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    How the pandemic boosted Boris Johnson’s popularity

    It seems in bad taste to even contemplate such an idea, given the grievous loss of life, almost including his own, but it would seem that the Covid pandemic has – in purely political terms – served Boris Johnson well. While no doubt longer-term trends, long predating Covid-19, including the continuing aftershocks of Brexit, helped the Conservatives in the latest round of elections, it is still true that the Covid crisis was a special factor, and a lucky one for the PM.Imagine, for example, if many of the elections postponed from last year had somehow been held then, or, indeed, after Dominic Cummings affair. At that point, the government looked incompetent, hypocritical and worse, and Keir Starmer was starting to move steadily ahead of the prime minister in the polls. At least in some areas, there would have been an immediate protest vote, a gesture of no confidence in the government. Now, though, Johnson can take full advantage of the vaccine rollout, the relaxation of lockdown and a general feel-better factor.Second, the crisis allowed him to dismiss Labour attacks on “sleaze” and the SNP campaign for a second independence referendum as somehow trivial or irrelevant to the big task of dealing with Covid and returning life to normal. Again, this is not an argument that could have made by Tories with so much confidence last year, when they seemed to be anything but on top of things. More

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    Who can help Starmer win back Labour votes in the north?

    To adapt a phrase, it would seem that some in the Labour Party believe that Keir Starmer’s difficulty is the left’s opportunity. While a Corbynite resurrection is unlikely, a poor election showing in Hartlepool and across the country – by what you might term Starmerite Labour – contains its own silvery-red lining. The reports are that the left – represented in parliament by the likes of Jon Trickett, Ian Lavery and Richard Burgon in the Campaign Group – is giving Starmer another year to make progress or make way for someone else. Already Burgon has urged the leader to include a “big” figure from the left in the shadow cabinet (whoever could he mean?), and there have been various coded threats about the way Starmer has been running things. Key concerns include the reversal of a Corbyn-era pledge to hike corporation tax (with Covid as the reason/cover); a suspicion that Starmer and Jonathan Ashworth’s “constructive criticism” over Covid leaves Labour looking weak and pointless; frustration at internal party disputes; and resentment about the way the drive to eradicate antisemitism has been handled, which is to say with sincerity and commitment. After all, the failure of Jeremy Corbyn to unconditionally welcome the Equality and Human Rights Commission report into Labour’s antisemitism problem has led to the former leader now sitting as an independent MP. Rebecca Long-Bailey, the once future leader, also left the front bench after an argument with the leader around antisemitism. More

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    Why Brexit means Britain’s chances of getting a good trade deal with India are slim

    Generally, it stands to reason that the larger you are, the more chance you will have of securing an advantageous trade deal. This certainly seems to be holding true in the case of the UK and the (rather larger) EU’s attempts to secure closer economic relationships with the United States and with the emerging global industrial superpowers of India and China. Britain finds it fairly easy to adapt existing EU deals with the likes of Kenya or Jordan, and the talks with New Zealand seem to be going well. But, with respect, they are not going to fuel the British economy as it loses its old advantages in continental Europe. Britain needs to hitch itself to bigger, more dynamic powerhouses. It is stumbling.So far the EU is well ahead of the UK in the race for China, partly for political reasons. With Joe Biden pursuing much the same protectionist agenda as his predecessor – his vast $1.9 trillion stimulus is firmly focused on American jobs – neither the British nor the Europeans are likely to make much headway. The most “available” prize is thus India. Here, the British are a few months behind. EU negotiators will be at work by the end of the week; the UK side will have to wait their turn in the autumn. No surprise, that, given that the EU market is around 10 times as large as the British, but a sobering corrective to the buccaneering dreams of “Global Britain” some still seem to cling to.Of course the British trade secretary, Liz Truss, is proud of securing some £1bn of Indian investment and the prospect of some 6,000 jobs being created (according to government claims) in the next year or so. Yet two hypothetical, but important questions, arise: how much of that investment would have materialised if Ms Truss and her department didn’t exist; and how much would have been precluded or delayed if the UK were still part of the EU, with all of its negotiating heft? It is at least possible that Indian companies, like the Japanese before them, would have preferred to have Britain as a base inside the EU single market, and would have invested more if that was still the case. More

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    What does the ministerial code actually say?

    Douglas Ross, the Scottish Conservative leader, was trapped yesterday by his demand that Nicola Sturgeon should resign as first minister if she is found to have broken the Scottish government’s ministerial code. Did this mean he thought Boris Johnson should resign if he broke the UK ministerial code? “Of course,” Ross told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show on Sunday.So how likely is it that the prime minister will be found to have broken the code? That depends on two things: what the code says and who decides whether Johnson has contravened it.Two parts of the code might be relevant. Paragraph 1.3c says: “It is of paramount importance that ministers give accurate and truthful information to parliament, correcting any inadvertent error at the earliest opportunity. Ministers who knowingly mislead parliament will be expected to offer their resignation to the prime minister.” More

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    Has Brexit made Scottish independence more unlikely?

