Politics

Charlie Taylor is not so much the canary in the coal mine of prison conditions as the British Gas engineer nailing a ‘condemned’ sign to the entrance while ministers skip gaily into the fumes. Taylor, just reappointed to a second three-year term as HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, has been raising the alarm about our crumbling prisons estate since taking up the role in 2020. He also writes on prisons every now and then for The Spectator, so you know he’s a good egg.  The response from ministers has amounted to little more than boilerplate but Taylor’s latest intervention ought to jolt them out of their complacency. He tells the

Will the UK government pledge to leave the European Convention on Human Rights? It’s a cause that Tory MPs on the right of the party have been championing for years, and their cries have grown louder as the Rwanda scheme has struggled to get off the ground. So far the Prime Minister has refused to rule out leaving the ECHR – but those close to him say he needs to be convinced that it is necessary for controlling the UK’s borders and cracking down on small boats. That means exhausting all other avenues first. However, in a sign of which way the wind is blowing, the Times reports that Suella

Is open debate now too painful for the SNP? Fergus Ewing, one of the party’s longest serving (and most outspoken) politicians has tonight been suspended for a week after criticising his own government’s ministers and policies. The disciplinary action comes after a series of statements Ewing made in recent months attacking the direction of the SNP — which in some cases resulted in his voting against government itself. Heresy in Humza Yousaf’s ultra-conformist regime… It was thought Ewing would lose the whip in June after he voted with the opposition in the no confidence vote against junior minister Lorna Slater — a decision deemed ‘very, very serious’ by Yousaf —

So, Rosebank is to go ahead, or so we think. The North Sea Transition Authority has granted a licence for the extraction of oil and gas from the field, which lies to the west of the Shetlands. For its part, Labour has said that while it opposes the project, it will not withdraw the licences should it win power next year. Despite the best efforts of Mark Carney and others, someone evidently thinks it is worth investing £3.1 billion in new oil and gas production. That is the sum that the developers, Equinor and Ithaca Energy, say they will invest in the first phase of the scheme. Eventually, more than