Politics

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

Wednesday

24 Jan 2024

Steerpike

Simon Clarke breaks his silence

Well, that was quick. Less than 24 hours after Simon Clarke called for Rishi Sunak to resign and tweeted ‘I have no further comment to make’ he has, er, issued a further comment. The former Levelling Up Secretary broke cover tonight after taking a battering from colleagues over his call for the Prime Minister to go. In an interview with the BBC’s Chris Mason, Clarke doubled down on his position but acknowledged that not all his colleagues would agree with him: I totally respect the strong views that something like this evokes. No-one likes the guy who’s shouting “‘”Iceberg!” but I suspect that people will be even less happy if

Lucy Dunn

The political motives behind the SNP’s Covid strategy

What motivated the Scottish government to take a more cautious approach to lockdown? Deviations from the UK government’s approach meant that those living north of the border often had to live with harsher restrictions compared to those in England, decisions that were widely assumed to be made on the basis of scientific advice. But now the Covid Inquiry has disclosed conversations that took place at the heart of government — and revealed how top academics were left confused by the SNP’s strategy. Mark Woolhouse, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at Edinburgh University, told the inquiry on Wednesday that he ‘did not understand’ the Scottish government’s ‘very, very cautious’ pandemic strategy

Stephen Daisley

Replacing Sunak won’t rescue the Tories

Sir Simon Clarke’s call to replace Rishi Sunak leans heavily on Tory MPs being in denial about the scale of defeat that could be heading their way. He quotes Alan Clark on the ‘defence mechanism of the psyche’ that allowed Conservatives to disbelieve the landslide thumping forecast ahead of the 1997 election, even though ‘every single device for measuring popular opinion was pointing consistently in the same direction’. Sir Simon points out that Sunak trails Sir Keir Starmer in almost 500 constituencies and warns his colleagues that the price of failing to move against the prime minister will be far greater than the headlines that would come from yet another Tory regicide.

Isabel Hardman

Sunak dodges Tory revolt on council cash crisis

Rishi Sunak sidestepped another Tory rebellion this afternoon with the announcement of an extra £500 million in funding for councils in England. A group of more than 40 Conservative MPs had joined colleagues from other parties to warn of a crisis in local authority funding that was threatening even deeper cuts to services and council tax hikes in an election year. In a written ministerial statement, Michael Gove said this extra money, which is to cover rising costs in adult and children’s social care, was coming because ‘the government has also listened to the sector and to the issues raised by members of this house’. The Levelling Up Secretary wrote

Lloyd Evans

Has Rishi Sunak already given up?

Sir Keir’s spin doctors have been enjoying clips of Tony Blair’s performances as opposition leader. In the mid-1990s, Blair took aim at John Major with this, ‘I lead my party, he follows his.’ At today’s PMQs, Sir Keir tried the same judo-throw on Rishi Sunak. ‘I’ve changed my party. He’s bullied by his,’ he said. Less smooth, somehow. The session was dominated by facile insults and awkward name-calling. Sir Keir wants to depict Rishi as a pampered globalist who spent the 2008 financial crash in the banking sector, ‘making millions betting on the misery of working families.’ At the same time, noble Sir Keir was putting ‘terrorists and murderers’ in

Steerpike

Foreign Office blows £110k on KCL counter-terrorist courses

It was ten days ago that Mr S brought news of the latest controversy to embroil our ancient seats of learning, after a lecturer at a leading London university allegedly suggested Douglas Murray should be ‘suppressed’. Tom Tugendhat, the security minister, was subsequently forced to order a review into the Home Office’s use of external courses after it was claimed that the training sessions, put on by the security studies department of King’s College London (KCL), amounted to ‘indoctrination’. But now some diligent digging in the House of Lords has revealed just how much these courses have been costing the British taxpayer. Dean Godson, the Tory peer and director of

Mark Galeotti

Who shot down the plane carrying Ukrainian PoWs?

