Politics

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

Friday

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Mhairi Black blasts Sturgeon over careerist jibe

It’s a day ending in ‘y’, which means the Scottish Nats are arguing amongst themselves again. Ex-SNP MP Mhairi Black has taken a pop at the party’s former Dear Leader Nicola Sturgeon in a new BBC documentary released this week about her time in politics. In the programme – in which Black blasts Westminster culture and laments the toll it took on her mental health – the outspoken nationalist took a pop at Sturgeon over the SNP’s careerist culture. In the Beeb’s new show, one of Black’s friends read out an article about the former first minister’s comments that there were too many careerists in the Scottish National party. Speaking

Katy Balls Katy Balls

How long will Starmer’s ‘war bounce’ last?

11 min listen

Trump has been stealing the headlines when it comes to Ukraine this week, but Europe – and whether it can stay united in the face of the US pulling its support – remains an important subplot. At a summit yesterday, 27 countries backed the plan to increase spending on defence, but when will the cracks start to show? Thankfully, it seems that the Prime Minister is good in a crisis. Back at home, he has seen a modest bounce in popularity and he is making a good impression in Brussels, coming across as assured without grandstanding. He has also been leading on defence spending – could defence be the way

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Is Labour brave enough to say the unsayable about the NHS?

Will this finally be the government which gets on top of the voracious financial monster that is the NHS and tackles its chronic over-spending? No, I can’t quite see that, either. But it has to be said that the new interim Chief Executive of NHS England – Sir Jim Mackey, who has replaced Amanda Pritchard – has made a good start. Rather than just beg the government for more money he has turned on the leaders of NHS trusts, who have been told to go back and revise the spending plans which they recently submitted. Well he might. Even with an extra NHS England granted an extra £25.7 billion over two

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Tories smash Labour on latest donations

Some good news for Kemi Badenoch today. The latest donation figures for the end of 2024 are out – and they make for happy reading for the beancounters in CCHQ. The Tories reported £3.8 million in donations between October and December, compared to £1.6 million for the Liberal Democrats, £1.4 million for Labour and £336,800 for Reform. When public funds are excluded, Badenoch’s party raised £1.9 million in donations compared to £1 million, £685,000 and £281,000 for those led by Keir Starmer, Ed Davey and Nigel Farage respectively. Reform’s sums included £100,000 from the financier and former Tory donor Roger Nagiof plus £50,000 from financial services firm JB Drax Honore,

Nigel Jones

Rupert Lowe won’t be the last to fall out with Nigel Farage

It was so predictable as to be almost inevitable: a massive row has erupted within the leadership of Reform UK. Rupert Lowe, one of Reform’s five MPs and the Member for Great Yarmouth – an outspoken keyboard warrior on social media and popular with many grassroots party members for his outspoken online comments – kicked off the row after he launched an open criticism of party founder and leader Nigel Farage. In an interview with the Daily Mail, Lowe, a millionaire businessman, said Reform was still a ‘protest party’ and that it was an open question about whether his ‘messianic’ leader would ‘deliver the goods’ and become prime minister. He suggested that Farage

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Watch: Trudeau’s tears after Trump tariffs 

Donald Trump is intent on shaking things up in the White House and no one knows that better than neighbouring Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The US President ramped up his tariff war this week – and tensions between the pair seem to have taken their toll on Trudeau, even reducing him to tears during a Thursday press conference. Oh dear… The outgoing PM appears keen to prove that his time in office has been well spent. Yet Trump’s 25 per cent tariffs on all goods imported from Canada have sparked fear among the country’s business industry, while the US President’s mocking of ‘Governor Trudeau’ and threats to annex Canada

Andrew Tettenborn

Why should MPs tell parents not to smack their kids?

