Politics Archives

Tuesday

9 May 2023

Victory Day threatens Putin’s alternative reality

As Vladimir Putin rounded off his Victory Day speech with a resounding ‘Hurrah!’ to Russia, the contrast between the celebrations of this year and last could not be starker. Putin was a president in a hurry: he spoke for just nine minutes, the parade was wrapped up in under 25 minutes. ‘A real war has once again broken out against our motherland,’ he began. Perpetuating the lies upon which he has sought to justify the invasion of Ukraine, Putin continued with the trademark bellicose ranting that we have come to expect from his speeches over the past year: ‘We have resisted international terrorism, we will defend the citizens of the Donbas, and we will guarantee our own safety’.

Andrew Tettenborn

Why Rishi Sunak should take the fight to Airbnb

Last month Michael Gove suggested changing the law in England to allow tourist hotspots to force homeowners to seek planning permission before they can rent out holiday lets. Planning laws aimed at preserving the character of a locality are entirely consistent with conservative principles It didn’t go down well. Some on his own side, including hard hitters like Jacob Rees-Mogg, saw the notion of restricting homeowners’ rights as anti-commercial, anti-freedom and downright unconservative. Not surprisingly, Airbnb said it would fight the idea hard, joined by pressure groups representing those who had done well out of the Airbnb boom. A few days ago hedge-funder and big Tory donor Crispin Odey, never one to mince his words, bluntly

Mark Galeotti

War in Ukraine rains on Putin’s Victory Day parade

It may be having trouble on the battlefield, but the Russian army does know how to stage a parade. Behind the goose-stepping ranks, massed bands, and rumbling missile launchers, though, was a clear sense of the practical and political costs of the war in Ukraine. Although parades from Crimea in the south to Pskov in the north had been cancelled on reasons of security, there was no way Vladimir Putin could let this one not run – even Covid had not accomplished that. The Senate’s golden dome had been repaired after last week’s drone attack – and anti-drone guns were very much in evidence among the security team – and

Steerpike

Guto Harri gets a podcast to spill the tea on No. 10

What do you do when you’re opinionated, loquacious and somewhat under-employed? Start your own self-concentred podcast of course. So Mr S is delighted to welcome the garrulous Guto Harri to the world of political broadcasting, with the onetime Downing Street director of communications now launching ‘a brand-new political memoir podcast series Unprecedented‘ with Global. Fresh from earning the ire of Acoba after Steerpike pointed out his new (undeclared) speaking gig, Harri is in a hurry to record his recollections for the posterity of history/make as moolash as he can. Today’s Daily Mail gives him the full Northcliffe House treatment, going all guns blazing on his claims that Johnson ‘squared up’ to

James Heale

Inside the clash between Boris and Charles

Conversations between the Prime Minister and the monarchy are, by convention, kept strictly confidential – and taken to the grave. But Boris Johnson has always been someone who thinks rules are there to be broken. His former spin chief, Guto Harri, has just confirmed something that they tried to cover up at the time: the extent of the clash between Johnson and now-King Charles. They squared off against each other at a Commonwealth summit, apparently, after Charles described the government’s Rwanda deportation policy as ‘appalling’ within political earshot. At the time, word of Charles’s disapproval leaked out suspiciously quickly – and via Westminster channels. Polls showed strong public approval of

Ben Domenech

The ‘brutal’ poll that spells trouble for Joe Biden

The latest poll from the Washington Post and ABC News sent shockwaves through America’s media over the weekend, with numbers that are absolutely dire for president Biden. ‘This poll is just brutal’, announced former Democratic spokesperson turned ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos. He’s correct: with approval ratings at just 36 per cent, and lagging far behind Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis in potential general election matchups, the voting numbers are terrible. But the personal ratings are somehow even worse than that — 68 per cent of those polled, including 48 per cent of Democrats, believe Biden is too old for another term. And just 32 per cent think he has the mental acuity to

Owen Matthews

Pushback against Russian sanctions grows in Germany and Italy

Before Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, some of the Kremlin’s staunchest friends in Europe were the energy executives who lobbied for ever greater dependence on Russian gas and their political allies. The war – and the still-unexplained destruction of the two Nord Stream pipelines which connected Germany directly to Russia last September – sent Russia’s share of European gas supplies plummeting from over 40 per cent to around 5 per cent. Sweeping US and EU sanctions made doing business with Russian state-owned companies not only taboo but illegal. Nonetheless, many of Europe’s energy tsars, industrialists and politicians still dream of restoring cheap Russian gas supplies – and are making increasingly public

