Politics

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

Wednesday

23 Mar 2022

Steerpike

No. 10 doubles down on trans rights

How will No. 10 fight the next election? After government aides were told at a recent meeting to get election ready, Rishi Sunak’s pledge of an income tax cut by 2024 appears to give an indication of what the pitch could be. But there was another indicator at Prime Minister’s Questions what appeared to be a planted question from 2019-er Angela Richardson on trans rights, Boris Johnson replied: When it comes to distinguishing between a man and a woman, the facts of biology remain overwhelmingly important. The comments are in contrast to the position of his wife Carrie who publicly urged the Tory party to fight for the rights of transgender

Robert Peston

Has Rishi Sunak just destroyed his relationship with Boris?

I said yesterday that I expected the Chancellor to increase universal credit by more than planned. I was misled. I was wrong. Today, Rishi Sunak’s official forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility, is explicit about how painful Sunak’s refusal to increase benefits will be for those who rely on them. It says: ‘Lags in CPI (or inflation) uprating of benefits mean they fall almost five per cent in real terms in 2022-23, reducing their real value by £12bn, and take up to 18 months to catch up fully with higher inflation’. It means those who are unemployed, on very low incomes, or who rely on the state pension, are going to be in

Katy Balls

Sunak highlights the problem with the Northern Ireland protocol

What did we learn from the Chancellor’s spring statement? As James reports on Coffee House, Rishi Sunak’s promise of an income tax cut by 2024 offered a strong indicator of how – and when – the Tories plan to fight the next election. Meanwhile, the OBR’s finding that rising inflation will lead to the biggest fall in living standards since records began in 1950 highlights how even with the new immediate cost of living policies – including a 5p cut on fuel duty – the coming months will be painful for many households. However, aside from cost of living, there was another problem Sunak’s statement highlighted: the Northern Ireland protocol.

Ross Clark

Fact check: What’s the truth about Sunak’s Brexit tax cut claim?

Labour’s Chris Bryant was quick to try to scotch Rishi Sunak’s claim that it was only thanks to Brexit that he was able to remove VAT on a number of home energy improvements, such as the installation of solar panels. Within a few minutes of Sunak making the claim, Bryant had tweeted: ‘Contrary to what Sunak said, there is already a VAT exemption on solar panels and heat pumps already happens in the EU, so this is not a benefit of Brexit.’ After we have left the EU, Brussels wants to copy our example So who is right? Is it Brexit wot gave us our VAT-free solar panels or is

Isabel Hardman

Labour’s economic plan? Reheated Miliband

Rachel Reeves is, as Labour frontbenchers go, pretty experienced. She’s not been in government, but then neither has her leader because there are now young teenagers who have never experienced a Labour government. Reeves has been on and off her party’s frontbench ever since she was elected in 2010, and that long experience was on show in her response this afternoon to the spring statement – in both good and bad ways. This was one of the more confident responses I’ve watched from a Labour frontbencher to an economic statement over their 12 years of opposition. Reeves had a really clever section where she mocked the difference between Rishi Sunak’s reality and

Kate Andrews

Did Rishi Sunak deliver on his tax-cut promise?

Today’s spring statement may not have been a proper Budget – but it could prove to be one of the most significant moments in Rishi Sunak’s time as Chancellor. At a time when families are facing the double-edged sword of soaring bills and wages falling behind inflation, Sunak was under pressure to offer reassurance. But inflation, which we found out this morning is heading for a 40-year high, is also biting the Treasury. The Chancellor’s response to this dilemma came in the form of several major tax announcements, all targeted at reducing costs for the lowest paid. But Sunak also doubled down on less welcome policies which he insisted are vital for

Rishi Sunak

Rishi Sunak’s spring statement speech in full

Mr Speaker, As I stand here, men, women and children are huddled in basements across Ukraine seeking protection. Soldiers and citizens alike have taken up arms to defend their land and families. The sorrow we feel for their suffering, and admiration for their bravery is only matched by the gratitude we feel for the security in which we live. And what underpins that security is the strength of our economy. It gives us the ability to fund the armed forces we need to maintain our liberty. The resources we need to support our allies. The power to impose sanctions which cause severe economic costs. And the flexibility to support businesses

