Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Wednesday

The Spectator

Our duty to refugees

It is hard to deny that the government must take tough action on the issue of migrants arriving in Britain by small boats. A large proportion of those entering the country are not refugees fleeing danger but young men in search of better economic opportunities. Indeed, the largest increase in arrivals comes from Albania, an EU accession state that is neither at war nor under malign dictatorship. Ferrying such people to Britain is a criminal racket that should not be tolerated. If all ‘irregular’ arrivals are to be classed as illegal, genuine refugees will be unable to apply for asylum But under Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s plan, the Illegal Migration Bill will deport every person who enters the country by what the Home Office used to call ‘irregular’ methods.

Brendan O’Neill

Gary Lineker’s virtue signalling has finally gone too far

The worst thing about Gary Lineker’s intervention in the small boats discussion is not whether he broke BBC rules on impartiality. It’s not that he has, once again, used his privileged platform – one largely funded by us! – to spout dinner-party platitudes about the evil Tories. No, it was his political use and abuse of the crimes of history, his marshalling of the evils of Nazi Germany to score some political points against the Conservative government. It amazes me that people like Lineker cannot seem to see how immoral and even dangerous such tactics can be. The Match of the Day host turned tiresome virtue-signaller kicked off about Suella Braverman on Twitter yesterday.

Katy Balls

Why small boats are a big election issue

Rishi Sunak started the year with a speech announcing his five priorities. That was quickly followed by Keir Starmer, who sought to outbid him with five missions of his own. The Labour aim was to show more ambition: whereas the Prime Minister just wanted to get the ‘economy growing’, Starmer promised the fastest growth in the G7. This tactic has not had much resonance outside Westminster: a poll for The Spectator found that voters struggled to identify whose pledge was whose. There was, however, one exception: Sunak’s promise to ‘stop small boats’. Both Sunak and his Home Secretary see the virtue of a migration fight with Labour It’s one of the few issues on which voters see a real distinction between the two parties and what they would do.

Isabel Hardman

Sunak fends off Starmer’s attacks on illegal migration

Keir Starmer decided that attack was the best form of defence at Prime Minister's Questions. He tackled Rishi Sunak's flagship 'stop the boats' policy on the basis that it simply won't work. The Labour leader started his attack by linking International Women's Day with what he claimed was the government driving a 'coach and horses' through its own anti-slavery legislation, which in particular protects women. He said the government had introduced five immigration reforms, all of which had failed, adding: 'The Home Secretary says the public are sick of tough talk and inadequate action. Does he agree with her assessment of this government's record?

George Osborne

My memories of Matt Hancock

‘You could be the next Ed Balls.’ That’s what I told a doe-eyed Bank of England official called Matthew Hancock when I was introduced to him at a drinks party 18 years ago. I needed a fiercely intelligent, hard-working, exuberant aide who could help me as shadow chancellor – just as Ed had been the brains behind Gordon Brown. As you can all see from the leaked WhatsApp messages, we’ve been in touch ever since. When I tell this story now to Matt and Ed, they’re both offended by the comparison. I guess these reality TV stars are hard to handle. It’s not the first time messages meant only to be seen by Matt have gone astray.

James Heale

How much longer can Simon Case cling on?

When Simon Case was named as cabinet secretary in September 2020 he became, at the age of 41, the youngest appointee in more than 100 years. He will probably earn another distinction soon: the youngest ex-cabinet secretary in history. In Westminster, some say his departure is a question of when not if. Should he go this year, to allow a successor time to bed in, or wait until after the next election? Case arrived at No. 10 in the middle of a pandemic, having never run a government department but boasting a PhD on Whitehall machinery written under the supervision of Peter Hennessy, Britain’s foremost living political historian and exponent of the ‘good chap’ theory of government.

Rod Liddle

What I make of Sue Gray

I am at a bit of a loss to understand the hoo-ha about the civil servant Sue Gray. She has been offered the role of Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, and many Tories suggest this implies that her investigation into those Downing Street parties may not have been wholly neutral. Where have these Tories been living for the past three decades? Of course it wasn’t wholly neutral. Almost the entire civil service – certainly in Westminster – loathes the Conservative party. Its members are, instead, hip and interminably liberal internationalist social-justice warriors. Sue Gray is probably among the moderates.

