Politics Archives

Sunday

12 Jan 2025

I’m worried about what Labour might do to our schools

In my first lesson teaching Year 8 in inner-city Birmingham, one boy, seeing the opening slide of my ‘Introduction to Judaism’ PowerPoint, rocked back on his chair, and, with a level of focus that he never matched again, simply said, ‘I f***ing hate the Jews.’ The Teach First training programme had promised us ‘challenging’ schools. And that was exactly what we got. Behaviour was bad, but so was the curriculum. There was little or no teaching resources, which meant that each night we had to hurriedly reinvent the wheel. Surely, I thought, someone must have created a worksheet on Genesis 1 before? The other oddity was how we were encouraged

Steerpike

How green is the government’s car service?

The government’s green credentials are in the firing line – and not for the first time. In office, Keir Starmer has sparked headlines with seemingly endless plane trips abroad. And now Mr S has done some digging to find out what ministerial cars are being used to ferry our leaders around. A Freedom of Information request on the Government Car Service reveals that the Department for Transport invoiced more than £1.3 million to government departments making use of ministerial motors over Labour’s first three months in power. But Mr S is a little sceptical about Whitehall’s commitment to its electric vehicle ‘revolution’ – not least because the bulk of its

Sam Matthews Boehmer

The unstoppable rise of Christianity in football

Christianity is thriving on the football pitch. Despite the declining number of Christians in the UK, Instagram, X, and other social media sites are awash with biblical quotes. And those responsible? Professional footballers. Over recent years, something of a movement appears to have developed in English football. Players, previously so determinedly secular, have become not only practising Christians, but also individuals who are happy to broadcast their faith to a wide audience. Palace captain Marc Guehi wrote ‘I love Jesus’ and ‘Jesus loves you’ over a rainbow armband Every weekend, top flight footballers either use quotes as motivation for their approaching match, or thank God if the contest reached a

Michael Nazir-Ali

Syria’s Christians face an uncertain future

When I visited Maaloula in southwest Syria in 2016, the Jabhat Al-Nusra (the predecessor of the Hayat Tahrir Ash Sham jihadis, who have toppled Bashar al-Assad) had systematically destroyed and desecrated the town’s churches and monasteries. Orthodox nuns were kidnapped and held to ransom, only freed after the Syrian government agreed to release extremist prisoners. During my visit, I was told again and again that young men had been singled out and executed when they refused to convert to the extremists’ version of Islam. Some of the most moving moments in my life have been to pray with the townsfolk and help to rededicate an ancient altar that had been

Cindy Yu

Keir Starmer wants to redefine crime and punishment

How far should a government go to stamp out people smuggling? This month, the Home Office is set to introduce powers that will allow courts to place expansive restrictions on those suspected of people smuggling and other serious crimes. Penalties are set to include social media bans, restrictions on banking and even curfews, imposed pre-arrest. Infringement of these court orders would be a criminal offence punishable by up to five years in jail. Some have welcomed this as tough action from the Labour government; finally, you may think, they’re doing something about illegal immigration. But tough policies aren’t always good policies. The mooted powers would allow the police to shut down a

Anatol Lieven

Give Trump’s realism a chance

In one place at least, the reaction to Donald Trump’s threats to annex Greenland, Canada and the Panama Canal has been one of unequivocal joy. That is Russia – and for obvious reasons. Most Russians have long seen US language about the ‘rules-based order’ as a mere mask for US empire and US national interests. In their view, Trump has now removed the mask. Even more importantly, for the Russian establishment Trump’s words are a confirmation that he and Vladimir Putin see international affairs in very much the same way: as a matter of spheres of influence, transactionalism, and the ruthless defence of national interests. During the Ukrainian revolution and

Saturday

11 Jan 2025

Steerpike

Ex-Labour MP arrested – days after attacking ‘unacceptable’ Elon

It was just six days ago that the Ivor Caplin, the former Labour MP for Hove, emerged from obscurity to offer his thoughts on Elon Musk. Tony Blair’s former defence minister went on GB News last Sunday to offer his thoughts on the Tesla billionaire’s tweets about Keir Starmer and Jess Phillips. Such posts, Caplin declared, were ‘not acceptable’ and ‘it would be even more unacceptable if he was to become a serious and senior member’ of the Trump administration. Fast forward less than a week and what has old Ivor been up to? It transpires that he was arrested today on suspicion of child sex offences after a sting

