Politics

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

Tuesday

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Michael Gove on prisons: Starmer is in the position of Bane

14 min listen

Another 1100 prisoners have been released today through the early-release scheme. How has this measure landed? With the news that former Conservative minister David Gauke will lead a review of prison sentencing, new Spectator editor Michael Gove joins Natasha Feroze and Katy Balls to discuss Labour’s long term strategy. Can Labour learn lessons from America? Produced by Megan McElroy and Patrick Gibbons. Join The Spectator’s Deputy Editor Freddy Gray for a special live recording of Americano on Thursday 24 October. You can buy tickets at www.spectator.co.uk/electionspecial. 

James Heale James Heale

Andrew Bailey’s pessimistic pre-Budget warning

With a week to go until Rachel Reeves’s first Budget, Andrew Bailey has today sounded a note of gloomy caution. Speaking at a Bloomberg event in New York, the Governor of the Bank of England channelled the mythological Cassandra, whose warnings were accurate, but ignored. He told his audience today that ‘Cassandra was fated by the god Apollo to utter true prophecies but not to be believed’. Bailey’s meant to remind the audience that memories of financial crises recede over time. He warned against ‘the trap of complacency’, saying: I can observe this happening with the global financial crisis fifteen years or so on. I do get people telling me that

Michael Evans

Joe Biden wants Bibi to be careful

On 20 June 2019, President Donald Trump rescinded an order he had given for a military attack on Iran in retaliation for the shooting down of a long-range Global Hawk surveillance drone. He decided that a missile strike on Iranian military bases (which might cause casualties) would have been disproportionate. Global Hawk was unmanned. No American had died. The bombers, already en route, were summoned back to base. No one could suggest that Benjamin Netanyahu is facing the same decision. The circumstances are entirely different. There is no moral equivalence. On 1 October Iran launched nearly 200 ballistic missiles on Israel, and Netanyahu has vowed to respond with a significant retaliatory

Iain Macwhirter

What’s John Swinney got against two-spirit Scots?

You may have thought that the Scottish government had abandoned gender metaphysics after the collapse of the ‘Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill’ last year. Think again. The SNP government appears to be heading back down the non-binary rabbit hole. This week it issued official guidance to public bodies suggesting that they should record public identities under no fewer than 24 gender categories. These include, in no particular order, genderqueer, genderfluid, bigender, androgynous, non-conforming, pangender, and neutral. Do they never learn? The LGBTQIA+ community will no doubt be worried about the absence of several gender that have featured prominently in the literature on non-binary identity, such as ‘two-spirit’. The cancellation of the two-spirit people

David Shipley

More early releases won’t solve the prison crisis

September’s tranche of early releases did not go as smoothly as the government might have hoped. Footage of delighted prisoners celebrating outside jails, or saying ‘I’m a lifelong Labour voter now’ will, no doubt, resurface in Reform’s local election campaign videos in the spring. Then there was Amari Ward, the man who allegedly sexually assaulted a woman within minutes of his release (a charge he denies), and the subsequent discovery that he, and 36 other men who’d been jailed for breaching restraining orders, had been released in error. Compounding this sense of disorder was the discovery that Serco, the Ministry of Justice’s outsourced ‘tagging’ provider, had been failing to tag

Steerpike Steerpike

Starmer’s top five charmers released from prison

The second round of prison inmate releases is taking place today, with over one thousand people walking free from their institutions early. The jailbirds have been warned to be on their best behaviour this time – after the first release resulted in gleeful criminals popping champagne corks over freedom day coming early. But despite warnings to keep the celebrations to a minimum, a number of flash cars – including a Rolls Royce Cullinan, one of the most expensive supercars in the world – have graced prison grounds as families and friends pick up prisoners. Not that the Prime Minister has been all that thrilled by events. Sir Keir Starmer has

