Politics

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

Wednesday

17 Apr 2024

Sunak has no excuse to not proscribe the IRGC

Lord Renwick, the Labour peer and former Foreign Office mandarin, used to say that young diplomats of a certain breeding suffered from the ‘Wykehamist fallacy’. This, he said, was the tendency to assume that even the most bloodthirsty despot had an inner civilised chap of the sort one might find at Winchester College. Treat him decently and the inner fair-minded fellow would come out. ‘Actually’, Renwick would point out, ‘they’re a bunch of thugs.’ Given Rishi Sunak’s own schooling, the Wykehamist fallacy came to mind when the prime minister’s spokesman made clear that the government would not be banning Iran’s terrorist arm, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). Surely if

Isabel Hardman

Sunak had a strong comeback to Starmer’s Truss attack at PMQs

Today’s Prime Minister’s Questions was a classic knockabout between Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer clearly written by their respective attack units. Both came armed with the sort of material you’d expect for a scrap: the Labour leader had a ‘rare unsigned copy’ of Liz Truss’s book, while the Prime Minister wanted to talk about Angela Rayner’s tax affairs. There were the familiar lines, too, including Sunak reminding the Commons of Starmer defending Hizb ut-Tahrir, and Starmer talking about his legal expertise. The first question from Starmer was whether Sunak had met anyone with a mortgage who agreed with Truss that her mini-budget was the ‘happiest moment of her premiership’. Labour

Jawad Iqbal

The Foreign Office is in trouble if David Lammy takes charge

The heart sinks at the latest thoughts espoused by David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, on a future Labour government’s foreign policy. Lammy has penned a 4,000 word essay for Foreign Affairs on his vision of pursuing ‘progressive realism’ for Britain on the international stage. It is a less than catchy phrase that amounts to little substance. According to Lammy, Labour’s foreign agenda will attempt to meld together the policy realism of Ernest Bevin, the post-war Labour foreign secretary who helped found Nato, with the ethical foreign policy of Robin Cook, who served as Tony Blair’s foreign secretary when New Labour took power in 1997. Lammy lays it on thick, praising Bevin for

Steerpike

Watch: Sunak ridicules Starmer over Rayner

The curious case of Angela Rayner’s tax affairs continues to drag on and Rishi Sunak isn’t prepared to let Sir Keir Starmer forget about it. In a new development yesterday, the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police (GMP) Steve Watson revealed that ‘there are a number of assertions knocking about’ while another police source told the Times that ‘it’s not a single issue’ that the police are concerned with. Rayner has repeatedly denied she has done anything wrong and has been supported by Starmer (although he hasn’t yet read the legal advice she received on the matter) but that didn’t stop the Prime Minister taunting the Labour leader. Starmer used

Steerpike

Truss bestseller sold out on Amazon

She’s produced a bestseller! Liz Truss’s new book has been out for less than 72 hours and it’s already sold out on Amazon. It’s currently reprinting but will be due back in stock early next week. Golly. Ten Years to Save the West is part-memoir, part-political vision, documenting not only Truss’s 49 days in office but the twists and turns of her own political journey in and out of No. 10. At the time of writing, Mr S notes that Truss’s colourful new tell-all has taken first place in Amazon’s ‘biography and memoir’ bestseller chart — and it is the fifth most popular book being bought on the site overall.

Ross Clark

Inflation is down again – but don’t expect interest rates to follow suit

Interest rate cuts are beginning to look like a mirage: the closer we seem to get to them the more they seem to recede into the distance. Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey may have hinted this week that UK rates could soon be cut regardless of what happens in the United States, where strong jobs data is putting off the Federal Reserve from cutting rates, but this morning’s inflation data will not encourage an early cut. While the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) did fall in March, from 3.4 per cent to 3.2 per cent, this was less than the fall which was expected. The rise in road fuel prices

Katy Balls

Is Andy Street heading for defeat?

