Politics

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

Stephen Fry could do with a lesson in ‘radicalisation’

Stephen Fry has accused J.K. Rowling of being ‘inflammatory and contemptuous’, ‘mocking’ and adding to ‘a terribly distressing time for trans people’. Fry, who narrated the Harry Potter audiobooks, has damned their author for saying ‘cruel’ and ‘wrong’ things and for failing to ‘disavow some of the more revolting and truly horrible, destructive – violently destructive – things that people say’. He suspects that she’s been ‘radicalised by Terfs’, charged her with kicking up ‘a hornet’s nest of transphobia which has been entirely destructive’, and dismissed her as ‘a lost cause’. Might I interrupt this lengthy damnatio memoriae to point out that Fry is supposed to be Rowling’s friend and

Steerpike

RAF Brize Norton chief’s views on patriotism revealed

On Thursday night, a group of Palestine Action protestors managed to enter RAF Brize Norton, spraying paint into a pair of Voyager jet engines and leaving the military base without being caught. The Prime Minister has since called it ‘vandalism’ and there has been talk of proscribing Palestine Action. But Mr S wants to know how they managed to get onto the base in the first place. The protesters videoed themselves on scooters, zooming about the runway, seemingly without a single soldier noticing them. It’s a major embarrassment, not just for the military but for the country – especially at a time of heightened global tensions. If some keffiyeh-wearing hippies can

James Heale

Tories will remember this assisted dying vote

‘I judge a man by one thing, which side would he have liked his ancestors to fight on at Marston Moor?’ So said Isaac Foot, the Liberal MP and father of Michael. For some Tories, both in and out of parliament, Friday’s assisted dying debate will carry a similar weight in judgements of character. Some 80 per cent of Tory MPs voted against Kim Leadbeater’s Bill at Third Reading, with 92 against, 20 in favour and five registered abstentions. Of the 25-strong new intake, elected last year, just four backed Leadbeater’s Bill: Aphra Brandreth, Peter Bedford, Ashley Fox and Neil Shastri-Hurst. Social conservatives note that the Tories were much more

Dan Hitchens

Could the House of Lords block the assisted suicide bill?

Could the House of Lords block the assisted suicide bill, which was approved by the Commons yesterday? It would be pretty unusual for the Lords to do so. But then nothing about the bill has been usual. Proponents like to compare Kim Leadbeater’s bill to the big private member’s bills of the 60s on abortion, homosexuality and the death penalty. One difference is that those bills cleared the Commons with huge, commanding majorities. This bill was dragged over the finish line by a very small margin – just 23 votes – and amid a stream of defections from yes to no. In the seven months since the Commons first debated

Today

21 Jun 2025

Edward Stringer

Let’s call Palestine Action’s RAF attack what it is: sabotage

It might be a little unfair to pick on Lisa Nandy – who was bounced on Radio 4’s Today programme yesterday morning and who, to be fair, did condemn unequivocally the actions of the Palestine Action cadres who attacked two of the 14 Voyager aircraft that form the Royal Air Force’s strategic tanker force. But her extemporised response betrayed annoyance at ‘choices’ over a protest before, correctly, reminding the audience that this was about national security. And it certainly is. These aircraft are vital to our national defence. They refuel the air-defence fighters that patrol the thousands of square miles of the airspace over the North Atlantic that is our

Ian Williams

Why is China rushing to grow its nuclear arsenal?

China is growing its nuclear arsenal at a faster pace than any other country on the planet, according to new figures from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). It estimates that Beijing now has more than 600 nuclear warheads and is adding about 100 per year to its stockpile. That means that by 2035, it will have more than 1,500 warheads, still only a third of the arsenal of each of Russia and the US, but nevertheless an enormous increase and a marked shift away from its proclaimed policy of ‘minimum deterrence’. To facilitate this expanding arsenal, China is building fields of new missile silos in its western desert

Senay Boztas

Is Dutch tolerance dying?

Campaigners across southern Europe are protesting against ‘touristification’. Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, wealthy expats are in the firing line. Businesses in Amsterdam could be asked to foot the bill for local housing if they employ highly-skilled internationals. Alongside paranoia about asylum seekers, there is a rising feeling that expats and even holidaymakers are unwelcome in parts of the continent. The Netherlands was once an outward-looking, tolerant, trader nation. Is that still the case? It’s not much fun to live in a place – or even visit somewhere – that resents your presence, especially if you have bothered to learn the local language and swallowed the high tax rates that fund

Naomi Firsht

What’s wrong with sleep-training your baby?

