Politics

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

Saturday

John Keiger John Keiger

The real reason France was excluded from Aukus

The fallout from Australia’s cancellation of its submarine contract with France and the new trilateral Indo-Pacific security pact between Australia, the US and the UK continues. France has recalled its ambassadors from Canberra and Washington (though significantly not from London) for ‘immediate consultations’; the well-worn diplomatic gesture of discontent. This is the first occasion ever in over two centuries of Franco-American friendship.  Last night in another outburst of petulance, the French embassy in Washington cancelled the gala to celebrate Franco-American friendship. The festivities were to mark the 240th anniversary of the crucial Battle of the Capes when the French navy defeated its British counterpart in defence of American independence.  Compared

John Ferry John Ferry

Will Scottish independence really be ‘Brexit times ten’?

Scottish civil servants are to start work on a ‘detailed prospectus’ for independence so the Scottish government can hold another referendum ‘when the Covid crisis has passed’, Nicola Sturgeon announced earlier this month. The irony of this – coming just days before the Office for National Statistics reported that the percentage of Scots testing positive in a single week for Covid-19 equated to around one in 45 people – was lost on the First Minister. These things happen when you’re busy fighting to free your people from the tyranny of liberal democracy and free society in one of the richest places on earth. Deputy First Minister John Swinney subsequently went further when he promised a

Patrick O’Flynn Patrick O'Flynn

Does Liz Truss have what it takes to be Foreign Secretary?

In the dying days of Theresa May’s benighted premiership I spotted a long-serving Tory MP on the same weekend train as me, a few rows down. This old whips office hand had naturally bagged a table of four for himself and spread out documents and newspapers across it to deter all-comers. But he seemed most focused on a smaller piece of writing paper on which he periodically scrawled a note. After a few minutes he got up and headed to the buffet car so I did what most of those trained in my trade would have done in the circumstances and sauntered past his vacated table to take a sneaky

Friday

Steerpike Steerpike

Sir Humphrey’s spirit survives in Whitehall

Fear has been the watchword of Westminster this week, as nervy ministers check to see whether they have survived the cull. Their civil servants meanwhile have had no such troubles, able to wait in their Whitehall offices to comfort, console or congratulate their political masters and listen to yet more interminable farewell speeches from those unceremoniously axed. One departure that has cheered some mandarins was Michael Gove’s switch from the Cabinet Office to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. The iconoclastic Aberdonian has blown the winds of change through the corridors of power since his appointment two years ago – hardly surprising in light of his comments that ‘the senior civil service

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Can Gove remake conservatism?

16 min listen

Michael Gove has been tasked with transforming levelling up from a soundbite to an agenda. What will this look like? And what Michael Gove will we get, the liberal reformer or big state lockdown supporter? Katy Balls is joined by Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth to discuss.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Michael Gove’s big challenge

Michael Gove is now in charge of one of the government’s biggest short-term problems: what to do about its proposed planning reform, which are facing huge opposition from Tory backbenchers, as well as levelling up, the government’s long-term aim. Remember that there were more second homes bought in the decade after the financial crisis than there were new homes built I write in the Times today that those MPs who have discussed planning with Gove in recent weeks have been struck by his emphasis on the fact that only 15 per cent of the house-price inflation of the last two decades comes from a lack of supply. This suggests Gove thinks

Julie Bindel

Is Kemi Badenoch’s leaked audio a set-up?

