Boris is right: we need a referendum on the ECHR

Nobody should be surprised that Boris Johnson favours a referendum on leaving the ECHR, as his book now makes clear. Boris is an instinctive populist and maverick, who cordially despises the educated progressive establishment which argues for continued membership. He is also right. 

Intellectually, the case for remaining in the ECHR gets ever flimsier. When we ratified it in 1951, the convention was fairly uncontroversial. Against the background of the horrors of 1945, most of its provisions quite intentionally tracked the practices traditionally associated with the activities of Nazi and fascist regimes: mass murder, midnight searches of homes, overt torture, slave labour, forced displacement, wholesale suppression of dissent, and so on. Fair enough: no one thinks decent governments should be doing this kind of thing, whatever their voters’ views.

Now, the words remain, together with the implicit idea that human rights should be outside the ordinary political process. But in the last 30 years a free-wheeling Strasbourg court has expanded the ECHR’s ambit out of all recognition and slowly changed it into something resembling a constitutional, and distinctly progressive and at times very controversial, bill of rights. 

Furthermore, while once merely providing an after-the-event check on the propriety of past action by a government, the Strasbourg court has now arrogated to itself a power essentially to intervene in the national legal process by ordering preliminary measures. These we have seen first hand: witness the midnight injunction from an unnamed functionary in Strasbourg that in 2022 prevented the first Rwanda flight taking off. 

Nor are the arguments regularly trotted out in favour of staying very convincing. True, we helped draft the Convention in 1951. But why that should constrain us to continue supporting the very changed institution it has become in 2024 is entirely unclear. True also that Russia and Belarus, both pretty unspeakable regimes, are outside the ECHR. But so too are Australia and Canada, which have managed to avoid tipping into fascism despite not being members of it or any other international human rights agreement. For that matter, Turkey and Azerbaijan are ECHR members. Given the choice between living in, say, Sydney or Baku, I know where I would feel safer. 

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In short, the ECHR, once a guardian of democratic decency, is now a serious drag on popular accountability. Some may disagree, but there is a strong case made by figures such as Lord Sumption expressing worry about it. At the very least, the British people deserve their say.

What of the Conservatives? Boris’s stand certainly splits Tory thought. Leadership contenders Tom Tugendhat and Robert Jenrick will likely agree with him, James Cleverly is less clear and Kemi Badenoch downright sceptical. Nevertheless, when it comes to a vote later this year party members should carefully consider, if they can, backing a candidate calling for an ECHR referendum.

For one thing, it will help distinguish the Tories from Labour. Labour’s popularity is already in freefall and likely to continue that way. Yet it is a racing certainty that the party will continue to regard the ECHR as sacrosanct. An opportunity like this to put clear water between an increasingly toxic government party and a rejuvenated opposition should not be passed up lightly. 

Further, even if for the moment the polls say only a minority back ECHR withdrawal, there remains deep concern, especially among the just-about-managing classes in less rich areas, about the effect of the ECHR in hampering the fight against crime and excessive immigration. This concern is likely to gain momentum. Only last month, for example, we learnt that human rights prevented us deporting a vicious and mentally unstable Ugandan murderer simply because he could not receive proper treatment in Uganda. There will undoubtedly be more cases like this. With each one of them, what support there is for the ECHR is likely to ebb further away. In five years’ time, advocates of withdrawal may for once be on the right side of history.

And, of course, we can leave best till last. Any commitment to hold a referendum on the ECHR would skewer Labour nicely. Defence of the human rights status quo, to which it is wedded, is getting more difficult by the week. But Labour’s bind would be much worse than that. Boris’s proposal, remember, is merely to put ECHR membership to a vote. How can Labour oppose this? Only by insisting that the ordinary people of this country need to be denied a say on a matter of constitutional importance which affects the lives of each one of us and indeed the democracy we live under. Properly played, the Tories could make this into a nightmare for a tired Labour government seeking re-election in or before 2029. Party members, here’s your big chance to play your part.

Could the Chagos handover put the Diego Garcia military base at risk?

The decision to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius has taken many by surprise. After years of painful negotiations, the speed with which the Labour government concluded a deal seems striking. But while the terms of the treaty to settle the future of the Chagos appear to have been thrashed out quickly, it’s a decision that could come back to bite in the years and decades to come.

The Foreign Office statement frames the agreement as a resolution of all outstanding differences with Mauritius, but one which also protects the continued operation of the strategically-important joint US-UK military base on Diego Garcia. Is that really the case?

For now, it seems that this vital military base, which has long been hidden behind a thick cloak of secrecy and under-appreciated and imperfectly understood, will operate as normal. The agreement will have sought to retain the joint US-UK ability to operate the Diego Garcia base securely. But once sovereignty has been ceded, as was the case in Hong Kong, the ability to maintain what was agreed in the small print of the Treaty will no doubt have been compromised.

This could spell trouble in the years ahead. The airfield’s location – out of sight, far enough away from the Middle East and Asia to be safely forgotten about, but close enough from which a military superpower such as the United States can discreetly pre-position assets and launch them speedily into the region – is vital. With the current crisis over Iran, a satellite overhead peeking through the cloud cover would today probably see the airfield on Diego Garcia crowded with a substantial fleet of B1B, B2 or B52H long-range bombers, intelligence collection aircraft, and probably shorter-range strike aircraft with associated refuelling assets, all of which will have flown in from the United States in response to the rise in tensions.

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Equally important, the lagoon at Diego Garcia also provides harbour and logistic facilities for the US Navy. It’s a valuable in-theatre secure area from which the US Navy in the region can be supported – and which is currently heavily reinforced following the arrival of the USS Abraham Lincoln and USS Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Groups. The lagoon also hosts the ships of Maritime Prepositioning Ships Squadron Two, a strategic logistic reserve kept afloat with equipment on board to fit out two armoured brigades.

The value of the base, and the assets it supports, may not be widely understood in Whitehall. But it is well understood in Washington. And it is certainly appreciated by the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who in May sent a converted merchant ship, the Shahid Madhavi, on an extended cruise through British Indian Ocean Territory waters; on board the Shahid Madhavi as a launch platform was a range of drones, cruise missiles and small attack craft, making the point that the Iranians see Diego Garcia as base with deterrence value to their aspirations.

Waiting in the wings, too, is China. Beijing has built friendly relations with Mauritius in recent years and also has an ambitious penchant for building military bases on remote islands. India would certainly be worried about any Chinese presence in its backyard. There may be secret clauses or understandings, hinted at by the involvement of India in the negotiations, to limit Chinese influence in the area. But with sovereignty ceded, there can be no real assurance. Who knows what additional use a sovereign base on Diego Garcia might accrue in a fast-changing and unstable region of the world – for example, as lynchpin in the developing AUKUS agreement? Has Britain really thought this handover through?

There’s no doubt that the Chagos islanders, amongst the last victims of Empire who might have expected more from our ostentatiously anti-colonial Foreign Secretary David Lammy, have been overlooked. Britain behaved shamefully by expelling them from the archipelago in the first place back in the 1960s and 1970s to make way for the military base. It then compounded this by refusing to allow them to return to the outer islands in subsequent years, a move which could have done much to defuse the issue internationally.

Mauritius, to whom the Chagos islanders were bequeathed, has never looked after the Chagosians well, which is why so many of them now live in Crawley. The agreement in effect absolves the United Kingdom from any further responsibility to make things good by delivering a right of return. A civilian population may be re-established in the archipelago, but Mauritius could be looking for those who can help staff new tourist Maldives-style resorts rather than to the Chagosians.

The Foreign Office will, at least, be pleased with the agreement. It defuses an issue which mobilised the anti-colonialist majority in the United Nations, removing an impediment to British diplomacy. It negates the requirement to take a robust position, which the Foreign Office also sought to avoid in the run-up to the invasion of the Falklands. The United States, under the present non-confrontational administration at least, is happy with the new arrangement. That a legitimate interest has been surrendered to populist sentiment is not seen as a concern for now – until others take up the precedent and demand that they are treated the same by Britain. 

The truth is that this deal is a sell out: not only is a valuable asset being given up, but Britain has also committed to subsidise the arrangement for the next 99 years. It’s hard to be positive about the decision to hand over the Chagos.

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Vance proved he has what it takes to lead the GOP

The media told us that Trump made a colossal blunder in picking JD Vance, the childless cat lady hater and impostor hillbilly, as his running mate. It sure didn’t seem like it on Tuesday night. Neither he nor Walz had an easy brief — Trump is a polarizing character with a lot of baggage and Harris is a grating, flip-flopping, vacuous empty suit with an unclear agenda and a track record of incompetence. I expected Vance to come out swinging, but was surprised at how deftly he was able to bloody his opponent while remaining calm, collegial and likable at the same time.

Its been hard for me to watch Trump debate for a long time now. Sure, he did fine against Biden in July, but that was about as challenging as striking the final blow on a half-shattered piñata. Every other Trump debate performance in the last two election cycles has been a disappointment. So many times, I’ve been confounded by Trump’s inability to stay focused and deliver concise and effective answers in what seem like slam-dunk situations. I could give many examples, but let’s recall just one. Harris essentially filibustered the first question she got in the debate — are Americans better off now compared to four years ago? The dismal tone for the evening was set when Trump inexplicably failed to say, “She didn’t answer the question because of course Americans are not better off than they were four years ago.”

On Tuesday night, though, I found myself cheering for Vance in the same way I get excited when Josh Allen of my Buffalo Bills scrambles for a touchdown. Finally, here was a candidate who could not only articulate conservative viewpoints in easy-to-understand language but could do so without coming off like an angry crank. Every time he spoke, I found myself wishing he was at the top of the ticket, but also feeling reassured that, if nothing else, at least there’s a talented conservative prospect in the pipeline who could lead the party, if not the country, very soon.

Vance introduced himself and reminded us of his working-class bona fides, but he didn’t overdo it. He sensibly didn’t refer to his grandma as “mamaw” or dwell on his difficult childhood any longer than was necessary to make his points. The moderators hated him. Their mood seemed to darken as the evening went on because they understood that their job was to prop up Walz, but he was a bumbling, incoherent mess, and it was clear that, despite their best efforts, they weren’t going to be able to drag coach across the finish line. Not on this night.

