Politics Archives

Wednesday

18 May 2022

Sunak faces the pressure over Britain’s cost of living crisis

Will the Chancellor announce new measures to ease the cost of living crisis? Rishi Sunak is under pressure to do so as new figures out today show that UK inflation jumped to 9 per cent in the 12 months to April, up from 7 per cent in March. It comes as Labour continue to push calls for a windfall tax – something Sunak has suggested he is considering – along with an emergency budget – something the Treasury has ruled out. The Chancellor has repeatedly said there are limits to how much the government can help Only cabinet ministers seem to have their own ideas as to what the government's response ought to be. This morning the Foreign Secretary Liz Truss suggested in a media round that a windfall tax could deter future investment into the UK.

Steerpike

Lee Cain gets his Brexit readies

The recent turmoil in the Tory party has only been surpassed by that in Boris Johnson's No. 10. Various faces have come and gone during the Doctor Who style-regenerations these past three years, from Eddie Lister and Dominic Cummings to Dan Rosenfield and Allegra Stratton. One of Johnson's four director of communications who fell by the wayside was Lee Cain. His role as head of broadcast for Vote Leave in the Brexit referendum secured him a series of special advisor roles, culminating in the top media role in Downing Street. Since quitting his post at the end of 2020, Cain has returned to the world of the private sector. Political fall-outs don't always end well for those involved but the top spinner seems to be doing rather well.

Charles Lipson

Just how long can Russia sustain the war in Ukraine?

The sheer complexity of the war in Ukraine can mask its most important features. So let’s cut through the complexity and focus on where the combatants now stand, how they got there, and what is likely to happen next. The central point is one we all know: Ukraine has prevented a Russian victory but has not yet won the war. There is still hard fighting to come, but the battlefield is increasingly tilted in Ukraine’s favour. Vladimir Putin wanted to seize the capital, decapitate the Zelensky regime, install a puppet government, and control as much of the country as he could, incorporating some of that territory into Mother Russia and establishing “independent” republics in the rest.

Steerpike

Wanted: Ofgem head of price cap policy

Where would we be without Ofgem, eh? Amid soaring energy prices and a cost-of-living crisis, the energy regulator this week unveiled its latest wheeze to help struggling households: updating the energy price cap every three months, rather than six, to try to avoid price shocks. The cap – which is the maximum price per unit that suppliers can charge customers – is currently updated twice a year in April and October. Ofgem's announcement came after a typical energy bill jumped last month from £1,277 to £1,971 and is forecast to soar a further 32 per cent when the cap is revised again in October. And, for those on prepayment meters, the price of energy has now risen by an average £708 to £2,017 a year. Gulp!

Andrew Lilico

Sunak, not Bailey, is to blame for inflation

Inflation has hit a 40-year high. The cost of household utilities rose by an average of £700 last month. We are now facing inflation of 9 per cent and the figure is still careering upwards. In response, politicians and ministers have attacked the Bank of England. Some commentators have even started to call for Governor Andrew Bailey to resign. The Governor himself and Chancellor Rishi Sunak say there is nothing that can be done about prices rising. They’re both wrong. First, let’s understand why it is unfair to attack the Bank of England. Under our system, the Bank is not independent, as some like to claim. Rather, it has what is called ‘operational independence’.

Tuesday

17 May 2022

Isabel Hardman

Will the new Brexit bill spark a trade war with the EU?

-20 min listen

Liz Truss made a speech in the House of Commons today laying out the government's plans to scrap parts of the Northern Ireland protocol. James Forsyth first broke this story in last week's Spectator magazine. How will the EU react to the news? And could this spark a trade war with the EU?Moving onto the cost of living crisis, Labour have put forward an amendment to the Queen's Speech asking for a windfall tax. Having once dismissed the idea, the Conservatives are under pressure from some of their backbench MPs to go ahead with the tax. Could this be a big win for Labour?All to be discussed as Isabel Hardman speaks to Katy Balls and James Forsyth.

