Politics

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

Tuesday

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Trump’s VP says UK will be first Islamist nuclear power

Donald Trump has chosen JD Vance as his US vice-presidential running mate – but the author of Hillbilly Elegy has some, erm, interesting views on the UK. At a conference last week, Vance said that the UK could become ‘the first truly Islamist country that will get a nuclear weapon’ after Labour’s landslide election victory. He told an audience at the National Conservatism event: ‘I have to beat up on the UK – just one additional thing. I was talking with a friend recently. And we were talking about, you know, one of the big dangers in the world, of course, is nuclear proliferation, though, of course, the Biden administration doesn’t

Monday

Ben Domenech

JD Vance is a loyal Maga man

The most surprising aspect of Donald Trump’s choice of JD Vance as his vice presidential running mate is how unsurprising it is, following months of debate as to the best choice for the GOP.  The number of candidates considered seriously by Trump was a much shorter list than the wide swathe initially announced as being asked for background materials, and Vance was always at or near the top. He has an exterior of political celebrity that Trump found appealing, a compelling life story retold across platforms – the combination of a blue-chip pedigree and military experience and a sense of humour that bound him closely with Donald Trump Jr.  Victory,

Jacob Heilbrunn

What does JD Vance want?

With his selection of JD Vance as his running mate, Donald Trump has signaled that he doesn’t simply want to defeat Joe Biden. He also wants to crush the last vestiges of the Republican establishment. No other politician can help him carry out a Maga revolution in Washington more ruthlessly and effectively than Vance. Forget the pundits who predicted that Trump would take a more emollient approach. Forget the talk about trying to be a unifier. Forget the speculation about the assassination attempt changing him. Instead of doing what many conservatives have done in the past — waver, flinch, compromise — Trump is going all-in. There will be no Treaty

James Heale James Heale

Trump picks JD Vance as running mate

After all the speculation, it’s now official: JD Vance will be Donald Trump’s running mate in November. The subject has been the obsession of delegates here in Milwaukee on day one of the Republican National Convention. In typical Apprentice style, Trump has allowed speculation to build for weeks, as the media picked over various candidates, before picking his favourite as it reached a climax.  As one of two Senators from Ohio, Vance will be entrusted to carry the swing state’s crucial 17 electoral college votes in four months’ time. He will have been picked for his potential appeal to working-class voters in the critical battleground states of the wider Midwest. If Trump

Katy Balls Katy Balls

What change will Labour’s Justice Secretary bring?

There has been much attention over the past week over how new MPs have chosen to be sworn in. This new parliament is the most openly non-religious in history. Around 40 per cent of MPs, including the Prime Minister, chose to take the secular affirmation rather than a religious oath. Half the new Labour cabinet followed Sir Keir Starmer in doing so. But this afternoon one of his cabinet has made history doing the opposite. Shabana Mahmood has been sworn in as Justice Secretary. She is the second woman to take the role (Liz Truss was the first), and she is the first Muslim – taking her oath on the

Jawad Iqbal

Yes, David Lammy’s old tweets are a problem

David Lammy was always a somewhat implausible choice as foreign secretary. His historical reputation for mouthing off on social media on a range of topics – not least Donald Trump’s fitness for office – seemed a blatant hostage to fortune.  His ill-judged tweeting has come back to haunt him this weekend. A 2019 tweet from Lammy is what’s caused new embarrassment. Trump said there had been no president who had been ‘treated so badly’ as he had. In response, Lammy said: ‘4 US Presidents  have been assassinated snowflake.’ That’s not the kind of language to be expected of someone who will end up as foreign secretary. In 2018, Lammy called then-President

Steerpike Steerpike

The National U-turns over Anglo-bashing splash

Oh dear. The National is renowned for neither grace nor charm and Saturday’s front page was no exception. Scotland’s only pro-independence newspaper sparked outrage this weekend after it splashed a rather, er, creative cartoon across its cover a day ahead of the Euros final. When the Jocks failed to progress through the tournament – instead claiming the record for the most consecutive eliminations from the group stage – the august journal that is the National turned its attention to anglo-baiting instead. Quelle surprise… The day before England played Spain in the finals, the Nat-obsessed journal decided to depict a rather large red-faced, bare-chested, tattooed England fan as a football being