Vance made the case for Trump better than Trump has been able to do for himself. But in doing so, he also undercut excuses for Trump’s disappointing debate performances in the process. Many of my friends on the right have been making moderator-based excuses for Trump for a long time now. “It was three against one,” they scream. And they’re right. But Vance showed that a skillful Republican can navigate hostile interlocutors and even turn the tables on them without coming off like a jerk.

Vance’s clear and concise description of the administration’s bogus use of mass parole and the CBP One app and his refusal to be silenced or incorrectly fact checked was a thing of beauty. Why wasn’t Trump able to turn the tables on his hostile moderators in this way against Harris, or in his 2020 debates for that matter?

He’s a very different person with a markedly different style and method of communication for starters. That’s a nice way of saying he’s a master BS artist with a bad case of ADHD. Vance explained to Americans how migrants are driving up the cost of housing and contributing to overcrowding in schools and hospitals, while Trump wanted to convince us that they’ve all just stepped out of insane asylums and are poised to devour our pets. This is a big reason why he’s getting crushed with college-educated voters. You could disagree with JD’s substance, but you had to at least take him, and his arguments, seriously. Trump too frequently relies on such an insane level of hyperbole, that he’s a lot easier to write off as a disreputable kook or characterize as an overserved and hyper-opinionated but poorly informed barfly.

Vance’s performance wasn’t flawless, of course. There were times when I thought he missed opportunities to stick a dagger in the governor’s receding hairline. His pivot to censorship in the seemingly endless J6/2020 election block of questions was a good idea, but he only scratched the surface of the Democrats hypocrisy on this issue. I was genuinely surprised that he didn’t point to Kamala’s anti-democratic coup and subsequent coronation and her avoidance of media. He also touched on her flip-flopping all too briefly for my tastes. In the immigration block, he should have pointed out that Harris used to call the wall “Trump’s medieval vanity project,” but now runs commercials featuring images of a wall, and promises to introduce a bill that included $600 million to build it. “So are you guys for the wall or against it?” I wanted him to ask.

Still, Vance’s only legit fumble was on the 2020 election result. He should have said, “Yeah, unfortunately Biden won and that’s why the country is a mess now,” and moved on. Trump might have been annoyed, but what could he do? Drop him from the ticket after Vance had just annihilated Walz on stage for the past ninety minutes? But these are minor quibbles. Vance was the Harlem Globetrotters and Walz was a paler, balder version of the Washington Generals on this night. Liberals found comfort in Vance’s 2020 election answer, insisting it was all that mattered. But that is nonsense. The only voters who are still foaming at the mouth about the last election aren’t going to vote for Trump.

We are told that VP debates don’t “move the needle.” But in a close election, I think Vance gave the ticket exactly the infusion of energy it needed. He also set himself up as the future leader of the party and gave a new lens for viewing my governor, Ron DeSantis, who is another leading contender for 2028. Seeing Vance on stage reminded me of DeSantis’s weaknesses.

Both men are in their forties, went to Yale and come from working-class backgrounds. But DeSantis seems to have more of a chip on his shoulder about it than Vance. Both are serious men, but DeSantis comes across as tight as a drum and too policy-focused. When DeSantis smiles on stage, it seems forced. When Vance spoke glowingly of his wife and children, it didn’t seem the least bit contrived. Fair or not, likability is massively important in politics, and Vance proved on Tuesday that he has what it takes to lead the party in the years to come.

Ireland’s puritanical attack on smokers

While the UK braces itself for a budget so tight we can already hear the pips squeaking from across the Irish sea, this week saw an Irish budget which was marked more by largesse than any attempt to balance the books.

With an election due either in November or sometime early next year, and a cool, surprise £11 billion burning a hole in the government’s pocket, following the infamous EU judgment forcing Apple to pay more taxes, the government here has predictably decided to spend far and wide.

As it stands, the government plans to spend a tasty £87 billion in 2025, a massive increase on 2024’s £80 billion. But where is all this lovely, lovely money coming from?

Recouped mainly from the Big Tech companies which have made Ireland their European home, corporation tax has contributed almost £25 billion this year and that figure is expected to rise to £30 billion by 2030. That’s not even including the £11 billion from Apple, which was such a bone of contention between the Irish government and its European ‘partners’.

In a legal row which has been waging since 2013, the European Commission accused the Irish of handing Apple ‘illegal state aid’. Since 2016, all the disputed tax revenue has been put in an escrow fund and now that the final, binding legal judgment has decreed that Ireland must accept the tax, there is an extra £11 billion for the government. This is undeniably a tidy sum, but it has made ministers and industry observers worry that Apple might be less inclined to base its affairs here.

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The European Commission knows that as well, which is why, under pressure from the Germans and the French who want their own slice of the Apple pie, they were so determined to scupper this long running sweetheart deal between Apple and the pesky Irish.

Good news for them, potentially very bad news for the Irish. Without corporation tax, the economy would be running at a massive deficit. So this was a strange budget, which brought back uncomfortable echoes of the Celtic Tiger era, when the economy was artificially inflated by stamp duty from a property boom. When that market collapsed, it brought the country down with it and dragged us into a recession that lasted a decade but felt like a century.

Now, with only ten companies providing more than 50 per cent of Ireland’s corporation tax, there is the very real fear that if any of them leaves Ireland, or simply collapses, it will create a cascade effect that would return us to the dark days of 2008.

But in the face of such macro problems, it makes sense to focus on the micro and the things that impact us on a day-to-day basis. True to form for this government, they couldn’t resist having another go at smokers.

While there had been talks of a hike in the price of booze, it appears the powerful vintners lobby bent the government’s ear and so a pint won’t go being up in price anytime soon.

But that’s where the good news ends, because unlike the pub trade, the poor old smokers don’t have various Irish politicians and ministers on speed dial.

Minister for finance, Jack Chambers, who like most of today’s blandly healthy politicians is a non-smoker, has blithely decided to increase the price of a packet of fags by a full Euro to €18. That’s the guts of 20 quid for 20 Carroll’s (the finest of all Irish cigarettes).

In an increasingly puritanical Ireland, that massive price hike has attracted little attention. In fact, the only anger has been coming from smokers themselves and organisations such as Forest, who often appear like the last of the Mohicans when it comes to advocating for a smoker’s basic human right to enjoy a fag without being persecuted or penalised by the eternal-health fantasists of the government and their prohibitionist allies.

According to Forest’s spokesman Simon Clark, the new prices are an act of ‘discrimination’ against smokers which will ‘force many deeper into poverty.’

He also pointed out that, ‘smoking is a legitimate habit. This brutal hike in the cost of cigarettes will drive more smokers to the black market and fuel illicit trade… It’s hard to imagine a more punitive or counterproductive measure because the only people who will benefit are the criminal gangs and the illicit traders.’

Even apart from the civil liberties issue, Clark is of course correct to raise the issue of illegality.

The government boasts that revenue from tobacco was down by 17 per cent, or £129 million, from 2022 and they claim this is proof that their war on tobacco is being won, and fewer people are smoking.

They are wrong. They fail to take account of the fact that an estimated 32.9 million packets of illegal cigarettes were sold last year (costing the Exchequer £350 million), so by that metric, their own figures immediately fall apart.

Last year, Irish Retailers Against Smuggling claimed that 33 per cent of Irish smokers were prepared to buy black market cigarettes, with the figure rising to 50 per cent in the 18 to 34 bracket.

In fact, it is virtually impossible to walk down working-class shopping thoroughfares such as Moore Street and Henry Street in Dublin without seeing black market traders hawk their wares. Similarly, if you want to buy a carton of cheap fags, there’s no shortage of pubs where they are readily available, nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more.

So why doesn’t this government crack down on this easily solvable issue? Well, there are two reasons. They are on an ideological mission to be seen to be tough on smoking and the easiest way to achieve that is to simply tax the bejesus out of smokers and pretend that will solve the problem, even though they must surely know this is just making things worse

As for the other reason? Well, its a far more human one – they don’t understand the concept of a black market because they never encounter it.

Our gilded politicians simply don’t shop in places like Moore Street or Henry Street, they prefer rather more salubrious locations, and would never darken the door of the type of establishment where a vaguely dodgy looking geezer might sell you a carton of fags from the bottom of his plastic shopping bag.

Why on earth would they venture into such a den of iniquity when they can do their drinking in the heavily subsidised Dail bar, along with the rest of the right sort of people?

Meanwhile, the ordinary Irish smoker continues to get hosed.  

Cleverly and Jenrick slam CCHQ machine

Who would want to work in Conservative Campaign Headquarters? The election this year was certainly not Tory high command’s finest hour, with rows over stitch-ups and misallocated resources neatly topping off the party’s worst election result in history. So with discontent high among both MPs and members, it is no surprise that Tory leadership contenders are lining up to criticise their own party establishment, according to a series of leaked recordings given to Mr S.

First up, Robert Jenrick, who is keen to present himself as the candidate most keen to overhaul the party machine. He wants to scrap the CCHQ-approved candidates’ list so that any member can stand and made his withering views clear when speaking to the Conservative Friends of the NHS group in August. ‘One of the first things we’re going to have to do is to radically reform CCHQ. It needs to be refounded, frankly’, he said before joking that he wouldn’t go so far as to ‘burn down CCHQ’, as one Tory member had suggested to him. Relief for the (few) staff left working there then.

The Newark MP also suggested there was a culture of cronyism in the party under Rishi Sunak’s leadership. ‘I never want there to be a situation ever again where the favoured sons and daughters of a leader have been parachuted into ostensibly safe seats. I think that is hugely disrespectful to members’, he said, lamenting how ‘members of our party have been disrespected by the people who run it’.  He also implied that ‘apparatchiks in the party and the leader’ had ‘screwed over at the last minute’ those on the Conservative candidates list by imposing candidates from above.