James Heale

Tory MP arrested for rape

A Conservative MP has been arrested on suspicion of rape and sexual assault offences. According to the Sun, which broke the story today, the unnamed male Tory currently remains in custody, after being arrested for alleged sexual offences committed between 2002 and 2009 in London. Police first received a report of the allegations in January 2020 and have conducted a two-year investigation into the claims. The unnamed MP faces suspension from the party while detectives from the Central Specialist Crime unit investigate. The Chief Whip, Chris Heaton Harris, has already asked the MP to stay away from the House of Commons while an investigation is being carried out.

Kate Andrews

Unemployment is low – so why aren’t wages improving?

For the first time ever, the number of UK job vacancies – now almost 1.3 million – has overtaken the unemployment count. Normally, this would lead to people in work feeling much better off, and lead to pay hikes and bonuses as employers compete to recruit and retain employees. But in fact, regular pay in real terms (that is, after inflation and before bonuses) is down 1.2 per cent – fuelling the cost-of-living crisis that is now the central fact of British politics. What’s going on? In short, today’s ONS labour market overview is yet another example of how inflation can ruin otherwise good news. Total salaries are up 7 per cent and unemployment fell to 3.7 per cent in Q1 (a record low not seen since the mid 1970s).

Robert Peston

How does Boris Johnson save the economy?

'For the first time since records began, there are fewer unemployed people than job vacancies,' the ONS says. The number of unemployed people in January to March was 1,256,846 whereas vacancies in February to April 2022 rose to a new record of 1,295,000. At a time when we may already be in recession, and we certainly face it later this year, this is extraordinary. Part of the explanation is that hundreds of thousands of people have voluntarily left the Labour market, as the Bank of England’s governor Andrew Bailey told MPs yesterday. One explanation is that large numbers of people have long Covid and cannot work. Others are clinically vulnerable and are choosing not to work because they don’t wish to take the health risk when Covid remains prevalent.

Fraser Nelson

Take back control: a plan B for Northern Ireland

Things are heating up in the battle over Northern Ireland. After his trip to Belfast yesterday, the Prime Minister is releasing a ‘take back control’ Bill that will unilaterally change the terms of the Northern Ireland Protocol. It’s part bluff, part serious – and could very well reopen Brexit wars. Liz Truss’s statement this afternoon followed the gameplan revealed in detail by James Forsyth in a recent cover piece. The Queen’s Speech carries an anodyne-sounding reference to protecting the Good Friday Agreement and ‘supporting’ devolution but (to quote James) ‘these words will be a coded threat to the European Union that the UK is prepared to unilaterally tear up parts of the Brexit deal relating to Northern Ireland’.

Annabel Denham

The protocol is hurting Northern Ireland

With every sausage war or fish fight over the past 18 months, the chances of survival for the Northern Ireland protocol have narrowed. But the fallout from the NI Assembly elections, which saw Sinn Féin become the largest single party, has made it increasingly likely that the UK will take unilateral action to override parts of the Brexit deal. The protocol has few supporters. Arguably its only redeeming feature was that it allowed Boris Johnson to break the deadlock and conclude the withdrawal agreement. Because a porous land border between the UK and the Republic would have threatened the single market – and a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic was unacceptable on political grounds – the Prime Minister compromised.

Steerpike

Lisa Forbes eyes a comeback

To Peterborough, ahead of the local Labour party's annual meeting there tonight. One of the topics of conversation will likely be who to select as Peterborough's candidate for the next general election. After all, the seat is a marginal one, with a majority of just 2,580. Four different MPs have served as the borough's representative in parliament over the past five years, including the incumbent Tory Paul Bristow. And it could be the woman who Bristow defeated at the last election – Lisa Forbes – who again stands at the next election, according to several Labour sources in Peterborough who claim that the ex-MP has her eye on a surprise comeback there.

Steerpike

Britain’s invisible Information Commissioner

Much like the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, the post of Information Commissioner is one of those intriguingly named but largely under-explored positions in British public life. Created in 1984, the post brings with it a tidy £200,000 a year salary and an office comprised of more than 500 staff. Its job is to 'uphold information rights in the public interest, promoting openness by public bodies and data privacy for individuals.' You might therefore think that the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) would be interested in freedom of information given that the existing legislation – which came into force in 2005 – is being undermined by secrecy-loving Whitehall departments. Not a bit of it.