Gerry Hassan

Keeping it in the family has been the making – and breaking – of the SNP

The Scottish National party is described as many things, rightly or wrongly: a nationalist party and movement, ‘separatists’, a one-party state, even a ‘cult’. Missing is the sense of what animates and binds the SNP together as a political force beyond the cause of independence. At its core, the SNP is a tribe underpinned by a sense of community and of being an extended family of sorts. It’s true that this idea of the SNP as a family has provided a modus operandi throughout its history and rise to power. Now, though, this needs to be seen as a contributory factor in the scandals engulfing it. It cannot be entirely

Monday

8 May 2023

Isabel Hardman

Labour’s coronation policing muddle

The political fallout from the coronation policing row shows us that if Labour does get into government after the next general election, it is going to have a hard time unpicking even reforms it has complained loudly about under the current administration. Though ministers are having to justify why the Metropolitan Police arrested 64 people, many of whom seem not to have been planning the sort of disruption that the Public Order Bill is supposed to focus on, the bigger difficulty today has been for Labour. Rishi Sunak did his usual thing of being as detached as possible from events, saying the police were operationally independent from the government and,

Freddy Gray

Vote Joe Biden, get Kamala Harris?

Since Joe Biden confirmed that he will run for re-election, the odds of Kamala Harris becoming the first female president of the United States have shrunk – and significantly so. For Harris to take over from Biden, several things would have to happen. Biden would have to keep her as his vice-president for the 2024 campaign. Let’s assume, not with total confidence, that the 80-year-old Biden is still alive and well enough to lead by the start of 2025. If not, his vice-president would anyway take over as commander-in-chief, possibly only for a matter of days. But if Biden won in 2024 and didn’t complete his second-term, it would be all hail Kamala, the lady

Steerpike

Prince Harry’s ghostwriter takes aim at the British press

Prince Harry kept a dignified silence at his father’s coronation – even if he opted to make a hasty exit back to Los Angeles when the service at Westminster Abbey finished. But the Duke of Sussex’s ghostwriter J.R. Moehringer has chosen this week to talk about the ins and outs of writing Spare. Moehringer reveals that he argued with the ex-royal numerous times during the book-writing process. He also tells, in a piece for the New Yorker, how he called Harry ‘dude’ from the outset. But if that informality suggests Moehringer has little in common with the high-born prince, think again. Although Moehringer and Harry’s backgrounds couldn’t be any more different,

William Atkinson

Tory supporters should curb their enthusiasm for Penny Mordaunt

A confession: Penny Mordaunt was my teenage political crush. Publicly admitting that would be rather more embarrassing if the performance of the Leader of the House of Commons at the coronation didn’t have my fellow Conservatives infatuated. God knows what my 15-year-old self would have made of her eye-catching role on Saturday, but many Tory supporters were suitably impressed. As soon as she appeared in ceremonial battledress, ‘Oh my Gods’ at her outfit mixed with tweets of appreciation for her remarkable ability to carry a weighty sword for an hour. Comparisons have been drawn to other formidable women: Boudica, Athena, and Britney Spears. She may not have been crowned this

Mark Galeotti

Putin has made Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin eat his words

He huffed, and he puffed, and he damn near blew his own house down. The way Yevgeny Prigozhin, the man behind the Wagner mercenary force, was forced to walk back his threat to pull out of the fighting for Bakhmut is a reminder of the divided nature of Russia’s war effort in Ukraine. Prigozhin has periodically and publicly called out defence minister Sergei Shoigu and chief of the general staff Valery Gerasimov for their alleged back of support for Wagner. But on Friday, he escalated with two expletive-laden videos posted on social media. In the first, he pointed at the corpses of dead soldiers and bellowed: ‘Shoigu, Gerasimov, where the

Alexander Larman

Prince Harry has so much to learn from Prince William

In the run-up to the coronation, the Prince of Wales was a rather detached figure. Prince William kept an unusually low-key profile right up until the week of the coronation, along with his wife: a woman increasingly seen as the Royal Family’s secret weapon. The Princess of Wales combines glamour, accessibility and a welcome sense that she genuinely understands everyday British people, rather than merely trying to. In the past few days, William and Kate emerged from the shadows. Firstly, there was a walkabout in Soho for the pair two days before the coronation: carefully planned, of course, but giving a welcome impression of spontaneity, and even, given the area’s

Gavin Mortimer

Was Pim Fortuyn the true Brexit trailblazer?

