Politics

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

Wednesday

Jonathan Miller Jonathan Miller

Macron’s trip to Washington is pure theatre

President Macron has landed in Washington with his fleet of jets to spend the next few days in procession across the capital with an enormous entourage in attendance. ‘It is unclear to many of us why Macron gets Biden’s first state visit,’ says my man in the Washington punditry. ‘Also unclear why Mme and I were not invited to the dinner,’ he adds. This is really a gigantic photo opportunity for both presidents, manufactured news, signifying nothing Macron was met at the airport by vice-president Kamala Harris whom Macron will possibly not have listened to too attentively and was whisked to Blair House across the street from the White House,

Steerpike Steerpike

JK Rowling mocks Sturgeon over heckling

It’s really not Nicola Sturgeon’s week. Fresh from being slapped down by the Supreme Court over her Indyref2 bid, the First Minister suffered the indignity of being heckled last night. Speaking at a Zero Tolerance charity event on tackling male violence against women, Sturgeon could only stand in awkward silence as an unidentified woman took her government to task over its controversial ‘self-ID’ gender reform plans. The heckler told Sturgeon: “You are allowing paedophiles, sex offenders and rapists to self-ID in Scotland and put women at risk. Women campaigning for women’s rights are not against trans people. Shame on you for letting down vulnerable women in Scotland, not allowed to

Frank Young

Parents need to do more to stop their kids watching porn

Nothing scares politicians more than telling parents how to do their job, which is a shame because a bit more finger wagging might be just what we need. The Online Safety Bill returns to parliament this week to be debated by MPs once again – with the legislation aiming to stop kids looking at porn online.  Getting tough on Big Tech is easier than asking more of parents MPs have already spent around 40 hours debating this Bill, in previous forms. In this time only eight MPs have suggested that parents might just have some responsibility in stopping their children accessing porn online. Fifty MPs have so far opined on the merits of switching off

Jack Smith

Are the Tories in the throes of an existential crisis?

The UK government has had a fractious couple of weeks. First it was the Swiss EU deal rumours, then housing, then a panicked response to high immigration figures. The latest problem to crop up is a rebellion over onshore wind, which has effectively been banned in the UK since 2012. What each of these disparate issues have in common is that they fall within the scope of what is increasingly the most important political debate in the UK. This is the extent to which the government should prioritise economic growth, and, implicitly, who the country is run for.  Onshore wind and immigration are perhaps the clearest examples of this. The

John Ferry John Ferry

The SNP doesn’t have a serious plan for independence

The next UK general election will be a referendum on independence for Scotland. This is according to First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, after the ‘disappointing’ Supreme Court ruling last week found that her administration did not in fact have the power to unilaterally rewrite the UK’s constitution. Will the people of Scotland really accept that the ballot box outcome in 2024 will represent a ‘de facto’ referendum that could lead to them being removed from the UK? With no legal or historic precedent for such an undertaking, the arbitrariness of the proposition would be comical if it were not so serious. But perhaps equally comical is the idea that Sturgeon’s team

Tuesday

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Andrew Bailey’s fighting talk

Andrew Bailey this afternoon showed that those who start fights don’t necessarily finish them. Speaking as the only witness at the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee today, the Governor of the Bank of England landed some rather extraordinary accusations against Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng, suggesting that he was not informed of the details in September’s mini-Budget and that he ‘does not think it was settled’ even the day before it was announced. According to Bailey, both the Monetary Policy Committee and the Treasury officials who were briefing the Bank were forced to speculate about what was coming: ‘There was speculation that this was going to be quite a

Theo Hobson Theo Hobson

It’s nonsense to say we are no longer a ‘Christian country’

According to the census, British Christianity is having a disastrous century. In the 2001 census, a clear majority of people in England and Wales – 72 per cent – described themselves as ‘Christian’. In 2011, this figure fell to 59 per cent. And now, it’s another drop: a 13 percentage point drop to 46 per cent.  These figures suggest that a Christian country has imploded within the space of two decades. Will the figure continue to fall at this rate? Will Christianity disappear from this land within 40 years?  Probably not. What the census shows is that ‘cultural Christianity’ has dramatically fallen. For of course this is all that the census

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Does Sunak see China as a threat?