The headline reads, ‘UK Equalities Minister Goes on Anti-LGBTQ Rant in Leaked Audio’. Oh dear, I thought. As a lesbian and a harsh critic of the Tory government, I wondered what had been said. I scoured the piece in Vice, expecting something along the lines of ‘pervert’ and ‘unnatural’ and something about how we will be marrying our vacuum cleaners next. But it was all rather tame and boring. Badenoch said: It’s now, you know like, it’s not even about sexuality now, it’s now like the whole transgender movement, where, OK well we’ve got gay marriage and civil partnerships, so what are transsexuals looking for? … So now it’s not just

Daniel McCarthy

The vanishing presidency

Joe Biden is beginning to feel like an ex-president after only nine months in office. The last two Democrats to occupy the White House, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, arrived with a spirit of renewal, not to mention tremendous legislative ambitions. Biden came in with a spirit of reversal: he was not Trump. His selling point was ‘competence’. Like Warren Harding a century before, he was meant to usher in a ‘return to normalcy’. After Covid and its economic consequences, after the riots that raged in the summer of 2020, normal sounded good enough. Yet that was more than Biden could deliver. What everyone had hoped would be the end

Steerpike Steerpike

Nadhim’s first day no-show

Politics is all about priorities and the new Cabinet has certainly shown that. Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries is hunting among hacks for a new media special adviser, keen to conscript a lieutenant to fight the Tory culture wars. Liz Truss and Dominic Raab are divided over who gets to use the Foreign Office home Chevening – a spectacle that must bring back memories for Geoffrey Howe’s widow Elspeth. Conor Burns meanwhile celebrated his new Northern Ireland brief with a packet of Tayto crisps.  Nadhim Zahawi however did not have the best first day in post as Education Secretary. The MP for Stratford-on-Avon was last night due to be guest of honour at the speech day

Damian Thompson Damian Thompson

Has Pope Francis just thrown Joe Biden under the bus on abortion?

18 min listen

Say what you like about Pope Francis, but he’s incapable of giving a boring in-flight interview. On Wednesday, coming back from Hungary and Slovakia, he was asked about the problem of pro-abortion Catholic politicians receiving Holy Communion. He immediately launched into a ferocious denunciation of abortion, describing it as homicide, saying there was no middle way and stating that support for abortion was grounds for ‘excommunication’. Francis then slightly qualified this by explaining that these ‘excommunicated’ Catholics needed to be lovingly shown the error of their ways, but it was hard to escape the obvious conclusion. The Pope regards the President as barred from Communion – which drives a horse

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Boris chairs the new Cabinet – what’s next?

10 min listen

As Boris Johnson today chairs the first meeting of his new cabinet, he’s focused on delivering on his levelling up agenda. What’s the plan? To discuss this, the ongoing junior ministerial appointments and the Liberal Democrat conference this weekend, Katy Balls speaks to James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman.

Mark Galeotti Mark Galeotti

Putin’s Covid cocoon is a sign of his terror

Although he has been vaccinated, Vladimir Putin is self-isolating for at least a week after ‘dozens’ in his entourage came down with Covid. He is apparently showing no signs of being infected. And perhaps no wonder, as even by the standards of his usual presidential protection, since the start of the pandemic Putin has been shielded within a formidable bio-security regime. Those due to meet him face-to-face are tested, required to isolate beforehand, and – if visiting him either in the Kremlin or his mansion outside Moscow – has to pass through a tunnel fogged with aerosolised disinfectant and bathed in germ-killing ultraviolet light. Back in March last year, he wore

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Australia and the new special relationship

The awkwardly-named AUKUS agreement reflects Washington’s escalating concern about China’s dominance in the Indo-Pacific. It signals London’s determination to be more, not less, involved in the global community after Brexit and the retreat from Afghanistan. Ultimately, however, this deal is about Australia. Few countries are as pivotal to regional security yet so poorly understood as such, at home and abroad, among commentators, politicians and policymakers. Australia’s standing in security terms is intimately linked to its alliance with the United States, but this relationship is not as one directional as some Australian critics believe. In defence and global security terms, Australia is a country with something to offer — quite a

Thursday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Boris Johnson’s government shake-up continues

