Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Wednesday

Stephen Daisley

Who will hold the SNP to account?

Everyone forgets the third article of impeachment. The charge sheet against Richard Nixon, adopted by the House judiciary committee following the Watergate burglary and a conspiracy to impede its investigation, famously accused the president, first, of obstruction of justice and, second, of violating citizens’ constitutional rights. Thirteen days later, on August 9, 1974, and with impeachment all but certain, Nixon became the first president to resign the Oval Office. What did for him as much as what could be heard on the Nixon tapes was his refusal to hand them over until forced to by the Supreme Court.

Greg Rosen

A Covid vaccine could be Boris’s ‘Falklands moment’

Keir Starmer’s achievement is remarkable: ten months after Boris Johnson's resounding victory, he has transformed Labour from no-hopers into a force that is terrifying the Tories. As the Conservative tribe prepares to gather for its virtual party conference, the obvious question is whether defeat at the next election is a realistic prospect. The answer, unlike in January 2020 must be: yes. Its likelihood, however, is a different matter.  A wise Tory strategist would be looking at the contrasting elections of 1992 and 1997 and taking note.

Tuesday

Katy Balls

Live at Alternative Conference

28 min listen

The Prime Minister was forced to apologise this afternoon after misstating new lockdown rules brought into force overnight in the North East. Is government incompetence costing it support? In a live episode of Coffee House Shots for The Spectator's Alternative Conference, Katy Balls speaks to Fraser Nelson, James Forsyth and James Johnson, co-founder of polling company JL Partners.

Tim Smith

Boris is right, it’s time to reform adult learning

Forget gender, race, or whether you will or won’t wear a mask in polite company. The biggest dividing line in the UK is education. The new focus on non-university routes could be the healing balm we need. Picking over the pieces after the 2016 referendum, pollsters discovered the single most dramatic split between Leave and Remain voters was education. Britain splintered into two societies: graduates who, by and large, voted Remain and those who tended not to have been to university, who did not. Nancy Mitford’s division of U and non-U language was finally slain by the big U of university. Of course, any splintering involves rough edges rather than perfect splits.

Steerpike

Watch: Boris confused over new lockdown rules

The Prime Minister has never been known as a details man — and he shows no sign of changing his style anytime soon. Boris Johnson was unable to explain the details of his newly announced lockdown rules in North East England. During a Q&A after a speech in Exeter this morning, the PM was asked about the new restrictions but ended up getting himself into a bit of a muddle, telling BBC News that in the North East: 'six people can meet at home, six in hospitality, but not six outside'. For clarity, Mr S would like to point out that, from today, the new rules in the North East prevents households mixing in any indoor setting including hospitality.

Ross Colgan

Steve Baker resumes his role as government tormentor-in-chief

Steve Baker has returned to his former role of government tormentor-in-chief this week, piling pressure on the government over its use of emergency powers on coronavirus.  Speaking at The Spectator's Alternative Conference, Baker criticised documents from the government's Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviours (SPI-B) as 'dreadful'. The papers, published earlier this year, proposed a strategy to use fear as a strategy in coronavirus communications: 'A substantial number of people still do not feel sufficiently personally threatened...personal threat needs to be increased among those who are complacent, using hard-hitting emotional messaging.' In response, Baker said: 'There's this assumption that people can be forced to comply.

Steerpike

BBC threatens to remove stars from social media

Tim Davie has this month taken on the role of BBC director-general in spectacular fashion, announcing plans today for auntie to be given the authority to strip its stars of their Twitter accounts if they breach impartiality guidelines. This will no doubt come as a shock to some. Gary Lineker, a staunch Boris Johnson critic, has been regularly chastised for voicing political beliefs on Twitter, which he also uses to promote his work on the BBC. Mr Davie, told the House of Commons Culture Committee today: ‘In my view party political statements are not the right thing for people to be making if they are part of an impartial news organisation.

