Politics

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

Wednesday

Andrew Tettenborn

Why can’t Ukraine trademark the phrase: ‘Russian warship, go f**k yourself’?

Ukraine’s bravery and daring in the face of Russian aggression marks a stark contrast with European – or at least EU – lethargy and disinclination to take sides. A recent spat over, of all things, European trade mark law is a case in point. In early 2022, a soldier on the desolate Snake Island in the Black Sea famously added to Ukrainian folklore by greeting the Russian cruiser Moskva, which had come to take over the island, with the words ‘Russian warship, go f**k yourself’. This slogan quickly became hot merchandising property. Kyiv understandably decided to put to work to aid the war effort: it applied to register the phrase as a European

Matt McDonald

Biden and Trump heading for US election rematch

The United States is heading for a Donald Trump vs Joe Biden rematch in this year’s presidential election. US leader Joe Biden is the presumptive presidential nominee for the Democratic Party after his victory overnight in the Georgia primary pushed him passed the threshold of 1,968 delegates. Donald Trump also passed the threshold of 1,215 delegates to become the presumptive nominee for the Republican Party, following his triumphs in Georgia, Mississippi and Washington. Biden’s approval rating is lagging behind Trump’s at the same stage of his presidency ‘It is my great honour to be representing the Republican Party as its Presidential Nominee,’ Trump wrote on Truth Social. ‘Fear not, we will not

Debbie Hayton

The NHS puberty blocker ban for children is long overdue

Children in England will no longer be prescribed puberty blockers at NHS gender identity clinics. This is good news: it was never appropriate to halt the normal physical development of young people struggling with the concept of growing up into the men and women that nature intended. Puberty blockers, followed by cross-sex hormones, were a so-called solution that, in my view as a transgender adult, created a very serious problem. A cohort of young people identified as transgender, non-binary or maybe something yet more mysterious. They demanded powerful and life-altering drugs to ward off what they – or their parents – feared might be a mental health catastrophe. All too

Tuesday

Steerpike Steerpike

Robert Jenrick: The Tories have a young person problem

Is ex-immigration minister Robert Jenrick on manoeuvres? He certainly looked the part as he waxed lyrical to a crowd of under 35s at the Onward’s ‘After Hours’ event in a Westminster pub. Jenrick said it was no surprise youngsters are struggling to get on the housing ladder. ‘You’re absolutely right to say that the housing crisis today is also an immigration crisis,’ he crowed to the audience. ‘You can’t have mass migration and an answer to the housing crisis.’ But while the Tory MP has been championing housing and migration issues over the last few years, tonight’s focus was on the Tory issue with younger voters. ‘We are outliers in

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Kemi Badenoch refuses to toe the line – again

It’s been another deeply uncomfortable day for the Tories, where the line to take on an issue of racism has collapsed at the last minute. Unsurprisingly, that collapse has also once again involved Kemi Badenoch. Ministers and Downing Street have spent the day refusing to say the word ‘racist’ when discussing the comments made by party donor Frank Hester about Diane Abbott. To recap, he was reported by the Guardian to have said in 2019 that ‘you see Diane Abbott on the TV, and you’re just like … you just want to hate all Black women because she’s there. And I don’t hate all black women at all, but I

Max Jeffery Max Jeffery

What does Boris want?

11 min listen

Newspapers today reported that Boris Johnson is going to campaign for the Conservatives in Red Wall seats. Responding, Nadine Dorries wrote on Twitter: ‘There’s no thawing of relations, no plans to campaign. Sunak not spoken to Johnson for over a year.’ So are the stories true? What does Boris want? Max Jeffery speaks to Kate Andrews and Isabel Hardman.

