Politics

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

Wednesday

Steerpike Steerpike

Corbynista MP backs down after attacking ‘transphobic’ Tory

Lloyd Russell-Moyle is no stranger to controversy. The Labour MP previously said sorry to JK Rowling after accusing her of using her own sexual assault as ‘justification’ for her views on trans people. Back when Jeremy Corbyn was Labour leader, the Brighton MP said those who quit the party were ‘scabs’. This week, Russell-Moyle has been busy in the Commons blasting a Tory MP. The Corbynista MP lashed out against Miriam Cates after she expressed concern that the Scottish gender bill would make it ‘vastly easier for a predator to get access to children’. ‘The idea of linking trans people with predators is disgusting and you should be ashamed,’ he told Cates, before

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

PMQs gets worse every week

Gruesome rhetoric at PMQs. The horror began with Sir Keir Starmer revealing that he can tell the time. ‘It’s three minutes past twelve,’ he announced. Rowdy Tories immediately demanded to know how soon he’d alter that statement. Sir Keir postulated a medical emergency, a patient suffering from ‘chest pains and fearing a heart attack,’ hoping for an ambulance to arrive within 18 minutes. But when, he asked the Prime Minister, would the vehicle actually show up? Rishi waffled about investing extra cash in this, that and the other part of the NHS.  ‘He’s deflecting,’ said Sir Keir. ‘The clock started ticking straight away,’ meaning 12.03 with the paramedics due to

Iain Macwhirter

Gender wars: the Union’s new battle line

When Rishi Sunak had dinner with Nicola Sturgeon last week, the idea was to show he was interested in a friendly relationship: a ‘constructive dialogue’. Liz Truss had dismissed Sturgeon as an ‘attention seeker’ who was ‘best ignored’, but Sunak preferred a more positive approach. He was keen to pose for pictures afterwards. This new friendship lasted four days. Sturgeon is now accusing Sunak of ‘a full-frontal attack on the democratically elected Scottish parliament’ because he has become the first Prime Minister in history to veto a bill passed there – the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill. Sturgeon has put on a virtuoso performance of grievance. It’s ‘an outrage’, she

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Sunak, Starmer and the Davos divide

What self-respecting political leader would be seen in Davos? The World Economic Forum has become synonymous with sybaritic technocracy – champagne receptions, luxury chalets, £50 burgers and traffic jams of black limousines. David Cameron and George Osborne were in their element at these summits, sometimes staying to ski afterwards. But Rishi Sunak, a Goldman Sachs alumnus, has decided not to go this year, no doubt worried that his attendance would reinforce stereotypes he’s trying to dispel. Sir Keir Starmer has no such inhibitions. He’s making his debut as a Davos Man this week, alongside Rachel Reeves, his shadow chancellor. He will attempt to look like a prime-minister-in-waiting on a panel

The Spectator

The Boris delusion

Loyalty, it used to be said, was the secret weapon of the Conservative party. That hasn’t been true for some time. Back in 2006, the then MP for Henley wrote of the Tory party having succumbed to ‘Papua New Guinea-style orgies of cannibalism and chief-killing’. Boris Johnson later had to apologise to Papua New Guinea for the insensitivity of that observation. But he wasn’t wrong about the new Tory tendency to kill the chief, as he discovered so painfully last year. Still, until recently a new party leader could expect a year or two of relative stability, when enemies would stay their spears and doubters would do their best to

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Is it time to replace Scotland’s sporting anthem?

‘Flower of Scotland’ is the unofficial national anthem north of the border but soon enough we may never hear its like again. Jim Telfer, one of the country’s most celebrated rugby coaches, has called for the song to be dropped at sporting events in favour of an alternative that ‘shows us standing for something rather than against something as a country’. His plea has been echoed by former Scotland international Jim Aitken, who wrote to the Times dismissing the song as an ‘anti-English dirge’.  Telfer’s complaint prompted Lord McConnell, a former Labour first minister, to urge a more ‘positive’ musical number, while Scottish Tory MSP Murdo Fraser deemed the current

Steerpike Steerpike

Cake tsar’s pay takes the biscuit

You probably hadn’t heard of Susan Jebb until today. For 18 months she has served in happy obscurity as the head of the Food Standards Agency. Until, that is, she decided to give an interview in which she suggested bringing cake into the office should be seen as harmful to your colleagues in the same way as passive smoking. She told the Times: We all like to think we’re rational, intelligent, educated people who make informed choices the whole time and we undervalue the impact of the environment. If nobody brought in cakes into the office, I would not eat cakes in the day, but because people do bring cakes

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Is the Trussite Tory ‘growth group’ a threat to Rishi Sunak?