    Nicola Sturgeon can at least be given credit for admitting that, for an independent Scotland, there will be a border with the rest of the UK and that it might not be as it exists today: invisible apart from the “Welcome to Scotland” signs on the motorway.As first minister and leader of the Scottish National Party she could hardly do other than recognise the obvious, and she has: “This is the frankness that certain sections of the media will seek to stir up trouble on – I am not denying that we would need to confront and resolve the issues of being in the European Union for the border between Scotland and England.”The specifics of the border was not much of an issue in the 2014 referendum, because the assumption then (and one reason why independence was rejected) was that either the whole of the UK or Scotland independently would all be part of the EU single market and customs union, and thus trade in goods and service could continue unimpeded (though possible changes to the currency and other changes would complicate matters). More

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    Like Brexit, Covid has turned both the EU and the UK into losers

    The new post-Covid geopolitical normal will feature a much weaker European Union than could ever have been foreseen before the crisis. Brexit, damaging to all concerned as it has undoubtedly proved, looks a mere distraction set against the impact of the coronavirus. The public health test-and-trace response, and death rates, in some EU member states, notably Germany, have been enviable, and many others have scored successes of their own, not least Belgium and the Netherlands, such important centres for vaccine production. Yet throughout the year of turmoil, the European Union’s efforts to coordinate national responses have been either ineffective or downright disastrous. From the get go, when individual countries rushed to close borders and ban exports of protective equipment, ventilators and treatments, the authorities in Brussels have been bystanders. When hard-pressed nations such as Italy sought financial assistance, they were scorned by Commission president Ursula von der Leyen. She was chosen to run the EU, it is rumoured, because Paris and Berlin favoured a weaker style of leadership in Brussels. They should be more careful what they wish for. Friends of the EU should take no pleasure in its travails, because Britain is no unconquerable island so far as the virus is concerned, but equally should send any illusions about the recent performance of the EU and its agencies. The answer may be “more Europe”, as President Macron used to say, or an end to integration, but the problem of EU competence (in both senses) over public health is plain.Right now, the European Union finds itself in the embarrassing position of watching the British speed way ahead in the vaccination race (by fair means or foul), and in the more humiliating position of having to turn to Russia, of all places, for help. A third Covid wave is hitting parts of Europe hard. France is the latest to fall back into lockdown, even if Macron has tried to rebadge it as a “third way”. Hence the urgent need for vaccines in what the president calls “a race against time” for his country. More

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    What next for David Cameron?

    During his last months as leader of the opposition, after the MPs’ expenses scandal, David Cameron famously predicted that the next great scandal waiting to happen was in lobbying. Sure enough, three Labour ex-ministers were “stung” shortly afterwards by a newspaper, caught trying to peddle access during the dying months of Gordon Brown’s government. One, Stephen Byers, was unfortunate enough to have compared himself to a “taxi for hire”. At the time, Cameron reflected on the sorry state of affairs: “I think what it shows is a party that has been in power for far too long and has lost touch with what it’s meant to be doing.” That has quite the echo now.The conundrum at the centre of what we may now call the Cameron-Greensill affair is that, at least since Cameron left office, the only reason why Lex Greensill would find a clapped-out politician like the former prime minister useful is because of his connections. “Useful”, that is, to the extent that Cameron might once have been in line for share options in Greensill Capital worth about £50m. Even to a man as wealthy as him, that would qualify as “real money”. For his part, Cameron, a man of intelligence and much political and diplomatic experience, had to offer his wise advice and, it turns out, his knowledge of the chancellor of the exchequer’s phone number, to which texts were dutifully delivered. There is nothing wrong with anyone wanting to make some cash, and no one has suggested any wrongdoing, but it is best to see the Cameron-Greensill relationship for what it was – a commercial, if not mercenary, one. More

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    Inside Politics: Boris Johnson ‘delighted’ by deal for 60m doses of Novavax jab

    A group of “paranormal activity investigators” have been busted by the cops for breaching Covid rules in Cheshire after they gathered to grab up ghosts at a spooky old derelict building in Cheshire. But it’s a town in Durham with a spooky old relic that’s returned to haunt the news agenda once again. By some weird, eerie co-incidence Barnard Castle is back in the headlines, after Boris Johnson announced 60 million doses of a brand-new vaccine will be bottled there – a move which might frighten a few people in Brussels.Inside the bubbleChief political commentator John Rentoul on what to look out for today: More