After a rather quiet day, the reshuffle is back on, and Boris Johnson is proving to be even more brutal with the more junior ministerial jobs than he was in his clear out of the cabinet. So far, the following have left government: Jesse Norman Caroline Dinenage Luke Hall Graham Stuart James Duddridge Matt Warman John Whittingdale Nick Gibb And these are the moves and promotions within government:Treasury Lucy Frazer is financial secretary, moving from Justice. Helen Whately is exchequer secretary, moving from Health and Social Care. Home Office Rachel Maclean has been made a parliamentary under sectary at the Home Office, having been moved from Transport. Education Robin Walker

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

What the Aukus pact says about Britain’s foreign policy

12 min listen

With the Commons still reeling from the reshuffle, the UK, US, and Australia have formed a new security alliance, the Aukus pact. Many have seen this as early preparation for a more aggressive China, as the US nuclear submarines being gifted to Australia will be able to reach territories like Taiwan without refuelling. To discuss the pact, and the fallout from yesterday’s reshuffle, Isabel Hardman talks to Katy Balls and James Forsyth.

Steerpike Steerpike

What MPs drank as Kabul burned

There were many fine speeches made in last month’s emergency debate on Afghanistan. Peers and MPs queued up to deliver their musings on the Taliban takeover, in spite of twenty years of blood and treasure. From rising stars to extinct volcanos, backwoodsmen to bootlickers, the tributes poured fourth with liberal mentions aplenty of Vietnam and betrayal. But such speech-making is thirsty work it seems. For while the bars of the House of Commons remained closed on the day of the debate, no such restrictions existed in the Lords where peers and MPs could freely wander in throughout the afternoon’s oratorical marathon. Records show some seventeen glasses of wine were glugged from the establishment’s

William Moore William Moore

Payday: who’s afraid of rising wages?

45 min listen

In this week’s episode: is Brexit to blame for the rise in blue-collar wages? With labour shortages driving wages up, many have blamed Britain’s removal from the single market. However, this week in The Spectator, Matthew Lynn argues that shocks and price signals are how the free-market economy reorganises, and that we are experiencing a global trend just like America and Germany. Simon Jenkins, columnist for the Guardian, joins Matthew to discuss. (00:45) Also this week: the British Medical Association has dropped its opposition to assisted dying, but is euthanasia really a dignified and painless process? Dr Joel Zivot asks this question in The Spectator magazine, drawing upon his own experience

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Jess Brammar isn’t the problem

We need to talk about Jess Brammar. No, not the fact that Ms Brammar has landed the plum job of executive editor of the BBC’s news channels, despite cries of opposition from various Tories who insisted that Brexit-bashing Brammar is too politically partisan for such a position. My view is that it should be up to the Beeb who it employs, and politicians and their advisers should keep their beaks out of broadcasting. Rather, Jess Brammar represents a wider problem. It’s the fact that so much of the cultural elite is hostile to Brexit, which, lest we forget, is the most popular political idea in living memory in this country.

Katy Balls Katy Balls

What the Aukus pact says about Britain’s foreign policy

While the foreign secretary changed in the last 24 hours, the most important announcement regarding the direction of UK foreign policy yesterday came outside of the reshuffle. Overnight, the UK, US and Australia announced a new defence arrangement – known as the Aukus pact – in the Asia pacific, which will see Australia build nuclear-powered submarines using US technology as well as collaborate on other technologies.  The Chinese government has been quick to criticise the move The purpose of this new arrangement? While the respective governments have not specifically said it, it’s viewed as a counter to China that will see the three countries team up against Chinese aggression in the

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: SNP health secretary slips up (again)

It’s not been a great week for Humza Yousaf. The under-fire SNP health secretary has been a fixture of newspaper headlines this week over ambulance waiting times after telling long-suffering Scots to ‘think twice’ about ordering one amid pressure on the country’s health service.  Humiliatingly, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has today been forced to call in the British Army to provide ‘targeted assistance’ to alleviate such delays – an option that would not of course be available in an independent Scotland. To add injury to insult, the SNP apparatchik is currently forced to use crutches and a scooter since rupturing his achilles playing badminton during his self-isolation. Running for a vote