Politics

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

Katy Balls

The Miatta Fahnbulleh Edition

37 min listen

Miatta Fahnbulleh was elected as the Labour MP for Peckham at the 2024 general election.  Born in Liberia, her family fled west Africa as the region descended into civil war, eventually settling in north London when she was just 7 years old. Trained as an economist, having studied at Oxford and the LSE, she went on to work in the civil service and at various think-tanks. After serving as the CEO for the New Economics Foundation, she became a senior economic adviser for Labour working with Ed Miliband during his time as leader of the Labour Party. Ed is now her boss again – at the department for energy.  On

Why couldn’t this elite school cope with my talk on anti-Semitism?

Perhaps it is a rite of passage these days for a journalist to be cancelled. But I never expected that an elite school – one designed to create tomorrow’s international leaders, founded by a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany – would be the ones to cancel a talk about anti-Semitism from me, the son of a Holocaust survivor. My invitation was not controversial – at least, not at first As a journalist and columnist with extensive experience reporting from Israel, covering terrorist attacks across Europe, and documenting the rise of anti-Semitism internationally, I have encountered hostility before. But I had not expected it to come from an institution dedicated to

Is the sugar tax to blame for the slushy drinks scare?

The alleged ‘success’ of Mexico’s tax on sugary drinks inspired George Osborne to announce a sugar tax for the UK in 2016. But the news that the tax has led to children being poisoned by drinking frozen slushy ice drinks suggests it – just like Mexico’s – could be doing more harm than good. Mexico’s levy was said to have reduced demand for sugary drinks in the country – it would have been surprising if it didn’t. But it did not lead to Mexicans consuming fewer calories: rates of obesity have continued to climb since the tax was introduced in 2014. One of the little-known consequences of the Mexican sugar tax is that it

Trump’s war on Europe should not surprise anyone

Has there been a more cataclysmic year than 2025 for US-Europe relations? It started with US Vice President J.D. Vance’s ‘sermon’ to EU leaders at the Munich security conference last month – in which he berated Western Europe for its policies on immigration and free speech. The year so far has also taken in the danger of the Nato alliance falling apart after 76 years of peace in Western Europe, with the White House apparently tilting towards Russia and Trump demanding that members of the alliance such as Germany, France and the UK massively up their defence spending. This week, as the Trump regime imposes tariffs on Europe and Europe

Massacre of the innocents, saving endangered languages & Gen Z’s ‘Boom Boom’ aesthetic

37 min listen

This week: sectarian persecution returns Paul Wood, Colin Freeman and Father Benedict Kiely write in the magazine this week about the religious persecution that minorities are facing across the world from Syria to the Congo. In Syria, there have been reports of massacres with hundreds of civilians from the Alawite Muslim minority targeted, in part because of their association with the fallen Assad regime. Reports suggest that the groups responsible are linked to the new Syrian president Ahmed al-Sharaa (formerly known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani). For some, the true face of the country’s new masters has been revealed. Whether the guilty men are punished will tell us what kind of

Lisa Haseldine

Is Putin really open to a ceasefire with Ukraine?

Vladimir Putin is apparently open to a ceasefire in the war against Ukraine. But is he really? Just like that, the response that America, Ukraine and its Western allies had been waiting for has arrived. Speaking this afternoon in a joint press conference with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, the Russian President commented for the first time on America’s proposal for a 30-day ceasefire in the conflict. ‘We agree with the proposal to stop military actions,’ he said. The truce, he said, should lead to ‘long-term peace and eliminate the root causes of the crisis’.  As with many statements which turn out to be too good to be true, the Russian

Why Labour are abolishing NHS England

10 min listen

It was widely briefed that the main focus of Sir Keir Starmer’s speech in Yorkshire today was his plan to do away with Whitehall red tape. What was kept under wraps was the Prime Minister’s plans for the NHS – specifically to scrap NHS England. In a bid to tackle bureaucracy in the health service, the PM this morning told reporters that the ‘arms-length NHS’ needed to go – adding that the move will ‘shift money to the front line’ and free the health service to ‘focus on patients’. What’s the point of abolishing NHS England? And are Labour ‘doing the things that the Tories only dreamed of’?  Lucy Dunn

What Vladimir Putin really wants from Ukraine

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin have very different negotiating styles. Trump lines up his offer in advance, browbeating all the parties on his own side into compliance before slapping his bottom line on the table. Putin, by contrast, is a haggler. He loads his proposals with superstructure intended to be jettisoned in the course of getting to yes. Or to put it another way, what Putin says he wants and what he realistically expects to get are two different things. On the face of it, Russia’s first response to US proposals for a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine contain several major deal-breakers that the Ukrainians could never swallow. First and foremost,

Isabel Hardman

What is the point of abolishing NHS England?

