Politics Archives

Tuesday

17 Dec 2024

Keir Starmer has dropped the ball on Ukraine

Has Keir Starmer dropped the ball on Ukraine? Dmytro Kuleba, the Ukrainian former foreign minister, certainly thinks so. Kuleba, who stepped down from his post in September, had few kind words to say this week about how Starmer’s Labour government had dealt with Ukraine in the five months or so since coming to power: The Conservatives were coordinating with the Americans but they did not restrict themselves to just following the Americans. This is the change that came with Labour. They took a position they would follow the Americans. It is stirring and laudable to promise to support Ukraine ‘for as long as it takes’ The immediate cause of Kuleba’s

Katja Hoyer

German politics is a mess

The German Chancellor Olaf Scholz lost a confidence vote in parliament yesterday. It’s almost certain now that Germans will head to the polls for a snap election on 23 February. What is less certain is whether this will bring about the change so many of them crave. Of 717 Bundestag deputies only 207 expressed their ongoing confidence in the German Chancellor, the vast majority who did so being members of Scholz’s own party, the Social Democrats (SPD). This didn’t come as a surprise since he intended to lose the vote: Scholz’s ruling coalition collapsed last month, leaving him to run a minority government. The only way out of this stalemate

Monday

16 Dec 2024

Isabel Hardman

The finger-pointing over Yang Tengbo begins

The threatened Commons drama of an MP using parliamentary privilege to name the alleged Chinese spy was dampened rather after the High Court lifted the anonymity order on Yang Tengbo. It meant the urgent question (UQ) in the Chamber this afternoon ended up being much more about the UK government’s attitude towards China generally – which made it a much more useful session than if everyone had been craning their necks to see which maverick MP was going to stand up and name ‘H6’. The urgent question came from Iain Duncan Smith, who got a scolding from the Speaker for telling the press he was tabling it. Mind you, Lindsay

Brendan O’Neill

Israel is right to cut ties with Ireland

Everything that has gone wrong in modern Ireland is summed up in the fact that it is winning praise from Hamas and criticism from Israel. Last week Ireland was gushed over by that army of anti-Semites that carried out the worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, while being spurned by the Jewish homeland that was the target of that barbarous assault. Listen, if you’re getting love from racist terrorists, and rejection from their victims, it’s time for some self-reflection. Israel cited Ireland’s ‘extreme anti-Israeli policies’ for its decision It was the Irish government’s decision to join South Africa’s ‘genocide’ case against Israel at the International Court of Justice that

James Heale

Rayner’s revolution enrages Reform

This afternoon Angela Rayner will unveil potentially the biggest shake-up of local government since the 1970s. The Housing Secretary will speak at 1:50 p.m. on her plans for a devolution ‘revolution’. All areas covered by two tiers of local government — generally district and county councils — will be asked to submit proposals to merge into single, unitary authorities. A white paper will be published after Rayner’s speech. The government’s line is that this move will save billions while simplifying how local democracy works. Local authorities will be expected to cover around 500,000 inhabitants, necessitating a likely cull of hundreds of councillors. Labour argues it will enable the creation of

James Heale

Could the local elections be cancelled?

14 min listen

Labour will reveal plans today to re-design local government, with district councils set to be abolished, and more elected mayors introduced across England. The plans could be the biggest reforms of their type since the 1970s, but with the May 2025 local elections set to be Labour’s first big electoral test since the general election, how will they be impacted? Local government minister Jim McMahon didn’t deny that the elections could be affected, or some even cancelled. Reform UK have called foul – what’s going on? James Heale speaks to Isabel Hardman and Katy Balls. Also on the podcast: rumours abound that a Chinese spy could be named in Parliament

Matthew Lynn

Labour will regret selling Royal Mail

It will maintain the single price ‘universal service obligation’. The government will keep its ‘golden share’. And there are ‘legally binding obligations’ to protect the company. The Labour government may feel it has negotiated enough concessions out of the Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky to allow his £3.6 billion takeover of Royal Mail to go ahead. Here’s the problem, though. If the company declines even further, as it almost certainly will, it will be Keir Starmer’s government which gets the blame. With approval from the government, Kretinsky’s acquisition of the Royal Mail now looks certain to go ahead. The Czech tycoon has made so many promises, it is hard to see

