Politics

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

Thursday

16 Jan 2025

What does Greenland have that Trump wants?

Donald Trump’s favourite President, William McKinley, added Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines to the American fief at the turn of the twentieth century. Trump once saw Greenland on a map and reportedly said: ‘Look at the size of this. It’s massive! That should be part of the United States’? Two years later, his language is stronger: ‘For purposes of national security and freedom throughout the world, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.’ Trump’s first proposal to buy Greenland in 2019 was rebuffed by the Danes who have sovereignty over it. For Trump, this is not just about military bases – US

Michael Simmons

Is public sector headcount out of control?

Eyebrows were raised in the House of Lords this week as the Justice and Home Affairs Committee heard evidence that the Ministry of Justice is having to recruit from overseas to staff Britain’s overcrowded jails. Mark Fairhurst, the national chairman of the Prison Officers’ Association, said: We are recruiting from overseas and you are getting recruits from overseas, we have heard, turning up at the gate with suitcases and family in tow asking “Where is my accommodations?” […] We have got examples of overseas recruits sleeping in their cars because they have no accommodations. Apparently there has been a bunch of overseas recruits who, because they have no accommodations, there

Michael Gove

The answers Starmer must give

It will probably only damn me further in the eyes of many, but when I was a government minister I often used to ask Labour predecessors for advice. Tony Blair especially. He may have felt it was a forlorn exercise ever offering me his wisdom, especially when I went on to back Brexit, support parliament’s prorogation under Boris and defend Dominic Cummings against all comers, but I always appreciated his insights, even when we disagreed. No position is so strong, no policy so perfect, that it cannot benefit from being tested by critics. If those critics have experience of office, know its powers and limitations, so much the better. And

Ross Clark

Is Europe really faring better than Britain?

Five years ago this week, Boris Johnson was celebrating the achievement of leaving the European Union and wondering how he might take advantage of Britain’s newfound freedoms. A virus had other ideas. Covid-19 didn’t just turn our lives upside down and cost many lives; it robbed the then government of the chance to seize the initiative and prove that Brexit was worth the pain and inevitable disruption. For frustrated anti-Brexit campaigners, the pandemic provided them with ammunition to claim that their worst predictions had been realised. Falling economic growth, rising inflation, empty supermarket shelves – all these came to be blamed on Brexit, ignoring the rather large spanner which had

The Spectator

The folly of Keir Starmer’s Chagos Islands deal

It would be natural to assume that sinking bond markets would be the government’s priority this week, as low UK growth and high borrowing rattles investors. Yet remarkably the Prime Minister’s attentions seem to be focused elsewhere: on advancing a deal to cede sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius in the days before Donald Trump is inaugurated for his second term as US President. Trump is an opponent of the deal for good reason. The US military base on Diego Garcia proved invaluable during the two Gulf Wars. Keir Starmer is yet to meet an international tribunal he won’t genuflect before Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer, appears

Katy Balls

Labour is starting to panic about Reform

‘We’ve had enough of living in two-tier Britain,’ bellows Nigel Farage to cheers from an 800-strong crowd at Chester’s Crowne Plaza Hotel, where he is holding court. ‘There is not a single person on that Labour frontbench who’s ever worked in private business,’ the Reform leader declares. ‘So, is it any wonder they’re making such a Horlicks of it?’ Chester is the sixth stop on Farage’s new year tour, which was initially intended to sound a steady drumbeat in the lead-up to May’s local elections. Since those plans were made, however, Labour has announced a devolution shake-up that could allow various councils to delay their elections by a year. ‘It’s

Wednesday

15 Jan 2025

Jonathan Sacerdoti

This Israel-Hamas agreement defines an ‘uneasy peace’

After 15 gruelling months of war and negotiation, a ceasefire and hostage release agreement between Israel and Hamas has been brokered, following intensive diplomatic activity led by the United States, Qatar,and Egypt. Announced this evening, the deal marks a critical yet deeply contentious milestone in the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While it offers hope for the families of hostages, it also raises serious questions about the long-term implications for both sides and the precarious nature of such agreements. The deal resembles that initially outlined in May 2024 by President Biden and endorsed by the UN Security Council. It includes the release of 33 hostages held by Hamas, primarily women, children, and

