident. The man, who appeared to be in his fifties, said that his fellow countrymen had all been left heartbroken and in tears when they saw the new, ‘emaciated’ look of Kim Jong-un. The country’s hereditary dictator, who hadn’t been seen in public for a month, recently re-emerged looking rather different. Even now it’s a bit of a stretch to call him ‘emaciated’, since his estimated body weight is nearly 19 stone. Still, it is a big drop from the 23 stone he weighed only a month earlier. However, it was not Kim’s weight loss but the interview itself which was truly surprising.

James Forsyth

The long list of problems waiting for the Tories after 19 July

The long-awaited easing of restrictions will not be the triumphant moment that many expected back in May. The Delta variant has seen to that. Increasing infection numbers have made the government nervous about the reopening. From 19 July, ministers will be busy trying to look responsible — consciously putting on their masks in crowded spaces — instead of being photographed gleefully enjoying the return of various freedoms. If case numbers are, as Boris Johnson has predicted they might be, at 50,000 a day and rising on 19 July — and even the double-vaccinated still have to isolate for ten days if they come into contact with an infected person (which will be the case until 16 August) — then that will put a dampener on any celebrations.

Petronella Wyatt

The Prince Harryfication of Boris Johnson

The acting one sees upon the stage doesn’t show how human beings actually comport themselves in crises, but simply how actors think they ought to. It is the same with politicians, but they are not actors, only a sort of reductio ad absurdum of a thespian. Their profession bears the same relation to proper acting (so-called) as that of a card sharp or a divorce lawyer bears to poetry. Take Michael Gove, whom I have known since I was 21, and Matt Hancock, whom (I thank God fasting) I don’t know at all. Were this a play, Hancock would not have left his wife and three children for a well-known flirt, who I have seen in action on several occasions fluttering her eyelashes at other married men.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Masks to be dropped, John Lewis builds houses and Russia lays claim to champagne

Home Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, said that if a review of coronavirus restrictions on 12 July allowed, then on 19 July he expected an end in England to compulsory masks (except in hospitals), working from home, the ban on ordering drinks at the bar, on nightclubs and on singing in church. ‘If we don’t go ahead now,’ he said, ‘then the question is, when would we go ahead?’ Sajid Javid, the Health Secretary, told the Commons: ‘If you’re on public transport, let’s say a very crowded Tube, I think it would be sensible to wear a mask — not least for respect for others.’ In separate provisions, the system of sending home all members of a school bubble if one tested positive would be discontinued.

The Spectator

Boris Johnson must hold his nerve over lifting restrictions

A charge repeatedly made against Boris Johnson over the past 16 months is that he has ‘ignored scientific advice’. But unless he has been in the habit of drumming his fingers on the table and looking out of the window while Professor Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance have made their presentations, it is a silly accusation. We do not live in a technocracy where scientific advisers have absolute power. In handling the pandemic, it has been the Prime Minister’s job to weigh up advice from many quarters — medical, scientific, economic, legal and political — and then make decisions.

Steerpike

Watch: Penny Mordaunt mauls ‘delusional and divisive’ SNP

It was Opposition Day in the Commons yesterday, with the SNP plumping for a debate on Covid contracts – a bold choice given the £500 million approved by Holyrood without scrutiny. For leader Ian Blackford however it was a golden opportunity to rail against Westminster's 'endemic cronyism during a global pandemic, the misuse of funds, and covid profiteers.' At least he had the good sense to make his claims about ministers 'funnelling covid cash from the frontline into the pockets of their rich friends' under parliamentary privilege, unlike Labour's Grand Poobah Angela Rayner, collector of titles and dispenser of insults. Blackford might have thought the Covid 'chumocracy' would provide him with rich pickings.

Andrew Tettenborn

Britain should resist copying the EU’s corporate responsibility law

Big corporations have a lot not to be proud of, and we certainly could do with laws to rein in some of their excesses. But that doesn’t mean that we should necessarily nod those laws through without a careful look. A case in point is the demand made in recent days for the government to follow an EU initiative and introduce a 'corporate responsibility' law. This would require British companies to vet their entire supply chains for, among other things, human rights violations. The EU scheme in question, based on a European parliament vote in March, is what you have to look at to see just what is being asked for. Its demands are both interesting and, shall we say, not modest.

Peter Clarke

Don’t ‘Kill the Bill’

Are the rights of protesters and the rights of all other citizens fairly balanced? Think back to the Extinction Rebellion protests of April 2019, when climate activists chose to 'peacefully occupy the centres of power and shut them down', as they put it, including the heart of London. The protests, organised globally, were perhaps the most disruptive in history. A small number of people managed to stop hundreds of thousands more going about their daily lives. People could not get to work, see family and friends or go shopping, because the streets were blocked by an extensive series of roadblocks and other tactics. At one point, printing presses were blockaded, undermining the free press.

Wednesday

7 July 2021

Steerpike

Watch: Labour’s Naz Shah hints at blasphemy law

It was just three weeks ago that Steerpike pointed out that Labour MP Naz Shah was being billed to speak at a charity fundraiser alongside a controversial imam. Now it seems the shadow minister for community cohesion has caused yet further headaches for her leader thanks to her speech on Monday on the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. Just hours after Kim Leadbeater took her seat in Parliament, following a campaign dogged by questions about a Batley school teacher forced to go into hiding for showing children a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad, Shah delivered an eyebrow-raising intervention likening such depictions to the vandalism of Winston Churchill's statue.

Katy Balls

Boris warned as Tory MPs re-elect Brady

13 min listen

Tory MPs today re-elected Graham Brady as chair of the 1922 Committee - the group that represents backbench Conservatives to the government. Brady, who has voted against the government's coronavirus laws, was standing against Heather Wheeler, who was seen as a candidate more aligned to No. 10. Despite having an 80-seat majority, Boris has been warned. Katy Balls speaks to James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman.