Politics

As Boris Johnson prepares to unveil a new three tier restrictions system, the PM and his ministers are already coming under fire from Tory MPs and local leaders for confusion and a lack of evidence-based decision making. But what of Keir Starmer? The Labour leader has amassed plenty of praise of late. With Labour and the Tories neck-and-neck in the polls, he is credited with making the party seem like a viable option following the Corbyn era. Yet scratch the surface and there are plenty of Labour MPs privately questioning Starmer’s opposition strategy — particularly on coronavirus. While Starmer originally said he would provide constructive opposition, the Labour leader has become more

I have a few points to make about the new three tier system to be announced today for restricting our lives and businesses, to suppress Covid-19. 1) Last Wednesday, the government was so worried about the spread of coronavirus in the north of England that it was planning to impose new restrictions on places like Liverpool, Manchester and Newcastle before announcing the three-tier framework. Because of opposition from city mayors and local authorities, that is now not going to happen. The three-tier framework will come first. 2) However, it is probable that there will be new restrictions announced today for Liverpool, if agreement with the Mayor Steve Rotheram is reached in

When The Spectator returned furlough money during lockdown, we set ourselves a new target. Rather than take the taxpayer subsidy, we decided to try to grow our way of this mess by hitting sales of 100,000. For a magazine that finished last year averaging 83,020 weekly sales, it was ambitious. But in times of crisis, we thought, there should be a bigger demand than ever for original, thought-provoking and wide-ranging comment and analysis. The few days after our furlough announcement brought the largest sales increase in our history and the momentum has continued. I’m delighted to announce that we are now close to hitting that target, with sales averaging 96,817 in Q3

Robert Jenrick – ‘None of us’ want to return to national lockdown This morning Andrew Marr interviewed the Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick, amid news that the UK’s ‘R’ number (the rate of transmission of the coronavirus) is now estimated at between 1.2 and 1.5, remaining stubbornly above the critical number 1.0. With the Prime Minister poised to announce a new series of restrictions in the Commons on Monday, and despite a warning from the deputy chief medical officer Jonathan Van-Tam that the country was at a ‘tipping point’, Jenrick told Marr that the government was determined not to wind up in the same position as it had been in March:

Matt Hancock broke his own 10 p.m curfew to continue drinking at a parliamentary bar, according to reports in the Mail on Sunday.  A senior Tory MP told the paper that the Health Secretary continued to nurse a large glass of white wine until at least 10.25 p.m. during a late night tipple that saw Hancock mock the government’s own failings, saying: ‘Drinks are on me — but Public Health England are in charge of the payment methodology so I will not be paying a thing.’  A spokesperson denied the allegations and insisted that Hancock left the parliamentary estate following a 9.42 p.m. Commons vote.  Meanwhile, lockdown rebel Charles Walker and chair of the Commons’ Administration

Replacing Islington’s Jeremy Corbyn with Camden’s Keir Starmer never seemed like the most obvious way for Labour to win back its lost northern heartlands. True, Starmer was not such an extremist as Corbyn, but his classic leftie London lawyer mindset was surely destined to go down like a lead balloon out on the Blue Wall. That was the comforting story the Tories told themselves when he was elected Labour leader anyway. And things may still pan out that way. But something unsettling for the Conservatives is certainly going on right now. As James Forsyth sets out in his latest Spectator piece, the fact that the rise in the incidence of