Steerpike

Watch: Attorney General refuses to comment on Gerry Adams links

The Labour government is generating its fair share of negative headlines these days – and now the focus is on the new Attorney General, Lord Hermer. As Mr S pointed out in summer, Sir Keir Starmer’s appointee has held some rather, er, interesting roles in the past – including representing ex-Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams only last year. The Irish republican – who has always denied being in the Irish Republican Army, despite numerous books detailing his involvement in its Army Council – is back making British headlines today after it emerged that, due to planned changes to Troubles-related legislation, the former politician could receive a government pay-out over his

Lloyd Evans

Keir can thank God for Kemi

Robots will never replace Sir Keir Starmer. No need. Silicon Valley is already using him as the template for an army of cloned officials to be sold worldwide. The Starmer App was on display at PMQs as he answered planted questions at the start of the session. A tame backbencher said the word ‘train station.’ ‘We’re taking railway services back into public ownership,’ parroted Sir Keir, ‘and making ticketing better and fairer.’ A second MP said ‘teachers.’ ‘Skilling up the next generation is vital to economic growth,’ came the auto-reply. Up stood the Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, and she had targets aplenty to choose from. The government is reeling. Two

Harry Mount

You should feel disappointed if you don’t get into Oxbridge

When I was at Magdalen College, Oxford, in the early 1990s, I’d often read ‘Bogsheets’ in the loos by the college bar. They were single pages of anonymous college gossip, cheaply printed off in those pre-internet days. I remember one bogsheet clearly. The headline said, ‘Cheer up!’ And the standfirst said, ‘You’re at the most beautiful college at the most beautiful, most famous university in the world. This is the closest you’ll ever get to living in a country house in your life. Why are you so bloody miserable?’ I was feeling a little sorry for myself at the time. The bogsheet cheered me up instantly – it was spot

Ian O’Doherty

Ireland’s President has gone completely rogue

As Ireland’s octogenarian President, Michael D Higgins, enters the last few months of his final term in office, a man who was always outspoken in his views seems to have dropped any presidential filter. Higgins spent much of last year on what seemed like a one-man mission against Israel, making a series of wild and frequently incorrect statements about the Jewish state. First he claimed that the Israeli embassy in Dublin leaked a letter of congratulations he had written to the incoming Iranian leader (they didn’t). Then, at the height of the war in Gaza, he argued that Israel planned to annex parts of Egypt (they haven’t). But any hope that he would choose to spend the last

Katy Balls

Why would the government pay Gerry Adams?

11 min listen

With rumours swirling around Westminster and after Keir Starmer’s less than convincing defence of his Chancellor earlier in the week, Rachel Reeves has found some brief respite. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) confirmed that inflation dipped to 2.5 per cent in the 12 months to December, down from 2.6 per cent the month before. It’s welcome news for a Chancellor who is under pressure, so is she safe? Elsewhere, there is a fresh row emerging concerning Gerry Adams. The government is proposing to repeal legislation, enacted in 2023, that prevents Gerry Adams and 400 others from claiming ‘compensation’ for having been detained in the 1970s for suspected involvement in

Isabel Hardman

Starmer saved his favourite attack until the end at PMQs

Kemi Badenoch continued with her theme of ‘why can you trust anything the Prime Minister says’ at Prime Minister’s Questions today, covering the economy, the Chagos Islands, Tulip Siddiq and Gerry Adams. The Tory leader also claimed that Starmer was once again not answering the questions that she asked, which was true, but his replies were better than her questions. Starmer said the Conservatives are ‘economic vandals and fantasists’ Starmer had obviously come armed with the surprisingly good inflation figures, but he also had a number of one liners and attacks that were more effective than those from Badenoch. These included the early description of the Conservatives as ‘economic vandals

