Politics

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

Monday

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Nicola Sturgeon announces divorce

To Scotland, where there is trouble in nationalist paradise. Former first minister Nicola Sturgeon has this morning announced that she will be divorcing her husband – and former chief executive of the Scottish National party – Peter Murrell. The shock news was published as a short statement on Sturgeon’s Instagram story, with the SNP’s Dear Leader writing: With a heavy heart I am confirming that Peter and I have decided to end our marriage. To all intents and purposes we have been separated for some time now and feel it is time to bring others up to speed with where we are. It goes without saying that we still care

Ian Williams Ian Williams

Labour’s kowtowing to China will cost Britain

When the security services accessed the mobile phone of Yang Tengbo, the alleged Chinese spy who became a confidant and business partner of the Duke of York, they found a document in which Yang said of the duke, ‘He is in a desperate situation and will grab onto anything’. We can only assume there are memos circulating in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) this week describing the visit by Rachel Reeves in similar terms. Starmer and his ministers appear to be competing to see who can kowtow the lowest before Xi The hapless duke’s entanglement with Yang, whose exclusion from Britain was confirmed shortly before Christmas, was held up as

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Rachel Reeves is making the same mistake as Liz Truss

Rachel Reeves returns from China this morning to face growing accusations that she has lost her grip on the public finances. This latest bond market crisis has brought into question whether the Chancellor is at risk of – or has already – broken her own fiscal rules. Capital Economics reports that a surge in gilt yields – which are at their highest levels since the financial crash – means that her £12 billion of fiscal headroom is now gone. The Treasury will be desperately hoping that something, anything, calms the markets this week and sees borrowing costs start to fall. Reports that the Chancellor has called on ministers to come

Terry Barnes

Djokovic must forgive and forget his shoddy Covid experience in Australia

Another Australian Open tennis tournament, another Novak Djokovic media sensation. As play gets under way at Melbourne Park, Djokovic the showman has been working the Australian media, as well as doing a glossy spread for the upmarket US magazine, GQ. The common thread of his media commentary is his experience coming to the 2022 Australian Open when, as the Covid-19 pandemic still raged, the unvaccinated Djokovic was detained and deported after seeking to enter Melbourne, the city oppressed by arguably the most draconian lockdown and vaccination mandates in the world, let alone Australia. The Serbian star’s 2022 experience clearly gnaws at him Having initially been given an exemption to enter

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Was Rachel Reeves’s China trip worth it?

Rachel Reeves is on her way back to the UK after a brief visit to China over the weekend. The Chancellor faced calls to cancel the trip, not over alleged human rights abuses by her hosts, but instead because of the state of the UK bond market. However, those around Reeves did not seriously consider cancelling her visit to China, taking the view that to call it off would have added to a sense of panic. After borrowing costs soared in the days before she departed, Reeves abruptly cancelling the trip would have likely drawn comparisons with 1976, when chancellor Denis Healey turned back at Heathrow, aborting a planned trip

Ammad Butt

Labour’s shake-up risks making the NHS even more bloated

Labour’s plan to reform elective care is nothing new. Successive governments over the last twenty years have tried and tested reform in the NHS and the result is a minefield to navigate for both patients and staff alike. The resulting bureaucracy has left doctors and patients baffled. The process can be mind-numbing and leaves doctors who just want to help patients despairing It’s no surprise then that doctors like me are sceptical about the government’s planned shake-up which was unveiled by Health Secretary Wes Streeting last week. While the changes are designed to ‘empower’ patients, it’s likely to leave them even more confused. The announcements include the expansion of ‘Community

Jay Mens

Trump’s presidency could spell the end of Iran’s regime

Donald J. Trump returns to the Oval Office for the second time as the least interventionist American president since 1941. As the Islamic Republic of Iran – which recently tried to kill him – is at its lowest point in forty years, could the end be near? And what does that all mean for the UK? The death of the Islamic Republic has been predicted many times before, always prematurely. But today, with the fall of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, economic collapse at home, and an incoming Trump administration, the moment feels different. The Iranian rial is trading at 820,000 to the dollar; it was 59,000 back in 2017. It has

