Politics

Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.

Wednesday

21 Feb 2024

Lindsay Hoyle has become a menace

The Labour party is not very good at electing prime ministers but it is very good indeed at electing House of Commons Speakers. Lindsay Hoyle is the fourth in a row to have been a Labour member, though it should be noted that John Bercow was nominally a Tory when he was installed and didn’t formally join the People’s party until after he stood down. Hoyle has discovered that he rather enjoys the limelight and the sound of his own voice While Bercow took the Speaker’s chair at the behest of many Labour MPs who understood the loathing felt for him by some of his Conservative colleagues, Hoyle attracted substantial

Kate Andrews

Jeremy Hunt’s cash boost isn’t quite what it seems

Jeremy Hunt needed some good news this morning, when the monthly public sector finance update was released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Having promised meaningful tax cuts last month – and then rowed back expectations this month – the Chancellor was hoping for a notable surplus and reduction in borrowing to give himself a bit more room within his fiscal rules to cut tax. January delivered. The ONS reports a surplus of £16.7 billion in January 2024 – not only double the surplus of the same month last year, but a record-breaking surplus (in nominal terms) since records began. Receipts jumped up to £111.4 billion – almost £4 billion more

James Heale

Hoyle helps Starmer by selecting Labour ceasefire amendment

Sir Keir Starmer can breathe a sigh of relief this afternoon. The Speaker has selected his party’s amendment on a Gaza ceasefire, after an hour of frenzied lobbying from the Labour Whips’ Office. Lindsay Hoyle told MPs that he has selected both the Labour and government amendments as this is an issue where they will want to consider a wide range of options. It means that a likely mass rebellion from Labour MPs will be averted – as happened the last time the SNP tabled an opposition day debate on Gaza in December. The Scottish nationalists are furious at Hoyle’s decision to select the Labour amendment. They claim it is

Isabel Hardman

Why is Labour going after Kemi Badenoch?

One person dominated Prime Minister’s Questions, and it wasn’t Rishi Sunak or Keir Starmer. It was Kemi Badenoch, who appears to be going deeper into her battle with former Post Office chair Henry Staunton. Starmer decided to deepen the row further today, while Sunak notably didn’t make all that much effort to defend Badenoch beyond what was absolutely necessary. The Labour leader made the focus of his questions about Badenoch, only widening it to the compensation payments for victims of the infected blood scandal towards the end. He asked: Would the Prime Minister be prepared personally to repeat the allegation made by his Business Secretary that the former chair of

Matthew Lynn

London has France to thank for its Brexit win

The City of London would be hollowed out. Bankers would have to retrain as burger chefs. And Paris and Frankfurt would emerge as the twin centres of the European financial markets, leaving London as little more than a backwater. Of all the predictions made by some Remainers during Brexit, there was one that kept re-emerging: that financial trading would inevitably move to the other side of the Channel. It’s clear that this doom mongering was overblown. A deal has finally been struck between EU chiefs and the bloc’s member states that will keep the City of London in business for several years to come. According to Politico, following pressure from

Freddy Gray

Should Julian Assange be extradited to America?

27 min listen

Freddy speaks to philosopher Slavoj Zizek ahead of what we understand will be Julian Assange’s final court appeal against extradition back to the US. The WikiLeaks founder has been wanted by the US authorities after he leaked tens of thousands of highly sensitive documents. On the podcast they discuss the parallels between Assange and Navalny, whether the West is beginning to behave more like the Soviet Union than we ever have, and if WikiLeaks was behind the election of Donald Trump.

