Politics Archives

Wednesday

16 Nov 2022

Steerpike

Commons staff warned of World Cup ‘malicious actors’

‘It’s coming home!’ England fans may cheer next week in Qatar but there’s one thing Commons’ bosses don’t want coming back with them: malicious viruses that could put parliament’s internet system at risk. Security chiefs on the Westminster estate have issued strict guidance to those football fanatics heading off to the oil rich Arab country this week. Messages have been posted on the Palace of Westminster’s intranet, warning staff that ‘as someone who works for parliament, the information stored on your devices is valuable and potentially of interest to malicious actors.’ Researchers and secretaries are urged to ‘not take any parliamentary-issued devices with you’ with disposable burner phones and new

Steerpike

The curious rehabilitation of Sir Simon McDonald

First it was Suella Braverman, then it was Gavin Williamson, now it is Dominic Raab. Three ministers have been in the crosshairs of Westminster’s press pack these past three weeks. The first survived, the second resigned and now it is the turn of the Deputy Prime Minister to experience life at the centre of a media storm. The questions facing Raab are of personal conduct, with anonymous briefings aplenty about his allegedly aggressive demeanour, treatment of staff and aversion to Pret sandwiches. One person though who is more than happy to go public with his views is Sir Simon McDonald, the Permanent Secretary at the Foreign Office between 2019 to

The Spectator

Who has lost the most money in human history?

Billion-dollar losers Sam Bankman-Fried, the 30-year-old founder of FTX, saw his wealth plummet from $16 bn to zero when the company collapsed. Other big fortunes lost: – Masayoshi Son, founder of Softbank, lost paper wealth of around $70 bn (in today’s money) during the dotcom crash of 2000-2. The company later floated and now he is reckoned by Forbes to be worth $22.8 bn. – Yasumitsu Shigeta, founder of mobile phone company Hikari Tsushin, lost a paper fortune of $42 bn in the dotcom crash, but thanks to a partial recovery in shares he is now worth $3.4 bn, says Forbes. – John Rockefeller, the oil magnate and America’s richest man

Joanna Rossiter

Just Stop Oil aren’t like the suffragettes

What do Just Stop Oil protesters have in common with the suffragettes? Their antics of blocking motorways and chucking tomato soup at famous paintings might lead you to think there are few parallels. But Helen Pankhurst – great-granddaughter of Emmeline – thinks they do share some common ground. Both groups, Pankhurst suggests, are on the right side of history. In an article for the Guardian, she claims that ‘the climate crisis is a feminist issue’. ‘I have absolutely no doubt that in 100 years’ time (climate activists) will be seen as the real heroes,’ she says. Like Just Stop Oil, the suffragettes targeted museums, sports events and public buildings to raise

James Forsyth

Nato to meet amid uncertainty over missile that hit Poland

Uncertainty still surrounds what happened with the missile that struck the village of Przewodów in Poland, around four miles from the Ukrainian border, which killed two farm workers last night. President Joe Biden has said that the missile’s trajectory means it is ‘unlikely’ it was fired from Russia. At the moment, it is unclear whether it was a missile fired by Russian forces in Ukraine, one knocked off its course by a Ukrainian interception – or a Ukrainian air defence missile gone astray. There are reports this morning that the initial US verdict is that it was probably a Ukrainian air defence missile. But there is no getting away from the

Steerpike

Raab hits back at his critics

Another week and another minister under pressure. But rather than hand in his resignation notice like Gavin Williamson, Dominic Raab has chosen to come out swinging against his critics. Facing questions about his conduct, the Deputy Prime Minister, Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (as he likes to be called) has drafted a public letter, confirming there are two formal complaints lodged against him. One was made during his time at the Foreign Office; the other during his first tenure as Justice Secretary. He has now requested that Rishi Sunak begin an independent investigation into the claims and promises to cooperate fully with the outcome. Raab says he