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Britain has entered a birth rate crisis

Few will notice, yet this year England and Wales are almost certainly going to cross a remarkable threshold: the number of deaths will exceed the number of births. In the year to mid 2023 – figures for which have been published today by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) – there were 598,400 births and 598,000 deaths. Given the long-term downward trends in births, and the lag in the figures being published, we have almost certainly arrived at the point of negative natural population growth – a condition which has not properly afflicted Britain since the Industrial Revolution. Across the whole of the UK, deaths did narrowly outnumber births in

Oscar Edmondson

How Westminster reacted to the Trump assassination attempt

12 min listen

It’s two days after the failed assassination attempt on Donald Trump and we thought we would use this podcast to discuss some of the reaction from Westminster and look at how this latest example of political violence will impact our own politics here in the UK. Oscar Edmondson speaks to Kate Andrews and James Heale, who joins us from Milwaukee where he is reporting on the Republican National Convention.  Produced by Oscar Edmondson. 

John Foreman

Nato has fudged support for Ukraine, again

On his flight back to London from Washington DC, Keir Starmer will have been satisfied with the outcomes of his first Nato summit. He will be concerned about the vigour of President Biden and the rhetoric of his presidential challenger. He and his European colleagues can do more to help assure the future of the trans-Atlantic alliance. The summit in Washington marked the 75th anniversary of the most durable and successful defensive alliance in history. The decade since Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea has seen remarkable transformation in Nato, including the agreement of a new Strategic Concept at Madrid in 2022, which reaffirmed the purpose of the alliance, and the implementation of

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The two-child benefit cap row is Starmer’s first big test

Can Keir Starmer hold the line on backing the two-child benefit cap? The row about the policy, introduced by the Conservatives and vociferously opposed by most people in the Labour party, is going to be a significant problem for the Prime Minister, even in his honeymoon period. The King’s Speech this week is unlikely to contain a surprise commitment to scrapping the policy, with Starmer and his Chancellor Rachel Reeves still saying that it is not yet affordable. Both say they want to get rid of it when the public finances allow, but that is not good enough for many of their MPs.  There has already been pressure on Labour

William Atkinson

London’s nightlife is getting even more embarrassing

In the end, there was little reason why England fans might have wanted to hang around after yesterday’s Euros final, except to bum an Estrella off a celebrating Spaniard. But in the unlikely event that football had come home, those of us watching in London would have been left high, if not necessarily dry, by London’s ‘world-leading’ police force and public transport network. Yesterday afternoon, at the helpfully late time of 3.51 p.m, the Met warned football fans travelling into central London to avoid street drinking. Having issued an antisocial dispersal order, those congregating in the street with a beer could be made to move on. It also suggested pubs were full,

David Swift

Israel shows that proportional representation is an awful idea

After the general election produced the most disproportionate result in history, there have been fresh calls to replace the first-past-the-post system with a fairer, more proportional system.  Usually, these arguments are heard mostly from the left, especially from the Lib Dems and the Greens. This time around it is supporters of Reform, who hold 0.8 per cent of the seats in the Commons despite winning 14.3 per cent of the vote, making the loudest calls for proportional representation (PR).  On the face it, they have a strong case. Under the current system millions of votes are wasted, and the seat share of most parties usually bears no resemblance to their

Katy Balls Katy Balls

David Lammy calls for Gaza ceasefire

David Lammy is visiting Israel and the Palestinian Territories – his first trip to the Middle East as Foreign Secretary. On his meeting list so far are Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian Authority prime minister Mohammad Mustafa and relatives of the hostages taken on 7 October. The Foreign Secretary met Israeli President Isaac Herzog this morning. Of all the foreign policy challenges facing Keir Starmer’s government, Israel/Palestine is the most contentious internally. Since 7 October, the question of how much support to show either side has divided the Labour party. Unhappiness over Starmer’s initial delay to back calls for a ceasefire as well as comments about Israel’s right to self defence saw