Steerpike

Sturgeon spins on American jamboree

Crisis, what crisis? Beset by domestic problems of their own making, the SNP government at Holyrood now has to face a difficult international climate too, amid rising tensions abroad and economic troubles around the globe. So, what better time for the country's embattled First Minister to duck questions on ferries and sleaze by jetting off to Washington to rub shoulders with some of America's more pliable politicians. Unfortunately it seems that a change of scenery still hasn't cured Nicola Sturgeon's habit of tampering with the truth.

Monday

16 May 2022

Kate Andrews

Andrew Bailey’s inflation excuses have been exposed

This afternoon the Bank of England's governor Andrew Bailey appeared, as he has done many times before, in front of the Treasury Select Committee to answer questions about its recent decision-making. Yet the tone of the Committee was radically different to other sessions. Its chair Mel Stride opened by asking Bailey if he and the Monetary Policy Committee – made up of nine members who vote to set interest rates – had been ‘asleep at the wheel’ as prices soared throughout the country. It was arguably one of the easier questions put to him during today’s session: from then on, Bailey and the MPC members who joined him were pit against each other.

Steerpike

Foreign Office gets a Bridgerton bonus

Liz Truss loves a good party so it's perhaps no surprise to read that she supports buying a swanky New York townhouse for British diplomats to entertain VIPs. But the nineteenth century mansion is expected to come at a price – £20 million – at a time when the Foreign Office is desperately looking for ways to cut costs, amid talk of a 20 per cent staff reduction. Luckily, Britain's hard-pressed mandarins are never short of an idea or two to raise a few bob. One such wheeze is hiring out some of the department's buildings to TV crews to raise thousands in extra funds.

Steven Fielding

Should Thatcher fall?

It didn't take long for the first egg to hit. Just a few hours after Margaret Thatcher’s statue was delicately placed on its ten-foot plinth in her hometown of Grantham, it was subject to the first of what is likely to be many attacks. This egging – carried out by a middle-aged protester – was hardly a surprise. The statue was once set to be placed outside Parliament, but this plan was kiboshed by Westminster Council amidst fears it could attract 'civil disobedience and vandalism'. Presumably it was hoped that by being plonked in the unassuming, out-of the way Lincolnshire town the statue would avoid such lèse-majesté. The leader of the local Tory South Kesteven District Council appears to have thought as much.

Steerpike

Drunken security rows prompt Commons clampdown

It's not been a great few months for standards in Westminster. In February, Neil Coyle MP lost the Labour whip after several drunken rants in the House of Commons Strangers' bar. Then the following month, Mr S was the first to bring news that parliamentary staff were being told to stop sleeping overnight in the House of Commons, after getting too inebriated and missing the last train home. Since then a lobby journalist had their security pass removed for 'raucous behaviour' while figures show that five 'inebriated' staff managed to cause nine security incidents in a single month. Concerns have been raised about MPs' staff and other passholders letting in guests onto the estate without undergoing proper airport-style security checks first.

Ross Clark

Jacob Rees-Mogg’s attack on fixed penalty notices is too little, too late

What an heroic stand for freedom and justice Jacob Rees-Mogg has just made by criticising the system of Fixed Penalty Notices (FPNs). According to the Brexit Opportunities minister, the reason this form of summary justice “goes against British tradition” is that an FPN “assumes you are guilty until proven innocent because you have to go to court to get it set aside”. It is not that I disagree with him – it’s just that I would have been rather more impressed had he made this point before police began to shower the Prime Minister and Downing Street staff with FPNs. The problems with FPNs and their civil cousins Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs) have been very clear for many years.

Benjamin Barnard

The quiet revolution at the heart of the civil service

Dominic Cummings always saw civil service reform as an essential prerequisite to reforming the country itself. A year and a half after his departure, the Prime Minister has a new chief of staff who agrees. While different in temperament and style, both Dominic Cummings and his de facto replacement Steve Barclay have one under-appreciated similarity: a commitment to reforming government itself. Last week, we saw the evidence of this commitment. With attention focused on plans to cut more than 90,000 civil servant jobs, Barclay quietly announced the most radical overhaul of civil service recruitment rules in over a decade. From now on, every single senior civil service vacancy will be advertised to external candidates.