Is it about to become illegal for parents to smack their child? We might have known that the already top-heavy Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill would be hijacked by those with an agenda to push. Labour MP Jess Asato has tabled an amendment, backed by 26 MPs (including surprisingly one Tory), that would abolish the legal defence of reasonable chastisement. This would criminalise all physical punishment, even within the home, as has been done in Wales and Scotland. A number of organisations have already lined up behind her, including Humanists UK and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH). This amendment must be resisted. The movement for a

Philip Patrick Philip Patrick

Japan and Britain are too weak to help each other

Foreign Secretary David Lammy and Business Secretary Jonathon Reynolds are in Tokyo for ‘2+2’ (two ministers for the price of one) talks with their Japanese counterparts. The sessions are expected to be at least superficially productive, with hopeful talk of enhanced cooperation on security and strengthened economic ties (particularly on AI). Apparently, details of a new trade and defence deal, including plans to develop a new industrial strategy partnership between the 4th and 6th biggest economies in the world, will be announced, along with some hot air about an offshore wind project. There is something faintly desperate in the idea that the UK can be of much help to Japan

Eliot Wilson

What hope does John Healey have of influencing Trump?

In the eight months since he was appointed Secretary of State for Defence, John Healey has undertaken so many foreign visits that his residency status must be dubious. The Yorkshireman, who turned 65 last month, has travelled to Ukraine, Estonia, Poland, Germany, Belgium, Israel, Cyprus, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Norway and the United States. On Wednesday, he returned to Washington for a meeting with his American counterpart, Pete Hegseth. It is a marker of these extraordinary times and the volatility of President Donald Trump’s instincts – they are not policies in any meaningful sense – that British ministers visiting Washington do so with trepidation. On the agenda for Healey were the

Katy Balls Katy Balls

The Julia Lopez Edition

33 min listen

Julia Lopez has been the Conservative MP for Hornchurch and Upminster since 2017. Her first political experience was working for the then-MP for the Cities of London and Westminster Mark Field, before she became a councillor for Tower Hamlets – working to improve the standards of an area marred in scandal and heightened community tensions. She went on to hold ministerial roles under three Prime Ministers and is now the PPS to Tory leader Kemi Badenoch. On the podcast, Julia talks to Katy Balls about the impact Margaret Thatcher had on the politics of her family, how she gained political experience touring London’s sewers and skyscrapers, and the mixed emotions of

David Spencer

Two-tier justice is taking over the courts

Two years ago, few had heard of the term ‘two-tier justice’. Indeed, Ministers and leaders across the criminal justice system have spent much of that time vigorously denying its existence. Yet the examples of a justice system which is failing to deliver ‘equality before the law’ are numerous: the failures of the police and prosecutors to act when individuals chanted for ‘jihad’ at a political rally; the sexual abuse of many hundreds of children in Rotherham because professionals feared being accused of racism; the postcode lottery of how non-crime hate incidents are recorded depending on which police force area you live in.  The publication of the sentencing council’s instructions on how judges and magistrates

Robin Ashenden

Help, I’ve become a news junkie!

I’ve always been something of a news addict, but recent events in America and Ukraine have turned me into the kind of junkie films get made about. ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome,’ an affliction you once sniggered at in others, is now sweeping the world faster than Covid-19, and is oddly easy, at the moment, to fall into. Speaking of the White House’s pivot to Russia and apparent abandonment of Europe, a friend said it was like ‘sitting in an articulated lorry being driven by someone who’s just downed an entire quart of bourbon.’ Another remarked: ‘There’s this complete, jaw-dropping disbelief at what’s happening. Each time I turn on the TV for

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Matt Wrack will be a hardline teaching union boss

It has a whiff of the old trailer for Jaws 2, the one where viewers were disabused of the idea that it was safe to go back into the water.  In January, Matt Wrack, the left-wing, Corbyn-supporting general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) lost his attempt for re-election. But if anyone thought it was a sign of the trade union movement adopting a less combative attitude now that it had its much-wished-for Labour government, they were fooling themselves. Wrack has resurfaced, this time being nominated to lead the NASUWT, which until now has a reputation as the more moderate of the two largest teaching unions. That Wrack has

Alfie Pearce-Higgins

What’s the point of foreign aid?

