Independent Premium

Subterms

    More stories

    • 150 Shares179 Views

      in UK Politics

      Is it time for Labour to call for Christmas to be cancelled?

      by

      When Matt Hancock, the health and social care secretary, came to the Commons to give the bad news about the upsurge in Covid infections, his shadow counterpart asked his usual sharp questions in his usual measured fashion. “As things stand, we are heading into the Christmas easing with diminishing headroom. The buffer zone these tiers were supposed to provide is getting much thinner,” said Jon Ashworth.“So what is his plan to keep people safe through Christmas and avoid huge pressures on the NHS in January? What is his plan to support an exhausted, underfunded, understaffed NHS through January to deliver the care patients will need? And is he confident that our NHS won’t be so overwhelmed in January that it impacts the vaccination programme?” More

    • 175 Shares199 Views

      in UK Politics

      ‘We want to remain in the EU’: What will happen to Gibraltar after Brexit?

      by

      Standing at the summit of Gibraltar, looking down at the oil tankers and container ships crisscrossing the narrow straits below, you can see why this rocky promontory has always been so important. In past centuries, whoever controlled this rock controlled all the shipping that passed beneath it, between Europe and Africa, between the Atlantic and the Med.For the past 300 years the country that’s controlled the Rock of Gibraltar has been Britain, but as the end of the transition period draws near this crowded peninsular has become significant for an entirely different reason. For half a century, Gibraltar has prospered mightily through Britain’s membership of the European Union. But now Britain is leaving the EU and taking Gibraltar with it, even though Gibraltarians voted by a massive 96 per cent to 4 per cent to remain. So how will Gibraltar’s reluctant departure affect its relationship with Spain – and Britain? Last week, I went back to Gibraltar to find out.I first visited Gibraltar four years ago, a few months after the EU referendum. I was curious to see how the Gibraltarians felt about those Brexiteers back in Blighty who’d outvoted them. Gibraltar had voted to remain by a far greater margin than any region in mainland Britain. Would Brexit be the lever that tilted Gibraltarians away from Britain, towards Spain? More

    • 138 Shares179 Views

      in UK Politics

      Is it time for politicians to start discussing a wealth tax?

      by

      Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, is looking at ways to raise funds to repair the damage of coronavirus to the public finances. Last week the Wealth Tax Commission, set up by academics at Warwick University and the London School of Economics, proposed a one-off tax on personal wealth at a rate of 5 per cent that could raise £260bn. How realistic is this plan?
      Gus O’Donnell, the former cabinet secretary who wrote the foreword to the report, quoted Sunak, who said in July this year: “I do not believe that now is the time, or ever would be the time, for a wealth tax.” Nevertheless, Lord O’Donnell urges ministers to keep an open mind, pointing out the lack of alternative good options. He wrote that “it is broadly accepted” that taxes will eventually have to rise, and that the Conservatives are bound by manifesto promises not to raise income tax, national insurance contributions or VAT. If they are to put up taxes, he said, it means breaking those pledges, “or it means thinking seriously about new taxes”.  More

    • 163 Shares99 Views

      in UK Politics

      Why it’s wrong to blame the Final Say campaign for the Brexit crisis

      by

      If only pro-EU MPs had backed the deal that Theresa May secured, instead of joining the millions who marched for a fresh referendum last year, all would be well – or so we are told.
      This is unfair on so many levels – it is a basic principle that those who break it should mend it – but, more important, it is an illusion to believe the May agreement offered salvation. More

    • 225 Shares159 Views

      in UK Politics

      From a landslide to a pandemic: Boris Johnson’s premiership one year on from his victory at the polls

