Politics

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

Monday

Steerpike Steerpike

Six times Starmer’s team demanded benefits cap be scrapped

In fairness to Keir Starmer, he only U-turns when his lips move. In an impressive double yesterday, the Labour leader managed to U-turn twice in one interview with Laura Kuenssberg. Starmer managed to both float and then, er, reject the notion that Labour would change the Bank of England’s inflation target (nice one!) while also confirming that the party is no longer committed to scrapping the two-child benefits cap. This longtime Labour policy appears to have been unceremoniously dropped sometime within the last few months despite both Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner winning their mandates on it. Below is a quick list by Mr S on half-a-dozen Labour frontbenchers who

Lisa Haseldine Lisa Haseldine

Crimea’s Kerch bridge targeted in second attack

The Kerch bridge, Russia’s only road link to Crimea, has been targeted once again in what seems to have been a drone attack. The damage appears to be extensive may take weeks, if not months, to repair. The Russian-installed head of the Crimean parliament, Vladimir Konstatinov, has blamed the ‘terrorist regime in Kyiv’ for a ‘new crime’ – but in Kyiv, it will be seen as an audacious attack on a legitimate military target. This attack underlines the vulnerability of Russia’s most important assets to a new wave of Ukrainian drones. The Ukrainian military has made no secret of the fact they consider the bridge to be a legitimate military target

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Labour row brews over two-child benefit cap

Another day, another Keir Starmer U-turn. The Labour leader is facing a backlash from his own side after Starmer used an interview with the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg’s to say that a Labour government would keep the two-child benefits cap. When asked whether he would scrap the cap – which has been blamed by Labour politicians for pushing families into poverty – Starmer said he was ‘not changing that policy’. That is a decision that will upset many in the shadow cabinet, let alone the wider parliamentary party. The current work and pensions secretary John Ashworth has previously described the cap as heinous: ‘the idea that this policy helps move people

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Will the French riots spawn a new generation of jihadists?

Apart from the 96 arrests and 255 burned cars, Bastille Day passed off without a hitch in France. A bullish Interior Minister, Gerald Darmanin, expressed his satisfaction in a tweet, thanking the 45,000 policemen and women who had been deployed across the country. It says much for the state of France that avoiding a riot on their national day is a cause for celebration.  Still, one can understand why the government is grateful for small mercies after the trauma of the recent uprising. The financial cost of the damage caused by the rioters is predicted to top €1 billion (£858 million), a staggering sum for a country that is already dangerously

Nicholas Farrell

Giorgia Meloni and the true migration hypocrites

Cerberus, the record-breaking heatwave that struck the Mediterranean, was followed this week by another one called Charon – after the mythical boatman who ferried the dead across the Styx to Hades. Meanwhile illegal migrants continue to be ferried across the Mediterranean in record numbers to Italy – thus to Europe – by people traffickers. Relatives placed a single obol, it is said, in the mouths of the dead to pay Charon for the voyage. The living pay the traffickers €3,000 to €10,000, it is said, for theirs. In April, Italy’s conservative Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni declared Italy’s migrant crisis a national emergency. So far this year 75,000 illegal migrants have arrived here by boat –

Sunday

Joe Bedell-Brill

Sunday shows round-up: Starmer dodges questions on public sector pay

‘This is the government’s mess, and it’s for them to sort it out’ In an interview with Laura Kuenssberg this morning, Keir Starmer was keen to emphasise Labour’s commitment to change and reform. When Kuenssberg pressed him on a few specific issues however, he deflected the questions, saying they were the current government’s problem. He was also reluctant to go into any detail on Labour’s spending plans. Instead, Starmer insisted on fiscal responsibility, the necessity of growing the economy, and changes to the planning system. ‘The target date for clean electricity has not changed’ Kuenssberg also asked Starmer why Labour had decided to delay its pledge to borrow £28 billion

