Politics

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

Wednesday

10 May 2023

Tories beware: the Lib Dems are back

Every prime minister has at least one guilty pleasure; Rishi Sunak has several. Colleagues tease him for his taste in music (Michael Bublé), television (Emily in Paris) and literature (Jilly Cooper CBE). One of his favourite novels is Cooper’s first ‘bonkbuster’ Riders, a tale about the great and good – and a Tory minister for sport – frolicking in the fictional Cotswolds county of Rutshire. Infidelity, duplicity and intrigue, all playing out in Conservative heartlands. More pessimistic Conservatives see an effective anti-Tory tactical vote emerging Sunak’s problem is that these days places like Rutshire might no longer be Tory safe seats. Formerly true-blue parts of the country may be set

Niall Ferguson

Trump’s second act: he can still win, in spite of everything

Everyone knows F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous line from the end of his unfinished novel The Last Tycoon: ‘There are no second acts in American lives.’ But Fitzgerald wasn’t talking about second chances. He meant that, unlike in a traditional play – where Act I presents a problem, Act II reveals the complications and Act III resolves it all – Americans want to skip Act II and go straight to the resolution. The more I think about it, the more I think the Joe Biden presidency is Act II – and Donald Trump is not the last tycoon. He’s Act III. He’s the next president. The campaign of lawfare against him

Isabel Hardman

Sunak and Starmer’s pointless battle of soundbites at PMQs

We learned very little from Prime Minister’s Questions today. Both Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak used attack lines from previous weeks – ones that they will probably repeat until the next general election – and didn’t stray into any new areas. The Leader of the Opposition wanted to mock the Tory performance in last week’s local elections. Meanwhile, Sunak wanted to exploit Labour nerves that, despite Starmer’s party doing well last week, it didn’t seem to be out of a newfound enthusiasm for Labour among voters. It’s going to be a very long and boring road if PMQs carries on like this Starmer told the chamber that the Prime Minister

Rod Liddle

Much of the Covid consensus has been proved to be tripe

Three years ago this week marked my first misgivings about the government’s Covid lockdown. Sure, I was late to that particular party – my wife, for example, had been carping viciously for the previous two months. But my rational assessment of lockdown was perhaps tilted by the gentle, bucolic magic of the thing itself. I think I have never enjoyed a more pleasant time. The weather was beautiful, and out in the Kent countryside, where I then lived, one could enjoy it to its full. Wildlife was less shy than usual, perhaps a consequence of the state-imposed quietude. Occasionally city dwellers would infest our country lanes and I had great

Steerpike

Watch: Andrew Bridgen crosses the floor

Four months after losing the Tory whip, Andrew Bridgen finally has a new party. The maverick member for North West Leicestershire has today joined Laurence Fox’s Reclaim party as their first MP. In a Westminster press conference – held in the same room in which Douglas Carswell defected to Ukip – Bridgen hailed his new comrades and announced his intention to continue legal action against Matt Hancock over their long-running vaccines spat: I have submitted a defamation claim to the Royal Court of Justice against one Matthew Hancock MP. The basis of my claim is that Mr Hancock’s accusation of antisemitism against me is a false slur to deliberately try

Joanna Williams

Lawyers are right to boycott Humza Yousaf’s juryless rape trials

What is it with Humza Yousaf? Scotland’s First Minister has plenty on his plate: police are investigating the SNP’s financial affairs, feminists are pushing back against his plans for gender recognition reform and now lawyers are boycotting the pilot scheme for jury-less rape trials that he has vocally championed. At some point, this stops being simple misfortune and instead suggests serious political miscalculation. Criticism of the Scottish government’s plans to try rape cases without a jury has been building. Now, with at least seven legal bodies having voted to reject the proposed changes to court proceedings, a near unanimous boycott looks likely to render the pilot scheme unworkable. Good. From

Steerpike

Is Scotland going off Humza Yousaf already?