Steerpike Steerpike

Badenoch calls for forgiveness over Tory donor’s ‘racist’ remarks

The Frank Hester saga continues after the Tory donor’s ‘rude’ remarks about Diane Abbott came to light on Monday. A Guardian investigation revealed that the West Yorkshire businessman had told colleagues in 2019 that looking at Abbott makes ‘you just want to hate all black women because she’s there’ and that ‘she should be shot’. Now Kemi Badenoch has spoken out on the issue. The business secretary, who is also minister for women and equalities, blasted Hester’s ‘appalling’ and ‘racist’ remarks on Tuesday afternoon — but added that there must be ‘space for forgiveness’. Writing on Twitter this afternoon, she said: Hester’s 2019 comments, as reported, were racist. I welcome

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Humza Yousaf slams ‘institutionally Islamophobic’ Tories

It’s a day that ends in ‘y’ which means the leader of the SNP is once again harping on about independence. Today Humza Yousaf addressed a crowd at the the London School of Economics about the economic woes of Brexit and how, surprise surprise, ‘achieving independence’ is the only solution for the people of Scotland. Yousaf started jovially, pointing out that both his host Emma McCoy and interviewer Iain Begg had Caledonian ties. ‘It just reminds me of that famous saying that there are two types of people in the world: Scots and those who want to be Scottish. There is a third, of course,’ he quipped, ‘those who lack

Robin Ashenden

Navalny’s death has left Russia’s opposition in despair

Following the wave of articles that have appeared in the Western press since Navalny’s death come three pieces from émigré Russians. All present a sobering and even chilling picture of Russia’s future now that its leading figure of opposition is gone. The first, published by the Russian-language Meduza on 4 March, was by Shura Burtin, a Russian journalist living in Prague. In his essay, ‘The world doesn’t know how to stand up to evil’, Burtin described his devastation at the news of Navalny’s death: ‘Only in the wake of Navalny’s murder did it become clear how unconsciously we still lived in hope for a “normal” future.’ The dream of a

Eliot Wilson

What Rishi Sunak got wrong about Lee Anderson

Lee Anderson’s defection from the Tories to Reform UK was hardly a surprise. In fact, it seemed almost inevitable. But that Anderson rose to the position he did within the Conservative party to become deputy chairman, before flouncing out, raises questions about Sunak’s political judgement. Anderson became an emblem of the Red Wall, yet is he really representative of voters from the north? Sunak’s superficial reading of Anderson led him to think that he could be a bridge to the Red Wall Anderson’s blunt language has powered his brief career as a Conservative MP. Because he said undiplomatic, unwise or unhelpful things, and because his background was unimpeachably and authentically

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Should the Emiratis be allowed a minority stake in the Telegraph?

How much of The Spectator and the Daily Telegraph should the United Arab Emirates be allowed to own? Tomorrow, the Lords will debate whether ‘foreign powers’ (as defined by the National Security Act) should be allowed to own national publications in light of the RedBird IMI bid for the two titles. The government may table an amendment to the Digital Markets Bill to diminish the chance of a rebellion via Tina Stowell’s amendment. However the vote goes, the debate will be a landmark. The consensus is that blocking the Emirati bid is (as Michael Forsyth put it in the Lords) an ‘absolute no-brainer’. As the Lib Dem MP Jamie Stone put it ‘the

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Donelan apologises for tweeting defamatory letter

Michelle Donelan has been no stranger to the spotlight lately. The Science and Technology Secretary was forced last week to retract the false accusations she made about an academic and pay the damages and costs. But she didn’t just fire off a letter of complaint to UK Research and Innovation about its board members. Donelan also decided it would be, er, wise to publicly post the offending letter on Twitter, which itself prompted the libel action. Donelan has this morning admitted that she ‘could have sent the letter in confidence’, telling the Lords’ science and tech committee: ‘I do apologise for not having done so’.  In her first appearance since

Iain Macwhirter

Humza Yousaf’s UN row is entirely of his own making

Humza Yousaf has a gift for landing himself at the centre of crises of his own making. One recalls his advice during Covid for people to ‘think twice’ before calling 999 for an ambulance or his asking a group of Ukrainian women refugees ‘where are all the men’.  More recently there was his Quixotic defence of XL Bully dogs and the futile backing of the former health secretary, Michael Matheson, over his iPad expenses. These were unforced errors he could ill afford. Now Humza Yousaf has managed to confect an extraordinary media storm over an apparently innocuous government donation of £250,000 to a Gaza relief organisation, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). By hurling

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Leave Kate Middleton alone

Well done everyone for ruining Mother’s Day for the Princess of Wales. I hope you’re proud of yourselves. A young-ish mum posts a lovely photo of herself surrounded by her beaming kids and instead of saying ‘Ahh’ you pore over it like lunatic sleuths for signs of villainous photoshopping. End result: mum issues an apology. For doing something sweet. On Mother’s Day. You all need to get off the internet. The obsession with that pic of Catherine and her three children has become unhinged. It’s still on the front pages of the papers. ‘PICTURE OF CHAOS’, screams the Mirror. Oh behave. There’s war in Europe and the Middle East, an

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Who is going to pay for Rishi’s gas power stations?