Mark Galeotti

The decline and fall of Sergei Lavrov

First came the claims that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was admitted to hospital in Bali on arriving for the G20 summit. No, we were then told by spokeswoman Maria Zakharova – it was ‘the ultimate fake’. Then local accounts emerged, saying that he popped in ‘for a check-up’. But does any of it matter? On the face of it, it should. Vladimir Putin, true to form, havered as to whether to attend the summit, apparently deciding less than a week beforehand not to, both for security reasons but also because he knew that he would hardly get a warm welcome. The prospect of being publicly shunned and taken to

Charles Lipson

Trump’s pox upon his party

Donald Trump has some well-proven abilities – the ability to cost Republicans winnable elections for the House and Senate, the ability to undermine citizens’ confidence in election outcomes (without providing solid proof the elections were stolen) and the ability to foment some of America’s worst, anti-democratic elements. Trump’s status as party leader contributed to Republicans’ anemic showing in 2022. He was hardly alone in dragging down the party, but he contributed to the losses in two ways. First, the candidates he pushed over the finish line in the primaries disappointed in the general election. His only clear-cut victory was the endorsement of J.D. Vance in Ohio, who won the Senate

Amber Athey

Trump announces 2024 bid

Former US president Donald Trump last night announced his candidacy for the 2024 election at his Florida resort in Mar-a-Lago in a swanky ballroom. The room was adorned in gold and Trump had a row of American flags at his back as he said he would run for president for the third time. Trump earned some ire from the GOP base last week when he attacked Florida governor Ron DeSantis and Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin, but this has not released his grip on the Republican Party. He opened his speech with a promise: ‘America’s comeback starts now.’ It’s ‘Make America Great Again’ …again. ‘This is not a task… for a

Jake Wallis Simons

The troubling rise of the Israeli far-right

Something troubling has happened in Israel. The previous government, before it collapsed earlier this month, had been remarkable for its glorious diversity, both political and ethnic. Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid shared a rotating prime ministership, presiding over a coalition of parties spanning the entire political spectrum. It was the first administration to include Arab parties; when I met him last year, Issawi Frej, the country’s first Arab minister, told me that he firmly rejected Amnesty’s ‘apartheid Israel’ slur, and envisioned a role for himself in building on the Abraham Accords. Now here was a country that it felt good to defend. The Jewish diaspora loved all this, hailing Israel

Tuesday

15 Nov 2022

Svitlana Morenets

The missile strike on Poland will be a test for Nato

Since the start of the war, there has been a risk of Ukraine’s neighbours being caught in crossfire – especially when Russia turned to a missile-based strategy. This now seems to have happened, with two rockets hitting the Polish village of Przewodów, nearly six miles from Ukraine’s border, killing two farm workers. The stakes are obviously high: if Russian missiles struck a Nato member for the first time, that has implications. US president Joe Biden has said it is ‘unlikely’ that the missile was fired from Russia while Turkey said it must ‘respect’ Moscow’s fervent denial that Russia (which had just fired 100 missiles at Ukraine in a third wave of attacks) had anything

Isabel Hardman

Is there anything we don’t know about Hunt’s Autumn Statement?

What does Jeremy Hunt want us to know about the Autumn Statement? The Chancellor is in the final hours of writing the economic announcements for Thursday, and today he had his last Treasury questions in the Commons before he gives his long speech. Hunt has been rolling the pitch more assiduously than an MCC groundsman over the past few weeks, with endless briefings about black holes, tax rises and unpopular spending cuts. Today, he was talking again about how ‘difficult’ things were going to be. He said: ‘Despite the difficulty of the package I will be announcing, I will sadly not be drinking any whisky as I do so.’ Hunt

Cindy Yu

Why is the workforce shrinking?

11 min listen

Figures released today show that the number of people in employment has dropped by 50,000 since September, despite a national worker shortage of 1.25 million. Does this shed some light on the recession? Are these shortages simply because of disputes over pay or could the NHS waiting list be to blame? Also on the podcast, as public sector pay stagnates, how many will be lost to the private sector? Cindy Yu speaks to Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth. Produced by Cindy Yu and Oscar Edmondson.

