Politics

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

Wednesday

Annabel Denham

The SNP’s four day week won’t work

Pigs will surely sooner fly over Glasgow Pollok than business will take inspiration from Humza Yousaf’s approach to running government. Nonetheless, the claim made by Scotland’s First Minister and his advisers is that moving state employees to a four-day week could be a catalyst for the private sector to follow suit. In the clearest sign yet that the SNP exists for the welfare of its public sector workers at the expense of the taxpayer, Yousaf has announced a pilot scheme in his programme for government, Holyrood’s version of Westminster’s King’s speech, despite warnings that it could ‘blow a £2.5 billion hole‘ in his budget. The SNP’s day-to-day spending is already on course

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Kwarteng apologises for mini-Budget chaos (eventually)

Happy Trussiversary. It’s a year today since Liz Truss entered No. 10. One man who probably won’t be celebrating that milestone is Kwasi Kwarteng, who marked the occasion last night with a grilling on Piers Morgan Uncensored. Morgan kicked things off by blasting the Spelthorne MP for causing ‘genuine financial harm’ to many as a consequence of the mini-Budget last Autumn. Claiming that Kwarteng and Truss would ‘go down in history…as disasters in that period’, Morgan wondered out loud why the former chancellor was finding it so difficult to ‘just say sorry’. Kwarteng said he didn’t believe his strategy in the Treasury ‘was the wrong strategy. I don’t apologise for the strategy’. Nevertheless,

Tuesday

Andy Maciver

Is Humza Yousaf’s ‘pro-growth’ stance convincing?

It may not have a title quite as resplendent as The King’s speech, but today represents the marquee day in the Scottish Parliament’s calendar. The Programme for Government (PfG), like its regal counterpart at Westminster, is the annual opportunity for Scotand’s First Minister to tell us what his or her vision is and what he or she intends to do with it. Much like The King’s speech, the PfG also gives the government a couple of days of wall-to-wall media coverage, so from the perspective of the political strategist and communicator, it is one of the top two or three moments of the Scottish political calendar. This PfG was the

Lucy Dunn

There is nothing ‘bold and ambitious’ about Humza Yousaf’s plan for Scotland

Humza Yousaf’s programme for government was the new First Minister’s chance to separate himself, once and for all, from the legacy of his predecessor. Nicola Sturgeon said herself when resigning that ‘any party that doesn’t change after two decades in power is daft’ – but do Yousaf’s proposals promise the reset the country needs? ‘We are unashamedly anti-poverty and pro-growth,’ the First Minister announced at the start of his speech, sounding eerily like his leadership race rival Kate Forbes. Drawing on the experience of his own family, Yousaf made a show of the Scottish government’s pro-business approach — despite having come under fire from opposition politicians and business owners alike

Edward Howell

The unholy alliance between Kim Jong-un and Putin

On 27 July, while commemorating the 70th anniversary of what North Korea perversely terms its ‘victory’ in the Korean war, Kim Jong-un proudly gave a guided tour of his intercontinental ballistic missiles, drones and missile engines. The lucky visitor was none other than Russian defence minister, Sergei Shoigu. Later that day, Shoigu stood next to the Supreme Leader as they watched North Korea’s rockets paraded across Kim Il Sung square.   Now it seems that Shoigu’s visit – the first time a Russian defence minister had come to North Korea since the collapse of the Soviet Union – has paid off. Today, it has been reported that Kim Jong-un is preparing to travel

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Sunak is embracing wind farms because of politics, not principle

Michael Gove today announced that the government was relaxing the effective ban on new onshore wind farms that was introduced by David Cameron. Under those rules, just one objection could stop a planned wind farm – but they’ve been scrapped with immediate effect.  The reason? Rishi Sunak was facing a rebellion from Tory MPs, of course. The Prime Minister held talks with the would-be rebels, led by former Cop26 president Alok Sharma, and concluded that he would have to yield to their demands. They were trying to force the government to get on with a promise that was supposed to have been fulfilled by April – and were going to use

James Heale James Heale

Who’s to blame for the concrete crisis?

13 min listen

The government is struggling to change the story. After Gillian Keegan yesterday said, about the concrete crisis, that ‘everyone else has sat on their arse and done nothing’, the story has continued to dominate the news. How can the government recover? Who should take the blame? James Heale speaks to Katy Balls and Conservative Home’s Paul Goodman.

Jawad Iqbal

Labour can’t pass the buck for Birmingham’s troubles

Whose fault is it that Labour-controlled Birmingham city council, the country’s biggest local authority, is now effectively bankrupt? The answer, according to the council’s leaders, is that it is anyone and everyone’s fault except their own. It is the fault of the government for imposing funding cuts over the last decade, the ballooning costs of rolling out a new IT system, and a historic equal pay settlement that is proving impossible to fund. In other words, it is nothing to do with those actually elected to run Birmingham. Is anyone surprised that politicians are held in such low esteem by the voters?  The bare facts are these. The council has issued

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Why Birmingham council went bust

There’s a bit too much schadenfreude from Tories over the effective bankruptcy of Birmingham Council. Its ‘Section 114 notice’ is an admission that the council (Europe’s largest) is unable to meet a £760 million equal pay lawsuit – so spending on all but essential services in Britain’s second city will stop. A Labour-run council has gone pop: a point that several Tory councillors have made. But like the school concrete fiasco, this might be the first sign of a deeper malaise – with more bankruptcies to come. Birmingham is home to the largest – and perhaps worst-run – council in Europe. Part of the mess it has found itself in is liability for

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Bring in the Gen X politicians!

