Politics

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

Wednesday

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Will public sector workers return to their desks for Donald Trump?

So much for the theory that Covid would change working practices for good: that we would divide our time between the office and our sofas – or work remotely all the time. The writing was on the wall when Zoom – the very business which profited most from remote working during the pandemic – ordered its staff back into the office in 2023. Goldman Sachs, Amazon, Twitter and many others followed. It seems the public sector will no longer be a sanctuary, either, now that Donald Trump is using flexible working as a device to shrink the federal government. The Office of Personnel Management has issued an ultimatum – alongside a

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Starmer can’t keep blaming the Tories

Great stuff from Kemi Badenoch at PMQs. She was entertaining, tricky, probing, unpredictable. If she keeps this up she may attract more Tory members to the chamber on Wednesdays. Many seem to find other things to do. She began by calling Sir Keir a liar: ‘Speaking about the employment bill last week he misled the house. He was not on top of his own bill.’ Up popped the Speaker. ‘We can’t accuse the Prime Minister of misleading the house.’ That got everyone’s attention. Kemi should try it each week That got everyone’s attention. Kemi should try it each week. She rephrased her question and started to go through the bill

Richard Benwell

Growth and environmentalism are perfectly compatible

I’m an environmentalist and I say ‘build, build, build’! Let’s build gigawatts galore of Great British renewable energy and clean up our emissions. Let’s put a Bazal-jet booster behind sewerage infrastructure and clean up the filth in our rivers. When we build homes, let’s get with the times and invest in green infrastructure, our natural defences against flood, fire and crop failure. Even better, why not let beavers build some of it for us? Like the majority of the UK’s nature charities, I totally reject the Chancellor’s caricature of nature-lovers as stubborn ‘blockers’ in her confected conflict between nature and development. In her speech today, Rachel Reeves once again scapegoated

Katy Balls Katy Balls

‘Props to Rachel’

12 min listen

Today was the day for Rachel Reeves, as she delivered her big growth speech in Oxfordshire. This was not this government’s first attempt to pivot towards a more business-friendly, growth-generating narrative, but it was its best effort. The headline announcement is, of course, a third runway at Heathrow, throwing her support behind the ‘badly needed’ expansion. However, a lot of what was announced will sound familiar to recently departed Tories, who laid the groundwork for Labour’s plans to properly connect the South East (or the ‘Oxford–Cambridge Arc’, as it has been repackaged). Will Rachel Reeves get her growth? Katy Balls speaks to Michael Gove and Kate Andrews. Produced by Oscar

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

At least Rachel Reeves is trying

Rachel from accounts is settling up. In a speech at Siemens Healthineers near Oxford, the Chancellor signalled her commitment to development by backing a third runway at Heathrow, placing her on a collision course with net-zeroers, Nimbys and the other forces of decline. The interests ranged against her are mighty and loud, but if she delivers she will draw crucial battle lines for the next general election: a Labour government that gets things done versus the party of inertia and stagnation. The UK spent 14 years in stasis under a succession of Tory governments that preferred the maintenance of office to the exercise of power. Reeves has an opportunity to

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Is Rachel Reeves right that there is no trade-off between growth and net zero?

Why is it that some lies get endlessly repeated without ever being challenged, even though they are quite obviously wrong? In her pro-growth speech today, the Chancellor Rachel Reeves asserted: ‘There is no trade-off between economic growth and net zero’. Government ministers, advisers and many others have been saying such things for years – and hardly ever do they get properly challenged. To pretend that no such trade-off exists is foolish It is easy to see why, for political reasons, you might want to argue that committing Britain to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050 will not make us poorer and indeed might make us wealthier. You want to

Steerpike Steerpike

Can’t the UK pay its ‘Head of Tariff Strategy’ more than £55k?

Donald Trump is back in the White House and the UK is playing catch-up once again. Whether it’s Mandelson grovelling for his job or Starmer waiting almost a week for a phone call, it risks a re-run of the President’s first term when opportunities were missed. And now, in a potential indicator that those in Whitehall were caught on the hop, the Department of Business and Trade have this week put a new job advert. The post in question? ‘Head of Tariff Strategy’. Yep, that’s right, for the whopping salary of just £55,000, you too could be bartering with Donald Trump’s tariff-loving aides. According to the 2,177-word advert, ‘you will

Toby Young Toby Young

James Tooley’s ordeal is over – but why was he ever suspended?

