Politics

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

Monday

4 Nov 2024

Laura Trott’s Commons debut gives a clue to Kemi’s tactics

What difference has Kemi Badenoch’s victory made to the way the party talks about education? Badenoch doesn’t want to make policy straight away, having stood on a platform promising a fundamental rethink of what the Conservatives stand for. Today’s Education Questions in the Commons suggested that in the meantime, she wants her frontbenchers to put their efforts into defending the party’s legacy. Laura Trott had been appointed to the shadow education secretary brief just hours before the question session, along with Neil O’Brien in the shadow minister of state role. Her first contribution was to ask about early years funding and whether it would increase in line with the hike

Andrew Tettenborn

Raising university tuition fees will only delay the inevitable

Universities in the UK desperately needed Bridget Phillipson’s announcement this afternoon of a rise in tuition fees. The Education Secretary has said they will rise from £9,250, to £9,535 next year and £10,500 by 2029. This was necessary if only to offset the effect of last week’s Budget announcement of a 1.2 per cent rise in employers’ NI and the reduction in the threshold at which it becomes payable; that alone will saddle them with extra costs of just under £400 million a year. What is unsustainable is the number of students the state chooses to support All this aside, the institutions are already in deep trouble. Fees for domestic

Kate Andrews

Is the last minute momentum really with Kamala Harris?

36 min listen

As the 2024 US election goes into the final day, a poll giving Kamala Harris a lead in the historically Republican state of Iowa has bolstered the Democrats. Is momentum really with her? And what appears to be the most important issue to voters – the economy, or abortion rights? Guest host Kate Andrews speaks to John Rick MacArthur, president and publisher of Harper’s Magazine, about his views on America’s election process from postal voting, trust in the system, and whether the electoral college needs reform. Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

Michael Simmons

Could ADHD bankrupt English councils?

Every time a chancellor sits down after delivering their budget, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) releases their ‘economic and fiscal outlook’. What seems a boringly-named Whitehall document is actually a treasure trove of information about the state of the country. It reveals more about how we live our lives – and what lies ahead, than perhaps any other document apart from the decennial census. Buried within its pages are harbingers of the problems future governments will face. Page 129 of the nearly 200-page document carries one such alarming warning: a huge surge in the amount local authorities are likely to have to provide to fund children with special educational

Katy Balls and James Heale

Team Badenoch: A guide to the new shadow cabinet

The result is in. Kemi Badenoch is the new leader of the Conservative party. She faces a daunting task trying to transform the party, following its worst ever defeat earlier this year. The new Tory leader won with 56.5 per cent of the vote with her rival Robert Jenrick on 43.5 per cent. So, who will be the key players in ‘Team Badenoch’? She faces an uphill task on funding, campaigns, staffing and party management. In the aftermath of July’s election defeat, and a drop-off in party donations, Conservative Campaign Headquarters (CCHQ) has been forced to cut back on staff numbers. Meanwhile, there aren’t that many Conservative MPs to choose

Steerpike

Scots revealed to be biggest Trump fans in western Europe

In a rather surprising development, it transpires that Scottish people are Donald Trump’s biggest fans in Europe. A Norstat poll for the Times has revealed that support for the US presidential candidate is higher north of the border than in the rest of the UK – and indeed western Europe. Who’d have thought it, eh? According to the survey, a quarter of Scottish adults back the former president for the win this week – while, of the rest of the country, just 16 per cent would throw their weight behind the ex-businessman. Italy is closest behind the Scots in terms of Trump hype, with 24 per cent of Italians hoping

Rod Liddle

Why does ITV hate Trump?

It would be consoling to think that the BBC, alone among our supposedly unpartisan TV news providers, is guilty of hopelessly biased coverage of the US presidential election. This would conform to the increasingly popular notion that Auntie is in a place beyond redemption, unique in its iniquities. That notion may be true, but it is not true of its US election coverage. All of the news providers have been biased and the BBC is probably one of the least egregious of offenders. It would seem to me that all the broadcasters broadly concur that a second Trump presidency would be a disaster for the US, for democracy and for

James Kirkup

Should GPs make a profit?