Bouncing up and down on a ball. Playing heavy metal music. Sleeping in the bedroom doorway. These are some of the desperate lengths parents resort to in order to get their children to sleep at bedtime. It sounds mad. Yet none of this will come as a surprise to parents with young children. My own four-year-old only drifts off to sleep if we both become cats for the final few minutes of bedtime. I am then obliged to say good night to him in ‘cat’: ‘Miaow, miaow-miaow’ – in case you were wondering. Still, once this is done, he does then fall asleep on his own, in his own bed,

Mohamed A. El-Erian

Cambridge’s next Chancellor must prioritise free speech

Writing in these pages, the venerable Charles Moore argued that, rather than holding an election (as is currently the case), Cambridge needs to appoint a Chancellor who is unspeakably grand, rich, and disinterested. I would respectfully suggest a reframing. If Cambridge is to continue to thrive as an institution that upholds the best of its traditions, innovates, and improves the wellbeing of so many, it needs an active and engaged Chancellor to meet the challenges of a new era; and that Chancellor will only deliver on what is required if they have the backing of the majority of the Cambridge electorate. (For full disclosure, I am standing in this election

Jim Lawley

Spain’s Pedro Sanchez won’t limp on for long

Ahead of next week’s Nato summit in The Hague, Spain’s socialist prime minister has refused to increase his country’s defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP. Pedro Sánchez says that the increase, championed by President Trump and backed by Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte, is ‘unreasonable’. His refusal has disrupted preparations for the summit at which all the allies were to be asked to commit to the 5 per cent target. Spain, currently the lowest spender on defence in Nato, recently pledged to increase from 1.3 to 2 per cent of GDP. To increase to 5 per cent would cost a further €80 billion (£68 billion) a year, Sánchez

James Heale

Jeremy Hunt on Trump, Budgets and Welsh whisky

18 min listen

On this week’s special Saturday edition of Coffee House Shots, James Heale sits down with Jeremy Hunt to discuss his new book, Can We Be Great Again?. The former chancellor and foreign secretary argues that Britain remains one of the world’s most influential nations – but is in danger of losing its nerve. He reflects on working in the Foreign Office during Donald Trump’s first term, makes the case for the BBC as a tool of soft power, and admits he wanted to be the first chancellor since 1997 to deliver a Budget with a whisky in hand. Produced by Oscar Edmondson and Patrick Gibbons.

Yesterday

20 Jun 2025

Steerpike

Poll: majority of Brits think small boats unstoppable

Summer is here! And you know what gorgeous weather means: more small boats crossing the Channel. Get ready for the great Starmada in the coming weeks, as thousands more migrants prepare to sail the 21 miles from Calais to Dover. The current crisis has been going on since 2018, when Sajid Javid – the-then Home Secretary – felt the need to cut short his holiday after 100 migrants crossed in a 24-hour period. Those were the days… Now Mr S has got some polling and it seems that the public are accepting these crossings as inevitable. A survey done by Merlin Strategy of 2,000 UK adults between 17 and 18

Melanie McDonagh

Diane Abbott’s masterful Assisted Dying speech will come back to haunt us

If yours is a sentimental bent, you’ll have been terrifically moved by the spectacle of Jess Phillips MP giving Kim Leadbeater a big hug after the Assisted Dying Bill was passed. Ms Leadbeater has a tendency to look agonised at the best of times. When MPs paid tribute to her in the course of the debate for her compassion, she looked as if she was on the verge of bursting into tears. Now, it’ll be tears of joy – at least for her. I should right now retract all the unkind things I have ever said about Diane Abbott Quite how this reaction, and the hugs, can be elicited by

James Heale

MPs back assisted dying: what next?

13 min listen

MPs have voted – by a narrow 23-vote margin – in favour of legalising assisted dying. Bizarrely, the 51.9 to 48.1 per cent breakdown is the exact same as the 2016 referendum result, although hopefully this issue doesn’t divide the Labour party in the same way that Brexit did for the Tories. The whole process is far from ‘Parliament at its best’, as it has often been claimed. Despite hours of passionate and emotional debate, key concerns about the drafting of the bill forced some who would naturally back assisted dying to oppose it. The overwhelming feeling is that a private member’s bill was not the right forum for this

Madeline Grant

‘Grim’ Kim Leadbeater’s assisted dying triumph is a bleak day for parliament

The portents this morning were grim. The Grim Leadreaper was doing her HR manager of Hades act, buzzing around with faux sincerity like a wasp that had discovered LGBT History Month. Jess Phillips took a great huff on her vape in the lobby before walking into the chamber. Perhaps it was sulphur flavour. Inside the House of Commons the obviously sham last-minute ‘switcher’ Jack Abbott from the bill committee, as spineless a backbench toady as you ever did see, was there being all chummy with the unparalleled toad Jake Richards. Were they bonding perhaps over their new-found enthusiasm for death? It was Brokeback Mountain meets The Zone of Interest. Voting

James Heale

Commons passes the assisted dying bill

The House of Commons has voted in favour of assisted dying by a narrow majority of 23. After four and a half hours of debate, MPs this afternoon backed Kim Leadbeater’s bill by 314 votes to 291. That is a marked drop in support from the legislation’s second reading in November, when MPs endorsed it with a majority of 55. The bill will now go to the House of Lords, where peers will scrutinise it. In the Lords, peers have mixed feelings Today’s debate was striking for the number of considered speeches made across the House. Diane Abbott spoke for a sizeable chunk of MPs when she said she backed

Coffee House

How did your MP vote on the assisted dying bill?