Twenty-one years ago this week, Pim Fortuyn was being talked of as a future prime minister of Holland. The general election was a week away, and the man described by the Observer as the ‘Gay Mr Right’ had the coalition centre-left government running scared. Everyone from the BBC to the Daily Telegraph to the New York Times was beating a path to the door of the flamboyant 54-year-old former sociology professor. ‘Highly articulate, telegenic, oozing charisma, he has wiped the floor with establishment politicians in TV debates and his views seem to strike a chord with many in the most densely populated country in Europe,’ reported the Observer. The New

Lisa Haseldine

Is Putin scared of a Victory Day attack?

In the Russian calendar 9 May holds near-religious significance. Celebrating the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany at the end of the Second World War, the occasion is considered Russia’s biggest patriotic celebration of the year. Last year, following the invasion of Ukraine, the holiday took on a jingoistic significance for the Kremlin as Putin stoked up nationalist fervour to legitimise his war. This year’s celebrations, however, are shaping up to be a muted affair. More than 20 cities across Russia have cancelled their Victory Day parades. Marches of the ‘Immortal Regiment’, during which ordinary people parade through the streets carrying portraits of relatives who served and died during the war, as well as in the Afghan and

Sam Leith

The glumness of King Charles

A detail much noted in the commentary on Saturday‘s coronation was that His Majesty decided against making his first trip to the Abbey in the Gold State Coach. Who can blame him? His mother described riding in that particular wagon as ‘horrible’, and even Queen Victoria had as little to do with it as she could get away with. It may be traditional, and it may look impressive in an antiquated, grotesquely ostentatious, fountains-of-gold-leaf-kind of a way. But by all accounts it is monstrously uncomfortable for its passengers. It was designed for the malnourished and inbred shorties who comprised the royals of a previous generation. It’s freezing cold and has

David Shipley

Why the Channel smuggling business will never end

‘Have you got a light mate?’ The shout came from the top of the slipway on Deal beach. Bill, who had just arrived on the shore with a boat of migrants, looked up. Between him and the car park, two men were walking towards him. It was 1am, but the bright full moon lit them up like daylight. As Bill passed, worried what the men wanted, he went to pull his fist out of his pocket. ‘ARMED POLICE!’ the man yelled and sprang forward, rugby tackling him. Bill’s face and chest smashed into the pebble-strewn beach and his knees slammed into the hard concrete slipway. All around him crowded black-clad

Sunday

7 May 2023

Steerpike

Revealed: Jill and Akshata keep the Special Relationship strong at Soul Cycle

After the Coronation festivities, there are a fair few hangovers in London today. But there was no sign of that over in Notting Hill, where fitness fanatics were up early for Soul Cycle. And Mr S understands that among the more high-profile attendees at the 9:30 a.m class this morning were none other than Akshata Murthy, Rishi Sunak’s wife, and Jill Biden, America’s First Lady. Talk about a Special Relationship… The better halves of the two world leaders both enjoy Soul Cycle, with Murthy also once owning a 4.4 per cent stake in boutique London gym chain Digme Fitness, where she was a director. Downing Street declined to comment but

Damian Reilly

Nish Kumar’s podcast is actually not bad

Nish Kumar’s grandiosely titled podcast Pod Save the UK isn’t anything like as annoying as you’d expect. Yes, his speaking voice – a high-pitched nasal gurgle – can grate a little, especially when punctuated, as it is often and loudly, with a laugh that is very obviously insincere. But I listened to the full hour without experiencing a single violent urge. This wasn’t the reaction I’d expected. Not at all. When he was on the telly, as he was improbably for four long years fronting the BBC’s truly godawful The Mash Report, like much of the rest of the nation I found I could manage about ninety seconds of him