Jenrick made similar remarks that same day to a meeting of Blue Beyond, a group of young Conservatives. He told the group that ‘too many Prime Ministers have filled their teams with their friends, their supporters, their cronies. It hasn’t been meritocratic or not sufficiently meritocratic.’ Guess he’s not after Richard Holden’s vote…

It is not just Jenrick who is turning his guns on their own side. In remarks made to Conservative members in Kensington last month, James Cleverly also took pot-shots at Tory high command. ‘I’ve been the minister responsible for MI5, MI6, GCHQ and CCHQ,’ he said, to laughs. ‘And of those four institutions, I know which one needs the biggest overhaul’.  He went on to say to members that they must ‘share my frustration that the London Conservative machine is not firing on all cylinders in a way that [the] Labour London machine is a really well-organised institution’, he said, before admitting that ‘Scottish Labour is a tighter organisation than Scottish Conservatives, Welsh Labour is a tighter organisation than Welsh Conservatives.’

On the digital front, Cleverly said that ‘we need to make sure our digital campaigning is much, much, much, much better. We got totally outclassed in the digital realm by Reform, a party that didn’t exist two and a half years ago’. Has anyone got a good word to say about CCHQ….?

It’s time to break the stranglehold on the migrant crisis debate

John Major and Nicolas Sarkozy are grandees of their respective centre-right parties. But the days when the Conservatives and the Republicans dominated the political landscape of Britain and France are long gone. The fortunes of both parties have dwindled as the migrant crisis has deepened. Neither the Tories nor the Republicans confronted the phenomenon with the courage that their electorate demanded. They paid the price at the ballot box.

But while one grandee has woken up to this fact, the other remains in denial.

Major’s recent interview with the BBC underlined his misreading of the crisis confronting Europe. The former Tory PM, who governed the country between 1992 and 1997, spoke sympathetically of the vast numbers of migrants crossing dangerous waters to reach the continent, and he scolded a society that ‘has come to regard immigration as an ill.’

Sarkozy has a different take on the crisis. ‘Immigration is a problem,’ he explained in an interview this week, returning to a theme he had first broached 12 months ago. On that occasion he quoted UN figures to warn that between now and 2050 the population of Africa will increase from 1.3 to 2.5 billion people, half of whom will be under the age of 20. ‘This huge population is the neighbour of a European continent in demographic decline,’ said Sarkozy. ‘Alas, the migrant crisis hasn’t really begun.’ 

Sarkozy reiterated those figures this week and again issued a warning that Europe’s future was at stake if it didn’t act. ‘Borders are a guarantee of peace,’ he said. ‘It’s when borders are indecisive, when they are contested, that there are risks of war.’

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He advocates a root and branch reform of the EU’s approach to tackling the migrant crisis in order to meet this challenge, and he also said Europe ‘must take steps to enable Africanpopulations to remain, for the most part, on the soil of the countries that are theirs’.

Twenty years ago Sarkozy – then a minister in Jacques Chirac’s government – shared the prevailing view among the Paris elite that immigration was, in his own words, ‘an opportunity for our country’. On Monday he declared that ‘immigration is not an opportunity, either for the migrants we can’t decently accommodate, or for the French.’

It is the sheer numbers that have changed Sarkozy’s mind. Since Emmanuel Macron came to power in 2017, legal and illegal immigration have reached record levels. On average around 275,000 residence permits a year have been issued to non-European immigrants under Macron’s reign, a 26 per cent increase on François Hollande’s presidency and 45 per cent more than when Sarkozy was in the Elysée from 2007 to 2012.

One result of this unprecedented influx has been a rise in crime and insecurity, as Macron himself acknowledged in 2022, admitting that one in two crimes in Paris were committed by foreigners.

The brutal murder in Paris a fortnight ago of a 19-year-old student by an illegal immigrant who had already been convicted of rape prompted Sarkozy to make his intervention. It was time to finally act, he said, and in particular to break the moral stranglehold imposed by the left on the subject of immigration. ‘As soon as someone wants to do something, they’re immediately accused of being somewhere between Hitler and Laval,’ he said, referencing Pierre Laval, the fascist prime minister of France during the Vichy years.

This a smear used by the left in Europe generally, as Giorgia Meloni and Suella Braverman can testify. 

The latest figure to be depicted as a dangerous fascist is the new Interior Minister, Bruno Retailleau, whom Sarkozy made a point of endorsing on Monday.

Retailleau is a Catholic and a conservative, and as such he talks like one. Declaring multiculturalism to have reached a ‘dead end’ in a recent interview, Retailleau said: ‘Our culture is Judeo-Christian. The French melting pot was created in Jerusalem, Athens and Rome. It’s a unique civilisation.’

Retailleau reiterated his determination to slash illegal and legal immigration, increase the number of deportations and, if necessary, amend existing laws to achieve this objective. He also expressed his support for a referendum on immigration.

The left have charged Retailleau with rhetoric straight from the mouth of Marine Le Pen and one of her National Rally MPs cheerfully admitted that Retailleau did indeed sound like their spokesman.

But Retailleau isn’t so much speaking for the National Rally as for the French nation. Two thirds support the idea of a referendum on immigration and a similar number agree with Sarkozy that immigration is no longer beneficial for France.

‘I was appointed [Interior Minister] to respond to a majority demand of the French people: to restore order, in terms of both security and immigration,’ Retailleau declared. ‘We must listen to this message and respond to it.’ Then, in a signal that he has the full support of Michel Barnier, a fellow Republican, Retailleau promised: ‘I’ll tell them the truth, as the Prime Minister has asked.’

The four candidates vying to be the new leader of the Conservative party should draw inspiration from Retailleau and Sarkozy. This century the left have dominated the discussion on immigration, deploying what Sarkozy once described as ‘intellectual terrorism’ to silence any dissent. In France the Republican party is finally fighting back, and it may yet save them from extinction.

Labour in fresh ‘cash for croissants’ storm

It’s a day ending a ‘y’ – so there’s another Labour scandal brewing. After the ‘passes for glasses’ row about Lord Alli’s role in Downing Street, the party has been plunged into another row about claims of ‘cash for access.’ The Sun today reports that companies have been offered breakfast with the Business Secretary in return for £30,000. Party apparatchiks invited bosses to a top Manchester restaurant for the ‘rare chance’ to ‘gain insight’ from Jonathan Reynolds in return for sponsorship of the meal. Talk about ‘cash for croissants’…

Attendance at the exclusive event was limited to just ten tickets. ‘Distinct benefits’ include a photo with the minister (yours for just £15,000), while for the full £30,000 bigwigs got to choose who can come to the ‘dynamic meeting of business minds.’ What a thrilling prospect. The pitch was prepared by the Labour party’s commercial team and emailed yesterday, with invitees to The Ivy restaurant in Manchester promised ‘a rare chance to gain insights, network and exchange ideas amongst peers and a government minister’.

It adds: ‘We have carefully curated a package that offer [sic] distinct benefits, ensuring your brand receives optimal exposure and engagement during the event.’ Allies of Jonathan Reynolds told the Sun that he would no longer be taking part. A party spokesman said: ‘He was completely unaware, and isn’t attending.’

After the disappointment of Labour conference some might pay five figures to avoid such an ordeal….

Boris and Liz in Chagos Islands’ blame game

Mauritius is getting the Chagos Islands – and a lot of Tories ain’t happy. Tom Tugendhat calls it a ‘shameful retreat’; Robert Jenrick bemoans the ‘dangerous capitulation.’ The Telegraph calls it a ‘national scandal’ while the Mail splash screams it is ‘Starmer’s surrender.’ So with the Tory tribes raising a hue and cry, who better to articulate patriotic harrumphing than Boris Johnson? As part of his book tour, the former premier was grilled last night by Camilla Tominey on GB News. Asked for his reaction to the decision, Johnson called it:

Crazy. I mean do, I urge viewers of GB News to get out your maps, get out your atlases, check out the Chagos Islands and see where Mauritius is. It’s a long way away. What is this claim? It’s nonsense. It’s total nonsense. Why are we doing this? It’s sheer political correctness. A desire to look like the good guys. A desire to look as though we are unbundling the last relics of our empire. It’s nonsense. It’s a bad idea in hard geopolitical terms because the base in Diego Garcia, as I’m sure you’ll know, as all our viewers know, is of huge strategic importance for the US, for the West and it’s a key component of the Anglo-American alliance. It’s one of the things we bring to the table. It has been for decades, that base. Why are we trading away our sovereignty over it? Completely the wrong thing to do.

Good strong stuff. So then, who is to blame for starting these talks, which formally began in November 2022? Step forward, er, Boris Johnson, according to the woman who replaced him. Shortly before the excerpt of Johnson’s interview aired, a spokesman for Liz Truss told Mr S that:

It was Boris Johnson who asked Liz to talk to Prime Minister Jugnauth about this at COP26, which she did. But she was absolutely clear that we would and should never cede the territory.

Who could have foreseen that talks would actually lead to something eh? There’s that famous Tory foresight once again…

Handing over the Chagos Islands is a grave mistake

The British government’s decision to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius is a profound strategic error, rooted in a misunderstanding of international law and a failure to protect the UK’s vital national interests. Surrendering sovereignty over the Islands will have a deleterious effect on British and allied interests just as international strategic competition intensifies. It will undermine the overwhelmingly strong legal case for the UK’s continuing sovereignty in relation to a number of other crucial British territories. The government’s decision erodes sound legal principle for the sake of short-term point-scoring in an irrelevant diplomatic game. The government has blundered – Parliament and the public must hold it to account.

The Chagos Islands, including strategically crucial Diego Garcia, have been under British control since 1814. For over two centuries, the UK has exercised sovereignty over this territory, which hosts a vital US-UK military base on Diego Garcia, leased by the UK to the United States after London withdrew its forces from east of the Suez Canal. Diego Garcia has served as an indispensable logistical hub for the US for over half a century. It facilitated crucial American operations, in which the UK participated as a key coalition member, to counter Iraqi aggression against Kuwait in 1990-1991, and the US-UK missions against the Taliban in 2001, while also supporting the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban afterwards. Diego Garcia’s facilities have been used to pre-position equipment, including enough materiel and ammunition for large Marine units to fight for a month on short notice.