Next month’s local elections will be the last significant encounter with voters before a general election, likely later this year. So far, the talk is that heavy losses for the Tories are ‘priced in’ – with the party expected to lose about half of the Tories up for re-election. As I previously reported, senior conservatives are talking up the fate of the two metro mayors – Andy Street in the West Midlands and Ben Houchen in Tees Valley – as what will decide if it goes from being a bad night to a terrible one. As one former cabinet minister puts it: ‘Andy losing the Midlands is very difficult. Ben

Gavin Mortimer

Why is the mayor of Tehran welcome in Brussels but not Nigel Farage?

‘How do you think this looks to the rest of the world?’ asked Nigel Farage as police attempted to shut down the National Conservatism conference in Brussels on Tuesday. Belgian politicians won’t care what it looks like. This is the most undemocratic country in western Europe. And while the mayor who tried to ban the conference obsesses about what he calls ‘the far-right’, Islamism continues to thrive in Belgium’s left-wing eco-system. For a decade, France has regarded its neighbour as the ‘home of radical Islamists’, and nowhere more so than in Brussels, from where sprang the Islamist terror cell that murdered 130 Parisians in November 2015. ‘Molenbeekistan’ was how the

Steerpike

Police probe Rayner over multiple allegations

Another day, another development in the curious case of Angela Rayner’s tax affairs. Mr S last week reported that Rayner became the subject of a formal police investigation. Initially, this was thought to focus on a potential breach of electoral law. But it has subsequently emerged in the Times that the force investigating Rayner is also looking into whether she paid the correct capital gains tax on the sale of her former Stockport home. It never rains but it pours… On Tuesday, the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police (GMP) Steve Watson revealed on a local radio station that ‘there are a number of assertions knocking about’, and that the

Debbie Hayton

JK Rowling has exposed the weak spot in the SNP’s misogyny law

When will the Scottish government get on with the day job? Hot on the heels of his controversial Hate Crime Act, Humza Yousaf has now promised a misogyny law that will apparently protect members of both sexes. The First Minister insisted that ‘anyone affected’ by misogyny would be covered, whatever their biological sex. This includes, of course, transgender women. One wonders if the SNP is so detached from reality that it does not know the difference between men and women, or they are so deeply in the pockets of an activist lobby that they pretend not to know. Either way, it is bad for women and bad for Scotland. Once

Tuesday

16 Apr 2024

Steerpike

Truss turns on foes at book bash

After the longest promotional tour in history, Liz Truss finally held her belated book launch party. Less than an hour after voting against her successor’s smoking ban, Truss welcomed the good and the great of Tory politics to mark the advent of her new tome Ten Days to Save the West. In a wide-ranging speech, the onetime premier turned on her (many) foes and lamented the downsides of life in Downing Street, including the infamous flea infestation, ‘not to mention all the other creatures that were hanging around in No. 10’. Ouch. Running through her political enemies, Truss made a passionate case for people to buy her book. ‘I do

Kate Andrews

Liberty is dying under the Tories

It seems political consensus isn’t dead. It’s simply been hibernating, waiting for a kind of crackdown on personal liberty that is so popular that it brings everyone together. That moment came this evening, when MPs voted on the second reading of the government’s Tobacco and Vapes Bill, which will not only ban whatever flavoured vapes ministers deem too fun, but will also ban anyone born after January 2009 from ever legally buying cigarettes and other tobacco-based products in the UK. How did the Tory party find itself leading this charge against personal freedom? A total of 383 voted in favour of the Bill, with 67 voting against. (The Spectator has the full list here).

Isabel Hardman

Parliament votes for smoking ban

In the past few minutes, the Tobacco and Vapes Bill has passed its second reading by 383 votes to 67, with at least six Conservative ministers voting against the legislation. It was a free vote, but it is still a striking thing to see a cabinet minister – in this case Kemi Badenoch – going against the line set by the Prime Minister. Katy covers Badenoch’s announcement that she wasn’t joining her boss in the ‘aye’ lobby here, saying it will still disappoint No 10, and send a reminder to the party and membership where the Business Secretary stands on liberty. We have a full list of the MPs who