Lukas Degutis

Lithuania’s support for Ukraine remains undimmed

Vilnius, Lithuania This week, the world’s eyes were on the Lithuanian capital Vilnius as it welcomed global leaders for Nato’s 74th summit. The event was a logistical challenge not helped by the fact that Vilnius is only 30km away from the border with Belarus, which is now home to Russian nuclear weapons. Commercial flights were suspended for the duration of the summit. Air defence systems were stationed. Four-thousand troops, undercover police officers and bomb detection dogs roamed the streets. A Boeing E-3 Sentry – Nato’s eyes in the sky – circled the capital while a 30km radius no-fly zone was imposed.  Shuttles to and from the exhibition centre had paint

Patrick O’Flynn Patrick O'Flynn

Wallace’s exit shows the Tories are running out of hope

The announcement by Ben Wallace that he will stand down as Defence Secretary at the next Cabinet reshuffle and then give up being an MP at the general election hardly counts as a sensational turn of events. There are at least a dozen happenings at the top end of the Tory party from the past few months that put it in the shade where personnel matters are concerned. One thinks, for example, of the ongoing technicolour splurge of the quitting of Nadine Dorries, the ushering of Dominic Raab towards the exit door and of course the abandoning ship of the great blond bombshell himself before he could be made to

Gerry Hassan

The lessons Labour can learn from the SNP

The Labour party should be experiencing its best time in recent politics with victory very much expected at the next election. Yet it’s not all plain sailing at Labour HQ. Not only does the party still lack a convincing agenda, there is disquiet about the nature of the Starmer leadership, in terms of what it believes in, how it does politics inside the party and how it manages dissent. Discontent has been bubbling away for a while, with the left accusing the leadership of a plan to oust Corbynistas to create a new loyal Labour party. But now the internal fallout has burst into the open with the potential expulsion

Jim Lawley

Can Spain forgive Pedro Sánchez?

Voters in Spain’s general election on 23 July have a clear-cut choice. They can choose to continue with the left-wing coalition currently in power or they can replace it with a staunchly right-wing government. Since 2019 Spain has been governed by a minority coalition consisting of PSOE, Spain’s main left-wing party, with 120 seats, and Podemos, further to the left, with 35. With a total of only 155 of the 350 seats in the national parliament, in order to pass legislation the left-wing bloc has had to seek ad hoc support from various regional parties, including Basque and Catalan separatists.     Many want to punish Sánchez for pardoning the Catalan separatist politicians Many voters will prefer the right-wing combination consisting of

Mark Hollingsworth

Putin and the power of the Orthodox church

In April this year, a sombre looking Vladimir Putin attended a midnight Orthodox Easter Service in Moscow’s Christ the Saviour Cathedral. Holding a lit red candle, the Russian President crossed himself several times during the ceremony, known as the Divine Liturgy. When Father Kirill declared ‘Christ has risen’, Putin duly responded with the congregation: ‘Truly he is risen’. It was a year after the brutal invasion of Ukraine, but the Russian leader and Father Kirill showed no remorse or compassion for the suffering caused by the war. In fact, Putin and the Kremlin has exploited the support of the Orthodox Church in an attempt to give his actions a spurious

Saturday

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Ben Wallace to quit politics

Ben Wallace has announced that he will be leaving frontline politics at the next cabinet reshuffle. In an interview with the Sunday Times, the Defence Secretary confirmed reports in the media that he will be stepping down at the next election – and also bowing out of the a cabinet ahead of polling day: ‘I’m not standing next time’, he says. ‘I went into politics in the Scottish parliament in 1999. That’s 24 years. I’ve spent well over seven years with three phones by my bed’. However, Wallace adds that he will avoid the route chattered by Boris Johnson and not quit prematurely thereby starting a by-election.  This means that in

Ross Clark Ross Clark

If the Tories scrap inheritance tax, I’m voting Labour

I have been playing a game with myself recently: asking just what would it take for me to vote Labour at the next election? The gossip out of No. 10 has answered it for me: if, as rumoured, the Prime Minister toys with the idea of abolishing inheritance tax – at a time when the government has jacked up tax for many millions of workers through fiscal drag and lowering the 45 pence tax threshold – then suddenly Keir Starmer is going to look a relatively attractive option. Yes, I really would rather have a PM who thinks a woman can have a penis, than I would a party that