If it wasn’t for bad luck, Humza Yousaf would have no luck. After hobbling over the line in a brutal SNP leadership election, his tenure was instantly plunged into chaos by a police probe into the party’s finances. Raids on Nicola Sturgeon’s home and SNP HQ were followed by the arrests of Peter Murrell, Sturgeon’s husband and former party chief executive, and Colin Beattie, the now-resigned treasurer. Both men were released without charge. Since then, Yousaf has been plagued by rumours of a leadership challenge from erstwhile rival Kate Forbes, faced a Westminster crackdown on using devolved institutions to promote independence, and was forced to U-turn on a pledge to join a

Steerpike

Wanted: a Tory candidate for London mayor

‘Men wanted for hazardous journey… Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in event of success.’ Ernest Shackleton’s supposed plea for explorers on his Antarctic expedition would nicely double up as the job advert for the Tory London mayoral candidate. CCHQ formally opened applications yesterday but there seems to be a lack of early frontrunners. Indeed, Labour’s 40-point poll lead in the capital means that there appears to be more people who have ruled themselves out than ruled themselves in, including Karren Brady, Tom Tugendhat, Iain Dale, George Osborne and Ed Vaizey. So far the only declared contenders are Samuel Kasumu, a former adviser to Boris Johnson, and the Assembly trio

Gavin Mortimer

Macron remains in denial over Europe’s migrant crisis

Tuesday was ‘Europe Day’, or as the European Union proclaimed on its website, the occasion to ‘celebrate peace and unity’ and give thanks to Robert Schuman. It was the French statesman’s declaration on 9 May 1950 that put in place the framework ‘for a new form of political cooperation in Europe’. No leader in Europe marked the day quite as enthusiastically as Emmanuel Macron. His Renaissance party tabled a bill on Tuesday in the National Assembly demanding that every village and town hall throughout France be made to fly the EU flag alongside the French tricolour. One wonders what they made of Macron’s ‘Together, united’ declaration in Rome The President

Lara Prendergast

Meet Millennial Millie, the new swing voter

An election looms and political parties are already talking ‘voter demographics’. Every few years, the wonks of Westminster pick a social stereotype and decide it represents a crucial group of swing voters. We’ve had Mondeo Man, Waitrose Woman and Pebbledash Person. Who will it be in 2024? It could be Deano, a snooty term used to describe aspirational lower-middle class blokes. Deano is proud to own a new-build house, a car bought on finance and a perfect set of pearly whites. He has had a bit of a tricky time recently, watching interest rates shoot up. Deano might have once voted Tory from his Red Wall seat, although after that

Francis Pike

The troubling arrest of Imran Khan

The saga of Imran Khan’s political career rumbles on. While on his way to the High Court in Islamabad yesterday to defend himself against trumped-up charges of political corruption, Khan was ambushed inside the judicial compound by enforcement paramilitaries known as the Pakistani Rangers. After Khan and his lawyers were allegedly beaten up, he was then driven away. The Pakistan government, the military or its agents, have seemingly been trying to either arrest or kill the immensely popular Khan since he was deposed by an army-backed constitutional coup in April 2022. Finally, this week they got their man. In November last year, Khan had been fortunate to survive a gun

Freddy Gray

Does anyone think the sex abuse verdict will stop Donald Trump?

Can a man who has been found ‘civilly liable’ for sexual abuse in court be elected president of the United States? In a normal world, such a verdict might reasonably be expected to torpedo any candidate’s ambitions. But American politics today is the opposite of normal. A Manhattan jury yesterday ordered Donald Trump to pay the writer E. Jean Carroll $5 million (£4 million) in damages — $2 million for her injuries for being molested by him and nearly $3 million for his defamation of her for denying her claims. Four years ago, in print, 79-year-old Carroll accused Trump of raping her in a New York department store in late

Harvey Woolfe

What’s the real reason police disrupted our anti-monarchy protest?

