Politics

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

Friday

Jonathan Sacerdoti

Why Hamas keeps on celebrating

As plans for a ceasefire were announced on Wednesday night, videos of Gazans celebrating with glee made their way onto international news broadcasts. The celebrations were distinctive in style, and looked nothing like those of a people experiencing the end of a genocide. Many an anchor and analyst overlooked the detail, but we would all do well to pay attention to what the revellers were actually showing and telling us.  No ceasefire can fully address the conflict as long as Hamas remains committed to its ultimate goal: the destruction of Israel and the eradication of Jews in the region This is not the first time Gaza’s civilians have seemed quick to celebrate. No

Ross Clark Ross Clark

The retail recession

There was some relief for Rachel Reeves earlier this week when inflation fell slightly to 2.5 per cent and the economy just about managed to grow, by 0.1 per cent (although many were expecting it to be a little higher than that).  There is no joy to be had, however, in this morning’s retail sales figures, which show that volumes fell by 0.3 per cent in December. It suggests that a modest recovery in retail over the past 12 months has run out of steam. Sales volumes were still up 1.9 per cent on December 2023, but this does little to offset the bigger picture: that retail sales have never

Fredrik Karrholm

Why Sweden is cracking down on citizenship

The Swedish government is proposing a constitutional amendment that would make it possible to revoke the citizenship of certain individuals. Those who obtained their citizenship through fraudulent means, or who pose a threat to the state, could now face being stripped of their passport. This is one of many measures which are defining Sweden’s pragmatic shift away from radical idealism. In contrast to Denmark, the Netherlands, France, and Britain, there has – until now – been no circumstance that would allow someone’s Swedish citizenship to be cancelled. Not even the worst terrorists involved in appalling crimes at the Islamic State’s zenith could lose their passports. Citizenship is not merely a

Jawad Iqbal

Labour’s grooming gang inquiry mess

What a pig’s ear the government is making of its response to the grooming gangs scandal. Ministers have spent weeks resisting growing calls for a new and comprehensive national inquiry, insisting that this would take too long and get in the way of implementing measures to help victims. Now there’s been a change of heart, of sorts, because it has become all too obvious that the government is failing to win the political argument.  The answer ministers have alighted upon to dig themselves out of a hole of their own making is unlikely to satisfy anyone for very long.   There still won’t be a national inquiry – lest anyone dares to

Michael Evans

Trump will find Putin harder to deal with than Hamas

There is no question that bombast sometimes works. President-elect Donald Trump warned hell would be unleashed if Hamas did not release its hostages and the war in Gaza did not end by 20 January, his inauguration day. He never explained what he had in mind to end the war, but he didn’t need to. The threat was enough. President Joe Biden and his national security team had done all the hard negotiating work for a deal but Trump’s stamp on it was conclusive. Trump’s room for manoeuvre is limited. Bombast won’t do it, not this time Can he now do the same with the war in Ukraine? Trump’s main obstacle

Katharine Birbalsingh

What problem is the Education Secretary trying to solve?

Dear Education Secretary, I am worried your time in office will destroy the huge gains made over the last decade and a half in helping disadvantaged children across England. I don’t know if you are being ideologically blind and therefore ignoring the obvious negative impact of your decisions – or perhaps you just don’t understand the harm your changes will cause. I am hoping it is the latter and I am writing to offer my advice and help so that you might see that the road you are taking will have catastrophic consequences for the poor in this country. Cutting funding to schools just before the GCSE exams I say

David Ryan

What this 1970s film reveals about Broken Britain

Corrupt bobbies. Local government timeservers who treat young women as playthings. A country bogged down in never-ending crises, overseen by a rancid managerial class. These aren’t the theoretical findings of some future report into rape gangs. As it happens, they’re the basis of O Lucky Man!, a film from the Edward Heath era that suggests self-interest and incompetence are an inescapable part of the national character. When the Royal Court Theatre’s Lindsay Anderson directed it in 1973, the left was as keen as today’s online right to howl in anguish at a UK that had gone to the dogs. Anderson had form in this regard. His Palme d’Or-winning addition to