Brendan O’Neill

Prince William should keep quiet about Gaza

‘William: Fighting in Gaza must be brought to an end’, bellows the Daily Telegraph‘s front page today, next to an image of a distressed-looking Prince of Wales. Call me a Cromwellian, but what century are we in? I thought the days of British royals haughtily issuing moral instructions, least of all to foreigners, were behind us. I find William’s intervention in the Gaza crisis deeply troubling. To be fair to him (briefly) he didn’t quite order the Israelis to quit their pursuit of Hamas. But he did signal his moral revulsion for the war. And that raises serious questions about the role of the royals. Do we really want our

Ross Clark

The failed Trident missile launch is a big embarrassment for Britain

With Keir Starmer having rid the Labour party of its Corbynite doctrines, Britain’s independent nuclear deterrent would not be expected to feature much in the coming general election campaign. But will that change after the failed test firing of a Trident missile, for the second time in a row? The missile, which was launched from HMS Vanguard off the east coast of the United States in January, was intended to travel to the edge of space before landing in the middle of the Atlantic. Instead, it plopped straight into the sea. We should know a bit more about the incident today when defence secretary Grant Shapps – who was on board

Daniel Thorpe

Is Orban’s family policy coming unstuck?

Hungary’s governing Fidesz party is in crisis over an issue it has staked its credibility on: the defence of the traditional family. One of the ministers who pioneered Viktor Orban’s family policy and served as president of Hungary, Katalin Novak, has been forced to resign over a paedophile scandal. Novak resigned on 10 February after a story revealed she had pardoned a man convicted of covering up sexual abuse cases of children at a state orphanage. Judit Varga, the former minister of justice, who signed off the pardon last April, was also forced out. Varga had been due to lead Fidesz’s list in the upcoming European parliament election. Fidesz pro-family

Steerpike

Tucker Carlson’s spat with Boris Johnson turns nasty

It’s fair to say today that Boris Johnson and Tucker Carlson don’t like each other much. After the invasion of Ukraine, Boris, the former journalist and Prime Minister, accused Carlson, the journalist often tipped to be a future president of the United States, of ‘intimidating’ Republicans who might otherwise help the West stand up to Russia. He’s called Carlson a ‘tool of the Kremlin.’ Carlson, for his part, has called Johnson a ‘terrified old woman.’ Carlson called Johnson a ‘terrified old woman’ Things have only got nastier. Earlier this month, Boris suggested Carlson’s now infamous interview with Vladimir Putin was straight out of ‘Hitler’s playbook’. Carlson, never one to shrink

Dan Storyev

Navalny gave Russians hope – they must hold on to it

In the wake of the news that Alexei Navalny died in the darkness and bitter cold of Russia’s remote Polar Wolf prison, a chill of despair has become palpable among some thinkers and activists. Some have even gone as far as to claim that any hope for a better Russia died with the opposition leader. But this is wrong: the dream of Navalny’s ‘beautiful Russia of the future’ will only die if the international community and Russian civil society let it. This would be the ultimate betrayal of Navalny’s legacy, which is why now is the time to focus our efforts on keeping that legacy alive. Western analysts have often thought of

Gavin Mortimer

Macron’s latest adversary might be his most dangerous yet

It’s been a terrible start to the year for Emmanuel Macron and his new government. Aside from the well-publicised farmers’ protest, there has also been industrial action by teachers, train workers and staff at the Eiffel Tower. Cases of violent crime are at a record high, and the drugs trade is flourishing as never before with an annual turnover of €3 billion (£2.6 billion). Sunday was arguably the worst day of the year so far for the president, who likes to convey an image of a man in complete control. The glum-faced Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, appeared on television to announce that he has revised the Republic’s

Eliot Wilson

How Britain helped Robert Mugabe rise to power

A century ago today, Robert Mugabe was born. The man who would come to rule over Zimbabwe between 1980 and 2017 was a brutal and autocratic tyrant. Mugabe shattered his country’s economy, oversaw vicious human rights abuses and left public services, especially healthcare, in ruins. But while Britain would ultimately see Mugabe as an adversary, it played a key role in his rise to power. Mugabe was, of course, not any western government’s ideal candidate to lead a newly independent African nation. He was a Marxist-Leninist who believed in command economics; in his guerrilla phase in the 1970s, Mugabe had been given unconditional support by the People’s Republic of China.

Tuesday

20 Feb 2024

Isabel Hardman

Why are the Tories, Labour and the SNP changing their tune on Gaza?