12 min listen

Rishi Sunak has signalled the end of the ‘golden era’ of relations between Britain and China, warning of Xi Jinping’s creeping authoritarianism. In his first foreign policy set piece, was it enough to get the China hawks onside? Also on the podcast, James Forsyth and Katy Balls look at the latest amendments to the Online Harms Bill.  Produced by Natasha Feroze

Mark Nayler

Has the Indyref ruling complicated Catalonian separatism?

Last week’s Supreme Court ruling on Scottish independence will offer scant encouragement to separatists in Catalonia. The crux of the judgment – that Holyrood’s devolved powers do not stretch as far as being able to hold an independence referendum without consent from Westminster – also highlights the problem for Catalan secessionists, who have yet to secure Madrid’s approval for a vote on divorcing Spain. Nicola Sturgeon has said she will respect the judgment. Similar prohibitions, though, haven’t stopped Catalonia’s separatists, who are in many ways more rebellious than their Scottish counterparts. In 2017, Spain’s Constitutional Court ruled that an independence referendum planned by Catalonia’s then-president, Carles Puigdemont, would be illegal.

Steerpike Steerpike

Suella Braverman’s unlikely reading material

Since her (first) appointment to the Home Office, Suella Braverman has been at pains to point out that she is no fan of the left. The Fareham MP spent her final day in office under Liz Truss railing against the ‘Guardian-reading, tofu-eating wokerati’ in parliament, shortly before departing and returning less than a week later under Rishi Sunak. For their part, the Guardian have returned the love, running a string of critical stories of the Home Secretary since her return. But is there now a thawing in relations between the newspaper and the minister? For just weeks after decrying the Graun in the House, Braverman’s department signed a £30,000, one-year

Andrew Tettenborn

The Tories should defend free speech, not neglect it

The government’s Online Safety Bill is coming to look more and more like some ghastly juridical juggernaut: a vessel grimly unstoppable, even if no-one quite knows where it is heading or where they want it to go. The latest changes to the Bill, announced this week, look very much like an attempt to make the best of a bad job. They leave untouched the provisions of the legislation aimed at safeguarding the young, but slightly relax it as regards others. The aim is the awkward one of placating three disparate constituencies: child protection activists, those desperate to be seen to be doing their bit to bridle Big Tech, and those who value free speech

Steerpike Steerpike

The New York Times does it again

Let me tell you a story, dear reader. It is about a land – a quasi-dictatorial kingdom no less – where locals huddle round bin fires on the streets of the great metropolis, gnawing on legs of mutton and cavorting in swamps. Once there was good government, but a plebiscite some years ago brought with it autocracy, plague and a nation ‘falling apart at the seams.’ Which land could this be? Why it can only be our dear old United Kingdom, as seen through the eyes of the average New York Times subscriber. For years now Mr S has been chronicling the Brit-bashing excesses of America’s least reliable news source. Whether it’s peddling dubious clickbait

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The Online Safety Bill is still a censor’s charter

One of Rishi Sunak’s pledges was to remove the ‘legal, but harmful’ censorship clause that Boris Johnson was poised to bring in via the Online Safety Bill. A few weeks ago it was said that he had done so and I wrote a piece congratulating him. I may have spoken too soon. The Bill as published would actually introduce (rather than abolish) censorship of the written word – ending a centuries-old British tradition of liberty. The censorship mechanism is intended for under-18s – an improvement on the original, draconian plan. But it still raises problems that I doubt have been properly discussed in Whitehall given the bias amongst officials desperate to

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Is Sunak tough enough on China?

