Politics

Thursday

André Van Loon

The sweet smell of success: the story behind Chanel No 5’s popularity

This is a curious book, by turns profound and whimsical. Karl Schlögel, a professor of Eastern European history at Frankfurt, begins by stating he didn’t know anything about his chosen subject of perfume beyond going into department stores and duty-free shops to encounter a ‘peculiar mélange of scents… the light and sparkle of crystal, the rainbow of colours, mirrors and glass’. Although he always felt this to be an alien environment, he was also repeatedly captivated. Then by chance he discovered a link between Chanel No. 5 and the Soviet perfume Red Moscow. Intrigued, he went on an intellectual journey to find out the shared and distinctive histories of France

Thursday

Melissa Kite

Why the Tories won’t let me display a local election poster

Being told by the Tories not to put a local election poster in my window because it will only remind people why they don’t like them has reminded me why I don’t like them. It also put my blood pressure up, according to my newly delivered blood pressure monitor. I strapped the thing to my arm while I was arguing with a Tory councillor about why they wouldn’t give me a Vote Conservative poster: 136/84. Nowhere near as high as it was in the doctor’s surgery, but still… This happens every election. I always offer the local Conservatives the run of my front garden, which borders the village green, and

Friday

Steerpike

Scottish Covid adviser’s vaccine confusion

Oh dear. During the course of the pandemic, the University of Edinburgh professor of public health Devi Sridhar, has become a regular sight on television screens and comment pages – offering her insights on the best course of action over Covid. In her role on the Scottish government’s Covid-19 advisory group, Sridhar has previously caught Mr Steerpike’s attention for lobbying repeatedly for more SNP powers which she claims are necessary to stop the spread of coronavirus. The snag? There was nothing stopping the Scottish government from quarantining travellers using their own powers, a move that was already planned at the point Sridhar demanded it. Now the good professor has been accused once again this afternoon of spreading confusion. As

Thursday

Daniel Rey

How 20th-century artists rescued the Crucifixion

Two millennia ago, in the outer reaches of the empire, the Romans performed a routine execution of a Galilean rebel. Tortured and publicly humiliated in front of family and friends, Jesus of Nazareth was slowly asphyxiated over six hours. The Crucifixion is the centrepiece of Christianity. But artists have long adapted the devotional image of the Cross for their own purposes. As far back as the early 5th century, woodcarvers working on a door for the Basilica of Santa Sabina in Rome crafted a Christ whose palms are impaled with nails, but who is not hung on a cross. A devotional statue in Panama dating from the 17th century made

Monday

Steerpike

Watch: Labour MP refuses to condemn Bristol violence

Oh dear. Appearing on BBC Two’s Politics Live this afternoon, Labour left winger Nadia Whittome refused to condemn the violent protesters in Bristol last night that left 20 policeman injured including two in a serious condition.  Despite being asked four times by presenter Jo Coburn, Whittome would only say ‘I’m not going to get into condemning protesters when we don’t know what’s happened yet. We need a full investigation into what has happened.’ It is worth noting that all four of Bristol’s Labour MPs and the city’s Labour mayor Marvin Rees have already criticised the actions of the protesters, with Rees claiming it was ‘selfish, self-indulgent, self-centred violence.’ Given that Whittome’s

Wednesday

Steerpike

Dominic Cummings returns to parliament – the best bits

Dominic Cummings today returned to face a select committee for the first time since his fiery clash with Andrew Tyrie five years ago. Cummings — who was found in contempt of parliament for refusing to appear in 2018 — is up this morning before the Science and Technology panel of MPs. It is the first time the former No. 10 adviser has made public comments about his time in Government since leaving Downing Street in November. The subject of discussion is ARIA — the new £800 million Advanced Research and Invention Agency he championed in government which aims to fund ‘high-risk, high-reward’ inventions. MPs broadly stuck to the issue in hand, allowing Cummings to explain the successes