The problem with intermittency of wind and solar energy is so obvious that you wonder why is has taken the Prime Minister this long to work out that we are going to carry on needing gas-fired power stations to fill in the gaps. In the case of solar energy this is, of course, every evening. Rishi Sunak is quite right that Labour’s plan to decarbonise the electricity grid by 2030 (and apparently save us oodles of money off our bills in the process) is a ‘fantasy approach’. The trouble is, the government’s own approach isn’t a whole lot better.  If we are going to have a grid based on wind and

Patrick O’Flynn Patrick O'Flynn

Boris Johnson won’t help Sunak win back the Red Wall

What are we to make of today’s rather breathless story in the the Times suggesting that Boris Johnson will make a ‘comeback’ at the general election? The nature of the return being touted is hard to pin down. An unnamed source ‘familiar with Johnson’s thinking’ tells the newspaper he is primed to campaign in marginal constituencies, make speeches and appear on leaflets. ‘Just as he has always supported the Conservative party he will do so now,’ it is claimed. Another unnamed source, this time a government one, adds that there will be no joint appearance with Rishi Sunak, but that Boris is ‘up for it’ and that the relationship between

Sam Leith Sam Leith

All hail the abolition of the ‘non-doms’

One of the agreeable surprises in the Spring Budget was Jeremy Hunt’s late conversion to the idea of abolishing ‘non-dom’ status. ‘Those with the broadest shoulders,’ he said, ‘should pay their fair share.’ The non-dom loophole, where you can live here but not pay UK taxes on your overseas earnings, has long been a bugbear of the narrow-shouldered in general, and the chip-shouldered in particular. Abolishing it is, of course, a flagship Labour policy – which the Chancellor opposed for years before changing his mind and copying it.   The idea that our policies should be fair, rather than just profitable, isn’t childish or sentimental Jolly good. Chalk one up

Steerpike Steerpike

Will Lee Anderson be ousted from PopCon?

Liz Truss launched her Popular Conservatism movement — catchily dubbed PopCon — just over a month ago. Taking aim at ‘left wing extremists’, Truss hit out at colleagues more interested in pursuing policies popular at ‘London dinner parties’ and explained that her new group would champion true Tory values. But it wasn’t just lefties that didn’t fare well. Before PopCon had even launched, event organisers ousted Simon Clarke MP from the speaker line-up after he called for Rishi Sunak to go. Could Lee Anderson be next? The former deputy chairman of the Conservative party was one of PopCon’s star speakers. Cracking jokes about how he and his fellow speaker Jacob

Michael Simmons Michael Simmons

Has the jobs market cooled enough to cut interest rates?

Is the Bank of England about to cut interest rates? Today’s labour market statistics might just give them the room to do so. The latest data, released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) this morning, shows that the number of payrolled employees is up, the unemployment rate is up, vacancies are down and pay growth is slowing. But is it enough? Job vacancies fell for the 20th consecutive time between December and February – and by twice as in last month’s release. Vacancies were down to 908,000 on the quarter, a decrease of 43,000 – though they remain far higher than pre-lockdown levels. More data released yesterday by the

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Is Giorgia Meloni a secret centrist?

When it became clear in September 2022 that Giorgia’s Meloni right-wing coalition was on course to win Italy’s general election, Ursula von der Leyen issued a warning. ‘If things go in a difficult direction,’ declared the president of the European Commission, ‘…we have tools’. Matteo Salvini, whose Liga party was a member of the coalition, denounced von der Leyen’s threat as ‘shameful arrogance’. The marriage of convenience between von der Leyen and Meloni has benefited both in the last two years The German’s fears have proved unfounded. Meloni’s government hasn’t gone in a ‘difficult direction’. On the contrary, Meloni seems to have moved gently to the centre, where von der