Politics

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

Wednesday

15 Jan 2025

The ‘self-cancellation’ trend taking over the literary world

The phenomenon that has blighted the live literature world over the last ten years could be classed as a ‘stooshie’, or ‘a big commotion’, in Scots. Indeed it feels rare for any books-based event or literary festival not to provoke one these days. The last decade has seen a huge increase in fractious warring in the world of books, driven in no small part by the use and abuse of the powers of social media by certain activist-writers. In my experience as a writer and former events organiser of two decades in Scotland, there has been a rising intolerance amongst a significant minority of often mid-career or even debut authors

Eliot Wilson

How much longer will Starmer back Reeves?

It’s not been a happy new year for Sir Keir Starmer. The Prime Minister’s Treasury minister Tulip Siddiq has been forced out following an anti-corruption investigation in Bangladesh. Siddiq’s job became untenable following questions over links to her aunt, the former prime minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina. Siddiq has denied wrongdoing and an independent investigation found that she had not breached the Ministerial Code, but it was clear over the weekend that Siddiq’s position was untenable. Starmer, however, bafflingly allowed to her to stay on until yesterday afternoon. ‘Starmer dithered and delayed to protect his close friend,’ says Tory leader Kemi Badenoch. It’s hard to disagree with that assessment. Reeves’

Druin Burch

When did the A&E winter crisis become the norm?

Not a winter goes past without hospitals overflowing; the situation is so predictable it deserves a better word than ‘crisis’. Yet for patients and staff the sense of crisis is real, and connoisseurs of this annual event say that this year’s is especially dire. Health Secretary Wes Streeting has spoken of his distress and shame, saying the state of A&Es breaks his heart. Hospital and ambulance trusts have been declaring critical incidents – as they do every winter. The real problem is not that this year is merely worse than the last, it’s the trajectory. Something is rotten in the state of our healthcare. The mantra of ‘care in the community’

Chas Newkey-Burden

Starbucks and the hell of the modern café

Starbucks has announced that it is reversing its rule that allowed people to hang round in cafés in the United States even if they’d not bought anything. From 27 January, Americans will have to buy something or leave. Some people think that’s a bit harsh but it doesn’t go far enough: there are also plenty of paying customers that should be simply banned from cafés everywhere. The first to be shown the door should be remote workers who rock up in the morning with their laptops, order a small coffee, grab the best table and jealously hog it all day long, nursing their solitary flat white and treating the place

Tuesday

14 Jan 2025

Stephen Daisley

It’s no surprise that democracy is losing its appeal

The Guardian reports that one in five voters under the age of 45 would prefer to do away with democracy and have an authoritarian strongman govern Britain. It’s almost touching that so many think Britain is still capable of being governed, but it’s concerning that a fifth of millennials and Gen Z have adopted the Kent Brockman position: ‘I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: democracy simply doesn’t work.’ The findings come from the as yet unpublished FGS Global Radar report. More than 2,000 UK adults were asked to say whether ‘the best system for running a country effectively’ was democracy or ‘a strong leader who doesn’t have

Freddy Gray

Have the wildfires exposed America’s class divide?

28 min listen

The LA wildfires have been mostly extinguished, but there is growing concern that more fires could be imminent as strong winds are expected this week. Many believe that the destruction has shone a light on the broader mismanagement of California, run by the Democrat Gavin Newsom – who has proposed billions in new funding for ‘Los Angeles 2.0’. Freddy Gray speaks to energy specialist Robert Bryce about the policy failures which have contributed to the wildfires, what the clear up could look like and why this crisis will expose the class divide in America.

