Politics

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

Thursday

Len Shackleton

In defence of ‘fat cat’ chief executives

Are chief executives overpaid? The High Pay Centre thinks so. Every January, it releases data showing the huge inequality between top UK CEOs and average workers. The results are startling: ‘Bosses of Britain’s biggest companies will have made more money in 2024 by lunchtime on Thursday than the typical worker will all year,’ according to the BBC, which wrote up the story showing that top bosses’ average reward amounts to £3.81 million a year. But is this disparity with the £34,963 annual median wage for full-time workers really a surprise? The truth is that this pay gap is an obvious feature of a free market where top pay in business

William Moore William Moore

Putin’s ‘peace’ is a partitioned Ukraine

52 min listen

On the podcast: In his new year’s address this year Vladimir Putin made no mention of the war in Ukraine – despite missile strikes over the Christmas period – and now Owen Matthews reports in The Spectator this week rumours that Putin could be looking to broker a land-for-peace deal. Unfortunately – Owen says – this deal would mean freezing the conflict along its current lines and the de facto partition of Ukraine. Owen joins the podcast alongside The Spectator’s Svitlana Morenets who gives her own take on Putin’s ‘peace’ deal in the magazine this week. (01:21) Next: Former Sky News and GB News broadcaster Colin Brazier writes a farmer’s notebook in The Spectator this week about his new life

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Sunak plays it safe with election announcement

Rishi Sunak is – not unusually – playing it safe by saying his ‘working assumption’ is that the election will be in the second half of this year. The speculation that it would be on 2 May had been building to the point that the Prime Minister was at risk of looking afraid if he didn’t then go for a spring poll. He knows from watching what happened to Gordon Brown’s Election That Never Was the dangers of ramping up speculation without following through. That doesn’t mean he won’t change course and go for the May election in the end anyway, but dampening the chatter about it is a sensible

Iain Macwhirter

It’s no surprise Humza Yousaf is courting Brian Souter

It seems that Humza Yousaf is taking diversity seriously – though not as we know it. Scotland’s First Minister has apparently welcomed the Christian fundamentalist former bus tycoon Brian Souter, regarded as a homophobe by the Scottish Greens, back into the SNP fold. Changed days.  The SNP needs all the help it can get with the business community in Scotland and Souter has been helping out schmoozing them, according to Politico. A freedom of information request revealed that Yousaf’s aides have been actively courting Scotland’s richest man following his sale of Stagecoach two years ago.  SNP donations have all but dried up in recent years and the party needs cash

James Heale James Heale

Starmer returns to old favourites in New Year’s speech

There was a distinctly familiar feel to Keir Starmer’s speech today. Preaching change in front of heavy machinery, it was a near-identical setting to the speech he gave this same week last January. For a New Year’s speech, it was devoid of new policy but there were plenty of old favourites: the Great British Energy and planning reform pledges that underpinned his last two conference addresses, Labour renewal, Tory cronyism and the obligatory reference to Liz Truss (but no named mention of Rishi Sunak). There was enough in it to get decent write-ups, with the Telegraph focusing on his rejection (again) of Jeremy Corbyn’s politics while the Guardian stressing his

Nigel Jones

When will Nigel Farage get off the fence?

Nigel Farage’s indecision continues. Despite being hyped in advance as a major unveiling of the rebel party’s programme, Reform UK’s press conference yesterday was something of a damp squib, not least because Farage failed to actually show up. Reform leader Richard Tice said the ex Brexit party leader is ‘still assessing’ the ‘extent of the role he wants to play in helping Reform UK’. It’s about time Farage decided whether he’s in or out. Since Reform’s forerunner, the Brexit party, helped bring about Theresa May’s downfall and ultimately catapult Boris Johnson to power, Farage has been performing a political striptease: forever promising (or threatening) to get back on the road

