Politics Archives

Wednesday

30 June 2021

PMQs: Starmer can never quite skewer Boris

Sir Keir Starmer got through the whole of PMQs without telling us that his mum was a nurse and he used to run the Crown Prosecution Service. What a relief. Instead, he gave us a different look-at-me moment. Hailing England’s victory over Germany last night he confided that his pleasure was of a purer and more refined variety than anyone else’s, ‘having been at Wembley for Euro 96 and experienced the agony of that defeat.’ The Labour leader is running out of disasters to berate the government with. The economy is on the mend. Freedom from lockdown looms. He can’t mention the Batley and Spen by-election in case he loses. The Hancock saga looks promising but the sex stud who ran the health ministry is already history.

Steerpike

Poll: 2019 Tories still backing Boris

It's by-election day in Batley and Spen tomorrow. The only constituency polling done in the West Yorkshire seat suggests that the Tories stand a good chance of grabbing it off Labour, with the intervention of George Galloway threatening to turn the seat blue for the first time since 1997. In recent weeks there has been much commentary on how the Conservative party can balance its delicate electoral coalition between the red wall in the north and the home counties in the south, following the Chesham and Amersham upset. Mr S therefore thought it worthwhile to commission some polling on the attitudes of 2019 Conservative voters towards the government.

Katy Balls

What will life look like on 19 July?

When the cabinet met on Tuesday, ministers agreed that once the roadmap is complete the country will be able to live with Covid — even if cases continue to rise. The implication is that so long as the vaccines continue to work, there will be no going back after 19 July. There is increased optimism over that date as the day of the final easing. It is, in part, out of necessity. Not only are Tory MPs on the rampage about the four-week delay from 21 June, but ministers also sense a growing backlash among the public over the half and half rules which mean full capacity for the Wimbledon final yet leave restaurants only able to fill a portion of their capacity.

Steerpike

Fact check: does Dawn Butler have a blue plaque?

It has been a busy month for Dawn Butler. Whether it's joining Cameo, backfiring Twitter polls or even being an apparent contender for the Labour leadership, she has rarely kept away from the headlines. In such circumstances, it's no surprise then that Butler's services have at last been recognised, with the MP herself excitedly tweeting how she was 'honoured to have been dedicated' with a 'Blue Plaque' unveiling near Stratford. Mr S was surprised to see so many rapturous supporters tweeting their approval of this public symbol of recognition – normally the left is keener to pull them down than putting them up. https://twitter.com/DawnButlerBrent/status/1409879353161302020?

James Forsyth

PMQs: Starmer charges Boris with hypocrisy

Keir Starmer turned in his most effective parliamentary performance since becoming Labour leader at PMQs today. Normally, Starmer is quite monotone. But today he varied his style, and to good effect. Starmer started off with a bit of swagger, something which he often lacks, asking why Boris Johnson had failed to sack Matt Hancock. Starmer kept pressing and Johnson was left to fall back on the vaccine rollout and make jibes about Starmer’s own bungled reshuffle. Then, Starmer changed tone asking about Ollie Bibby who died of leukaemia in hospital on 5 May but was barely allowed to see his family, the day before those photos of Hancock kissing his aide were taken.

James Forsyth

The sausage war ceasefire is a good sign for UK-EU relations

The sausage dispute between the UK and the EU may sound like something out of Yes Minister but it is the canary in the coal mine of UK-EU relations. In a sign of some progress, Maroš Šefčovič, the Commission vice-president, will announce this afternoon that the EU will agree to a UK request to extend the grace period for sausages and other chilled meats going from Great Britain to Northern Ireland for another three months. Both sides will offer their own unilateral declarations on what the extension means. RTE’s Tony Connelly provides a typically thorough run through of what we can expect. Two things are particularly worth noting. First, the UK is agreeing to a standstill on food standards during this period, not dynamic alignment with EU rules.

