Politics

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

Friday

James Heale James Heale

David Gauke on prisons, probation & the political reaction to his review

18 min listen

Former Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor David Gauke joins James Heale to talk about his review into prison sentencing. The former Tory minister was appointed by the current Labour Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood, but says there is a clear centre-right argument for prison reform. He talks James through his policy proposals and the political reaction to them, the thinking behind expanding chemical castration for sex offenders and why deportation is complicated when dealing with the very worst foreign criminals. Ultimately his review is designed to reduce what is currently the highest incarceration rate in Europe. Produced by Patrick Gibbons. 

Steerpike Steerpike

Labour MP backs Lowe’s calls to free Lucy Connolly

The case of Lucy Connolly, the wife of a Tory councillor who was jailed over an offensive tweet, has sparked outrage across the country – and now even a Labour MP is calling for her release. Mary Glindon, MP for Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend, has put her name to an early day motion tabled by ex-Reform MP Rupert Lowe which calls for a review of Connolly’s sentence to ‘ensure that limited prison space is prioritised for dangerous and violent offenders’ in a move that breaks ranks with Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer. How very curious… Remarking on her support for Lowe’s motion, Glindon said: I simply signed the

Steerpike Steerpike

Netanyahu accuses Starmer of siding with Hamas

To Netanyahu, who has taken aim at Prime Minister Keir Starmer after the deaths of a young Jewish couple in Washington DC on Thursday. 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez was charged with murder yesterday evening after allegedly killing Israeli embassy staff Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim who planned to get engaged next week in Jerusalem. In a clip addressing the attack, Netanyahu claimed that British, French and Canadian leaders had ‘effectively said they want Hamas to remain in power’. He added about the leaders that they want Israel to ‘stand down and accept that Hamas’s army of mass murderers will survive’. The remarks by Israel’s prime minister come after the young

Geoff Hill

What Trump gets wrong about South Africa’s white ‘genocide’

There’s a joke in South Africa that it’s so easy to claim asylum here, even the Swiss could do so. It’s easy to believe. At our local shopping centre in Johannesburg, the security guards hail from various safe African countries – Tanzania, Zambia and Malawi. All are on refugee permits that are renewed every few months, often with a bribe. If there’s murderous intent among South Africa’s poorest, it’s not directed at white people There are countless illegal migrants and refugees from as far away as Pakistan and Bangladesh. Ironic then that president Cyril Ramaphosa is making such a fuss about the 49 Afrikaners who have been granted asylum in

Andrew Tettenborn

How Starmer was stitched up over the Chagos islands

Yesterday, following a last-minute flurry of lawfare, the government published the text of its Chagos agreement with Mauritius. Future history books may well cite it as the perfect example of Britain ceasing to be a country that can be taken seriously. This lousy deal essentially amounts to a massive gift from British taxpayers to the Mauritian government, in exchange for being allowed to give up territory The agreement transfers to Mauritius the entire Chagos archipelago, including the Diego Garcia airbase, subject to a 99-year leaseback of the latter. The small print is worth noting. Mauritians and Mauritian companies are to have preference in employment on the base; it is to

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Is it any surprise doctors are trying their luck with more strikes?

Did anyone really think that the incoming Starmer government was going to appease the public sector unions for long by stuffing their mouths with gold – awarding them fat pay rises without any requirement to improve productivity? When he awarded junior doctors a pay rise of 22 per cent last July, Wes Streeting told us that he had made more progress in days than the Conservatives had made in months. The strikes were over, thanks to grown-up government. Not so fast, Wes. Predictably enough, the government’s largesse towards towards the unions has merely served to embolden them. Now they are back for more – and the government finds itself unable

Matthew Lynn

Labour’s spending is out of control

To borrow a phrase that was once famously used about the Pentagon, ‘a billion here, a billion there and pretty soon you are talking real money’. The Labour government has certainly been spending some ‘real money’ this week. If you tot up the total amount it has added to spending over the last five days, it comes to an extraordinary £50 billion. The British state is rapidly losing control of its finances, and it is no surprise the bond markets that will have to finance it all are getting worried.  If the Chancellor Rachel Reeves decides, like many of us, to check her bank balance as the week ends, she

