Media

LIZ GERARD on how the Daily Star became the voice of the people – while The Sun speaks for Boris Johnson alone. The Daily Star speaks for the nation. Who would have thought it? Fleet Street’s most downmarket tabloid is the country’s acknowledged expert on giant mutant rats, psycho seagulls and lager lout wasps. It […]

A Tory MP who defied her own party to vote in support of Labour’s free school meals motion has quit her government post. Caroline Ansell, the MP for Eastbourne and Willingdon, was one of five Tories who backed an amendment to provide children with free meals over the holidays. The MP quit her role as parliamentary aide […]

A Tory minister has been labelled “shameful” after he defended a government memo attacking Marcus Rashford’s call for free school meals. A leaked memo has shown that Tory MPs are being ask to shift the blame for a failed vote to extend free school meals to children during the holidays onto Labour. The statement said MPs should […]

The minister behind coronavirus negotiations with Andy Burnham and other Greater Manchester leaders was unable to say whether gyms would remain open under the region’s new restrictions. Communities and housing minister Robert Jenrick appeared to have no idea if gyms would remain open under Tier-3 restrictions coming into force on Friday, despite being involved in lockdown […]

Matt Hancock has come under fire from Downing Street after he was pictured not wearing a face mask while travelling in a ministerial car. According to new rules, anyone travelling in taxis and private cars are required to wear a face mask or be hit with a £200 fine which could extend to £6,400 for repeated breaches. […]

A Brexiteer has attempted to pin the blame for Boris Johnson failing to secure a good Brexit deal on Remainers. LBC Radio caller Steve called David Lammy’s show was a Labour supporter but moved to the Brexit Party over its policy for a second referendum. Asked how he felt about the current situation, he said […]

Channel 4 is to host a debate on whether or not there should be a second national lockdown to curb coronavirus cases.  Politicians, doctors, scientists and business owners will take part in the programme, chaired by Channel 4 News anchor Krishnan Guru-Murthy. The broadcaster’s head of news and current affairs Louisa Compton said: “As the […]

Foreign secretary Dominic Raab has snapped at a BBC News host over the line of questioning over coronavirus lockdowns.  The minister appeared on BBC Breakfast to answer questions on Andy Burnham;s resistance to the North West of England being considered for the harshest Covid-19 restrictions from government. When the questions turned to the prospect of a circuit […]

Pubs chain boss Tim Martin has criticised the media and politicians as the Wetherspoon firm sunk to its first loss in 36 years.  The loss is the first time the chain has sunk into the red since 1984, with Martin criticised those who reported that the company was considering withholding wages at the start of […]

A long time ago (2004 to be precise) in a galaxy far away (but not that far away) a young right winger established a think tank (as almost everyone was doing at the time). The right winger was called Dominic Cummings and the short-lived think tank was portentously titled the New Frontiers Foundation. All of […]

James O’Brien has delivered an excellent rebuke against a Telegraph columnist who said lockdown does not stop deaths, it only postpones them. The LBC radio presenter was taken back by a tweet from the journalist Allison Pearson who said the country had become “anti-science”. “Out of all the stupid things in stupid land that have been have […]

A government minister has struggled to defend the pay of some private contractors behind the ailing NHS Test and Trace system. A report by Sky News revealed the government is paying contractors from the Boston Consulting Group around £7,000 a day to help with the coronavirus test and trace system. Up to 40 consultants were paid […]

Normally perfectly attuned to what right-wing newspaper press barons want, Boris Johnson made an uncharacteristic blunder when he announced he wanted to see offshore wind farms generating enough electricity to power every home in the UK within a decade. “He had no idea the Daily Mail owner Lord Rothermere, a substantial landowner, considers wind farms […]

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 […]

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 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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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”. […]

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 […]

Glimpses inside the so-called ‘hermit state’ of North Korea are rare, choreographed encounters designed to give the impression of an immaculately-run society in which citizens function as contented cogs in a well-regulated machine. In TV footage, the capital city of Pyongyang appears a grey, monotonous expanse, a joyless backdrop against which lives are lived in […]

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 […]

It’s becoming difficult to throw a stone these days without hitting someone setting up a right wing broadcasting outfit. Mandrake can disclose that Sarah Sands – having lately relinquished the editorship of the Today programme – is following in the footsteps of former Corporation colleagues Andrew Neil and Sir Robbie Gibb and has established an […]

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 […]

I’m sure it seemed a good idea at the time… it’s one I had myself from time to time, when running the Number 10 media operation – get the regional telly in; get the PM to do a round of one-on-ones that cover the whole country; lead the news on every regional bulletin; get the […]

A television presenter has criticised a government minister for appearing on BBC Breakfast to say “absolutely nothing”. Charlie Stayt was interviewing Robert Jenrick, the communities secretary, about newspaper headlines suggesting large-scale coronavirus restrictions are about to hit the north of England. But rather than explaining what the reports mean and defending the restrictions, Jenrick was […]

Boris Johnson’s father has been caught without a face mask in public for the third time in a week. Stanley Johnson was pictured at an Underground station reading a newspaper with his mask lowered. This is the third time the prime minister’s father was captured flouting regulations around wearing face masks. Last Tuesday, Johnson senior was […]

Spectator editor Fraser Nelson debunked claims put forward by Liz Truss that No 10 has enjoyed several “successes” in its response to the coronavirus pandemic. Nelson, who now manages the magazine once edited by Boris Johnson, said polling has shown no citizens were more disappointed in their government’s response to the virus than Britons. The trade secretary and […]

Two major foreign car manufacturers have called on the UK government to reimburse them for additional customs charges if it failed to reach a Brexit deal with the EU. Japan’s two biggest car makers, Toyota and Nissan, want the government to cover an expected 10% tax on car imports from Britain that the EU could impose […]