Steerpike Steerpike

The five worst takes on the Chris Kaba case

Yesterday brought the news that the police officer accused of murdering Chris Kaba in 2022 had been acquitted. Racial justice groups have long criticised the Met police over the matter and on Monday evening, protestors once again took to the streets outside the Old Bailey to demand justice for the 24-year-old. But protestations about the case were rather premature, not least because the full detail on Kaba’s run-ins with the police only became public today – and now politicians and activists alike have been left rather embarrassed by the revelations… Kaba’s criminal history has been released today – and it rather changes the narrative. It turns out that the 24-year-old

Cristina Odone

Kemi is right about absent fathers

Kemi Badenoch MP keeps being compared to Margaret Thatcher. But the truth is she has taken on the persona of a different, though equally familiar, character this week: the boy who calls out the Emperor with no clothes. In this case the Tory leadership contender is saying the inconvenient truth that absent fathers are compromising their children’s future. Speaking to the Sunday Times, Badenoch argued that: ‘I think we ran into trouble decades ago when we were very critical of single parenthood. It sounded as if we were always talking about single mums. Where are the dads? Why are the dads not there? Why are they not looking after their

Francis Pike

India will never join China’s anti-western alliance

On the 15 November Xi Jinping will mark the 12th anniversary of his becoming general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party – the sixth paramount leader in China since Mao Zedong established communist rule in 1949. One of the consistent features of Xi’s rule has been China’s hostility to India. People’s Liberation Army incursions across Indian borders became a given. So, the announcement yesterday that India and China have reached a Himalayan border agreement comes as something of a surprise. Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar announced:  We reached an agreement on patrolling [the border], and with that, we have gone back to where the situation was in 2020, and we can say…

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Keir Starmer’s prisons dilemma

Another month, another batch of prisoners released early. Today marks the release of the second tranch of offenders as part of the government’s plan to ease overcrowding in jails in England and Wales. The 1,100 prisoners released on licence today have sentences of five years or more but will have spent just 40 per cent of their time behind the bars. However, ministers are keen to stress that the scheme excludes those convicted of terrorism, sex crimes or serious violence. The Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood has been out on the media round this morning attempting to get on the front foot. The line from the government is that they have

Marcus Ray

Britain cannot leave the South Pacific to Xi Jinping

Samoa is a land of sunburnt shorelines and majestic waterfalls. It is a Pacific paradise that, in a perfect world, should be left unsullied by the geopolitical machinations of larger states. But despite its small population and remote location, it is playing host – alongside other island nations scattered across the South Pacific – to an intensifying tussle for power and influence. China has entered the fray with force, forging strong ties with local governments. Britain ought to view its ascension in the region with concern. It must now return to a corner of the world it has long neglected and do more to support its regional allies. The Commonwealth

Steerpike Steerpike

The Plot: Nadine backs Jenrick

With just over a week left until the Tory leadership race concludes, the endorsements are rolling in. While a selection of new backers have rowed in behind Kemi Badenoch in recent days, Robert Jenrick’s campaign has not been devoid of last minute supporters. His former boss Suella Braverman has today announced she will be supporting her former immigration minister – and she’s not the only ex-cabinet secretary throwing her weight behind Team Rob. In big news this morning, one-time culture secretary Nadine Dorries has revealed she will be backing Jenrick. Taking to the august pages of the Daily Mail, Dorries has left readers reeling with her announcement that she will

Matthew Lynn Matthew Lynn

Has Rachel Reeves lost control of spending?

Some thought Rachel Reeves’s experience at the Bank of England meant she ‘knew how to run the economy’. She would keep an iron grip on budgets and demand value for money. The reliability of her management of the Treasury would unlock a wave of support from global finance. Ahead of the election, Reeves, along with fanboys such as the former Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, boasted endlessly about her financial and economic expertise. But only four months into her time in No. 11, there are already alarming signs she has lost control of spending.  The public sector borrowing figures published today were far worse than expected. The government borrowed

