Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Wednesday

Patrick O’Flynn

Labour is the culture war’s greatest victim

How damaging is the 'culture war' to the Labour party’s hopes of one day regaining power? On the left there is a fragile consensus in place that it doesn’t matter very much. The Times columnist David Aaronovitch set this out recently, using some opinion research from King’s College, London. According to the study most voters don't fully understand terms such as 'cancel culture' or 'identity politics'. For many younger people, the term 'woke' denotes something positive about appreciating the hurdles others may have to overcome. Only among the over-55s is 'woke' seen overwhelmingly as a negative thing, with just 13 per cent of people thinking it a compliment to be so described.

Julie Burchill

The problem with Palestine’s showbiz supporters

One of the many reasons I hate wokers is because they indulge so shamelessly in what Bebel coined ‘the socialism of fools’ – anti-Semitism – under the convenient cover of sticking up for the Palestinians. Pretty much all socialism is for fools these days and as we see the Tories ditch misogyny, racism and austerity (Chancellor Sunak ‘Soak the rich!’ – Sir Keir Starmer ‘No!’) we have seen anti-Semitism cross the floor too. This is not the sniggering Jew-hatred of the smug Surrey golf club; this is where the pampered and resentful spawn of the bourgeoise get down to the rapper Wiley, MBE, he of the profoundly inclusive tweets like ‘Jews would do anything to ruin a black man’s life’.

Lloyd Evans

Ikea Starmer: Labour’s wooden leader

This was perhaps the most heavily-trailed Kleenex moment in recent TV history. The advance clips of Sir Keir Starmer’s interview with Piers Morgan suggested that the Labour leader would well up on-screen as he recalled his parents’ deaths and the fate of a family pet that was killed in a shed fire. We’re accustomed to seeing our leaders in tears. Mrs Thatcher wept after delivering her farewell address outside No. 10 in November 1990. She held it together for the speech itself but cracked up when she walked away from the microphone and towards her official car. Photos of her inside the vehicle showed her biting her jaw while her eyes brimmed over with emotion. 'Tears in the back seat,’ ran the Daily Mirror headline.

James Forsyth

Keir Starmer’s interview gamble pays off

One of the biggest challenges for any leader of the opposition is getting noticed. Doing that requires taking some risks and Keir Starmer’s sit down with Piers Morgan was a bit of a risk – politicians can get caught out in these more personal formats. Starmer did well, though. He didn’t fall into any Nick Clegg style traps; navigating the sex and drugs questions with relative ease. He talked movingly about his mother, and how she coped with her long illness. His relationship with his own father clearly wasn’t easy, Starmer said the only time his father ever said he was proud of him was when he passed the 11-plus, and it was touching to hear him talk about how he tries to parent his own kids differently.

Debbie Hayton

What Dawn Butler gets wrong about Stonewall

It’s been a bad night for Stonewall. Yesterday, the Labour MP Dawn Butler created a Twitter Poll. ‘Who do you trust more?’ she asked her 150,000 followers, Stonewall or Liz Truss? It’s not exactly clear what inspired Butler to ask this question online, but this is, of course, the MP who last year told Good Morning Britain that she believed ‘babies are born without a sex.’ https://twitter.com/DawnButlerBrent/status/1399708211838607362?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw Why anyone would need to hand over good money to show they treat their staff with dignity and respect is a mystery to me Butler’s folly gave anyone with a Twitter account the opportunity to have their say. The numbers are not looking good for Stonewall.

Sam Ashworth-Hayes

What happens now that Rhodes didn’t fall?

Oriel College, Oxford's decision to retain the statue of Cecil Rhodes has generated the usual voluminous fury. It has also shown it to be just that: noise. The university's willingness to face down activists could mark a turning point in proving that when campaigners don't get their way, the world continues to turn. This might sound obvious but it marks a welcome change to the often depressing cycle of inevitability of protest-social media storm-surrender. All too often, it seems power really does lie with the various campaign groups, charities, and commentators pushing for change. The fact that Rhodes hasn't fallen, whatever you might think of the man himself, shows that it doesn't. This is why they are activists rather than policymakers.

