Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Monday

Jonathan Sacerdoti

A lethal standoff is playing out deep beneath Gaza

In 1929, René Magritte painted a picture that has since become iconic in both art and philosophy. The Treachery of Images depicts a finely detailed tobacco pipe with a caption beneath: Ceci n’est pas une pipe – ‘This is not a pipe’. Magritte’s point is subtle and enduring. It is indeed not a pipe, but an image of one. You cannot fill it with tobacco, light it, or smoke it. It is a representation, not the object itself. Israel manoeuvres within it, cautiously. Hamas exploits it, selectively. Saudi Arabia nods along, calculating Magritte was exploring the gap between signifier and reality, between the name and the thing named. His visual paradox

Patrick West

Should this academic have been banned from campus for using the 'n-word'?

Is it ever acceptable to say the ‘n-word’? As you will have immediately inferred by that sentence, it’s rare to see it even spelt out in full today. It’s perhaps the only word in the English language you will never see written without asterisks in a newspaper or magazine. It is, to use that phrase once beloved of the Guardian, ‘the last taboo’. ‘Words have context, and the word “bitch” can have a positive meaning if you look at the Oxford English Dictionary,’ it was reported that Pormann told the meeting Peter Pormann, a professor at Manchester University, was this week reminded the hard way of its undiminished power, when

Sunday

Stephen Daisley

The global cottage industry gaming America's culture wars

It is the 9/11 of the blue ticks, the Hindenburg of the grifters, the dotcom bubble of the slop-peddlers. The influencer industry has been left reeling by a new function on X which allows readers to see the location from which any given account is operating. The latest update makes it possible to establish when and where an X account was set up and whether it has changed its name since then. A sensible measure, you might think, but not if X is where you make your living and do so by inserting yourself into other countries’ internal politics. There are no firm figures on how many earn a crust

Joe Bedell-Brill

Sunday shows round-up: Mel Stride says ‘mistakes will have been made’ during Covid

Heidi Alexander: ‘Tackling child poverty is in the DNA of the Labour Party’ The expectation is that Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ upcoming budget will lift the two child benefit cap. On the BBC this morning, Laura Kuenssberg suggested that Labour have been giving mixed messages, with the chancellor saying she was determined to get welfare spending under control. Alexander said that growing up in poverty creates a ‘lifetime of consequences’, and three quarters of children in poverty are in households where both parents work. The transport secretary said she was confident that there would be fewer children in poverty at the end of Labour’s term. However, when pushed to confirm that

Jonathan Spyer

Isis is stirring once more

Indications that the Islamic State (Isis) has begun to employ artificial intelligence in its efforts to recruit new fighters should come as no surprise. At the height of its power a decade ago, Isis was characterised by its combination of having mastered the latest methods of communication with an ideology and praxis that seemed to have emerged wholesale from the deserts of 7th century Arabia. In 2014 and 2015, Isis recruitment took place on Twitter and Facebook. YouTube was the favoured platform for the dissemination of propaganda. The group’s videoclips of its barbaric prisoner executions, including the beheadings of a series of western journalists and aid workers and the immolation

Bartek Staniszewski

Red tape has broken Britain

The overwhelming smell of weed wafting down the street; heaps of decomposing litter floating in local canals and rivers; the noise of a dozen video calls and TikTok videos blasted through loudspeakers on the train. Many Britons are exhausted with the tide of anti-social behaviour that all too many of us have become accustomed to. The obvious remedy, it might seem, would be to crack down on this behaviour – for the authorities and the public to enforce Britain’s rules with renewed vigour. To do so, however, would only reinforce the problem. It is in fact the plethora of patronising dictats issued from the top down that is behind the collapse

William Cash

We must cut Send to help our kids

It is ‘insane’, Reform’s Doge chief Richard Tice said this week, that children are wearing ear-defenders in classrooms, supposedly as a ‘calming activity’ to reduce anxiety and stress. Such practices, he said, show UK’s ‘special educational needs and disabilities’ system – known as Send – is not fit for purpose. The number of children receiving support for Send has increased from 1.3 million in 2019 to 1.7 million today, and by 2029, Send-related debts in UK councils are expected to reach £17.8 billion. These costs may bankrupt some local authorities.  Tice is of the view that the Send system is being hijacked by some parents and exploited by a well-paid

Neil Clark

Who is looking out for Britain’s salmon and frogs?

