Politics

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

Tuesday

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Rishi Sunak dilutes net zero

Here we go. As Rishi Sunak prepares for next year’s election, the government has been on the hunt for dividing lines with Labour. One of the areas in focus is net zero. When the Tories narrowly held on in the Uxbridge by-election, Tory MPs largely put it down to the campaign against Ulez (ultra low emission zone). It led to a debate on how far to go when it comes to scaling back environmental commitments. Aides in No. 10 have been debating the issue all summer and now Sunak is close to a decision. This evening, the BBC reports that Sunak is considering weakening some of the government’s key green

Jawad Iqbal

Did Indian agents kill a Sikh separatist leader in Canada?

Canada has accused India of being behind the assassination of a Sikh-Canadian citizen on its soil – an unprecedented charge to make against a democracy and fellow G7 nation. The Canadians claim to be investigating ‘credible allegations’ that Indian agents were behind the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Sikh separatist leader. Nijjar, a Canadian citizen, was shot and killed in June outside a Sikh temple in British Columbia. Nijjar was long wanted by the Indian authorities, who accused him of involvement in an alleged attack on a Hindu priest in India and had offered a reward for information leading to his arrest. The manner of his death was bound to

Oscar Edmondson

Will Starmer soften Brexit?

13 min listen

Keir Starmer is in Paris today. It’s a bid to ‘look statesman-like’, Katy Balls says, but also underlines where a Labour government would take British relations with the EU. Oscar Edmondson talks to Katy and Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform. Produced by Oscar Edmondson and Cindy Yu.

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

YouTube is wrong to rush to judgement on Russell Brand

It is often on the back of public fury that dangerous new precedents are set. Authoritarianism can sneak in when we’re all hopping mad about something or someone. So mad that we don’t even notice that society’s rules are being rewritten in an illiberal way. I fear it’s happening again, with YouTube’s demonetisation of Russell Brand. This is a risky thing to say. The climate is febrile right now. Criticise any aspect of the censure of Brand, following the publication of very serious allegations against him, which he strongly denies, and you risk being damned as a Brand defender. Worse, his weird online army, that ‘scamdemic’ mob that views Brand

Euan McColm

How standing up for JK Rowling destroyed one author’s career

When the Scottish writer Gillian Philip posted a tweet in 2020, she could not have imagined the devastating consequences that would follow. At the time, her fellow author JK Rowling was under relentless attack for her view that a conflict exists between women’s right to use single sex spaces, such as refuges, and moves to allow trans people to use such facilities on the basis of self-identification. Philip shared the Harry Potter creator’s concerns about male-bodied individuals accessing places set up to support women traumatised by men’s violence and added the hashtag #ISTANDWITHROWLING to her Twitter bio. And then her world came crashing down. The online mob came for Philip,

Steerpike Steerpike

Marina Hyde’s Russell Brand volte face

The Russell Brand revelations have prompted much soul-searching in recent days from hand-wringing hacks fretting about the norms of the noughties. Leading the charge today is Marina Hyde, the toast of centrist dads everywhere. She has written in the Guardian about her angst concerning the infamous ‘Sachsgate’ episode of Brand’s career. Back in October 2008, Brand and his Radio 2 show co-host Jonathan Ross phoned Andrew Sachs – Manuel from Fawlty Towers – and left lewd messages on his voice machine, boasting about Brand’s past sexual relationship with Sachs’ granddaughter, Georgina Baillie. Battle lines were drawn. Charles Moore was so appalled at this that he said he refused to pay

Jonathan Miller Jonathan Miller

Starmer’s Paris trip is based on a fantasy

One small trip on the Eurostar for Keir Starmer is one giant kick in the teeth for Rishi Sunak.   The Labour leader’s Grand Tour today descended on Paris, after his trips last week to Canada, where he was received by Justin Trudeau, and the Hague, where the prime minister in waiting consulted Europol, the European police agency, on his inchoate plan to stop the boats. Macron and Starmer are undoubtedly enjoying today’s love-in, but tomorrow the European Union will remain as fractured as it has ever been And now, the City of Light. After successfully transiting the squalid Gare du Nord without being mugged yesterday, Starmer was today whisked

