Politics

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

Friday

Steerpike Steerpike

Police launch investigation into Rayner housing claims

Well, well, well. Less than 24 hours after Keir Starmer tried to brush off questions about Angela Rayner, it turns out she is now the subject of a formal police investigation. Greater Manchester Police have this morning confirmed it is looking into claims that the Labour deputy leader may have mispaid capital gains tax over the 2015 sale of a property in Manchester. Rayner has denied wrongdoing but she has refused to publish tax advice which she claims exonerates her – and has not shown it directly to Sir Keir Starmer. GMP re-examined an earlier decision not to investigate after a complaint by Tory Bury MP James Daly. The Times reported yesterday that more

Svitlana Morenets Svitlana Morenets

Ukraine’s controversial new conscription law takes effect

The Ukrainian parliament has finally stopped delaying the inevitable and voted for a new law that tightens mobilisation processes, strengthens penalties for draft dodgers and allows the government to track Ukrainian men of military age who are living abroad, at its second reading yesterday. Once the law is signed by Volodymyr Zelensky, more men aged 25 and over will undergo military training for two to three months, then head to the front line in time for Russia’s summer offensive. But not everything went smoothly. By the request of Oleksandr Syrskyi, the new commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army, lawmakers have removed provisions on demobilisation and the rotation of military personnel from the bill.

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Did the UK leave its recession behind in 2023?

The economy grew by 0.1 per cent in February: not much to celebrate on its own but the small uptick in GDP all but confirms that the UK is leaving its recession in 2023. February wasn’t a booming month: services output only grew by 0.1 per cent, with transportation and storage services contributing the most to the sector’s growth (the former seeing its biggest boost since June 2020). The construction sector decreased by 1.9 per cent in volume terms, as the ‘fourth wettest February on record in England’ delayed projects. But a bounceback in production – the ‘largest contributor to the growth in GDP’ that month – provided some balance:

Limor Simhony Philpott

Israel is still committed to eliminating Hamas

On Wednesday, three sons of the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh were killed by an Israeli airstrike. The three were killed when their car was bombed in Gaza’s Al-Shati camp. According to reports, at least three of Haniyeh’s grandchildren were also killed in the strike. Upon hearing of their death, Haniyeh, who resides in Qatar, said ‘I thank God for this honour that he bestow upon us the martyrdom of my three sons and some grandchildren.’ The targeted killing of high-level Hamas operatives is an extremely complex operation, and a tactic that Israeli forces specialise in. It requires accurate intelligence and quick action using precision weapons – often fired from drones

Katy Balls Katy Balls

The Laura Farris Edition

31 min listen

Laura Farris comes from something of a political dynasty, both her father and uncle were MPs. The former even represented the same Newbury seat that she currently holds. She studied PPE at Oxford before working as a researcher for Hilary Clinton but she eschewed a political career to work firstly as a journalist and then as a barrister. In 2019 she became MP for Newbury and she now works across both the Home Office and Ministry of Justice.  On the podcast, Laura tells Katy what she learnt from Hilary Clinton, the things she hopes to achieve by the next election and why Jonathan Sumption has a point about the ECHR. 

Thursday

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Have Scottish politicians read the Cass Review?

The Cass Review may prove to be a tipping point in radical gender ideology’s march through mainstream politics, institutions and civil society. It certainly appears to spell the end of routinely sending children who express confusion about their bodies or their identities down the transition path. The political responses to the report, especially from those who were until recently fully signed on to this ideology, suggest that under what remains of this government and the next Labour government there will be a more cautious approach.  Few who enabled this barbarism – we are talking, after all, about chemically coshing adolescents to suppress puberty – will pay any kind of price

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Has Rishi Sunak failed on the NHS?

13 min listen

One of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s five promises is to cut NHS waiting lists. However, even he’s admitted progress is slow, with new data showing key targets on waiting lists have been missed. Can Sunak ever solve the NHS problem?  Elsewhere, Lee Anderson has been telling us about the price of friendship, revealing he won’t be campaigning in certain constituencies where his old Conservative pals are running…  Katy Balls speaks to Isabel Hardman and Kate Andrews. Produced by Megan McElroy. 

