Robert Peston is Political Editor of ITV News and host of the weekly political discussion show Peston. His articles originally appeared on his ITV News blog.
The penny seems to have belatedly dropped for Boris Johnson. He can have a no-trade-deal relationship with the European Union – what he calls an Australian-style relationship – or he can have Northern Ireland as a seamless member of the UK’s internal market. But under the EU Withdrawal Agreement that he signed, he cannot have
The government is to significantly reduce the threshold for lawful gatherings of people in homes from the current 30, perhaps to as low as six, I understand. This is a first response to the significant spike to circa 3,000 a day in Covid-19 infections we’ve seen. At the moment, attending a gathering of more than
You may wonder why on earth a Tory government led by Boris Johnson, the heirs to Thatcher for goodness sake, are sacrificing the prospect of a trade deal with the EU because they want the right to subsidise British industry. If the Tories and Thatcher stood for anything, it was rolling back the role of
The cause of the latest spike of coronavirus cases in Bolton points to why we need continued vigilance against Covid-19, and why it would be highly surprising if we were not now set on an upward national trend. The locus of the Bolton surge was some pubs, and possibly one in particular. And it may
Some in Westminster have been missing Dominic Cummings. It turns out he had an operation in late July, which he delayed a year ago when Boris Johnson persuaded him to become his chief aide, and has been convalescing in the north of England since. He returns to normal duties at No. 10 on Monday. Whitehall source tells
The cost of Covid-19 in the UK, in 45,000 lives lost and considerably more if ‘excess’ deaths are included, in long term illness for tens of thousands, and in damage to our prosperity, is changing everything. But did the shock have to be so great? Could the government have done more to protect us? Among
I am hearing there will be positive news soon (perhaps tomorrow) on initial trials of the Oxford Covid-19 vaccine that is backed by AstraZeneca and supported by tens of millions of pounds of government money. The first data is due be published in the Lancet. Apparently the vaccine is generating the kind of antibody and
It is a big deal that the Chinese telecoms giant Huawei is being totally excluded from the UK’s new fast 5G mobile network, and is redolent of a de facto cold war between the West and China. But Johnson has taken a more gradualist approach to the exclusion of Huawei than his Tory critics wanted
The £15 billion spent on PPE, personal protective equipment, since March is one of those numbers that once it’s in your head, it’s impossible to unthink it, like a ghoul from a nightmare. It gauges both the scale of the health and economic crisis we’re enduring, but also quite how astonishingly unprepared the government really
There is only one test for what the Treasury is billing – with all its magnificent talent for hyperbole – an ‘update’, which is the impact it will have on taming the looming ghoul of mass unemployment. Will Rishi Sunak’s stimulus package deter or even reverse decisions to sack people by those businesses that are
These may well be the defining few days of the Johnson government. Having failed to make a towering success of the initial response to the Covid-19 crisis – by his own admission on Times Radio this morning – the Prime Minister is now embarked on the kind of structural reform of the machinery of government
One of Boris Johnson’s closest allies, David Frost – who has been negotiating the terms of the UK’s future relationship with the EU – is to become National Security Adviser, succeeding Sir Mark Sedwill, who is standing down both as cabinet secretary and NSA. This is an unusual and controversial appointment because Frost is a
The first local lockdown – and therefore a test of whether local lockdowns will be effective in suppressing coronavirus outbreaks – could take place within days, according to senior members of the government. One pointed out that there has been a surge in cases in Leicester: there were 658 coronavirus cases in the Leicester area
Welcome to C Day – where the ‘C’ stands for the ‘complexity’ of living with coronavirus. Because when the prime minister announces the return to something like normal living today, our revised way of life will feel anything but normal, and also bloomin’ complicated. For example, we’ll be able to have friends or family inside
Here are the outstanding questions to be taken by the Prime Minister and the coronavirus strategy committee he chairs (CS) today about how far lockdown will be eased on 4 July and thereafter. First, on socialising inside where we live; will we be allowed to meet with anyone we like indoors in groups of up
There is little chance of a safe escape from lockdown restrictions unless NHS Test and Trace is picking up most of those infected with coronavirus, and those who have come into contact with them. How is it doing so far? It is early days, but it looks as though only around one in nine of
What comes next, now that the transmission rate and prevalence of Covid-19 have fallen significantly? (Before you shout at me, yes I know there is frustration and some bemusement among scientists that illness incidence and numbers of deaths have not dropped faster in the UK, but they have nonetheless reduced significantly, if not uniformly, everywhere).
Danny Kruger, the Tory MP who is an old friend of Dominic Cummings and his spouse, got it right last night. The ‘affaire Cummings’ – as the French would put it – is no longer about the most powerful aide to the prime minister and the minutiae of how he interpreted coronavirus quarantine rules differently
Dominic Cummings knows all about how perception damages public confidence in political parties. Here he is in June 2017: ‘People think, and by the way I think most people are right: ‘The Tory party is run by people who basically don’t care about people like me’. That is what most people in the country have
The rule of modern politics, let’s call it Trump’s first law, is that if you are being attacked for apparently breaking the rules, the best defence is to double down and insist that it is in fact you and your colleagues who have acted with the utmost integrity – and anyone who suggests otherwise is