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The timing could hardly have been worse. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine grinds into its third year. Just days ago, Iran rained ballistic missiles down on Israel. All the while, China menaces Taiwan, pressures the Philippines and Japan, threatens Indo-Pacific security and stability with its unprecedented military buildup, and aids Russia’s war effort in Europe. Handing over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius in the midst of an accelerating world crisis is a grossly imprudent strategic move. Of course, the government insists that the US-UK Diego Garcia base will remain under the deal’s terms. But loss of sovereignty is loss of control – and ceding the Islands puts the future of the base in the medium and long term in doubt, especially if or when Mauritius comes under significant Chinese pressure.

The government’s decision appears to be predicated on a misinterpretation of recent legal proceedings, namely the 2019 advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and a 2021 decision by a Special Chamber of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS). But the ICJ’s opinion was not binding in international law, and the ITLOS decision was between Mauritius and the Maldives. Neither imposes any legal obligation on the UK, much less an obligation to hand over the Chagos.

State consent is foundational to modern international law. The ICJ badly abused its advisory jurisdiction by even hearing the request for an opinion in relation to the Chagos Islands. The request, which the UN General Assembly transmitted to the ICJ at Mauritius’s behest, sought, in reality, to get a judgment against the UK that Mauritius could not have gotten through a normal consent-based day in court. The government’s evident capitulation to international pressure arising out of abuse of the ICJ’s advisory jurisdiction sets a dangerous precedent, undermining a key pillar of international legal order. The best way to respond to the ICJ’s overreach is to treat the Chagos opinion as the advisory opinion that it is. The government, instead, ignoring the geopolitical gravity of the matter as well as legal principle, has treated it effectively as the final word.

The decision to hand over the Islands is not justified by the complex historical context. The link between Mauritius and the Chagos Islands is tenuous at best, amounting to little more than an accident of colonial history. Mauritius agreed to sell the islands and renounce its rights over them in 1965, a decision reaffirmed upon its independence in 1968 by those independence leaders who negotiated the agreement. Mauritius only changed tack a decade and a half later, launching a legal offensive in 1982.

Perhaps the government has acted now in a misguided attempt to address the plight of the Chagossian people. But handing over the islands to Mauritius is no solution. The Chagossians have not been properly consulted in these negotiations. Mauritius pays no heed to their position. Indeed, the UK has been far more direct in addressing Chagossian concerns, extending British citizenship to them in 2022.

As Policy Exchange warned in our report ‘Sovereignty and Security in the Indian Ocean’ the strategic importance of the Indo-Pacific region is only growing; and with an increasingly assertive China, the significance of the Chagos Islands is unmistakable. Any assurances from Mauritius regarding Diego Garcia’s future are not bankable, especially since China has targeted Mauritius for economic expansion, providing Mauritius with nine-figure loans and, more recently, signing a currency swap agreement with Mauritius. A future Mauritian government may well allow Chinese military and intelligence presence on the islands, along with contesting continued US-UK base access.

This handover sets a dangerous precedent for other British overseas territories. It may encourage territorial irredentism worldwide and potentially jeopardise the statehood of post-colonial sovereign states. We are already witnessing Argentina using this situation to push for negotiations over the Falklands. The sovereignty of Gibraltar and the Sovereign Base Areas in Cyprus could be next. The latter is crucial to the UK’s Middle Eastern posture, especially in light of escalating tensions between Israel, Iran, and Iranian-aligned terrorists.

The government must urgently reconsider its position and reaffirm the UK’s sovereignty over the Chagos Islands. It should not sign a treaty of cession and should instead join in defending UK sovereignty over the Islands, as past governments across the political spectrum have done. If it does not, Parliament must hold the government to account, refusing to support any treaty of cession and demanding a thorough review of the Foreign Ministry’s legal and strategic practices.

This is in no way a matter of territorial pride or historical legacy. It is about safeguarding our national security, upholding the principles of international law, and maintaining strategic stability in a critical region of the world.

Handing over the Chagos Islands, especially on such flawed legal premises, is an irresponsible act that puts those strategic interests – and those of our closest allies – in grave danger.

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Israel’s enemies always underestimate its sheer bloody-mindedness

From sunset on Wednesday until sunset today, Jews around the world celebrate Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year. It comes after a hellish 12 months for Israel and the Jewish diaspora at large. It started with Hamas’s brutal terror attack of 7 October and ended with an Iranian missile barrage on Tuesday night. There is undoubtedly more to come as Israel tries to push back Hezbollah, bring about an end to the near daily rocket attacks and allow displaced citizens from the north to return home.

I was in Israel just a few weeks ago. In the run up to arriving at Ben Gurion airport, I was worried about what I would find. What toll would the war have taken? While many of the conversations I had whilst in Israel ultimately came back to the war, and reminders about the hostages were everywhere, I was struck by the resilience of the people.

In the aftermath of the attack, the usually joyous festival of Purim had been difficult. Tel Aviv Pride was cancelled. But now, nearly a year on, I had landed in a country daring, albeit cautiously, to smile again.

People were dancing in restaurants in Jerusalem. Bars were packed with revellers. When I was driven through the Negev desert, my guide told me that his military reserve service would have been for nothing if life in his country didn’t resume. Everyone liked to tell me that it was they who lived in the safest part of the country!

Iran’s failed attack, in which it sent around 180 ballistic missiles towards Israel, will inevitably have brought a temporary halt to all of this. There is no doubt that Israelis are exhausted and traumatised after a year of war. Many Israelis, under the threat of Hezbollah rockets, have been forced to flee their homes and seek shelter elsewhere.

The terrible effects on Israeli society because of what has occurred over the last 12 months will be hard to fix. But the country’s enemies underestimate its sheer bloody-mindedness at their peril. That’s not just about technical innovation and military might, it’s about a people determined not to succumb to terror.

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Of course, the plight of the remaining hostages looms large. You are greeted by their faces as your walk through the airport. There are signs calling for their release all over the sides of the roads. In Tel Aviv, Hostages Square – where families have created exhibits to highlight the plight of their loved ones – remains a key meeting point. There is a long Friday night dinner table laid out there, with a place setting for each hostage, including highchairs for the babies and small children. I cried as I saw the picture of Almog Sarusi, whose sister I spoke to back in March and who was one of the six hostages killed as the Israeli Defense Forces got close to rescuing them.

In that square is a tunnel like the ones the hostages have been held in, complete with the sounds of gunfire and people walking above. Walking through it is a deeply disturbing experience. Living in such conditions is unimaginable.  

I also visited Haifa, the port city in the north of the country that, amongst other things, is home to the beautiful Bahá’í Gardens and is on Hezbollah’s hit list. It’s nearly impossible for an outsider to find their way around because the GPS signals have been scrambled for security reasons.

Elsewhere, I spoke to members of the Druze and Circassian communities proud to have Israel as their home and to serve in its armed forces. No part of Israeli society has gone unscathed since 7 October. Indeed, the Druze saw a dozen of their children killed by a Hezbollah rocket that landed where they were playing football.

While diaspora Jews may not have to be rushing to bomb shelters, the last year has brought with it its own horrors. Whether it is seeing thousands flood the streets of central London and elsewhere to attend hate marches week after week, the general rise in antisemitism or having to frantically text friends and family in Israel after every missile attack, it has been an exhausting experience.

Somewhat bizarrely, I have had more than one conversation with Israelis seemingly more concerned about me as a Jew in London than about their own safety. Indeed, this week, a huge security operation is in place to protect British Jews as we attend synagogue to see in the new year and mark Yom Kippur, the day of atonement. Of course, high levels of security in the Jewish community are nothing new, but things feel more tense now. The cold hard reality is that whatever happens in the Middle East affects us in the diaspora and we are all on edge.

The traditional Jewish greeting for Rosh Hashanah is shana tova umetuka – a good and sweet new year. After the bitterness of the last twelve months, that is what Jews in Israel and around the world need.

Doctors and the trouble with the BBC

The BBC’s daytime soap Doctors will soon vanish from our screens after 24 years. But while the final episodes make for excruciatingly bad television, they are worth watching for a simple reason: they encapsulate everything that is wrong with modern television.

The BBC’s obsession with ramming progressive storylines down viewers’ throats is plain to see in each episode of Doctors. Take the character of Dr Graham Elton (Alex Avery); he’s a rotten bigot and, in case you didn’t realise it, viewers are reminded of just how awful and unsound his views are in almost every scene.

From BBC medical soap opera Doctors. A new doctor, Graham, has joined the surgery. He's ableist and clumsy about homosexuality. And if the viewer hasn't realised he's a bigot, he then reveals he doesn't care about a patient's 'they / them' pronouns, only on treating 'him' pic.twitter.com/TJrdE5v02u

— ripx4nutmeg (@ripx4nutmeg) September 24, 2024

Graham is an equal opportunities ‘bigot’, guilty of every ‘ism’ going. He is, inevitably, a white, middle-class heterosexual man. He treats the very short female administrator Kirsty with puns and amused contempt. He fumbles over the terminology of gay and ‘queer’ with his colleague Dr Al Haskey. In one indescribably bad scene, he gets into a big tizzy over pronouns with the gay male nurse Luca, calling it ‘woke nonsense’.‘We’ve got to move with the times, language evolves, it’s nothing to be upset about,’ says voice-of-reason Dr Haskey a little later. So that’s all right then.

Luca decides to revenge himself by changing the sex on evil Dr Elton’s staff records. ‘How did it make you feel – undermined? Undervalued? Like your identity was irrelevant? Now you know how offensive it is to be misgendered – maybe you won’t do it again’. Dr Evil is furious. The more likely response, a pitiful shrug, is eschewed. So he is sent on an LBTQIA+ refresher course. It’s all marvellously 2018, pre-Cass, pre-‘Isla Bryson’, pre-Labour admitting their Women’s Declaration back into conference.

A lot of TV is bad; but that won’t prepare most first-time viewers for just how dreadful Doctors is. Almost all of the scenes are excruciating; they are reminiscent of the ‘Bureau de Change’ segment in The Day Today, or the one-off 90s revival of Acorn Antiques, in which Victoria Wood marvellously skewered soaps tackling ‘issues’ (Mrs Overall even came out). Doctors is schematic, obvious and clunking; hilarious, but for all the wrong reasons. This is television at its nadir; it serves to lecture and teach viewers, not entertain them.