Sam Leith Sam Leith

The truth about Dominic Cummings and Elon Musk’s ‘sabotage plot’

A few centuries ago, when I worked on the Daily Telegraph under the editorship of the now Lord Moore, there was a very sensible item in the style book. It said (I paraphrase) that when a story sounded too good to be true, you should pause, give your head a wobble and apply a bit of common sense. That local newspaper, for instance, reporting that a giant pike in the village pond had been taking small dogs and toddlers that strayed too close to the edge of the water…Really? Musk and Cummings are, superficially, aligned in certain respects This is the heuristic I think we need to apply to a

Niko Vorobyov

Scotland’s drugs consumption room could save lives

Being a drug addict has never been sunshine and roses, especially not on the cold, rainy streets of Glasgow. At least now there may be a glimmer of hope. From today, a ‘Safer Drug Consumption Facility’ called ‘The Thistle’ will open in the city that has been labelled Europe’s drugs death capital. Drug addicts ‘under the supervision of trained health and social care professionals’ will be able to shoot up with clean, sterilised syringes. At no point will Old Bill make an unwelcome appearance, dangling a pair of handcuffs. The caveats are that you must be over 18, sharing your drugs is not allowed, and the usual rules about indoor

Sunday

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Trump 2.0 is more than a ‘vibe shift’

People don’t like to use the term ‘vibe shift’, but I suspect it will turn out to be rather more than that. Certainly, I have never known opinion to change so rapidly – almost overnight. I’m talking about Donald Trump, or, more properly, how he is regarded. On Saturday morning, I was presenting my new Times Radio show (10 a.m. to 1 p.m., tune in, tune in, please!) and struggled to find any interviewees who might criticise Donald Trump. In a lengthy debate on World War Three, the wonderful Lord Owen (Labour, then SDP) was optimistic we would avoid conflict largely because of Trump’s presidency, and he praised Trump’s determination

Joe Bedell-Brill

Sunday shows: calls grow for Tulip Siddiq to resign

Peter Kyle: Tulip Siddiq will lose job if inquiry finds her guilty of breaking ministerial code The Conservatives have called for the prime minister to sack anti-corruption Treasury Minister Tulip Siddiq after she herself became part of a corruption investigation. Reports have emerged that Siddiq may have been living in properties linked to her aunt, Sheikh Hasina, who is being investigated for allegedly embezzling up to £3.9bn whilst serving as prime minister of Bangladesh. Siddiq has referred herself to the ethics advisor, but on Sky News, Trevor Phillips asked Science Secretary Peter Kyle whether Siddiq should stand down while the investigation takes place. Kyle said that Siddiq had ‘done exactly

Nigel Jones

Could Farage’s autocratic streak wreck Reform?

Ten Reform party councillors in Derbyshire have resigned in protest at Nigel Farage’s ‘autocratic’ control of the rising party and its direction of travel. Farage has dismissed the revolt as the action of what he calls a ‘rogue branch’ of Reform, but there are stirrings of discontent in the grassroots of the fast-growing party that may signal more than minor teething troubles. There are legitimate questions to be asked both about Reform’s structure and the way that Farage’s robust personality impacts upon it During the Reform UK East Midlands conference, a former Tory MP for the Dudley seat – Mario Longhi – defected to Reform and was introduced by Nigel

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When will Tulip Siddiq be sacked?

It’s rare that a world leader knows the name of a junior minister in the British government – let alone is calling for them to be sacked. Yet that is the feat achieved by Tulip Siddiq, No. 4 in Rachel Reeves’ Treasury team. The anti-corruption minister is now facing calls to resign from an unlikely source after the leader of Bangladesh condemned the use of properties gifted to her and her family by its former regime. Muhammad Yunus told the Sunday Times today that the London properties used by Siddiq should be investigated and returned if she is found to have benefited from ‘plain robbery’. Yunus has some authority here: he, after