Tory MPs gathered last night for the first meeting of a new growth caucus. Under the working title ‘Conservative Growth Group’, this gathering of like-minded MPs is planning to push a growth agenda – and manoeuvre the Prime Minister into adopting some of its preferred policies. The group is led by two men who served as cabinet ministers under Liz Truss: former levelling up secretary Simon Clarke and former environment secretary Ranil Jayawardena. While many of the policies are ones that the former prime minister is likely to support – and she is a member of the group – she does not have a formal role in the organisation.  The

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

When will the Tories admit defeat on nurses pay?

Another day, another strike. Nurses are walking out today and tomorrow, with the Royal College of Nursing vowing to ‘keep going’ with industrial action until ministers compromise on pay demands. Ambulance workers will also announce further strike dates today.  Barclay and colleagues are acutely aware that they aren’t winning in this war of attrition Strikes have become part of the wallpaper in Britain recently, but what is troubling for ministers is that the state of the health service more widely is causing more angst than health workers joining picket lines. Health and Social Care Secretary Steve Barclay is still engaging with them on the basis that their pay demands are

Lisa Haseldine Lisa Haseldine

Is Putin about to gamble on a second mobilisation wave?

Is Vladimir Putin finally about to announce a second mobilisation wave? Ukraine has been warning for weeks that up to half-a-million more troops could be forced into the army. Jitters are growing in Russia that a call-up might be imminent: rumours are circulating that the Kremlin might shut Russia’s borders and resort to a second round of mobilisation. The Kremlin has denied these reports: but Putin is increasingly getting desperate. He needs to find a way to turn this war around. He also needs to fulfil defence minister Sergei Shoigu’s quota that an army of approximately 1.5 million is needed ‘to guarantee the fulfilment of tasks to ensure Russia’s security’ –

Owen Matthews

Boris Bondarev: Why more Russians aren’t defecting

Boris Bondarev’s Twitter profile sums up his past, present and future in three short phrases: ‘Russian diplomat in exile. Stop the war. The old lie: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori’ – a quote from Wilfred Owen’s 1918 denunciation of patriotic hypocrisy. Shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, 42-year-old Bondarev quit his job as an arms control expert at Russia’s diplomatic mission to Geneva in protest. None of his colleagues in Geneva, or anywhere else, followed suit (at least not publicly). Does that make Bondarev the only Russian diplomat with a conscience? ‘It’s not about conscience,’ Bondarev tells me by Zoom from an undisclosed Swiss location where he now

Ross Clark Ross Clark

The strikes have lost their power

The dead went unburied and the rubbish piled high in Leicester Square. Then a suntanned Jim Callaghan arrived back at Heathrow from a summit in Guadeloupe to tell reporters, in words fairly paraphrased in the Sun headline: ‘Crisis. What crisis?’ The Prime Minister said that he didn’t think the rest of the world, looking at Britain, would see a country going down the tube. The folklore of the Winter of Discontent in 1978-79 is ingrained in the nation’s collective memory. It was the final act of a miserable decade of three-day working weeks and power cuts. Some are suggesting that we are facing a second Winter of Discontent. Certainly, look

Steerpike Steerpike

Welsh Labour MS in Holocaust Memorial Day controversy

Oh dear. It seems that Welsh Labour are at it again. Running Cardiff Bay ought to be the easiest job in politics: bash the Tories, soft soap the nationalists and wrap yourself in the Y Ddraig Goch. But some of its representatives in the Senedd can’t even get that right. For Steerpike hears that Julie Morgan, Labour’s deputy minister for social services, has caused a bit of a storm in the Welsh parliament about a deeply sensitive matter. Morgan, who has represented Cardiff North since 2011, is sponsoring and hosting a Holocaust Memorial Day event next week – an event that doesn’t actually mention the Holocaust’s Jewish victims on its invitation. An email

Douglas Murray

If not Biden, who?