Tuesday

Steerpike

Watch: Keir Starmer refuses to deny taking drugs at university

Keir Starmer's appearance on Piers Morgan's 'Life Stories' is a sign of desperation. The Labour leader knows he must do something about the dire situation his party is in, following the disastrous defeat at the Hartlepool by-election. One of the big criticisms levelled at Starmer is that he lacks charisma. His decision to agree to be interviewed by Morgan is an attempt to do something about that, by showing people the 'real' Starmer. Unfortunately, though, it seems there are some things that remain off limits, not least what Starmer the student got up to during his time at Leeds university.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfyfBX1IlT0 Morgan quizzed Starmer at least ten times on whether the Labour leader had ever dabbled in anything stronger than alcohol.

Limor Simhony Philpott

Netanyahu’s departure would be good news for Israel

Time is running out for Bibi Netanyahu. In the next couple of days, the fate of Israel’s next government will be decided. If opposition parties manage to reach a deal tonight, it will mean that Bibi and the Likud will no longer be in power – for the first time in twelve years. Four rounds of elections made two things clear: that about two-thirds of the public votes for right-wing parties; and that Bibi has become the Israeli's right’s biggest problem. A dozen years in power has made Netanyahu arrogant, entitled and hated by a large portion of the public, including right-wing voters. This has been made worse by deep resentment towards his wife Sarah and son, Yair, both of whom have meddled in politics. This cost Likud votes, and may now cost it the government.

Ross Clark

Has Covid accelerated the cashless society?

Time is, I fear, running out. Running out, that is, to avoid handing to a small number of multinational corporations our right to buy and sell things. Running out to prevent governments and central banks helping themselves to our savings, by means of negative interest rates. The payments industry is closing in on its target of driving cash out of circulation and instigating cashless payments as the only way of doing business. That, at least, is the conclusion one might reach from reading a report by Worldpay: the Global Payments Report 2021. It claims that cash payments in UK shops in 2020 made up 13.4 per cent of total payments, down from 27.4 per cent in 2019. By 2024, it predicts, they will be down to just 6.9 per cent. By the same year it will be down to just 0.

Henry Dodds

Is Britain prepared for a different corona disaster?

Amidst the drama of Dominic Cummings's appearance in front of MPs last week, perhaps the most important thing the PM's former adviser said was almost entirely ignored. As well as slating his former boss, Cummings criticised the UK’s disaster planning. The pandemic has shifted attention to how Britain would deal in the future with another respiratory virus, but arguably a bigger threat to this country – and, indeed, the world – has been forgotten. When it comes to dealing with solar flares, Cummings's said, ‘the current Government plan is completely hopeless. If that happens then we’re all going to be in a worse situation than Covid’.

Cindy Yu

What difference does a wedding make?

12 min listen

Now officially in June, the significance of the 21st seems even greater for the country, but with the Indian variant still on the rise how safe is the date? Katy Balls says that for the government: 'The plan is to offer all over fifties two doses before June 21st.'And a glorious weekend of weather for the Prime Minister's secret nuptials, but what does this wedding mean for the warring factions that circle No. 10?

Katy Balls

Will lockdown still be eased on 21 June?

While Boris Johnson used the bank holiday weekend to get married, scientists have been busy filling the airwaves with various warnings about proceeding with the final lockdown easing on 21 June. There have been a series of statements from both government advisers and other scientists arguing that in the face of rising cases of the Indian variant – which the World Health Organisation now calls ‘Delta’ – it would be unwise to press ahead with the next stage of the roadmap this month. Nervtag member Prof Ravi Gupta has said the UK appears to be in what could be described as the early stages of a third wave – with an ‘exponential’ rise in cases.

James Forsyth

The cold reality facing Sajid Javid

The most difficult time for a new secretary of state is normally the first three months in the job. An early mistake can sink confidence among both the public and Whitehall officials. But for Sajid Javid, his first three months as health secretary will be his easiest. The real challenge will come later. The easing of restrictions on 19 July will almost certainly go ahead, which means Javid will be able to point to an early success. I understand that the current plan, which the government will set out next week (though the formal decision on whether to proceed will only be taken a week beforehand), is for a comprehensive reopening. The one-metre rule will be ditched, masks will no longer be compulsory and venues will be allowed to operate at full capacity again.