Tuesday

Steerpike

Coming soon: red wall by-election

Things are not going well for Labour’s Keir Starmer. After yesterday’s polling showed his first negative satisfaction ratings and a seven point Conservative lead, today brings news that Hartlepool MP Mike Hill has resigned from the Commons to trigger a by election deep in red wall territory. Given the suspension of last May’s mayoral and local elections, this will be the first time Boris Johnson’s popularity will be tested with the northern voters who gave him his majority in December 2019. While the timing of the contest is yet to be set, CCHQ will be licking their lips at Hill’s 3,595 majority. Ladbrokes have the party as odds-on favourites to win the Hartlepool

Steerpike Steerpike

The EU-AstraZeneca row: a complete timeline

Oh dear. This morning Sweden has become the latest European country to suspend use of the AstraZeneca-Oxford University vaccine. It follows reports that some people have suffered blood clots after being given the jab despite AstraZeneca’s data showing there have only been 37 such reports among the 17 million people across Europe who have been given the vaccine. Yet while some European health ministries across the continent are raising concerns about its effectiveness, others are lambasting AstraZeneca for failing to deliver enough jabs. French Europe minister Clement Beaune appeared on Radio Classique this morning and raised the prospect of the EU actually suing the company over breach of contract. Citing

Monday

Stephen Daisley

Scottish Tories must be more than the party of no

Among the many challenges facing Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross has been the question of definition. It is difficult to define yourself in the best of times, let alone in the middle of a pandemic. When, on top of this, your seat is in Westminster, and not the devolved parliament on which the Scottish media focuses their resources and priorities, it’s harder still to penetrate the public consciousness. No matter how often you try to get yourself in front of a TV camera, you can still feel like the Invisible Man. Ross used his speech to the Scottish Conservative conference to narrate who he is and what he believes. There

Steerpike Steerpike

Inside the £2.9 million Downing Street press room

This afternoon ITV got the scoop they were all after – pictures of the elusive Downing Street press conference room. The room is based in No 9 Downing Street and has enjoyed an eye-watering £2.9 million makeover to host the cream of the nation’s press for televised lobby briefings. The £2.9 million spending includes £1.8 million for ‘main works’ plus spending on other items such as £198,000 for ‘long lead items’, £33,000 for ‘broadband equipment’ and £1,400 on a core drill. It is here that Allegra Stratton, the Prime Minister’s Press Secretary, will do battle with the parliamentary lobby in the site which formerly hosted the Privy Council Office courtroom. Decked out in royal

Steerpike Steerpike

The Guardian’s troubles with Roy Greenslade

Roy Greenslade’s confession last month that he was a dedicated supporter of the IRA during the Troubles has not gone down well on Fleet Street. Greenslade secretly wrote for the republican newsletter An Phoblacht and provided bail surety for an IRA man accused of involvement in the 1982 Hyde Park bombing. He wrote in the Sunday Times three weeks ago that he was in ‘complete agreement about the right of the Irish people to engage in armed struggle’, adding: ‘I supported the use of physical force.’ The backlash from journalists and victims of the IRA alike caused Greenslade to resign his post as honorary visiting professor of journalism at City,

Thursday

Isabel Hardman

Voters still aren’t listening to Labour

Sir Keir Starmer has launched Labour’s local elections campaign today, focusing on the need for a ‘proper pay rise’ for NHS staff. Of course, local government has nothing to do with the way NHS pay is set in England, but that’s by the by if you’re an opposition trying to turn every poll into a referendum on the government. Starmer’s call for Boris Johnson to give nurses and other health service workers a 2 per cent pay rise is in keeping with the approach he has taken over the past few months which is to look for a government problem and hitch a ride on that, rather than go on the

Wednesday

Steerpike

Tories mask up in battle to save the Union

First there was the Union Unit, then there was the Internal Market Act. Now Mr Steerpike can reveal the latest weapon of Tory MPs to fight the Scottish Nationalists: Union Jack face masks. A number of the new 2019 intake have been seen proudly sporting the emblems in the chamber to counter SNP members wearing the St Andrews’ cross opposite. West Dorset MP Chris Loder is the man responsible, purchasing them from a shop near Waterloo station. He told Mr S: ‘I was looking across the benches sometimes and seeing these pretty ghastly masks from the opposition benches especially the SNP which are all about the politics of division. The one