The UK signed up to a UN target of spending 0.7 per cent of GNP on aid way back in 1970, but didn’t hit that level until 2013. In 2020, aid spending was cut to 0.5 per cent and last week Keir Starmer reduced it further to 0.3 per cent. This will save about £4 billion which will instead be allocated to military spending. There were predictable howls of anguish from aid advocates at the news, and the development minister resigned. There was also begrudging praise from Starmer’s Conservative opponents. But few seemed to question what the point of aid is, and whether a spending target, at any level, makes

Thursday

Andy Maciver

Should the Scottish Tories ignore the Reform threat?

What do the Tories do with a problem like Reform? Kemi Badenoch’s party in Westminster has some time to consider this, with over four years to go until it has to put her strategy – whatever that is – to the test. But the same cannot be said of Russell Findlay, the Scottish Conservative party leader, who has an election in just over a year. While the UK group will be benchmarked against an historically poor Tory result in the 2024 general election, Findlay will be benchmarked against the best Holyrood election result in Tory history, with Douglas Ross winning 31 seats and a near one-quarter vote share. Seat extrapolations

William Moore William Moore

Why Ukraine’s minerals matter, the NHS’s sterilisation problem & remembering the worst poet in history

42 min listen

This week: the carve-up of Ukraine’s natural resources From the success of Keir Starmer’s visit to Washington to the squabbling we saw in the Oval Office and the breakdown of security guarantees for Ukraine – we have seen the good, the bad and the ugly of geopolitics in the last week, say Niall Ferguson and Nicholas Kulish in this week’s cover piece. They argue that what Donald Trump is really concerned with when it comes to Ukraine is rare earth minerals – which Ukraine has in abundance under its soil. The conventional wisdom is that the US is desperately short of these crucial minerals and, as Niall and Nicholas point

Lisa Haseldine Lisa Haseldine

Will the EU ever get tough on defence?

European leaders are in Brussels today for an emergency summit on defence, and the future of both Ukraine and the continent. In a further attempt to hash out a peace plan for Ukraine, the 27 EU heads of state are joined by Volodymyr Zelensky. Arriving this morning, Zelensky declared, ‘It’s great we are not alone’. As part of today’s agenda, members of the bloc are expected to endorse Ursula von der Leyen’s ReArm Europe plan – which will make €150 billion (£125 billion) available in loans for members to boost defence spending. The summit will also likely discuss French President Emmanuel Macron’s proposal to extend his country’s ‘nuclear umbrella’ to its

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Watch: Tice forgets names of Reform defectors

Oh dear. Poor Richard Tice is the latest politician to have an embarrassing memory lapse. During his first trip to Scotland of 2025, the Boston and Skegness MP appeared in Glasgow this morning to reveal his party’s newest defectors. Except, er, he couldn’t quite remember their names… When he was grilled by one Scottish hack about the surnames of new recruits ‘John and Ross’, Tice couldn’t recall them. In fact, the party’s deputy leader didn’t appear to know all that much about the pair at all. ‘What are their surnames?’ the journalist pressed. ‘I’m answering policy questions,’ an irate Tice shot back. An excruciating back-and-forth ensued – during which Tice

Dean Godson

A tribute to Blair Wallace, a hero of the Troubles

The names of leading republicans like Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness and Bobby Sands are well known, but how many in Great Britain can identify a Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary – or, indeed, a single security force hero of the Troubles? Blair Wallace, who has died aged 87 and will be buried tomorrow, was just such a hero. He was the last of the “big beasts” of the RUC Chief Officers from the height of the conflict, rising to the post of Deputy Chief Constable – until he lost out on the top job in 1996. Wallace led from the front and was injured five times during the

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NHS Scotland: call bearded trans staff ‘women’

It seems that NHS Scotland still hasn’t learned the lessons from the Sandie Peggie furore. Now it turns out that a ‘cultural humility’ training module for healthcare workers produced in December 2023 told them to call bearded trans staff ‘women’ – and even suggested gender-neutral toilets should be introduced in care homes. With over 700,000 patients stuck on Scottish waiting lists, it’s not like hard-pressed NHS staff don’t have more pressing issues to contend with… The Scottish NHS Cultural Humility training module puts forward one situation in which ‘Lucy’ is a male-to-female trans nurse who has not formally changed their name from Lee. The healthcare worker is described as ‘still