Whatever happened to British ecology? I was thinking that when I read two reports in the Times this week, both pretty depressing. The first concerned a new study, based on maps, which suggests that England and Wales have lost almost a third of their grasslands, including wildflower-rich meadows, over the past 90 years. The second was about the ‘catastrophic’ collapse in the number of juvenile salmon in Dorset’s River Frome, described as ‘one of the country’s most important rivers for the species.’ Rivers that had ‘tens of thousands of salmon in the 1980s’ today reportedly have only a few hundred. The head of fisheries at the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust was

Saturday

David Shipley

The CPS is desperate for a backdoor blasphemy law

I had hoped I would never have to write about Hamit Coskun again. After the Quran-burner won his appeal in October, it seemed that this particular battle in the free speech wars was over. Unfortunately the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) have other ideas. On Friday evening the state prosecutor announced that it was going to appeal Coskun’s successful appeal. The language in their appeal application is particularly revealing. In that document the CPS describes burning a Quran as ‘an obviously provocative act’, which is ‘highly controversial’ and ‘has led to widespread international protests and condemnation, particularly from Muslim communities and governments, and has provoked numerous well-documented incidents of disorder and violence’. This

Patrick Gibbons

Will Mahmood's asylum reforms force Ireland's hand?

Labour’s plans to overhaul Britain’s overstretched asylum system have forced the Irish government to do the same. As the Northern Irish border is the only international border across these islands, Shabana Mahmood’s pledge to create ‘by far the most controlled and selective [asylum system] in Europe’ left Dublin with little choice. Ireland’s Minister for Justice, Home Affairs and Migration – Ireland’s equivalent to the Home Secretary – Jim O’Callaghan warned that Ireland must be ready to adjust its own policies to prevent a surge in applicants travelling via Northern Ireland.  Labour’s announcement has heightened fears that Ireland could be seen as a ‘soft option’ compared with its neighbour Labour’s announcement

Freddy Gray

What's Trump really doing in Venezuela?

17 min listen

Amid his war on ‘narco-terrorists’, Donald Trump is believed to have given the CIA approval to begin covert operations in Venezuela. Freddy Gray is joined by Daniel McCarthy to discuss why Trump is considering regime change, if it would be successful, and whether victories abroad provide a distraction from political challenges at home. 

Ross Clark

The Covid Inquiry has ducked the most important questions

The biggest lesson to come out of the first report of the official Covid Inquiry is what a mistake it was to hand to job to lawyers. They have interpreted their job as one of conducting a show trial of politicians, civil servants and advisers who were involved in handling the pandemic. The have obsessed with the processes of decision-making in Downing Street, and with the characters of the people involved. Baroness Hallett’s address to the nation from a large swivel chair was an extraordinary dystopian vision of a Britain in which democracy has been replaced by a kritarchy – rule by judges. The inquiry has made good theatre, but

Owen Matthews

Was Nathan Gill recruited by the Kremlin?