Richard Dobbs

The Covid battle Sajid Javid still has to face

Despite the humiliation of Matt Hancock’s exit, Sajid Javid, the new Health Secretary, might in fact find him a tough act to follow. After an appalling start to our Covid-19 response with missing PPE, high care home deaths, and delays to lockdowns and border controls, under Hancock’s watch the UK is now one of the most vaccinated countries in the world and appears to have decoupled deaths from Covid-19 infections. We seem on track to remove the remaining restrictions in July and deliver some of the strongest economic growth in the world as we bounce back.

William Nattrass

The EU is stoking the culture war between East and West

Other EU countries ‘should not interfere in the affairs of Hungary,’ Czech president Miloš Zeman said on Sunday in support of Viktor Orbán’s controversial new anti-LGBT reforms. As international condemnation of the country's new LGBT law mounts, Zeman threw his weight behind the Hungarian prime minister, saying he ‘can see no reason to disagree with him’ in his stance on LGBT rights. The Czech president’s words came as the latest blow in the EU’s increasingly bitter culture war between west and east, with blame for the confrontational environment being placed by Brussels on rebel nations such as Hungary and its Visegrád Four ally Poland.

Steerpike

‘Racist buses’ SNP MSP in fresh Rangers storm

Much ink has been spilled over the shenanigans of the James Dornan, SNP MSP and amateur Hate-Finder General. Just last week the gaffe-prone Glaswegian was forced to apologise for suggesting that an Edinburgh bus company had stopped services on St Patrick's Day because of 'anti-Irish racism,' an unsubstantiated claim for which Dornan had no evidence. Now fresh evidence has come to light of Dornan's efforts to whip up another sectarian drama. Last month a video of Rangers football players celebrating their league triumph went viral on Tik Tok, with the players allegedly chanting bigoted slurs in an add on to the song 'Sweet Caroline.

Tuesday

29 June 2021

Steerpike

Boris Johnson’s football furnishings

The Prime Minister has never been much of a football fan. Unlike David Cameron, who could never remember if he supported Aston Villa or West Ham, Boris Johnson has remained resolutely ambivalent on the subject of personal preferences by opting to choose, err, no side in the English Football League.Tonight Johnson showed his patriotic support by posing delicately on the side of a creaking table to watch the football alongside his newly-married wife Carrie. Mr S could not help but admire the staging of the happy couple, poised melodramatically staring with open mouths at the England-Germany match. https://twitter.com/BorisJohnson/status/1409919708107845633?

Fraser Nelson

What’s happening in Batley and Spen?

17 min listen

A bizarre flourish of tactics are on display in the run up to the Batley and Spen by-election. And are we already feeling the new Health Secretary's influence? To discuss, Fraser Nelson is joined by James Forsyth and Katy Balls.

Ross Clark

How much longer can the Treasury rig the housing market?

The past 15 months have produced a bizarre economic paradox. In 2020, the economy shrank at the fastest rate recorded in modern times: 9.9 per cent. Yet house prices have not merely weathered the storm, they have risen at the fastest rate since the height of the property boom in the 2000s. According to Nationwide, the average value of a UK home has risen by 13.9 percent in the past 12 months. Halifax puts it a little more modestly at a 9.5 percent annual rise. Yet there is a pretty clear picture of a rising market driven by a lack of stock and a desperation from many people to move home before the stamp duty holiday finishes — as it does tomorrow. How come? On the one hand we are witnessing the inevitable results of financial stimulus.

Patrick O’Flynn

What does Starmer actually stand for?

The biggest reason Keir Starmer has proved a flop is not that he leads an unelectable rabble, or that Labour’s coalition of voters is splintering, or even that Covid has marginalised him — it is far simpler: He’s never known what to do. In fact, he lacks the first clue about how to do politics. High-powered lawyer he may once have been, but we might as well have pulled some random middle-class bloke out of a saloon car on a ring road and invited him to captain Britain’s next doomed attempt to win the America’s Cup yachting challenge. Because Starmer’s default pose is to be frozen at the wheel and staring blankly at a mysterious instrument panel as his crew awaits orders. He has thus always been doomed to catch a crab rather than the wind in his sails.

