Politics Archives

Thursday

4 August 2022

The case for an October election

Neither Liz Truss nor Rishi Sunak would name Gordon Brown as an inspiration, but I wonder if whoever becomes PM next month might take a lesson from Brown’s premiership and call a snap general election. This might sound like a frankly mad idea. Inflation is soaring and dreadful energy bills are about to hit. The Conservatives are behind Labour in the polls, demoralised and divided. Surely a new prime minister going to the country would be committing spectacular electoral suicide? Maybe. But politics is all about making the least bad choice, and I can’t help wondering if an immediate election wouldn’t be the least bad option for that new PM. Back to Brown.

The Spectator

Can Liz Truss be trusted?

Liz Truss has taken the lead in the Tory leadership race with an agenda that seems radical and ambitious, whereas Rishi Sunak appears to offer only elegantly managed decline. Truss promises instant relief from the rising cost of government; Sunak offers to reverse barely half of his own tax rises – and over the course of the rest of the decade. To promise more, he says, is to sell ‘fairytales’. Truss says a better future is possible with enough vision, ideas and, perhaps most importantly, resolve. Ms Truss came up with a promising idea this week: regional pay boards, so that civil service salaries could be set relative to the local cost of living.

Matthew Parris

This is no way to pick a prime minister

‘Truss’s campaign to be Britain’s next prime minister,’ wrote one political commentator this week, ‘seems to have unstoppable momentum. She has won the backing of heavyweights Tom Tugendhat, Brandon Lewis and the Chancellor, Nadhim Zahawi.’ Across a range of commentary you will see that word ‘momentum’ used in this sense in the weeks ahead. I am uncomfortable about what drives it. You may realise that if I were still a member of the Conservative party I would be voting for Rishi Sunak this month. Of the two candidates he is plainly less likely to win. So you may well think my discomfort with the procedure by which Liz Truss has been pulling ahead is sour grapes. Perhaps it is – we are seldom the best judges of our own motives.

Rana Mitter

Baby bust: China’s looming demographic disaster

This week, the world is gripped by the risk of conflict between the US and China. The People’s Liberation Army has fired live missiles into the Taiwan Strait in retaliation for US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taipei and those who fear that China vs America is the next world war see Taiwan as a flashpoint. Some analysts imagine a repeat of the Cold War: two countries, two rival political systems, vying for world economic supremacy. China’s dominance is inexorably linked to the size of its population. It has long been the world’s most populous country. A technologically advanced society, with a great army of young workers and soldiers, is inevitably a power to be reckoned with.

Matt Ridley

How to be PM: ten rules for the next Tory leader to live by

You’ve just become prime minister. The public finances are in a mess, the Bank of England has stoked inflation, cutting taxes may make it worse, energy prices are through the roof, people are hurting so you can’t cut social spending, the Health Service is lengthening its waiting lists despite record budgets. What can you do? Given that you will be hearing a lot from people who do governing all day, here are ten things to remember on behalf of the rest of us – the governed: Assume all public bodies have the same goal – and it isn’t what it says on the tin. You might think the Committee for the Promotion of Postage Stamp Collections is obsessed with postage stamps, or the Sewage Treatment Works Agency is fascinated by sewage.

Steerpike

Tory big guns jostle for top jobs

With a Liz Truss victory now looking increasingly likely, Tory MPs are playing the oldest game of all: trying to bag the best possible jobs for themselves. In terms of endorsements, it's been one-way traffic in recent days with Ben Wallace, Tom Tugendhat, Brandon Lewis, Nadhim Zahawi, Penny Mordaunt and Sajid Javid all coming out for Truss in quick succession. While some of these aforementioned names no doubt support the Foreign Secretary's vision for Britain, Mr S can't help but note that such endorsements began just as a Truss victory appeared to become an inevitability... The trouble for Truss is how to juggle all these new-found supporters with other loyalists and their demands for office too.

James Forsyth

Why the Tories must face the truth about energy bills

One influential figure on the centre-left told me recently that he isn’t bothered about who wins the Tory leadership contest. He argued that the tsunami of problems waiting to hit the new leader – rising energy prices, inflation and a creaking NHS, to name but a few – means the Tories will be in trouble regardless of whether it’s Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak who triumphs. These issues are enough to sink any government, but especially one that has been in power for 12 years. Given how Boris Johnson dominated politics, whoever succeeds him will to some extent feel like a fresh start. But they won’t be able to pull off his trick of presenting their administration as entirely new.