Steerpike

Starmer receives worst rating yet as Labour leader

Another day, another bit of bad news for Sir Keir Starmer. A new Ipsos poll carried out between 27 November and 4 December has revealed that dissatisfaction with the Labour leader has reached a staggering 61 per cent – his worst rating as leader of the lefty lot. Good heavens… It’s not just Sir Keir struggling with unpopularity – overall unhappiness with the Labour government remains rather high too, with a whopping 70 per cent of Brits registering their dissatisfaction with the party in charge. And voters are feeling rather bleak about the future too, with two thirds of poll participants admitting they expect the economy to get worse over the

Sam Leith

The hypocrisy of Nick Candy

The property tycoon Nick Candy, interviewed in yesterday’s Sunday Times, appears to be hoping to position himself as a UK equivalent of Elon Musk – a billionaire political kingmaker for Nigel Farage just as Musk was for Donald Trump. Newly anointed as the treasurer of Reform UK, he has pledged a ‘seven-figure’ sum to the party and hopes to raise between £25 million and £40 million before the next general election. Candy indicates that he’s angling for an invitation stateside in the hopes of picking up some tips from Musk as to how he did what Candy calls ‘an incredible job for president-elect Trump [which] sort of changed the political spectrum in

Steerpike

SNP ministers blasted over taxpayer-funded limo trips

To Scotland, where more SNP ministers are under scrutiny over their use of official limousines with First Minister John Swinney facing calls to investigate the matter. It’s not a good look for the Nats who, alongside ministerial slip-ups, have the ongoing police probe into the party’s funds and finances to contend with. Dear oh dear… It transpires that rural affairs secretary Mairi Gougeon took her husband to a Six Nations rugby game between Scotland and France last February as guests of Salmon Scotland. She classed the trip as official government business but due to her failure to take an official with her, there was no formal record of what was

Ian O’Doherty

How Ireland declared diplomatic war on Israel

‘Tis the season of goodwill to all men. Except for the Irish and Israelis, that is, who have seen their already frosty relationship plunged into positively freezing temperatures this weekend with Israel’s decision to close its embassy in Dublin. Sunday’s announcement was unusually stark in diplomatic terms, but it reflects the growing resentment and, at times, genuine confusion felt by many politicians and diplomats in Jerusalem and Dublin about what they see as Ireland’s unfairly pro-Palestinian position since October 7th. From the president downwards, there has been a hostility to Israel that is genuinely unprecedented in Irish political life According to Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, ‘Ireland’s extreme anti-Israel policy’

Sunday

15 Dec 2024

Joe Bedell-Brill

Angela Eagle: we don’t know how many undocumented migrants there are

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper admits relations with China are ‘a complex arrangement’ An alleged ‘Chinese spy’ with links to Prince Andrew, who also met David Cameron and Theresa May, has been banned from entering the UK on national security grounds. On the BBC this morning, Laura Kuenssberg asked Home Secretary Yvette Cooper if the threat of sabotage and espionage is becoming more serious. Cooper admitted that the challenges around national security are more complex, with the prevalence of cyber attacks and the use of ‘criminal proxies’. The Home Secretary said the UK would ‘continue to take a very strong approach to our national security’, but admitted that the necessity of

Ross Clark

The unintended consequence of Angela Rayner’s nature tax

Political office does odd things to parties which were in opposition. Angela Rayner and Steve Reed have written in the Sunday Times this morning complaining that environmental rules are threatening the government’s house-building targets. We’re in a situation, they say, ‘where bats and newts are getting in the way of people who desperately need housing.’ They are not wrong. One of the reasons why there are 1.2 million would-be homes which have been granted planning permission over the past decade but which have yet to be built is that pettifogging green rules are standing in their way. Three of those ghost homes are in my village. Nutrient neutrality rules and an overloaded