Steerpike

The curious case of Kate Osborne’s Wikipedia

Since her election to Parliament in December 2019, Labour backbencher Kate Osborne has become something of a transparency campaigner. The Jarrow MP has urged the extension of Freedom of Information laws to cover private companies and criticised Conservative opponent Nadine Dorries for sharing 'fake news propaganda' online. But Osborne seems less keen to divulge information about herself, being one of a handful of new MPs such as Felicity Buchan and Neil Hudson to decline to disclose her date of birth in the most recent Times guide to the House of Commons.

Annabel Denham

The economic illiteracy of anti-capitalists

Back in October, World Bank chief economist Carmen Reinhart recommended that countries borrow heavily during the pandemic. ‘First, you worry about fighting the war,’ she said, ‘then you figure out how to pay for it’. As thousands of mask-free demonstrators took to the streets of London this weekend to campaign on issues ranging from Palestine to climate change, you have to wonder: are we still at war? And does anyone care about the economy anymore? It has been apparent for some time — though it may continue to confound psephologists — that issues such as identity, patriotism and culture are more important to the electorate than economic concerns.

Steerpike

Lib Dem grandees go to war over China

It appears the Liberal Democrats have fallen foul of the Trade Descriptions Act. During the Brexit years, the party did its best to eschew the 'democratic' part of their name by promising to nullify the largest democratic mandate the UK has ever seen. And now Mr Steerpike is intrigued to see that party grandees don’t seem too keen on their 'liberal' roots either. Former party leader Vince Cable has this week written a piece for the Independent arguing that there is no point in the West criticising China for its policies towards the Uighur Muslims. Cable denies that ethnic cleansing is going on in Xinjiang, despite reports of forced sterilisations and abortion, justifying measures against the Uighurs as counterterrorism 'crackdowns'.

Robert Ede

Why Sajid Javid should delay Hancock’s NHS reforms

Sajid Javid arrives at the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) at a point when the portfolio has never been more high profile. Whilst not technically a Great Office of State, the position of Health Secretary is second only to the Chancellor when the public is asked to rank a member of the Prime Minister’s team. When Jeremy Hunt was appointed to the post in 2012, he was urged by the then Prime Minister David Cameron to ‘calm down the NHS’. Sajid Javid, another bright, competent minister who does not seek the limelight has been chosen for a similar brief. His first task will be to prioritise. Under Hancock, the department committed to pursuing four different reforms in tandem this year, covering social care, public health, the NHS and mental health.

Theo Davies-Lewis

Drakeford draws up his battle lines on the Union

A little over two years ago, a relatively unknown First Minister of Wales unveiled his blueprint to repair intergovernmental relations across the UK. As he delivered the annual Keir Hardie lecture at Merthyr Tydfil College, Mark Drakeford said that he had been forced to ‘take up the baton where the UK government itself has dropped it.’ A reform of the constitution was deemed ‘both urgent and vital’ if the Union was to survive post-Brexit, while a ‘fairer, more equitable and more sustainable settlement’ should follow. Such language peppered the most provocative constitutional speech by a modern Welsh politician. The trouble was that hardly anybody listened.

Monday

28 June 2021

Freddy Gray

Is vaccine encouragement becoming vaccine coercion?

27 min listen

From jabs for joints, to peer pressure in schools, to free lap dances, it seems the powers that be are getting more and more aggressive in their mission of getting everyone jabbed as quickly as possible. To discuss this unprecedented vaccination campaign Freddy Gray talks to author of A State of Fear: How the UK government weaponised fear during the Covid-19 pandemic, Laura Dodsworth.

Katy Balls

Sajid Javid’s optimistic Covid forecast

Sajid Javid used his first appearance at the despatch box since his appointment as Health Secretary to paint an optimistic picture of the UK's route out of lockdown. Confirming that there would be no relaxation on 5 July, Javid talked up the likelihood of restrictions ending on 19 July. He appeared to go further than Matt Hancock on the end of lockdown. Javid said he was 'very confident' the end of the roadmap would go ahead: 'For me, 19 July is not only the end of the line but the start of an exciting new journey for our country.' Of course, Javid wouldn't be the first minister to sound positive about an easing date only for it delayed. But what was striking about his comments was how he said there would never be a perfect date for ending restrictions.