Politics Archives

Thursday

15 April 2021

Boris Johnson’s Finsbury flight of fancy

Boris Johnson's 'fixer' Eddie Lister is once again in the headlines, making the splash of today's Daily Mail for being 'on the case' of the attempted Saudi takeover of Newcastle United. It comes two days after a piece in The Times reported that former Lister was considering combining his current role as the prime minister’s special envoy to the Gulf with a six-figure advisory gig for lobbying firm Finsbury Glover Hering – an approach he only rejected after being approached by the newspaper. Finsbury of course is chaired by Roland Rudd, the smooth talking, uber networker best known for heading up the unsuccessful People's Vote campaign and for being one of Tony Blair's 'Four Wise Men' who advised him after leaving office.

Matt Ridley

Britain is in danger of repeating its post-war mistakes

In search of wisdom about how an officious government reluctantly relaxes its grip after an emergency, I stumbled on a 1948 newsreel clip of Harold Wilson when he was president of the Board of Trade. It’s a glimpse of long-forgotten and brain-boggling complexity in the rationing system. ‘We have taken some clothing off the ration altogether,’ he boasts, posing as a munificent liberator. ‘From shoes to bathing costumes, and from oilskins to body belts and children’s raincoats. Then we’ve reduced the points on such things as women’s coats and woollen garments generally and... on men’s suits.’ Does this remind you of anything?

Katy Balls

The green games: the Prime Minister’s big plan to rebrand Britain

It is not unusual for governments to focus on a big event after a period of crisis. In 1951, the Festival of Britain was meant to rejuvenate the country after years of post-war austerity and rationing. The 2012 London Olympics, presided over by Mayor Boris Johnson, supposedly announced the UK’s recovery from recession with a £27 million opening ceremony. But games are intended to be boosterish. A 12-day summit on the environment is not an obvious crowd pleaser. Yet this government is determined to turn COP26, the United Nations Climate Change Conference scheduled to be held in Glasgow in the first two weeks of November, into a great event to put Britain on the map.

Daniel McCarthy

Joe Biden’s party is over

Washington, DC The Democratic party is dying. That may be hard to believe since Democrats control both houses of Congress and won the last presidential election with a record 81 million votes. But the exiguous margins of their hold on the House and Senate, with fewer than 51 per cent of the seats in either chamber, tell another story, as does the desperation of their struggle to abolish the filibuster and federalise election law. Those policy aims are of a piece with dreams of ‘packing’ the Supreme Court with left-liberal justices — and packing the Senate too, by turning tiny Democratic bastions into new states. The left wing of the party even assails the constitutional principle behind the Senate itself, the idea of equal representation of the states.

Ross Clark

Britain is closing its trade gap with the EU

So it was just a blip after all. Remember those huge headlines last month revealing that exports to the EU had plunged by 41 per cent in January, leading frustrated remainers to bleat: we told you so? 'Brexit – the unfolding disaster' tweeted Lord Adonis for one, along with a graph showing the sharp fall in January. Now we have the figures for February, which has been reported rather less loudly, but which show just as strong a rebound. Exports in goods to the EU in February, records Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, were 56 per cent up on those in January. They are still down 11.

Stephen Daisley

Liz Kendall is right – we don’t value social care enough

Sometimes it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it. In politics, it’s more often than not the latter that matters most. Liz Kendall, star of my somewhat unsuccessful 2015 campaign to ‘Make Liz Kendall Labour Leader and Queen of Everything’, has been pilloried online for suggesting care workers would be ‘better off stacking shelves at Morrisons’ given their pay and conditions. Her remarks were pounced upon as proof of snobbery towards supermarket staff, a largely unacknowledged army of key workers during the Covid-19 pandemic. https://twitter.com/leicesterliz/status/1381937874900226054?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw As ever with outrage rampages, the truth is a bit more prosaic.

Wednesday

14 April 2021

Cindy Yu

Will the Greensill scandal hurt Boris?