Ross Clark Ross Clark

The irresponsibility of ‘two years to save the planet’

Hurrah, we can all relax. We have been granted an extra two years to save the planet. So suggested Simon Stiell, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in a speech at Chatham House yesterday. Some people might say that calling a speech ‘two years to save the planet’ might be a bit melodramatic, he added. But not at all. It is nice to have the luxury of all that extra time, given that I thought we were supposed to have had it already. That, at any rate, was the logic behind warnings such as that by the WWF in 2007 that we then had five

William Moore William Moore

Will Biden support Ukraine’s attacks on Russia?

46 min listen

This week: will Biden support Ukraine’s attacks on Russia? Owen Matthews writes the cover piece in light of the Zelensky drone offensive. Ukraine’s most successful strategy to date has been its ingenious use of homemade, long-range drones, which it has used to strike military targets as well as oil refineries and petrol storage facilities in Russia. The strikes are working but have alienated the US, who draw a red line when it comes to attacks on Russian soil. Owen joins the podcast alongside Svitlana Morenets, author of The Spectator’s Ukraine in Focus newsletter to debate what comes next. (01:44) Next: Will and Lara take us through some of their favourite pieces in

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Tetchy Starmer wriggles over Rayner’s tax affairs

Angela Rayner appears unable to shake off questions about her tax affairs — literally. And now in an interview with ITV Granada, even Sir Keir Starmer’s confidence in his deputy doesn’t seem to be watertight. The media attention on his second-in-command continues after weeks of speculation about whether Rayner avoided capital gains tax on her council house and broke electoral law. The deputy Labour leader has refused to make her tax details public and Starmer hasn’t even seen the legal advice she received on the matter himself. So much for due diligence… When asked by interviewer Andrew Misra if he was ‘100 per cent confident Angela Rayner’s done nothing wrong’,

Jay Mens

Don’t be scared of Iran

Why are people so scared of ‘escalation’? The escalation paradigm is the outstanding relic of the Cold War. There is no situation where it cannot be applied. No foreign policy cause – from arming Ukraine, to antagonising Iran, to engaging diplomatically with Taiwan – can be discussed without fearing ‘escalation’. It sits among the other dud words beloved by foreign policy wonks: deterrence, compellence, persuasion, dissuasion. It is lazy, and leads to unthinking punditry. Worse still, our enemies use the escalation word-trap against us. On 1 April, an Israeli airstrike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus killed seven Iranian officers. Everyone is on the edge of their seats. Will Iran escalate?

Eliot Wilson

Has Iran saved Israel’s relationship with the US?

Only a few days ago, President Biden was framing remarks about Israel in tones which were astoundingly critical for an American leader. For decades it has been axiomatic that there is barely a cigarette paper between Washington and Jerusalem, but Israel’s prosecution of the war in Gaza has threatened to push them apart. Biden condemned the ‘indiscriminate’ bombing, and last week made his views unmistakable clear: ‘Israel has not done enough to protect civilians.’ Suddenly, though, without meaning to, it looks like the Islamic Republic of Iran may have saved Israel’s most important bilateral relationship. Last week, an Israeli air strike on Iran’s consulate in Damascus killed 16 people, including

Steerpike Steerpike

Reform apologises for not realising candidate had died

Uh oh. Reform UK has not had an easy ride with its general election candidates, to put it mildly. Richard Tice’s party has already had to drop ten prospective candidates for posting inappropriate comments on social media, including one who identified as a ‘pastafarian’ while another called for documentary maker David Attenborough to be ‘killed off’. It has now come to light that over 50 others were ditched for ‘complete inactivity’ — including York Central’s Tommy Cawkwell, whose lack of campaigning was down to the fact that he was, um, deceased. A party spokesperson said today that Reform was ‘mortified’ for not knowing the RNLI volunteer had died, adding: ‘I

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Why no one is celebrating a small fall in NHS waiting lists

