Independent Premium

Rather like his master Boris Johnson, Dilyn the dog doesn’t seem to care where he cocks his leg. Last year, for example, it was allegedly the turn of a handbag belonging to Downing Street adviser Katie Lam to get a golden shower. In the fracas that reportedly ensued in the usually tranquil garden of 10 Downing Street, Carrie Symonds, the prime minister’s fiancée, is said to have intervened to protect the little terrier. According to some possibly fanciful reports, the incident did not endear Lam to Symonds, and may have contributed to Lam leaving her job this month. Poignantly, Lam had some responsibility for HR. More likely, her departure was part of a continuing clear-out of those associated with Dominic Cummings and the Vote Leave campaign. This has resembled not so much a reshuffle as an exorcism. The other recent victim of the purge was old Cummings ally Oliver “Sonic” Lewis, so-called because of his supposed resemblance to the computer game character, though in fact he looks more like the Duke of Gloucester. He was supposedly briefing against Michael Gove, though Lewis denies it. After a month or so, he is no longer responsible for the union unit. No one is. More

Many Labour supporters and some commentators say that Keir Starmer’s opinion poll ratings are disappointing. What they usually mean is that they dislike Boris Johnson and think that he has handled the coronavirus badly, and as a result believe that Labour ought to be miles ahead in the polls by now.In fact, the polls suggest that enough people think the government has handled the crisis well to keep the Conservatives afloat, and an overwhelming majority think the government has done well on vaccines.What has happened in the past few weeks, then, is that the prime minister and the Conservative Party have received a modest boost in the polls thanks to the vaccines, and this has little to do with what people think of the Labour leader. More

Apart from the welcome spirit of internationalism, the announcement that Britain’s forthcoming “surplus” of Covid vaccines will be distributed to developing countries is significant in other ways. Given that the vaccination programme is not yet complete, although proceeding smoothly, it seems premature to be distributing doses that do not yet exist. The only pressing need to announce such a thing would seem to be the imminent (next Friday) G7 summit in Washington. Britain, post-Brexit, needs to demonstrate that it has a role in the world, and the rapid “world-beating” vaccine rollout provides an irresistible temptation to indulge in “vaccine diplomacy”. Like China and Russia, but pointedly unlike the European Union, Britain can also be seen to be able to win friends and influence people globally, and save lives into the bargain. Recent spats between London and Brussels over vaccine supply probably made shipments from the UK to Europe politically impossible. The vaccines are headed for villages in Malawi rather than Bavaria, and it is difficult to argue it should be the other way around. So Britain, in the personage of Boris Johnson, wants to strut its stuff on the world stage. It is probably inevitable that a post-imperial power that retains its “Global Britain” mindset should crave to be seen to still count for something. The UK will host the COP26 climate change conference in Glasgow in November, having hosted June’s G7 in Cornwall. Liz Truss, the international trade secretary, is busily trying to get Britain into the Trans-Pacific Partnership and win trade deals with emerging powers such as India. Britain has resumed its individual seat at the World Trade Organisation, and is establishing itself as the lead in mapping the DNA of coronavirus variants. More

Arguably, the appointment of a “free speech champion” and strengthening the laws around freedom of expression in universities is at best unnecessary, and at worst another cynical attempt to start a culture war. Gavin Williamson, the beleaguered education secretary, may have looked enviously at the successful forays into cultural combat recently undertaken by Priti Patel, Liz Truss, Oliver Dowden and the prime minister himself, (on Black Lives Matter protests, lefty lawyers, racial justice, statues and the BBC), and fancied a slice of the action himself. Nothing delights the Tory base so much as watching a cabinet minister get tough on “wokery” and pour scorn on the sensibilities of ministries and progressives. It’s like a legal high (or would be, if legal highs hadn’t actually been made illegal). More

Some 62 Conservative members of parliament in the Covid Recovery Group (CRG) have written to the prime minister demanding that Covid restrictions are lifted – for good – as soon as the over-50s have been vaccinated, which may be in a matter of weeks. They want all schools open on 8 March, and pubs and restaurants thriving again by Easter (a literally moveable feast this year, which starts on 1 April). As the daffodils come out, so will the British public, in this scenario. Boris Johnson is trying to deliver it, but he can’t give them a guarantee because the dates the CRG chose are obviously arbitrary, and we’ve been through too many abortive “freedoms days” before. If the CRG were put on God’s earth to make Mr Johnson look sensible, reasonable and driven by science, then the divine plan could not have been more immaculately conceived. The CRG is yet another Tory parliamentary faction, this one led by Mark Harper, a former Tory chief whip, and Steve Baker, self-styled veteran Spartan of the Brexit wars, and fuelled by the kind of unrelenting chipiness that has caused so much trouble in recent years. Given their numbers, they easily have the ability to overturn the government’s majority and reject any fresh or renewed restrictions on personal and economic liberties that might be put to the House of Commons. Its membership comprises adamantine serial rebels, some with scant respect for the prime minister. Yet the CRG is irrelevant so far as Covid is concerned, but perhaps not so much for the political career of Boris Johnson. More

The government promised in March 2020 that nobody would be made homeless because of losing their income as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. For months it appeared to keep that promise with a general ban on rental evictions.But it has since introduced new loopholes to the ban that appear to break the promise. More

“I don’t support protest…” Was it that a simple gaffe of the type we’ve grown to expect from Priti Patel, or more of a Freudian slip? In truth, it wasn’t all that revealing. Ms Patel may not personally have much in common with Donald Trump, but she does possess an almost Trumpian talent to spot incipient cultural conflict and ignite it for political gain. Or, in this case, reignite it, as she seized the opportunity presented by a radio interview to drip contempt on the Black Lives Matter movement and the custom of “taking a knee”. She may not be able to pronounce long numbers, but her populist instincts are preternaturally sharp. Both BLM and taking a knee have been twisted and redefined – you might say gaslit – to suit a particular agenda. BLM is supposedly now some kind of highly disciplined Bolshevik-style political cadre dedicated to the overthrow of “our history”, whatever that means, while taking a knee is presented as some sort of grotesque act of racial subjugation. It is quite the opposite, and the Black Lives Matter movement, which has spawned some organised groups, is an inchoate collection of honourable people making a simple but powerful gesture against racism. No conservative or patriot need fear or despise it, and there would be no objection to the likes of Boris Johnson or Nigel Farage joining in. More