Wednesday

3 August 2022

Kate Andrews

Sajid Javid turns on Rishi Sunak

Liz Truss has been rolling out the endorsements this week, and tonight she adds one of the Tory’s most established politicians to her list. Former Health Secretary Sajid Javid has endorsed the Foreign Secretary, praising her ‘willingness to challenge the status quo.’ The endorsement is not wholly surprising; with several polls out in the past few days giving Truss a very comfortable lead amongst Tory members, anyone thinking about the make-up of the next cabinet might feel increasingly inclined to make their support known. The real surprise is in the pointed commentary towards Truss’s competitor Rishi Sunak, whom Javid implies is ‘sleepwalking’ the UK ‘into a big-state, high-tax, low-growth, social democratic model.

Ross Clark

The authoritarianism of British Transport Police

When our freedoms are being taken away we are like the proverbial frog boiled alive in water where the temperature is slowly brought to boiling point. Who batted an eyelid in June when it was reported that rail companies are drawing up plans to abolish paper rail tickets and have us all travel with e-tickets instead? Who picked up on today’s story that explains one of the reasons why the police are so keen to switch us to e-ticketing? Lucy D’Orsi, chief constable of the British Transport Police, says her force wants access to data from passengers’ mobile phones and bank cards so that it can track us around the network. At the moment, you can get on a train from Wolverhampton to London with a paper ticket and leave little trace.

Cindy Yu

Who’s to blame for Boris’s fall?

13 min listen

On today's podcast, Katy Balls and James Forsyth discuss a sticking point for Rishi Sunak as he meets the membership – that he led a 'coup' to overthrow Boris Johnson. Whilst travelling the country, can he persuade the membership otherwise?Also today, a new YouGov poll of Conservative members gives Liz Truss a 34-point lead ahead of Rishi Sunak. Is there enough time for him to turn the tide? How many Tory members have already made up their minds?And finally, is GCHQ at risk of being hacked? Cindy Yu is joined by James Forsyth and Katy Balls. Produced by Oscar Edmondson.

Steerpike

Will China hawks match words with deeds?

In the Tory leadership race both Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak have been keen to talk tough on China. Truss has pledged a 'crack down' on Tiktok and announced a 'New Commonwealth Deal' to unite nations against Beijing. Sunak wants a 'new Nato-style alliance', an end to Confucius Institutes at UK universities and has dubbed the country the 'biggest-long-term threat to the world’s economic and national security.' Such tough talk has given heart to campaigners, who want China's treatment of the Uyghur Muslims in the Xinjiang region of the country to be officially classed as 'genocide.' To date, the Foreign Office, under Truss, has refused to countenance this, by acknowledging Beijing's actions by there but referencing the existing policy of having genocide determined by a competent court.

Steerpike

Six of Chris Bryant’s worst moments

Dodgy donors, crumbling conventions, crooked kickbacks and sexual shenanigans – it’s a tough old time for decency in public life. So it’s a good thing then that we have Chris Bryant, the honourable member for Rhondda, to act as a one-man sleaze buster, battling heroically against those dastardly Tory tyrants. Everywhere Mr S looks, Bryant is found: on air, in print, online, bewailing and bemoaning this rotten government in his Grand Poobah title of Chairman of the Committee on Standards. With quivering lip and pointed finger, he decries, berates and castigates, lacerating ministers with a self-righteous sermon or twenty. But is the moral high ground really so different to life in the sewer?

Lucy Dunn

What’s the truth about the NHS’s ‘Black Wednesday’?

If there was ever a bad time to end up in hospital, today – Black Wednesday – is it. The first Wednesday of August is changeover day in NHS hospitals. A fresh-faced cohort of junior doctors arrive on the wards ready to get their hands dirty. It’s also the day that just about every trainee doctor moves jobs. The result can be chaotic, as teams of medics scatter and new ones arrive. Doctors who had become used to working alongside one another not only need to adjust to new teammates, but also navigate unfamiliar wards, or even relocate to entirely different hospitals altogether. It’s no wonder that patient care can take a knock.