It will prove to be a terrible and tragic irony if it turns out that Kyiv shot down a Russian transport aircraft today that was transporting Ukrainian prisoners of war ready to be exchanged. Around 11 a.m. local time this morning an Il-76 transport aircraft crashed in a fireball near the Russian village of Yablonova in the Belgorod Region, some 35 miles from the Russian-Ukrainian border. Everyone on board was killed. It appears that, perhaps alongside a military cargo, the plane was carrying 65 Ukrainian PoWs – if the claims of the Russian defence ministry are to be believed. As is always the case in this war, multiple and contradictory explanations

Oscar Edmondson

Does Simon Clarke’s intervention matter?

12 min listen

Tory MP Simon Clarke called for Rishi Sunak to resign last night. In a piece in the Telegraph, he wrote that the Prime Minister was ‘uninspiring’ and ‘does not get what Britain needs.’ Will other Conservative MPs also demand Sunak resign, or will they unify around their leader? Oscar Edmondson speaks to Katy Balls and James Heale.

Isabel Hardman

When will Starmer and Sunak get with the times at PMQs?

‘Another week with no ideas. Absolutely no ideas for this country and absolutely no plans.’ Either Rishi Sunak or Keir Starmer could have hurled that insult across the chamber at Prime Minister’s Questions this week – or indeed any week. Once again, both leaders were arguing over who didn’t have a plan, with a few contemporaneous references thrown in here and there so that viewers tuning in could be confident they weren’t watching a re-run. Starmer made an early reference to the latest unrest in the Conservative party – unrest that’s currently almost more ludicrous than the overall situation, given Simon Clarke remains the only MP marching up the hill

Steerpike

Watch: Sunak slaps down Labour MP over Gaza

A feisty session of PMQs today. As speculation swirls around the future of the Tory leadership, Sir Keir Starmer sought to go for the jugular by channelling Tony Blair in the dying days of the Major government. ‘I’ve changed my party, he’s bullied by his’, he told the House to cheers. But Starmer’s efforts to present his party as cured from the effects of long Corbyn were somewhat hindered towards the end of the session when one of his own backbenchers rose to ask the Prime Minister a question. Labour MP Tahir Ali directed a verbal barrage at Sunak, accusing the Tory leader of having the blood of innocent people

Ross Clark

Hinkley C and the rising cost of net zero

Should we be bothered that Hinckley C nuclear power station has run even further over budget (the latest estimate is £35 billion, nearly twice that quoted when the project was given the go-ahead in 2016) and that its completion date has been put back yet further, to 2031? After all, the whole point of offering French energy giant EDF a guaranteed ‘strike price’ at the then juicy rate of £92.50 per megawatt-hour (at 2013 prices, rising with inflation) was supposed to be to transfer financial risk to EDF and its financial backers. ‘It is important to say that British consumers won’t pay a penny, with the increased costs met entirely

Rory Geoghegan

Why is the British Transport Police launching a bursary for British Africans?

Some of Britain’s police chiefs are in a total pickle when it comes to race, not least as a result of them rushing to embrace critical race theory and anti-racist ideology in the wake of George Floyd’s death in the United States in 2020. Whether actually captured, or simply pretending to be, they have committed policing to a political course that risks ending very badly. The latest development has seen a police force agreeing to fund a bursary for a law student, but only if they are ‘British African’. At a time when many of our public institutions are happy for you to identify however you like, something tells me

Isabel Hardman

Simon Clarke isn’t the only Tory MP unhappy with Sunak

Simon Clarke’s detonation last night didn’t come as a huge surprise. The Tory whips had already pre-briefed a group of MPs that the Daily Telegraph piece calling for Sunak to go was incoming, and asked them to get out and fight Clarke’s comments. For all the whips’ efforts, there are other Conservative MPs who are planning to join Clarke It also didn’t come as a huge surprise to the Tory MPs who are deeply unhappy with the way the party is being led. Many of them have been privately complaining for a long time that there is no clear plan from the Prime Minister. They have been left trying to

Patrick O’Flynn

Clarke’s bid to oust Sunak has flopped – for now

It was ‘the knife of the long knight’, joked one social media wag about the bid by the unfeasibly tall Sir Simon Clarke to oust Rishi Sunak from 10 Downing Street. So lanky was he as a youth that Clarke was nicknamed ‘stilts’ in his schooldays. Conventional wisdom at Westminster will tell you this morning that his attempted coup is nonsense on stilts as well. Certainly, there has thus far been a notable lack of colleagues replicating his call for Sunak to stand down. And yet, in recent years Westminster conventional wisdom has often got things wrong. Just because there is no sign of Clarke’s media-based revolt catching fire right

