Politics Archives

Monday

19 April 2021

Why are politicians picking on the football Super League?

The collective gasp of outrage – led by Prime Minister Boris Johnson – at the decision of a few wealthy clubs around Europe to announce the creation of a European Super League is either naive or hypocritical. Because the idea that professional football is some kind of social enterprise owned and run by fans and communities might have been true 100 years ago, but in recent decades it has been a rapacious, commercial enterprise motivated mostly by money. It is quite difficult to see why the cartelisation of football should be what jolts our political leaders to man the barricades And does anyone think FIFA, UEFA and the Premier League have any kind of serious moral authority, given how they've conducted themselves in recent years?

Steerpike

Watch: Keir Starmer kicked out of pub

Keir Starmer was out in Bath today campaigning ahead of the local elections. Unfortunately a quick stop by The Raven pub did not go as planned when the landlord Rod Humphris confronted him over the impact the Covid lockdown has had on his pub. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCZN722J_Rs The landlord, who recently featured in the local press attacking vaccine passports as 'unpleasant and discriminatory,' shouted 'that man is not allowed in my pub as Starmer's security men restrained him in his own pub. In a scene that could have come straight from EastEnders, Humphris yelled at the politician to 'get out of my pub' as the Holborn and St Pancras MP bid a hasty retreat. https://www.youtube.com/watch?

Ian Acheson

Why Sinn Fein can’t really apologise for the IRA’s atrocities

What are we to make of Sinn Fein's latest experiment with the language of regret when it comes to the murder of Lord Mountbatten just after his nephew’s Royal funeral? It's not hard to be cynical about the Shinners. This is after all the political party that appointed a convicted terrorist bomber as Director of 'Unionist outreach' not so long ago. A party that dragged its feet on pensions for victims of paramilitary terrorists in their attempt to include injured perpetrators. A party that police services on either side of the border says is run by shadowy figures in the army council of the IRA. Their uncamouflaged leader, Mary Lou McDonald chopped up a word salad in an interview on Times radio this weekend and came up with a new side dish in obfuscation.

Damian Reilly

Football’s Super League critics are being hypocritical

Is it possible meaningfully to oppose the decision by Europe’s biggest football clubs to form an unaccountable, anti-democratic Super League if you voted to Remain? The obvious answer is that it’s not. Not that that will stop anyone. The proposed Super League is an almost exact sporting distillation of the issues that defined the European Union referendum: the continent’s financial power house football clubs are threatening to carve up immensely lucrative markets while simultaneously shutting down external competition irreversibly.

Steerpike

Jared O’Mara’s exceptional career

Oneterm wonder Jared O'Mara had quite an exceptional two and a half years in Parliament. Having unseated former Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg in June 2017, the Labour MP was the first autistic MP elected to the Commons but quickly found himself being suspended for racist, homophobic and misogynist comments posted prior to his election. In July 2019 O'Mara's former employee Jennifer Barnes complained that she had received inappropriate messages and approaches from O’Mara through various media. Having stood down at the 2019 election, the parliamentary standards commissioner has today found that O'Mara did indeed breach parliament's sexual misconduct policy, with his right to a parliamentary pass now withdrawn.

Katy Balls

What does Boris’s India cancellation mean for vaccines?

10 min listen

Boris Johnson's trip to India was today cancelled as the country battles a new coronavirus variant. The PM was expecting to push Modi to release AstraZeneca vaccines to Britain, but that now looks unlikely. What does this mean for the UK's roadmap? Katy Balls speaks to James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman.

Nick Tyrone

If Starmer goes, can Labour’s Corbyn critics keep hold of power?

Keir Starmer is only a year into his job as Labour leader, but could his time in charge soon come to an end? Starmer is under increasing pressure following his failure to revitalise Labour. A bad set of results on 6 May could mean the final nail in the coffin. If Starmer is ousted – and that remains a big if, given the lack of viable contenders for the job – Corbyn's critics within the Labour party will quickly find themselves in a difficult position. With no heir apparent on the Labour right, Starmer's departure could easily mean the left taking control of Labour all over again. Yvette Cooper has been touted by some as a 'compromise candidate', in the event that Starmer does depart.

Matthew Lynn

In defence of football’s Super League

Short of dropping Harry Kane from the England team, and replacing him with Andy Carroll on the grounds that what we really need is a big man up front, it is hard to imagine a footballing decision that could be less popular. Twelve of Europe's biggest clubs, including Manchester City, Chelsea and Liverpool, have announced plans for a break-away ‘European Super League’. Alongside the domestic competitions, the 12 elite clubs would play each other regularly season after season. Football decided 30 years ago to become a big money game, and has been rewarded with massive global audiences The reaction, to put it mildly, has not been 100 per cent positive, and not just from the now empty terraces. The Prime Minister Boris Johnson condemned the plan on Twitter.

James Kirkup

Football’s Super League row can save capitalism from itself

I am not a football fan. Reactions to plans for a European super-league remind me why. According to the BBC ‘critics say the move is being driven purely by money.’ Whereas in the prelapsarian days of, say, last week, professional football was all about craft and community? Free marketeers should be relaxed about this. You could argue that the super league members’ decision is a matter for them and them alone. They are private businesses supplying a product – entertainment – to paying customers in a market. If they want to supply that product via slightly different arrangements, why should anyone else care? If the public anger in today’s headlines and pixels is really that deep, there’ll be no demand for the product and the league will fail.

Steerpike

The United Nations race report hypocrisy

Oh dear. Four weeks after the government's Sewell report on race relations was released, a group of United Nations experts has decided to weigh in, claiming that it attempts to 'normalise white supremacy' and could 'fuel racism' in the UK. According to a lengthy press release issued today, the UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent on Monday 'strongly rejected' the 'stunning' report, arguing it 'repackages racist tropes and stereotypes into fact, twists data and misapplies statistics.