It’s wonderful to hear that Professor James Tooley, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Buckingham, has been reinstated after a gruelling, four-month investigation. James is a member of the Free Speech Union, the organisation I run, and we’ve been helping him navigate this Kafkaesque ordeal. The KC hired by Buckingham to carry out the investigation has concluded that all the allegations against him are without substance, which raises questions about why James was suspended from his post in the first place. The police were summoned to recover the ‘firearm’ from James’s bedside table, only to discover it was a children’s air rifle Professor Tooley’s ordeal began when his ex-wife, whom

Steerpike Steerpike

Sadiq splurges £2.1 million on statues commission

Another day, another City Hall scandal. Mr S can today reveal that Labour’s London mayor Sadiq Khan has splurged a whopping £2.1 million on a statues commission. So much for sensible public spending, eh? In a Freedom of Information response returned to Mr S, the Greater London Authority admitted that, so far, £2,138,888 had been funnelled towards the Mayor of London’s ‘Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm’. The initiative aims to ‘lead a London-wide conversation on how to achieve greater diversity of representation across the public realm and heritage sites’ and focus on ‘increasing the presence and visibility of underrepresented groups’. Er, money well spent then? The work the

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Where Kemi Badenoch keeps going wrong at PMQs

Kemi Badenoch may well have been right in the points that she made at Prime Minister’s Questions, but she managed to go about making them in the wrong way. The Tory leader focused on the many contradictions between the government’s focus on economic growth and its policies, but her phrasing of her questions and her attempts to defend the Conservative legacy made it easy for Keir Starmer to ridicule the questions, rather than answer them. The Prime Minister had also set up a planted question before his exchanges with Badenoch which meant he was already developing a theme about the Tories and the state pension before the leader of the

Steerpike Steerpike

Where is Ed Miliband?

It’s a busy day for the Labour lot, what with Rachel Reeves’s big growth speech this morning and Sir Keir Starmer’s PMQs at noon. But as viewers tuned in to watch the back-and-forth play out between the Prime Minister and Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, there was one rather notable absence on the Labour benches. Energy Secretary Ed Miliband was nowhere to be seen. In fact, PMQs isn’t the only thing the Energy Secretary chose to skip today. Miliband decided not grace the Chancellor with his presence during her address this morning where she formally backed plans to build a third runway at Heathrow Airport – proposals that Ed had previously

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Rachel Reeves tries to reverse Labour’s economic gloom

As expected, Rachel Reeves used her big – and long – growth speech this morning to back the expansion of Heathrow and argue that Britain was taking too long to make decisions on building infrastructure, let alone getting it done. The Chancellor did devote large passages of her speech to criticising the ‘structural problems in our economy’, and to blaming the Conservatives, but she was clearly trying not to make the whole thing about what her predecessors had got wrong. This speech had to be about how Labour was going to grow the economy, after months of criticism that Reeves and Keir Starmer are taking the wrong approach. Reeves said

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Do Rachel Reeves’s growth plans go far enough?

Has Rachel Reeves got her growth? Today’s speech from the Chancellor in Oxfordshire was not this government’s first attempt to pivot towards a more business-friendly, growth-generating narrative. But it was its best effort yet.  Starting with the highlights. Reeves threw her unabashed support behind a third runway at Heathrow, insisting that the expansion was ‘badly needed’ and that the case had never been stronger for boosting trade; the airport ‘connects us to emerging markets all over the world, opening up new opportunities for growth’. Let’s not get carried away She called on proposals to be submitted by the summer, to start a process that would ensure the fastest and best-value

Jonathan Spyer

Trump has exposed the hypocrisy of Gaza’s allies

US President Donald Trump has reiterated his call for Egypt and Jordan to accept residents of Gaza into their territory, as part of arrangements to end the current war with Israel. Further explaining his idea on Monday, the President said that he would ‘like to get [Gazans] living in an area where they can live without disruption and revolution and violence so much’.  It’s difficult to see anything coming of this idea. Both Egypt and Jordan have already, predictably, rejected it absolutely. Hamas, which is currently re-establishing itself as the de facto ruler of the Gaza Strip, would obviously act to prevent any attempt to implement it.   The politics of

Steerpike Steerpike

Will the SNP government lose yet another health minister?

