Steerpike

A third stint in self-isolation and some extra time alone doesn't seem to have given Keir Starmer time to reflect on his opposition strategy. Last night Labour called on the government to prioritise the reopening of schools when the time comes to lift lockdown restrictions.  https://twitter.com/labourpress/status/1353832519913906177?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw Clearly a good idea — so good in fact that it's already government policy. Boris Johnson has spent the best part of a year making clear that he will prioritise face-to-face education above almost all other social activity, telling the Commons three weeks ago that schools would be the first thing to reopen.

It wasn't long ago that the government was staging a boycott of Piers Morgan's breakfast show. Now, Tory ministers are back on the show. But it's safe to say there is still no love lost between those speaking on behalf of the government and Morgan. This morning, it was Therese Coffey's turn to appear on Good Morning Britain.  Morgan quizzed Coffey on why Britain had one of the highest Covid death rates in the world. Coffey responded by saying there were plenty of reasons, including, possibly, the age of our population and Britain's obesity problem. Morgan then asked Coffey whether she was blaming Brits for our country's Covid crisis.  'I think that is a very insulting thing you've just said,' Coffey said.

Labour’s shadow Foreign Secretary, Lisa Nandy, opened a Pandora’s box yesterday in an interview with the Guardian, in which she praised the new US President Joe Biden for being a ‘woke guy’ and, according to the paper, appeared to suggest that those defending the Parliament square statue of Churchill were comparable to white supremacists marching in America. Mr S imagines that isn’t quite the strategy the party had in mind to win back Red Wall towns lost in 2019. Nonetheless, it appeared to be Boris Johnson who was struggling most with the idea of a ‘woke’ US President yesterday. In an interview with Sky News, the PM was asked if he thought Joe Biden was woke as well.

Scottish nationalists put a lot of stock in the mystical powers of independence, but this is a new one to Mr S: independence would apparently have improved Scotland’s response to Covid-19. At least according to Devi Sridhar, professor of global public health at Edinburgh University and member of the Scottish government’s Covid-19 advisory group. Interviewed on Holyrood magazine’s podcast, she was asked whether a separate Scotland would have made different decisions on the pandemic. ‘Yes, definitely,’ she reportedly replied.

This weekend former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn launched his ‘Project for Peace and Justice’. Ostensibly, the organisation has been set up to campaign for a ‘fairer society’ via worldwide progressive networks. It does sometimes seem though as if the group’s real purpose is to act as a branding exercise for Jeremy Corbyn himself, with the message ‘Founded by Jeremy Corbyn’ plastered all over the organisation’s website. Rather giving the game away, the Twitter handle of the group is the ‘@Corbyn_Project’. The speakers at this weekend’s online launch did not exactly dispel the notion that this was all about Corbyn either.

The government has finally attempted to crack down on the problem of people bringing Covid back into the UK, a mere 11 months after the pandemic began. The transport minister Grant Shapps has announced that from Monday, for the first time, travellers will be required to present a negative Covid test at the border, to ensure new variants aren’t brought into the country. The rules will apply equally to British and foreign nationals, which means holidaymakers will be forced to seek out a Covid test abroad before they return to the UK. But has Shapps missed a trick when it comes to the new testing regime? According to the rules, travellers will have to present a negative Covid test which has been taken 3 days before they arrive at the border.

Oh dear. There are some things in life it's probably best not to admit. Government minister Victoria Prentis found that out the hard way yesterday, when she confessed to a Lords select committee that she hadn’t bothered to read the era-defining Brexit deal which was agreed with the European Union in December. Among other things, the deal concerned the rights of European fishermen to access the UK’s waters. So it was not exactly ideal that Prentis hadn’t found time to read the text, considering she is the, err, fisheries minister. Asked by the committee if her jaw had dropped when the deal was released on Christmas Eve, Prentis explained that ‘No, the agreement came when we were all very busy on Christmas Eve, in my case organising the local nativity trail.

Alan Rusbridger's book 'News and how to use it' is intended as a guide of 'what to believe in a fake news world'. Which makes the former Guardian editor's appearance on Russia Today (RT) somewhat curious.  RT is the Kremlin's state-controlled TV network. It has a history of downplaying stories that paint Russia in a bad light. It also has a habit of reporting with relish stories that make western countries look bad. In 2019, RT was fined £200,000 by Ofcom after an investigation found that the channel had failed to preserve due impartiality in seven news and current affairs programmes. According to David Remnick, editor of the New Yorker: ‘RT is darkly, nastily brilliant, so much more sophisticated than Soviet propaganda.

At tonight's Covid press conference, the Home Secretary Priti Patel sought to defend the coronavirus restrictions against suggestions that the law was confusing and hard to follow. She said: 'The rules are actually very simple and clear. We are meant to stay at home and only leave home for a very, very limited number of reasons'. What were those reasons? A list followed, including: 'outdoor recreation but in a very, very restricted and limited way, staying local, I’ve said that several times over the last week.' Except, outdoor recreation was specifically deleted as a deemed reasonable excuse to leave home by the regulatory amendments bringing into effect the national lockdown. Presumably the Home Secretary meant outdoor exercise (an exception retained in the regulations).

Exercise is a dangerous game these days. As two women recently discovered, drive five miles for a walk at a beauty spot complete with two cups of coffee and you can find yourself fined £200. Meanwhile, alarm inside government at the number of people out and about despite the 'stay at home' message has led to tighter restrictions being considered by No. 10. So, it's fair to say there's a lot of curiosity in Westminster over a bike ride Boris Johnson embarked on over the weekend. Evening Standard reporter Sophia Sleigh spotted the Prime Minister cycling around the Olympic Park in Stratford on Sunday afternoon — seven miles from No. 10. The guidance on exercise says 'you should not travel outside your local area'. So, what does the Prime Minister say?

It certainly doesn’t seem like things are calming down in America anytime soon, after the recent mob takeover of Capitol Hill. At least Mr S got that sense when tuning in to Sky News today. On the show, Sky’s Adam Boulton was speaking from Washington to Erin Elmore, a former Trump campaign spokesperson, who was dialling in from Jupiter, Florida. The interview began civilly enough, as the pair discussed the recent invasion of the Capitol building and acts of violence which had taken place. It didn’t take long though for the discussion to become rather heated as Elmore attempted to link the Senate invasion to the violence in US cities during the Black Lives Matter protests.

Oh dear. Education Secretary Gavin Williamson has not exactly been at the top of his game in recent weeks. Across the country teachers, children and parents have been thrown into turmoil by the government’s haphazard education plans, which have seen schools open up for a single day, and national exams cancelled, despite the Education Secretary’s insistence they would ‘absolutely’ go ahead. Still, Mr S hoped that Williamson would at least be clear in his mind about getting schools back open once again. Unfortunately, the minister seemed to rather struggle with that message when in Parliament today.