13 min listen

A civil servant advised Greensill Capital while still working in government, it emerged yesterday evening. Is the scandal hurting Boris Johnson, or just damaging an old rival? Cindy Yu speaks to Katy Balls and the New Statesman's political editor Stephen Bush.

Constantin Eckner

Merkel’s radical lockdown plan could quickly backfire

In its flailing response to the Covid crisis, the German government appears to have finally given up on federalism. Angela Merkel's latest idea is to introduce nationwide ‘emergency brake’ measures to combat rising case numbers, replacing a patchwork system across the 16 federal states. But will it help bring Germany's third wave under control? Legal changes to grant the federal government unprecedented power to enforce coronavirus regulations in all states have been backed by ministers. The final obstacle for the German Infection Protection Act is parliament. If Merkel's plan is approved, it will mark a big change in the way Germany is governed. It will also make it clear that Merkel is increasingly desperate for answers.

Ross Clark

James Dyson isn’t a Brexit hypocrite

He backed Brexit for a wheeze – and then, when he realised that it was actually going to happen and the implications for his business sank in, he fled to Singapore. That, very simply, is the Remainer case against Sir James Dyson. But how does it stand up against reality now that Brexit has happened? In an interview with the BBC, Dyson revealed a little more about his decision, in 2019, to relocate his HQ in Singapore, and why he backed Brexit. Dyson has burned his fingers, but not in the ways which Remainers asserted No, Sir James has not left Britain. His company still employs around 4,000 people here, and moreover, its Wiltshire operation is expanding. Moving the HQ to Singapore, he says, was not a relocation but an expansion into growing markets.

Lloyd Evans

Starmer has ‘dodgy Dave’ to thank for his best ever PMQs

‘Keir today, gone tomorrow.’ The whisper before Easter was that Labour’s troubled leader might not survive until the next election but the spectre of Tory sleaze – which felled John Major’s government – has come to the rescue. Sir Keir started PMQs by alluding to David Cameron’s freelance activities for Greensill Capital. ‘Are the current lobbying rules fit for purpose?’ he asked. Boris tried the ‘nothing to see here’ approach. He wants to smother the controversy by appointing a legal sleuth with a spectacularly dull name, Nigel Boardman, whose findings will be delivered in June. So for the next two months the PM can happily refer every question to ‘the Bored Man Enquiry.’ He’ll enjoy that.

Andrew Foxall and James Rogers

The Kremlin’s strategy to undermine Britain

The past week has seen the war in Ukraine, which has been simmering for the last seven years, once more come to the boil. According to Kiev, Russia has massed as many as 85,000 troops near its border, while Moscow has actively talked-up the possibility of full-scale war and warned that it ‘would mean the beginning of Ukraine’s end’. Is such a war likely? You can forgive Kiev for worrying so — Vladimir Putin is already getting his excuses ready. The Kremlin claims to have an obligation to protect the residents of the Donbass if tensions continue to rise (just like it claimed to have an obligation to the residents of Crimea, in 2014, prior to annexing the peninsula).

Kristina Murkett

Locked-down students are paying a heavy price

Students are the forgotten victims of lockdown. Having worked hard to achieve their grades, undergraduates have been consigned to their bedrooms to learn online. There's been no socialising, freshers fun or the chance to make new friends. The only thing that has been the same for the Covid class of 2021 are sky high fees. Finally, the government has announced that all university students will be able to return from the 17 May. While some undergraduates may be relieved to get some much-needed clarity, most will be deeply, deeply frustrated. Many students are asking why universities did not open again when schools did.

Steerpike

Trudeau claims Britain faces ‘very serious third wave’

Steerpike was surprised to learn this morning that the UK is facing a 'very serious third wave' – not from the newspapers or an ashen faced epidemiologist but rather the unlikely form of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Amid calls in Canada to loosen lockdown restrictions, the embattled leader referenced Britain in his parliament yesterday as an example as to why there should not be faster liberalisation. Sporting a hideous beard, the premier best known for ethics scandals and blackface pictures told members of the Canadian House of Commons: I think it's really important that we work from facts and understanding of the science around things.