American politics has become a tug-of-war between two generations. Boomers (and those older) dominate positions of power even as their capacity diminishes. Joe Biden, 80, has repeatedly displayed signs of frailty and confusion but, as far as we know, he’ll be running for re-election in 2024.  Over on Capitol Hill, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, 81, continues to freeze during public remarks and Diane Feinstein, 90, faces calls to retire from within her own party. While mental impairment is no impediment to serving in the United States Senate – if anything, it’s probably an advantage – the upper house is older than it has ever been. The average age in

Steerpike Steerpike

Kemi becomes the Tory members’ favourite

When the king abdicates, who inherits the throne? Following Ben Wallace’s departure as Defence Secretary, it seems that Kemi Badenoch has now seized his crown as the toast of the Tory grassroots. For 18 months, Wallace topped the ConservativeHome league table of party members. But his exit from the political stage means there’s a vacancy and with a satisfaction rating of +59 points, it seems that the Business and Trade Secretary has filled his place. Just in time for Tory conference too… Most of the other ratings are broadly in line with the last ConHome table, though the Prime Minister will be disappointed to see his name fall into 25th

Matthew Lynn

One year on, Truss’s case for growth is stronger than ever

There won’t be any fireworks. No one is blowing up the balloons, and there isn’t going to be a cake. The first anniversary of Liz Truss’s unfortunate and quickly terminated premiership today won’t be marked by anything other than a few snarky comments on the site formerly known as Twitter. And yet, as the tumultuous 44 days of her leadership start to fade into history, one thing is surely clear. Her argument that the UK badly needs to do something about lifting its miserable growth rate is becoming stronger all the time. Right across the spectrum, it is starting to be recognised that the UK is an increasingly poor country

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

What France’s rugby racism row reveals about the French left

Emmanuel Macron spent Monday morning in the presence of the French rugby team and for once he spoke without ambiguity. ‘You are the best prepared team in the world,’ he told them at their training camp south of Paris. ‘You’ll be brothers in arms, fighting from the first minute to the last. The team is bigger than you, just as the nation is bigger than any one of us. Make us proud, make us happy.’  France are indeed the bookmakers’ favourites for the Rugby World Cup, the tournament they are hosting for the first time since 2007. On that occasion, they were similarly confident going into the competition, only to

Steerpike Steerpike

Parliament shells out another £190k for leaky roof report

It’s not just England’s schools that are crumbling. As the new term dawns, MPs have returned to Portcullis House to find work still ongoing to fix the building’s notoriously leaky roof. Water poured into the building’s atrium last month after a ‘huge bang’ which left the area fenced off with scaffolding underneath. A Freedom of Information request by Steerpike found that the annual cost of fixing the roof has now jumped to more than £10,000 over the past decade. So what’s to be done about the building, which opened in 2000 and was expected to last, er, two centuries? Well, a major report into the Portcullis House roof defects is

Jawad Iqbal

Are civil servants taking their revenge?

Jonathan Slater, a former top mandarin at the Department for Education (DfE), has laid the blame for the school building safety crisis fairly and squarely at the door of the Prime Minister. It is an extraordinary public intervention by a former senior civil servant in an ongoing political controversy: former mandarins of Slater’s rank are normally reluctant to speak out directly on political matters, or to openly criticise ministers they worked for. That, at any rate, used to be the rule, but perhaps no longer. This raises huge questions about the impartiality of the civil service and the day-to-day workings of government.  Slater’s revelations will blow yet another hole in the

Monday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Does Gillian Keegan deserve some credit?

Gillian Keegan’s Commons statement on the school concrete crisis will not be the most memorable contribution the Education Secretary made today: that award goes to her hot mic moment a few hours before where she appeared to suggest that people should be grateful for what she was doing and that others hadn’t been doing anything at all. Both could of course be true, and though she didn’t repeat what she had described in her apology as her ‘choice’ language, she did make points to MPs that backed up her ‘fucking good job’ argument. It was a very uncomfortable session, naturally, because Labour went on the attack about this being the

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Keegan reacts to her hot mic moment

It’s been quite a day for the Education Secretary. Morning, noon and night, she has been on the airwaves today, having made what is surely the most famous on-air Keegan rant since Newcastle beat Leeds in April 1996. Appearing on Sophy Ridge’s new Sky show this evening, the garrulous minister had to sit and watch as her ‘hot mic’ interview was played back to her. A poker-faced Keegan barely betrayed a hint of emotion while watching the clip, before cooly explaining to Ridge that her comments about doing ‘a fucking good job’ were actually a reference to her industrious civil servants. ‘I wasn’t talking about me, I was talking about

Ian Acheson Ian Acheson

Why Northern Ireland’s Chief Constable had to go

Simon Byrne, the Chief Constable of Northern Ireland’s beleaguered police force, has stepped down. It’s about time. The country’s police service, created to oversee a changing society in the aftermath of the Good Friday agreement, has been reeling from a succession of scandals. These stories – not least involving the leak of details about 10,000 police officers and staff on the internet – have had a catastrophic impact on trust inside and outside the organisation. Byrne’s decision to quit looked inevitable. On Friday, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) submitted a motion of no confidence in the Chief Constable. A few days earlier, the High Court ruled that two junior officers

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Liz Kendall deserves her promotion

Keir Starmer has carried out a shadow cabinet reshuffle today that suggests he is confident about his authority over the Labour party, and that he is also genuinely keen to be a reforming prime minister. Giving so many key policy and campaigning jobs to centrist types will please those who have been pushing him to be less cautious. Unlike Fraser, I think Liz Kendall replacing Jon Ashworth in the work and pensions brief is an excellent example of the Labour leader being enthusiastic about reform. Ashworth is, as his appearances in The Spectator recently have shown, a very thoughtful and forward-thinking politician. He hasn’t been afraid to take on important