James Forsyth

Rishi Sunak has just defined the next election

The biggest surprise of Rishi Sunak’s spring statement was the announcement that the basic rate of income tax will be cut by one penny come 2024. This is the first cut in the basic rate since the cut to 20p announced by Gordon Brown in his last Budget in 2007, which was of course partly paid for by abolishing the 10p starting rate of tax. Cynics will be quick to suggest that there is a long way to go before 2024 and so the tax cut might not happen. But this is to ignore the politics. The most likely date for the next election is May 2024. It would be bizarre,

Isabel Hardman

PMQs: Keir Starmer’s questionable parliamentary language

Keir Starmer was clearly keen today to make sure people remembered what is normally a rather pointless PMQs session before an economic statement. The Labour leader did so by using slightly questionable language, calling Boris Johnson ‘half-arsed’. MPs will debate whether or not this was parliamentary language (he couldn’t have called the Prime Minister a ‘stoolpigeon’ or ‘pecksniffian’, so he had clearly chosen his words carefully). His reason for accusing Johnson of this was that he didn’t think the Prime Minister had fully engaged with the case of the 800 sacked P&O ferry workers. The pair had a rather impatient exchange on this matter, with Starmer repeatedly saying Johnson didn’t

Steerpike

Gary Neville moans about taxes

The political journey of Gary Neville continues to delight and astound. The former England right back now finds himself on the left wing, having signed up to Keir Starmer’s Labour party in January. Amid speculation that the Red Devil is mulling a bid to be mayor of Greater Manchester, Neville used an interview with Sky last week to attack Boris Johnson’s ‘rancid’ government. He fulminated that the Prime Minister had ‘zero creditability in Europe and around the world’ and needs to leave No. 10 ‘the second after’ the war in Ukraine is over. Poor Gary could be waiting quite a while… As part of his political awakening, Neville has been unveiling his prospective

Ross Clark

Welcome to the new era of high inflation

There was a time when a chancellor would have bitten off the hand of a national statistician who offered him an inflation rate of 6.2 per cent. But that takes us back to the days of Denis Healey and the early months of Geoffrey Howe’s time in Number 11. There is little disguising this morning’s grim news, however. The last time the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) was at 6.2 per cent was in March 1992 – although at that time the index was little used as the government’s preferred measure of inflation was then the Retail Prices Index (RPI). The worst thing about today’s figure is that it doesn’t even

Patrick O’Flynn

Starmer is playing into Iran’s hands

Who was to blame for Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe being held captive in Iran? It shouldn’t take a professor of ethics to answer such a question. Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was being held on trumped-up charges by a despotic regime that has used hostage-taking to advance its agenda ever since its formation in the Iranian revolution of 1979. Back then it was said to be ‘students’ who spontaneously over-ran the US embassy in Tehran and took more than 50 hostages, holding them for more than a year while the new theocratic government ruthlessly exploited the situation to humiliate the US administration of Jimmy Carter. In the case of Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, at least no pretence

Steerpike

The MPs getting mileage out of expenses

Happy spring statement day! The annual event seems to come faster every year, replete with all those funny old traditions associated with this hallowed day. There’s the time-honoured Chancellor photoshoot, in which the incumbent minister has to strike a pose which suggests both responsible fiscal probity and compassionate one-nation benevolence. There’s the Sunday media round ritual, in which stony-faced ministers refuse to say anything of interest on the grounds of market sensitivity. And then of course there are the classic pre-statement media briefings, with much froth, speculation and excitable newspaper headlines about what the Chancellor is set to announce. This year, attention has focused on fuel duty amid the ongoing

