Politics Archives

Tuesday

6 Oct 2020

Boris’s speech was all sunshine and no substance

Probably the most significant feature of Boris Johnson’s speech at the Tory conference is what it said about him rather than what he said. To put it another way, the Prime Minister seemed bouncier than he has in many months, thanks — he said — to shedding 26 pounds of flab since falling seriously ill with Covid-19. But this was not a speech that will be remembered for much else, partly because Johnson wants us to set our sights on 2030 whereas millions of us are more fixated on who will be in work or in decent health tomorrow. Only some will be offended by Boris Johnson’s 2030 country: the

Nick Tyrone

What does Boris Johnson’s Tory party stand for?

The main thing to say about Boris Johnson’s speech at this year’s online Tory conference is that it captures the present mood of the Conservative party almost perfectly. The problem with that is, that mood is one of confusion and soul searching about what the Conservative party actually exists to do. For a start, there is a need to address the topic of Boris’s missing mojo. This has been talked about to death, and so I will only say that complaints that he wasn’t at his shiny best are a little unfair. He didn’t have a crowd to feed off of today, which in and of itself took the speech’s energy

Matthew Scott

The terrifying consequences of the ‘licence to kill’ bill

Should the Food Standards Agency be permitted to engage in torture in order to put a stop to the sale of horse meat? Should the Gambling Commission have the authority to issue licences to its agents to commit murder with impunity? That would be the astonishing outcome were the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Bill, which passed its second reading in the House of Commons yesterday, to be enacted in its current form. The justification for the Bill arises out of the real dilemma of how the intelligence services handle undercover agents who may be forced to break the law in order to carry out their work. The purist’s

Andrew Montford

Boris’s wind power pledge won’t be cheap

Boris Johnson likes a big announcement. Back in his days as London mayor, he told us he was going to build a new airport on an island in the Thames estuary and a tree-lined ‘garden bridge’ further upstream. Although not as hare-brained as his more recent plan to build a bridge to Ireland, neither of these schemes ever came to anything. Much of the government’s announcement today of a major green spending spree gives the impression of having been conjured up with the same lack of any serious intent, ‘smart cities’ being an obvious example. However, some of it looks positively alarming. Take home insulation, for example. It sounds so

James Forsyth

Johnson looks to the future while ignoring the present

Boris Johnson’s whole rhetorical style is designed to elicit a response from the audience. So there was something particularly bizarre about him delivering his conference speech to an empty room. At one point, Johnson even imagined how the delegates would be reacting to his announcements if they were there. The speech was a deliberate attempt to be very upbeat. He began by promising conference that by next year’s gathering there would be no restrictions on the size of events even indoors and no social distancing. Johnson’s view is that there’ll be a gamechanger by March: either a vaccine or instant spit testing. But if this is wrong, and there are

Boris Johnson

Boris Johnson: restoring normality is not enough

Boris Johnson delivered his speech today at the virtual Conservative party conference. Below is the full text of his speech, as he pledged to defeat the coronavirus, build back better and ‘improve on the world that went before.’ Good morning conference, I want to begin by thanking you for everything you did at the election, pounding the streets in the middle of winter, prodding leaflets through the letterbox and into the jaws of dogs, to save this country from socialism and to win this party the biggest election victory in a generation. I was going to say how great it is to be here in Birmingham but the fact is that

Steerpike

Watch: Boris Johnson defends his mojo

Boris Johnson had a strong message today during his Tory conference speech, for those who believe he lost his mojo after contracting Covid and being hospitalised. The Prime Minister described claims he has lost his lustre as ‘nonsense’, ‘self-evident drivel’, and even ‘seditious propaganda’ from the kind of people who wanted to stop Brexit being done. Mr S isn’t quite sure that quite describes those unhappy with Boris’s recent performances in the Tory party… To back up his claim that he’s still fighting fit, the PM promised that he’d be more than happy to arm or leg wrestle any doubters. But Mr S was most struck by Boris Johnson’s reference