James Heale James Heale

Sunak says his ‘working assumption’ is no spring election

Rishi Sunak has this afternoon given his strongest hint yet that the next general election will be held in the autumn rather than the spring. Speaking to broadcasters on a visit to a youth centre in Mansfield, the Prime Minister said: ‘My working assumption is we’ll have a general election in the second half of this year and in the meantime I’ve got lots that I want to get on with.’ The Conservative leader declined to categorically rule out a May election but repeated his intentions to pick a date later in the year. ‘I want to keep going, managing the economy well and cutting people’s taxes,’ Sunak said. ‘But

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Starmer grilled on Peter Mandelson and Jeffrey Epstein

Sir Keir Starmer was up this morning in Bristol, giving a big speech on the importance of transparency. The Tories, he gravely intoned, had wrecked Britain, with their relentless sleaze and cronyism. So it must have been, er, sub-optimal then for the Labour leader to have his big speech blown off course when Jim Pickard of the Financial Times threw him a curveball in the Q&A. Back in June, the paper published the contents of an internal JP Morgan report which laid bare the extent of Jeffrey Epstein’s contact with Peter Mandelson that describes repeated meetings between the disgraced financier and the politician he knew as ‘Petie’. It suggests that

Andrew McQuillan

Families of IRA terrorists shouldn’t get compensation

In the period between Christmas and New Year archives in both Belfast and Dublin are opened and documents are declassified. This regularly reveals some of the creative thinking which has been expended on the Northern Ireland problem over the years.  Suggestions have included staging an Old Firm duel between Rangers and Celtic in Belfast prior to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement and have the Glasgow teams play in the opposing side’s kits.  Relocating millions of Hong Kong citizens to the province ahead of its transfer to China was an example of blue sky thinking mooted in the Thatcher era. Such was the quagmire of Ulster, politicians and their advisors would

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

The real reason junior doctors are striking

Any remaining question about who NHS strikes are supposed to benefit has been put to rest this week. Industrial action is needed, the British Medical Association’s website reads, ‘For the benefit of all junior doctors and for the benefit of all patients’ – and also, of course, to ‘protect the NHS’. Yet the union has selected the most dangerous time of the year to start its six-day junior doctor walk-out – the longest ever in the health service’s history. These strikes are putting even more lives at risk That up to 200,000 more appointments are estimated to be cancelled for patients – piled on top of the 1.2 million that have already

Ross Clark Ross Clark

eBay side-hustlers deserve to get taxed

There will be people outraged by the latest initiative of HMRC: to demand that the likes of Airbnb, eBay, and Vinted furnish it with details of everything bought and sold on their online platforms. The taxman should keep his nose out of the sharing economy, many will say. People who sell their secondhand clothes, books, or who earn a little holiday money by letting their property to tourists while they are themselves away from home are doing the environment a favour, they will argue. HMRC should keep its nose out and go for the ‘real’ tax-dodgers in large corporations, who are taking advantage of our tax system by shunting profits

Wednesday

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Harvard’s Claudine Gay isn’t a victim of racism

A month ago, Claudine Gay of Harvard University was obsessed with putting things into context. Asked at that now infamous Congressional hearing on campus anti-Semitism whether calling for a genocide of the Jews is a violation of Harvard’s code of conduct, Gay said it would depend on the context. Her remarks raised eyebrows worldwide. The idea that there are some contexts in which it might not be a violation of Harvard’s code of conduct to say ‘Kill all Jews’ made many wonder what the hell is going on at that university. Fast forward four weeks and now Gay seems content to do away with context completely. Consider her resignation letter

Jawad Iqbal

The Iran terror attack is embarrassing for the mullahs

Anyone who wants to strike at the heart of the Iranian regime would be hard-pressed for a more symbolic target than the memorial site for Qasem Soleimani, the senior commander who was assassinated by the United States four years ago. The memorial represents everything that the Tehran regime stands for. That’s why the bomb attacks today, reported to have killed more than 100 people and injuring scores more, will have dealt a significant blow to a regime that relies on projecting an image of total control. Tehran blamed ‘terrorist attacks’ for the two explosions in the southern city of Kerman. The blasts hit crowds gathering to commemorate the fourth anniversary

James Heale James Heale

Did Richard Tice tease a return to politics for Nigel Farage?