Monday was Martin Luther King Jr Day in the United States. And this year it was most memorable for two events. The first was the unveiling in Boston of a new sculptural tribute to the civil rights hero. Unfortunately, depending on the position from which you view this inept work of public art, it resembles either a man holding his head in despair or some people holding aloft a giant turd. The second incident was Joe Biden doing what he does best. The President was careful not to politicise the day – apart from attacking the Republicans. But during his remarks he also noted that it was the birthday of

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Patel skewers Braverman over Met sex abuse scandal

The Commons was wearily furious as it responded to the David Carrick case this morning. Carrick yesterday admitted 49 sexual offences across more than two decades as a Metropolitan Police officer. The fury of MPs didn’t stop at the police. There was a great deal of frustration with ministers for being too slow to do what they could to stop offenders continuing to work as police officers after complains had been made.  This frustration didn’t just come from shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper, but from Tory backbenchers too. The most notable critic on Suella Braverman’s own side was Priti Patel. The former home secretary was customarily polite, but complained that

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Are we too downbeat about Britain’s economy?

Economic optimism is in short supply these days – but has pessimism about the UK’s economy been overegged by the likes of Sadiq Khan? The verdict of chief executives from around the world suggests as much: Britain has been ranked in the top three markets for investment, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers’s (PwC’s) annual Global CEO Survey. Today’s report follows the latest growth update that revealed that the economy did not contract in November as had been widely predicted, but grew slightly by 0.1 per cent. It marks a sharp contrast from the recent warnings of the London mayor, who said that ‘Brexit isn’t working’. The survey, timed to be published as the business

Steerpike Steerpike

Truss and Kwarteng start their own companies

It’s a busy time for ex-Prime Ministers. Theresa May has been totting up her thousands in speaking fees while Boris Johnson has been unveiling his portrait, trailing his memoir and generally making mischief for Rishi Sunak. And amid much speculation about the future projects of Liz Truss, Mr S can reveal that Britain’s shortest-serving PM today formally incorporated her eponymous company for post-premiership life. It is titled simply ‘the office of Liz Truss Limited’ with the onetime Tory leader and her husband Hugh O’Leary listed as the two directors of the firm. And Truss isn’t the only one who has clearly being having a productive time since leaving the office.

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Scotland’s gender bill mess was made in Westminster

Nicola Sturgeon is angry. The UK government has confirmed it will block her party’s controversial gender Bill, which removes key safeguards from the process by which someone can have their preferred gender rather than their biological sex recognised in law. Opponents, critics and legal commentators warned during the Bill’s passage before Christmas that it could change how the law operates not only in Scotland but in England and Wales, too. Sturgeon decided she knew better, a genre of governance already familiar to people in Scotland. She pushed the Bill through and now the Secretary of State for Scotland Alister Jack has invoked Section 35, a never-before-used provision of the Scotland

Steerpike Steerpike

SNP leader calls Tories ‘rabid gammon’

Just what is it about ‘kinder, gentler politics’ that brings out the worst in our politicians? This afternoon’s ministerial state on the Westminster government’s decision to block the Gender Recognition Reform Bill has appeared, at times, to be little more than a race to the bottom. First, there was the jeering and sneering which greeted Rosie Duffield from the SNP and Labour benches when she rose to voice her approval of the decision. And now, at the end of that statement and the beginning of a debate on the Bill, the leader of the SNP’s Westminster group has given us another demonstration of ‘civic nationalism’ in all its tolerant glory.

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Alister Jack defends blocking the SNP’s gender bill

It would have been news if the Commons debate about the Scottish Gender Recognition Bill hadn’t turned ugly quickly. The questions and answers following Scottish Secretary Alister Jack’s statement about using Section 35 of the Scotland Act to stop the progress of that legislation were deeply uncomfortable. Jack insisted that he was merely focusing on the constitutional issues, something Labour’s Ian Murray looked grateful to be able to do, too, given the splits within his own party on this matter.  Jack argued that the government was not using this power ‘lightly’ and that ‘I would prefer not to be in this situation’ A succession of women on the Labour and