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Only now are Britain’s high streets busier than before Covid

Finally, in a horrible week for Rachel Reeves which has seen inflation surge, the public finances take a dive and her authority undermined by Angela Rayner’s memo and the Prime Minister’s U-turn on the winter fuel payment, a glimmer of good news. Retail sales rose by 1.2 per cent in April. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) did, however, revise down March’s figure from 0.4 per cent growth to 0.1 per cent. The quarterly figures, which are more reliable, show that sales volumes were up 1.8 per cent between February and April. There is now a clear trend. Retail sales volumes bottomed out in December 2023 and have been generally

Nigel Jones

Reform must prove to voters they’re more than a protest party

Reform is now touching 30 per cent in the polls, as Labour lags on 22 per cent and the Tories trail on just 15 per cent. As such, the insurgent party must prepare for more frenzied attacks from the old parties whose dominance it now seriously threatens. Is Nigel Farage’s party ready to face the inevitably detailed forensic scrutiny of its still rather vague policy agenda? One key question that Reform must answer is where they stand on the ideological spectrum: are they Thatcherite free marketeers, or neo-socialists prepared to use the state to mitigate the excesses of unbridled capitalism? Reform must decide which ideological road to travel: left or

Catriona Olding

Is chemically castrating sex offenders really a good idea?

Convicted paedophiles could face mandatory chemical castration to suppress their libidos under plans being considered by the justice secretary. Shabana Mahmood is said to be weighing up giving the drugs to sex offenders to reduce reoffending and free up prison space. But while the idea – announced on the Sun’s front page yesterday under the headline ‘paedos to be castrated’ – is sure to be popular, chemical castration isn’t as effective as its supporters might hope. Its use could lull courts, and society in general, into a false sense of security about the danger that sex offenders pose. Chemical castration isn’t as effective as its supporters might hope The use

Robin Ashenden

Harold Wilson was awful and brilliant

Does anyone still talk about Harold Wilson, the Labour prime minister who died 30 years ago today? Though the Labour party often seems keen to forget a leader who won – almost uniquely – four out of five elections, he was, perhaps more than anyone, the prime minister who ushered in the modern age.  When he stood in the general election of 1964, he was widely billed as a moderniser. Up against Tory Alec Douglas-Home – the grouse-shooting Old Etonian Earl, who described the old age pension as ‘donations’ to the elderly and had used matchsticks to understand economics – Wilson seemed like the dawning of a new age. Words

Thursday

James Snell

The Chagos deal is a disgrace

It has been in the background for a few months, but it seems Keir Starmer has now decided to resurface and sign his deal to pay Mauritius billions to take ownership of a British territory. The Chagos Islands, and the broader British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), are strategically significant. On Diego Garcia, the largest of the islands, the only population either staffs or supports a joint British-American base. A base which is often used by the Americans; the base from which the B-2s ordered to bomb Iran’s nuclear programme might take off. But all of this is to be surrendered to Mauritius and then rented back by Britain. Why? Because

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Errol Musk on Trump vs white racism in South Africa

33 min listen

Donald Trump exposed South Africa’s leader Cyril Ramaphosa in the White House yesterday over what he refered to as white racism against the farmers in South Africa. Freddy Gray speaks to Errol Musk — father of Elon Musk — from Cape Town about Trump’s confrontation. Errol shares personal experiences of being attacked on a farm, defends Trump’s intervention, and reflects on the country’s decline under ANC rule. The conversation also touches on Elon Musk’s influence, family history, and a surprising political reversal within the Musk household.

William Moore William Moore

The real Brexit betrayal, bite-sized history & is being a bridesmaid brutal?