Things haven’t always been this way. I grew up watching soaps and later worked on them for many years. In the 1990s and 2000s, millions tuned in to watch these shows. They did so because soaps had the power to enthral those watching. Soaps might make you feel happy, or sad; but, at the very least, you could relate to characters in the show. Doctors shows that not everyone who works in television sees it as their mission to entertain; instead they think their mission is to educate.

In my day of screenwriting in the pre-internet era, when you were commissioned you’d often get a big wedge of research, background details – legal, medical, etc – on whatever stories the show was running. This typically came from charities and professional bodies. Such information could be useful but also dangerous; it could sometimes lead to ‘soap professional disease’, where characters become walking, talking pamphlets. It’s hard to escape the conclusion that the scriptwriters in Doctors have swallowed such information whole.

As a result, Doctors offers up stilted, compliant, didactic stuff, like a HR training video. It treats viewers as idiots; it’s as if the BBC think people watching TV during the daytime don’t deserve any better. These scenes would be struck out of the script of a decent children’s programme with an audience older than the tiniest of tots. Doctors has all the dramatic elan of those times in Rainbow when Zippy would get out of hand – eat all of Bungles’s sweeties, for example – and learn a valuable lesson. Taking a highly contentious political issue like the gender wars and conflating objection to pronouns with hostility to a disabled person, as if the two things were remotely comparable or adjacent, is despicable.

The Writers’ Guild made an enormous fuss about Doctors folding, saying the show was a vital training ground for fresh TV talent. They were right, kind of. Doctors has featured household names such as Eddie Redmayne, Sheridan Smith, Nicholas Hoult, Rustie Lee and Phoebe Waller-Bridge. But that roster of talent doesn’t mean Doctors deserved to avoid the chop. With its antiquated production, tiny budget and quaint air of ‘that’ll do’, it reminds me of how the shoddy end of television used to be made, 40 years ago, before the industry was professionalised. To make matters worse, a dollop of politically correct nonsense is served up on top.

All is not lost. There are signs of life elsewhere on TV – and in soaps. ‘I haven’t time for gender identity, I’m up at five for t’papers,’ Rita in Coronation Street said recently. What a relief to hear such common sense. Doctors’ scriptwriters could learn a thing or two.

Soaps are, of course, all fantasies. But lose any link at all to reality and you lose everything. It’s a mercy that the BBC have arranged an assisted dying for Doctors. Now they just need to find a cure for the rest of their twaddle-riddled output.

My electric car will be the death of me

Ask my friends and family and they’ll tell you: I am an electric car bore. I’m not a gushing enthusiast. I’m more the negative kind of EV dullard. I can’t stop telling people about the horror of driving these wretched things.

I’m really not like this about other subjects, or indeed about life. I’m generally pretty positive and optimistic. But I have an EV. I rely on it to get me from A to B, at all hours, in all weather conditions, and perhaps, heaven forbid, even at short notice. You might not be surprised to hear that my electric car is sorely deficient in doing all these things.

Let’s start at the dreaded beginning. I came upon my EV through the company car scheme at work. This was a few years ago and I had learned about the Benefit in Kind EV wheeze, which meant I could pay several thousand pounds less in tax each year for the pleasure of driving for work. On top of that, I fancied a Tesla as they seemed really cool.

But there were no electric cars on my employer’s company car list. For those who don’t drive a company car, this is the list of cars that are made available to you through your work. For car lovers it’s a borderline magical experience. Imagine, you just tick a box and get a car!

So I used all my powers of persuasion (I work in sales) to convince HR that we really should have an environmentally friendly option to help us in our march towards net zero and battle climate change. They duly agreed. Alas the allocated budget did not stretch to a Tesla, so I ended up with a Kia e-Niro, surely the least cool of all EVs. I should have seen this first disappointment as a portent of things to come.

Then followed a couple of years of doing perhaps the longest electric car commute in Britain – from my home in the Scottish Borders to Wolverhampton. This proved particularly arduous in winter. In my experience, cold weather by itself can shave 30 per cent off an EV’s range, and switching on the heater seems to get rid of about another 30 per cent. Of course, in a sane situation, the colder the weather, the more you would use your heater. But no. Off I would go in the mornings, all dressed up in my car coat and snow boots, looking like an Artic adventurer but in reality just setting out for an office in the Midlands.

Fast forward to the present and I no longer commute to Wolverhampton. Now, mirabile dictu, I travel around Europe fairly often. This also means regular trips in the electric, but mostly just to and from the airport, which is about an hour and a half’s drive.

The return leg is what I did last night. I landed late, got into my car with that familiar mix of trepidation and frozen breath, and paused for a moment before daring to look at the range displayed on the screen. Did I leave enough in the tank to get home in one go? Or would I have to stop to charge in some dark and lonely corner of a trading estate? The car told me that I had about 30 miles more than needed. I could relax, put on a podcast and cruise on home.

Or at least that would have been the case had it not been cold, which it was. And if there wasn’t a diversion, which there was.

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There were no more chargers for the 50 miles of the remaining journey. And it was too late to wake my wife, and the kids, to pick me up if the worst happened. So the die was cast. I absolutely had to make it home on the remaining charge in the battery. There was no other option. What would I do if I ran out and the car ground to a halt? Would I have to sleep in my car until morning? Would I freeze to death?

I knew I had to deploy all my wits. Electric cars have regenerative braking, which is when the kinetic energy from the braking system is converted into electricity to top up the battery. You can increase the level of this energy harvesting, essentially by clamping on the brakes, normally on a hill, but it slows you down a lot. Only a small amount of energy is produced in this way, but in such emergencies every little bit really does help.

I have by now become hyper-aware of any small gradient in the road, and was using the energy recovery system on every descent, almost grinding to a halt at the bottom of each hill having turned my kinetic energy into watts in the battery. That was my strategy: gravity would save me. Isn’t modern technology wonderful?

But as I continued, the car’s range, as is its habit, decreased at a greater rate than the actual miles covered, and soon the little tortoise came on the screen to notify me that I had 2 per cent charge remaining. I was now in limp home mode. This happened too soon for my liking, but all I could do was carry on, squinting hopefully through the windscreen, which had by now almost entirely misted up as obviously I couldn’t turn on the heater.

I did make it home, just – much later and more tired than planned, but relieved. I’m now recharging my batteries, preparing myself for another voyage into the unknown when I go to the airport next week. One day, I fear, I’ll find myself freezing to my last gasp in a lay-by, with no phone signal for help. I take comfort from the thought that my loved ones might at least acknowledge that I had a point about EVs.

Britain should just join the United States

Ruth Cadbury is hard at work campaigning for Kamala Harris ahead of November’s presidential election. It’s what you might expect from a Democrat politician, except that Cadbury is British, a Labour MP, and New Hampshire falls a little outside the boundaries of her Brentford and Isleworth constituency. She’s not the only British politico heading Stateside to drum up support for the Democrats. Former Tory cabinet minister Robert Buckland has been knocking doors for Harris in Massachusetts and Connecticut, while Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton is off to pound lawn signs for Harris in Pennsylvania.

Critics point out that Cadbury and Cole-Hamilton are parliamentarians and say they ought properly to be at work on their constituents’ behalf. Much the same was said about Nigel Farage when he travelled to the United States following the first assassination attempt on Donald Trump. Of course, vanishingly few of those scolding Cadbury and Cole-Hamilton also scolded Farage and vice versa. It all comes down to how you conjugate the verb ‘to electioneer abroad’: I fight to save democracy, you interfere in other countries’ affairs, Farage is a Russian agent. One of the joys of observing hyper-partisan behaviour from the sidelines is listening as one gimlet-eyed tribalist after another breathlessly explains why it’s okay when their side does it, but An Affront To Democracy when the other lot do. They say politics is showbiz for ugly people but it’s really team sports for nerds.

All this transatlantic electoral travel grinds the wonky gnashers of British traditionalists. They long ago lost the war against philo-Americanism, which reigns in most aspects of our lives, institutions and attitudes, even if events (most recently, the Iraq war) occasionally give rise to spurts of anti-Americanism. But they object to seeing British politicians of left and right so thoroughly under the sway of West Wingism. I don’t just mean the dread suspicion that many of our MPs have had the ‘I’m such a CJ’, ‘I’m more of a Toby’ conversation at some point, though that is pretty horrifying. Rather it is the open embrace by British politicians of that sentimental, Sorkinised idealism in which America is the flawed-but-good indispensable nation, ever-perfecting its Union at home while spreading freedom, democracy and cheeseburgers abroad. To believe in isms is bad enough; to believe in the Hollywood remake of isms is as un-British as it gets.

There is a way to end this tension that pulls us towards America in our politics, culture, habits and consumer choices while making us resent the loss of the distinctive politics, culture, habits and consumer choices that were once our own. The answer, to borrow a fashionable Americanism, is to lean into it. Stop being wannabe Americans and become actual Americans by applying to become a US state, while reasserting our identity and idiosyncrasies in much the same way that states like Texas and New York do.

I know it sounds mad, but hear me out. What country would make a better fit as a US state than the UK? Half their towns are named after our towns. We have a common history, share a legal tradition, and have already imported their pop culture, identity politics and mangled English. We fight in the same wars, are owned by the same corporations, and sit beside each other at the same international bodies. We have broadly similar attitudes to democracy. We share the same aversion to enforcing our borders. We both hate the French. Best of all, they retain so much of their Anglo heritage that they still sing our national anthem, albeit with the lyrics changed.

Becoming part of the United States would be the making of modern Britain. We’d be the largest state by population, outnumbering Californians by 30 million, which would give us far and away the most electoral college votes in presidential elections and more members of congress than any other state. Given the centre ground of British politics in economic and social matters, we’d likely be a reliably blue state, but our size would make us the most important state in every presidential and midterm election. The two main parties would be falling over themselves to line our pockets with federal dollars; almost anything we asked for would be guaranteed because to refuse us would be to hand the next election to the other party.

