Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.
10 min listen
With the energy crisis showing no signs of improving, many industries warned over the weekend that they may have to shut down some manufacturing points due to the rising costs. This has lead to tensions between the Treasury and the Business Secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng about how to proceed. Isabel Hardman is joined by Katy Balls and James Forsyth to discuss.
Ben & Jerry’s have never been shy about making politics part of their brand. The ice cream makers have made social activism a mainstay of their company’s brand in recent years, with stunts including the refusal to serve two scoops of the same ice cream flavour in Australia (in support of same-sex marriage) and unveiling an anti-Trump batch flavour called ‘Pecan Resist’ to ‘lick injustice.’ They’ve even found time to become involved in Britain’s little local difficulties, berating Priti Patel last year for trying to stop migrants crossing the English Channel in boats. Now though one of the company’s stunts appears to have backfired spectacularly. In July the ice cream manufacturers declared that Ben &
Transphobia is defined as the fear or hatred of trans people. But all too often, it is applied much more widely than that. Disagree with a trans person, and you could well be labelled as transphobic; look at us a ‘bit funny’ and we may report you for hate crime. Poke fun at us, and heaven help you. Comedian Dave Chappelle pulls no punches when it comes to the transgender community. In The Closer – his latest Netflix special – he is direct and uncompromising. But – and this is important – he plays the ball rather than the man. His target is not us but the ideology that has sprung
There have been many ironic fates for the lead actors in the Coalition government. For David Cameron, the premier who pledged to ‘clean up’ the ‘culture of excessive lobbying’ there was the Greensill scandal. For George Osborne, the austerity Chancellor who decimated the culture sector, there was a smorgasbord of jobs and the chairmanship of the British Museum. Chris Huhne was jailed, Oliver Letwin lost the whip while Danny Alexander, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, now works at the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank – an institution used to front China’s ‘Belt and Road Initiative.’ But none of these have been as both paradoxically high-profile and humiliating as Sir Nick Clegg’s strange parliamentary
As Boris Johnson’s holiday in Marbella gets underway, back home his ministers are making headlines for infighting following a hostile briefing from the Treasury. The stark rise in energy prices has led industry leaders to warn that some UK factories are at risk of closure within days unless the government steps in to help with spiralling fuel costs. But there appears to be little unity among ministers as to the right response. In a Sunday media round, Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng spoke of the steps he was taking to try to ease the pressure on businesses. Kwarteng told Sky News: The personal rebuke points to simmering tensions between the two sides ‘What
China’s lamentably poor ‘wolf warriors’ have given Mr S many laughs in recent months. Diplomats and functionaries within President Xi’s regime are seeking to use Twitter to act as propaganda outriders by amplifying the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s belligerent messages to the outside world – a task at which they currently fail miserably. It’s not just mainland apparatchiks who try to prove their fealty to the CCP via shrill posts on social media. In Hong Kong, craven legislators have only been too keen to do the bidding of Beijing and jump on the Twitter band wagon. One such example was provided this week by Regina Ip, chair of the pro-Beijing New People’s Party (NPP).
A Tory MP last week raised the delightful possibility that the big family of what we might call the terrorism community should be expanded yet further. Speaking to a group of activists at party conference, Jonathan Gullis declared: “The term ‘white privilege’ is an extremist term. It should be reported to Prevent, because it is an extremist ideology. It’s racist to actually suggest everyone who’s white somehow is riddled with privilege.” Goodness. Even now I see it: online social studies graduates and right-on corporate HR functionaries hauling on the old orange PJs and trooping glumly into their cells in some British equivalent of Guantanamo Bay, alongside the murderous jihadists of
The Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng joined Trevor Phillips this morning amid a time of turmoil in the energy markets. Wholesale gas prices have risen by 250 per cent since January, and by as much as 70 per cent since August, when the market regulator Ofgem announced its latest price cap for consumers. With 12 energy companies already having gone bust since the start of the year, the government is facing calls within the industry to increase the price cap so that pressure can be eased on smaller firms. However, Kwarteng told Phillips that the current cap was here to stay until April of next year: KK: The price cap is the
The concerns about Joe Biden’s age and cognitive faculties are well established. And if Biden has to step down, we all know what comes next: his vice-president Kamala Harris will become Commander-in-Chief. But is Harris all there herself? Some clips from this week of her trying to excite children about science suggest the answer is no. Yikes. What is going on there? Is Kamala Harris, er, high? Harris was speaking to the children as part of her role as Chair of the National Space Council. She certainly sounds spaced. The full video is even more jarring to watch: A charitable explanation might be that she is trying too hard to sound
