Politics

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

Thursday

9 Feb 2023

Steerpike

MPs urge Attorney General to consider prosecuting Xinjiang governor

China is back on the agenda in Westminster, with Liz Truss expected to make a speech on the subject later this month. This week, MPs have been rocked by the news that the Foreign Office has asked the governor of the Xinjiang region for talks. Erkin Tuniyaz – who has been sanctioned by the US – is planning to visit the UK next week, followed by trips to other European countries to meet ‘stakeholders’ to ‘discuss the situation in Xinjiang.’ Mr S scarcely need remind his readers about the region’s appalling treatment of Uyghur Muslims. Survivors of detention camps in Xinjiang have testified that prisoners there are routinely raped, tortured and forcibly

Ross Clark

Can the CBI make its mind up on tax hikes?

Does the CBI want higher taxes or lower taxes? This morning its director general, Tony Danker, complained that the rise in corporation tax from 19 per cent to 25 per cent is in danger of killing off economic growth. He also demanded at the very minimum that a ‘super-deduction’ – where businesses can cut their tax bill by 25 pence for every pound invested – be maintained. ‘We know the economy can – and must – break out of its low growth trap, but we need action of business investment to achieve it,’ he said. ‘Firms are seeing the end to super-deduction with nothing to replace it but a big

Steerpike

Mark Steyn savages GB News

This week Mark Steyn became the latest star to leave GB News, following a lengthy leave of absence for health reasons. The TV shock jock has made a name for himself with his diatribes about the Covid vaccine. But it seems that not all at the channel welcomed Steyn’s multiple Ofcom investigations. The presenter uploaded a resignation video on Monday, complaining that TV bosses wanted to make him financially liable for any fines imposed because of his show’s output and calling CEO Angelos Frangopoulos an ‘habitual liar.’ And it seems that Steyn is not done yet unloading on his former colleagues. Announcing the launch of his first ‘post cardiac Steyn

Lisa Haseldine

Is Putin scared of Ukrainian bombs?

Putin’s war has finally made its way to the Russian home front. A leak from the Kremlin reveals that Russia’s regional governments are being ordered to conduct surveys of and update bomb shelters across the country. Speaking to the independent newspaper the Moscow Times, one Kremlin source said this audit had been going on since at least last spring. Renovating Russia’s bomb shelters is, however, easier said than done. A relic of the Soviet Union, the country’s shelters were decommissioned in the 1990s, with many being leased or sold to the private sector and many more falling into disrepair. This tangible ‘evidence’ primes Russians to believe the threat of an attack is higher Now, local

Steerpike

Watch: sparks fly in Senedd over self-ID

Ding, ding, ding! It’s been such a busy week in Westminster with the reshuffle and President Zelenskyy popping in that Mr S missed a particularly combative clash at the Senedd on Tuesday. Undeterred by the recent woes of the nationalists at Holyrood, the Welsh government in Cardiff Bay has pressed on with its own controversial plans to make it easier to change gender. But it seems that – much like the devolved government in Edinburgh – its Cardiff equivalent doesn’t take too kindly to a bit of scrutiny over their schemes. Laura Anne Jones, Conservative MS for South Wales East, asked one of Labour’s deputy ministers on Tuesday about the

Theo Hobson

The problem with a gender-neutral God

The Church of England will soon launch a commission on the question of gendered language in relation to God. Is this big news? It depends what the commission proposes. Even if it proposes big changes, the synod would have to vote them through. And a two-thirds majority, voting in favour of removing the word ‘father’ from the Lord’s Prayer, seems unlikely. But that’s what some reports are suggesting, whether through clumsiness or a mischievous glee at the prospect of further Anglican division. According to the Guardian, ‘The Church of England is considering whether to stop referring to God as “he”, after priests asked to be allowed to use gender-neutral terms instead…It

Coffee House

Revealed: Liz Truss’s unpublished growth agenda

In this week’s issue of The Spectator, Katy Balls reveals what Liz Truss would have done in her quest for growth had her mini-Budget not blown up. She would have gone on to launch an eight-point ‘autumn of action’. There were to be eight ‘follow-up moments’ revealing Truss and her Chancellor’s plans for supply-side reforms on: financial services, business deregulation, housing & planning, immigration, mobile & broadband, food & farming, childcare and energy. Kwarteng and Truss were out of office before they had time to announce them. Now, The Spectator has obtained the plans and can exclusively publish the draft document in full: OFFICIAL SENSITIVE GROWTH PLAN: FINANCIAL SERVICES ANNOUNCEMENT

William Finlator

When will university lecturers realise that striking isn’t working?