Steerpike

Keir Starmer turns his guns on Lee Anderson

What is a woman? It’s a question Sir Keir Starmer has sometimes struggled with in the past. So it was perhaps no surprise then that the Labour leader chose not to pontificate on the subject when he addressed the women’s lobby drinks. Instead, Starmer opted to focus on warm words for his hosts and look ahead to the forthcoming election, full of glamours like endless vox pops, ‘24/7 Conservative strategy relaunches’ and ‘coffee – so much coffee’. But it wasn’t all politics of course. Sir Keir told the attendant hacks that he is keeping abreast of popular culture via the hit TV series The Traitors on BBC One. For those unfamiliar

Kate Nicholls

Why won’t the SNP do more to save Scotland’s pubs?

One of life’s simple pleasures is meeting up with friends at the local pub, catching up (or venting about the stress of a tough week) over good food and a couple of drinks. But unfortunately it’s becoming more and more difficult to do just that. Much-loved community assets, like the local pub, find themselves closing at a quicker rates than we have seen for years, particularly in Scotland. Why is this the case? There are a number of contributing factors, including the legacy of the pandemic, a barrage of rising costs and the impact of a cost-of-living crisis on consumer spending. But the real nail in the coffin has been

Gavin Mortimer

France’s new PM Gabriel Attal is already fighting fires

Gabriel Attal has only been in his job for two weeks but the youngest prime minister in the history of the Fifth Republic is already facing a series of crises. The most pressing issue for the 34-year-old premier is the farmers’ protest, which began last Friday when a blockade was erected on the A64 motorway west of Toulouse. Early yesterday morning a car drove into the blockade, killing a farmer and her 12-year-old daughter. Details of the crash emerged throughout the day: it was not a deliberate act, the driver and the occupants were foreign and were confused by the protest. Then it was revealed that the three people in

Freddy Gray

Donald Trump swallows New Hampshire

Donald Trump has, like a boa constrictor, squeezed the life out of the Republican primary cycle. Last night, he swallowed New Hampshire and possibly Nikki Haley too. Haley did better than many of the late polls suggested. But that’s not saying much. She won 44 per cent of the vote, finishing 12 points behind Trump. She now has the momentum to move on to South Carolina, where she is thirty points behind in polls. But if she couldn’t win here in New Hampshire, where independents can vote in the Republican primary, it seems unlikely she can win anywhere. Or, as one Trump campaign official at his campaign’s election night watch party in Nashua put

Iain Macwhirter

The SNP’s juryless trial plan is falling apart

The SNP government has rarely demonstrated great respect for legal precedent or the rights of the individual. When Humza Yousaf was justice secretary back in 2020, he forced through the most illiberal curbs on freedom of speech in British history with the Hate Crime (Scotland) Act. This criminalised ‘stirring up hatred’, even in the privacy of one’s home. So it is perhaps not surprising that, as First Minister, Yousaf now seems bent on abolishing the right to trial by jury, one of the oldest legal protections against arbitrary injustice. The Victims, Witnesses and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill, before Holyrood’s justice committee this week, will introduce a pilot of judge-only trials in

Tuesday

23 Jan 2024

Steerpike

Tory WhatsApp group rows in behind Sunak

It’s a fun night on Tory WhatsApp tonight. Sir Simon Clarke – a cabinet minister under Boris Johnson and Liz Truss – has tonight issued a call in the Daily Telegraph for Rishi Sunak to resign. But over on the Tory WhatsApp group of MPs, there is little sign that the parliamentarians are bolting just yet. Jackie Doyle-Price, a stalwart supporter of Liz Truss, was first to row in, writing on the group that the ‘one thing that the public expects of a Conservative government more than anything else’ is ‘behaving like grown ups.’ Noting that ‘the best thing any of us can do about tonight’s report is not engage