The NHS England waiting list has fallen for a fifth month in a row: to 7.54 million in February, down from 7.58 million in January. Since September last year, the overall waiting list has fallen by nearly 200,000 treatments, the ‘biggest five-month fall…in over ten years outside of the pandemic’ according to the Department of Health. So why is no one celebrating? The problem for the government is not the trajectory of the waitlist, but the total number of appointments on it. While the NHS waitlist appears to have peaked last autumn, there are still hundreds of thousands more appointments on the list compared to when Rishi Sunak promised, at

Steerpike Steerpike

JK Rowling won’t forgive Harry Potter actors for trans stance

All is not well in the Harry Potter universe. Author of the hit wizarding novels and prominent women’s rights campaigner JK Rowling has revealed that, even if they apologise, she will not go easy on the lead actors of the Potter films for their stance on the trans debate. Less, er, expecto forgiveness and more expelliarmus…  Rowling’s comments come in the wake of the published report by top paediatrician Dr Hilary Cass, which found that ‘remarkably weak evidence’ and a ‘lack of high-quality research’ had allowed young people in the UK to change their gender. In a series of tweets, the acclaimed writer blasted supporters of gender-altering treatment in children

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

The EU’s migrant pact is worthless

It has been a bloody April in France. Last week a 13-year-old girl of Algerian origin was beaten unconscious, allegedly by her classmates, for dressing ‘like a European’. Two days later a 15-year-old boy, Shamseddine, was beaten to death by a group of youths in what the police believe was an ‘honour killing’. The victim and a girl in his class had reportedly exchanged text messages; these messages came to the attention of the girl’s elder brothers, who allegedly attacked Shamseddine to salvage the family’s ‘reputation’. The objective of the Pact is to better manage migrants once they have reached Europe On Wednesday evening a man was stabbed to death and another seriously wounded in

Steerpike Steerpike

Boris lashes out at Rishi’s ‘mad’ smoking ban

Oh dear. Having his leadership questioned is becoming an almost-daily occurrence for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. When he announced he was going to introduce a smoking ban at the Conservative party conference in October, there were people in his own party rather aghast at the proposal, with more recent talk of a rebellion on the issue. And now Sunak’s predecessor Boris Johnson has sided with the PM’s rivals… Sunak wants to phase out smoking by raising the legal age for the purchase of tobacco by one year, every year, from 2027 onwards. But the health-focused PM is facing a backlash from his own politicians. One group of parliamentarians is urging

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Canadian MPs sing God Save the King after constitutional motion defeat

Well, well, well. In a turn of events that is good news for Canada’s monarchists, a motion that would have amended the country’s Constitution Act — and made the oath to Canada’s monarch optional for MPs — was, on Wednesday, defeated. 113 voted for the motion while 197 voted against it. A cross-party group of parliamentarians, including those from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet, killed the bill. This means that the Canadian Constitution will remain as is, with every new MP required to swear they will be ‘faithful and bear true allegiance’ to the current monarch before they can legally assume their seat. Meanwhile, Quebec-based parties were keen to see

Lionel Shriver Lionel Shriver

Is Trump or Biden a bigger threat to democracy?

When more than two-thirds of the American electorate doesn’t want to vote for either major party’s nominee, a third party should have a chance. Polls have demonstrated that whichever party chucked its front-runner would win –even if it nominated a cloned sheep. Yet last week, having failed to convince a prominent politician to sign up, No Labels closed shop. Whichever wretched candidate wins, we’ll just have slightly different problems The centrist project was doomed from the start. The formation of a successful ‘unity party’ is inherently unlikely in an era of rabid polarisation. Republicans and Democrats differ substantially on policy issues, and compromise positions on tax, Israel, Ukraine, immigration, and

Matthew Parris Matthew Parris

What is there left to say about the Tories?

Spare a thought for us political commentators. We stare into the void between now and a (presumed) decisive Labour victory in a (presumed) autumn general election, haunted by the need to say something significant on a weekly basis at least. Yet there seems so little left to say. Readers don’t need to be told that the Tories are in an unholy mess, or that nobody likes them Until recently we could perhaps speculate that the election might be next month but it’s surely too late now even for that surprise. So ‘autumn’, we say: no surprise there. We think we know the winner too: Labour, easily. I struggle with betting