Andrew Roberts

The Lockdown Files are a historian’s dream

For all that the Lockdown Files, as reported in the Telegraph, sometimes read like the screenplay of The Thick of It, they will be a wonderful resource for historians. Whatever one thinks of the morality of Isabel Oakeshott’s actions vis-à-vis Matt Hancock, we now have 2.3 million words of WhatsApp messages that offer a rare psychological profile of ministers acting with emergency powers in a swiftly unfolding global crisis.

Cindy Yu

Who will salvage China’s spiralling relationship with the US?

When China’s ambassador to Washington, the bookish-looking old hand Qin Gang, was appointed to be China’s next foreign minister in December, a flurry of reporting pondered whether this was an end to Beijing’s wolf warrior diplomacy. After all, Qin wasn’t the uppity sort of Chinese spokesperson who found infamy on social media (like Zhao Lijian); westerners who’ve worked with him say that he is cordial and constructive. Any speculation on that front can now be resolutely put to bed. In his first press conference as foreign minister this week, Qin showed plenty of steel.

Toby Young

Why I admire Isabel Oakeshott

I’ve been gripped by the Telegraph’s Lockdown Files. The 100,000 WhatsApp messages on Matt Hancock’s phone, handed to the paper by the journalist Isabel Oakeshott, contain an embarrassment of riches. For those who thought the curtailment of our liberties between March 2020 and July 2021 was justified by ‘the science’, these exchanges will be an eye-opener. Most senior journalists are more outraged by Oakeshott’s behaviour than by the revelations The former health secretary and others were not so much ‘following the science’ as doing their best to milk the crisis for favourable press coverage and career advancement, often with no attempt to conceal their indifference to the suffering that their ‘containment measures’ were causing.

Peter Pomerantsev

My case against Russia’s war criminals

Lviv My favourite hotels in Lviv were all booked out over the weekend. The world’s justice elite were in town for a gathering on how to hold Russia accountable for its crimes. The US Attorney General and the Chief Prosecutor from The Hague, as well as President Volodymyr Zelensky, were there. It was an apposite location. In the early 20th century Lviv was home to the lawyers Raphael Lemkin and Hersch Lauterpacht, who later gave us a language to define modern evil by coming up with the concepts of ‘genocide’ and ‘crimes against humanity’ respectively.

Kevin Toolis

A schism in Ulster is inevitable

The fate of the Stormont Assembly, and a Brexit resolution of a kind, now rests on the uncharismatic shoulders of DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson and his judgment call on the Windsor Framework. If Donaldson declares the abstruse new EU trading arrangements on the enhanced flow of chilled meats to Ulster a victory, then Stormont will re-start and the usual divisive politics of Northern Ireland begin again. If he goes for the treachery button, then the long campaign in the wilderness against the perfidious and varied enemies of Ulster will go on – much to the consternation of Downing Street. As closed as the Kremlin, it is never easy to forecast the DUP's future intentions.

Steerpike

Watch: Kate Forbes attacks Humza Yousaf

Ding ding ding! The gloves were off last night as Kate Forbes, Humza Yousaf and Ash Regan entered the ring, for the first televised debate in the SNP leadership contest. In the end the debate wasn’t pretty, with Kate Forbes going for Humza Yousaf. In the cross-examination section of the debate Forbes launched into a scathing attack on Humza’s track record. ‘When you were a transport minister the trains were never on time. When you were justice minister the police were strained to breaking point. And now as health minister, we've got record high waiting times. What makes you think you can do a better job as first minister?

Steerpike

Is Suella’s migration plan legal?

A typically robust performance by Suella Braverman on Radio 4 this morning. The Home Secretary defended her plans to clamp down on small boat crossings, telling the Today programme that We are within the boundaries of the law but we are trying new arguments, we are testing novel interpretations of the law. But we do not consider that we have crossed that boundary and we do not consider that we are in unlawful territory — we very strongly view our proposals as lawful.