Ian Williams

China is getting ready to take on Trump

By one estimate, Chinese military exercises close to Taiwan this week were the largest since 1996, when Beijing attempted unsuccessfully to disrupt the island’s first fully democratic presidential election. Up to 100 warships were estimated to have taken part in what Taiwanese officials described as a ‘significant security challenge’, while Russian warships were also spotted close to Japan and South Korea. The danger for the CCP is that it stands to lose more than the US from any intensified trade war The drills were far more ambitious than those held earlier this year, which were focused on blockading Taiwan. They covered a vast swathe of sea north of the island

Robin Ashenden

Only another Bill Clinton can save the Democrats now

In the weeks since Donald Trump won the US election, Democrat supporters, amidst much gnashing of teeth, have offered up a range of post-mortems. While The View host Sunny Hostin and MSNBC presenter Joy Reid have blamed Kamala’ Harris’s defeat, predictably enough, on American ‘racism’ and ‘misogyny’, others have been more constructive. Last week, onetime Obama strategist Steve Schale said in an op-ed that the party – ‘a shell of itself’ – had turned off groups like Hispanics with ‘socialism talk’ and special-interest issues irrelevant to their lives. Democrat veteran Bernie Sanders echoed him, calling out his party for becoming one of ‘identity politics’ rather than trying to appeal to

Danny Shaw

Bobbies on the beat won’t stop the cyber crime wave

One morning last week, in the early hours, I received a puzzling text from my bank. ‘Did you use your debit card at 01.23 at Tenorshare.com?’ it said. I’d never heard of Tenorshare before – it’s a smartphone support service apparently – and had certainly never knowingly made any payments to them. But someone had attempted to, by using my bank card details. When I contacted my bank, I was asked about another payment, to Wetherspoons, at ten to midnight on a Saturday night. Once again: not me, I was asleep in bed. The crimes that take place away from the streets deserve attention too ‘We’re blocking your card and sending you

David Christopher Kaufman

Will Vogue apologise for calling Asma al-Assad ‘A Rose in the Desert’?

Back in 2020, Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour issued a rare public mea culpa in which she apologised for the magazine not finding ‘enough ways to elevate and give space to Black editors, writers, photographers, designers and other creators’. The magazine, Wintour added, had ‘made mistakes…publishing images or stories that have been hurtful or intolerant. I take full responsibility for those mistakes’. More than four years on, the question must now be asked – will Wintour expressly apologise for the mistakes she made against the people of Syria, as well? In 2011, Vogue breathlessly celebrated the country’s former First Lady Asma al-Assad in a glossy profile. After all, while Black staffers were distinctly disadvantaged

Saturday

14 Dec 2024

Edward Howell

Yoon’s impeachment won’t end South Korea’s political chaos

For those who loathed him, it was second time lucky – but only just. With South Korea’s national assembly passing the motion to impeach President Yoon Suk Yeol today (with 204 votes in favour and 85 against), the stage is set for the country’s constitutional court to determine the president’s fate: whether to oust him from office or restore his powers. The streets of Seoul are filled with scenes of jubilation accompanied by fireworks and K-pop songs. But these same streets are also occupied by pro-Yoon protesters, outraged at his impeachment. The road ahead is long. And whilst in the wake of the result, Yoon announced that he would be

Ross Clark

Who does Starmer think is going to build Britain’s houses?

Why does the government keep setting itself up for failure? It did it with the target for decarbonising electricity by 2030 – which virtually no one outside Ed Miliband’s department and its attached agency, the National Energy Systems Operator (NESO), thinks is possible and which has already been watered down to a 95 per cent reduction in emissions. And it has done it again with its target of building 1.5 million homes across the lifetime of this Parliament. Angela Rayner seems to think it is just a case of trampling over Nimbys and the houses will magically appear. But today the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) has scotched that notion,

James Heale

Would Brexit voters really accept the return of freedom of movement?

19 min listen

New research this week suggested that a majority of Brexit voters would accept the return of freedom of movement in exchange for access to the EU single market. The poll, conducted by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), found that 54% of Brexit voters – and 68% of all respondents – would accept this. Facing their own changing domestic concerns, how close can the UK and EU governments really get? Could Defence hold the key for collaboration? And how much is this driven by a more volatile geopolitical landscape ahead of Trump’s return as US president? James Heale speaks to Anand Menon, director of the think-tank UK in a