When it comes to policy, the area where the least is known about Rishi Sunak’s views is foreign affairs. As chancellor, the bulk of his time was spent focussing on the domestic front. During the (first) Tory leadership contest over the summer, Liz Truss’s campaign accused Sunak of being soft on Russia and China. Last night, Sunak began setting out his vision for the UK’s relationship with China at the Lord Mayor’s banquet, in his first major speech on foreign policy since entering 10 Downing Street. Sunak defined his approach in part through the differences between himself and his predecessors. In a move away from the Osborne/Cameron era, he said

James Snell

China’s protests and the dark lesson of Hong Kong

It is easy to imagine that a dam might be bursting in China. There have been spontaneous street protests across the country against the country’s zero Covid policy, unconfirmed videos in Shanghai show crowds calling for president Xi Jinping to resign, and political content is slipping though China’s draconian social media censorship.  Earlier in the pandemic, Chinese residents in Covid-stricken cities were trapped in their apartment buildings while, in one memorable dystopian moment, a horde of drones deployed by the local communist party told them to ‘control your soul’s desire for freedom’. Now, after a fire in a residential block in Urumqi killed ten people, it seems as though people have suddenly had enough.  

Steerpike Steerpike

Logjams and leaks plaguing parliament

It was Enoch Powell who once called the whips’ office ‘the sewers of parliament’. But it seems that – much like the aforementioned disciplinarians – the sewers themselves aren’t up to much these days. For word reaches Mr S of a problem with the parliamentary plumbing system that are driving MPs around the (U) bend. The majority of toilets in the old Palace of Westminster were marked as being ‘out of order’ yesterday because, when flushed, the cubicles overflowed, spewing up whatever contents an unfortunate peer, MP or researcher had tried to dispose. Signs and ropes appeared, to ward off others from trying to enter. And that’s not the only

Mark Galeotti Mark Galeotti

Is Putin really to blame for this Belarusian minister’s sudden death?

Saturday’s news of the sudden death of Belarusian foreign minister Vladimir Makei, as well as the rather terse nature of the official notice, has raised the inevitable storm of instant speculation, revolving around notional Russian plots. In the process it has illustrated both some of the shortcomings of ‘instant punditry’ and the continuing significance of Alexander Lukashenko, dubbed ‘Europe’s last dictator’ (before Putin challenged for the title). Lukashenko has been in power since 1994, and the whole system is built around him The 64-year-old Makei had been in office since 2012, and apparently died of a heart attack shortly after an official visit to Armenia and two days before he

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Echoes of 1989: where the protests go next

40 min listen

Comparisons with 1989’s Tiananmen Square protests are too often evoked when it comes to talking about civil disobedience in China. Even so, this weekend’s protests have been historic. It’s the first time since the zero Covid policy started that people across the country have simultaneously marched against the government, their fury catalysed by the deaths of ten people in a locked down high rise building in Xinjiang. Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan, Xi’An, Urumqi, Nanjing (my home city) have all seen protests over the weekend. Most of them attack the zero Covid policy, but some have called out ‘Down with Xi Jinping’. After two days of protests, these cities, especially Shanghai, now

Ross Clark Ross Clark

The black hole in Jeremy Hunt’s energy windfall tax

Jeremy Hunt has supposedly just closed a black hole in the government’s finances. But is another black hole opening up before his eyes?   One of the more popular announcements in the autumn statement on 17 November was a rise in the windfall tax applied to oil and gas companies from 25 per cent to 35 per cent. It was popular because it didn’t affect ordinary people directly and because it feeds into the narrative of greedy oil companies making fat profits while households struggle with their energy bill.      By 2028, how much, if any, profits are being made by oil companies is anyone’s guess The 35 per

Nigel Jones

How revolutions begin, and how they can end

Across China, the world’s most populous nation and its second largest economy, scenes unprecedented since the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989 are unfolding. In city after city crowds of young people are taking to the streets, holding up blank placards in eloquent protest against state censorship, and demanding to be treated ‘as citizens not slaves’. The trigger for these displays of popular dissent are the Communist regime’s draconian lockdowns designed to snuff out spreading Covid infections in the country where the virus originated. But, as is often the way with such popular protests, the original cause of the protests is widening into demands for freedoms which we in the West