Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Friday

Steerpike

Police probe dozens of ‘offensive’ online posts

Online offence is back in the news after a man received a suspended sentence of 10 weeks for sending a ‘grossly offensive’ viral video of a cardboard model of Grenfell Tower being burned on a bonfire. It's an issue that the Tory party have mixed views on: many of its MPs claim to stand for free speech but Nadine Dorries's Online Safety Bill aims to restrict abusive content, with obvious potential ramifications. So how much police time is currently being spent on investigating offensive online posts? Well, Mr S has seen some Freedom of Information requests which point to the issue being of increasing concern to our boys in blue. Between 2020 and 2022 four police forces in England investigated 133 cases of offensive social media posts.

Steerpike

Express poach Sun man

The Express – home of the Crusader, William Hickey and Ann Widdecombe's columns. Lord Beaverbrook's baby has enjoyed its ups and downs over the decades but has its fans in Westminster, with Tory backbenchers organising a special virtual 'Blue Collar Conservatives' together back in 2020.  And while the daily newspaper has undergone something of a rebrand in recent years, under its 'Labour-supporting, Remain-voting ex-Sunday Mirror editor' Gary Jones, the Sunday equivalent has had a vacancy in the editors' chair since January, when Michael Booker defected to GB News. But three months on, the post has finally been filled.

Steerpike

Another day, another SNP scandal

Dogs bark, cows moo and the SNP duck their failings. It seems as though every day brings fresh revelations about Nicola Sturgeon's regime in Scotland as more and more questions are asked about her party's record in office. The only novelty is the sheer range of scandals which can outrage, shock and rile: last week it was the terf war and her plans to rig the electorate. Today it's ferries and the news that, once again, proper records were not kept of the Scottish Government's mismanaged takeover of the Ferguson shipyard. For Audit Scotland has now demanded a fresh review about how an initial £97 million deal for two vessels spiralled into a quarter of a billion pound disaster with two new lifeline vessels still out of service after six years.

Fraser Nelson

Earth Day – and the untold story of environmental progress

It’s Earth Day today, the anniversary of the 1970 event that kick-started the modern environmentalist movement. in her recent column, my colleague Mary Wakefield wrote how a ‘dark green’ orthodoxy of negativity is being taught in schools with kids being given an unduly gloomy view of the world. But that's perhaps inevitable when the "act or die" message of the original Earth Day is perpetuated even after the arguments behind it have collapsed - without anyone really explaining, or tracking, the new facts.  The premise of the first Earth Day was plausible at the time: that the world's resources would be drained in proportion to population growth so health improvements that cut infant mortality would lead to longer-term disaster.

Katy Balls

What’s behind Boris’s trip to India?

9 min listen

Boris Johnson has met his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi to discuss defence, energy and trade ties. Will he be able to secure a trade deal with India?Meanwhile back at home, Boris Johnson faces an investigation by the Commons Committee of Privileges over claims he misled Parliament on partygate.All to be discussed as Katy Balls speaks to James Forsyth and Fraser Nelson.

James Forsyth

Tory MPs are trapped in partygate limbo

The Tory party is in stasis. Currently, Tory MPs aren’t prepared to move against their leader. But they don’t want to look as though they are trying to cover for him, either – which is why the government had to drop its amendment yesterday. As I say in the Times this morning, the loudest sound at Westminster at the moment is the silence of Tory MPs who are trying to avoid saying anything either way. Tory MPs are exhausted by partygate, it has been rumbling on for more than five months now and the Times reports that the privileges committee investigation likely won’t conclude until the autumn. Tory MPs just want this story to go away, but they know it won’t.

Ross Clark

Boris is choosing to make you poorer

If Boris Johnson is forced from office by his own MPs, partygate will only be part of the story. Another huge part of it will be his failure to appreciate the full scale of the cost of living crisis now washing over millions of households – especially his reluctance to address the issue of energy bills. Asked on his Indian trip whether he would consider removing the levies which make up around 25 per cent of electricity bills and around 4 per cent of gas bills he replied:  I want to do everything we can to alleviate the cost of living, but there is a lot of prejudice against the green agenda.

