Politics

We are in the fifth week of Donald Trump’s ‘hush money’ trial and the real scandal is that it’s all so intensely boring. Sex, porn-star witnesses, shady lawyers, a president in the dock – the headlines are a tabloid dream. The crux of the case, however, is a bunch of tedious charges to do with tax reporting and accountancy. Who wants to read about that?   Trump is ‘not looking for an heir because that would be Macbeth or King Lear, a bloodbath’ Trump adores the attention, naturally. As the greatest showman of the 21st century he understands that we, the people, need fresh drama and new characters. That’s why, while

Brexit was the issue that won the last general election for the Tories but botching it may well lose them the next. The Red Wall was attracted by the promise that after sovereignty was wrested back from Brussels, the UK would be able to control its immigration policy and employers would have to pay their workers more. Instead, net immigration – the legal kind, nothing to do with small boats – hit 745,000 in 2022. This is double pre-Brexit levels and far higher than the government expected. No one knew quite how the new visa toolkit would work, and ministers are now scrambling to curb numbers. Higher salary thresholds have

Rishi Sunak’s big speech this week was easily lampooned. Having accused Keir Starmer of ‘doomsterism’, the Prime Minister warned that Britain’s most dangerous years lay ahead, and talked of the threat from ‘colluding authoritarian states’. Less attention was paid to the part of his speech about artificial intelligence, which was in fact genuinely optimistic. As well as bringing greater freedom, choice and opportunity, AI could double productivity ‘in the next decade’, he said. As well as bringing greater freedom, choice and opportunity, AI could double our productivity in a decade Imagine, he went on, a world in which every teacher is free to spend more time with struggling students, and

There were no defections today at Prime Minister’s Questions, which probably put Keir Starmer in a slightly stronger position, ironically, given the fuss about Natalie Elphicke crossing the floor last week. The Tories have so thoroughly trashed their former colleague that the most damaging thing Labour could probably do now would be to send the Dover MP back to the Tories.  The defections in the past few weeks have been a light relief from a rather repetitive slanging match featuring the same lines from both men. But mercifully both Starmer and Rishi Sunak had chosen some new attacks for this session. Sunak wanted to talk about the ‘gangbusters’ economy and

After nearly 17 years in office the Scottish government has finally accepted the truth: it is incompetent. It has declared a National Housing Emergency – effectively a vote of no confidence in itself. ‘Honest’ First Minister John Swinney has thrown up his hands and said: it’s a fair cop, in anticipation of the Scottish parliament passing a Labour motion to the same effect this afternoon. The ‘emergency’ doesn’t actually commit the Scottish government to doing anything specific, but it is clearly an unprecedented admission of failure. The ‘emergency’ doesn’t actually commit the Scottish government to doing anything Perhaps Honest John should now declare a health emergency, since NHS waiting lists

Sometimes life comes at you fast. Barely 18 months ago, Sir Keir Starmer, beginning to scent general election victory in his future, pledged to abolish the House of Lords and replace it with an elected chamber as part of a project to ‘restore trust in politics’. By Tuesday this week, the Labour leader in the upper house, Baroness Smith of Basildon, could make no firmer a commitment than keeping an ‘open mind’ to the possibility of phasing out the remaining 92 hereditary peers. That seems like quite a journey. Labour’s plans have gradually diminished since 2022 House of Lords reform is in some ways the ultimate parlour game for constitutional