Nigel Jones

Gary Lineker’s offensive Nazi Germany comparison

When a prominent left-wing celebrity wants to attack a conservative person or policy they very often make a comparison with Hitler’s Germany or his Nazi party. The latest person to draw this invidious, ignorant and downright offensive parallel with the gold standard of political evil is the former footballer turned Match of the Day BBC commentator Gary Lineker. Presumably, the star has calculated that his fame and popularity with football fans make him unsackable In Tweets attacking the government’s new Bill attempting to crack down on illegal migrants crossing the Channel, Lineker said that it was an ‘immeasurably cruel’ policy that was ‘beyond awful’ and that it used language directed at the migrants ‘not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s’.

Lucy Dunn

The SNP is beginning to tear itself apart

You could be excused for not expecting much from the first TV broadcast of the SNP leadership race. The hustings have so far remained civil and their content relatively repetitive. Everyone’s been very nice and, as recently as last Friday, even spent valuable time politely discussing their opponents’ best qualities. So last night's fiery debate was an unexpected, yet welcome, surprise. All smiles from the start, the discussion fast faded into a venomous clash — a first in the contest, but also for today's SNP. For Kate Forbes especially, the gloves came off. ‘More of the same,’ Forbes announced during her introductory speech, ‘is not a manifesto. It’s an acceptance of mediocrity. We can do better.

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

Does Sunak have enough time to stop the boats?

Rishi Sunak has just finished a press conference on his flagship legislation to curb illegal crossings in the Channel. The Prime Minister said the legislation would enable him to ‘keep my promise’ to the public to stop the boats and that it would ‘break the business model of the people smugglers’. He said ‘this is tough, but it is necessary and it is fair’. Sunak set ‘stop the boats’ as one of his five priorities at the start of this year, and they are emblazoned across every press release from Downing Street. This evening, that pledge was also on his lectern in the No. 10 briefing room. He insisted that he was confident that he could deliver on this promise in time for the next election, otherwise he wouldn’t have made it a priority. He must be very confident.

Kate Andrews

Two problems with Rachel Reeves’s bid to woo businesses

Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves has promised to tackle what businesses tend to fear the most: instability. ‘In recent years, corporation tax has gone up and down like a yo-yo, while the government has papered over the cracks with short-term fixes like the super-deduction,’ Reeves told the manufacturing group Make UK's annual conference this morning. Under a Labour government, she pledged, there will be a clear ‘roadmap for tax which lasts over a parliament’. Reeves said this would give business leaders a better sense of what to expect, hopefully creating an atmosphere for investment. Promising a review also puts pressure on Reeves to come up with answers to some of the biggest tax frustrations Reeves is on a mission to lure the business community over to Labour.

Katy Balls

The Illegal Migration Bill will define the next election

The government’s Illegal Migration Bill is finally here. Speaking in the House of Commons on Tuesday lunchtime, the Home Secretary unveiled plans to swiftly remove nearly everyone who arrives in the UK via small boats. Suella Braverman said the legislation was necessary as the current asylum laws are not ‘fit for purpose’ adding that public patience ‘has run out’ among the ‘law-abiding patriotic majority’. So, what powers does the new bill grant the government? First, it includes a legal duty on the home secretary to detain and remove those who arrive illegally. The government, too, will have the power to detain asylum seekers for up to 28 days ‘without bail or judicial review until they can be removed’ making it harder for legal challenges.

Katy Balls

Is time running out for Simon Case?

Is Simon Case on borrowed time? That’s the talk in Whitehall today following reports that the embattled Cabinet Secretary is considering an early departure from his role. The Financial Times reports that the UK’s most senior civil servant has told friends he is ‘genuinely undecided’ between staying put ahead of the general election or stepping aside to make way for a successor. Making matters worse, this isn’t exactly Case’s first scandal There are plenty of figures who would prefer it to be the latter of the two. Case has attracted criticism both from Tory MPs and his own side over WhatsApp messages he sent to Matt Hancock during the pandemic.