British Politics

Oliver Dowden has struggled to name the exact science Boris Johnson used to develop his 10pm curfew on the hospitality sector during a live interview on national television. Dowden, the culture secretary, insisted the government had used a study from US that proved hospitality settings were a breeding ground for Covid-19 as he downplayed concerns over a legal challenge […]

A police investigation has been launched into Brexit campaigner Darren Grimes over a racist interview he published in which historian David Starkey said slavery was not genocide because there are “so many damn blacks” still around. Scotland Yard said in a statement: “On July 4, the Metropolitan Police Service was passed an allegation from Durham […]

Labour has demanded a top-level investigation into communities secretary over how government funding was allocated to his constituency over others in the UK. Robert Jenrick said he and a junior minister approved payments to towns in each other’s constituencies from a government fund earmarked for deprived areas, with his Newark constituency selected for a £25 million […]

A major Tory Party donor has been knighted in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list. Tom Gallagher, a multimillionaire property developer who has donated hundreds of thousands of pounds to the Conservative Party, is honoured for “services to land development and the property business”. The businessman is said to be part of the so-called “Chipping Norton set” […]

A former Tory chancellor has said Sir Keir Starmer is more than ready to become prime minister as he issued a stark warning to former colleagues on the threat Labour’s new leader posed.  George Osborne said Boris Johnson and the Tory ministers faced a “plausible opponent” in Sir Keir. Speaking with Fraser Nelson for piece in the […]

Boris Johnson has been compared to a school teacher losing control of the class by members of his own party in the House of Lords. A ban on singing, mingling and dancing in groups of more than six in pubs and restaurants came under fire in the House of Lords during a debate on the limits […]

Boris Johnson has been asked to withdraw his attack on lawyers by the head of the Bar in England and Wales, after the prime minister branded them “lefty human rights lawyers” and “do-gooders”. In his speech to the Conservative Party’s virtual conference, Johnsonn claimed the government is working to stop “the whole criminal justice system […]

Good Morning Britain celebrity doctor Hilary Jones has sparred with a pro-Brexit journalist over her comments on herd immunity. The row erupted when former Times journalist Isabel Oakeshott locked horns with Dr Gabriel Scally, who sits on the independent board of SAGE, on the issue of herd immunity. Oakeshott argued that younger people should be exempt from […]

The Green Party has become the third biggest party in new YouGov polling for Westminster. Despite limited amounts of media coverage for the Greens, the polling is the first time the pollster has recorded the party overtaking the Liberal Democrat since March 2015. The new polling puts the party on 6% (+1) of support, ahead […]

Don’t expect to see the back of Boris Johnson any time soon, says one reader. Reports of Johnson’s early political demise may well titillate but I suspect are exaggerated and probably over-hopeful. I would be the first to admit that I read with relish how this most rubbish of prime ministers is on the skids. […]

MPs have come under intense criticism after it emerged they would push ahead with recommendations to up their pay by more than £3,500. The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) is facing calls to freeze a pay rise for politicians as the rest of the country deals with the economic impacts of coronavirus. IPSA has suggested […]

Readers have their say on reports of a Tory war on the BBC. Peter York and Liz Gerard are very informative about the battle for the BBC (“The war on the BBC is real and organised”, “Blue sky blogs have BBC in their sights”, TNE #213). However, they did not touch on two aspects of […]

The effectiveness of England and Wales’s coronavirus app is under the spotlight once again after it was reported that only one alert about an outbreak in a venue has been delivered since the service launched a fortnight ago. People are able to scan codes on posters before entering venues such as pubs and restaurants using the […]

Readers have their say on Keir Starmer’s performance on Brexit and Europe. A lot of us are trying to get our heads round Keir Starmer’s “the debate between Leave and Remain is over” (it certainly isn’t) and “we are not going to be a party that keeps banging on about Brexit” (yes we are). We’re […]

A Tory minister minister has encouraged newly unemployed people to sign up for the furlough scheme only to be told it closed to new entrants back in June. Skills minister Gillian Keegan told hospitality staff who lost their jobs in Bolton due to new lockdown restrictions to sign up to the chancellor’s furlough programme without realising it […]

Tory backbencher and former party leader Iain Duncan Smith has questioned Boris Johnson’s claims that he and the public can “defeat the virus”. The Brexiteer said that he did not believe the prime minister could ever manage to do it, instead arguing that he must help Britons to live with the disease. Speaking to the […]

Labour peer and former child refugee Alf Dubbs has criticised the rhetoric of home secretary Priti Patel. Earlier in the week the former MP, born in Prague in 1932, defeated Patel in the House of Lords with his amendments to the minister’s immigration bill. Speaking to the New Statesman, Dubbs said he despised the atmosphere […]

Jamie Oliver has called on the government to respect the sovereignty of parliament and abandon any plans to water down Britain’s food standards via secondary legislation. Oliver, who owned his own chain of restaurants and has his own cooking show, said he staunchly opposed to the use of secondary legislation to bypass parliamentary scrutiny and that could lead […]

Brexit Party chairman Richard Tice has come out against Boris Johnson’s lockdown measures arguing that if the economy does not shut down for cancer then it should not for the coronavirus. Speaking on talkRADIO, Tice said England and Wales’ coronavirus death rate – which stands at more than 48,000 – needed to be “put into context”. […]

A couple who claim they saw Dominic Cummings in Durham a second time in lockdown have accused the local police force of bias towards the government after dismissing the eye-witness statement. An internal review of the constabulary, seen by the Guardian, claims the force did take seriously the alleged sighting of Cummings in a woods […]

Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s communications director Allegra Stratton will be appointed as prime minister Boris Johnson’s spokeswoman for televised briefings, a government source has said. Downing Street has not commented on the appointment of the former ITV News editor to the new role. The announcement comes after No 10 narrowed the number of candidates to fill the […]

A majority of Britons think the UK is heading “in the wrong direction” for the first time this year, new polling has revealed. More than half of Britons, 53%, fear their country is going the wrong way – up eight points since August – while less than a quarter, 18%, feel it is. The Ipsos MORI […]

Many years ago now, I was on a panel at a sceptics’ conference with, among other luminaries, professor Richard Dawkins (it’s on YouTube if you look for it). Towards the end of the discussion we were asked if there could be a version of ‘God’ which we could find easier to believe in than those […]

A cabinet minister has refuted calls to provide the science behind the government’s 10pm curfew decision – insisting it was a “commonsensical view”. Robert Jenrick insisted the approach was similar to “well-run, sensible, rational governments” when he was asked to defend the measure. He told Sky News: “There is a commonsensical view that given that the virus thrives […]

A former Brexit Party MEP who has refused to apologise for historical support of the IRA bombing in Warrington that killed two children has taken her seat in the House of Lords. The appointment of Claire Fox to the unelected chamber has sparked controversy, with Labour branding it “an insult to the people of the […]

Winston Peters – leader of the New Zealand First party – has long been described as a populist, both in New Zealand and internationally. At different times during his career he has embraced the label. As he said recently, populism to him “means that you’re talking to the ordinary people and you’re placing their views […]

Liz Truss has accidentally announced that new post-Brexit trade deals will “undermine” British farmers during a debate in the Commons. The international trade secretary was answering a question on whether a new trade deal with the US would severely impact British pig famers. Shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry asked: “Can [Truss] please tell us which law prevents the import […]

Almost half of all people who voted for the UK to Remain in the European Union appear to disagree with the spirit of the EU’s freedom of movement rules, a new study has found. 48% of Remain voters were in favour of having EU citizens apply to come to Britain rather than under existing provisions. That number almost doubles among […]