The Met Police has expressed ‘regret’ over the arrests of six anti-monarchy protesters on coronation day. Officers even apologised in person to Graham Smith, the leader of the anti-Monarchy group Republic. But so far, no-one has said sorry to me. I’m a middle-aged dad, and not much of a rebel, but feel strongly about wanting an elected head of state. So, at 7.45am last Saturday, on the day of the coronation, I was part of a dozen-strong Republic sub-group, stationed on the Mall just opposite the Duke of York steps. The plan was simple. Nine of us, wearing yellow Republic T-shirts, would hold metre-square placards, each containing a letter of

Steerpike

James O’Brien’s spinning for Starmer backfires

Oh dear. It seems that James O’Brien has slipped up again in his ceaseless quest for truth. The hard-of-thinking LBC star is always able to spot a winner and now, having so spectacularly lost the arguments on Brexit and Covid classroom closures, he has turned his attentions to Labour, riding high in the polls after last week’s election win. O’Brien seems to have become something of a Keirleader – unsurprising perhaps given both men’s shared enthusiasm for a second referendum. And it was in that spirit that O’Brien fearlessly tackled one of his own callers who complained about David Lammy telling LBC that Labour will not repeal the Public Order

Robin Ashenden

The barbarity of Russia’s white phosphorus attack on Bakhmut

There is something oddly Christmassy about the scene: a night-time city bathed, festooned in twinkling white lights, the smoke around them almost luminous. A shower of brilliant sparks falls calmly from the air, lighting up the dark sky – the town below seeming to celebrate something, over and over, with a spectacular firework display: flares, starbursts, dry-ice and Roman Candles. But the visual beauty is a sick joke, the town is Bakhmut at the end of a nine-month siege, and the illuminations appear to be an attack by Russian forces with white phosphorus – so the Ukrainian government claim – one of the most lethal incendiary chemicals in use today.

Matt McDonald

Jury finds Donald Trump sexually abused author

A New York federal jury has found Donald Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation against the author E. Jean Carroll. The jury ordered the former president to pay Carroll $5 million (£4 million) in compensatory and punitive damages. Trump was not found liable for the more serious charge of rape leveled against him by Carroll. ‘We are very happy,’ Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan told the press as she left the courthouse with her client. Carroll did not address reporters. In her suit, Carroll had alleged that Trump had raped her in the dressing room of a Bergdorf Goodman store in New York in the mid-1990s. Judge Lewis A. Kaplan

Euan McColm

Why the SNP is unlikely to be the kingmaker at the next election

The SNP has spent a lot of time and energy in recent years telling voters in Scotland there’s no difference between the Labour and Conservative parties. Arrant nonsense, of course, but there’s a market for that sort of thing among the nationalists’ more excitable supporters, many of whom happily buy into the idea of Labour as ‘red Tories’. There is, however, an inconsistency to the SNP’s line of attack. Each time a General Election rumbles into view, the nationalists may be depended upon to recognise differences between its Unionist opponents. Generally, this manifests itself as talk about which party it would be willing to support in the event the election

Gareth Roberts

Could AI save the human race?

Two things are buzzing about in the air at the moment: decline and artificial intelligence. Douglas Murray and Louise Perry have written recently in these pages about social desuetude: Murray on the five million or so Britons who seem to have opted out altogether of economic activity; Perry on the worrying lack of new humans being born. Could AI get us out of these holes? It’s tempting to scoff at new tech and the alternating warnings and promises about what’s coming down the line. Many of us in the demographic bulge of older citizens will recall the heated clamour of the early 80s. We remember how the auguries about the

Andrew Finkel

Erdogan is desperate

There is such a thing as governing for too long. After about ten years in post, politicians’ once natural feel for the nation’s pulse instead starts to rub the electorate the wrong way. Thatcher, Blair and de Gaulle all saw their time run out. What about Recep Tayyip Erdoğan? He has led Turkey since 2003 as prime minister and since 2014 as president. This Sunday, he will try to defy political gravity. Opinion polls don’t suggest a clear outcome in the Turkish election. They suggest that no presidential candidate will get 50 per cent of the vote in the first round on Sunday, and that Erdoğan’s principal and not overly

Tuesday

9 May 2023

James Heale

Starmer struggles on the coalition question

With gains of 643 councillors and 22 authorities, Labour clearly had a good result in Thursday’s local elections. Yet with the BBC and Sky both publishing vote share projections which show the party falling short of an overall majority – winning just shy of 300 seats rather than the necessary 326 – the spectre of a hung parliament looms large over British politics once more. It was that subject which dominated Sir Keir Starmer’s broadcast round this afternoon. The Labour leader refused seven times in an interview with Sky to rule out a deal with the Liberal Democrats if his party found themselves short of a majority, insisting that he