Politics

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

Thursday

Douglas Murray

Britain is losing friends – and making enemies

Whatever way you voted in 2016, I suspect that many of us have the same image of post-Brexit Britain. It is easier to capture in a cartoon than in prose but it looks something like this. A chap tries to make a leap across a canyon, falls ever so slightly short and as a result gets wedged in a crevice. And there he is – stuck. Neither on one side or the other and gaining the benefits of neither ledge. The Conservative party obviously carries a large amount of responsibility for this – not least for the fact that European law still dictates our insane migration policy. But the current

James Heale James Heale

How Pierre Poilievre led Canada’s Conservatives back from the wilderness

Ottawa For the past fortnight, Canada’s parliament has been empty. When Justin Trudeau resigned as Liberal leader, he announced a prorogation so his party could focus on a two-month succession battle rather than the business of governing. Excited Tories see the empty assembly as symbolic of the void in national leadership. They are confident their party will soon fill it. If they do soon manage to end a decade of Liberal rule, it will chiefly be thanks to Pierre Poilievre, who has been Conservative leader since 2022. There are few party leaders who excite British Conservatives more: both Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick have visited Canada to try to learn

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Labour’s Richard Hermer problem

Keir Starmer surprised his colleagues during his first week in power when he appointed his old friend Richard Hermer KC as Attorney General. Emily Thornberry, the holder of the role in opposition, was banished to the backbenches. Senior Labour figures had sensed something was afoot. ‘Sue [Gray] was keeping those transition talks under lock and key,’ recalls one Labour bigwig. The idea was that Starmer would have a trusted, authoritative voice to turn to on legal matters. The pair are old pals; Starmer even gave a toast when Hermer took silk in 2009. His appointment, however, has come with baggage. Hermer’s former clients include Sri Lankan refugees to the Chagos

Wednesday

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Axel Rudakubana should never have been free to kill

Coulter’s Law, named after its originator, the right-wing polemicist Ann Coulter, holds that the longer it takes the authorities or the news media to identify the suspect in a terrorist attack or other notorious incident the less likely that suspect is to be white. Allow me to propose a British corollary to this rule: the law of displaced culpability. Where the identity or motivation of the suspect in a major crime requires the British state to confront shortcomings in its established doctrines, such as multiculturalism, untrammelled immigration or autonomy-maximising liberalism, it will displace culpability onto another factor, one that is secondary or even irrelevant to the crime but which the

Steerpike Steerpike

Braverman calls on Tories and Reform to ‘unite the right’

Nigel Farage’s Reform UK has had a rather good few months, with a number of opinion polls showing the Clacton MP’s party topping the Tories – and, occasionally, even Labour – among Brits. Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has rubbished the idea of a Reform merger – but it would appear her backbench colleague Suella Braverman has other ideas… Speaking in Washington DC, the former Tory Home Secretary lauded Donald Trump’s style of ‘unfiltered conservatism’ and said her party should follow his lead in making the ‘unsayable mainstream’. She insisted the ‘formula to beat Labour’ involved the Tories and Reform working together. ‘I like Nigel Farage,’ Braverman told the Telegraph before

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

PMQs was a particularly dozy affair

The Commons was half asleep at PMQs. Trump’s re-election has severely damaged Sir Keir Starmer’s authority. Last summer, he unwisely allowed his Labour colleagues to campaign for the worst presidential candidate in American history. When Kamala lost, so did the Labour leader who now has zero influence over the US. He couldn’t even bring himself to say ‘Trump’ today, let alone to acknowledge his inauguration on Monday.  Kemi Badenoch might have gloated over Sir Keir’s American gamble but she ignored it entirely. And she failed to bring up the Southport triple-killer. As if obeying the Labour whips, she asked about education, and she claimed that Tory reforms had propelled Britain’s

