British Politics

Rob Davidson of Trade Deal Watch looks at Boris Johnson’s Internal Market Bill and says the result of it will determine how history remembers the era of “Johnsonism”. The people of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland are about to pass a terrifying deadline set by our Prime Minister. Boris Johnson proclaimed that we should […]

Wales’ first minister Mark Drakeford has described Boris Johnson’s proposals for travel restrictions for coronavirus hotspots in England as “inadequate”. It came as Wales’s health minister said there is now evidence that travel to and from areas of England with high rates of Covid-19 has contributed to the spread of the virus to other areas of […]

Boris Johnson’s administration is said to be wooing Joe Biden ahead of the US election, after reportedly becoming increasingly convinced that Donald Trump will not win. Downing Street are said to have been reviewing private polling which showed that Biden is on track to win by a landslide, leading to Johnson to increase communication with the […]

A group of MPs are launching legal action against the government after it failed to account for £3 billion in private coronavirus contracts since the start of the lockdown in April. Three cross-party MPs and the Good Law Project – a non-for-profit organisation – have filed a judicial review against the government for breaching the law and […]

Boris Johnson is to announce a new three-tier system of local lockdown measures for England in an effort to curb rising Covid-19 rates. – What is happening? Different parts of the country will be split up into “medium”, “high” or “very high” local coronavirus alert areas under the new system. It comes after the prime […]

Farmers are to hold a protest outside parliament to make their voices heard over the threat of Brexit deals to their livelihoods as MPs prepare to vote on the government’s Agriculture Bill. In a warning to the risk of Brexit to food standards, farmers will assemble at New Covent Garden from 1pm on Monday as […]

Matt Hancock has dismissed claims he broke the drinking curfew after he was allegedly spotted consuming wine at a Common’s bar after 10pm. A senior Tory MP told the Mail on Sunday that Hancock had remained in the Smoking Room bar until at least 10.25pm last Monday despite the Commons speaker insisting all of parliament’s venues […]

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has criticised proposals for MPs to receive an inflation-busting pay rise next April. The independent body which sets MPs’ salaries has proposed continuing to link their pay packets to wage growth in the public sector. That could result in a pay rise of more than £3,300, taking their salaries to […]

A government minister has been grilled over the chancellor’s new furlough scheme which will see workers have to survive on £5.84 an hour. Culture secretary Oliver Dowden refused to say if he could live off the government’s new minimum wage for furloughed workers. During an interview on Sky News, Dowden discussed the impact new coronavirus restrictions are having […]

Margaret Ferrier has claimed she was “hung out to dry” by the SNP after posting a scripted statement in which she admitted breaching coronavirus rules. The Rutherglen and Hamilton West MP had the party whip withdrawn after travelling while awaiting the results of a Covid-19 test. In an interview with The Scottish Sun, she said […]

An advertisement – which includes government branding – has angered supporters of the arts after appearing to suggest that those working in the arts should consider retraining in digital skills. The promotions for a government-backed Cyber First scheme uses a series of case studies to demonstrate that people could “reskill” themselves in a new sector to […]

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 […]