Edward Howell

President Yoon’s arrest brings more turmoil to South Korea

This year has commenced in an historic fashion for South Korea – albeit for all the wrong reasons. Earlier today, South Korean authorities arrested the suspended – but still sitting – president, Yoon Suk Yeol, on charges of corruption and inciting insurrection, after several weeks of the embattled leader evading this outcome. Today marks the first time in history that a sitting South Korean president had been arrested, plunging South Korea once again into unchartered waters. Domestic politics in Asia’s fourth-largest economy looks like it will only get messier. It has been a tempestuous month in South Korean politics. For all the personal scandals, skulduggery, and schisms within his party

Steerpike

New York Times: Dry January is racist

For a moment, it almost seemed like there was an outbreak of sense at the New York Times, with a column entitled ‘Dry January Is Driving Me to Drink’ . The piece, by Tressie McMillan Cottom, an NYT columnist for the past three years, ‘known for her incisive essays on social problems’, begins by insisting that she is ‘happy’ for people doing Dry January, but she won’t be joining them. Why? Because she likes a drink? Or because it’s performative? No, because Dry January is in fact racist. She writes: Consumer-driven health campaigns that get this kind of traction do not happen in a vacuum. A broader modern temperance movement promoting “clean” living

Steerpike

Scottish Labour face an uphill battle, poll suggests

All is not well in the Labour party. While Sir Keir Starmer’s government fends off questions about the state of the economy and its worsening poll performance, things aren’t looking much better north of the border. New Scottish voting data has dropped this morning – and Anas Sarwar’s Scottish Labour lot have much to be worried about… Less than a quarter of Scots say they would use their constituency vote to back Labour in the 2026 Holyrood election, while barely a fifth of the population would vote for Sarwar’s party on the regional list. The survey reveals that the Scottish Labour leader is simply not yet popular enough to persuade

Patrick West

The triumph and tragedy of Tony Slattery

Tony Slattery was outrageously funny. And he was funny because he was outrageous. The actor and comedian, who died yesterday aged 65, may have belonged to that unhappy category of performers who were ‘troubled’ – tormented by insecurities and afflicted by addiction – but he also joins that distinguished pantheon of entertainers who made their mark for their rude and bawdy humour. Slattery was described as a ‘lost anxious teddy bear’ Slattery first came to public attention in the late-1980s as a panellist on the Channel 4 improvisation show Whose Line Is Anyway?, a programme that entailed playing out scenes in the style of a movie, programme or genre decided by

Patrick O’Flynn

Why did Keir Starmer handle the Tulip Siddiq furore so badly?

When the anti-corruption minister is accused of corruption by a foreign government and has no prospect of being able to shut the story down any time soon, it is perfectly obvious that her position is untenable. Yet Keir Starmer allowed the furore over Tulip Siddiq to run for several weeks before the obvious resolution – that she must step down from her ministerial role – was implemented. The Tulip Siddiq furore may drop out of the headlines but it could return in a more virulent form Siddiq was named as a suspect in a corruption investigation by Bangladesh back on 19 December. Since then the controversy over the Hampstead and

Steerpike

Tories overtake Labour despite Badenoch’s ratings falling fast

Uh oh. Labour’s first six months in government haven’t gone quite as swimmingly as Sir Keir Starmer might have hoped and poll after poll has reflected the growing dissatisfaction with the incumbent government. The latest data dump– by pollsters More in Common – now reveals that the Conservatives are leading Labour by a point, with a quarter of Brits backing Kemi Badenoch’s boys in blue. How very interesting. The voting intention survey shows the Tories leading Labour by a point, while Starmer’s army is tied on 24 per cent with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. The results of this latest canvassing, which was carried out between the 10-13 January, follows yesterday’s

Richard Ekins

How to stop Gerry Adams’s taxpayer-funded pay day

The government’s fealty to human rights law is not in doubt. Still, one might have hoped that the human rights lawyers who dominate this government – the Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer KC and the Attorney General, Lord Hermer KC – would handle human rights law effectively, distinguishing weak from strong arguments and making a reasonable case for our national interest. The unfolding debacle in relation to cession of the Chagos Islands shows that this is not so. In bending heaven and earth to agree a treaty of cession with Mauritius before the looming change of political leadership in the United States, the government seems to have undersold the UK’s existing legal position,