The Budget has started a fight between the government and GPs. As is often the case with doctors, that fight is about money, but there is also something even more valuable at stake: the proper public understanding of general practice and the NHS. When I ran a thinktank, I kept a list of things I wished the public understood about government and public policy. Top of the list was: ‘No, your state pension isn’t funded by your own National Insurance payments – it’s funded from the taxes of today’s workers.’ Health got lots of entries on the list too: Thanks to Darren Jones, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, that

Steerpike

Labour’s tuition fee U-turn

Dear oh dear. It now transpires that Starmer’s army will increase university fees in line with inflation from September next year, as announced by Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson in the Commons today. It’s the first hike to tuition fees in eight years after university payments have remained frozen at £9,250 a year since 2017 – and accompanies growing concern about the financial state of the country’s higher education institutions. The move, which Phillipson says is the ‘first step’ to reform of the sector, comes after Russell Group universities complained that the tuition fee cap means that they make a £4,000 loss per UK student – and will be accompanied by

Oscar Edmondson

Who will make up Kemi’s shadow cabinet?

12 min listen

Kemi Badenoch is the new leader of the opposition, and we have an early indication of who will make up her shadow cabinet. She has already chosen her chief whip in loyalist Rebecca Harris; Nigel Huddleston and Dominic Johnson will be party chairman; Laura Trott will be shadow education secretary; Neil O’Brien will be shadow minister for education – crucially, a Jenrick backer. Is she going for party unity? Who will take the top jobs in team Badenoch? Also on the podcast, it’s anything-but-the-budget-week for Labour, who are trying to move the agenda along from last week’s fiscal event with a raft of announcements. Today, the prime minister unveiled his

Leon Mangasarian

How Germany became the sick man of Europe

Vertrauen ist gut, Kontrolle ist besser – trust is good, control is better – is a popular German saying. It’s also the state’s motto for overseeing Europe’s biggest economy, which is now being run into the ground. Germany’s economy is officially expected to shrink in 2024 for the second year in a row. Berlin’s Social Democratic Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his Greens Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck, who are fighting for their political lives as their coalition crumbles around them, are to blame. Only one German sector is growing: the state. Government consumption grew by 2.8 per cent from mid-2023 to mid-2024. Dealing with bureaucracy costs German business €67 billion (£55 billion)

Geoff Hill

A fragile democracy has bloomed in Botswana

There’s been a momentous election in Africa, Botswana to be exact. Not heard about it? Don’t be surprised. The British and US media have all but ignored the story or got it wrong in the run-up. Even the BBC barely mentioned it though they bang on about Israel to such a degree you’d think the war was in Guernsey instead of Gaza. On 30 October, Botswana held a general election as they have every five years since independence from Britain in 1966. Of all the countries in Africa, it’s the only one that’s never had a coup or a period of autocratic rule. But since 1966, the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP)

Steerpike

Guardian removes Israeli whisky reference

Well, well, well. It seems that the Guardian, the self-proclaimed bastion of ‘clarity and imagination’, has been acting rather censoriously of late. It transpires that, in a column navigating the world’s great whiskies by wine critic Henry Jeffreys, a reference to an Israeli single malt whisky was first removed from the print copy – before subsequently being deleted from the online version. How very curious. Taking to Twitter to point out the baffling omission, Jeffreys posted a screenshot showing which clearly showed his reference to Israel’s M&H beverage. ‘Even so, world whisky isn’t going away any time soon,’ the wine critic had written. ‘The best offer something unique: Israel’s M&H,

Jim Lawley

Heads will roll after Spain’s flooding catastrophe

Spain’s King and Queen were pelted with mud yesterday when they visited Paiporta, epicentre of the flood disaster zone in the Valencia region. Over two hundred people have died in the flooding, dozens of them in Paiporta; more are thought to be trapped and, by this time, surely dead in underground garages and car parks. Local people are furious that the authorities were slow to issue flood warnings when the rains came last Tuesday and then very poor at coordinating what has turned out to be a seriously under-resourced relief effort. Locals seized the opportunity to vent their feelings of abandonment and desperation, chanting ‘Murderers’ and hurling slurry at the

