Read about the latest political news, views and analysis
20 min listen
What's wrong with American media? The Sunday Times's Josh Glancy, formerly Washington correspondent at the newspaper, joins Freddy Gray to discuss the how the last five years have changed the institution.
Last month Steerpike revealed that two sitting Haringey councillors suspended for claims of anti-Semitism had been quietly readmitted to the party despite Keir Starmer’s vow of a ‘zero tolerance’ policy on this issue. Following a backlash, both were quickly resuspended with one of them, Preston Tabois, being dropped from Labour’s list of candidates for next week’s London Assembly elections. Now it appears there is some evidence another Assembly candidate has been indulgent with regards to possible anti-Semitic material posted on her Facebook page. Faduma Hassan is both an elected Brent councillor and who according to the most recent register of members' staff works for Keir Starmer.
Boris Johnson is set for a vaccine boost next week when local election results start rolling in. As James Forsyth explains in this week’s magazine, the vaccine rollout is forefront in voters' minds, with seven out of ten now inoculated or even fully jabbed up. For all the chaos raging around Johnson, with accusations from his former allies and long-term opponents coming in thick and fast, the PM looks set to retain his support where it matters: at the polling station. Can the same be said for Joe Biden? Across the pond, America is experiencing an equally successful vaccine rollout, as both the US and the UK hover around the top five countries worldwide for their rates of vaccination.
The US is booming. The UK is set to grow at the fastest pace in half a century. China is expanding again at a blistering pace. Stock markets are rising. And commodity prices are racing ahead. Across most of the world, economists are starting to worry about a runaway boom, stimulated by too much easy money. This, they fear, could easily run out of control. There is one exception, however: the eurozone. As of today, the zone is officially in a double-dip recession. The vaccine downturn has arrived. And while the consequences remain unpredictable, one thing is clear: they won’t be good.
12 min listen
Boris Johnson's mobile phone number has been available online for 15 years, it emerged last night. Why does the Prime Minister give it out so freely? John Connolly speaks to Katy Balls and James Forsyth.
Evening Standard editor Emily Sheffield waded into the row over Boris Johnson's flat refurbishment this week. Sheffield – a regular visitor to Downing Street in the Cameron era, when her brother-in-law was prime minister – insisted the No. 11 flat 'is no skip' as some have implied. As well as having the opportunity to check out the interiors firsthand, Sheffield also appears to have made some important connections along the way, judging by the familiar faces now adorning the pages of her newspaper. Sheffield, who once inadvertently posted a picture of David Cameron online in 2013, replaced George Osborne in the role as editor last year.
Arlene Foster has been forced out as DUP leader because of Unionist anger about the Northern Ireland protocol. She is blamed for being far too trusting of Boris Johnson. Her party’s anger with her has been compounded by how it has fallen in the polls since the protocol started being implemented. But as I say in theTimes this morning, the protocol isn’t even yet in full effect. If the protocol were to be implemented in full, Unionist opposition towards it would escalate to the next level. Next year’s Stormont election would turn into a proxy referendum on the protocol, with unionist parties arguing that if they can get a majority, they can vote to scrap it.
On 26 May, Dominic Cummings will give evidence to MPs grouped on the health and science super committee, chaired by Jeremy Hunt and Greg Clark. This will be box office politically, because – as I have mentioned – Cummings will prosecute Boris Johnson and his scientific advisers for failing to lock down early enough in March 2020, and Johnson and Rishi Sunak – though not the scientists – for failing to lock down in early September (not late September). But the Tory controlled committee will not allow him to use them to humiliate the PM in other ways (though some might say the charge that the PM put thousands lives at risk by refusing to lock down is humiliating enough).
28 min listen
Over the last year of intermittent lockdowns, most of us have spent more time staring at the four walls of our living room than we ever thought possible. One of the biggest factors affecting someone's pandemic experience is the type of accommodation they're in, and 8.4 million people in England are living in unaffordable, insecure or unsuitable homes. There are, however, attempts being made to help fix the problem, with promises to build new homes, a stamp duty holiday, and a new mortgage guarantee system.
Tony Blair must be starting to empathise with Samson this week. Can you imagine being a short-haired former Prime Minister, who on every rare appearance on the Today Programme and Remembrance Sunday has the Twittersphere baying for blood, demanding the police arrest him and send him to The Hague? Then he appears on ITV looking like David Ginola and everyone is tweeting, 'gosh, look at his hair!' Though I confess, he doesn’t look too bad, Delilah is still the patron saint of smart men. Should you be considering letting your Covid long locks play out, and avoiding booking a full grooming session at Truefitt & Hill, Trumpers or Pankhurst of London, then have a rethink. Grooming for men has gone through a vast shift since the end of national service.