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

The Union is in trouble, however this week’s trans ruling goes

Up before the Court of Session in Edinburgh today is a legal question: was Scottish Secretary Alister Jack’s decision to block the SNP’s gender reforms a lawful exercise of his statutory powers? In January, Jack invoked a relatively obscure power to block the Gender Recognition Reform (GRR) Bill. The GRR Bill – the brainchild of Nicola Sturgeon and her Green coalition partner – would lower the age at which someone can change their legal sex to 16; remove the requirement for medical experts to be involved in the process; and reduce the statutory waiting period from two years to three months, plus a further three-month reflection period.  At the heart

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

UK set for highest inflation in G7 this year

You’d struggle to describe the start of 2023 as anything like ‘good economic times’. But according to the OECD’s economic outlook interim report, it’s better than what’s to come. The report, published this morning, expects rising rates around the world to take their toll on economic growth. Global growth has been downgraded for next year – from 2.9 per cent in 2024 to 2.7 per cent – which is lower than the 3 per cent growth expected this year. The report notes that a ‘stronger-than-expected’ start to the year makes it all but impossible for growth to keep pace: the fall in energy prices coupled with China’s comeback post-pandemic gave global

Iain Macwhirter

When will Humza Yousaf see sense on his doomed gender bill?

Just when you thought it was safe to go to back in the gender-neutral loo, back comes the row about the Gender Recognition Reform Bill. It lands in Scotland’s highest court today, the Court of Session. Lady Haldane will hear three days of argument on the UK government’s unprecedented veto under the Section 35 of the Scotland Act.  The GRR Bill, passed by the Scottish parliament in December after an acrimonious late-night debate, could allow people as young as 16 to change legal sex without a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria. It is opposed by around two thirds of Scottish voters. But the Scottish government is determined to see it on the

Andrew Liddle

Why Scottish Labour shouldn’t fear an SNP resurgence

It is a testament to the extraordinary changes underway in Scottish politics that the latest YouGov poll showing the Labour party winning 11 seats north of the border is viewed as a setback. Even six months ago, such findings would have been welcomed with jubilation at the party’s Glasgow headquarters as evidence that voters were, finally, coming back to Labour from the SNP.  Even if voters are not necessarily coming back to Labour in the numbers some might have dared hope, people in Scotland have few reasons to turn out for the SNP either. As it is, other recent polls have been far more positive for Sir Keir Starmer’s party,

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Why drivers are losing interest in electric cars

In his promised review of net zero policies, Rishi Sunak has already ruled out postponing the proposed ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2030. Indeed, from the end of the year manufacturers are going to be under a mandate to make sure that a certain proportion of their sales are electric – although the details have not yet been published. But what chances of the car industry actually getting there? While sales of electric cars might seem to be healthy – the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) records that 193,221 pure electric cars were sold in the first eight months of 2023, up

Steerpike Steerpike

Labour’s HS2 confusion

Who knew a high-speed rail network involved so many U-turns? It’s not just the government who are flip-flopping on HS2 expansion: anything they can do, Labour can do better! The Opposition have now tried three different positions in 48 hours on suggestions that HS2’s planned route could be cut back. On Sunday, frontbencher Pat McFadden claimed that Labour was now not committed to completing the full original route on HS2, saying to Laura Kuenssberg: ‘I want to see what this costs and we’ll make those decisions when it comes to the manifesto.’ Only a few hours later, Shadow Security Minister Dan Jarvis seemed to shift the line, telling the BBC’s

Steerpike Steerpike

Melvyn Bragg takes a pop at Gary Lineker

Radio 4 show In Our Time celebrates its landmark 1,000th episode this week. Host Melvyn Bragg is one of the Beeb’s biggest stars, but it seems his salary hardly puts him on level pegging with some of the corporation’s other big names. In an interview marking In Our Time‘s millennial episode, Bragg gently points out that he is paid 27 times less than Match of the Day host Gary Lineker – even though the two shows get similar audiences. Bragg tells the Times: ‘He is paid 27 times more than I am. Something like that. It would be great if he was paid what I was paid. That would be fine.