Saturday

Benedict Spence

Carrie Symonds and the cult of rewilding

Carrie Symonds is to join the Aspinall Foundation as its new head of communications, in a move very much on-brand for the Prime Minister’s squeeze. Symonds has been credited with Boris Johnson’s metamorphosis from pro-liberty, free market Brexiteer to environmentalist — a strategy that she may have spotted as working rather well for disgraced former Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi, who changed his image from that of a love rat to rat lover, frequently sharing snaps of himself with adorable animals on Instagram.  So what will Carrie’s call to the wild entail? The Aspinall Foundation works with conserving and rewilding endangered animals, and runs two centres in the UK, whilst also

Tuesday

Mark Mason

Before Rashford: sports stars who got political

It can’t be easy, holding down a place in the Manchester United and England teams while also serving as de facto Deputy Prime Minister. But Marcus Rashford seems to be managing it. After the footballer’s high profile campaigns on free school meals and homelessness, we look at some of the other sports stars who swapped the pitch for politics. George Weah Rashford’s predecessors in the world of soccer haven’t always focused on Lamborghinis and nightclubs. The Brazilian Socrates founded the Corinthians Democracy movement to oppose his country’s military government, while in 2014 his compatriot Romario went one stage further and got himself elected to the Brazilian senate.  In 1997 Liverpool’s Robbie Fowler

Thursday

Ross Clark

Rishi Sunak’s Singapore problem

For those trying to argue that the evils of colonialism still hang over former lands of the British Empire, the legacy of racism suppressing their ambitions and achievements, the Republic of Singapore presents something of a challenge.  Just how did this particular colony manage to become not only one of the wealthiest countries in the world, but one of the highest-fliers in the United Nations’ Human Development Index? Indeed, the Asian city state has once again this week been promoted as a model for its former colonial master to emulate.  It can’t just be the Guinness that has attracted investment to another former corner of British soil over the past couple

Thursday

Benedict Spence

‘I wish her well’: inside Westminster’s secret language

An Apology An apology is a series of words strung together to absolve one of sins committed in private or in one’s professional life, usually uncovered by a newspaper, which allows one to carry on one’s duties as if nothing had happened, and very often to repeat the sins for which one has apologised. It needn’t be sincere — indeed, that is considered rather poor form — and it is only ever to be used as a measure of last resort. If in doubt, simply apologise for how you have made someone feel rather than the action itself. “I wish them well” An expression that loosely translates as “May God

Taki

My advice to Trump supporters? Smile and take it

New York There are times, living in this here dump, when I doubt if anyone’s heard of the word magnanimity. By the looks of it, no one in left-wing media circles has ever come across it. That egregious Amanpour woman compared Trump’s administration to Nazism on CNN after the election, which reminds me: during my dinner’s drunken aftermath, I noticed a man in my house. He hardly even bothered to greet me, the host. It was one James Rubin, a vulgar American who is — or was — married to that rather unattractive British-Iranian Amanpour. I never did find out who invited that bum to my house, but someone obviously

Thursday

Tanjil Rashid

How democracy can subvert itself: Bunga Bunga reviewed

Italy has long captivated romantics from rainy, dreary, orderly northern Europe. Goethe, Stendhal, Keats and Shelley all flocked to Italy in search of the ideal society. There they found what they thought was a utopia. ‘There is,’ Byron marvelled in a letter home from Ravenna, ‘no law or government at all, and it is wonderful how well things go on without them.’ Well, Silvio Berlusconi has made some of Europe’s wisest men sound like chumps. If the notorious career — chronicled in the podcast Bunga Bunga — of the longest-serving prime minister of Italy since Mussolini and its sometime richest man has done one good thing, it’s to have dispelled

James Walton

Enough plotlines to power several seasons of The West Wing: BBC1’s Roadkill reviewed

Like many a political thriller before it, BBC1’s Roadkill began with a politician emerging into the daylight to face a bank of clicking cameras and bellowing journalists. In this case, the politician was Peter Laurence (Hugh Laurie), the Tory minister for transport, who’d just won a libel case against a newspaper that had accused him of using his cabinet position for personal profit. Exactly what he’s supposed to have done, we don’t yet know — although it does seem pretty clear that whatever it was, he did it. Certainly his own lawyer thinks so, as does the journalist who wrote the story but had to retract it in court when