Euan McColm

Scottish nationalists are deluding themselves

Angus MacNeil’s attempt to hold the SNP to ransom on the matter of independence has played out both predictably and rather entertainingly. After the SNP MP was suspended for a week over an unseemly public spat with Chief Whip Brendan O’Hara, MacNeil announced he would not consider seeking readmission to SNP ranks until October. Once the party’s autumn conference has taken place, MacNeil said that he will then decide whether the party has, to his satisfaction, redoubled its efforts to achieve independence. MacNeil has taken a hostage. The only problem is that the hostage is himself — and party leader Humza Yousaf has no desire to pay the ransom. A

Tom Holland

The desecration of Stonehenge

The Conservative party, over the course of its lengthy history, has been defined by two particular traditions. One emphasis the duty of care to the past. It nurtures a suspicion of grandiose and ill-founded schemes. It never forgets that the responsibility of a conservative is ultimately to conserve. Then, parallel to this, there is a second tradition. This emphasises the importance of sound money. It scorns to believe in magic money trees. It does not spray taxpayers’ cash around like there is no tomorrow. It pays scrupulous attention to the bottom line. Today, a supposedly Conservative government has made a mockery of both these traditions. It plans to blow upwards

Jawad Iqbal

Sunak is wrong to invite MBS to London

Mohammed bin Salman, the heir to the Saudi throne, certainly leads a charmed life. He spent several days in Paris last month meeting the French president Emmanuel Macron. This has now been followed up with a reported invitation from Rishi Sunak to visit Britain this autumn. It would be the first such high-level diplomatic trip since the Saudi crown prince was accused of being behind the killing of the dissident Jamal Khashoggi. He has always denied involvement. The timing of his visit could hardly be worse: it would roughly coincide with the fifth anniversary of Khashoggi’s murder, serving to confirm that the brutal killing is all but forgotten and that the

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Cruise liners should apologise to Faroe Islanders

It is not pleasant to think of a poor bunch of creatures in distress, but the passengers who visited the Faeroes last Sunday aboard an Ambassador cruise liner have at least received an apology for their upset. Some 78 pilot whales were driven into a bay and slaughtered in front of them in a traditional hunt which goes back to the 16th century. The company issued a statement saying: We were incredibly disappointed that this hunt occurred, particularly at a time when our ship was in port, and have offered our sincere apologies to all those onboard who may have witnessed this distressing occurrence… While traditional hunts of this type

Ian Williams Ian Williams

Xi’s iron fist is hurting China’s economy

Mao Zedong had a big thing about contradictions. They were the basis of life, driving it forward, the old despot once mused. But even he might have struggled to understand today’s Communist party – which is desperately trying to drum up foreign investment while simultaneously hounding foreign companies out of the country. The latest figures on inward investment will have made grim reading for the elderly leaders in Zhongnanhai, their compound in Beijing. Foreign investment fell to $20 billion in the first quarter of 2023, compared with $100 billion over the same time last year, according to the research firm Rhodium Group. This comes as the economic recovery following China’s

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

How do we fix Britain’s stagnant economy?

21 min listen

Advanced economies are not seeing the economic growth that they once did, and none more so than the UK where there has been little productivity or real wage growth since 2008. What factors have contributed to this? Which industries will be at the forefront as we chart a path towards a high-growth British future? Kate Andrews speaks to American economist Tyler Cowen, at Civic Future’s Great Stagnation Summit in Cambridge.  Produced by Oscar Edmondson.

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Katy Balls, Olenka Hamilton, Damian Thompson

24 min listen

This week: (01:08) Katy Balls on the tricky relationship between Labour and the Unions, (07:11) Olenka Hamilton on why Poland is having a row with Brussels over migrants and asylum seekers and (15:29) Damian Thompson asks whether the Vatican is turning its back on tradition and beautiful art.