University lecture halls are empty once again this morning – and students left to fend for themselves as they prepare for their summer exams. Yes, it’s another strike day on campus: the University and College Union (UCU) has announced 18 days of walkouts across February and March in a row over pay, working conditions and pensions. ‘We would not be calling this action if there was another way,’ insists the UCU. But is that really true? As a student at the University of St Andrews, I’m set to miss dozens of hours of teaching over the next two months: 18 days without lectures, seminars and tutorials; 18 days without the

Toby Young

The true cost of Labour’s war on private schools

In a newspaper article five years ago, Michael Gove singled out the tax exemptions enjoyed by private schools thanks to their charitable status as one of the ‘burning injustices’ of our time. He took it for granted that scrapping these benefits would raise money and proposed spending it on children in care instead. ‘How can this be justified?’ he said of the exemptions. ‘I ask the question in genuine, honest inquiry.’ Answer came there none, and Keir Starmer has now said that private schools will be treated like any other commercial business if Labour wins the next election. Since that looks quite likely, I thought I’d take up Michael’s challenge

Wednesday

8 Feb 2023

Max Jeffery

Will Britain send Ukraine jets?

10 min listen

President Zelensky was in Westminster today to address Parliament. The Ukrainian leader came to London to ask MPs to give Ukraine fighter jets. Will Rishi Sunak agree to? Max Jeffery speaks to Svitlana Morenets and Isabel Hardman. Produced by Max Jeffery.

Dean Godson

Why Prevent failed – and how to fix it

William Shawcross’s long-awaited review of Prevent – the Government’s counter-radicalisation programme – is one of the boldest official documents of recent times. As such, it constitutes a radical reappraisal of a key state policy which has gone seriously off-piste and is in urgent need of rebalancing. Much of the critique of Prevent has historically come from Islamists – who contend that it singles out Muslims for particular obloquy. For a programme that cost the Home Office a little less than £50 million per annum in 2020-1, Prevent commands a lot of attention. In his comprehensive ‘anatomy lesson’ published today, Shawcross lays bare in painstaking detail the ways in which

Freddy Gray

Joe Biden does America First

‘There have been so many accomplishments under this administration, it can be difficult to list them in a distilled way.’ So said Pete Buttigieg, America’s Transportation Secretary, last weekend, when asked why Americans don’t share the White House’s sense that President Joe Biden is doing a brilliant job. Well, in his second State of the Union address on Tuesday, Biden attempted that laborious exercise in success distillation. He spent an hour and 13 minutes telling Congress and the world about the great work he’s doing. Biden feels he’s winning and he isn’t going to let any pesky polls tell him otherwise He talked about having created ‘12 million jobs’ and

Lloyd Evans

There was nothing funny about PMQs

PMQs looked like a comedy routine. But there was nothing funny about it. President Zelensky, AKA Uncle Volod, has come to town to address a joint session of both houses. As a warm-up act, MPs behaved like a gang of armchair Rambos and competed to fawn over Uncle Volod while pledging taxpayers’ cash to the defence of his borders. This wasn’t a debate but a scripted event staged to please a leader who appears to have no trouble travelling the world, or welcoming celebs like Boris to his capital, even though he claims to be personally locked in a life-or-death struggle with the largest country in the world. The party