Steerpike

Margaret Ferrier went to church with Covid symptoms

It’s hard to overstate the recklessness of the SNP MP Margaret Ferrier, who last week admitted travelling down to London, after having developed Covid symptoms. Not only did the MP fail to stay at home to prevent potentially spending the disease, she also decided to speak in Parliament, and then decided to travel back to Scotland on the train after receiving a positive Covid test. After the revelations came to light, Ferrier had the whip removed by the SNP, but has not yet resigned as the MP for Rutherglen and Hamilton West. It appears though that the full extent of Ferrier’s disregard for public safety may not yet have been fully

Theo Davies-Lewis

Beg, borrow or steel: the case for saving Port Talbot

Growing up in south Wales, it is hard to escape the past. More than most other tired industrial regions of Britain, there is still a strange nostalgia of days gone by. Heavy industry and manufacturing gave us Tinopolis (Llanelli), Copperopolis (Swansea) and Treasure Island (Port Talbot). Although it is only the latter that has managed to drag itself through economic depression, Thatcherism, and globalisation to the 21st century. Now, at long last, the day of reckoning fast approaches for Port Talbot’s steelworks. At the start of the pandemic, the plant’s owners Tata Steel pleaded for a £500 million government loan. Then it offered up a £900 million stake in the company

Monday

5 Oct 2020

Steerpike

Watch: Matt Hancock vs Stella Creasy

Oh dear. It’s fair to say Matt Hancock isn’t exactly flavour of the month in Westminster. There are plenty of MPs on both sides of the House who blame the Health Secretary for tough restrictions and failures on testing. Matters have only been made worse with the revelation that 16,000 cases of coronavirus went unreported as a result of an administrative spreadsheet error. Hancock appeared at the despatch box on Monday afternoon to face questions from MPs on the blunder. Alas it wasn’t what one could describe as a charm offensive. When Labour’s Stella Creasy put to him that a week had effectively been lost as a result of the mistake

Steve Baker

The uncomfortable truth about white privilege

When on BBC Politics Live this week Jo Coburn asked me about the Sussexes’ comments on structural racism, I knew what I wanted to say and that it would be controversial. I represent a diverse constituency: Wycombe. When the Black Lives Matter protests were on, it became clear they were striking a chord with local people and especially the young. I wrote at the time that: ‘Black lives matter. I cannot think of anyone who disagrees. And while it would be easy to reply, “all lives matter”, that would be a disservice to the thousands of people who have legitimate grievances about racism. That those grievances evidently continue today, after

Kate Andrews

Sunak warns of hardship

When Rishi Sunak was appointed Chancellor in February, he must never have imagined that his first address to the Conservative party conference would be made to an empty room. Nor would he have expected to have his entire speech dominated by a pandemic. Yet in his short, direct address, Sunak barely strayed from Covid-19. He reminded the public of the government’s vast interventions to curb the impact of the virus — and hinted at what steps might be taken in future as the Treasury deals with the aftermath of our six month spending spree. In a run-down of the many schemes — and billions of pounds — directed towards the crisis so

Katy Balls

Are test and trace woes overshadowing the Covid response?

10 min listen

More than 15,000 positive tests were missed in a test and trace blunder, it was revealed today. With the government announcing a new ‘traffic light’ local lockdown system later this week, will the new measure be overshadowed? Katy Balls speaks to James Forsyth and Kate Andrews.

Robert Peston

Why won’t the UK vaccinate the whole population?

In Kate Bingham’s interview with the Financial Times, where she says that vaccinating the whole population is ‘not going to happen’ and would be ‘misguided’, she is deferring the holy grail of herd immunity for months beyond next spring, and saying we will be living with the virus for years. Because as chair of the UK Vaccine Taskforce, she is saying that only the old, vulnerable and those working in healthcare settings will be vaccinated. In other words, the vaccine would be protection for those most likely to become acutely ill or whose services are most needed. But all the evidence shows that young people are the principal spreaders of

Nick Tyrone

Are all political parties destined to fail?