      by

      As John Lennon asks us still at Christmas, “another year over, and what have you done?” In the year since his undeniably impressive general election win, Boris Johnson has done a great deal (though not yet literally in those tricky EU trade talks), has had plenty done to him and, to his credit, managed to survive a near death experience – joking aside, which is never easy for him. Even if he’s pushed out next year, he’s amassed sufficient material already for an entertaining rip-roaring memoir and a lifetime supply of yarns to fill lazy newspaper columns (thence recycled into relaxed after dinner speeches). Lennon, working class hero, might not have been so impressed, though, and you get the idea that his colleagues and the voters are starting to wonder about the choice they made. DECEMBER 2019Obviously free of superstition, on 13 Friday December Her Majesty the Queen invited Boris Johnson to form a government. Whether she might have had her own doubts about this we may never know, but she was constitutionally obliged to “send” for Johnson as he had just won a stonking majority in the general election. He’d vanquished Jeremy Corbyn, humiliated Jo Swinson (the now forgotten figure who’d granted him his early election), crushed Nigel Farage and emerged with a working Commons majority of about 87. It was the largest won by the Tories since 1987, and the best vote share since 1979. A blonde colossus bestrode Westminster: a frightening if awesome figure. More

    • 188 Shares159 Views

      in UK Politics

      Ursula von der Leyen, the EU chief stood between Boris Johnson and a Brexit deal

      by

      Did you know that the president of the Commission of the European Union was once a teen singing star? Back in the Seventies, the young Von der Leyen was a member of a Von Trapp-style troupe, Die Albrecht Familie (her maiden name of course). Her father, who also happened to be the minister-president (prime minister) of the German state of Lower Saxony, was on guitar and mum Heidi and various of their seven children knocked out folk songs for undemanding audiences. They released some records and even, in 1978, a single – “Wohlauf in Gottes schöne Welt” (“Welcome to God’s Beautiful World”), the B-side of which is the track “Alle Birken grünen In Moor und Heid” (“All birches are green in the moor and heather”). As you can probably tell, the family was Christian (Lutheran, that is), and rather traditional. OK, ABBA and Boney M kicked the hell out of them chart-wise, but they at least got into some German variety shows, and her dad did run the place where they make the Volkswagens, so not bad really.  The Albrechts were not just good at singing. The family is what the British would term “gentry”, and UvdL, as she is known, has some distinguished kin. One brother, Hans-Holger, is CEO of the French media group Deezer. Uncle George was a distinguished conductor and grandfather Carl a psychotherapist keen on mystical consciousness who invented a new method of meditation based on something called “autogenic training”, which might or might not be of use before, during and after Ursula’s difficult conversations with Viktor Orban, semi-tyrant of Hungary. Further back, her antecedents include cotton merchants and plantation (ie slave) owners in South Carolina, by the name of Ladson, one of whom served as a senator and governor in the time of George Washington. Another cotton trader, Ludwig Knoop, set himself up in Russia and was made a baron by Tsar Alexander II.   More

    • 75 Shares99 Views

      in UK Politics

      What are Labour’s options on Brexit?

      by

      One of the many perversities of Brexit is that while the House of Commons will have to vote on any new EU trade deal, if there is no deal then there will be no opportunity for the Commons to approve or reject that particular future, short of re-opening the existing laws enacting Brexit. So even if they wanted to, Labour would not be able to instruct the government to reach a deal. This is in stark contrast to the situation before the last election when the Commons did that very thing, with a bill sponsored by Hilary Benn, which became the Benn Act. That was then swept away when Boris Johnson won his large majority a year ago.    Sir Keir Starmer only has the option of voting on any new trade deal that is reached. As ever, he has a choice. The indications are that he will ask his MPs to vote for the deal irrespective of its terms similar my because it is inherently preferable to no deal, even if it’s a scrawny and sorry affair. They argument there is compelling to him.  If he wanted to cause trouble for the government and add to the pressure on Johnson in a rather bloody-minded way he could whip Labour to reject the deal because it is flawed and tell ministers to go back and get a better deal and extend the transition period. This is what sometimes happened to Theresa May, when her rebels sided with the opposition. But now there is no time and Johnson has purged virtually all of the Europhiles on the Tory benches. The result would very likely be no deal, with the Labour partly responsible. Such a prospect would prompt a huge rebellion and chaos in his own party. It was never a possibility. More

    • 225 Shares149 Views

      in UK Politics

      Unions raise health fears over plan to keep schools in mass testing scheme fully open ahead of Christmas

      by

      Education unions have questioned plans in England to keep schools affected by mass testing plans fully open, saying it could lead to increased infection.Asked why England was not taking a similar step, government minister Oliver Dowden said on Friday that the new testing plans were aimed at keeping children in education.  More