Politics Archives

Sunday

4 July 2021

How Taishan almost became China’s Chernobyl

Days after a nuclear power plant began spewing deadly radiation, the ruling Communist party pushed ahead with a huge and self-indulgent celebration of the sort that had become a hallmark of its rule. This was no time for bad news, and the party delayed, dithered and hid the truth about the deadly events that were unfolding. That was the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. Soviet leaders allowed Kiev’s International Workers’ Day celebrations to go ahead. The participants, meanwhile, were oblivious to events at the stricken reactor just 60 miles away.

Saturday

3 July 2021

Steerpike

The SNP’s struggles with sectarianism

It's not been a great week for James Dornan. On Saturday the SNP MSP was forced to apologise (again) for suggesting Lothian Buses' decision to cancel travel services over anti-social behaviour was linked to St Patrick's Day, with the implication that the company blamed Catholics for the problem. Then on Wednesday Mr S showed the lengths the Hate-Finder General had gone to investigate the now debunked Tik Tok video of Rangers players allegedly singing a sectarian song, requesting information for his constituents which he then appears to have not subsequently disclosed. Now one of Steerpike's readers has got in touch to point out Dornan's comments made during the Holyrood election back in May.

Rod Liddle

Euro 2020: Another night of terror beckons

The excellent manager of Ukraine, Andriy Shevchenko, is a member of the SDP. The Ukrainian version, of course, but very similar to our own, given that they never win anything. Andriy himself stood for parliament but lost – remarkable as he is the most famous footballer in his country’s history. This makes me like him. We are also four-square behind his country when it comes to their overBearing, criminal neighbour, no? I will buy the notion that the Crimea belongs historically to Russia only if they accept that going back still further, Russia belongs to Ukraine: Kievan Rus! Another night of terror beckons. Clawed wrists and choking on Doritos. Our record against Ukraine is patchy; we find them difficult opponents. A swift, counter-attacking side when they are at their best.

Steerpike

Laura Pidcock’s Gulf gaffe

We don't hear much of Laura Pidcock these days. The onetime Corbynista rising star was unceremoniously dumped by her North West Durham constituency at the last election, having managed to turn it from a Labour safe seat into a Tory gain in just over two years. Denied a voice in Parliament and with media appearances drying up, the Momentum heroine has been reduced to opining from her Twitter account on the issues of the day. Now out of the Commons and safely installed in the more comradely surroundings of the CLASS think tank and the People’s Assembly, Pidcock can wage virtual proletarian struggle to her heart's content. Today her choice of target was a gas leak off the Gulf of Mexico, causing a fire on the ocean surface west of the Yucatan peninsula.

James Forsyth

What comes after 19 July?

16 min listen

Life might feel normal when nightclubs reopen and masks are tossed aside, but worries about unemployment and inflation will persist. What will happen to the economy after 19 July? James Forsyth speaks to Fraser Nelson and economist David Miles about what to expect.

Isabel Oakeshott

Isabel Oakeshott, Melanie McDonagh and Jon Day

15 min listen

On this week's episode: Journalist Isabel Oakeshott on how she let the Matt Hancock scandal slip through her fingers a week before it turned up in The Sun (00:59). We’ll also be joined by Melanie McDonagh who's written about how high tea has gone from an affordable British staple to and oversized and overpriced, still delicious monstrosity (06:17). And finally Jon Day takes us into the wonderful world of competitive pigeon racing (11:18).

Philip Thomas

How bad will the third wave be?

‘We see no reason to go beyond 19 July,’ the newly appointed Health Secretary Sajid Javid confidently declared on Monday. His comments follow those of the Prime Minister who has described 19 July as the ‘terminus date’ for lockdown restrictions. But has Javid grasped the realities of the situation? The Indian (Delta) variant rise poses a whole new set of questions. Will it be blocked by the 'wall of vaccinated people' that Chris Whitty described as our shield? Has enough been done to keep hospitalisations under control? And will we see a rise in the UK’s death toll, which stands at 128,000? Important new data has arrived since I last wrote for The Spectator on 12 June outlining the predictions of my model, the Predictor Corrector Coronavirus Filter (PCCF).