Zoe Strimpel

The truth about Bedales

Every now and again, my alma mater is in the news, and why wouldn’t it be? Britain is obsessed with schools and class. Bedales provides ample fodder for both: the boarding school in Hampshire is famously ‘liberal’ – and was so even when England was famously illiberal. Bedales, whose graduates include Lily Allen, Kirstie Allsopp and Daniel Day-Lewis, is the educational equivalent of Tatler smashed together with Vogue. Bedales hit the headlines again this week because it is the first school in the country to ditch GCSEs – those entering now will take just two, in maths and English. The rest will be a mixture of the usual subjects like

Debbie Hayton

Are the Tories still going to ban conversion therapy?

The clock is ticking on a bill to ban conversion therapy, at least for this year. Let’s hope that time runs out before it becomes law. The Tories had previously promised to ban the practice of attempting to change someone’s sexuality or gender identity, but the government appears to have had second thoughts. When Lib Dem MP Wera Hobhouse asked last week if the bill would be ready in time for the King’s Speech in November, Leader of the House of Commons Penny Mordaunt avoided the question. Instead, Mordaunt pointed out that, ‘those are abhorrent practices that sometimes have lifelong impacts on those who have had to endure them.’ Quite. So

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Macron and Starmer are made for each other

It is Keir Starmer’s misfortune that he arrives in Paris today for a meeting with Emmanuel Macron at the moment Europe faces one of its gravest challenges of recent years. More than 11,000 migrants have landed on the Italian island of Lampedusa in the last week, an unprecedented influx that has exposed the deep divisions within the EU. Labour’s leader reportedly wants to discuss how to better improve relations between Britain and the EU, but he may not have the full attention of the French president. Not only is Europe arguing amongst itself over how to tackle the migrant crisis, but Macron’s own party, Renaissance, is also at loggerheads over the

Steerpike Steerpike

Humza Yousaf’s awkward Russia Today appearances

There’s nothing the Nats wouldn’t do to give their independence obsession a little more airtime. They’ll take the publicity from wherever they can get it – and that includes the pro-Putin Russia Today programme. It has emerged that First Minister Humza Yousaf appeared on the controversial channel twice in the past, first in 2013 and then again in 2017, when he was transport minister, after the annexation of Crimea.  The SNP’s minister for Europe at the time, Yousaf talked in 2013 about how his party’s white paper on independence had helped people get ‘their questions answered’. ‘I’ve got no doubt at all the polls will continue in the trajectory that

Monday

Steerpike Steerpike

Red Wall poster girl Dehenna Davison quits as minister

With the polls pointing to a Tory thrashing, how many of the 2019 Red Wallers will win their seats next time? One who isn’t hanging around to find out is Dehenna Davison, the 30-year-old MP for Bishop Auckland. She announced back in November that she was standing down from parliament and today she has also declared that she is quitting her post as a junior minister for Levelling Up. In her resignation letter, Davison said it was ‘impossible’ to stay in the job while battling chronic migraines and that she wants to spend more time on constituency work. She now intends to focus her efforts on campaigning for one punch assault victims;

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Liz Truss is no fiscal hawk

Was Liz Truss a fiscal hawk inside No. 10? That is the rather startling claim made by the former prime minister, speaking today at the Institute for Government about the future of economic growth. She has claimed public spending would be £35 billion lower over the next few years had her plans been followed, due to the real-term spending cuts that would have followed from not reopening the latest Spending Review. Moreover, she insists that her mini-Budget was not just about going for growth, but rather a ‘three-pronged approach’ that included ‘targeted tax freezes and reductions, supply side reform and holding public spending down.’ This is the first time we’ve