Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Wednesday

Lloyd Evans

Is Starmer about to finally goad Corbynistas into action?

New year, new Labour. Sir Keir deployed his latest strategy at PMQS, contrasting the Tory-run NHS with the glorious record of the Labour administration. When his party were in power, he argued, the NHS was such a triumph that hardly anyone used it. There was no need. Doctors’ appointments were available within days. Cancer referrals took no more than two weeks. Waiting lists were a fraction of their current levels, he went on, (although he quietly admitted that 2.3 million people were usually awaiting treatment when Labour ran the system). Again and again he cited his party’s golden age. Labour, Labour, Labour. Marvellous, outstanding, world class. Sir Keir’s lurch to the right is dangerous because it may goad the dormant Corbynistas into action.

Philip Patrick

Why Japan has been a post-Brexit ally to Britain

Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida is in London today to meet Rishi Sunak and sign an historic defence agreement which will allow the countries to deploy forces on each other’s soil. The two will also toast the new UK-Japan digital partnership which aims to ‘strengthen cooperation across cyber resilience, online safety and semiconductors’ and discuss trade including the UK’s accession to the CPTPP (Comprehensive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership). This all sounds great, but behind the official theatre, what is the substance of the upgraded relationship? The defence agreement is being trumpeted by the government as ‘the most significant between the two countries in more than a century.

Katy Balls

Why did Sunak change tack on private healthcare?

10 min listen

Rishi Sunak has finally answered questions over his healthcare arrangements with a statement in Prime Minister's Questions, stating that he is currently registered with an NHS GP but has used private healthcare in the past. Is this change in tack an admission that he should have answered the question sooner? Katy Balls talks to Isabel Hardman. Produced by Cindy Yu.

Isabel Hardman

Sunak changes tack on private healthcare

He was going to change his line at some point. Finally, at today's Prime Minister's Questions, Rishi Sunak dropped his refusal to discuss his family's healthcare arrangements and admitted he has gone private. He used the first question of the session, from Labour's Cat Smith, to 'answer the lady directly' and say: 'I am registered with an NHS GP. I have used independent healthcare in the past and I am also grateful to the Friarage Hospital for the fantastic care they’ve given my family over the years.

Fraser Nelson

Who’s afraid of Keir Starmer?

Fear of the Labour party has long been the most powerful Tory weapon. During every election campaign, the Tory strategy is to talk up the threat of Labour: the demon-eyed Tony Blair, ‘Red’ Ed Miliband or the Corbynite menace. Tories, for all their quirks and flaws, keep the other guys, the dangerous ones, out of power. Rishi Sunak may struggle to revive this argument at the next election. The economy is in recession, the NHS is collapsing, national debt has doubled. After four Conservative prime ministers, public services are in such a state that strikes don’t make much difference. When things go back to ‘normal’, the trains, border control and ambulances are still in crisis. Some interesting solutions are, at least, floating around.

Rod Liddle

Everything in Britain is broken

It is rare to find an example of public art which one can applaud, unequivocally, but I think I have found one in London. The educational group Black Blossoms is running a series of lectures as part of the Art on the Underground scheme making the case that – as I had long suspected – photography is racist. This is true of colour photography (can we not find a different name for that!) just as it is for monochrome photography, in which black is the domain of shadows, the dark and what we might call ‘otherness’. The history of photography is rooted in white supremacy and subjugation, according to Black Blossoms, and it needs decolonising, sharpish. Quite right – and it is the job of all of us to swing the wrecking ball.

Ross Clark

Is Starmer foolish to attack the Tories’ strike laws?

Labour feels strongly on the NHS – you can tell that by the number of times Keir Starmer brings up the NHS during Prime Minister’s questions, which he did again today. Historically, the NHS has always been a weak point for the Conservatives. In spite of granting the health service ever more resources, come election time Labour automatically trots out the charge that the Tories are out to privatise or otherwise dismantle the NHS. But has Starmer made a miscalculation in attacking the government’s proposed strike laws, which would oblige the unions to ensure that minimum service levels are maintained in the ambulance service, as well as several other public services, on strike days?