Andreas Fulda

Why the Communist Party fears its bloody history

This week, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) celebrated its hundredth anniversary with a powerful statement of self-confidence. What began as an offshoot of the Soviet Komintern with only 50 members now has over 95 million. The party’s imperious rule from Beijing has lasted since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. From the assurance on show at this week’s birthday celebrations, it was abundantly clear that dominance is not ending any time soon. General Secretary Xi Jinping struck a militant tone as he addressed a huge crowd at Tiananmen Square on Thursday. Wearing a grey Mao-esque suit, he warned against ‘sanctimonious preaching from those who feel they have the right to lecture us’.

Gavin Mortimer

Macron steps up his war on identity politics

The lifestyle magazine Elle is best known for its beauty tips, fashion recommendations and recipe ideas but the latest issue in France contains what could be one of the more significant political statements this year. In an interview with Emmanuel Macron, the publication asked what he thought of 'identity politics'. His response was robust, a welcome change to the frequent cowardice of other Western leaders when confronted with the aggressiveness of this movement. 'I see a society that is progressively racialising itself,' said the French president, adding that 'the logic of intersectionality fractures everything.' It's not the first time that Macron has waded into the culture war.

Katja Hoyer

What Merkel’s visit means for Brexit Britain

Angela Merkel visited the UK yesterday for the last time as German chancellor – the 22nd visit she has paid in her 16 years at the helm of German politics. Such an auspicious occasion however did not stop Boris Johnson from starting their joint press statement with a humorous jibe. A wry smile on his face, he told Merkel: ‘it was certainly a tradition, Angela, for England to lose to Germany in international football tournaments and I’m obviously grateful to you for breaking with that tradition, just for once.’ Good-natured, football-themed exchanges between the two nations were also in play elsewhere.

Friday

2 July 2021

James Kirkup

The court judgement that confirms women pay for trans rights

I am coming out of semi-retirement from writing about sex and gender to write this, because it’s about women in prison, a group that desperately need more attention from people interested in politics and policy. The High Court has been considering the question of transgender women (i.e. people who were born male) in the female prison estate. That’s after a legal action was brought by a woman in a female jail who says she was sexually assaulted by a trans prisoner. The prison service hasn’t denied that this assault took place.

Steerpike

Michael Gove and Sarah Vine announce divorce

It’s been a bad week for marriages in Westminster. First the revelation of Matt Hancock’s affair with adviser, friend and Pinterest lover Gina Coladangelo led to the ex-Health Secretary splitting from wife Martha. And now today, the minister for the Cabinet Office Michael Gove has revealed he and his wife Sarah Vine are divorcing after 20 years of marriage. A spokesman released a statement this afternoon confirming the news: Michael and Sarah have agreed to separate and they are in the process of finalising their divorce. They will continue to support their two children and they remain close friends. The family politely ask for privacy at this time and will not be providing any further comment.

Khalid Mahmood

The Batley and Spen result is a rejection of identity politics

What should we make of the Batley and Spen by-election, won by Labour with a majority of just 323 votes? The victory, slim though it may be, is a credit to Kim Leadbeater who – with a gutsy campaign – has proved her doubters wrong and done her sister, the late Jo Cox, proud. This was by no means an easy campaign to fight. During the most toxic by-election for many years, Leadbeater became a target for two hostile and overlapping groups: aggressive self-proclaimed Muslim ‘leaders’, who with George Galloway tried to prise the constituency’s large Muslim population away from Labour, and the far-left in the party, who tried to use the by-election to breathe life back into Corbynism.

