Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Monday

James Forsyth

How did an enigma like Theresa May become PM?

Theresa May is not the easiest person to speak to in Westminster. She is reluctant to get drawn into a conversation unless she knows what the outcome of it is going to be. But it is still surprising to find the lengths that her colleagues had to go to, to get an understanding of what she wanted to do as Prime Minister. In an interview with Britain in a Changing Europe, Gavin Barwell recalls going to see her after the 2017 election – which had seen May lose her majority and Barwell his seat. In an attempt to reset her premiership, May had invited him to be her chief of staff. So, he travelled to her constituency home to see her. But the talk hardly flowed, he says: You can imagine, knowing Theresa, that was not an easy conversation to have initially.

Katy Balls

Is Boris Johnson opening the way for vaccine passports?

The government's position on vaccine passports is a cause of continuing intrigue. Although Downing Street has insisted on several occasions that they will not be brought in domestically, there have been several statements that suggest otherwise. As well as looking at vaccine passports for international transport, Dominic Raab appeared to at least entertain the idea of vaccine certification when it comes to reopening hospitality. Speaking at Monday's press conference, Boris Johnson sought once again to offer assurances on the issue. Rather than domestic vaccine passports, he said that in terms of reopening the economy, mass vaccination and testing would be the go-to mechanisms.

Katy Balls

Boris Johnson hints at Covid exit strategy

What will the government's roadmap out of lockdown look like? That's a question being asked frequently as ministers get to work on a plan for easing restrictions. Given that Boris Johnson isn't due to announce the details until next Monday, it's a moving picture — with new data continuing to inform the proposals. Speculation aside, the Prime Minister spoke in a broadcast interview today over his strategy for easing the lockdown.  Johnson said that he would be pushing for a 'cautious but irreversible' approach — in the hope that a cautious approach would mean that a fourth lockdown was avoided.

Matthew Lynn

Biden’s rift with Brussels is only set to grow

It was meant to be a special relationship. After the tumultuous Trump years, President Biden was planning to reset relations with the European Union, Inherently liberal, rules-based, and engaged with climate change, it would be a natural ally, and far more so than a UK still tainted by Brexit. The Biden team were no doubt looking forward to working closely with officials in Brussels, Paris, and Berlin to repair the damage of the last four years and put the world on a more rational course.  But hold on. It is not going according to plan. There are already reports that the White House is growing increasingly frustrated with the EU. And in truth, that rift is only going to get wider and wider in the months to come.

Patrick O’Flynn

Labour’s revealing support for reparations

The most extreme measure in the entire Labour Party manifesto of 2019 – and this is a high bar – was a pledge that Keir Starmer ought to have disavowed explicitly on day one of becoming leader. It committed a future Labour government to ‘conduct an audit of the impact of Britain’s colonial legacy to understand our contribution to the dynamics of violence and insecurity across regions previously under British colonial rule.’ This planned wallowing in national self-abasement was, to my mind, clearly conceived as a precursor to a demand for the payment of reparations by Britain for the excesses of empire.

Steerpike

The view from Brussels: EU vaccine rollout better than Britain’s

Boris Johnson may have just hit his target of 15 million vaccines to the top four priority groups two days early but don't get ahead of yourself and mistake that for success. Just as ministers begin to pat themselves on the back over a rare government success story in the UK's vaccination programme, the Grauniad has published an article attempting to offer an explainer as to why things are not as they seem. While EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen is under fire from all sides over the bloc's sluggish vaccine rollout, Jean Quatremer — the Brussels correspondent of the French daily Libération — has penned a piece entitled 'Brexit Britain's victory over the EU on Covid vaccination is not what it seems'.

Nick Tyrone

Mandelson’s return is a sign of Labour’s problems

It is instructive that, faced with his first wobbles as leader of the opposition, the person Keir Starmer has reached for is Peter Mandelson. From the sounds of things, Mandelson is working with Starmer’s team on communications and strategy. I certainly don’t think this is a bad idea by Starmer, at least as far as recent Labour party appointees go, but I can’t help but feel that Mandelson’s return to the top says a lot about Labour’s problems, how they got into their current mess and where those issues might lead the party from here. Part of the problem is that the Labour party has been hollowed out talent-wise.

Steerpike

Hancock’s vaccine passport confusion

Will they, won't they? Only yesterday the Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab was saying vaccine passports were 'under consideration' — going directly against what Nadim Zahawi said just days before when he ruled out vaccine passports as discriminatory and un-British.  Raab was clear that the UK was looking at both domestic and foreign passports: that as well as looking at the possibility of their use for flights and international travel, the British government is also investigating whether such a document could be used for vaccinated individuals wanting to go into a restaurant or visit the supermarket.  So what does Matt Hancock have to say on the subject?

Joanna Rossiter

Bezos vs Musk: who will win the new space race?

While the West gets itself into a lather on a weekly basis about the evils of past colonialism is anyone paying attention to the new empire builders in our midst? Although their ideas for space travel often read like the pages of an Arthur C Clark novel, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk have done little to disguise the colonising instincts of their space projects. Both have outlined competing intentions to mine the moon and put humans on Mars. And, with Bezos stepping down from Amazon to devote more time to his space venture Blue Origin, we could be witnessing the beginnings of a galactic power struggle - executed not by States but by corporations. Bezos and Musk are far from the only billionaires to follow this route.