Tuesday

22 Mar 2022

Robert Peston

What to expect at the spring statement

The big story of Wednesday’s spring statement by the Chancellor will be the impact of inflation – which has soared from almost zero just over a year ago to perhaps 10 per cent in coming months – on living standards and the public finances. I expect Rishi Sunak to provide limited protection from the ravages of inflation to those on low and middling incomes, probably by increasing universal credit and the threshold for paying national insurance. But quite how far the Chancellor inflation-proofs the take home pay of low earners will be the most important question he will answer tomorrow. Inflation that makes all of us poorer will create the

James Kirkup

A lesson for those calling Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe ‘ungrateful’

In the latest installment from the idiot age of Twitter, #ungratefulcow has been trending. The reason? Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe had expressed, mildly and politely, some unhappiness that it had taken Her Britannic Majesty’s Government six years to free her from Iranian captivity. Cue a handful of shallow trolls slagging her off, and a lot of other people slagging them off. I say ‘mildy and politely’ because to my mind, the salient characteristic of Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s comments was its restraint. Most people, I submit, would be furious beyond words to miss most of their only child’s first years of life. Yet Zaghari-Ratcliffe offered the sort of understated irritation that is at the heart of British emotional expression: this was

Katy Balls

Rishi Sunak’s popularity test

Rishi Sunak ended 2021 as the most popular politician in the country. A YouGov poll for the final quarter of the year found that 31 per cent of all adults had a positive opinion of the Chancellor compared to 28 per cent for Nicola Sturgeon and 26 per cent for Boris Johnson. However, ending 2022 in the same situation looks rather ambitious. As the cost of living crisis worsens, Sunak is under pressure both from the public and his own party to step in and ease the burden on households in tomorrow’s Spring Statement. A poll out today suggests he has plenty of work to do to convince voters he has the

Steerpike

George Galloway’s Russian ramblings

With global tensions running high amid Russia’s continued bombardment of Ukraine, cool heads are needed now more than ever. Alternatively, we could instead listen to George Galloway. The fedora-rocking serial candidate advises his 400,000 Twitter followers that ‘the US is about to stage a false-flag #WMD incident in #Ukraine’. No word as of yet where Gorgeous George got this tip off. He of all people should know about ‘sexed-up’ intelligence. In recent months Galloway has been dedicating much of his time to his talk show Sputnik, which he co-hosts with his wife Gayatri on Russia Today. It’s like Richard and Judy if every title in their book club was self-published and about Western imperialism. It’s fair

Cindy Yu

What are Sunak’s motives on the NI rise?

15 min listen

Tomorrow is the spring statement. The proposed NI rise set to be outlined in it has been described by the Labour leader Keir Starmer as a ‘cynical’ move so the Chancellor can cut taxes before the next election for political brownie points. But what are Rishi Sunak’s true motives? Cindy Yu deciphers them with Katy Balls and James Forsyth.

Kate Andrews

Will Rishi Sunak stick to his ‘golden rule’?

Here’s the Rishi Sunak paradox: he proudly defines himself as a low-tax Tory but under his watch taxes are reaching a 71-year high. There are plenty of Tories who want to ditch next month’s National Insurance increase but Sunak is firmly opposed – mainly because he wants to link up in people’s minds that more money for the NHS and social care doesn’t manifest out of thin air. But pressure is on at tomorrow’s spring statement to make clear what kind of Chancellor he really is. Does he come from the long line of Tories who like tax cuts in theory but not in practice – or does he have

Annabel Denham

Does anyone still believe in low taxes?

Speculation over which taxes the Chancellor will slash or, more likely, hike at tomorrow’s spring statement seems to have settled on two areas. First, a cut to fuel duty and, second, an increase in National Insurance thresholds, a way of tweaking the already announced tax hike to reduce the burden on the poorest. On the first point, a cut in fuel duty could cost the Treasury around £2.5 billion a year (although the government is unlikely to get much political credit if Sunak does go down this route given how quickly energy costs are rising). On the second, it looks almost certain that the Chancellor will proceed with his planned 2.5 point rise in NI