Politics

The Lee Anderson saga shows no sign of going away anytime soon. Five days after the Ashfield MP had the whip removed for claiming ‘Islamists’ had ‘got control’ of the Mayor of London, Tory ministers are still tying themselves in knots over how best to elegantly distance themselves from their now-suspended colleague. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has declared that what Anderson said was ‘wrong’ but his colleagues appear unable to agree whether his comments were ‘Islamophobic’. The latest hapless minister to trip up is Michael Tomlinson, the man tasked with the immigration brief. Appearing on LBC this morning, Tomlinson was asked six times why it was necessary to remove the

It’s the question all Whitehall is asking. When will Simon Case appear before the Covid Inquiry? The Cabinet Secretary was due to give evidence prior to Christmas but was then signed off on sick leave in late October. Heather Hallett, the inquiry chair, allowed Case to skip his scheduled questioning after reviewing his medical records but promised that he would still be asked to give evidence before her at a later date. More than five months on and, happily, Case is now better, having resumed his duties at the beginning of January. Yet despite his return to work seven weeks ago, there is still no news as to when he

A new report, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, has recommended that the six-week school summer holiday should be reduced to four weeks, and the two weeks redistributed so that schools have a two-week half-term in October and February. Lee Major, professor of social mobility at the University of Exeter, said that spreading out the holidays more equally throughout the year would ‘improve the wellbeing of pupils and the working lives of teachers, balance out childcare costs for parents, and potentially boost academic results for many children’. I’m not convinced shortening the summer holidays would actually do any of those things. Firstly, I highly doubt that having extra time off in October and