Katy Balls

Generation spent: can renters be better protected?

34 min listen

The cost of living is rising, as is the cost of renting. Zoopla estimates that rents are rising at the fastest rate in 14 years, which means that the average rent in the UK is now over £1000 a month.This is partly a pandemic effect, especially in London as people return to offices. But Covid has also shaken people’s financial security - the Citizens Advice Bureau found that more than one in three renters felt insecure about their ability to stay in their tenancy during the pandemic. And women were disproportionately impacted - during the pandemic, mothers were more likely to be put on furlough or even lose their jobs.

Thursday

Steerpike

Boris’s grumpy grilling

Boris Johnson's India trip hasn't got off to the best of starts. Seeking to escape domestic woes, the Prime Minister jetted off to the subcontinent yesterday, only to face a fresh row about the Commons U-turn on the parliamentary investigation into Partygate. And Johnson's irritation at the prospect of yet another inquiry was palpable in an interview he gave to Sky's Beth Rigby earlier today. Throughout the ten-minute long grilling, the PM sighed exaggeratedly, rolled his eyes, looked at his watch and barely concealed his disdain at his interrogator's questions. He asked Rigby 'how many' times she would ask him about Covid parties, claiming that: 'You promised to get on, you did promise to get onto the substance of this trip?

James Forsyth

Boris’s problem is bigger than partygate

Today has been a double blow to Boris Johnson. First, he now faces an investigation by the Privileges Committee into whether he deliberately misled the house when he said that the Covid rules were followed in Downing Street. At the very least, this means that this story – which is exhausting Tory MPs – won’t end with the publication of the Gray report. Second, the U-turn has shown that Tory MPs aren’t prepared to go all in on defending Johnson. Most Tory MPs will keep their counsel until after the local elections next month The new whipping operation has generally received positive reviews from Tory MPs. But the amendment it put down last night misread the mood of the parliamentary party.

Isabel Hardman

The new inquiry proves partygate isn’t going away

The Commons has approved – without a vote – a motion calling for Boris Johnson to face an investigation into whether he misled the House over partygate. Labour's motion, supported by other opposition parties, means the Privileges Committee will start an inquiry after the Metropolitan Police's work on the lockdown parties has concluded. There was no vote because the government opposition to this motion, which was still active even this morning collapsed at the last minute, and it was easy from the debate to see why. It lacked the drama of a vote at the end, but the speeches themselves compensated for that.

Cindy Yu

Why did No. 10 U-turn on the vote?

13 min listen

The government's response to Labour wanting to refer the Prime Minister to the Privileges Committee – who could then rule that he mislead the Commons – has been messy. At first, Conservative MPs were to be forced to vote with the government against the motion, but No. 10 then changed its position, saying it would be a free vote. Why the U-turn? Cindy Yu talks to James Forsyth and Katy Balls.

Steven Barrett

No, Boris Johnson didn’t mislead parliament

The PM did not lie to the House of Commons. Now, ordinarily what goes on inside the House of Commons is not for lawyers like me to adjudicate. The 1688 Bill of Rights says ‘Freedome of Speech and Debates or Proceedings in Parlyament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any Court’. So normally I would stay silent. But we are facing a very interesting constitutional crisis. Because whether someone lies is really a legal question. It has a test as law. A lie is defined in the dictionary as a factual statement that is untrue and made with intent to deceive. In the leading case of R v Lucas [1981] Q.B. 720 the courts found a lie must be ‘deliberate’.

Katy Balls

Steve Baker abandons Boris. Will more MPs follow?

Will Boris Johnson live to regret his trip to India? As the Prime Minister gets on with government business abroad, he is facing a hostile parliamentary party with a string of Tory MPs coming out to call for him to go. MPs are debating Labour's call for an inquiry into whether Boris Johnson misled parliament. The Tory discomfort over the issue is evidenced by the fact the whips have changed their position on that vote several times – eventually concluding that it will be a free vote. The expectation among ministers is that this will mean many MPs will just miss the vote and Labour's motion will pass. But more worrying for No. 10 than another inquiry is the fact that greater numbers of Tory MPs are coming out of the woodwork and calling for Johnson to go.