Ed Shackle

Elon Musk’s attacks are an opportunity for Keir Starmer

‘Can I just say, he’s a t***.’ The taxi driver leans backwards and interjects into our conversation about one of Elon Musk’s latest forays into UK politics. Musk, he makes short shrift of explaining, should keep his beak out.  We’ve just arrived in a North-East coastal town, where we will be spending the next few days conducting dozens of in-depth interviews with locals to find out what they think about a range of topics. None of these are pre-arranged as we find it useful to speak to people in their natural environments: the pub, local coffee shop or workplace etc. What we found on this trip is an unexpected opportunity for

Thursday

James Heale James Heale

Mark Carney launches bid to succeed Trudeau

After nearly a decade of speculation about his political aspirations, Mark Carney has today formally declared that he wants be Canada’s next Prime Minister. The former Bank of England Governor kicked off his campaign to be the next Liberal party leader at a community centre in Alberta, promising to build the fastest-growing economy in the G7 if elected. ‘I’m doing this because Canada is the best country in the world, but it still could be even better,’ he said. Carney was tipped as one of the first names to replace Justin Trudeau when the latter announced his resignation timetable ten days ago. He teased a bid on Tuesday when appearing

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Was Kemi Badenoch’s speech a success?

Kemi Badenoch’s first big speech of 2024 was meant to seize the news agenda and tell the public that the Tory party is changing under her leadership. Yet in a sign of the difficulties opposition leaders have getting their messages out, Badenoch had to compete with the Labour government announcement of a ‘rapid national audit’ and new local inquiries into the grooming gangs scandal. The timing of Yvette Cooper’s statement to the House – 20 minutes into Badenoch’s speech – meant it was Labour leading the news in Westminster this afternoon. However, that’s not to say it was a wasted opportunity. After Badenoch told her shadow cabinet last week that

Lara Prendergast Lara Prendergast

Empire of Trump, the creep of child-free influencers & is fact-checking a fiction?

43 min listen

This week: President Trump’s plan to Make America Greater In the cover piece for the magazine, our deputy editor and host of the Americano podcast, Freddy Gray, delves into Trump’s plans. He speaks to insiders, including Steve Bannon, about the President’s ambitions for empire-building. Could he really take over Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal? And if not, what is he really hoping to achieve? Academic and long-time friend of J.D. Vance, James Orr, also writes in the magazine this week about how the vice president-elect could be an even more effective standard-bearer for the MAGA movement. Freddy and James joined the podcast, just before Freddy heads off to cover

Reem Ibrahim

Removing the nicotine from cigarettes could be bad science

On Wednesday, the Biden administration announced a bizarre proposal to cap the amount of nicotine in cigarettes. This change could see as much as 95 per cent of the total nicotine content removed, aiming to ‘save many lives and dramatically reduce the burden of severe illness and disability’, according to FDA Commissioner Robert Calliff. Reducing the harms posed by cigarettes is a noble public health aim, but this particular measure is simply not based in fact. Nicotine is the addictive component of cigarettes, but alone, it is relatively harmless. Cigarettes are harmful due to the products of combustion. Setting tobacco on fire produces carbon monoxide and tobacco tar, containing carcinogens

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Yvette Cooper announces new local grooming gang inquiries

There will be more inquiries into grooming gangs after all – just not a full public inquiry. Yvette Cooper has just announced in the Commons that there will be five new local inquiries, including one in Oldham which triggered the most recent row on these crimes. The Home Secretary also announced that Louise Casey is going to conduct a rapid review into grooming gangs, looking at the data on these crimes, to see what can be learned at a national level. She told MPs: ‘As well as reviewing past cases we also need much stronger action to uncover the full scale and nature of these crimes… The data on ethnicity of both

John O’Neill

High Court puts £1.3 billion in benefit savings in doubt

A government consultation on restricting access to disability benefits was ‘so unfair as to be unlawful’, the High Court ruled today, putting £1.3 billion a year of benefit savings in doubt.  The Work Capability Assessment is the gateway to Universal Credit health benefits and up to £4,900 a year for recipients. The Tories planned to change parts of the assessment relating to moving around and getting out of the house to take account of the rise of home and flexible working. Reforms were due to start from September this year, growing to affect 420,000 people who would be assessed as having a less severe level of incapacity, and another 30,000 who would be found to

Oscar Edmondson

Is Starmer doing enough for Ukraine?