Steerpike

Morrisons turns on Rachel Reeves

Poor old Rachel Reeves. Whether it’s being besieged by the bond markets or savaged by the Sinosceptics, it has not been the best of weeks for our under-fire Chancellor. So what better way to cap it all off then a full-barrelled broadside by one of the UK’s most beloved supermarkets? For food giant Morrisons tonight joined the chorus of criticism over Reeves’ planned Budget changes to agricultural property relief, amid dire predictions that it will ‘kill’ Britian’s family farms. The supermarket giant has tonight released a pithy 47-second video on Twitter/X, featuring Sophie Throup, the head of agriculture at Morrisons. She declared: We want to send a message of support

Patrick O’Flynn

It’s unlikely Rachel Reeves is going anywhere

Rachel Reeves, who is now fighting for her political life, was instrumental in helping Labour secure a landslide majority at the general election. If you don’t believe that then you have probably forgotten that her predecessor as shadow chancellor was Anneliese Dodds. All the while that the wild-haired former university lecturer Dodds was in charge of Labour’s economic policy the party lagged well behind on perceived competence on this vital issue. But when the sleek, suited and booted Reeves took over that all changed. City and business sentiment gravitated towards Starmer’s party and the Tories were unable to terrify the electorate any longer about the prospect of Labour being in

Stewart McDonald

Trump has a point about Greenland

As the second Trump term looms in the near distance, it’s become a bit of a cliché to say that ‘a stopped clock is right twice a day’. Pinko liberal Nats like myself have had to get used to the fact that for all our disagreements with the man on policy and style, there are certain areas where we fundamentally agree. Most prominently, it was after all Dòmhnall Iain (as his first cousins on Lewis would call him) who first really grasped the systemic challenge posed by China to Western states in his first term. As a member of the Inter Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), it was with a wry

Natasha Feroze

What’s the point of public inquiries?

21 min listen

This week, MPs voted against a new national inquiry into grooming gangs. The vote followed weeks of pressure on Labour after Elon Musk brought grooming gangs back into the spotlight, after safeguarding minister Jess Phillips rejected a new national inquiry. If we did have a national inquiry, what would it achieve? We’ve had many in recent years; Iraq, Grenfell Covid, the Post Office. Do they achieve meaningful justice for victims, or are they a drawn-out way to avoid knotty legislative change? Does parliament have the mechanisms to enact the recommendations – have politicians ever done this in the past, and is there an appetite to do so in the future?

Patrick West

What Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg owe to the mainstream media

Censorship and the silencing of dissenting voices has been a defining feature of the 21st century. It’s curious, because it wasn’t meant to be like this. This epoch, as the tech libertarian utopians of the 1990s so eagerly pronounced, was going to be one of unprecedented and untrammelled freedom. The internet, which burst into public consciousness back then, promised as much. Social media, which erupted a decade later, promised even more. And then it all went wrong. I was cancelled by Facebook for writing about why men are funnier than women We shouldn’t have been surprised. Ideologies based on utopian fantasies, underpinned by the illusion that mankind can be perfected, inevitably

Casey Babb

Will Palestinians give peace a chance?

Time and time again, people look to those outside of the Middle East to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. After decades of an occupation and unrelenting hostilities between Jews and Arabs in the region, it makes sense why the burden of peace is so often placed on leaders abroad. Unfortunately, this approach has repeatedly failed, in large part because convoluted peace plans tend to focus on land over ideology, dreams over reality, and an outright denial of existing beliefs which for many, seem insurmountable. On the Palestinian side, things are perhaps even more bleak That said, if there’s ever going to be lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians, change needs to come

