Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Wednesday

Ross Clark

Why is the UK copying the EU’s failed agricultural policy?

With the UK looking likely to exit transition in December without a trade deal, there has been plenty of coverage of what life outside the bloc will mean for Britain. There has been rather less coverage of what we have avoided by virtue of having left the EU. Yesterday came one of the first big EU agreements to which the UK has not been party: the latest reform of the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). In typical fashion, it resulted in a fudge engineered by powerful lobbyists and which will guarantee vast sums of public money going to waste. The whole point of the latest round of CAP reform was that it was supposed to shift the emphasis of agricultural subsidies towards looking after the environment.

Calvin Robinson

Kemi Badenoch is right to take on Critical Race Theory

Schools have a responsibility to maintain political neutrality. The Education Act (1996) states that governors and head teachers have a duty to secure balanced treatment of political ideas. The Teachers’ Standards says ‘teachers uphold public trust in the profession and maintain high standards of ethics and behaviour, within and outside school, by ensuring that personal beliefs are not expressed in ways which exploit pupils’ vulnerability or might lead them to break the law.’ Why, then, have schools been getting away with teaching highly contested political ideas as if they are accepted facts?

Stephen Daisley

Devolutionary theory: How Westminster is killing the Union

Robert Conquest's third law (which may not have been his third law) says that the behaviour of any bureaucratic organisation is most easily explained if one assumes it has been captured by enemy secret agents. This maxim often comes to mind when I read about the UK government’s latest wheeze to ‘save the Union’. Ministers’ new ideas are invariably the same idea they’ve been having for a decade now: devolution has failed, let’s have more of it. The Tories have already transferred more powers to Holyrood twice, in 2012 and 2016, and both times we were assured that doing so would subdue the separatists. And that was the last we heard of the SNP.

Tuesday

Freddy Gray

How reliable are the polls?

18 min listen

The latest polls continue to show Democratic nominee Joe Biden ahead of Donald Trump in crucial swing states. But why could Georgia, which Trump won by more than 5 per cent in 2016, be the most important? Freddy Gray speaks to Marcus Roberts.

Katy Balls

Jonathan Van Tam comes to Boris’s rescue

In this evening's press conference, Boris Johnson confirmed that Greater Manchester is to be placed under Tier 3 despite continuing opposition from local leaders. With the government previously offering £60m for the area in negotiations with metro mayor Andy Burnham – which was rejected as local leaders pushed for £65m – Johnson refused to be drawn on whether that offer of support remained. However, shortly after the press conference ended Downing Street confirmed that the offer was still there.  Had Johnson announced this during the press conference, he would have had an easier time in the Q&A session where the issue was brought up repeatedly.

Theo Davies-Lewis

Mocking the Welsh is still the last permitted bigotry

Even after Wales voted marginally for a form self-government in 1997, there was incredulity that these remnants of Celtic antiquity thought they could look after their own affairs. Wales’ former first minister, Carwyn Jones, recalled what he saw as ‘casual racism’ towards the Welsh that still existed in the early years of devolution: ‘How incredible you Welsh feel that you can govern yourselves! This great experiment of devolution!’, was apparently the reaction of many in Whitehall.  After 20 years of devolution, not much has changed.

John Connolly

Andy Burnham goes down fighting

Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, pledged to continue his fight against the government today, after Number 10 broke off the negotiations with local leaders and suggested the area could be moved into Tier 3 without their consent. The talks collapsed this afternoon, after housing and local government Secretary Robert Jenrick expressed his ‘disappointment that despite recognising the gravity of the situation, the mayor has been unwilling to take the action that is required to get the spread of the virus under control in Greater Manchester and reach an agreement with the government.’ Jenrick has therefore ‘advised the Prime Minister that these discussions have concluded without an agreement’.

Katy Balls

Will coronavirus overwhelm Manchester’s hospitals?

12 min listen

While the government has failed to strike a deal with Greater Manchester authorities to put the region into tier three, the Prime Minister is expected to announce an imposition of the restrictions in a press conference later today. But will coronavirus overwhelm Manchester's hospitals? Katy Balls speaks to Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth.

Freddy Gray

The Hunter Biden story isn’t going away

It’s the election equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting ‘LA-LA-LA-LA’. Joe Biden keeps ignoring questions about his possible role in the business dealings of his shady son. He keeps losing his temper with reporters who dare to insist that he has an obligation to answer legitimate public concerns. Most of the media, which supports Biden, can keep insisting that the New York Post’s big Hunter story is a dud, and publishing endless malicious snark about how shabby the paper’s standards are. Twitter and Facebook can keep insisting that they were obliged, according to their own codes of practice, to stop the story circulating online, even though we all know those standards are applied with ridiculous inconsistency.

Nick Tyrone

Diane Abbott has revealed Labour’s biggest political problem

Peter Mandelson said just before the 2001 general election, that ‘no politician would declare that they were “against” ambition’. And yet, that’s what Diane Abbott did on Newsnight yesterday evening. In an interview with Lewis Goodall, she spoke about Keir Starmer and the time she shared with him in Corbyn’s shadow cabinet. Asked about his evident desire to become Labour leader, Abbott replied, ‘Keir Starmer’s ambition is fairly apparent’, with ‘ambition’ said in an accusatory way, as if having such a thing was an obviously bad thing. ‘I blame his mother for calling him Keir’, the former shadow home secretary added at another point in the interview.