Steerpike Steerpike

Press barred from grilling Starmer’s Chagos chum

There are just eight days to go until Donald Trump takes office. So the question much of Whitehall is asking is: will David Lammy’s Chagos deal get over the line in time? The agreement to hand the valuable cluster of islands to Mauritius has been attacked by China hawks in the U.S – including Marco Rubio, Trump’s pick for Secretary of State. He has decried the deal as ‘a serious threat to our national security interests in the Indian Ocean.’ Given those risks, why is the Labour government so intent on pressing ahead? After all, handing over British territory isn’t cheap: the current bill stands at £9 billion for UK

Freddie Attenborough

‘Islamophobia’ and the grooming gangs scandal

At PMQs this week, Kemi Badenoch told MPs that Labour’s adoption of the All Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslim’s definition of ‘Islamophobia’ has inhibited public discussion of rape gangs. She pointed out that, according to this definition, anyone who draws attention to the over-representation of Muslims in the grooming gangs is guilty of Islamophobia. This, she argued, is why some members of the Parliamentary Labour Party have been ‘scared to tell the truth’. She’s right, but the problem runs deeper than that. The definition Mrs Badenoch referred to was drawn up by the APPG in 2018, when the co-chairs were Wes Streeting and Anna Soubry. It issued a report that defined

Jonathan Porter

I’m worried about what Labour might do to our schools

In my first lesson teaching Year 8 in inner-city Birmingham, one boy, seeing the opening slide of my ‘Introduction to Judaism’ PowerPoint, rocked back on his chair, and, with a level of focus that he never matched again, simply said, ‘I f***ing hate the Jews.’ The Teach First training programme had promised us ‘challenging’ schools. And that was exactly what we got. Behaviour was bad, but so was the curriculum. There was little or no teaching resources, which meant that each night we had to hurriedly reinvent the wheel. Surely, I thought, someone must have created a worksheet on Genesis 1 before? The other oddity was how we were encouraged

Steerpike Steerpike

How green is the government’s car service?

The government’s green credentials are in the firing line – and not for the first time. In office, Keir Starmer has sparked headlines with seemingly endless plane trips abroad. And now Mr S has done some digging to find out what ministerial cars are being used to ferry our leaders around. A Freedom of Information request on the Government Car Service reveals that the Department for Transport invoiced more than £1.3 million to government departments making use of ministerial motors over Labour’s first three months in power. But Mr S is a little sceptical about Whitehall’s commitment to its electric vehicle ‘revolution’ – not least because the bulk of its

Sam Matthews Boehmer

The unstoppable rise of Christianity in football

Christianity is thriving on the football pitch. Despite the declining number of Christians in the UK, Instagram, X, and other social media sites are awash with biblical quotes. And those responsible? Professional footballers. Over recent years, something of a movement appears to have developed in English football. Players, previously so determinedly secular, have become not only practising Christians, but also individuals who are happy to broadcast their faith to a wide audience. Palace captain Marc Guehi wrote ‘I love Jesus’ and ‘Jesus loves you’ over a rainbow armband Every weekend, top flight footballers either use quotes as motivation for their approaching match, or thank God if the contest reached a

Michael Nazir-Ali

Syria’s Christians face an uncertain future

When I visited Maaloula in southwest Syria in 2016, the Jabhat Al-Nusra (the predecessor of the Hayat Tahrir Ash Sham jihadis, who have toppled Bashar al-Assad) had systematically destroyed and desecrated the town’s churches and monasteries. Orthodox nuns were kidnapped and held to ransom, only freed after the Syrian government agreed to release extremist prisoners. During my visit, I was told again and again that young men had been singled out and executed when they refused to convert to the extremists’ version of Islam. Some of the most moving moments in my life have been to pray with the townsfolk and help to rededicate an ancient altar that had been

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Keir Starmer wants to redefine crime and punishment

How far should a government go to stamp out people smuggling? This month, the Home Office is set to introduce powers that will allow courts to place expansive restrictions on those suspected of people smuggling and other serious crimes. Penalties are set to include social media bans, restrictions on banking and even curfews, imposed pre-arrest. Infringement of these court orders would be a criminal offence punishable by up to five years in jail. Some have welcomed this as tough action from the Labour government; finally, you may think, they’re doing something about illegal immigration. But tough policies aren’t always good policies. The mooted powers would allow the police to shut down a