Philip Patrick

Nicola Sturgeon is going nowhere

Received wisdom has it that Scotland’s embattled First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is considering her position. ‘She’s finished’ has become a mantra in political circles over the last few days. And not without justification: her absence from a key debate in Holyrood last week did suggest an announcement of some kind might be imminent; perhaps a white flag raised from Bute House. But Sturgeon emerged from her bunker and was back in action at a press conference in Edinburgh yesterday, answering questions concerning her currently stymied Gender Recognition Reform (GRR) Bill and matters of almost equal awkwardness on SNP finances. She was dressed rather boldly in Thatcherite blue, which seemed to

Steerpike

Boris cashes in with £2.5 million pay-day

It seems the days of ex-prime ministers going quietly into the sunset of retirement are well and truly dead. By this point, it will come as no surprise to any readers of Mr Steerpike to learn that, in the six months since Boris Johnson left No. 10, he has been keeping well and truly busy. Phew, it’s a wonder Boris has had time to pop to Kyiv at all! Now it seems that all that hustling is finally paying off for Boris. Strain your ears hard enough and you might just be able to hear the sound of cold hard cash raining down into the honourable member for Uxbridge and

Kate Andrews

Liz Truss vs the OBR

Liz Truss is on manoeuvres. She is spending lots of time where she is most comfortable, inside Westminster’s thinktanks, preaching her version of free-market economics. There are rumours she might assemble a new thinktank of her own, or work with an existing one, to set up an alternative to the Office for Budget Responsibility’s growth forecasts. The OBR was prevented from producing a forecast for the mini-Budget. Still, to Truss, it represents the naysayers, the UK’s economic ‘orthodoxy’ who tore apart her mini-Budget. An alternative forecast, she believes, could confront the gloomsters and doomsters and vindicate her belief that supply-side reforms – tax cuts, deregulation, privatisation – are needed to

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Rishi reshuffles, Truss talks and a trigger warning for Shakespeare’s Globe

Home Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, rearranged the deck chairs. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy was broken up, and Grant Shapps, the Business Secretary, was put in charge of a new department: Energy Security and Net Zero. Kemi Badenoch, the Trade Secretary, added business to her portfolio, as the new Secretary of State for Business and Trade. Michelle Donelan, the Culture Secretary, became Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport had its ‘Digital’ lopped off and was put under Lucy Frazer. The new Conservative party chairman is Greg Hands, reckoned a safe pair. The King told Royal Mail

Katy Balls

The haunting: Rishi Sunak can’t escape the ghosts of PMs past

When Rishi Sunak embarked on a reshuffle of his cabinet this week, he wanted to avoid the traditional scrum of cameras as MPs walked up to the No. 10 door. Instead, the Prime Minister called each minister to inform them of his shake-up of their Whitehall departments to create new ministries to reflect his priorities. It was typical of the Sunak premiership. Where his predecessors would go out of their way to court press attention, this PM prefers to be low key. Early on, No. 10 viewed it as a success that the World Cup dominated the front pages over politics. The hope among Team Sunak is that this quieter approach

James Snell

The charm of Volodymyr Zelensky

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, is in Britain for a surprise visit. ‘Freedom will win – we know Russia will lose,’ he told a joint session of Parliament in Westminster Hall this afternoon. This address is the first he has given in Westminster since a video message in March 2022, when the situation for his country was vastly grimmer than it is now. Last year, when he addressed MPs, Zelensky had just rejected a British attempt to evacuate him and his family from Ukraine. He was under threat of assassination; and his country’s capital faced siege and – as Foreign Office officials still insisted – the brand of Russian destruction like that suffered by the

Rod Liddle

The electorate’s strange sense of entitlement

How are you coping during this cost- of-living crisis? Have you made your way to the food bank yet? I am interested to find out. On Tuesday I listened to an edition of Radio 4’s You and Yours for which listeners were invited to call in and explain how they were managing in these desperately bleak times. A good dozen or so shared their experiences with the presenter Winifred Robinson – and all but one dutifully explained that they were about to embark on a nice holiday. Further, of those going away for a bit, all but two were taking a holiday abroad – the Algarve, Benidorm, Catalonia were some