Conservative party

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. In a statement, Williamson instead insisted that: ‘I can absolutely assure the honourable lady,

After Boris Johnson waxed lyrical about his Brexit deal in today’s Downing Street press conference, it’s now over to MPs to give their verdict. During the press conference announcing the terms of the deal agreed between the UK and EU, the Prime Minister confirmed that the government plans to put the deal to a vote on 30 December. MPs have already voiced concerns about the lack of time for proper scrutiny – and the text of the full deal (500 pages plus another 1,000 in annexes) is still to be published. But, despite this, the initial signs are promising for the government. Prior to finalising the deal this afternoon, the Prime

What’s the point of Brexit? We are told it is to take back control, but that is a means to an end: what is the end? The current answer is another slogan, ‘unleashing Britain’s potential’, which strings together a collection of policies: trade deals with non-EU countries that, to date, largely replicate existing deals; tougher immigration – although the government’s plan will open up the UK to higher levels of immigration from non-EU countries, and has no cap on numbers; taking control of our waters (fishing is about 0.1% of UK GDP); new rules for our ports and shipping (0.6% of GDP); banning live animal exports; blue passports. European leaders

Both Boris Johnson and Robert Jenrick have used their media appearances today to try and calm Tory MPs after yesterday’s announcement of the new Covid tiers. But the problem, as I say in the Times today, is that Tory MPs know these restrictions are unlikely to be eased anytime soon. Downing Street has been driven by a dread that the NHS may be overwhelmed It would be surprising if the government decided to loosen things up before it has seen the effect Christmas relaxations will have on the case rate. We know that government advisers think that for every day of Christmas easing there will need to be five days of

It’s becoming increasingly difficult for Boris Johnson to keep track of the many different revolts within his own party. There are the groups pressuring the government on its response to coronavirus, on its treatment of Northern seats, and on Brexit. Now there’s a new row brewing on a completely different matter: cladding. As Emma Byrne recently explained, this scandal has been building for months, but ministers seem to be doing very little about it. Currently, there are hundreds of thousands of people stuck in properties which have flammable cladding similar to that used on Grenfell Tower. Many of them are facing eye-watering bills of tens of thousands of pounds because

Something strange is going on in Westminster: nearly every minister and Tory MP has a spring in their step. It’s not (just) the vaccine breakthrough, or the magic money tree now bearing such fruit in the back garden of HM Treasury. The liberation-of-Paris feel in locked-down Westminster is inspired by the departure of Boris Johnson’s senior Vote Leave aides, Dominic Cummings and Lee Cain. Tories of all stripes seem to think they will now get what they want. When the news broke that the pair were to leave Downing Street with immediate effect — following a power tussle with the Prime Minister’s partner Carrie Symonds and new press spokeswoman Allegra

Vote blue for green jobs in the red wall. That’s the message we’re supposed to take from Boris Johnson’s ten point plan for reaching zero carbon emissions. The launch follows some shallow Westminster chatter about how this stuff relates to the departure of Dominic Cummings, chatter which somehow overlooks the fact that said departure has made precisely no difference to what’s being announced. Do the Tories new voters in red wall seats care about eliminating carbon emissions? My think tank, the Social Market Foundation, has been investigating this question. For what it’s worth, our polling and focus groups don’t find much regional variation in attitudes here: broadly speaking, voters are quite positive about

Boris Johnson needs to use the departure of Dominic Cummings and Lee Cain to repair relations with his parliamentary party. That is very clear, and the problems have been brewing for months. What is less clear is how much of a group of naturally loyal MPs, who have the same political instincts as the Prime Minister, remains. Johnson is a strange combination of charismatic communicator and loner. Many who have known and worked alongside him for years say they still don’t see themselves as his close friends and find it hard to identify a cogent social group around the Prime Minister. His lieutenants had to work hard to build a

A few days ago, I came across a group of Tory MPs in a House of Commons corridor looking rather perplexed. It soon became apparent why. They had been discussing the government’s myriad problems and expressing their concerns about how things were being handled by Downing Street. Then their phones had pinged with news of a poll that showed the Tories moving into a six-point lead. To be sure, not all the polls are this favourable to the Conservative party: one at the weekend had Labour two points ahead. There is also an argument that it’s not useful to look at voting intentions so far away from the next general

In a non-Covid world, next week would be the Tory party conference. Boris Johnson would march on to the stage in Birmingham to receive the adulation of his grassroots supporters. The biggest Tory majority since Margaret Thatcher’s final victory in 1987 would have been celebrated. There would have been cheer after cheer for the new intake of Tory MPs, elected in seats that had been Labour for generations. It would have been a triumphalist conference with much talk of how the Tories had won a two-term victory. The virus has changed everything. Tory conference is now an online only event with short speeches. Instead of attempting to set the agenda

The government will pass the test it has set itself: schools in England will return next week. Pupils may well have to wear masks at times, but they will be back in the classroom. Yet ministers privately acknowledge this isn’t the real challenge. The bigger question is what effect the return of schools has on the prevalence of the virus and what happens to education in the case of further local outbreaks. The exams grading debacle and the various other summer U-turns have been damaging. As one minister concedes: ‘There’s only a limited amount of time before the “incompetence” label sticks. It hasn’t yet — but we can’t afford many