Katy Balls

NHS chief warns against ‘age-based apartheid’ in coronavirus response

When Boris Johnson addressed the nation last week to give an update on his coronavirus strategy, the Prime Minister offered a rebuke of the idea put forward by some Tory MPs and scientists that vulnerable groups ought to be shielded and the rest of the population allowed to live close to normal lives. He argued that suggestions the vulnerable could simply shield were misguided, as it was likely the virus would still reach these groups. Now he has won backing from NHS chief Sir Simon Stevens. Speaking at The Spectator's alternative conference, the NHS's chief executive officer said 'we are not going to have aged-based apartheid across this country'.

Monday

Isabel Hardman

MPs can no longer stomach government by decree

Monday night's Commons debate showed the extent of Tory backbench frustration with ministers over their refusal to consult parliament on increasing coronavirus restrictions. But it also showed that the situation isn’t beyond repair. MPs were blunt in their criticism of the government but were also polite and clearly keen to avoid a stand-off. Parliamentarians just want the government to move to a new phase of managing the pandemic; one involving greater scrutiny.  Almost everyone who spoke in the debate took care to praise ministers for dealing with an unspeakably difficult situation.

Katy Balls

Is No. 10 about to move on the Brady amendment?

Is the government heading for a Commons defeat on its coronavirus powers? Judging from the speeches on the Tory benches in the chamber this afternoon, things are not looking particularly promising for Boris Johnson. Desmond Swayne used the debate to ask whether the Prime Minister has been abducted by Dr Strangelove and reprogrammed by Sage while Lucy Allan argued science is often just as much about opinion as politics.  Coffee House understands that those behind the amendment believe support is closer to 80 The critical conversations, however, have been going on out of sight.

Matthew Lynn

Why is Jamie Oliver so against freedom of choice?

It will involve hundreds of hours of haggling over thousands of different products. It will have to pass torturous debates in Congress. And it will have to survive an election cycle or two. There are lots of hurdles in the way of a British trade deal with the United States. But now we have perhaps the greatest obstacle of all. Jamie Oliver doesn’t like it. Fresh from tidying up the collapse of his restaurant chain, and reminding us all how to get through lockdown by rustling up a tasty pasta bake, the chef is back with a new campaign, this time against ‘sub-standard’ American food. There is a problem, however. There is a very simple solution to the different ways food is produced on either side of the Atlantic.

Stephen Daisley

Inside the SNP’s growing civil war

Peter Murrell is the most powerful man in Scotland but almost no one has heard of him. The SNP chief executive shuns the spotlight but he is one half of Scotland’s ruling class: he is the husband of Nicola Sturgeon. The Sturgeon-Murrell reign has gone largely unchallenged in the ultra-disciplined SNP — but that is changing. The Sunday Times reports that party activists are plotting a vote of no confidence in Murrell at the next SNP conference. The move stems from one of those intricate vendettas in which Scottish politics and the Sicilian mafia specialise. Lanarkshire Labour never went away, it just rebranded with a saltire.

Cindy Yu

Can the government avoid a showdown with Tory backbenchers?

16 min listen

Graham Brady's amendment to give backbenchers a vote over new coronavirus restrictions looks set to pass through the Commons this week, provided it is selected by the Speaker. With the government determined not to give MPs a say, can they avoid a showdown with Tory backbenchers? Cindy Yu speaks to James Forsyth and Katy Balls.

Steerpike

Parliament closes drinking loophole

The Times reports today that parliament’s bars are exempt from the 10 p.m. curfew as well as from mask-wearing on the grounds that they are formally considered ‘workplace canteens' — providing what some see as a legal get out for MPs and Lords hoping to enjoy privileges denied to the rest of the country.  But palace authorities were quick to put a stop to any libationary loopholes. Conservative MP Dehenna Davison shared a statement from the Speaker's Office: https://twitter.com/DehennaDavison/status/1310529750662877185?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw Let's just hope the parliamentary estate isn't about to see scenes similar to those spotted across the country this weekend...