It would bring prosperity to the UK, taking our $51,000 per capita GDP closer to America’s $85,000. Opponents of statehood would point to the loss of the NHS or the sudden availability of firearms across the UK, but there is nothing to stop a US state enacting single-payer healthcare – it has been proposed in a number of blue states – and while the Supreme Court says the Second Amendment grants an individual right to keep and bear arms, ask any gun owner in New York or California and they’ll tell you how thoroughly a state can belabour that right without legal consequence. We’d have to get used to misspelling the word ‘colour’ but we’d fall under the protection of the mightiest military the world has ever known, which isn’t a bad trade off. We could finally stop pretending to like cricket and instead pretend that college basketball is a real sport.

The more difficult sell would be to the Americans. Why should they want us? We’re an economic basket case and, though strategically well-placed as a bridge between North America and Europe, we’re already a reliable military and diplomatic ally. However, we do have the City of London, the world’s number two location on the Global Financial Centres Index, and a tidy stockpile of nuclear weapons, plus Washington would gain some potentially useful little dots on the map like the Falklands, the Caymans, Gibraltar and a couple of military bases in Cyprus. (The Chagos Islands, not so much.)

We have some oil, which a future Republican administration would probably be up for drilling, and heaps of wind power, which the Democrats would be more enthusiastic about. We also have Northern Ireland and what better way for the United States to pursue its keen interest in Irish affairs than by sharing an island and a border. America would gain Scotland, where roughly 96 per cent of them claim to come from, and while as a US state Britain would be a republic, the royal family could be retained for tourism, kitsch marketing and Netflix licensing purposes. Wales would come as part of the package but they manage fine with one Alabama so a second shouldn’t be all that much trouble.

In many ways, the UK would be the ultimate prize for the United States. How many former empires apply to become part of their former colonies? It would be like winning the revolutionary war all over again, and this time we won’t come back thirty years later and burn down the White House. And they’d never have to worry about foreigners coming over to stick their limey noses in presidential elections again. We could stick them in right here at home in Britain, the 51st state of the Union.

AI drones are coming for dog owners

The most significant application to date of artificial intelligence and unmanned aerial aircraft has been unveiled: the Poopcopter. It does what it says on the tin. It scoops poop. No more plastic bags. No more furtive glances while out walking to see if Fido’s emissions have been observed by truculent neighbours.

According to its inventor, the Poopcopter is the ‘world’s first self-guided dog poop removal system, using a drone, and 3D-printed pickup mechanism.’ The drone has real-time computer vision and machine learning algorithms. A cloud-based system receives footage from the drone’s built-in camera, examines it, and looks for any excrement in the surrounding area.

After identifying its target, the drone attempts a precise landing close to the offending deposit and scoops, assisted by algorithms that position it precisely. Sadly, the Poopcopter is not quite ready to be commercialised, but I have already been in touch with the mayor of my village in France to urge him to order a squadron of them as soon as it is. His one-word reply: ‘Oui!’

One small step for a dog, one giant leap for mankind, is my own take on this. I calculate that I have personally picked up roughly 12,000 bags of poop for my dogs Ringo and Bella. It is a task that I perform without relish but from duty, as I have a certain reputation to uphold here. Also the reputation of Britain itself.

My old mucker Andrew Neil, lately of this parish, who lives a few hundred kilometres away on the posh side of the Rhône, disclosed on Twitter the other day that when he wishes to signal virtue, he picks up after his dogs, using Canisacs ordered from Amazon. His point was that it’s an activity preferably observed by others, not just for its virtue, but for its signalling.

Andrew absolutely gets it, other than the Canisacs. I have switched to Pogis, which are far superior, also from Amazon, more expensive but with a deeper pocket, biodegradable and with handles to wrap it up tightly.

Here in my village in southern France of 2,600 humans, there are around 300 dogs, producing between them, I calculate, with aid from ChatGPT, roughly 100kg of poop daily, or 36 tonnes annually. The late Tip O’Neill Jr., former speaker of the US House of Representatives, observed that all politics is local and while he didn’t have it in mind when he said it, dog poop is quintessentially local politics.

From my years as a member of the municipal council, I can verify that voters notice when they walk to the boulangerie for their baguette and the route is an obstacle course. Our mayor is sound on the issue. He has launched a jihad against dog poop and is constantly on patrol on his bicycle, keeping an eye out for those who are not as dutiful as me. I was lucky enough to be observed by him just yesterday, scooping poop outside his house. I waved the bag at him as he passed, to be sure he noticed.

In a country as disrespectful of authority as France, the disposal of dog poop depends on the conscience of dog owners, who often have none. In the nearby city of Béziers, the mayor has ordered dog owners to register a sample of their pet’s DNA with the Hôtel de Ville. Municipal agents now scour the streets for uncollected deposits, identify the culprit using PCR tests, and the amende forfaitaire duly arrives in the post.

Pending arrival of our first Poopcopter, we’re stepping up to the challenge by installing impressive dog-waste stations – bornes de propreté – costing around €300 each, touted by the supplier as ‘an essential in urban planning to ensure canine hygiene.’ They contain a receptacle and a Canisac dispenser, fixed on a mast adorned with a picture of a winsome toutou.

Sadly, numerous dog owners have ignored these. Although eventually the mayor or our diligent municipal police will catch them. What all dogs have in common, from the lowliest rescue hounds to the most adept hunting dogs, is that they all produce stinky waste. At the top of the food chain, but absent here, are the well-coiffed handbag dogs of Paris. So-called because they are transported to their engagement in those oversized handbags that French women refer to as their cinq à sept, containing tout ce qu’il faut for the after-work romantic interlude.

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These bags are also the perfect size for transporting an immaculately-groomed Pomeranian. For many years, one of these creatures would take his lunch daily at the Maison du Caviar in the 8th Arrondissement. He ate at the table, not from the floor. An American woman who complained was invited to leave by the maitre d’. ‘He is a very good customer, Madam.’ I cannot say where this gourmand canine performed his ablutions but I can hardly imagine his elegant owner stooping with a Canisac, although perhaps a more elegant sac can be obtained at Hermès.

The streets of Paris were particularly noxious at the time of observing this incident and although subsequently the city introduced a sort of dog-poop robot pushed around by a dedicated functionary, that aspirates and then disinfects, when I was recently in the capital, not much had changed. Paris definitely needs Poopcopters.

Here in the provinces, I like to think our manners are superior to the Parisians, although even I will admit to cheating, if nobody is looking. My own rule is that any poop on or immediately adjacent to a footpath must be picked up. But at the edge of the urban milieu, where pavements peter out, and the paths are bordered by long grass where nobody will ever walk, it’s less obligatory. I have discussed this with the mayor and he has agreed this is reasonable.

My mongrel Bella is five and full of life. Many years remain of cleaning up after her. Ringo, a lab, is 14 now and not as steady as he was. He sometimes stumbles as we walk through the vines. His throughput remains voluminous although I suspect that the end of my days of picking up after him is numbered. I’ll miss him, and the daily reminder that a visitor from Mars, observing this, might be excused for confusing the nature of the relationship. Dogs might be man’s best friend, but when it comes to their waste, we’re the grooms of the stool, and the dogs the bemused spectators.

An ode to Boden

Way back in the noughties, Charles Moore observed that the Conservatives could learn a lot from the Boden story. ‘An individualistic, non-hierarchical, girly, aspirational, southern, 40 per cent internet-based, middle-class business, laid back but hard-headed. Yet, at the same time, it is quite traditional […] the way of life he is promoting is instinctively conservative’, Moore concluded. Of course, this was back in Boden’s heyday, when the mail-order catalogue company routinely posted an increase in sales year upon year, back when David Cameron was spotted wearing its floral boardshorts on holiday in 2008, and when the company was synonymous with the middle-class good times: drinks at the yacht club on the Isle of Wight, Sunday lunch in Oxfordshire, Christmas parties in the side-return empires of Wandsworth. Founded in 1991 with an inheritance from a childless uncle, Boden soon became a middle-class juggernaut, expanding into the US, France and Germany, all without a single physical shop to its name.

Looking at Johnnie Boden – or Bodger as he is known to his chums – standing in his hot pink linen suit and extraordinary square glasses to collect his CBE at Buckingham Palace last year, it is hard to imagine anybody asking to emulate him. After a series of disastrous wrong moves where the company lost its way (to the tune of £4.4 million) and forgot its base, Johnnie Boden is more likely to appear in a broadsheet features supplement saying sorry in middle-class code – ‘I “effed up”’ or ‘I’m a nitwit’ – for his crimes against Boden Man and Woman. These crimes were severe indeed. By his own admission, Boden became ‘too trendy’ and forgot that Boden Woman only wants to wear something that flatters her waist after three C-sections and makes her feel slightly jazzy on the school run; something in a bright colour with a white frilly collar bolted on top. Boden Man, now being phased out of the offer altogether, certainly didn’t want to wear skinny jeans or trainers, or, heaven forfend, a leather jacket. All he wanted was a blue linen shirt and some swimming trunks that could pass muster in Bembridge or Brancaster without having to pay through the nose for Vilebrequins.

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But although Johnnie Boden may have lost market share, the look he has created is, in my opinion, untouchable, proving that the old-Etonian rag man will always speak to us. Sales figures may rise and fall, but my daughter has received Boden clothes for her birthday every year since she was born, the green and white parcel arriving reassuringly on time with a polite note inside. I can’t speak for Boden Man, but my own wardrobe contains an embarrassing amount of Boden: Breton t-shirts I seem to pair with almost everything, print dresses that I dig out for various christenings and drinks parties with the neighbours, trousers that I can wear on the dog walk and then ‘transition’ into evening. At one point, I even owned a pair of Boden leopard-print stilettos that prompted one male acquaintance to remark that I had all the look of Tory high office, à la Theresa May. Fashion, this is not. Rather, it is sartorial shorthand for a certain way of life, under threat but still jaunty, a bit like Akshata Murty during her Downing Street tenure.

