Politics

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

Wednesday

Lisa Haseldine Lisa Haseldine

Putin tries to turn Africa against the West

After Vladimir Putin’s speech at the Brics global summit in South Africa, there can be no doubt that the Russian president has set his sights set on wooing the nations of Africa. In an effort to present Russia as a cooperative ally to, and leader of, the Brics bloc (currently made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, but with 40 more aspiring members) Vladimir Putin pinned the blame on the West’s ‘illegal sanctions regime’ for the global food supply problems experienced by many countries in the wake of his invasion of Ukraine. The Russian president acknowledged the grain issue was ‘hurting the most vulnerable poor countries first’,

Matthew Lynn

It’s time to get on with the Indian trade deal

The trade secretary Kemi Badenoch will be in India this week for a meeting of G20 trade ministers. The Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will be visiting the country in September. With so many ministers on hand, it might seem the perfect moment to unveil the long-awaited UK-India trade deal. After all, the former PM Boris Johnson at one point promised to get it wrapped up before Diwali in the autumn of 2022, although as so often he over-promised and under-delivered. Even so, the dithering is getting more and more alarming. A trade deal with India is now the big prize of Brexit – and should be wrapped up without delay. 

Ross Clark Ross Clark

House prices are falling. But it’s still terrible for first-time buyers

Hurrah. Housing is now more ‘affordable’ for first-time buyers than it was a year ago. Or so says Halifax, which has produced figures this morning showing that the average home now costs 6.7 times the earnings of the average worker, down from 7.3 times a year ago. This is thanks to two opposing trends. The value of the average home has come down from £293,586 to £286,276. Meanwhile, average earnings have increased by around 7 per cent. Spot the missing factor from this analysis. Yes, that’s right: it’s interest rates Spot the missing factor from this analysis. Yes, that’s right: it’s interest rates. Housing is only more ‘affordable’ now than

Andrew Tettenborn

The EU is heading for a bruising showdown with eastern Europe

Eurocrats don’t naturally do compromise, but Brussels may have to learn to compromise quite fast if it is to have any hope of avoiding a bruising showdown with eastern Europe. As often happens the backdrop is formed by events in Poland, where the ruling PiS party under Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki faces a crucial election in October. Apart from a rather esoteric ongoing argument about the rule of law which it is fair to say even most Europe-watchers don’t understand, Warsaw currently has two big gripes against the central EU bodies. One is their increasing insistence on centralising immigration control, and in particular the relocation of irregular arrivals; the other,

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

The developing world has grown tired of Britain’s hypocrisy

The timing could not have been worse for Rishi Sunak. Just days after it was confirmed by Downing Street that the Prime Minister would host Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) in the autumn, a human rights organisation published an extensive report accusing Saudi Arabia of the ‘mass killing’ of migrants at its border with Yemen.  The 73-page report was released by Human Rights Watch (HRW), and its contents have been relayed by several media outlets, including the BBC and the Guardian. It is a harrowing read.   Brics countries are no longer prepared to tolerate the hypocrisy of Washington, London and Paris HRW allege that Saudi border guards killed ‘hundreds of Ethiopian migrants and asylum

Tuesday

Steerpike Steerpike

Musk’s minions put Labour in its place

Oh dear. It seems that, in their earnestness to make capital out of tragedy, Labour have slipped up again. The party yesterday sought to exploit Lucy Letby’s refusal to attend her sentencing, tweeting that ‘Rishi Sunak has dragged his heels over changing the law to make criminals attend their court sentencing. We believe victims deserve better than this. Agree? Add your name below.’ What Labour should also have known, if it didn’t already, is that nearly two hours beforehand Alex Chalk, the Secretary of State for Justice, had tweeted a few hours earlier that the government was already ‘looking to change the law so offenders can be compelled to attend

Hardeep Singh

Why did it all kick off at a Kabaddi tournament in Derby?

News of a ‘large-scale disturbance’ at a Kabaddi tournament in Alvaston, Derby over the weekend has left a community in shock. Four people ended up in hospital, and four men were arrested on suspicion of possession of a firearm and violent disorder. Video footage of the disorder has been widely shared on social media – several sent it me via WhatsApp – and it makes for grim viewing. In one video, gun shots appear to be fired, with crowds fleeing the scene and someone saying ‘there is the gun’ in Punjabi. Another video shows chaotic scenes with men brawling. Some can be seen brandishing weapons (including swords); some have hoodies

Steerpike Steerpike

Keir Hardie’s spectre still haunting Labour

Rab Butler spoke of the art of politics but the politics of art is quite another matter. The summer recess will find many of Britain’s politicians perusing the world’s museums and art galleries. So as a treat to his readers Mr S can now reveal, via a Freedom of Information request, the treasures from the Parliamentary Art Collection that adorn the offices of the two front benches. Sadly, much of the collection is rather predictable. Rishi Sunak, for instance, has depictions of a number of his predecessors. Tory deities William Pitt the Younger, Robert Peel, Benjamin Disraeli, and Winston Churchill all line his walls. Other PMs featured in the cabinet

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Would Starmer’s government have any cash to spend?

16 min listen

If Labour wins the next election, will Keir Starmer have any money to spend on his programme of government? In a piece for the Times yesterday, journalist Philip Collins says it won’t, and he thinks Labour is suffering because of this constraint. How can Labour be intellectually interesting if the government purse strings are so tight? Fraser Nelson disagrees. He says that, thanks to the Tories taking tax levels to record highs, Starmer will have plenty of cash to work with. Kate Andrews speaks to Philip and Fraser. Produced by Natasha Feroze and Max Jeffery.