Steerpike

The remorseless rise of Jeffrey Archer’s mafia

Much ink was spilled during the Cameron years about CCHQ's A-list efforts to get more top talent from a range of diverse backgrounds into the Tory parliamentary party. But now it belatedly transpires one man foresaw the future and was nursing his own crop of rising stars before it was fashionable – onetime MP turned novelist Jeffrey Archer. The octogenarian author popped up on Times Radio on Sunday to offer his thoughts on the issues of the day. Mr S was interested to hear Archer telling host Gloria De Piero that no less than six of the members of the organising committee of his 2000 London mayoral bid – which ended somewhat ignominiously after he was accused and then convicted of perjury – are now leading Tory MPs.

Simon Wood

Covid and the lockdown effect: a look at the evidence

What forces Covid into reverse? To many, the obvious answer is lockdown. Cases were surging right up until the start of the three lockdowns, we’re told. It’s often said that all else failed. The Prime Minister said on Tuesday that lockdown, far more than vaccines, explains the fall in hospitalisations, deaths and infections. But how sure are we that only lockdown caused these falls — in the first, second and third wave? Or were other interventions, plus people’s spontaneous reactions to rising cases, enough to get R below one? In a peer-reviewed paper now published in Biometrics, I find that, in all three cases, Covid-19 levels were probably falling before lockdown.

Nick Tyrone

Will Boris the liberal ever return?

During his time in City Hall, Boris Johnson managed to be all things to all people. He called for an amnesty for 400,000 illegal immigrants. He backed the London living wage but also managed to keep the City happy. His opponents on the left found it difficult to attack him as a result. But if his success back then was a result of his liberal tendencies and his ability to be 'carefree', the pandemic appears to have changed Boris's political convictions. He could pay a big price if he fails to find his old self again. As Prime Minister, Boris's liberal side has barely reared its head.

Steerpike

Claudia Webbe calls for her own abolition

Pity the poor people of Leicester East. Having only got just rid of the scandal plagued Keith Vaz at the last election, long suffering constituents there have now found themselves lumped with his replacement Claudia Webbe. The latter was suspended as a Labour MP after just nine months following allegations of harassment, with her trial beginning last month. A former Ken Livingstone apparatchik, Webbe has a penchant for demonstrably untrue tweets such as her claim a fortnight ago that the colonisation of Africa had been ‘hidden from you all your life’ when it has in fact been a staple of the national curriculum for key stage 3 for years.

Tuesday

13 April 2021

Cindy Yu

Why is Boris talking down vaccines?

10 min listen

Boris Johnson today said that the fall in coronavirus hospitalisations and deaths 'has not been achieved by the vaccination programme'. After pubs, restaurants and shops reopened yesterday, why is the PM talking down vaccines? Cindy Yu speaks to Katy Balls and Isabel Hardman.

Kate Andrews

Is the UK taking advantage of its vaccine success?

UK GDP ever so slightly edged up in February, growing 0.4 per cent according to today’s update from the Office for National Statistics. No surprises here: there were no changes to lockdown restrictions between January and February, which gave the economy little room for manoeuvre. The ONS has revised January’s GDP fall from 2.9 to 2.2 per cent: still a contraction, but another good indicator that businesses have significantly adapted to lockdown rules, which has meant that this winter’s lockdown didn’t plunge GDP down to record levels as it did last spring.

Bruce Anderson

David Cameron has done nothing wrong

To paraphrase the old adage, truth can still be pulling on its boots when a misconception is already half way around the world. This is what has happened over the David Cameron/ Greensill affair. There is only one antidote to that: the facts. David Cameron's statement sets these out clearly. There is to be an inquiry, which is likely to recommend procedural changes. It should also become clear that Cameron has nothing to fear from what has happened. To see why, it's first worth delving back to 2010, when the Tories had just returned to office. In the early days of the coalition government, there was much discussion about the future of the civil service.