To Scotland, where today the SNP government’s embattled Health Secretary Neil Gray is in the firing line. The Scottish Tories have tabled an amendment – which will be voted on today – calling for the ‘Limogate’ minister to step down after Gray admitted to inadvertently misleading parliament over using taxpayer-funded cars to transport him to sports matches. Dear oh dear… Gray used chauffeur-driven cars to take him to nine football games between 2022 and 2024, which the Health Secretary claims he attended on ministerial business. Yet his journey to the 2023 Scottish League Cup Final between Aberdeen and Rangers raised eyebrows after Freedom of Information requests revealed that there was

James Heale James Heale

Will Marco Rubio kibosh the Chagos deal?

There’s a new sheriff in town. Trump’s election means a new Secretary of State; the world’s most powerful foreign minister is now a Republican. Out goes Anthony Blinken, Joe Biden’s longtime Francophone aide. In comes Marco Rubio, the three-time Florida Senator. Unlike some of Trump’s cabinet picks – like the unorthodox Pete Hegseth at Defence – Rubio sailed through his Senate confirmation, winning the unanimous approval of his former colleagues. This is partly because the ideological switch from Blinken to Rubio is less dramatic than in other cabinet posts. Both men are staunch supporters of Nato; both received a big thumbs up from national security establishments across the West. Europe

Steerpike Steerpike

Reeves blasted for backing third Heathrow runway

Growth is the flavour of the month for Sir Keir Starmer’s government, with Rachel Reeves this morning delivering a big speech on Britain’s economic potential. As the Chancellor attempts to woo the public with a number of talking points in today’s address, all eyes remain on the rather controversial matter of Heathrow’s expansion – which, Reeves announced today, is ‘badly needed’. Going on, the Chancellor insisted: We cannot duck the decision any longer. A third runway at Heathrow will unlock growth, boost investment and make the UK more open. This government supports a third runway at Heathrow and is inviting proposals to be brought forward by the summer. Golly. It

Gavin Rice

Why Britain needs growth

‘Growth’ – the focus of the Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ speech this morning – can be a confusing word. It’s intangible, obscure, hard to visualise. It happens slowly, often imperceptibly, over a political cycle – when it happens at all. The changes needed to achieve it can be tough and involve trade-offs. Often voters feel those changes will not directly benefit them, or may even make their lives worse – whether it’s new housing developments, HS2, a new runway at Heathrow (which Reeves backed) or new nuclear power stations. For anyone who stood on the doorstep during the last election, we know that making and doing more things can be a hard

Steerpike Steerpike

Mandelson grovels to Trump on Fox News

Oh Mandy. It’s now nine days since Donald Trump was elected – and our new man in Washington is still yet to get final sign-off. Peter Mandelson was named as the new UK Ambassador to the US last month in a move that did not go down well with all in Trumpworld. Mandelson has made various insulting comments about the new President, calling him everything from a ‘danger to the world’ to a ‘little short of a white nationalist and racist’. Trump’s campaign manager Chris LaCivita spoke for others when he dubbed Mandelson an ‘absolute moron.’ Ouch…. Now, in a belated effort to suck up to Trump, the Prince of Darkness has prostrated

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Labour will regret extending the BBC licence fee

The BBC licence fee is dying as millions of Britons realise that they do not need a television; they can get all the entertainment and news they want on the internet. But don’t assume that it will go quietly. On the contrary, we could end up with something even worse. Bloomberg is reporting today that the government is considering extending the requirement to buy a TV licence to people who use streaming services. In other words, download a film from Netflix and you would have to pay the BBC. Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, apparently denies that the idea is under ‘active consideration’, along with the idea of funding the