Steerpike Steerpike

Wandsworth Council’s troubling trans case

News of a troubling case reaches Steerpike. Earlier this month the Administrative Court handed down judgment in the case of R (AI) -v- London Borough of Wandsworth and Secretary of State for Education [2023] EWHC 2088 (Admin). It’s a complex ruling on a complex case, not likely to catch the attention of the public. But that judgment does contain details that raise some striking questions about medical treatment as it relates to issues of sex and gender. This relates to the claimant in the case, a 22-year-old with a heart-rending personal history and a string of serious problems. The claimant, named only as AI, was born female and now identifies as

James Kirkup James Kirkup

Would a young Starmer really not be able to afford university today?  

Keir Starmer reckons that under today’s economic conditions and policy framework, he would not have gone to Leeds University when he left school in the early 1980s: ‘It was a financial stretch then; if I were a student today, I wouldn’t be able to go.’ I’m not completely convinced this is true, but I have a lot of empathy for what he says about university access. I also think it’s a politically interesting and astute comment.  Let’s start with the politics. Compared to the population as a whole, Starmer is a very rich man who lives in a big house in London. He’s a KC and a knight. Like a lot of

Michael Simmons Michael Simmons

Scotland’s drug deaths shame

Scotland continues to suffer drug deaths at levels unseen anywhere else in the UK or Europe. Three Scots die as a result of drugs every single day. That is nearly three times worse than any other country for which records exist. This scandalous figure has just been updated, and shows that, although the number of drug deaths in Scotland fell by a fifth in 2022, it is still nearly double what it was when the SNP came to power. It is also four times as high as it was at the turn of the century. A fall, the government says, is progress. But why so slow? Why did more than

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

The rise of America’s anti-corporate populists

They are the Odd Couple of the United States Senate. She is a progressive Democrat and senior senator from true-blue Massachusetts, he a nationalist Republican and junior senator from ever-reddening Ohio. She has a 100 per cent rating from the National Abortion Rights Action League; he is ‘100 per cent pro-life’. She wants a path to citizenship for undocumented aliens; he wants a wall and to double the border patrol. She backs a federal assault weapons ban; his hero is his grandmother, who owned 19 handguns.  Although hailing from different sides of the culture wars, each is articulating material concerns that matter much more to the lives of Americans than whether Bud Light is woke No, Elizabeth Warren and JD Vance

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Jeremy Hunt’s big spending pledges are coming home to roost

The Office for National Statistics reports this morning that public sector net borrowing in July came in at £4.3 billion. This is the fifth-highest July borrowing month since records began, with an additional £3.4 billion being spent to fund the government’s spending pledges compared to July last year. Still, there is fast talk of room for manoeuvre for Chancellor Jeremy Hunt to spend more or cut tax, as cumulative government borrowing continues to undershoot the Office for Budget Responsibility's (OBR) latest forecast for the fiscal year. In July, borrowing reached £56.6 billion, £11.3 billion less than had been expected by this point. In the Chancellor’s response to the figures this morning, the

Ben Domenech

2024 is America’s ‘lock him up’ election

It’s time to acknowledge the obvious truth about 2024: it’s going to be an election about who Americans want to go to the White House – and who they want to go straight to jail. There are, of course, all the normal caveats about unexpected crises, and typical issues like the economy, Ukraine, abortion, China and the border must be acknowledged. The uniquely aged nature of the likely nominees themselves also increases the possibility of a health event between now and November 2024. But in a race between Hunter Biden’s dad and any Republican, but particularly Donald Trump, the orange jumpsuit looms over all. Trump’s status as a figure of chaos

Monday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Starmer will have cash to spend, thanks to the Tories

It’s great to see Philip Collins back in the Times: you may agree or disagree with him as a columnist but his writing is always elegant and thought-provoking. Today’s column looks at the conundrum facing Keir Starmer. ‘In all honesty I don’t think anyone involved can really say they know what it means to be a Labour government in a time in which there is no money left,’ he says. I know what he means: Tony Blair turned on the spending taps and Gordon Brown, when in power, turned them on even more. But Starmer will have more money to spend – far more – than any Labour government in history.  The tax

Matthew Scott

Should Lucy Letby have been allowed to miss her sentencing?

Until a few years ago I had never heard of a single case of a murderer declining to go into the dock to hear their sentence. I doubt whether any of them even realised that they had the choice.  Yet in recent years, the word seems to have spread and something of a fashion has developed for them to stay in their cells and refuse to enter the court-room.  It hardly surprising that many bereaved relatives are astonished and disgusted that such a thing is possible.  Judges, including Mr Justice Goss at Lucy Letby’s sentencing hearing, have decided that they have no power to do anything but accept this state

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Sadiq Khan’s racial dystopia

Imagine if the Mayor of London was a Tory and his website featured an image of a black family alongside the words: ‘Doesn’t represent real Londoners.’ Imagine if this right-leaning mayor had weird rules on ‘branding’, one of which was that images of young black families should not be used in mayor-related publicity because these people, with their dark skin, are not reflective of ‘our’ vision of London.  If someone can explain how judging a family on the basis of their whiteness is any better than judging a family on the basis of their blackness, I would be most grateful There would be uproar, possibly protests, and rightly so. It

Iain Macwhirter

The return of rickets is a damning indictment of the SNP

Among the exhibits in Edinburgh university’s famous anatomical museum are the bones of ‘Bowed Joseph’, a notorious 18th century rabble-rouser who could allegedly assemble a crowd of 10,000 by beating his drum. He was ‘bowed’ because Joseph had rickets, a disease that ravaged Scotland’s working classes until the middle of the last century. Rickets is a disease of poverty, caused by poor diet and lack of sunlight and it is back, to the shame of the Scottish government. Cases have risen 33 per cent from 354 in 2018 to 442 last year. Well, poverty is caused by Tory austerity, say SNP MSPs and nationalists on social media. This shows why Scotland