Was 52-year old Anglesey man Nathan Gill, a member of the European parliament, taking money from the Kremlin, or just from a corrupt Ukrainian oligarch? We may never know. But on Friday Gill was sent down for ten-and-a-half years at the Old Bailey, after he was found guilty of accepting bribes from Ukrainian operatives in exchange for delivering scripted speeches in the European Parliament defending pro-Kremlin TV channels and hosting an event for Viktor Medvedchuk, a close ally of Vladimir Putin. Gill sat in Strasbourg as an MEP for North Wales representing the Brexit party, and was later leader of the Welsh branch of Reform UK. Party leader Nigel Farage, who

Stephen Pollard

We should admire Shabana Mahmood’s political conversion

It’s difficult to recall any minister in recent years, let alone a Home Secretary, who has been lauded with such praise for command of their brief as Shabana Mahmood over the past week. Even those who are far from convinced that her plans to reform the asylum system will do the job intended are mostly fulsome in their regard for her. As Keynes once put it: ‘When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?’ But if there is one nagging doubt, it is that Mahmood appears to have swung dramatically from her earlier stance in opposition as an identikit Labour politician – when she embraced

Angela Epstein

It's miserable being an Epstein

It was shortly after my fifteenth birthday that I discovered the music of The Beatles. A school friend and I stumbled upon the Fab Four while browsing in a record shop. We were hooked: we’d listen to their songs with almost religious devotion. One thrilling touchpoint for me was their manager, Brian Epstein. As a teenager, discovering we shared a surname – and that he too was a northerner – felt magical. With unreconstructed youthful aplomb I’d boast of the connection. Later, in the world of work, as people forever misspelled my name, I’d summon Brian – note the casual intimacy of first name allegiance – to clarify while enjoying

Michael Simmons

Why Britain needs more Yimbys

21 min listen

Chris Curtis and Maxwell Marlow may have different political ideologies, but they agree on one key diagnosis: Britain is broken. Their solution can be found on baseball caps and bucket hats across social media and SW1: ‘Build Baby Build’. Less than a week before the Budget, Chris – MP for Milton Keynes and chair of the Labour Growth Group – and Maxwell – policy fellow of the Yimby Initiative, alongside his day job at the Adam Smith Institute – join our economics editor Michael Simmons to talk about the pro-growth measures they champion to radically change Britain. Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

Friday

James Heale

Reform’s Russia problem

Nigel Farage has had better afternoons. Nathan Gill, the former leader of Reform UK in Wales, has just been sentenced to ten-and-a-half years in prison after admitting taking bribes to give pro-Russia interviews and speeches. The one-time Brexit party MEP is believed to have received up to £40,000 in total for helping Kremlin-friendly politicians in Ukraine. At the Old Bailey, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb said Gill had abused his position and eroded ‘public confidence in democracy’. Oleg Voloshyn, once described by the US government as a ‘pawn’ of Russia’s secret service, gave the money on behalf of a ‘close friend’ of Vladimir Putin’s, Viktor Medvedchuk, who was the source of both

Svitlana Morenets

Volodymyr Zelensky is facing the ultimate test

Standing outside his presidential office in Kyiv tonight, on the same spot as on the second day of Ukraine’s full-scale war with Russia, Volodymyr Zelensky addressed Ukrainians. He said he hadn’t betrayed the country then and wouldn’t do so now. Ukraine faces ‘one of the most difficult moments in our history’, he said, while the Trump administration presses it into a deal with Russia. The US, once Ukraine’s biggest ally, has issued an ultimatum: either Zelensky signs the framework of the 28-point peace plan drawn up by Washington and the Kremlin by next Thursday, or Trump will cut intelligence-sharing and weapons supplies for Ukraine.  The pressure on Ukraine right now

Steerpike

Second MP quits Your Party

Another one bites the dust. Iqbal Mohamed has become the second Independent MP to quit the left-wing Your Party amid party infighting. The group, founded by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, has seen unedifying splits become very public as serious rifts grow between the MPs involved in its launch. The animosity between Corbyn and Sultana has been well documented and now two members of the parliamentary Independent Alliance group have deserted the party. Talk about trouble in paradise, eh? In a letter, Mohamed slammed the ‘false allegations and smears’ about him, which he described as ‘surprising and disappointing’. He went on: I have decided to leave Your Party and continue