William Moore

How much longer can Boris Johnson keep going?

41 min listen

In this episode: Is Boris going to limp on? In her cover piece this week, Katy Balls writes that although Boris Johnson believes he can survive the partygate scandal, he has some way to go until he is safe, while in his column, James Forsyth writes about why the Tories have a summer of discontent ahead of them. They both join the podcast to speculate on the Prime Minister’s future. (00:44)Also this week: Why is the Rwandan government taking our asylum seekers?We have heard the arguments behind the Home Office’s plan to send migrants to Rwanda. But why is Rwanda up for this arrangement?

Brendan O’Neill

Making a sick joke about Grenfell doesn’t merit a jail sentence

So in Britain in 2022, you can get a jail sentence for making an offensive joke. Yesterday a man was handed a 10-week prison sentence – suspended – for engaging in an act of crude humour. This should give rise to some serious national self-reflection. A free, civilised country does not hand out jail time for jokes. What has happened to us? The man in question is Paul Bussetti from Croydon. He’s the guy who shared a video of something horrible that happened at a bonfire party in November 2018. Someone put a cardboard model of Grenfell Tower on top of the fire. The model had the faces of residents painted in the windows. In the video Bussetti can be heard saying, ‘That’s what happens when you don’t pay the rent’.

Isabel Hardman

Boris Johnson U-turns on partygate vote

MPs are now likely to pass the motion referring Boris Johnson to a privileges committee inquiry into whether he misled parliament after the government dropped its opposition. Now, Conservative MPs have a free vote and are on a one-line whip, with their party whips instructing them that the Prime Minister is ‘happy for the Commons to decide on any referrals to the Privilege Committee’ and that they are not going to move the amendment they tabled trying to delay the entire thing until the publication of the Sue Gray report. There was a hope in No. 10 that there would not even be a vote and it could just be nodded through if Labour decided not to press the issue.

James Forsyth

The Tories’ summer of discontent

Mid-term unpopularity is a given in British politics. Veterans from the Thatcher era like to joke that a government that isn’t behind at the halfway point of its term isn’t doing its job properly. But the worry for the Tories is that their current unpopularity is different. The usual explanation for the mid-term blues is that a prime minister seeks to get the politically difficult stuff out of the way as soon as possible after an election victory. The government loses support initially before – if everything goes to plan – reaping the rewards of its tough decisions in time for the next general election. Straight after the Tories came into office in 2010, George Osborne hiked taxes and cut spending in his Budget.

The Spectator

Britain and the West must step up support to Ukraine

The first few weeks of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine went so badly that it was tempting to see the withdrawal of troops from around Kyiv as the beginning of the end. The loss of the battleship Moskva has humiliated Vladimir Putin further, undermining any lingering hope he may have had of being able to claim total victory in time for Russia’s military celebrations on 9 May. But it would be a dangerous delusion to think that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is destined to be a failure. Heroic though Ukraine has been so far, its struggle could yet be lost. As the conflict enters a critical new phase, it is vital that Britain does not relax military support for the country. Indeed, it is time to step it up.

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Boris packs his bags, XR blocks bridges and Netflix viewers switch off

Home Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, told the House of Commons that it did not occur to him that the gathering in the Cabinet Room on his birthday (for which he had been issued a fixed-penalty notice) could amount to a breach of the rules on coronavirus. ‘That was my mistake and I apologise for it unreservedly,’ he said. He packed his bags for a visit to India to coincide with a Commons debate on whether he had misled parliament. Priti Patel issued a ministerial direction (the second in the Home Office in 30 years) to implement a scheme whereby people deemed to have entered Britain unlawfully since 1 January could be flown to Rwanda, where they would be allowed to apply for the right to settle there. More than 6,000 people had crossed the Channel in small craft in 2022.