Patrick O’Flynn

Starmer’s plan to stop the boats is a comical gimmick

The shiny new Downing Street operation that has come into being since the departure of Sue Gray has decreed that this is going to be ‘small boats week’. They have created a media grid with the aim of promoting the idea of Keir Starmer as a strong and authoritative leader busily coordinating measures to accelerate Labour’s plan to ‘smash the gangs’. Rather comically, the Sun newspaper was briefed that Starmer will declare the border crisis a ‘national security issue’, announce a crack new team of investigators, hold talks with Giorgia Meloni and vow to end ‘gimmicks’. So that’s three gimmicks followed by a promise not to indulge in gimmicks. It

Ross Clark

James Dyson isn’t helping farmers

If I were president of the National Farmers’ Union I know what my first task would be today: ring up Sir James Dyson and plead with him to keep his trap shut. It isn’t that Dyson, one of the few living Britons who has set up a manufacturing business of worldwide reputation, isn’t worth listening to on the economy and many other things. But when it comes to protecting the interests of family farms – which is the NFU’s prime interest after last week’s Budget – Dyson is the very last voice you should want to hear publicly supporting your case. Dyson is the last voice you should want to

Steerpike

Watch: Home Secretary flounders over small boats

Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour lot are desperate to get the press and public talking about anything but the Budget this week – and so the issue of Channel crossings is where the Prime Minister is focusing his attention today. Yvette Cooper was quizzed on the airwaves this morning ahead of the PM’s speech to Interpol’s general assembly in Glasgow over Labour’s small boat plans – but the Home Secretary seemed a little uncomfortable on the specifics… Grilled on BBC Breakfast, Cooper was asked when Labour expects to see a drop in the number of migrants crossing the Channel. ‘We obviously want to make progress as far and as fast as

James Heale

Can Starmer stop the small boats?

It’s small boats week in government. Following last Wednesday’s Budget, No. 10 is turning its attention to the ceaseless flow of Channel crossings. Keir Starmer will use his speech at the Interpol General Assembly in Glasgow today to set out Labour’s plans to – you’ve guessed it – ‘smash’ the criminal gangs. Starmer’s remarks are certainly timely. More than 5,000 people crossed the Channel in October, making it the busiest month of the year so far. In total, 31,094 people have crossed so far this year, up 16.5 per cent on the same point in 2023 but still down 22.1 per cent on the same point in 2022. Starmer is

Robin Ashenden

Is Kemi Badenoch the new Mrs Thatcher?

Prior to her election as Conservative Leader at the weekend, Kemi Badenoch was, on numerous occasions, compared to Margaret Thatcher. Simon Heffer, under the headline ‘No Tory has ever reminded me more of Mrs Thatcher than Mrs Badenoch,’ claimed that Kemi was ‘hard-minded, deeply principled, and has Mrs Thatcher’s vital grasp of what Rab Butler called “the art of the possible.”’ Tony Sewell spoke of her ‘Thatcher-like determination: “Because I believe this is right, I’m going to do it,” and said that today’s ‘biased and self-serving’ Civil Service was as much a dragon for her to slay as overweening Trade Union power had been for Mrs Thatcher in the eighties. Mark

Sam Leith

Do we care that the King is rich?

For the first time, the true extent of the property held by the King and the Prince of Wales’s private estates, the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall has been revealed, according to a splashy Sunday Times investigation. There are 5,410 separate properties up and down the country paying millions of pounds annually in rents and fees and charges. The NHS pays to warehouse its ambulances, the Navy pays for the use of jetties, charities rent London office blocks, and money rolls in for everything from the training of troops on Dartmoor to the housing of prisoners in a jail on His Maj’s land. ‘Revealed,’ the headline hoots, ‘The property empires