Philip Patrick Philip Patrick

The real reason female footballers aren’t on birthday cards

Oh dear… it appears that birthday and greetings cards are sexist. This is, at least, the claim of a group of MPs who have submitted an EDM (Early Day Motion) calling for more representation of female footballers on such items by their manufacturers. The motion was tabled by Liberal Democrat MP for Epsom and Ewell, Helen Maguire, who told the BBC that the greeting card industry was ‘not moving with the times’.  Perhaps it is not the companies who are sexist then but the public? I certainly am Poor Ms Maguire explained how she had been motivated by the trauma of searching for a card for her ‘massive football fan’ office manager

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

This was Badenoch’s best PMQs yet

Kemi Badenoch had her best Prime Minister’s Questions yet today. She alighted on a topic that Keir Starmer really struggled to answer questions on and which should blow up as a row further in the coming weeks. The Tory leader devoted her six questions to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, and specifically the reforms that legislation contains on academy freedoms, standards and teacher pay. She called it an ‘act of vandalism that is wrecking a cross party consensus’ by reversing the improvements that led to English school children topping the league tables.  What was interesting was that while the Prime Minister repeatedly insisted throughout the session that his party

Steerpike Steerpike

Starmer’s academies U-turn

Today’s PMQs won’t go down in history as Sir Keir Starmer’s finest half hour, with the PM losing marks over his performance on education. It seems the Labour politician has reverted to his old ways, with yet another Starmer U-turn making an appearance at today’s session. Quelle surprise… Opposition leader Kemi Badenoch went in hard on the schools bill, blasting the Labour lot for wanting to row back on measures that propelled English schools to the top of Western league tables. ‘This bill is an act of vandalism,’ Badenoch declared. Pulling no punches, the Tory leader went on: It is wrecking a cross-party consensus that lasted for decades… This bill

Ian Leslie

Classical music is worth the effort

Last week I attended a performance of Mahler’s Symphony No.3 at the Barbican Centre in the City of London. Gustavo Dudamel conducted his former orchestra, which he nurtured to global fame: the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra from Venezuela. It was a special night, as pretty much every performance of this symphony is. Mahler’s third is gigantic in every sense. His level of ambition for it was insane. He set out to do nothing less than capture the whole world: the creation of the earth, mountains and valleys, flora and fauna; all of music, high and low: the village band, church choir and Romantic orchestra; and all of humanity: joy and nostalgia and

Oscar Edmondson

Should Rachel Reeves be at Davos?

12 min listen

It’s Davos day two, and Rachel Reeves has touched down in Switzerland to continue her hunt for growth. On the agenda today was a fireside chat with the Business Secretary on ‘The Year Ahead for the UK’, and she will also be attending a series of meetings with business leaders. The party line is that ‘the time to invest in Britain is now’; however, she will be doing this from the sidelines, having not been given one of the headline speaking slots. Can she bring home the bacon? And why is Davos so important? Oscar Edmondson speaks to Katy Balls and Rupert Harrison, former chief of staff to George Osborne.

James Hanson

How Donald Trump could really help Ukraine

There was surprisingly little in Donald Trump’s inaugural address about Russia and Ukraine, aside from a vague pledge to ‘stop all wars’. There was certainly no repeat of his campaign trail promise to end the conflict within 24 hours of taking office.  But, while answering reporters’ questions in the Oval Office as he signed a flurry of executive orders, Trump did comment on Zelensky and Putin – the two men he wants to bring to the negotiating table. ‘Zelensky wants to make a deal’ said Trump. He ‘didn’t know’ if Putin does too, but ‘he should’. And then the returning president said something far more revealing: he claimed Putin was

Steerpike Steerpike

Five failings of the assisted dying committee

Back in November, MPs waved through Kim Leadbeater’s assisted dying bill by 330 votes to 275. Some of those who backed it at second reading claimed they were not yet convinced about the merits of the measure, suggesting they would need more time to scrutinise the legislation. Supporters oozed assurances: there would be ample scope at the committee stage. So, with the 23-man committee now up and running, Mr S thought he would check in on how it is all going. Sadly, it seems the pro-euthanasia lobby is not exactly playing Marquess of Queensbury rules. With MPs due to start hearing evidence and debating amendments next week, Mr S has