Hannah Tomes

Recession could push millions of Britons into poverty

As the Tory leadership contest rumbles on, questions are being fired at Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak about what they’ll do to tackle the economic crisis facing Britain. The Foreign Secretary has promised to suspend green levies and Sunak said he would axe VAT on household energy – something he had ruled out as chancellor. But there are mounting fears neither of these strategies will go far enough to help a public facing the devastating combination of rising bills and soaring inflation.

Susanne Mundschenk

The Netherlands is showing how not to tackle climate change

For weeks now, Dutch farmers have been protesting against the government’s plans on nitrogen emissions cuts, creating havoc in the country. Angry farmers have been withholding deliveries to grocery shops, dumping manure or tyres on motorways or at politicians’ homes, and blocking traffic. Farmers in other countries in Europe and North America have organised protests in solidarity with Dutch farmers and as a warning to their governments not to go the same way. Europe’s right-wing politicians used the protest movement to forward their own agenda. This may be just the beginning of wider unrest over agriculture. What is the trigger behind those protests? It started with manure that is produced plentifully by Dutch livestock farms.

Francis Pike

Nancy Pelosi went rogue in Taiwan

Old leaders can be among the best. Just look at Konrad Adenauer, who became German chancellor when he was 73 or Ronald Reagan who was days off 70 when he became president. But the United States’s political leaders are at risk of taking it too far. President Joe Biden has already regressed to childhood. Nowadays even the Democratic party do not consider him fit for purpose; he has lost credibility and authority. The 82-year-old US house speaker Nancy Pelosi, who arrived in Taiwan yesterday to much trumpeting by the West and much harrumphing by China, simply ignored Biden’s limp statement: ‘I think that the military thinks it’s not a good idea right now.’ Pelosi wears her age well, albeit she has had more repair work than a British motorway.

Michael Simmons

Has Sadiq Khan’s junk food ad ban really stopped London getting fatter?

London Mayor Sadiq Khan made a bold claim this week: ‘As a result of our junk food advertising ban on Transport for London, nearly 100,000 cases of obesity have been prevented since 2019.’ Hailing the ‘incredible result’, Khan said ‘it’s expected to save the NHS over £200 million’. Is it true though? To ascertain whether the ban worked, researchers from Sheffield university and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine produced a graph. They found that there were some 4.8 per cent fewer obese people than expected and 1.8 per cent fewer overweight people. What they didn’t do was actually count the obesity rate in London’s population. Instead, their estimates were based on a mathematical model.

Sam Olsen

Will Nancy Pelosi’s Taiwan visit trigger conflict with China?

The current visit by US Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan makes her the most senior US politician to travel to the island since her predecessor Newt Gingrich in 1997. The reaction by Beijing has been furious from the moment the story leaked, with President Xi reportedly telling President Biden last week that those who ‘play with fire’ over Taiwan will get burned. With these threats in mind, and with relations between the superpowers at a low not seen for decades, there are severe risks at play. The American political commentator Thomas Friedman has even gone as far as to say that her actions ‘might start World War III’. But will her visit really tip the US, and therefore potentially its allies, into some kind of conflict with China?

Tuesday

2 August 2022

Katy Balls

Truss extends poll lead over Sunak

It's been a day of ups and down for both leadership campaigns. Liz Truss performed her first big u-turn of the contest, reneging on a plan to link public sector pay to local living costs following a cross-party backlash. Rishi Sunak's supporters are talking this up as a moment that could change the dynamics of the race; Tees Valley mayor Ben Houchen and former Wales secretary Simon Hart among those to go on the attack. But even if it does dent support for Truss, Team Sunak appears to have a long way to go. This evening YouGov published a new poll of the Tory membership: it shows that the Foreign Secretary has extended her lead over Sunak from their poll a fortnight ago. According to YouGov, Truss now has a lead of 34 points over Sunak, with Truss up seven points from the last poll.

Steerpike

Spooks step in to stop Tory hacks

Dirty tricks, planted stories and anonymous briefings – they're all part and parcel of a party leadership contest. But now the bigwigs over at Conservative Central Headquarters (CCHQ) have brought in some experts to stop anyone hacking Tory members' ballots: namely experts from the National Cyber Security Centre, which works closely with GCHQ's finest in Cheltenham. An email to party members went out tonight, reminding them that 'it is an offence to vote more than once: any member found to have voted more than once will have their party membership withdrawn.