13 min listen

Keir Starmer is in Ukraine today, on his first visit to Kyiv since becoming Prime Minister. And he came bearing gifts: a 100-year partnership agreement between the UK and Ukraine, covering nine ‘pillars’ from culture to science. It is hoped that the new pact will define the relationship between the two countries well beyond the current conflict with Russia. This is all in the context of Donald Trump’s return to the White House, with his administration agitating for a peace deal. Is peace on the horizon? Also on the podcast, Kemi Badenoch’s big speech – in which she criticised the decisions made by successive Tory prime ministers – was overshadowed

Matthew Lynn

Regulators don’t create growth 

Perhaps you could gather a group of traffic wardens and ask them how to build a racetrack. Or get the leaders of the Salvation Army over to suggest some cool ideas for a cocktail bar. Think up any improbable brainstorming sessions, and it will still be hard to imagine anything more awkward than the gathering of regulators Chancellor Rachel Reeves summoned to Downing Street today to give her some ideas on growth. After all, that is her job, not theirs.  Just the concept of frog-marching regulators into the Chancellor’s office and demanding ‘growth ideas’ is ridiculous It hardly sounds like fun. The chief executives of such august sounding bodies as

Steerpike Steerpike

Badenoch shuts down idea of Reform-Tory merger

In her first big speech of the year, Kemi Badenoch has taken a pop at Chancellor Rachel Reeves, reiterated her calls for a national inquiry into the grooming gang scandal and hit out at Britain’s immigration figures. Mr S was rather interested, however, in what the Tory leader said about Reform UK. Speaking in London today, Badenoch was quizzed on whether her party could merge with the increasingly popular Farage-founded party ahead of the 2029 general election. The Tory leader hit out at the idea, remarking to her audience: ‘Nigel Farage says he wants to destroy the Conservative Party. Why on earth would we merge with that?’ She added about

Steerpike Steerpike

Blue Labour founder jets off to Trump inauguration

Well, well, well. President-elect Donald Trump may have snubbed Sir Keir Starmer and missed off the new US ambassador Peter Mandelson when he was sending out his inauguration invites but there is one Labour figure who has been deemed privileged enough to make the cut. Steerpike can reveal that Lord Maurice Glasman is currently making his way to DC after being personally invited to the ceremony by the Trump team. How very interesting… The Labour peer and author of Blue Labour is, Mr S understands, heading out to the presidential inauguration – and appears to be the only Labour figure to have been expressly invited by the president’s top team,

Hannah Tomes Hannah Tomes

Netanyahu: Hamas is backtracking on ceasefire

Benjamin Netanyahu has this morning accused Hamas of trying to backtrack on the six-week ceasefire and hostage release that was agreed yesterday. The Israeli Prime Minister’s office released a statement saying that Hamas objected to part of the deal that would give Israel the power to veto the release of certain prisoners, and that negotiators had been instructed to hold firm on the agreed terms. The statement also said Hamas was trying to ‘extort last-minute concessions’ – a claim the group denies. An Israeli cabinet vote on the deal, which was expected to take place later today, has been delayed ‘until the mediators notify Israel that Hamas has accepted all

Marcus Solarz Hendriks

The questions that need answering on the Chagos Islands deal

The art of policymaking is to chart a course through evolving circumstances. In the face of resistance, there are three options: resist and persevere in kind, adjust, or fold and abandon ship. The best policymakers make the correct decision at the right time. The British government is in such a moment with its attempt to cede the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. For months, it has elected the first option – even as the new Mauritian government rejected the terms of the original deal, and Donald Trump’s election victory promises to usher in an administration with dim views of the agreement. As the Chagossians condemned their exclusion from the negotiations, and Maldivian opposition