Steerpike

Reform overtake Tories on Spectator poll tracker

The new year is off to a bad start for Kemi Badenoch’s Tories. The latest update to The Spectator data hub’s poll tracker shows that – on average – Reform have just overtaken the Conservatives to become the second-placed party in British politics. As Steerpike reported this morning, YouGov’s first Westminster voting intention poll since the July election revealed that, while support for Starmer’s army has dropped nine points since polling day, Nigel Farage’s Reform has seen support rise by ten points. Combine that with the Tories dropping two points, and The Spectator poll tracker – which looks at the average of all political polling – puts Reform in second

Oscar Edmondson

Is Reform about to overtake Labour? And Tulip Siddiq resigns

13 min listen

New voting intention polling today puts Reform neck and neck with Labour. The YouGov/Times poll reveals that support for Starmer’s army has plummeted nine points, with just over a quarter of Brits backing the government – while Nigel Farage’s Reform party has seen its support soar by 10 points. Kemi Badenoch’s Tories have lost two points, while the canvassing of 2,279 adults – carried out between 12–13 January – shows the Lib Dems and the Greens both gained one. Perhaps the most damning news, however, is that only half of those who backed Labour in the 2024 election would vote for them next time. Where is Reform drawing these votes from?

Kyle Macleod

Scotland has never had it so good

Thanks to the threat of independence, Scots have – in the words of Harold Macmillan – ‘never had it so good’. Scotland’s current position within the United Kingdom, in which it can hand out many social benefits to its citizens without actually paying for them strongly encourages fiscal profligacy. And why not? Who would argue against greater NHS spending, free prescriptions, or free higher education when the cost will be shared with our English neighbours? The effective scrapping of the Universal Credit two-child limit in Scotland is the latest example that shows how the current situation benefits the country. Just last week, the Scottish Fiscal Commission published estimates of the cost for mitigating

Katy Balls

Tulip Siddiq’s resignation was a matter of when, not if

Just two weeks into the new year and Keir Starmer has suffered his first ministerial resignation of 2025. Tulip Siddiq has resigned from her role as the economic secretary to the Treasury, following an investigation by the Prime Minister’s ethics adviser Sir Laurie Magnus into corruption claims. Magnus was tasked to look into allegations surrounding Siddiq’s links to properties linked to her aunt, who was recently deposed as Bangladesh’s prime minister following an uprising against her two-decade long leadership. In a letter to Keir Starmer, Magnus concludes that Siddiq did not break the ministerial code. However, he goes on to say that it is ‘regrettable’ the Labour politician was not

Steerpike

Full timeline: the events that led to Tulip Siddiq’s resignation

And now we have it: Tulip Siddiq has resigned from her government post as City minister after pressure piled on the Labour MP over her links to her aunt and former authoritarian premier of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina. After a tumultuous few weeks, the government’s ethics adviser issued his conclusion about Siddiq’s conduct – leading the Treasury minister to quit her job. Dear oh dear… So how did things get to this point for Siddiq? Well, Mr S has compiled a handy timeline of events to make sense of it all. 18 December 2024 All eyes are drawn to the government’s anti-corruption minister after the Labour MP was named in an,

Francis Pike

Why Tulip Siddiq had to go

In 1996, I flew to Dhaka to meet Sheikh Hasina, the newly elected prime minister of Bangladesh, to discuss her economic strategy. It was not a pleasant experience. Hasina was humourless, arrogant and bitter – by a long stretch, the most unlikeable politician I’ve met in the sub-continent. By contrast her diminutive niece, Tulip Siddiq, Labour’s anti-corruption minister who has just resigned over her ties to her aunt, is a charmer. It just stretches credulity that Siddiq and the Labour party did not know that aunty Hasina was a rotten apple To be fair to Hasina, she had excuses for her unattractive demeanour. There was a singular focus on her political raison d’etre – to avenge the brutal assassination of her father,

Steerpike

No. 10 blocks beaver plans over ‘Tory legacy’ fears

Sir Keir Starmer’s army were adamant that theirs would be a ‘serious’ government of ‘grown ups’ – and yet it seems petty politics is back in vogue. It now transpires that No. 10 has blocked plans to bring the beaver back to Britain because officials view it as an, er, ‘Tory legacy’. Talk about wild insecurities, eh? Former Conservative prime minister Boris Johnson was perhaps one of the most vocal advocates of the policy – seeking permission for his father to release the animals on his estate before pledging in 2021 to ‘Build Back Beaver!’. But no idea is a good plan if it’s a Tory one, it seems. According