Given the enormous power that Conservative leaders wield within the party, it is not surprising that the party should come to take on the character of its leaders. In the case of Boris Johnson, it is his protean quality that seems to have rubbed off. Where a previous leader might have had a policy agenda or ideology, today’s Tories have cheery slogans which can mean almost anything. Thus in the course of half a dozen recent Tory conference events one will have heard at least that many different definitions of ‘levelling up’, while the big corporate lobbies and third sector groups insist that whatever they normally talk about is absolutely essential
International cooperation is alive and well – at least when it comes to raising taxes. One hundred and thirty six countries have now signed up to a global minimum corporation tax of 15 per cent, proposed by G7 countries in June and pushed heavily by the UK Treasury. This is another step forward for what is thought to be the biggest overhaul to the international tax system in a century. The installation of a corporate tax floor is part of a comprehensive effort to reform how multinational companies are taxed: that is, to more precisely target where profits are being made (instead of where products are being created). Firms with
The name of Mike Hill doesn’t count for much in Labour circles these days. The former MP for Hartlepool was forced to quit the Commons in March after breaching Parliament’s sexual misconduct policy, triggering a by-election which saw the Tories take the seat for the first time since 1959. Then four months later he was reported to be facing a possible criminal inquiry after an employment tribunal ruled that he repeatedly sexually assaulted and harassed a parliamentary staff member before victimising her when she refused his advances. Now there’s one final sting in the tail for Hill’s long-suffering constituents. A bill for £6,000 for ‘bought-in services’ from Hudgell Solicitors has just been published by IPSA, which regulates MPs expense
If Boris Johnson were to vanish tomorrow, who should replace him? The American pollster Frank Luntz asked this of about 200 people at The Spectator’s live podcast last week, and the answer was Liz Truss. This took me by surprise – I’d have said Rishi Sunak – but there’s no doubting the Lizmania that was in the air in Manchester. The new Foreign Secretary was pulling in the crowds, flirting with the right-wing think tanks (it’s time for her to be ‘reinfected with sound ideas’ she told them) posing for selfies and – later, in the nightclubs – dancing with her army of admirers. Her events were the ones with the
13 min listen
Katy Balls talks to James Forsyth and Fraser Nelson about the rise of ‘Trussmania’ that seemed to be sweeping the Conservative party conference in Manchester.
One of the themes of Conservative conference was that the government has dropped plans for a radical reform of the planning system, which was designed to get more houses built in the south east. Both Boris Johnson and the new party chairman Oliver Dowden were keen to stress this point. But, I say in the Times today, this is a mistake. The Tories are the party of the property-owning democracy, and live and die by this The Tories have been spooked by the Chesham and Amersham by-election where the Liberal Democrats ran hard against planning reform and took the seat on a 25 per cent swing from the Tories. Boris Johnson
19 min listen
Freddy Gray talks to Rebecca Nagle, the host of the This Land podcast, about issues affecting native Americans, including a potentially seismic Supreme Court case on adoption.
13 min listen
On this week’s episode, we’ll hear Matthew Lynn’s thoughts on how the gas shortages could lead to a very cold winter. (00:51) Then, Tanya Gold with a critical take on critics. (04:41) And finally, James Innes-Smith bigs up the bungalow. (08:58) Presented by Sam Holmes
Whether it’s reports of fire, asbestos, falling stonework, creaking sewers or dodgy electrics, the dilapidated state of the Palace of Westminster is all too well known. After years of dither and delay, work has belatedly begun on a Restoration and Renewal programme to bring Parliament into the twentieth century – and thereafter (hopefully) into the twenty-first. Among the projects currently being undertaken is an overhaul of the notoriously unreliable parliamentary lifts. Slow, creaky and installed well before existing safety legislation, the elevators are being replaced as part of a two phase strategy which will see £5.05 million spent on refurbishing 11 lifts identified as a priority by the end of 2022 and then
12 min listen
The former housing secretary, Robert Jenrick delivered a warning to his former colleagues in government yesterday that a failure to build new homes will cost the Conservatives down the line. Cindy Yu is joined by James Forsyth and Katy Balls to discuss this, as well as the update to Covid holiday restrictions and the sad passing of James Brokenshire.
Two years ago life seemed so sweet for Jeremy Corbyn. The magic Grandpa was the leader of a Labour party that was just three points behind in the polls, heading into a snap election which his devoted cheerleaders thought would sweep him into power. Now though, all that has changed. Stripped of his party whip, embarrassed by his brother Piers, facing loss in his Islington safe seat and eclipsed in the affections of his party’s left-wing, Jezza must be wondering if it was all worth it. Still, Mr S can bring news of one ray of light for the septuagenarian socialist. Corbyn was cleared yesterday by Parliament’s sleaze watchdog following allegations he did not properly