Steerpike Steerpike

BBC under fire over Trump coverage

Uh oh. The Beeb’s back in the spotlight – and this time it’s over some rather interesting reporting on the inauguration of Donald Trump. A new row over BBC bias has broken out after part of its coverage suggested the Republican’s election victory was built on ‘fear’. Er, right. The corporation’s senior North America correspondent John Sudworth told viewers on Monday that ‘it was fear that gave Mr Trump his mandate’, adding: On the campaign trail, Donald Trump drove his message of fear all the way to the White House but it was based on a misconception. Rather than an invasion, America has long been dependent on the work of

Alexander Larman

Prince Harry has won a Pyrrhic victory over the Sun

So, in the end, Prince Harry folded. His much-ballyhooed case about News Group Newspapers, publishers of the Sun, which was due to begin in the High Court today and last for eight weeks, has concluded. The writing was on the wall yesterday, when Harry’s lawyer David Sherborne and News Group Newspapers’ barrister Anthony Hudson appeared to be inching towards a settlement, which has now duly occurred. The Duke has avoided litigation in favour of a lucrative settlement The no doubt considerable financial terms have not been disclosed. But as part of the agreement, NGN has issued a series of “full and unequivocal” apologies to the Duke of Sussex for “the

David Shipley

Are we missing the point about the ‘Amazon killer’ Axel Rudakubana?

‘The Amazon Killer’, screams the Sun front page today. ‘Total disgrace he was able to buy knife on Amazon,’ says the Daily Mirror. The backlash to the news that Southport murderer Axel Rudakubana brought his weapon online has been swift. But blaming Amazon for what happened on that horrific day last summer is missing the point. Rudakubana admitted to carrying a knife ten times Rudakubana, who was 17 when he attacked a group of children at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in July, was a troubled individual who had a history of carrying knives. His guilty plea this week has meant that details of his case – and the shocking

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Rachel Reeves’ tinkering won’t rescue Britain’s economy

The news just seems to get worse for Rachel Reeves. After the slight relief of last week’s inflation and GDP figures, this morning brings headlines that are even grimmer than economists expected. The government was forced to borrow £17.8 billion in December, more than twice the £6.7 billion which Rishi Sunak’s government borrowed in December 2023. In just one month, taxpayers had to spend £8.3 billion to service the government’s debt. Interest payments are now consuming over 8 per cent of government expenditure – more than is spent on education or defence – and very nearly as much as the welfare bill, which is itself ballooning. The Chancellor’s immediate problem is that

Charles Lipson

Donald Trump is a president in a hurry

“The First Hundred Days” was the iconic phrase for Franklin Roosevelt’s rapid-fire acts as the new president. Donald Trump intends to top that with “The First Hundred Hours.” Three months is far too slow for the new president. He made that clear by signing some 200 executive orders on his first day back in office. The media has focused on the substance of those orders, and understandably so. But their substantive content, on the border, birthright citizenship, DEI (Diversity, equity, and inclusion) and more, is only half the story. The other half is the swift, decisive process. Trump had those orders prepared during the weeks between his election in early

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Nine reasons why Trump means business this time

Since Franklin D. Roosevelt, every new US administration has been judged on its first hundred days, but it is in the first 24 hours, with a flurry of executive orders and memorandums, that a president sets the tone for the coming four years. The first 24 hours hint at nine themes that will define Donald Trump’s second administration. Trump is determined to settle scores Theme one: Trump II will see ‘America First’ placed at the heart of White House policy even more so than during Trump I. Among the memorandums issued from the Oval Office after noon on Monday was one outlining an ‘America First trade policy’, a revival of

Jawad Iqbal

Is Starmer right about the ‘new’ terror threat?

Sir Keir Starmer was explicit in his response to the Southport attack: Britain faces a new terror threat from “loners, misfits (and) young men in their bedroom(s)” radicalised by online violence. There is to be a public inquiry into the state failures that allowed Axel Rudakubana to murder three young girls in Southport in one of the worst attacks on children in UK history. The Prime Minister said the horrific attack last year must be “a line in the sand”. He vowed to change terror laws to deal with lone killers, to ensure that perpetrators like Rudakubana could be charged with terror offences despite having no coherent ideology. The phenomenon