Lisa Haseldine

Russia receives the cold shoulder at Bali’s G20 summit

In the warmth of the Balinese sunshine, Russia has received an unsurprisingly frosty reception at the G20 summit. We are barely a few hours into the summit and the tension is already acute. The source of this tension, of course, is Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This is the first G20 held since the beginning of the Ukraine war earlier this year. Ahead of the summit, some member states were already questioning whether Russia should still be allowed to retain its membership of the group. Meanwhile, in light of the war, Ukraine was invited to participate in this year’s summit as a guest. Perhaps in anticipation of this, it was announced

Ross Clark

The case for letting council tax rise

We have now been primed for so many tax rises that Thursday’s autumn statement will inevitably come as some form of relief. Whatever Jeremy Hunt announces is sure to be milder than the possibilities fed to us over the past few weeks. But there is one suggested tax rise which is far too mild, and far too reasonable. Local authorities, it has been floated, may be allowed to put up their council tax bills by up to 5 per cent without having to put it to the public in a referendum (a referendum which, needless to say, would swallow up a good slice of any extra revenue gained). If the

Freddy Gray

Will Trump run?

‘I don’t think anyone knows,’ someone close to Donald Trump told me at the end of last week. ‘My guess is he does but that’s just a guess.’ My question, of course, was ‘Is Donald Trump still going to announce?’ — despite the mid-term disappointments for his movement and the increasing certainty among Republican analysts that the party cannot win with him as its public face? He’s expected to announce at 9 pm Eastern Standard Time – 2 am tomorrow, BST – after he declared yesterday on his Truth Social media platform that ‘Hopefully, tomorrow will turn out to be one of the most important days in the history of

Steerpike

Is Rishi backsliding on China already?

It used to be said that political parties were Eurosceptic in opposition, but Europhile in government. The same perhaps could now be said of China. Back in July, Rishi Sunak was keen to talk tough on the Beijing behemoth, which he called Britain’s ‘biggest long-term threat’. He tweeted that ‘China and the Chinese Communist party represent the largest threat to Britain and the world’s security and prosperity this century’. And Sunak also accused China of ‘stealing our technology and infiltrating our universities’ in one punchy attack: Abroad, they are propping up Putin’s fascist invasion of Ukraine by buying his oil and attempting to bully their neighbours, including Taiwan. They are saddling

James Snell

Iran’s protests are coming to a head

Iran’s protest movement appears to be coming to a head. It’s been going on for two months, since the country’s ‘morality police’ beat Mahsa Amini, a young woman visiting Tehran, into a coma from which she never recovered earlier this year. The reason these thugs gave for dragging her into their van was that she was wearing her mandatory hijab incorrectly. Ever since, Iranians of all ages, across the country, have been on the streets, protesting for ‘women, life, freedom’. Now the violence of that initial act is radiating outwards. From the ominous steps being taken by the Iranian state, and the extra-legal killers in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,

Kate Andrews

UK workforce falls, vacancies at 1.23 million

The workforce has not sprung back. According to the latest labour market figures, released by the Office for National Statistics today, the UK workforce is falling, not rising. Employers may be crying out for workers but the number in employment fell by 52,000 in the three months to September, twice what was expected. This was due to a remarkable drop of 249,000 in September alone. Meanwhile, job vacancies still stand near the record high, at 1.23 million – about twice the average seen in the past decade. Unemployment, by formal definition, has fallen: a dip of 0.2 percentage points on the quarter, down to 3.6 per cent. Very few people seeking

Monday

14 Nov 2022

Winston Marshall

Michael Shellenberger: What Just Stop Oil gets wrong and COP27 corruption

64 min listen

With climate activists around the world vandalising great works by Monet, van Gogh and Goya, Winston speaks with environmentalist, conservationist and pro-nuclear activist Michael Shellenberger. They discuss the validity of Just Stop Oil’s methods and environmental imperialism at this years United Nations Climate Change Conference. They take a deep dive into Shellenberger’s book ‘Apocalypse Never’, evaluate the environmentalist case for fracking and consider why nuclear will save us all.

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