Katy Balls

Rishi’s plan to unite the right

When Rishi Sunak addressed his cabinet this week, he tried to strike an optimistic note. Despite Labour’s commanding poll lead, the misery of strikes and the deepening NHS crisis, the Prime Minister said progress was possible, but on one condition: ‘There are challenges we face,’ he said. ‘But when we are united there is nothing we can’t do.’ His implication, of course, was that a warring Tory party will achieve nothing. Despite bringing some calm to Westminster after a turbulent year, Sunak is already the subject of hostile briefings from his own MPs. His five priorities – halve inflation, reduce debt, grow the economy, cut NHS waiting lists and stop illegal Channel crossings – led to much public enthusiasm from Tory MPs.

The Spectator

Why Britain’s space industry should be celebrated

The attempted launch of a rocket via a Boeing 747 from Spaceport Cornwall – the first such attempt in Europe – was not a giant leap so much as a giant plunge. While the plane took off and landed successfully, the rocket released from beneath its wing at 35,000 feet crashed and burned, taking with it the nine satellites it was supposed to launch into orbit. There is a lesson for the government in what happened at Spaceport Cornwall this week It is easy to imagine Vladimir Putin chortling at the news that Britain has failed to do something the USSR managed 66 years ago. Satellite launches have become routine, with 14,000 put into space since the Soviet Union’s first Sputnik in 1957.

Matthew Lynn

We will miss the non-doms when they’re gone

It will cover a generous pay rise for the nurses. It will bail out the NHS. It will put the public finances back on track, and, even better, it will make the country more equal. The Labour party has a simple solution to most of the problems the UK faces. It will abolish ‘non-dom’ status, and collect lots of extra tax revenues from rich foreigners. Hey, presto, problem solved. The trouble is, there is a slight flaw in the plan. They are already fleeing, and we will miss them when they are gone.  It is a complete fantasy to think we will raise any extra tax revenue from abolishing non-dom status Nom-dom status has always been controversial.

Freddy Gray

Did Biden also illegally hoard top-secret documents?

Remember the tale of Donald Trump and the ‘illegal hoarding’ of the top-secret documents? It was only last summer. On 8 August, the FBI raided the 45th President’s home in Mar-a-Lago to seize back highly classified material. An image of the reclaimed files promptly leaked to the press. Over-excited pundits started talking about Trump’s ‘Al Capone moment’ – the great villain had been caught out for an unsensational crime. Since then, the case has been stuck in the administrative cogs of the Justice Department. Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed Jack Smith, a former war crimes prosecutor, as special counsel for the two most grave investigations into Trump – the documents one and the one into Trump’s role in events leading up to 6 January 2021.

Steerpike

Andrew Bridgen loses the Tory whip over Covid vaccine comments

It's the first Prime Minister's Questions of the year today and No. 10 is keen to get off to a good start. So it is perhaps no surprise then that party officials have quickly moved to strip Andrew Bridgen of the Tory whip three hours after an offensive tweet. The North West Leicestershire MP has raised eyebrows in recent days with his relentless attacks on Covid vaccines. However he was clearly judged to have gone too far this morning when he shared a critical article about the subject and wrote 'As one consultant cardiologist said to me this is the biggest crime against humanity since the holocaust.' An outcry immediately followed.

Charles Lipson

Losing Crimea would condemn Putin

As the fighting in Ukraine slows for the winter, three things stand out. The first is the most obvious: a small, highly motivated country, equipped with advanced weapons and intelligence, is slowly but inexorably defeating what used to be called the world’s second-most powerful military. We need to remind ourselves how stunning that is. The second is how Western political leaders have failed to explain to their citizens why the war matters. Taxpayers are naturally tiring of footing the bill for an unending flow of equipment and ammunition, and they need to be persuaded that their continued support is essential for their own countries’ interests.

Lionel Shriver

Are we kidding ourselves over Ukraine?

Optimism can be surprisingly hilarious. In my last novel, two spouses agree to quit the planet once they’ve both turned 80, and the book explores a dozen possible outcomes of their pact. No chapter made me chuckle at the keyboard more than ‘Once Upon a Time in Lambeth’ – in which the couple don’t kill themselves but live to 110 in perfect health because they eat their vegetables. Young people flock to their table for advice, as my protagonists grow only wiser and more physically riveting in old age. Meanwhile, modern monetary theory makes everything free. Limitless energy is derived from carbon dioxide. A new portmanteau religion, ‘Jeslam’, eliminates Islamist terrorism. The reader gradually twigs that this happy-clappy scenario is a piss-take.

