Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Tuesday

Professor Gordon Wishart

Lockdown didn’t save lives from cancer

Everyone understood the government message in March 2020 to stay at home, protect the NHS and save lives. Yet the lives that we knew were being saved were ones from Covid-19. Anything more long-term than daily figures never registered. The concept of other causes of death – most devastatingly cancer – were secondary concerns. We may be about to see the consequences of this Covid solipsism. The recent cross-party parliamentary report “Catch Up With Cancer – The Way Forward” showed that UK lockdowns had resulted in a staggering drop in cancer treatment. There were 350,000 fewer urgent cancer referrals in 2020, and 40,000 fewer cancer diagnoses, compared to 2019.

Steerpike

Watch: Lord Ridley demands Wuhan probe

Most eyes in Westminster are on the future, ahead of next week's looming July 19 unlocking. But for one man at least, attention is focused on the past and how the world became engulfed in the Covid quagmire. Matt Ridley, the journalist, businessman and member of the House of Lords, has been using his pen throughout the pandemic to ask questions about the origins of the coronavirus – including within these own pages.  Now the peer's seat in the Upper House has been roped into the cause too.

Arabella Byrne

Why a dog is a politician’s best friend

Is there a better way to boost a politician's fortunes than a puppy? Everyone knows that dogs buy a certain degree of political capital. Boris knew this when he acquired not simply a puppy, but a rescue cross from across the Union in Wales. Joe Biden was well aware of their political potency when he brought dogs back to the White House after Trump’s four paw-less years. And Chancellor Rishi Sunak must also have bargained on their public appeal when he posted a picture of his new Fox Red Labrador puppy Nova sitting on his lap in his No.11 office last Wednesday. Twitter barked back but not necessarily in approval, with many commenting that the Chancellor should concentrate on the aftermath of the pandemic rather than massaging his image with dog pictures. Woof.

Monday

Isabel Hardman

Javid: NHS backlog will get worse before it gets better

Sajid Javid’s parallel statement in the Commons to Boris Johnson’s press conference on the government’s plan for unlocking drew the same criticisms about failing to protect the vulnerable and bowing to Tory backbench pressure. He did get a ‘hallelujah’ from one such backbencher as he spoke of the end of social distancing. But the health secretary faced anger from the opposition benches about the decision to leave mask wearing up to the public and businesses at a time when cases are rising. Green MP Caroline Lucas compared Covid restrictions to road safety laws, asking why a similar approach to the speed limit couldn’t be taken to mask-wearing.

James Forsyth

How free will 19 July feel?

12 min listen

In a bonus Coffee House Shots, James Forsyth and Katy Balls breakdown the announcement from the Prime Minister this evening about the end of Covid restrictions and try to piece together why something that should feel like a celebration seems so stoic.

Steerpike

Exams farce chief out at top data body

It's been a busy afternoon in Westminster, with both Boris Johnson's press conference and Sajid Javid's Commons statement absorbing the attention of SW1's finest hacks. In the New Labour era, such a smorgasbord of headlines would be what cynical spin-doctors call: 'A good day to bury bad news' – with all eyes elsewhere, it's the perfect time to take out the trash. So Mr S was intrigued to see Oliver Dowden's culture department quietly issue a letter today, thanking Roger Taylor for his three years at the helm of the little-known 'Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation.' The latter is best known as the former chair of exams regulator Ofqual, who quit at the end of last year after the summer's A-level results day fiasco.

Katy Balls

Boris Johnson’s Covid double act

Boris Johnson used today's press conference to unveil the government's plan for stage four of the roadmap. Announcing that the public need to learn to live with Covid, the Prime Minister declared his intention from 19 July to reopen all remaining businesses, lift limits on gatherings and lift the bulk of rules on wearing a mask. While no final decision on what happens on 19 July will be made until next week, Johnson said it was time to move away from 'legal restrictions and allow people to make their own informed decisions'. Although the contents of the PM's statement points towards a big bang reopening, Johnson's tone was rather more cautious.

Steerpike

‘Hallelujah!’ Tory MP heckles Javid on end of social distancing

As July 19 looms ever closer and the football appears to be (finally) coming home, it appears that not even Tory MPs are exempt from experiencing the feel good factor. There was a boisterous mood in the Commons today as parliamentarians returned to hear the newly appointed Health Secretary read the last rites for the two metre rule after 16 months of Covid guidelines.  The usually composed Javid even broke into a smile after one spontaneous heckle. Declaring to the House that 'We will revoke all social distancing guidance including the two metre rule – except, for some specific–' the minister was briefly interrupted when one (unknown) Conservative backbencher cried out 'Hallelujah!

Graham Watts

The building safety bill won’t end Britain’s cladding nightmare

The government's Building Safety Bill has been a long time coming, but its publication today offers little certainty for residents caught up in Britain's cladding scandal. For leaseholders, the bad news is this: many will remain trapped in buildings cloaked in combustible external wall systems. Despite the housing secretary Robert Jenrick’s insistence that the new system would 'reassure the vast majority of residents’, there is little in the bill to alleviate their worries.

Stephen Daisley

Why has the NHS been awarded the George Cross?

Awarding the George Cross to the NHS seems a bit much, though in keeping with our devotion to the aspirin-dispensing national religion. The health service has been bestowed the highest civilian gallantry medal for its public service and its handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. It’s not that health professionals don’t deserve recognition. They do, though I’d have thought paying nurses better would be a more tangible nod. And it’s not as if there is no precedent for an institutional recipient, with the entire nation of Malta honoured in 1942. Still, admirable though the NHS’s pandemic response has been in places, it’s not quite single-handedly holding back the Luftwaffe and the Regia Marina.