We seem to be entering another era of political party expansion. There’s Laurence Fox’s new party, not to mention the quiet, faint resurgence of the Brexit Party that is likely to become louder soon enough. The peculiar thing about this is that all political parties are fairly terrible, and most of the great British public not only knows that but uses this knowledge as the backdrop to every political calculation they will make throughout their lives. I myself have been a member of a political party; I was a Lib Dem for about a decade. This was an odd move as I am far from a joiner of anything. Yet

Robert Peston

The reason coronavirus cases ‘tripled’ this weekend

The dramatic jump in UK coronavirus cases from 7,000 reported on Friday, to just under 13,000 on Saturday, to a fraction below 23,000 on Sunday is not a dire as it seems – though it is not good news. What has inflated the numbers for Sunday and Saturday are a staggering 15,841 cases where the specimens were taken between 25 September and 2 October. In other words, there was a serious lag between a swab being taken and the result appearing in the government’s official figures. The reason for the confidence-destroying lag was a glitch in two of Public Health England’s ‘legacy’ computer systems, which meant that data was not

The Spectator

What’s on today at Conservative conference: Monday

Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s set-piece speech is big billing of the day. With this autumn’s budget overboard and the UK heading into some seriously choppy economic waters, expect the Treasury captain to chart a tight course between Boris Johnson’s levelling up agenda and more massive state spending to bail us out. Those who can’t withhold their excitement can read Sunak’s interview in the Sun this morning. Main Auditorium highlights 11.00 Department for Education The Conservative PartyRt Hon Gavin Williamson MP, Secretary of State for Education 11.30 Department for Work & Pensions The Conservative Party Mims Davies MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary Of State For Employment; Guy Opperman MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary Of State; Rt Hon

Sunday

4 Oct 2020

Steerpike

Watch: Priti Patel lashes out at Alastair Campbell

‘I don’t want a Home Secretary who can’t pronounce a G at the end of a word,’ said Alastair Campbell earlier this month after listening to Priti Patel. Today it was the Home Secretary’s turn to hit back at Tony Blair’s former spin doctor. In her speech at Tory conference, Patel had a message for Campbell, ‘lefty lawyers’ and her Twitter detractors: For those defending the broken system: the traffickers, the do-gooders, the lefty lawyers, the Labour party – they are defending the indefensible. If at times that means being unpopular on Twitter, I will bear it. If at times it means Tony Blair’s spin doctor mocking my accent, so

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round-up: Boris – behave ‘fearlessly with common sense’

Boris Johnson – People must behave ‘fearlessly but with common sense’ The Prime Minister joined Andrew Marr this morning, and inevitably the interview began with a focus on Covid-19 and the government’s efforts to suppress the virus. Johnson’s key message for the public was one of stoicism, saying that the virus would still be hovering around for a long time yet, and that the UK needed to adapt itself accordingly: BJ: We have to keep our economy moving and keep our society going… What we want people to do is behave fearlessly, but with common sense… To follow the guidance, whether national or local, get the virus down, but allow

Kate Andrews

Can cinemas survive a year of Covid restrictions?

Cineworld is to close its 128 cinemas – saying that the Covid restrictions have made its business “unviable”. It’s terrible to see that word applied to the cinema industry – and even worse to think of the 5,500 jobs this will impact. But the truth is that many businesses can’t survive what will be a year’s worth of restrictions – based on PM’s timeline where he’s talking about some kind of scientific breakthrough by Easter. The final straw for Cineworld was the delay of the new 007 film No Time to Die, now due out next April on the logic that this would maximise takings. But how many cinemas will still be around then to show this

Unlock full access to The Spectator

Tuesday

Monday

Sunday