Ross Clark Ross Clark

The UK’s debts are horrifyingly large

There is a big danger in today’s government borrowing figures for September being a little less bad than was expected by many observers. It will lead to claims that the Chancellor has enjoyed a ‘windfall’ prior to next week’s Budget, therefore lessening the need for spending cuts. No, there is no windfall. Until recent years, the idea that the government would have to borrow £16.6 billion in a single month would have been received with horror. True, September is not generally a great month for government finances, and the level of borrowing in the year to September – at £79.6 billion – is only around half the size of the

Danny Shaw

Labour should be wary of scrapping short prison sentences

What is the point of a short prison sentence? David Gauke will no doubt think carefully about that question now that he’s been confirmed as the chair of the long-awaited Sentencing Review. Launched by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), it aims to provide ideas for a new framework of sentencing across England and Wales that ministers hope will help keep the prison population in check and drive up the use of alternatives to prison.  Replacing short prison terms with community sentences is one idea that Gauke has favoured in the past and it’s gaining currency again. But it’s not straightforward, as I’ll explain. Even a short prison sentence has its

Steerpike Steerpike

Badenoch beats Jenrick in Mumsnet ratings

The Tory leadership contest will wrap up in less than two weeks and members have been busy casting their votes over the last few days. While there is frustration across the party about the lack of membership polling data available, Mr S is rather intrigued by what attentive users on Mumsnet think of Robert Jenrick and Kemi Badenoch. And it appears of the two finalists there is a clear winner… A new site survey has revealed that Badenoch is nearly twice as popular as her rival, with almost a fifth of Mumsnet users rowing in behind the shadow housing secretary – while just over one in ten of the site’s regulars

Philip Patrick Philip Patrick

Newcastle, Saudi Arabia and desperate decline of English football

Is a major scandal over the sale of Newcastle United to a consortium led by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund about to engulf the club? And perhaps cause embarrassment to some high-profile politicians too? Leaked WhatsApps sent by Amanda Staveley (the businesswoman who helped negotiate the deal) made the front page of the Daily Telegraph yesterday. They suggest that assurances given during the takeover that Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman was not personally managing the deal were not quite accurate. Mohammed Bin Salman will probably have no direct role in the running of the club Staveley’s WhatsApps reveal that a delicate stage of the negotiations the Crown Prince was ‘losing patience’. Does that mean that the Gulf potentate was really calling the

Monday

Steerpike Steerpike

Khan takes a pop at Kuenssberg over election tweet

To City Hall, where tonight Sadiq Khan welcomed journalists from across the city to a Diageo-sponsored drinks reception. The London mayor took to the podium to laud the efforts of his diligent and dutiful staffers, taking time to praise his comms team for their relentless work trying to defend his decision-making. Yet about certain journalists, the Labour mayor wasn’t quite as gushing… In his self-congratulatory speech, Khan was quick to call out the commentariat for their pre-election predictions in May. Hitting out at those who suggested his Tory opponent Susan Hall could have won the contest — making a rather specific dig at one BBC broadcaster — the London mayor

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Do we really need more ‘national conversations’?

Other than being fired out of a cannon to raise funds for the NHS, what could Wes Streeting possibly learn from a ‘national conversation’ about the NHS that he hasn’t already picked up from his time studying his own brief? At the launch event for that consultation, the Health Secretary explained that public buy-in was essential for the big reforms necessary to save the health service. He said: ‘I suppose you could say, well, you should just come in and impose your view of change,’ he said. ‘I’d just say to people, be careful what you wish for. The last time a new health secretary came in after a general

Danny Shaw

The problem at the heart of the Chris Kaba case

There are few moments more serious than when the state takes the life of a citizen, when a police officer kills someone in the line of duty. Such an event demands an independent and rigorous investigation in which the officer accounts for his or her actions. The family and friends of the person who has died deserve nothing less. But the prosecution of Martyn Blake, the firearms officer accused, and now cleared, of murdering Chris Kaba in September 2022 has raised uncomfortable questions about that process. There was something about the trial that didn’t feel right.  Sergeant Blake shot and killed Kaba through the windscreen of the Audi he had