Kate Andrews

Rachel Reeves is getting ready for the next market test

Rachel Reeves did her best to keep today’s China visit statement on topic. The Chancellor wanted to talk about ‘cooperation’, ‘competing where our interests differ,’ her efforts to break down market barriers and the £600 million she secured in investment. But other MPs had other ideas. ‘I know the Chancellor has been away,’ said the Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride. ‘So let me update her on the mess she left behind.’ So began the battle between the Chancellor – to stay on topic – and her opposition to bring up the long list of economic woes that have come to the forefront this week: not just the substantial rise in borrowing

James Kirkup

Why Westminster is wrong about gilt yields

It’s gilts season at Westminster. This is one of those unpredictable events, like the passing of a comet, that sees the residents of the political village staring at the skies and imputing all sorts of divine causes to the curious flashing lights they see there. Because of the ongoing excitement in the markets, a lot of political folk have, in the last few days, become authoritative commentators on yield curves. Welcome to the party, guys. A very long time ago, I covered bond markets for a City newswire, and hated pretty much every minute of it. I claim no particular expertise as a result, but I am still confident in

Svitlana Morenets

Putin is engineering a humanitarian crisis in Transnistria

Sandwiched between Ukraine and Romania, the tiny republic of Moldova has been easy prey for Russia in the past. Its 2.5 million people are among the poorest in Europe and the Kremlin has been able to exploit the country’s dependence on cheap Russian gas to keep it as an ally. Putin has decided to let the people of Transnistria freeze so he can pin the blame on Moldova’s pro-EU government But Moldovans, like Ukrainians, have begun to choose another path. In 2022, they applied to join the European Union to be part of the democratic world, and then elected a pro-western president last year. Vladimir Putin’s response has been to engineer

Euan McColm

Scotland’s safe consumption room won’t solve the drugs crisis

Quarterly reports from the office of National Records of Scotland confirm time and again the existence of an ongoing drug deaths crisis north of the border. And, time and again, the Scottish government reveals itself to be devoid of ideas for how to tackle it. Now, however, there has been a flicker of progress with the opening of the UK’s first safe drug consumption room in Glasgow this week. But will it make any real difference to the national drugs death crisis? I have my doubts. Scotland has the highest rate of drug-related fatalities anywhere in Europe. And, despite repeated assurances from ministers that they recognise the problem, there is

Kate Andrews

Can Trump claim the credit for an Israel-Hamas ceasefire?

Donald Trump has made a long list of promises for what will be done on ‘day one’ of his second term in the White House. Peace in the Middle East was not one of them. Yet it looks increasingly likely that the President-elect will be sworn in having just helped to secure a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, to (at least temporarily) end the war in Gaza. Trump has made his feelings clear about the war for some time: in line with his broader views about foreign conflict, he wanted the war brought to an end. While positioning himself as a strong ally of Israel, the President-elect was also calling

Steerpike

Fact check: The Rest Is Politics’ grooming gang claims

For a little while now there have been questions as to whether the commentary of Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart on their podcast The Rest Is Politics is in tune with reality. Ahead of the US election, Stewart – the former Tory politician – claimed with certainty that Kamala Harris would win only to be left with egg on his face when instead Donald Trump romped home. Meanwhile Campbell was slammed by renowned writer and women’s rights campaigner JK Rowling after he appeared to belatedly discover the degree to which gender ideology concerns voters. Now Stewart and Campbell have turned their attention to Britain’s grooming gang scandal – brought back

Jonathan Sacerdoti

What price will Israel pay for a ceasefire with Hamas?

As reports swirl of an imminent ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, Israel stands at a crossroads, grappling with the profound dilemmas that such a deal entails. While the full details of the agreement remain unknown until officially announced, the fragments emerging suggest a complex and controversial arrangement that raises difficult questions: How much is Israel willing to concede for the return of hostages? And what price, in lives and security, will the nation pay in the future? Within Israel’s government, opposition to the deal is mounting According to reports, the deal is expected to include the release of 33 hostages defined as “humanitarian cases,” a 42-day ceasefire, and the

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Wednesday

Tuesday