28 min listen
In this week’s podcast, ITV's political editor Robert Peston joins The Spectator's deputy political editor Katy Balls to talk over this week’s cover story, on the maelstrom of mayhem surrounding Boris Johnson. (1:29) With the recent exit of Johnson’s oldest advisor, Lord Udny-Lister, from Downing Street, the rumbling row over what Boris did or didn’t say in earshot of Cabinet staff, chatty rats and John Lewis - all in all, it hasn’t been a vintage week for Boris Johnson.
12 min listen
Keir Starmer was pictured shopping for wallpaper in John Lewis today, poking fun at Boris's ongoing No. 10 refurbishment troubles. But is the Labour leader really just playing to the PM's advantages? Katy Balls speaks to James Forsyth.
Are vaccine passports in our future? The ‘Covid-status certification’ review is underway, carved out of the Prime Minister’s roadmap and handed to Michael Gove in the Cabinet Office to assess and very possibly implement the scheme after Britain has been declared ‘free’. Since the first review update was published — clear on intention but vague on the details — there’s been plenty of speculation as to what kinds of events or establishments might require a passport to access them. Today we got some hints.
It has been an interesting year for onetime Rada star Laurence Fox. The former Lewis actor turned Question Time guest announced he was running for London mayor last month but has thus far barely managed to make a ripple ahead of polling day in just a week’s time. A city-wide poll last week showed the culture warrior on just a miserly 1 per cent — the same number as self-proclaimed joke candidate Count Binface. Whereas the former boasts of having a £5 million war chest for his ‘Reclaim’ party, the latter has had to crowdfund the £10,000 deposit needed for his campaign.
Labour's Liz Kendall is today calling for the government to treat social care in the same way as it treats physical infrastructure. In a speech this afternoon, the shadow care minister said that 'in the century of ageing, social care is as much a part of our economic infrastructure as the roads and the railways'. This is quite a challenging analogy, as the state of the social care sector would make even the most outdated and crumbling parts of the northern rail network look pretty luxurious and well-appointed. Kendall is also speaking as a battle rages within government over whether social care reform will make it into the Queen's Speech.
Will the Downing Street flat criticism bounce off Boris Johnson? The Prime Minister is under fire this week over the refurbishment of the No. 11 apartment. After the Electoral Commission launched a formal investigation, today's front pages make particularly miserable reading for No. 10. However, the Prime Minister has earned a reputation as a politician who is 'scandal-proof' in a way that many of his colleagues are not. Will this be the same? Polling since the story took off is fairly limited but a BMG Research poll published today — taken Thursday to Monday — on the question of 'preferred prime minister' puts Boris Johnson on 40 per cent and Keir Starmer on just 24 per cent.
I spent much of the 1980s and 1990s reporting on company chief executives who didn’t understand the distinction between mine and theirs. They enjoyed lavish lifestyles — company flats, art collections, huge expense accounts — without the owners of the company (you and me through our pension funds) having a clue. Then came the corporate governance revolution, and much of this was cleaned up. So I had déjà vu earlier this week when reporting that the Tory party had loaned tens of thousands of pounds to lavishly decorate and refurnish the PM’s home in Downing Street. Maybe Tory donors and members think this is an appropriate use of their money. But did anyone bother to ask them?
When Boris Johnson parted company with Dominic Cummings at the end of last year, it was inevitable there would be trouble further down the line. To pick a fight with one of Britain’s most formidable campaigners and his allies was always going to have consequences. It’s now becoming clear what they are. Some of the revelations from Johnson’s enemies are quotable: for example, the allegation that he said in private he’d rather let ‘bodies pile high’ than allow a third lockdown. But what he said in anger, or what he considered doing, matters a lot less than what he actually did. That’s why the most serious question he’s facing is about the financing of the renovation of the Downing Street flat.
Like almost everyone else writing on the subject, I have no idea whether Boris Johnson told colleagues in October that he would rather ‘let the bodies pile high in their thousands’ than have another lockdown. When such words are reported, they are given to journalists ‘on lobby terms’ and are therefore unattributable. But surely the report should indicate from which point of view they come. In this case, the BBC cites ‘sources familiar with the conversation’, a phrase which gives it permission, it thinks, to run headlines like ‘Boris Johnson’s “bodies pile high” comments prompt criticism’, as if it knows that the Prime Minister definitely spoke those words.
When Boris Johnson made the extraordinary decision last week to brief newspapers that Dominic Cummings was behind a series of leaks, the move seemed close to kamikaze. He had chosen a target who isn’t exactly known for walking away from a fight. And there’s another, more serious question: why did nobody in No. 10 stop him? Johnson has always been an impulsive politician, but he has also employed people who can act as a moderating force. He makes friends slowly, which is why he tries to take allies with him. Ann Sindall, his old secretary at The Spectator, went to work with him when he became London mayor. He hired no fewer than seven deputy mayors and took two (Sir Eddie Lister and Munira Mirza) to No. 10.