Isabel Hardman

Striking paramedics pose a problem for Sunak and Starmer

It's the first Prime Minister's Questions of the year and strikes will undoubtedly dominate. Both sides feel they have a political advantage. Rishi Sunak sees his anti-strike laws requiring minimum service levels as a way of uniting his party and claiming that Labour don't care about the basic safety of the public. Keir Starmer sees the walkouts as symptomatic of a wider government failure to protect public services. Both men have weaknesses. The government hopes that the public will lose patience, even with highly-respected healthcare workers Labour's analysis about the public sector being on its knees even when workers aren't on picket lines has a fair bit of currency.

Steerpike

Boris: Tories must unite

To the Carlton Club, that Palladian monument to power. Last night it hosted the unveiling of Boris Johnson's new portrait, at a lavish dinner featuring the former premier as a guest of honour. The Carlton hasn't always been the happiest of places for Johnson: it was here last summer that 'Pinchergate' began, resulting in the downfall of the government he led. But it was all smiles when Johnson took to his feet, to deliver his speech of thanks, with one guest quipping to Mr S: 'At least we didn't have to pay him £250,000 for the privilege.' The Old Etonian has made his political interventions carefully since leaving Downing Street, amid much excited talk to 'Bring back Boris.' So it was perhaps not so much what Johnson said as what he didn't actually say.

Cindy Yu

Has China admitted failure for zero Covid?

Why did China end its zero Covid policy so abruptly? This question has confounded China-watchers and even the Chinese people over the last month. For the last three years, the Chinese government dictated its people’s lives to an extent unseen since the Cultural Revolution. Zero Covid had become part of Xi Jinping’s political legacy. It was touted as proof of socialism’s concern for human life, compared to capitalist indifference. And yet, almost inexplicably, zero Covid ended pretty much overnight at the beginning of December. For the first time ever, the Chinese government appears to have admitted the real reason – zero Covid was failing to control the Omicron variant.

Andrew Tettenborn

Ron DeSantis is the Republican party’s best hope

Florida governor Ron DeSantis is shaping up as the GOP’s best hope for next year’s US presidential election. Large parts of his popular appeal are his open attack on (now fairly well-established) left-wing infiltration in education and to some extent in commerce, and his expressed intention to make Florida the state ‘where woke goes to die’. Hitherto his success has been limited. But recently there have been signs that he may be learning from his mistakes. His troubles started with a failure to grasp that a direct legal attack on left-wing influence, however electorally popular, was likely to be doomed.

Tuesday

Steerpike

Khan’s ‘night czar’ gets 40 per cent pay hike

Much was made of Amy Lamé's appointment as London's first 'night czar' back in November 2016. The then newly elected Mayor Sadiq Khan trumpeted that she would be a 'much-needed ambassador for the city after dark... a fantastic hire who will give a big boost to our city’s flourishing nightlife' with a 'proven track-record of helping save venues'. But fast forward six years and such rhetoric seems somewhat hollow now. Estimates vary as to how many London venues have closed in recent years. One count claims 58 venues shut during the pandemic – or 25 per cent of the capital's nightclubs. Khan's own City Hall points to data which suggests that the number of venues operating as nightclubs in the capital dropped by 22 per cent between 2019 and 2021, the fewest since the mid-nineties.

Stephen Daisley

Nicola Sturgeon has been exposed

The Scottish parliament returned from its Christmas recess today and held its first debate of 2023. Take a guess what it was about.  Yes, independence. Holyrood occasionally touches on other matters – the NHS, the educational attainment gap – but these are mere throat-clearings in a never-ending dialogue between the SNP government and its hardline followers.  This strategy, though counter-intuitive, has thus far proved pretty useful to Nicola Sturgeon: the more she gins up her supporters with talk of breaking away from the UK, the less they seem to notice that she hasn’t taken them a single inch in that direction in eight years as SNP leader.