Isabel Hardman

Burnham’s war won’t end any time soon

Who will win in the stand-off between Downing Street and Greater Manchester leaders over Covid restrictions? At first glance, it seems as though central government will inevitably emerge victorious, given ministers have the power to unilaterally impose tier-three restrictions on the area. Last night Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick threatened to do just that, saying:  There are now more Covid-19 patients in Greater Manchester hospitals than in the whole of the South West and South East combined. But, unfortunately, despite recognising the gravity of the situation, local leaders have been so far unwilling to take the action that is required to get this situation under control.

Steerpike

Watch: Diane Abbott takes on Starmer

Corbynite ultra Diane Abbott has given an interview to Newsnight in which she denounces Labour leader Keir Starmer in her own particular, Abbott-esque way. Starmer's problem? Ambition. Oh, and also being named 'Keir' by his mother.  In reality, this is just a return to form for Diane. Her political career has been defined by the struggle against the prevailing Labour leader — that is, every leadership except Jeremy's.  https://twitter.com/BBCNewsnight/status/1318261069048139777?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw Her criticisms come hot on the heels of reports that the Corbynite rump of the parliamentary Labour party are forming their own socialist ERG to take on Starmer. Hear that? That's the sound of harmony being restored...

Martin Howe KC

Why Boris should reject this Brexit deal

Boris Johnson says the EU has refused to negotiate seriously with the UK for the last few months, and time has now run out for reaching a trade agreement before 31 December when the current transition period ends. The PM has been pressing the EU for a free-trade agreement comparable to Canada’s deal with the EU (CETA). He is right to say that what the EU is offering the UK is inferior to CETA, despite the UK’s close relationship with the EU for the last 45 years which should, if anything, lead to a better deal.

Monday

Katy Balls

No. 10: EU must go further to restart Brexit talks

The government's negotiations with the EU appear to be going a little better than their talks with Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham. While there is yet to an agreement on moving Greater Manchester into Tier 3, there has been a development on Brexit. On Friday, the Prime Minister used a video clip to warn the country to prepare for no deal. He complained that EU intransigence meant that unless there was a shift from Brussels, there was little point continuing the trade talks. Michel Barnier's offer to come to the UK this week was declined and Michael Gove toured the television studios on Sunday insisting the UK is willing to go it alone if necessary.  Now Barnier has moved — if not the whole way.

Steerpike

Watch: Theresa May glares at Michael Gove

It can be a hard task adjusting to life on the backbenches after leaving front-line politics. One minute you’re running the country, the next you’re being batted away by busy ministers. Former Prime Minister Theresa May appeared to learn that lesson this afternoon in the Commons, when submitting a question on Brexit to Michael Gove. May was quizzing the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster on security arrangements after Britain leaves the EU and wanted to make sure the UK is still able to access European police databases in the event of no deal. But the former PM appeared less than pleased with Gove’s response, when he suggested that we could police our borders more effectively outside of the EU. A glowering May could even be spotted mouthing ‘What?

Brendan O’Neill

Why are bishops meddling in the Internal Market Bill?

What century is it? I ask because, this morning, the five most senior bishops in the country publicly rebuked our democratically elected government and effectively called on the unelected peers of the House of Lords to rebel against a Bill passed by the House of Commons. Bishops throwing their spiritual weight around to try to force political representatives to change course? I feel like I’ve just stepped out of a time machine into the 15th century. In a letter published in the Financial Times today, the Archbishops of Canterbury, York, Wales and Armagh, as well as the Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, laid into the Internal Market Bill. As the Bill arrives in the Lords to be pored over by people none of us voted for — the madness of it!

Cindy Yu

What will break the Manchester deadlock?

14 min listen

The government is today expected to announce whether Greater Manchester will be placed into a tier three lockdown after negotiations with Andy Burnham continued over the weekend. Why have the talks been so protracted? Does the Mayor disagree with lockdown, or simply want more financial support? Cindy Yu speaks to James Forsyth and Katy Balls.

James Forsyth

Will the Welsh ‘firebreak’ be successful?

Wales’s introduction of a two week so-called Covid ‘firebreak’ is the most dramatic divergence between the UK nations yet. The ‘firebreak’, which will see people told to stay home and non-essential retail and hospitality closed, will give us some sense of how effective or not the ‘circuit-break’ that Sage proposed would have been. The ‘firebreak’ is strict. People will be banned from meeting people from other households indoors and out, senior years at secondary school will not return to the classroom after half-term, and places of worship will be closed for everything other than funerals. The new rules will undoubtedly cause social and economic harms.

Robert Peston

Is Boris Johnson ready to blow up a free trade deal?

As far as I can gather, the EU has only one genuinely non-negotiable red line that could prevent a resumption of talks on a free trade agreement with the UK – which will be made clear by its negotiator Michel Barnier in a telephone call on Monday with the UK negotiator David Frost. Barnier and the EU are insisting the UK adhere to the EU’s framework for limiting subsidies to businesses, what is called ‘state aid’, and there should be a UK enforcement mechanism for those state aid rules. The prime minister, counselled on this issue by Dominic Cummings, has been saying this is unacceptable because: 1) Boris Johnson wants the freedom to subsidise as much or as little as he likes.

Katy Balls

Andy Burnham vs No. 10

Is Greater Manchester about to go into tier three restrictions? That's the hope in government following a week of negotiations, a war of words playing out in the media and internal Tory division. Metro mayor Andy Burnham — known in some parts of the internet as the 'king of the north' — has been resisting pressure from No. 10 to move to 'very high risk', complaining that the financial support is lacking. There is a determination in No. 10 to stick with the localised approach rather than move — as Burnham and Keir Starmer have suggested — to nationwide measures. To do that, the government is now offering extra funding and there's a sense in Whitehall that the situation could be resolved sooner rather than later.