Isabel Hardman

The NHS edition

42 min listen

Aftershock is a limited series by award winning journalist Isabel Hardman. In every episode she asks how we can fix the damage caused by the pandemic to a different part of British society. In this episode, Isabel talks to those working front line in the NHS and the politicians in Westminster who decide its future.

Katy Balls

What to expect from the big bang reopening

13 min listen

Boris Johnson will announce details of the 19 July reopening later today. According to reports over the weekend, masks will be ditched, social distancing will be scrapped, indoor venues will open to full capacity and mass events will be allowed. Katy Balls speaks to James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman about the plans. The government has made much of the reopening being 'irreversible'. On the podcast, James says it puts them vulnerable political position: 'As you see in Israel, where they've had to reintroduce the mask mandate, using the word "irreversible" when it comes to Covid is a political hostage to fortune.' There has been a notable change in tone since Savid Javid become health secretary.

Katy Balls

Boris Johnson’s plan for ‘freedom day’

Four weeks later than planned, ministers are preparing to lift nearly all Covid restrictions from 19 July. This afternoon, Boris Johnson will lead a press conference in which he will unveil plans for so-called freedom day later this month. At the same time, the new Health Secretary Sajid Javid will address MPs in the Commons. The announcement doesn't mean 19 July is definitely going ahead; that will be confirmed next week. However, the mood music in government is very optimistic with ministers taking the view that rising cases aren't an issue as the vaccine has successfully weakened the link between cases, hospitalisations and deaths.  When it comes to the rules that are on course to be lifted, nearly all legally binding Covid restrictions are due to go.

Matthew Lynn

Labour’s disastrous switch to economic nationalism

The government will ‘Buy British’ whenever possible. A new law would force every public body to publish the percentage of supplies bought from domestic suppliers. And Gareth Southgate will be appointed as the country’s new management tsar, tasked with turning every worker into a winner. Okay, I admit I made that last one up. The rest, however, were among the blizzard of policy announcements from Labour’s shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, over the weekend. Less than three months into her new role, she, along with Sir Keir Starmer, has clearly decided to shift Labour economic policy towards tub-thumbing economic nationalism. But hold on. Is that really a good idea? Sure, it is easy to understand what she is up to.

Steerpike

Devi Sridhar: ‘Scotland is a victim of its own success’

Throughout the pandemic, few things have been certain but Devi Sridhar’s omnipresent opining is one of them. The Scottish Covid advisor has rarely been off our screens during the pandemic, becoming something of a pin-up girl to the SNP for her repeated jibes at the Westminster government, her demands for more power which Holyrood already had and her effusive praise for First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s ‘wise words’ and ‘strong leadership’. Not to mention of course her suggestion that an independent Scotland would have done better against Covid. The appointment of a new UK Health Secretary in Sajid Javid offered Sridhar a fresh target to aim at.

Steerpike

Watch: UK Africa minister’s Zambian gaffe

Politicians have a long history of embarrassing themselves on trips to foreign lands. Boris Yeltsin famously offended his hosts in Ireland in 1994 when he refused to get off his plane at Shannon airport. The Russian president suggested afterwards that he had simply ‘overslept’ – an excuse the Irish Press suggested should be taken with ‘a large measure of vodka’. But even if a legless Yeltsin was unable to meet the Irish Taoiseach that day, one hopes at least that he knew which country he was offending. The same cannot be said of Britain’s Africa minister, James Duddridge, who was in Zambia this week to attend the funeral of the country’s founding president and liberation leader, Kenneth Kaunda, who died last month.

Sunday

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round-up: Face masks to become ‘personal choice’ after 19 July, says Robert Jenrick

Robert Jenrick – We will have to ‘learn to live with the virus’ The Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick was the government’s chief spokesman today as England edges ever closer towards the planned relaxation of Covid restrictions on 19 July. Jenrick continued to make positive noises about this date, telling Trevor Phillips that data being examined by the Prime Minister was looking promising – and suggesting that another postponement of ‘Freedom Day’ was highly unlikely. However, Jenrick’s cautious comments did not rule out the return of restrictions in the winter, should cases continue to rise: https://twitter.com/RidgeOnSunday/status/1411590196290785280?

Andrew Tettenborn

The problem with linking trade deals to human rights

Trade deals are in the air post-Brexit, but not everybody is happy. In a speech this week Frances O’Grady, the TUC General Secretary, accused the government of not taking international morality into proper account when closing such deals. She demanded the government take steps to suspend trade deals with a number of countries that, according to recent research by the TUC, had a murky record on labour standards and human rights. By failing to do this and continuing to deal with these regimes, she said, the UK would be turning its back on workers everywhere and in addition demonstrating that it could not be trusted to observe decent standards at home.

Kevin Yuill

The disturbing campaign to legalise assisted dying

Assisted dying looks closer than ever to becoming law in the United Kingdom. Both the House of Lords and the Scottish parliament have recently discussed proposals for it and polling suggests eight out of ten people in Britain favour a change to the law.  It is hard not to agree that people should have the option to end their lives. But assisted dying should not be treated as a glorified painkiller. Though campaigners are undoubtedly sincere in their desire to alleviate distress, the history of the assisted dying campaign suggests that often there are those with a more worrying goal: the use of assisted dying to create a more ‘efficient’ society.