Steerpike

Steve Baker, lord of the rebels

Steve Baker is well-known for his rebellious streak, famously causing Theresa May major problems with her Brexit negotiations. It now appears Baker has found another PM that he can rail against. Speaking to Ross Kempsell this morning on Times Radio, the MP for Wycombe said: People have got a great deal of faith in Boris Johnson. But I’ll push the boat out — many of us will have seen Lord of the Rings, and there is a scene in Lord of the Rings where Theoden the king is under the spell of his advisors. And he has to be woken up from that spell. When he wakes up from that spell, joy comes to pass in the kingdom. And I’m afraid, at the moment, somebody needs to wake Theoden from his slumber. And when Theoden awakes, and I mean Boris, everything will come right.

Nick Tyrone

Laurence Fox’s party is doomed to fail

It was only a matter of time, in retrospect. There is a new political party in town. This one is called Reclaim and is the brainchild of the actor and singer Laurence Fox. I’m sure all of you know who Fox is already, but if not, here’s a refresher: earlier this year, Fox went on BBC Question Time. While on the programme he said some fairly innocuous things that for some strange reason blew up into a new battleground in the culture wars. Since then, Fox has become something of a hero to a certain segment of social media while being demonised by another. He’s now decided to start a ‘new political movement which promises to make our future a shared endeavour, not a divisive one’.

Alastair Stewart

Impartiality and the battle for broadcast

Two big kites were launched by the Sunday Times that could, should they fly, redraw the broadcasting landscape. ‘BBC critics set for top jobs in broadcasting’ its front-page headline announced. The Prime Minister, it suggested, has offered Lord Charles Moore the chairmanship of the BBC and Paul Dacre, the chairmanship of the media regulator Ofcom. Both are former editors of newspapers of the right and neither has much love for what the BBC has become. For some, it is simply an obscene Tory stitch-up. The former Guardian editor, Alan Rusbridger, was perhaps the most succinct: ‘No process. No joke. This is what an oligarchy looks like.

Sunday

Lloyd Evans

Inside the anti-lockdown rally

The anti-lockdown rally at Trafalgar Square was organised by Save Our Rights UK. This embryonic organisation is so new that its website only has a single page. And it seems inexperienced at staging large demos. The amplification on a windy day needed to be cranked up to the max but the sound was inaudible from many parts of the square. Dozens of protesters were parading hand-made placards – which is standard practice at a rally – but the slogans were unusually aphoristic and politically astute: ‘Quarantine is locking up the sick. Despotism is locking up the healthy.’ ‘Compliance with stupidity is consent to tyranny.’ ‘When dictatorship becomes law, resistance becomes duty.

Steerpike

Charles Moore on BBC reform

Former editor of The Spectator and Daily Telegraph Charles Moore is tipped to become chairman of the BBC. Despite being proactively encouraged to put himself forward for the job of director-general earlier this year, Moore made clear he would not be applying for the role. Firstly, he didn’t think he’d get it, writing in his Spectator notebook that he is ‘not a woman’ with ‘no plans to become one’ and ‘under the BBC’s diversity rules, uniformity of gender is required’. Secondly, the job didn’t appeal. He wrote ‘bureaucracy is the enemy of creativity. The BBC can only be a bureaucracy.

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round-up: Steve Baker says liberty ‘dies like this’ over Coronavirus Act

Steve Baker - Liberty 'dies like this' with 'draconian powers' unchecked The government has come under fire from its own side this morning as it prepares to renew the Coronavirus Act six months after it was first put into effect. Graham Brady, the chair of the influential 1922 Committee of Conservative backbenchers, is spearheading an amendment to the act which would ensure that Parliament could vote on the emergency measures that ministers wish to take. Steve Baker, the former Brexit minister, gave his reasons for supporting this amendment: https://twitter.com/RidgeOnSunday/status/1310124361563725825?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw SB: I doubt really anyone understands what [the] law is...