Sunday

Katy Balls

Boris hits vaccine target – what happens next?

The government has good news to shout about on Sunday with ministers reaching their target of offering a first dose vaccine to the top four priority groups. In total, 15 million first injections have been offered to the most vulnerable in society. This is two days ahead of the government's target.  Announcing the news, Boris Johnson said 'we have reached a significant milestone in the United Kingdom’s national vaccination programme'. So far the programme has exceeded expectations with the UK one of the fastest countries in the world on vaccinations. This is down to a number of factors including a lot of work on manufacturing and supply chains which took place last year.  The mood music coming from No.

Steerpike

Vaccine passports for internal use are ‘under consideration’, says Raab

Only last week, vaccine minister Nadhim Zahawi assured us that the government is not looking at vaccine passports as they would be discriminatory and un-British. So imagine Mr S’s astonishment when Dominic Raab admitted that they are indeed being considered in Britain - for internal and external use. When asked on LBC whether a domestic vaccine passport – ‘where you have to show a bit of paper to go into a supermarket’ – could be brought in, Raab confirmed: ‘It’s something that hasn’t been ruled out and is under consideration, but of course you’ve got to make it workable.

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows roundup: No. 10 won’t set an ‘arbitrary target’ for lifting lockdown

With the vaccine rollout exceeding expectations, the government now faces pressure from its own side of the House to lift the current lockdown as fast as possible. The Covid Recovery Group, chaired by the former chief whip Mark Harper, has sent a letter to the PM which has been endorsed by 63 MPs calling for all restrictions to be lifted after the nine designated vulnerable groups have received their vaccines - which is forecast for the end of April. Appearing on Sophy Ridge on Sunday, foreign secretary Dominic Raab set out the government's position: https://twitter.com/RidgeOnSunday/status/1360875916268892162?

Tim Lang

The missing ingredient: Brexit Britain’s food problems

The announcement of the Brexit deal at the end of 2020 alleviated concerns over food supplies to the relief of many, not least the government. But while it is clear that food will continue to appear on shop shelves, what has been less clear, however, is how we want to feed ourselves now that we are no longer confined by European Union membership. It has been three years since Michael Gove brought Henry Dimbleby into the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to work on food policy. His report in July 2020 urged action on food poverty. But it was sidelined until footballer Marcus Rashford said the same thing. The second report is due this Spring.

Saturday

Kate Andrews

What Trump’s acquittal means for the future of American politics

Former President Donald Trump was acquitted by the Senate today, in what has turned out to be the shortest impeachment trial in American history, after the House of Representatives voted to impeach him last month after the riot at the Capitol building. Despite being the first president impeached twice during his time in office - this time charged with inciting insurrection - the Senate once again failed to secure two-thirds majority to convict him. When Trump was first impeached in 2019, the Senate voted along near-partisan lines - only Utah senator and former presidential candidate Mitt Romney broke party lines.

Andrew Dunlop

Why Boris Johnson must say no to a second Scottish referendum

It’s hard to believe in these early weeks of 2021, when the country is grappling with an unprecedented national health and economic crisis, that anyone could contemplate willingly throwing into the mix a constitutional crisis. Issuing a clarion call to break apart, when it could not be clearer we need to pull together. Yet that appears to be the course on which the SNP Government in Edinburgh is set with its 11-point plan for independence. For the UK Government to reject a demand to hold any time soon another referendum on Scottish independence is not, as Nicola Sturgeon would have it, 'a denial of democracy'; it’s plain common-sense and the responsible thing to do.

Patrick O’Flynn

Labour’s lightweight shadow cabinet

Being at the launch of the 1997 Labour manifesto and watching the shadow cabinet take to the stage is one of my abiding memories from more than 20 years spent as a lobby journalist. Even setting aside the star-turn Tony Blair, it was a veritable march of the big beasts — Gordon Brown, Robin Cook, Jack Straw, David Blunkett, John Prescott, Mo Mowlam. All of these people were major players with large followings and massive public profiles. The less central figures also passed muster, including George Robertson (later a fine Nato secretary general), the ever-popular Donald Dewar, the clever and well-spoken Alistair Darling, suave Jack Cunningham, Margaret Beckett and Ann Taylor — solid contributors both — and that happy bruiser Frank Dobson.

Friday

Stephen Daisley

Will we ever get to the truth in the Salmond inquiry?

The Spectator’s legal action in the Alex Salmond affair has prompted the Holyrood inquiry to rethink its approach. The magazine went to court to argue the media’s right to publish and the public’s right to read evidence from Salmond which the inquiry is refusing to publish.  A redacted version has already appeared on The Spectator website. Lady Dorrian agreed yesterday to amend an order against reporting information relating to the criminal trial against Salmond, which cleared him of 13 charges of sexual assault. The Sturgeon government’s separate sexual harassment probe into the former First Minister has previously been ruled ‘unlawful’ and ‘tainted by apparent bias’ by a Scottish court.