44 min listen

The real Brexit betrayal: Starmer vs the workers ‘This week Starmer fell… into the embrace of Ursula von der Leyen’ writes Michael Gove in our cover article this week. He writes that this week’s agreement with the EU perpetuates the failure to understand Brexit’s opportunities, and that Labour ‘doesn’t, or at least shouldn’t exist to make the lives of the fortunate more favourable’. Michael makes the argument that ‘the real Brexit betrayal’ is Labour’s failure to understand how Brexit can protect British jobs and industries and save our manufacturing sector. Historian of the Labour Party Dr Richard Johnson, a politics lecturer at Queen Mary University writes an accompanying piece arguing

James Heale James Heale

The Chagos deal will haunt Keir Starmer

After months of negotiation, the UK has today signed a deal to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. Under the terms of the agreement, Britain will lease back the military base there for an annual rate of £101 million. The net value of the payments from the UK under the treaty will reach £3.4 billion. Keir Starmer insisted that the Chagos deal is in Britain’s best interests The Prime Minister insists that the deal – which involves a lease on the base for 99 years ‘and beyond’ – is in the country’s national interest. It comes after an ‘advisory opinion’ by the UN’s International Court of Justice (ICJ), that the Chagos Islands

Karl Williams

Britain really is becoming an island of strangers

New migration data released today by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) suggests Britain really is becoming an ‘island of strangers’. Around one in 25 people living in Britain today arrived in just the last four years. Nevertheless, there were probably sighs of relief in Downing Street this morning when the ONS data showed net migration last year had fallen by almost 50 per cent to 431,000. Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper could hardly have dared hope for better numbers. As things stand, by the time of the next census in 2031, almost a quarter of the population will be first generation migrants That reduction is mostly due to changes

Steerpike Steerpike

Reform gains another Scottish Tory councillor

To Aberdeenshire in Scotland, where a fourth Scottish Tory councillor has defected to Reform UK. It transpires that Dominic Lonchay – represents the East Garioch ward on the council – has jumped ship to Nigel Farage’s real army in another blow to the Scottish Tories. Lonchay’s defection makes him the 13th councillor to join Reform UK in Scotland – and the fourth on Aberdeenshire Council. The tide is turning… Commenting on his decision, Lonchay remarked:  The reasons for this decision are many, and I have particularly recently been unable to influence the running of the council for the benefit of my constituents. I have therefore decided to join Reform Scotland, and I

James Heale James Heale

Live by the rule of law, die by the rule of law

11 min listen

The Independent Sentencing Review chaired by former Lord Chancellor David Gauke has today announced its suggested reforms which sees a major shift from imprisonment to community-led sentencing. Measures include the recommendation that convicted criminals leave prisons after serving around one-third of their sentence, that short prison sentences of up to 12 months are drastically reduced and – the attention grabbing – expansion of chemical castration for paedophiles. What are the political ramifications of these policies, and will they work?  Danny Shaw, former advisor to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, and James Heale discuss with Lucy Dunn. Also on the podcast, they discuss a last minute obstacle to resolving the Chagos deal

Jonathan Sacerdoti

The Washington shooting is a chilling warning to Jews everywhere

Waking early on Thursday in London, I read the news on a half-lit phone screen: two people, Israeli embassy staff, gunned down outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington D.C. A man shouted “Free Palestine,” – of course he did – after he had fired his weapon and walked inside the building – where, in an extraordinary confusion of roles, guests offered him water and comfort, believing he too had been a victim. In a way, maybe he had. A man shouted “Free Palestine,” – of course he did – after he had fired his weapon Though our airwaves and streets have been filled with talk of genocide, that word

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Miliband’s 2030 clean power target looks increasingly impossible

The answer, according to Ed Miliband in an infamously toe-curling rendition of the Bob Dylan song, is blowing in the wind. But no longer, it seems, if you are on the board of SSE. The energy company, which was one of the first UK electricity companies to commit in a big way to renewable energy, has just pulled £3 billion worth of investment in renewables, citing the ‘changing macroeconomic environment’ and delays in the planning system. For that read that the projects it had intended to build have become economically unviable now that we no longer have near-zero interest rates, and that the national grid is struggling to absorb so