Asked why he didn’t wear tails to Buckingham Palace to collect his CBE, Boden declared that having worn the gear for five years at Eton, ‘he felt it was a backward step’. The pink suit was donned, apparently, in response to a bet from a friend. Some friend. But in reminding us that he could have dug out his school tails in the first place, Boden proves that he’s back talking to the people who want to hear from him, his base proper. Like all good old-Etonians in the public eye – David Cameron, Boris Johnson et al – Boden bides his time, safe in the knowledge that a comeback is never far off. What could the all-but decimated Conservative party learn from Bodger these days? Apologise profusely, get back to basics and make sure you know who it is you’re speaking to. Pink linen suit and square clown glasses optional.

MPs to be given historic vote on assisted dying

Keir Starmer is pressing ahead with his promise to give MPs a free vote on assisted dying laws. This evening, the Labour MP Kim Leadbeater has said she will use her private member’s bill this month to give terminally ill adults a choice at the end of life to shorten their pain and suffering. The bill will be considered later this month, on 16 October, by MPs. The development comes after Downing Street refused to get drawn into reports last month that a vote could be fast-tracked through the Commons and take place before Christmas.

It follows that there was always likely to be a vote on this issue in the next five years. However, the speed at which Starmer is progressing has taken some MPs – including some senior Labour politicians – by surprise. Where Starmer stands on the issue is well documented. He has spoken in the past about the end-of-life struggles his disabled mother endured. In 2015, Starmer, then a Labour backbencher, backed a bill to legalise terminally ill people ending their own life. It failed to win sufficient support, with 118 votes for to 330 against.

This time around, the political landscape looks rather different. The House of Commons is stacked with Labour MPs and new blood. Given this is a conscience issue, it will be a free vote. Starmer has agreed to set aside collective responsibility, allowing ministers and MPs to vote as they wish rather than along party lines. However, some in the Labour party still expect many MPs will know the way the leadership plans to vote and this could influence their own choice.

Ahead of the election, senior Labour politicians discussed the idea of starting a national conversation on the issue. However, this was eventually decided against. Now, that national moral debate will begin – with strong feelings on both sides over the sanctity of human life and whether legalisation could lead to a slippery slope whereby the ill and elderly feel pressurised to end their lives prematurely. Examples abound, such as in Canada where expansion of the policy has had to be paused due to the complexity.

Starmer also has critics close to home. His Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood previously told me she would vote against any proposal: ‘I know some of the MPs who vocally support this issue think, “For God’s sake, we’re not a nation of granny killers, what’s wrong with you”… I feel that once you cross that line, you’ve crossed it forever. If it just becomes the norm that at a certain age or with certain diseases, you are now a bit of a burden… that’s a really dangerous position to be in.’ However, don’t expect Mahmood to repeat those comments any time soon. While it’s a free vote, Simon Case, the Cabinet Secretary, has written to ministers to say they cannot take part in the public debate, as the government’s position is neutral. The debate will have to take place elsewhere.

Listen to Katy’s interview with Shabana Mahmood:

Starmer’s friend revealed as Mauritius’ chief legal adviser

There was national outrage this morning at the news that Sir Keir’s Labour has decided to cede sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius – but perhaps Brits shouldn’t be so shocked by Starmer’s move. It transpires that the Prime Minister is friends with Philippe Sands KC, who also happens to be Mauritius’ chief legal adviser – and a longtime campaigner for the country to control the land. How very curious…

As revealed by Guido Fawkes, Sands has slaved away in international courts to successfully convince the lefty lot to give away the strategically important cluster of islands in the Indian Ocean. In January, the legal adviser informed parliament that:

As a member of the Bar of England and Wales I have acted as counsel to Mauritius since 2010 in relation to the Chagos Archipelago. As such, I have been involved in the proceedings before the Annex VII arbitral tribunal (2010-2015), the International Court of Justice (ICJ, 2017-2019) and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS, 2019-2023). I continue to advise the Government of Mauritius.

In March, Sands addressed the Foreign Affairs Sub-Committee on the Overseas Territories on the very issue of the Chagos Islands, insisting:

As a matter of international law, the situation today is crystal clear: Mauritius is recognised to have sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago, and the UK is considered to have no rights over that territory, or even a claim. Accordingly, this is not a situation in which it would be appropriate or correct for the Sub-Committee to make reference to any future transfer of sovereignty by the United Kingdom: the United Kingdom has no sovereignty to transfer.

Crikey. The reasons behind the controversial move are starting to become a little clearer now, eh? It’s handy having friends in high places…

Police Scotland slammed over leaked Isla Bryson memo

The end of Nicola Sturgeon’s premiership was mired in controversy over her plans for trans rights, her botched gender reform bill and the rather disturbing revelation that trans rapist Isla Bryson had been housed in a women’s prison. And now it has emerged that Police Scotland even considered logging Bryson as female on the sex offenders’ register. Good heavens…

Bryson, who was jailed for raping two women while known as a man, changed gender while waiting to stand trial. In a rather shocking move, the rapist was subsequently sent to Scotland’s female-only Cornton Vale prison by the Scottish Prison Service while awaiting sentencing. The blunder came to light at the same time as Sturgeon was attempting to pass legislation to make it easier to allow people to legally change gender – and, after immense backlash, Bryson was moved to a male facility.

While Police Scotland insisted last week that rapists won’t be allowed to self-ID as women – with Chief Constable Jo Farrell remarking ‘you can only commit that crime as a man’ – a leaked document seen by Sky News suggests that hasn’t always been the force’s attitude. An internal 2023 memo, ‘Sex and Gender’, considered how Bryson could be dealt with after leaving prison. The file described how Bryson could be registered as ‘female’ in the sex offenders’ list and the crime database, noting:

When this individual comes back into contact with Police Scotland it would likely be a public protection matter in the management of sex offenders. In this instance they may be recorded as a female with the name Isla Bryson however the trans history would be appropriate to be retained on relevant policing systems.

Crikey. Farrell has been adamant the force has always believed that only men can commit the crime – insisting this ‘isn’t a different position’ from any expressed previously – but the new leak raises rather serious questions about it all. For its part, Police Scotland stated: ‘The chief constable addressed the matter of gender self-identification at the Scottish Police Authority board in September 2024, during which Police Scotland committed to a broader review.’ But that hasn’t exactly placated everyone. Deputy leader of the Scottish Tories, Rachael Hamilton, slammed the force over the ‘jaw-dropping revelation’, fuming: ‘Police bosses and SNP ministers must urgently come clean as to why this insulting, out-of-touch policy was ever adopted, and reassure the public that it has been ditched for good.’ Quite.

Tugendhat clashes with Cleverly over Chagos Islands

With less than a week to go until MPs vote in the Tory leadership race, a row has blown up over an unlikely cause. A quarrel in a far away country is causing a rupture between the two men whom most colleagues think could be next to go out: Tom Tugendhat and James Cleverly. Both are fishing in the same waters for votes on the centre and left of the party. Of the two, Cleverly was perceived as having given the better speech yesterday at Tory conference. But the government’s decision to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius could revive old fears about Cleverly’s judgement.

Following the announcement this morning, the Shadow Home Secretary rushed to condemn the news. He declared that it showed ‘weak, weak, weak’ government, adding ‘Labour lied to get into office. Said they’d be whiter than white, said they wouldn’t put up taxes, said they’d stand up to the EU, said that they be patriotic. All lies!’ Yet, as others were quick to point out, it was in November 2022 that negotiations over the future of the islands first began between the Foreign Office and their Mauritian counterparts. The Foreign Secretary at the time? James Cleverly.

He told MPs on 3 November 2022 that:

Following the meeting between the then Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), and Prime Minister Jugnauth at the UN General Assembly, the UK and Mauritius have decided to begin negotiations on the exercise of sovereignty over the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT)/Chagos archipelago… The UK and Mauritius have agreed to engage in constructive negotiations, with a view to arriving at an agreement by early next year.

Admittedly, Cleverly did not sign off the talks in his fifteen months at the Foreign Office – unlike David Lammy who has done so after three. But Tom Tugendhat has not been slow to point out that Cleverly did nothing to stop talks progressing. Shortly after the government’s announcement today, he called it a ‘shameful retreat’ but added that ‘it was disgraceful that these negotiations started under our watch.’ He went further on the World At One, telling the BBC:

I objected to these negotiations happening when they began in November ’22. I objected on many occasions. This is another area where I’m afraid we see legalism replacing leadership and we saw this legalism in the Foreign Office in November ’22 when the Foreign Office was pushing for this and nobody stopped it until finally, we got leadership under Lord Cameron.

The conclusion is obvious: Tugendhat thinks Cleverly was either unwilling or unable to stand up to civil servants over the future of the islands. It is a charge which resonates with the private concerns of some Tory MPs who fear that Cleverly did not challenge advice from officials in successive government briefs. Supporters of the Braintree MP argue that this is unfair. They point to his success in cutting migration at the Home Office and suggest that his willingness to champion, rather than denigrate, civil servants helped mend relations after the unhappy tenure of Suella Braverman.

But it was perhaps notable that on Sunday, when asked by Trevor Phillips whether Israel had ‘crossed any red lines this week’, Cleverly refused to be drawn, arguing he could not answer without being in possession of the full facts. ‘Because we are in opposition,’ he said, ‘I am no longer able to access the detailed reporting that I did when I was Foreign Secretary and when I was Home Secretary’. For some, such an answer will speak to Cleverly’s honesty and self-awareness; for others, it will suggest an overreliance on the civil service machine.

It will be up to Tory MPs to draw their own conclusions about the merits of the four candidates. But given that Cleverly is keen to present himself as a safe pair of hands, supporters of Tom Tugendhat will note how eagerly he rushed to attack Labour on the Chagos Islands – despite his own record here. Rival MPs have already started sharing screenshots from Hansard of Cleverly’s statement from November 2022.

With both men polling 21 votes each last month, every misstep will be scrutinised by the handful of MPs deciding which of Cleverly or Tugendhat would be best placed to face the members.