James Forsyth

Boris bids to reset Anglo-German relations

Boris Johnson and Angela Merkel have just held a joint press conference following their meeting at Chequers. The usual contrast in styles was on display; Merkel picked her words very cautiously while Johnson made sausages jokes—quipping that the ‘wurst was behind us’ when it came to chilled meats and the Northern Ireland protocol. On a more substantive level, Merkel expressed concerns about the size of the crowds at the Euro 2020 games; and remember they’ll be even bigger for the semi-final and final at Wembley. But Johnson argued that the vaccines and pre-match testing made these pretty safe events. The Johnson-Merkel relationship has been defined by Brexit.

Katy Balls

What went wrong for the Tories in Batley and Spen?

What went wrong for the Tories in Batley and Spen? That’s the question Conservative MPs are asking after the party failed to win the seat from Labour in yesterday’s by-election. In a way, it’s a strange question to ask. The seat has been Labour since 1997 and wasn’t seen as a key target by Conservative Campaign Headquarters ahead of the 2019 election. It isn’t an obvious potential Tory gain. Yet after George Galloway decided to stand, the general consensus among pollsters, pundits and Conservative MPs was that the Tory party was on course to win it.

Douglas Murray

The case against Soldier F

The case against ‘Soldier F’, a veteran charged with the murders of two men and attempted murders of four others on Bloody Sunday, has today collapsed. In March 2019, Douglas Murray wrote for The Spectator about the 1972 massacre and the subsequent Saville Inquiry into what happened. It is more than 15 years since the Bloody Sunday soldiers last appeared in public. For months I sat in the room with them to watch their evidence at Lord Saville’s inquiry. And while Lionel Shriver is right that the sight of terrorists benefiting from an immunity denied to our soldiers is grotesque, there are competing qualms. Not only because British soldiers should be held to a higher standard than terrorists.

Patrick O’Flynn

How Keir Starmer can rescue his leadership

In January 1990 things looked truly bleak for Alex Ferguson as Manchester United manager. He had not won a trophy in his first two seasons in charge and the third was going badly wrong. With a long injury list and an eight-game streak without a win, fan discontent was reaching fever pitch and media speculation suggested Ferguson was soon for the chop when his team took the field in an FA Cup third round match against Nottingham Forest. Get knocked out of that and all hope of silverware would be gone for yet another year. Fortunately for him, a young lad called Mark Robins popped up to score the crucial goal in a dour 1-0 victory. Ferguson’s United went on to win the FA Cup that season and the rest, as they say, is history.

Peter Lampl

The impact of Covid school closures is now painfully clear

If the UK government retains any doubts about the scale of the educational challenge it faces after Covid-19, they can now be swiftly swept aside. The challenge is mountainous. New evidence published today by the Education Endowment Foundation, which I chair, starkly reveals the size of it. The study conducted by the National Foundation for Educational Research contrasts the performance of 10,000 Year 1 and Year 2 students (six and seven-year-olds) at the end of the most recent lockdown with the performance of those year groups over the same period in 2019. The findings ought to concentrate minds. Year 1 pupils made on average three months’ less progress for both reading and mathematics this year, compared with the cohort of spring 2019.

Katy Balls

What should Keir Starmer do with the Batley and Spen win?

12 min listen

In an extremely close race Labour candidate and sister to the late Jo Cox Kim Leadbeater has won her by-election with a majority of just 323. What will the opposition do with this narrow but note worthy win? And is it time to for the tories to admit they aren't as invincible as they first thought? To discuss Katy Balls is joined by James Forsyth and Isobel Hardman.

Rakib Ehsan

Can Labour afford to continue its culture war?

After being soundly beaten by the Tories in Hartlepool and winning a paltry 1.6 per cent of the vote share in Chesham and Amersham, Labour have managed to cling on in the Batley and Spen by-election by 323 votes. While the result gives the party’s under-pressure leader Sir Keir Starmer some breathing space – and will give his party some confidence – holding on to a seat in a by-election with a significantly reduced majority should not be cause for major celebration either. The fact that the left-wing, ‘anti-woke’ firebrand George Galloway won an impressive 22 per cent of the vote in this election should concern Labour’s campaigns team as well. The party still finds itself at the very heart of the British left’s own culture war.