This afternoon, the assisted dying bill has passed with a majority of 23 votes, with 314 in favour and 291 against. The last few months have seen both heartfelt debate and outbursts of anger expressed from politicians across the Chamber as Labour MP Kim Leadbeater’s controversial private members bill made its passage through the Commons. While the bill has passed today, it hasn’t been plain sailing. A number of legal and medical professionals have been vocal in expressing their concerns about the proposed legislation, while so many amendments were tabled by politicians that not all of them were able to be heard. Leadbeater has been criticised for flip-flopping on how

Eliot Wilson

Palestine Action’s RAF vandalism was no protest

Members of an activist group called Palestine Action have broken into the Royal Air Force’s largest base, RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, and vandalised two Airbus Voyager refuelling aircraft. With breathless self-congratulation, the organisation said its members ‘used electric scooters to swiftly manoeuvre towards the planes’, sprayed red paint into the turbine engines and used crowbars to damage the fuselages of the aircraft. The red paint, of course, is symbolic of Palestinian bloodshed. If you are wondering why RAF aircraft in Oxfordshire were targeted by a group concerned with events in the Middle East, allow Palestine Action to remove the scales from your eyes: ‘Despite publicly condemning the Israeli government, Britain

John Jenkins

Has the Islamophobia ‘Working Group’ already made up its mind?

Sir John Jenkins was invited by the Government-appointed ‘Working Group’ to offer his views on a proposed definition of ‘Islamophobia’. Here is his response to Dominic Grieve, the Group’s chair: Dear Dominic Grieve, It is kind of you to seek my views on ‘whether a definition [of Islamophobia] would be helpful‘. I have some fundamental reservations about both the process you are overseeing and its likely trajectory. I owe you the courtesy of explaining what these are. I remain unconvinced that anything I might say would make a difference to the Working Group on Anti Muslim Hatred/ Islamophobia Definition’s deliberations. But I am always open to being persuaded otherwise. The charge of special treatment may in fact

Isabel Hardman

The assisted dying debate is not ‘Parliament at its best’

MPs are coming to the end of the assisted dying debate. The speeches can be roughly divided into the following camps: those who, like the Bill’s sponsor Kim Leadbeater, are very much in favour of the Bill and confident in its drafting; those who are in favour of the principle of assisted dying but who are so concerned about the drafting of the Bill that they are opposed to it; and the implacable opponents to the principle. The speeches from the latter two camps largely focused on the argument that today’s vote is not about the principle of assisted dying but about the Bill as it stands. The proponents of

Steerpike

Will Emily Maitlis now apologise to Rupert Lowe?

The News Agents podcasters appear increasingly less focused on facts and more on taking a pop at people who hold different views to them. Ex-Reform man Rupert Lowe was a recent casualty. He was invited onto the podcast to speak to Maitlis – who wasted no time in tearing into him, going so far as to suggest the independent parliamentarian was ‘racist’ after he spoke about Pakistani grooming gangs. But after the publication of Baroness Casey’s review this week, it would appear Maitlis is due a rather large slice of humble pie… On the episode, Maitlis asked Lowe quizzically: ‘Why do you only talk about Pakistani grooming gangs? There are

Lucy Dunn

Ewing snubs SNP ahead of Holyrood election

With less than 11 months to go until the Holyrood election, things aren’t looking quite as rosy for the SNP as in previous elections. The party is 15 points down on where it was 2021, it lost the recent Hamilton by-election with Reform hot on its heels and now it has been dealt another blow. SNP veteran Fergus Ewing has confirmed that he will run as an independent at the 2026 Scottish parliament election, turning his back on a political institution he has represented in Holyrood for over a quarter of a century. It’s quite the move from a politician who grew up as SNP royalty, being the son of

Oscar Edmondson

What you need to know ahead of the assisted dying vote

14 min listen

It’s a historic day in Westminster, where MPs will vote on the assisted dying bill – the outcome of which could have huge repercussions for healthcare, politics and the courts. It’s such a significant day, in fact, that we’ll be recording another podcast just after the result is announced at around 2.30 p.m. Kim Leadbeater’s camp remains confident that the bill will pass, although many anticipate a much closer vote than at the second reading. This is in no small part due to high-profile members of the party being opposed to the legislation, and Keir Starmer remaining characteristically evasive on the issue. The backdrop, of course, is the resignation of

Alexander Kolyandr

Has Putin pushed the Russian economy to its limits?

The remarkable resurgence the Russian economy has experienced since Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is losing momentum. Where once Putin could boast about 4.3 per cent growth rates for two years in a row – thumbing his nose at Western sanctions with all the aplomb of a man who’d discovered alchemy – the numbers now tell a somewhat different story. The party, as they say, is over – and the time to crank up sanctions against Moscow has come. For two years running, Putin’s propagandists have crowed about Russia’s economic vitality as proof that Western sanctions were about as effective as a chocolate teapot. The economy’s steroid-fuelled growth, pumped up