Gavin Mortimer

France’s problem is Algeria – not Elon Musk

Emmanuel Macron has a problem and its name is not Elon Musk. It is interference of an altogether more dangerous nature, a brazen attempt to destabilise France. On Thursday, while Thierry Breton – until recently France’s commissioner in Brussels – called on the EU ‘to investigate Musk’s practices’, a reference to the American’s regular commentary on European politics, the French government expelled an Algerian ‘influencer’ known as Doualemn. He had his residence permit cancelled and was deported after posting messages to his 138,000 followers on social media that were anti-Semitic and an incitement to violence. By Thursday evening, Doualemn was back in France after the Algerians put him on the first flight to

William Cash

The LA dream has burnt out

Last year, I wrote here about the dark side of LA, after the Friends actor Matthew Perry was found dead in the hot tub of his $6 million Pacific Palisades house. I grimly predicted that his luxury ocean-facing bungalow – sold on to a developer for over $8 million just a few months after his fatal drug overdose – would become a new stop off on the ‘Movie Star’s Homes’ tours. Was I wrong? The Perry multi-million glass bungalow narrowly avoided the flames. The LA wildfires have torn through the Palisades area, and have reached the very part of the Hollywood Hills where I used to live in the 1990s. Los Angeles

Jim Lawley

The solution to Spain’s problems

It’s not often that a country can solve a serious, endemic problem quickly, easily and at no expense at all. But Spain can. The problem is some of the country’s left-wing politicians’ harmful ignorance of Spain’s 20th century history – and in particular about what actually happened during the Second Republic (1931-1936) and the resulting civil war (1936-1939). Not knowing the history, they constantly frame 21st century Spanish politics as a continuation of that war. Their misunderstandings and misrepresentations are holding Spain back. Unfortunately, many on the left fondly imagine that they are the proud heirs of noble republicans who fought for democracy against General Franco’s fascist forces. And when politicians of

Leah Pennisi-Glaser

What does Labour have against state school Latin students like me?

What type of person studies Latin in 2024? As a result of Labour’s decision to axe the £4 million Latin Excellence Programme (LEP), the stereotype of the average Latin student – that they are posh and privately educated – is likely to persist. As a state school student who studied Latin – a subject that helped me win a place at a top university – this saddens me greatly. The intellectual vandalism of Labour’s education secretary Bridget Phillipson is hard to forgive. One in two children are taught Latin at private schools, compared to just 2.7 per cent at comprehensives Out of the six of us who studied Latin GCSE

Friday

10 Jan 2025

Steerpike

Scottish Labour admin slip-up sees party lines sent across Holyrood

Well, well, well. It’s not been a great start to the year for Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour party in Westminster and it seems the Scottish lot north of the border are having a tough time of it too. Leader Anas Sarwar has seen his popularity fall towards the end of 2024 while his SNP rival John Swinney experienced a slight bounce at the end of 2024. Meanwhile combined poll predictions suggest that while the reds are likely to make gains in the 2026 Holyrood election, they have their work cut out if they want to become the party of government. And now questions are being raised about just how well

John Keiger

How Jean-Marie Le Pen lives on

Jean-Marie Le Pen, who died aged 96 on 7 January, was the personification of the travails and excesses of post-war France. He was a co-founder in 1972 of the reactionary Front National, whose senior members included former Vichy collaborators and a former member of the Waffen SS Charlemagne Division. Yet on 21 April 2002 to universal surprise, he nonetheless beat the Socialist candidate and qualified for the second round of the French presidentials with 18 per cent of the vote. For some he was a malign towering figure of French politics and political life for six decades; for others the outspoken tribune of the French people insistent on stating fearlessly,

Steerpike

Reform faces councillor exodus as 12 set to quit over Farage

Uh oh. There’s trouble in paradise this evening as it has emerged that 12 Reform UK councillors are set to quit over Nigel Farage’s leadership. As reported by the Guardian, it transpires that the mass exodus could begin as early as tonight, with the announcement that the group intend to resign en mass timed to take the shine off Nige’s Surrey conference. The group of Derbyshire councillors have, reports note, alleged that Reform was being run in an ‘autocratic manner’ and blasted Farage of ‘disloyalty’ to long-term members. While the party’s five MPs are staying put, the loss of these councillors will notably dent the party’s local authority representation. The

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