Steerpike Steerpike

Badenoch best to beat ‘Reform dragon’, claims ex-MP

As Rishi Sunak prepares to step down, the race for a new Tory leader is underway. Although no one has officially announced they’ll run, there are already a number of names in the mix. Kemi Badenoch is a top contender, according to Conservative Home, which suggested that over a quarter of party members back the former business secretary – double the support of her closest competitors Robert Jenrick and Tom Tugendhat, each on 13 per cent. And now Badenoch has received a public endorsement from her one-time parliamentary private secretary Alexander Stafford. The ex-MP for Rother Valley, who supported Boris Johnson throughout the Partygate scandal and campaigned for Liz Truss

Bryan Appleyard

That Trump photo is magnificently real

A cloudless sky, an American flag and, to the left, something that looks like a music stand. A huddle of men in black suits, one in sunglasses staring straight at the camera, the others, arms stretched, are clustering round a fatter, older man whose face is streaked with blood, his fist raised as if fist-bumping God. This, in Donald Trump’s mind, is just what he is doing for he has survived the assassin’s bullet: something neither Kennedy nor even Lincoln achieved. The composition, taken in near impossible circumstances, is breathtaking both for Evan Vucci, the photographer, and for Trump. It is the dream shot, a hero shot, taken a few months

Steerpike Steerpike

Failed Nats receive ‘golden goodbyes’ worth thousands

Back to Scotland, the land of failing upwards. Very recently, Humza Yousaf held the top political job in the country for just over a year – despite the SNP’s former cabinet minister having a record of underdelivering while he held the posts of transport, justice and health secretary. Now the First Minister is John Swinney, a failed nationalist leader who was previously forced to step down after his party performed poorly in elections. Not much has changed there, eh? Yet it transpires that these are just two examples of many who have received thousands of pounds in resettlement grants over their political careers despite not achieving, um, all that much.

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Trump the unifier?

Donald Trump has been revising his big convention speech in light of his brush with death at the weekend. ‘I basically had a speech that was an unbelievable rip-roarer,’ he told two interviewers yesterday. It was brutal – really good, really tough… I threw it out… I think it would be very bad if I got up and started going wild about how horrible everybody is, and how corrupt and crooked, even if it’s true. Had this not happened, we had a speech that was pretty well set that was extremely tough. Now, we have a speech that is more unifying. He’s Donald Trump, not Mahatma Gandhi Trump the Unifier-in-Chief?

Steerpike Steerpike

Labour splits emerge over puberty blockers

Sir Keir’s Labour government may have only been in power for a week, but already it is experiencing party splits. The Sunday Telegraph reported this weekend that allies of Starmer’s deputy Angela Rayner fear she is being ‘frozen out’ of the top team — and now new Health Secretary Wes Streeting is facing dissent over his puberty blocker plans. Streeting announced last week that, following the findings of the Cass review into gender services, there would be a permanent ban placed on puberty-halting drugs used on children with gender dysphoria. The use of these meds had already been temporarily paused by the NHS after the publication of Dr Hilary’s rather

Duncan Gardham

How did security miss the Trump shooter?

Thomas Matthew Crooks, the 20-year-old shot dead by a secret service sniper following the attempt on former president Trump’s life at Butler, Pennsylvania, had donated $15 to ActBlue, a political action committee which raises money for Democratic causes. State voter records also show that Crooks was a registered Republican. Either way, it is too early to be certain of his motive. At a news conference on Sunday, FBI special agent Kevin Rojek said it was ‘surprising’ that the shooter was able to open fire What we do know is that since 9/11, domestic terror plots have outstripped the threat from al-Qaeda and Isis in the US, accounting for more than