Monday

Lisa Bjurwald

How Denmark helped America spy on Sweden

A large, investigative collaboration between Scandinavian public service outlets and European newspapers such as Le Monde and Süddeutsche Zeitung has revealed a rather sensational espionage story. US intelligence agency NSA has reportedly been snooping on American allies, including Swedish politicians, with the help of…Sweden’s neighbour, Denmark. To make matters worse, the Danish defense minister has apparently been sitting on the information for a whole year, without telling her Swedish counterpart. Ouch. Things will be chillier than usual at this June’s Nato-led maritime exercise ('Baltops 50') in the Baltic Sea.

Tom Slater

Why can’t King’s College academics cope with a photo of Prince Philip?

Librarians aren’t known for causing trouble. But at our elite universities, in the grip of an increasingly unhinged culture of offence-taking, it doesn’t take much to cause trouble nowadays. This is the news that a library director at King’s College London has been forced to make a grovelling apology for emailing around a photo of Prince Philip. Hot on the heels of that student at Abertay being investigated for saying women have vaginas, this one is right up there with the most absurd campus stories to date. In a bulletin marking the Duke of Edinburgh’s death, Joleen Clarke, associate director of the university’s libraries, sent a photo of Philip and the Queen opening the Maughan Library at King’s College in 2002.

Stephen Daisley

Boris’s media critics are missing the real story

The five most frustrating words a journalist can hear are: ‘This is not a story’. Over the years, I have heard that warding charm invoked by press officers governmental and party, private sector and charitable. Every time, it guaranteed I would work doubly hard to ensure the story in question made it into print. Political journalists, in particular, are thrawn by nature and cynical through experience. They begin from the assumption that you did it, everyone around you knows you did it, half of them are doing it too, and if they keep at you long enough you’ll eventually end up reading a prepared statement outside your front door one morning while your wife silently reflects that you can’t even take a brown envelope competently.

Matthew Lynn

Brexit Britain can capitalise on the breakdown in EU-Swiss talks

It is a leading player in finance, and it's companies are giants in life sciences and consumer goods. There were already lots of similarities between the Swiss and British economies, except that they are quite a bit richer and more successful than we are. Now we have something else in common: we have both been frozen out of the European Union’s Single Market. But hold on. Isn’t there an opportunity there as well? In truth, this would be the perfect moment to offer the Swiss a deal that would work for both sides – a common market. The Swiss have always had a fractious relationship with the EU.

Ross Clark

Why should Dr Christian Jessen’s fans pay his legal bill?

Wasn’t the whole point of crowdfunding supposed to be about enabling community and artistic projects to take place? That was how I remember it being sold to us, at any rate. But no, I got it wrong. It turns out that the real point of it is to help celebrities pay their legal bills.  Dr Christian Jessen, who appears on a Channel 4 show called Embarrassing Bodies, has been ordered by a Belfast court to pay £125,000 in libel damages to former Northern Irish first minister Arlene Foster for tweeting the false allegation that she was having an extra-marital affair. It is believed that legal costs could add a further £300,000 to his bill.  By Monday morning, Jessen had raised £7000 of the £150,000 he is hoping to raise. How to pay?

Andrew McQuillan

The DUP has been broken by Brexit

Are we witnessing the end of the DUP as the dominant unionist party in Northern Ireland? Tumultuous events in Belfast in recent days suggest as much. The DUP gathered on Thursday night to ratify the appointment of Edwin Poots and Paula Bradley as the party’s new leader and deputy leader. A dull rubber-stamping it was not; the meeting turned into the most public display of discord and factionalism in the party’s 50-year history. Rather than listen to Poots make his acceptance speech, Jeffrey Donaldson, the MP Gavin Robinson and both Nigel and Diane Dodds stood up and left. Dissatisfaction with how Arlene Foster was treated was given as the reason for the walk-out, with some party activists also resigning from their positions.

Sunday

Melanie McDonagh

Boris, Carrie and the politics of weddings

Well! The PM’s nuptials have taken everyone unawares. And it’s hard not to feel that a small and informal wedding is better right now than something big and flashy next year, as per the excited coverage of the implications of his ‘save the date’ message to friends, faithfully passed onto the papers last week. Instead: a quiet ceremony in Westminster Cathedral, the mother church of Catholics in England and Wales. There is some fuss about the Catholic Church solemnising the nuptials of a twice married PM and his girlfriend. But from a strictly churchy point of view there’s nothing to stop him. He was baptised in a Catholic church in New York - an unexpected element of his life story, for his mother (whose birthday was yesterday) is a Catholic.