Theo Davies-Lewis

Wales’s election is finally heating up

You could be forgiven for forgetting that there is an election happening in Wales. The looming possibility of an SNP majority in Scotland, violence on the streets of Belfast and the death of the Duke of Edinburgh have led to a somewhat lulled campaign in recent weeks. Thankfully, last night’s ITV Wales television debate got things going, to a point. First Minister Mark Drakeford was at the crease to defend his government’s performance throughout the pandemic, as well as Welsh Labour’s record over 22 years in Cardiff Bay. Snapping at his heels was Andrew RT Davies, the Welsh Conservative leader, and Plaid Cymru’s Adam Price, regarded generally as the most impressive debater.

Sunday

18 April 2021

Steerpike

JP Morgan’s new campaign for Leave

Leaked plans for a 'European Super League' of top football clubs have left fans feeling as sick as a parrot today, amid fears of the impact such a move would have on the beautiful game. Under the proposals, Europe's leading teams such as Manchester United and Real Madrid would juggle their domestic leagues to sign with a new midweek competition that would see them play regular games across the continent against one another. Politicians here in Britain have already been quick to get ahead of the backlash, with Boris Johnson claiming such plans 'would strike at the heart of the domestic game and will concern fans across the country.

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round-up: Cameron’s behaviour ‘is acceptable’, says Environment Secretary

George Eustice – David Cameron’s behaviour ‘is acceptable’ Both Andrew Marr and Sophy Ridge were joined this morning by the Environment Secretary George Eustice – and much of their conversations focused on the recent lobbying debacle sparked by the former Prime Minister’s texts to the Chancellor Rishi Sunak. Cameron was attempting to secure support loans on behalf of the financial services firm Greensill Capital, but was unsuccessful and the business filed for insolvency in March. Marr questioned Eustice over whether the current lobbying rules were too soft and ineffectual: https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1383715753459781640?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw AM: Do you think that what David Cameron has done is acceptable?

Philip Thomas

Need we fear a third wave after lockdown ends?

When Boris Johnson revealed his roadmap out of lockdown at the end of February he promised a ‘one way road to freedom.’ Since then, it has seemed that instead of freedom we may end up with continued social distancing, perhaps Covid passports and mandatory mask-wearing. The justification offered is that the virus might come back. But does the data back up this pessimism? I’m an academic at Bristol University and have developed the Predictor Corrector Coronavirus Filter (known as PCCF) model, updated daily on The Spectator’s data hub. It confirms that we can safely return to the ‘old normal’ on 21 June with no need for extra measures. It predicts that a complete abolition of restrictions on that date will not see a third wave of any significance.

Saturday

17 April 2021

Douglas Murray

The music at the heart of the Duke’s funeral

Every detail of today’s funeral of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, is likely to be pored over in the days ahead. But one aspect which should get particular attention is the musical contribution. For although the choir at the service in St George’s Chapel, Windsor, was reduced to only four singers due to Covid restrictions, their singing was a powerful and important testament to this country’s musical and specifically choral tradition. It was also a reminder of how at times of deep emotion music can provide a solace that words and other mediums of expression cannot. The settings of the Funeral Sentences by William Croft have been heard at state funerals, among others, for three centuries.

Peter Hunt

A stripped-down tribute to a century of service

It was a stripped-down service, pared back to its essentials by a prince and by a pandemic. Covid-19 shrunk the congregation and forced the thirty, mostly royal mourners who made the cut to wear masks, observe social distancing and resist the urge to sing, even when it was the National Anthem. Prince Philip had ensured it captured and amplified his affinity with the sea and for the military. He signed off its crucial elements back in 2003. At his insistence there was no sermon. As he once remarked, ‘the mind cannot absorb what the backside cannot endure’. The noises off of recent days were silenced. The fuss over uniforms forgotten.

Rev Dr Jamie Franklin et al

An open letter from Christian leaders concerning vaccine passports

Dear Prime Minister, As Christian leaders across a range of denominations, we continue to pray at this time for your government “and all in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity” (1 Timothy 2:2). However, we write to you concerning an area of the most serious concern, namely the potential introduction into our society of so-called “vaccine passports” which have also been referred to as “COVID-status certificates” and “freedom passes”. We are wholly opposed to this suggestion and wish to make three points about the potential consideration of any scheme of this type.

Cindy Yu

What is Keir Starmer doing wrong?

15 min listen

A new YouGov poll shows that the Conservative party is 14 points ahead of the Labour party. What is Keir Starmer doing wrong? Cindy Yu talks to Katy Balls and the Mail on Sunday's Dan Hodges.

Ian Williams

Ian Williams, Fiona Mountford and Deborah Ross

23 min listen

On this episode, author and journalist Ian Williams starts by looks at how China is using tech to expand its reach. (00:45) Then, Fiona Mountford reflects on how to deal with grief. (12:00) Finally, Deborah Ross reviews the Oscar-nominated Promising Young Woman, 'a wonderfully clever, darkly funny, stomach-knotting' revenge-thriller.

Steven Fielding

The return of Tory sleaze?

‘It’s the return of Tory sleaze’: so said Keir Starmer at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday. His was an assertion immediately echoed by various leading Labour figures across social media. Former prime minister David Cameron’s questionable relationship with Greensill Capital is the immediate occasion for this potentially toxic claim. But Labour clearly hopes to drag Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak and many other ministers into the mix. For, as Starmer went on, ‘sleaze’ is ‘at the heart of this Conservative government’. In contrast, Johnson is seeking to protect himself against the taint of 'sleaze' by announcing an inquiry into claims of impropriety. Perhaps it will protect him.