Coffee House

Full list: every MP who voted against Sunak’s smoking ban

Tonight saw the second reading of the Sunak administration’s flagship Tobacco and Vapes Bill. As expected the government easily won the vote by 383 votes to 67, thanks to Labour’s support of the legislation. However some 59 Tories chose to cast a vote of protest against plans to introduce a generational ban on smoking, with dozens more abstaining. Below you can find a full list of those who voted against Sunak’s smoking ban by their various party affiliation. Conservative (59): DUP (7) Independent (2):

Katy Balls

Kemi comes out against Sunak’s smoking ban

When Rishi Sunak first unveiled his plans for a smoke-free generation, Downing Street was clear it would be a free vote. Such are the divisions in the Tory party over the issue and the question of personal liberty that there were never any plans to whip the vote. As expected, Sunak’s policy to make it illegal for people born in or after 2009 to buy tobacco has attracted many internal Tory critics. Former Prime Minister Liz Truss has been leading the charge today in the chamber, criticising Sunak for being a nanny state figure. However, given Sunak and Truss agree on very little these days, her critique was expected. More

Isabel Hardman

What Liz Truss got right

It’s easy to laugh at Liz Truss bringing out a book, much harder to ask whether there are points she makes that Westminster can actually learn from. The former prime minister obviously has a self-awareness problem which leads her to blame her failures on anyone and everyone who happened to be around at the time. That makes it much easier to dismiss the whole thing. But there are arguments – particularly within the final chapter – that we haven’t just heard from Truss, or indeed just from Conservatives. Even previous Labour leaders have complained about the resistance from the civil service to reforms. Speaking of previous prime ministers, one of

Laurie Wastell

The outrageous shutdown of NatCon Brussels

Brussels A familiar refrain at any National Conservatism conference is that leftist elites are censorious, authoritarian and intolerant of free speech. Today, it seemed like this was proven correct, after the Brussels police were ordered to shut down the conference in an outrageous assault on freedom of speech. It has been a surreal day so far, but that shouldn’t distract from the fact that this is an outrageous, authoritarian assault on democratic freedom by the Brussels authorities When the conference started at the Claridge hotel this morning, it was already on its third venue, after two others were forced to cancel at the behest of Brussels’s socialist mayor, Philippe Close. The conference

James Heale

How many MPs will reject Sunak’s smoking ban?

14 min listen

It’s not just Britain that has a growth problem. Today’s release of the IMF’s April 2024 World Economic Outlook report argues that the global economy is following the lacklustre trend. Within this bleak picture, how does the UK look compared to its counterparts? Also on the podcast, MPs are set to vote this evening on the government’s generational smoking ban. Is Rishi Sunak a ‘finger wagging control freak’ as Liz Truss claims? How many could rebel? James Heale speaks Katy Balls and Kate Andrews. Produced by Patrick Gibbons and Oscar Edmondson.

Steerpike

Watch: Labour MPs mock NatCon shutdown

It’s a sad day for lovers of personal freedom. Not only is Prime Minister Rishi Sunak pressing on with his smoking ban — the second reading of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill is taking place today — but now the Belgian authorities are attempting to shut down the National Conservatism conference in Brussels. Nigel Farage and Suella Braverman are among the attendees while a number of speakers, including MEP Patricia Chagnon and Eric Zemmour, have been denied access to the event. So much for freedom of speech… It’s all a big joke to Labour MPs, though, who giggled their way through a fiery speech by shadow health secretary Wes Streeting

Kate Andrews

Britain needs more than tinkering to get growth going

It’s not just Britain that has a growth problem. Today’s release of the IMF’s April 2024 World Economic Outlook report argues that the global economy is following the lacklustre trend. Global growth is expected to sit at 3.1 per cent by 2029: ‘at its lowest in decades’. Global growth is forecast to move at the same pace this year as it did last year, growing at 3.2 per cent in 2024 and 2025. This year’s forecast is a small, 0.1 percentage point uplift from the IMF’s January prediction, yet the forecaster warns that higher interest rates, weak productivity, and ongoing international insecurity will all continue to combine to suppress growth. Within this

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