Watch more on SpectatorTV:

Kamala Harris embraces a Liz-Cheney-sized mistake

Welcome to Thunderdome. Liz Cheney is campaigning with Kamala Harris today in Wisconsin at Ripon, known as the birthplace of the Republican Party at the Little White Schoolhouse. It was there in 1854 at a church meeting that Whig and Free Soil Party members gathered to form a “great irresistible Northern party, organized on the single issue of the non-extension of slavery.” This was even then pretty aggressive language for the Episcopalian who called the meeting, but not for Horace Greeley, who publicized it to the nation. Whatever Liz Cheney says today about how important it is to elect Kamala Harris will no doubt equal the historical significance of that moment, at least according to Rachel Maddow. But I’m here to tell you that this is actually important and matters a great deal in understanding 2024 — just not for the reasons the media will tell you it does.

One of the most consistent polling truths of the 2024 cycle has been a steady decline in the salience of Democratic warnings, leaned into so heavily by Joe Biden, that the re-election of Donald Trump is a threat to democracy. In fact, the “democracy is on the ballot” language has now reached a point where both parties, along with independents, share fears about the future of the republic for very different reasons. 

At the conclusion of Tuesday’s vice-presidential debate, CBS’s moderators teed up one last softball to try to help a flailing, saucer-eyed Tim Walz, giving him the opportunity to run through a bullet point list of January 6-related fears. Democrats fear that Donald Trump will make himself a king or an emperor, ginned up by once-respectable institutions like the Atlantic and never-respectable fearmongers that populate the panels of MSNBC and CNN, many with “former FBI” in their chyrons. 

But Republicans are also fearful about the issues associated with the aggressive lawfare of Democrats — not just against Trump, but against them and their ideological allies by the soul-crushing power of bureaucracy and out-of-control legal authorities. (Just this week, California Democrats announced they’ll be suing a Catholic hospital for sending a patient to another hospital because they don’t perform abortions after a heartbeat is detected.) And Independents, along with many Republicans, are particularly concerned about free speech, with the government under Biden and Harris relying on an alliance between Big Government and Big Tech using the power of Silicon Valley to shut down speech by many people expressing contrarian views, including the likes of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and others. 

The fact that Walz responded to that same final question to advance his ignorant and utterly unconstitutional view, falsely claiming in response to JD Vance that, “You can’t yell fire in a crowded theater. That’s the test. That’s the Supreme court test,” will not allay any of those fears. And given that he’s previously said there’s no First Amendment protection for “hate speech,” it’s indicative of a pattern of anti-speech sentiment, as Jonathan Turley notes in USA Today here.

Enter Liz Cheney. The scion of the ideological father of the PATRIOT Act, Liz entered politics with big dreams of going straight from the swamp to the Senate. Her 2013 announcement that she was running for Senate in Wyoming was geotagged to “McLean, Virginia.” In her brief campaign, reporter Jon Ward noticed her hands were stained because she was wearing brand-new blue jeans on the trail. And so desperate was she to gain social conservative support, she even rejected her own sister, Mary, over her gay marriage. It was all for naught: incumbent senator Mike Enzi had been weighing retirement, but, perturbed at the younger Cheney’s audacity, resolved to run again. Liz had to drop out and settle for an open House seat two years later. So sad!

For the next few years, Cheney played the part of a loyal Republican in the public eye, going on TV in the 2020 cycle to decry the Democratic ticket — including Kamala Harris. “Kamala Harris is a radical liberal and supports dangerous policies that would devastate millions of Americans,” she said, and posted: “Kamala Harris is a radical liberal who would raise taxes, take away guns & health insurance, and explode the size and power of the federal gov’t. She wants to recreate America in the image of what’s happening on the streets of Portland & Seattle. We won’t give her the chance.” Now she’s in Wisconsin dedicating herself to ensuring Kamala has the chance to make that a reality.

Here’s the problem: by leaning into the Liz Cheney factor, and prominently citing Dick Cheney’s endorsement (plus Taylor Swift!) as Walz did in the debate, the Harris-Walz effort is falling into the trap of starting the final month of their campaign appealing to voters they already have. There isn’t a single undecided voter out there who Liz Cheney’s presence on the trail will convince to be newly opposed to Trump. The MSNBC fans are already well-versed in all of this stuff, and the January 6 cudgel — used to very limited degrees of success in 2022 — is duller than Andy Dufresne’s rock hammer. 

Think about it this way: The voters are consistently telling you they care deeply about a handful of issues — the economy, immigration, crime and security around the world — and you’re closing out your campaign linking arms with Liz Cheney, a once and current swamp creature whose most prominent factors are her association with global warmongering, government crackdowns on speech and an obsession with relitigating January 6?

If you want to win Wisconsin, you don’t go there with an appeal doubling down on the voters you already have, touting a has-been ex-Republican with all the baggage that helps the Trump-Vance campaign depict you as someone tied to elite out-of-touch insiders, who cares more about satisfying Rachel Maddow than the needs of working families today. But that’s what Kamala Harris is doing. Paired with Walz’s performance in the debate, the Harris-Walz campaign is now winning the battle to determine who’s more online. And that’s the quickest path to end up just like Liz: a political loser.

Fallout from Walz’s failure

Politico on Democratic response: a missed opportunity.

Tim Walz was supposed to cut through the political nonsense to speak plainly to Americans about out-of-touch Republicans. But instead, some Democrats were alarmed by his performance at Tuesday’s debate and said he failed to capitalize on his opponents’ weaknesses.

Despite days of debate prep and weeks of delivering savaging critiques of former President Donald Trump on the campaign trail, they say Walz at times struggled to concisely argue why Vice President Kamala Harris would be a better president. Some Democrats were deflated after a clearly nervous Walz tripped over his words. Even Walz’s debate-night surrogates appeared somewhat surprised at how civil the governor was.

“Tim Walz was extra Minnesota nice,” said DNC Chair Jaime Harrison, when asked in an interview immediately after the debate whether Walz was forceful enough.

A swing-state Democratic strategist put it more bluntly: “I definitely think it was a missed opportunity.”

“That is not the appearance and debate you would want,” said the strategist, who was granted anonymity to speak frankly about Walz. “[JD] Vance got away with a lot.”

Neither campaign can afford a high-profile stumble with fewer than thirty-five days left before Election Day, and while Tuesday’s debate wasn’t a disaster for Walz by any stretch, the general assessment was that the Minnesota governor didn’t deliver and “take on Vance and some of his lies,” as one Pennsylvania Democratic strategist said.

Left unsaid was why Walz didn’t deploy attack lines he used effectively on the campaign trail, including painting Vance as an out-of-touch “venture capitalist” who has previously complained that “childless cat ladies” are ruling the US, or that GOP efforts to dictate what Americans can do in the privacy of their own bedrooms are “weird.”

“It was more congenial than I thought it would be, for sure,” Representative Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) said in an interview. Crockett added there was “a lot of pressure” for Walz, who had never faced such a high level of national scrutiny.

An estimated 43 million people tuned in to see Walz’s poor performance, making it roughly equivalent to an NFL playoff game. And the immediate aftermath has had Walz dancing around his “fish tales”, demonstrating an inability to put concerns regarding fabulist claims about his life to rest. Privately, some Democrats are wishing Harris had chosen Josh Shapiro instead. If she loses in Pennsylvania, they’ll be saying it even louder post-election.

Is the Trump-Vance abortion spin working?

Trump and Vance are counting on pro-life voters to stay in the fold, even as they skew toward the center. Democrats are concerned it might work.

Trump and Vance’s efforts on the debate stage and on social media Tuesday night were the latest examples of the GOP ticket’s months-long effort to neutralize one of Democrats’ most effective lines of attack and rebrand as moderate on abortion, and there are signs it might be working.

Recent polling in several battleground states shows that many who support abortion rights — and plan to vote for state-level protections for the procedure — also plan to cast their vote for Trump despite his self-professed leading role in overturning Roe v. Wade. And with the presidential race locked within the margin of error a month out from the election, the GOP’s ability to peel off even a sliver of undecided or Democratic-leaning voters could make a difference in November.

“I’m sure JD Vance put the fear in Democratic consultants last night because their magic message of ‘Republicans are bad on abortion’ seemed, to me, to be mitigated,” said Stan Barnes, an Arizona strategist and former GOP lawmaker. “For a lot of voters, I think the threat of a national ban rings hollow.”

Democrats and abortion-rights groups are denouncing Vance and Trump’s remarks as semantic games and misinformation — pointing to the myriad ways the Trump administration previously reduced access to abortion through executive actions and court appointments and to the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 and other plans Trump allies have pushed to eliminate most abortions.

That’s one reason you’ll see headlines emphasizing that you can’t trust Republicans on abortion as we see today in NBC, Time and Vanity Fair — despite the fact that it’s Walz’s record that is the radical one according to any national polling on the question:

O’Donnell: “Former President Trump said in the last debate that you believe abortion ‘in the ninth month’ is absolutely fine. … Is that what you support?” 

Walz: “That’s not what the bill says.” 

Walz’s claim is false.

Walz has not publicly expressed personal support for late-term abortions, but his claim that Minnesota legislation does not allow for abortion in the ninth month of pregnancy is unfounded. In 2023, Walz signed a bill that established the right to abortion in Minnesota with no gestational limits. As the Dispatch Fact Checkreported previously:

Earlier in 2023, Walz signed legislation enshrining the right to abortion into Minnesota law following the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade. The new statute established that “Every individual who becomes pregnant has a fundamental right to … obtain an abortion,” and did not include any restrictions or prohibitions. Minnesota currently has no statutory limits on abortion at any stage of pregnancy.

One more thing

I’ve been harping on the ludicrous uselessness of The Drudge Report this cycle, which — whether it’s even still run by him or not — has apparently decided the path to please corporate advertisers is to downplay Trump’s chances and boost first Biden then Harris all the time, no matter what. The morning after Tim Walz’s disastrous debate performance, Drudge’s headlines would’ve even raised the eyebrows of critics like Jake Tapper: “Vance-Walz Debate Dull… JD eyeliner steals spotlight… Vance refuses to admit The Don lost 2020 election… Trump mixes up words, swerves among subjects in off-topic speech… Backs Out of 60 MINS Interview; Breaks with 50 Year Tradition…” That fedora sure is spinning fast! And his old friend Ann Coulter has taken notice, writing today: “Whoever bought the Drudge Report isn’t fooling anyone.” It’s a real shame to see a once-useful site go completely off the rails, but at least it’s one more place you can ignore without missing anything.