What does Wes Streeting think the government will achieve by abolishing NHS England? The Health Secretary gave a statement to MPs this afternoon in which he confirmed that the health service will no longer be operationally independent from the government. As Streeting made clear to the Commons, the NHS was given operational independence by the Conservatives, who regretted doing so for years. The Tories reversed many of the Andrew Lansley reforms in their Health and Care Act 2022, but the NHS remained independent, even though ministers were the ones answering for its performance and mistakes. The Health Secretary today claimed that he ‘cannot count the number of Conservatives who have

James Heale

The trouble with Starmer’s plan for change

At his speech at a Hull business campus this morning, Keir Starmer was introduced by a man who proudly noted that the site was home to various brands, including Durex. So it was fitting that ‘protection’ was a constant theme throughout the Prime Minister’s speech on his planned reforms to the civil service – and his announcement that NHS England is to be scrapped. ‘National security for national renewal’, the PM promised, stressing the need to have an ‘active state’ to deal with challenges both abroad and at home. The beginning of the Ukraine war gave Boris Johnson’s premiership purpose in 2022; the conflict’s looming close offers Starmer a narrative

Starmer scraps NHS England

It was widely briefed that the main focus of Sir Keir Starmer’s speech in Yorkshire today was his plan to do away with Whitehall red tape. What was kept under wraps was the Prime Minister’s plans for the NHS – specifically to scrap NHS England. In a bid to tackle bureaucracy in the health service, the PM this morning told reporters that the ‘arms-length NHS’ needed to go – adding that the move will ‘shift money to the front line’ and free the health service to ‘focus on patients’. The move – which will see NHS England taken back under the control of the Department of Health in a re-politicising

John Keiger

Defence cooperation with France would be a bad idea for Britain

Donald Trump’s recent decision to deny Ukraine access to American intelligence data in the war against Russia has concentrated minds on how the US could restrict Britain’s defence capability, from F-35 stealth jets to its independent nuclear deterrent. Some fears are well-founded. Others, such as the recent suggestion by a former French ambassador to the UK that a ‘dual key’ controls Britain’s submarine-launched Trident ballistic missiles, are a myth.  The idea is growing in some quarters that now is the moment for Britain to switch away from the US to Europe for defence equipment cooperation. One need not look too far to detect its motivation or to see its naivety. Like

Have we reached peak EDI?

As the old saying goes, ‘when American sneezes, England catches a cold’. This week, the two major city watchdogs announced they will be ditching planned ‘Diversity and Inclusion’ regulation.  The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the regulator for Britain’s financial services sector, first announced their plans to impose extensive new Diversity and Inclusion rules in 2023. After significant pushback at the time, they have finally declared it has ‘no plans to take the work further’. The Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA), the Bank of England’s regulatory arm, has also issued a statement saying that they are not proceeding with similar proposals. Is this the first sign of a turning point in the

Ireland isn’t out of Trump’s firing line just yet

The Taoiseach Micheal Martin’s White House encounter with Donald Trump was controversial even before it was announced. Before any invitation had been extended, Sinn Fein said they were going to boycott the event in a show of solidarity with the people of Ukraine and Gaza and as a sign of their commitment ‘to humanity’. The People Before Profit party said Martin was endorsing America’s role in a genocide and Labour leader Ivana Bacik insisted the Taoiseach take the opportunity to publicly scold Trump on Ukraine, Gaza and his perceived failures to take action on climate change. But Martin is a more experienced politician than that and knew there was only

Steerpike

Seven in ten Reform voters don’t recognise Rupert Lowe

It was only a few weeks ago that Reform UK was flying high in the polls. Now a fallout between the party leadership and MP Rupert Lowe has left their voters shaken – with Lowe currently suspended from the group over allegations of bullying made against his office and under investigation by the Metropolitan Police. But while Lowe’s social media supporters are outraged by his treatment, it doesn’t appear like much of the rest of the public know quite who he is… According to polling by JL Partners for GB News carried out between 10-11 March, when a ‘nationally representative’ sample of 2,065 Brits were shown a picture of Lowe

Debunking the myths about the ECHR

This year the European Convention on Human Rights and its Strasbourg court are 75 years old – the age at which British judges are obliged to retire. Is it time for Britain to retire from this ageing institution? Not according to the Attorney-General, Lord Hermer, a former human rights lawyer, who recently pledged that under Labour Britain would never leave. Apologists for the ECHR invariably turn to myths to make their case, foremost of which is the creation myth. The ECHR, they say, was a British invention. It was inspired by Winston Churchill and drafted by David Maxwell Fyfe. It codified historic British rights and the UK was the first

Why Nigel should listen to Rupert

I was thinking lately of Robert Kilroy-Silk. For younger readers, and people who were never students or unemployed, a quick refresher course may be needed. From 1986 to 2004 Kilroy-Silk was the presenter of a BBC daytime television programme called Kilroy. It had something of a cult following because of its unintentional hilarity. The live audience was carefully ring-mastered by Kilroy-Silk, who wandered around the studio with a microphone asking people what they thought about various ‘ishoos’ of the day. For some of us the main entertainment came from the fact that there was never quite enough room on the audience banquettes and so we watched for those moments when

Rod Liddle

How to reform Reform

In early June last year I had a reasonably agreeable meal with a bunch of Reform UK activists at a restaurant in Guisborough – the main town in the seat which I would be contesting for the Social Democratic party, Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland. There were four of them, united primarily by one thing – a visceral loathing of the Conservative party. Beyond that they were basically anti-woke and economically dry, as we used to call it. But all that took second place to the animus against the Tories. I have met pink-haired, nose-ringed, utterly vacuous LGBTQI sociology students who were more kindly disposed to the Conservatives than this