Reform UK is the great enigma of right-wing British politics. Despite lacking a memorable name, leader, policy platform or record of electoral success, the party is polling just shy of 10 per cent – two points off the Liberal Democrats. The party held an eagerly awaited press conference this morning at which Richard Tice set out his plans for the forthcoming general election. All the familiar hallmarks of the Ukip and Brexit party playbook were present: talk of defections, disgruntled donors and plans to ‘punish’ the Tories, set in the familiar haunt of the Hilton Hotel in Westminster. Unlike 2019, Tice pledged, there would be no pacts with Conservative MPs,

Svitlana Morenets Svitlana Morenets

Ukrainians can’t trust Putin’s hollow promises

Ukraine’s parliament will soon vote on much-needed conscription regulations which would draft an extra half a million recruits into the army. The categories of eligible men will be expanded, the draft age will be lowered from 27 to 25, and any man caught attempting to evade it will face harsh sanctions or imprisonment. Volodymyr Zelensky has stopped talking about victory coming any time soon. His New Year’s message was grim: everyone must either fight or help through work. Ukrainians are braced for another year of war. But talk of ‘peace’ or ‘compromise’ is still seen as code for a surrender which would reward rather than punish Vladimir Putin’s atrocities, cede

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Britain must commit to Ukraine – or admit we don’t care enough

I have never been one of those late-middle-aged right-wing men who, at night, hunkers down over the computer to pleasure himself while staring at photographs of Vladimir Putin. He doesn’t do it for me – not even that picture of him riding a horse semi-naked through a river with a very resolute expression on his stern Asiatic face. This may put me in a minority among people of my age and gender, for I understand that Vlad has legions of admirers among my peers. It is an admiration which tends to speak its name only after a few drinks have been taken and stems largely from Putin’s commendable detestation of

James Heale James Heale

Rishi Sunak’s January blues

Rishi Sunak will start the year as he means to go on: spending more time in key marginal seats, telling ‘ordinary’ voters how he is helping them by cutting tax, taming inflation and curbing welfare. The accuracy of his claims is open to question (both tax and welfare numbers are still rising) but the idea is that selected audiences, rather than combative journalists, will ask the questions. Major had his soapbox; Sunak has his livestream. Things could become even worse for the Tories if Farage swaps GB News for the stump While the interrogators might have changed, questions remain about Sunak’s message for voters. One minister admits to being ‘baffled’

Owen Matthews

Putin’s ‘peace’ is a partitioned Ukraine

Is Vladimir Putin trying to end his war in Ukraine? According to recent reports, the Kremlin has launched a new ‘back-channel diplomacy’ to reach out to senior officials in the Joe Biden administration. Putin’s message: to signal that he could accept a ceasefire that freezes the fighting along current lines. Reactions to the story have been furious. Some Ukrainians, sheltering from Russia’s biggest-ever missile and drone assaults of the war over Christmas, saw it as evidence of a nefarious Washington insider plot to sell Kyiv down the river. President Volodymyr Zelensky dismissed Putin’s initiative as disingenuous, saying that he saw ‘no sign’ Russia genuinely wanted to negotiate. ‘We just see

Lucy Dunn

Would strike talks be different under Labour?

15 min listen

As junior doctors begin the longest strike in history, Lucy Dunn speaks to Isabel Hardman and Kate Andrews about whether public support for industrial action is starting to wane, and how talks might be different under Labour. 

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Darren Jones: ‘Labour will reform, not splurge’

This time next year, Darren Jones could very well be deciding how your tax money is spent. As shadow chief Treasury secretary, his days are spent having difficult discussions with would-be Labour ministers and explaining that it would be hard for them to spend any more than the Tories already are. If Labour wants to change Britain, the party will have to rely on reform rather than cash. This message would be a theme of Keir Starmer’s government, in which it is assumed Jones would be a key player. In his office, Jones, who is 37, has a framed front page proclaiming Labour’s 1997 election victory. Next to it hangs