The government has now tabled its own amendment to the SNP motion calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. This change to the text calls for ‘negotiations to agree an immediate humanitarian pause as the best way to stop the fighting’, and then ‘moves towards a permanent sustainable ceasefire’. It also says that a ceasefire requires all hostages to be released, the formation of a new Palestinian government and – crucially – ‘Hamas to be unable to launch further attacks and no longer in charge of Gaza, and a credible pathway to a two-state solution’. It’s worth remembering that this is an Opposition Day debate, which is not binding on the

Steerpike

Labour election chief’s boast backfires

‘Change Labour, change Britain’ has been the internal mantra of the Starmer army since seizing the party leadership nearly four years ago. But while a 20-point lead suggests they’ve made considerable progress in that area, there are infrequent reminders of the not-so-distant Corbynite past. The Rochdale debacle proved to be an uncomfortable reminder of all that, with the Mail on Sunday reporting on 11 February the not-so-savoury views of Azhar Ali. Even more awkward perhaps was the fact that just five days earlier, Morgan McSweeney – Keir Starmer’s election overlord – was boasting to fellow Labourites about the progress they have made in the field of, er, candidate selection. He

James Heale

Home Office sacks immigration inspector after border claims

James Cleverly has tonight sacked the independent borders inspector after he voiced concerns about ‘high-risk’ aircraft landing in Britain without security checks. David Neal, the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, was due to leave his post on 21 March but has now been forced out a month early after publicly criticising the department. In a statement, the Home Office said that Neal ‘breached the terms of appointment and lost the confidence of the Home Secretary.’ Neal had served in the role since March 2021. He reportedly had his reappointment blocked by Downing Street, in an unusual move given that his predecessors all served two full three-year terms in the

Euan McColm

The SNP’s North Sea hypocrisy

The Labour party has run into trouble in Scotland. It is planning to both raise and extend the windfall tax on the oil and gas sector, and industry chiefs aren’t happy. It’s an issue that is steadily gathering momentum and could prove damaging to the party’s chances north of the border. Last week, the Press and Journal depicted Keir Starmer, Anas Sarwar, Ed Miliband and Rachel Reeves as hooded bad guys from the BBC’s Traitors series, with one of its writers commenting that ‘Labour – the party of workers and unions – is happy to cast tens of thousands of hard-working men and women on the scrapheap, and place a world

Steerpike

Lord Mandelson slaps down Sue Gray

Turns out politics is harder than it looks. Having quit the civil service at the end of the last year, Sue Gray has received some glowing write-ups in her new capacity as chief of staff to Keir Starmer. But that appears to have been brought to a halt by her interview in yesterday’s Times in which she suggested that Labour could introduce citizens’ assemblies. Already the party has had to brief to newspapers that ‘the creation of citizens’ assemblies is not an official party policy and there are currently no plans related to their potential use’. And now Lord Mandelson – the master of the dark arts – has gone

James Heale

Starmer moves to quell ceasefire rebellion

10 min listen

Today Keir Starmer has moved his party’s position on a ceasefire in Gaza as he seeks to quell what could the biggest rebellion of his leadership. MPs will vote on an immediate ceasefire in Gaza with Labour set to add its own amendment to the SNP motion tomorrow. For the first time, Labour is calling for an ‘immediate humanitarian ceasefire’, but is this really such a big change in Labour’s position? James Heale speaks to Katy Balls and Isabel Hardman. Produced by Cindy Yu and Oscar Edmondson.

Alexander Larman

Is it wise for Prince William to wade in on the Israel-Gaza war?

The Prince of Wales’s statement on the Israel-Gaza conflict raises more questions than answers. William has announced that he is ‘deeply concerned about the terrible human cost of conflict in the Middle East since the Hamas terrorist attack on 7 October’, before saying explicitly: ‘Too many have been killed.’ He then declares that ‘I, like so many others, want to see an end to the fighting as soon as possible’, before calling for increased humanitarian support to Gaza, the influx of aid and the release of hostages. The statement then concludes with him stressing ‘the importance of permanent peace’ and by saying ‘Even in the darkest hour, we must not

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