Politics

Well, better late than never, I suppose. This week the Home Secretary James Cleverly announced that the government has finally decided to ban the Islamic extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. For some readers this may sound like a familiar story. In the aftermath of the 7 July 2005 terror attacks in London, the then prime minister Tony Blair declared that ‘the rules of the game are changing’. One of his most ardent promises was that he would ban Hizb ut-Tahrir, a group which was already banned in many Islamic countries that might be said to have a wiser attitude towards the extremists in their midst than we do. It is hard

Iwas intrigued to learn from our Defence Secretary, Grant Shapps, that we are now in a ‘pre-war’ phase and that there is an almost inevitability of eventual conflict with one or two of the world’s superpowers. I read his comments on the same day that the German newspaper Das Bild reported that Russia was planning to invade western Europe within 18 months. This is all very worrying, not least because Grant Shapps is our Defence Secretary. I don’t think I’d trust Grant to provide military back-up for a whelk stall, but then I suspect that his likely successor, John Healey, will be no more effective. The problem both men have

An election year, a tired government accused of being in power too long, and a bickering party. This was the backdrop to the coup against Gordon Brown in 2010 when Geoff Hoon – the defence secretary under Tony Blair – and his fellow ex-minister Patricia Hewitt called for a secret ballot. The coup was a miserable failure and became an example of how not to do it. Hoon conceded in less than 24 hours that they had failed and it was ‘over’. What went wrong? At the time it was attributed to a combination of bad timing, half-hearted plotters and the failure of the most credible candidate (David Miliband) to

A feisty edition of PMQs today, following the drama in the House yesterday evening. As predicted, Sir Keir Starmer opted to lead on Tory disunity over the Rwanda plan. He likened the Conservatives to ‘hundreds of bald men scrapping over a single broken comb’ before turning to reports that Rishi Sunak wanted to scrap the scheme when he was Chancellor. ‘Doesn’t he wish he’d had the courage to stick to his guns?’ he jibed. But Sunak hit back strongly, raising Sir Keir’s legal record and work defending the extremist group Hizb ut-Tahrir which was banned by James Cleverly on Monday. Mr Speaker, it is rich to hear from the Honourable

Richard Tice of Reform may not be the most charismatic party leader, but he has impeccable timing. The ink was hardly dry on Lee Anderson and Brendan Clarke-Smith’s joint resignation letter following their support for Robert Jenrick’s amendments to the Rwanda Bill, before he openly propositioned them to defect. Predictably Anderson told Christopher Hope straight away on GB News that he was not for turning. But things can change fast in politics. The idea that at least some of the New Conservatives should jump ship actually makes more sense than you might think, whether you look at things from the point of view of the people concerned, the Tory party or the

When he’s not grovelling to the House for his latest error, there’s nothing that Chris Bryant likes more than a bit of Tory-bashing. Whether it’s popping up in parliament or firing off posts on his ever-active Twitter account, few Members bill themselves as being better at holding ministers’ feet to the fire than our Sir Chris. Lately, the chosen choice of weapon for the Rhondda rabble-rouser is the time-honoured favourite of the written question. Bryant marked the new year by firing off one such inquiry to the Cabinet Office, the ministry known as the ‘thinking brain’ of government. His query concerned the status of one Dominic Cummings, back in the