Politics Archives

Thursday

21 Aug 2025

Putin’s trap, the decline of shame & holiday rental hell

50 min listen

First: Putin has set a trap for Europe and Ukraine ‘Though you wouldn’t know from the smiles in the White House this week… a trap has been set by Vladimir Putin to split the United States from its European allies,’ warns Owen Matthews. The Russian President wants to make a deal with Donald Trump, but he ‘wants to make it on his own terms’. ‘Putin would like nothing more than for Europe to encourage Ukraine to fight on… and lose even more of their land’. But, as Owen writes, those who count themselves among the country’s friends must ask ‘whether it’s time to choose an unjust peace over a just

James Heale

Nigel Farage is banking on a political sea change

Nigel Farage is adept at riding the currents of British politics. When he named Reform after the Canadian party in 2020, it was a statement of intent. Like Preston Manning in the 1990s, he aimed to displace this country’s main centre-right party and refashion it in his image. But where Manning fell short, handing over the reins to Stephen Harper, Farage aims to go one better by becoming prime minister himself. A keen angler, Farage has spent his few moments of downtime this summer fishing. On one such trip, he took an assembled group of journalists to the English Channel to highlight the small boat crossings. Amid rising discontent, with

Wednesday

20 Aug 2025

Steerpike

Labour MSP charged over child sex abuse images

Scottish Labour MSP Colin Smyth has been arrested and charged in connection with the possession of indecent images. The 52-year-old politician – who has represented the South Scotland constituency for a decade – was taken into custody at a Dumfries property earlier this month and a police investigation has been launched. The Scottish Labour party suspended Smyth after he was charged, with the politician now an independent MSP. A party spokesperson said: The whip has been removed from Colin Smyth MSP, pending an investigation. We cannot comment further on this matter while the investigation is ongoing. A Police Scotland spokesperson added: On Tuesday, August 5, 2025, officers executed a warrant

Andrew Tettenborn

The Epping tipping point

Yesterday’s injunction granted to Epping Forest council giving the government three weeks to stop using the Bell Hotel for asylum seekers on planning grounds is not quite the slam-dunk that it looks. It is theoretically open to appeal: furthermore, it is only an interim measure pending a full trial later this year. But the affair has seriously spooked the government, and rightly so. Labour’s present immigration policy is now untenable What worries the Home Office is that it’s not only Epping. It seems a safe bet that the contagion will spread fast. As soon as the result was announced, Broxbourne, a nearby Tory council with a similar make-up to Epping,

Steerpike

White House joins TikTok – despite US ban looming

To the Land of the Free, where Donald Trump’s administration has been busy, er, setting up a TikTok account. The White House has joined the social media platform this week, despite plans by the United States to ban the app in just under a month over security concerns. The profile has so far posted three videos and amassed 116,700 followers. You can’t blame them not making the most of it while they’ve got it, eh? The White House set up a verified account on the Chinese platform on Tuesday, posting its first video of Trump clips with the caption: ‘America, we are back! What’s up TikTok?’ A second video shows

Madeline Grant

Dan Jarvis is the model of a modern flailing minister

I wonder how No. 10 decides which minister is up for the ritual humiliation of the Today programme each morning. Russian roulette? An elaborate lottery? A competition – last person to spell out ‘TOOLMAKER’ using alphabetti spaghetti? Either way, today’s lucky victim for the airwaves was Home Office minister Dan Jarvis. The Minister made a noise like a soul escaping the body ‘Let’s speak to someone who should know what’s going on in the Home Office,’ began presenter Emma Barnett, ominously. Someone enter the word ‘should’ into the Mr Universe competition: for here it was doing a lot of heavy lifting. Mr Jarvis made an audible gulp as he was

Patrick West

Closing hotels won’t stop the migrant crisis

After yesterday’s landmark decision on the Bell Hotel in Epping, the next question must be: where do we go from here? What is essential to understand is that yesterday’s High Court judgement was what might be called an ‘Al Capone reckoning’. One ultimate actor, the state, and by extension the government, has been humbled on a mere technicality. The Essex hotel was deemed in breach of contract for using its rooms to accommodate refugees, rather than paying guests. The state was not brought to heel on its ethically unsound and socially corrosive laws on immigration and re-settlement. That the Home Office sought to block Epping Forest council’s application for an

Patrick Gibbons

Why haven’t the Greens cut through more?

19 min listen

The Green Party leadership election is underway, pitting new MPs Adrian Ramsay and Ellie Chowns against London Assembly Member Zack Polanski. The Greens achieved their best ever result at the 2024 general election, but they’ve remained static in opinion polls ever since. Lucy Dunn and Luke Tryl of More in Common join Patrick Gibbons to try to make sense of this. As Luke says, the dynamics within the leadership election are symptomatic of a wider divide over party strategy – two of the seats they won last year come from more liberal, traditionally left-wing seats, while two others come from traditionally conservative-leaning, rural shires. Plus, does Corbyn’s new party complicate

Matthew Lynn

Free money is back – but don’t get excited

There is not a lot of good news on the British economy at the moment: prices are rising rapidly, job vacancies are falling and taxes are almost certainly going to be hiked again in the autumn to fill the ‘black hole’ that has opened up in the nation’s finances. But there is this. Free money is back. ‘Real’ interest rates, which are the only ones that matter, have plunged back close to zero. But we shouldn’t celebrate too soon: this is going to be a disaster for the economy – and we will all have to live with the consequences. Today’s inflation data from the Office for National Statistics came

Steerpike

Ex-Scottish Labour councillor joins Reform UK

Well, well, well. The Scottish Tories have lost a number of councillors to Nigel Farage’s ranks and now Labour appears to be facing the same fate. This morning, a former Labour councillor in Fife who left the party over claims she was blocked from becoming a general election candidate has jumped ship to Nige’s Scottish operation. Julie MacDougall – the daughter of Gordon Brown ally John MacDougall – is the latest local politician to have joined Reform UK. Another one bites the dust… Commenting on her move, MacDougall claimed she joined Farage’s group after ‘thoughtful consultation’. She added: I want more grown up, authentic politics and an opportunity to work

Steerpike

Listen: Labour minister’s car crash asylum hotel interview

Dear oh dear. As Steerpike wrote on Tuesday afternoon, asylum seekers will be removed from the Bell Hotel in Essex after Epping Forest district council was granted a temporary injunction by the High Court. The legal action comes after a series of protestors gathered outside the venue after a resident was charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl – and the move sets a significant precedent that could pose problems for the government. On the airwaves to talk about it all this morning was Labour’s security minister, Dan Jarvis. But rather than providing clarity, the MP’s disastrous interview only threw up more questions… Quizzed on Radio 4’s Today programme by

Ross Clark

Rachel Reeves’s ‘mansion tax’ would distort the housing market

Rachel Reeves’s rather crude strategy is becoming painfully clear. Between now and the Budget she intends to float ideas for so many painful tax rises that, come the day, we will all feel pathetically grateful that only a few of them have come to pass. Her latest suggestion – reported from an anonymous briefing, needless to say – is that the capital gains tax (CGT) exemption on the sale of main homes might be removed for higher-value properties. A threshold of £1.5 million has been suggested. Sell a property for more than that and you would become liable to pay CGT at a rate of 24 per cent on the

Eliot Wilson

Are British troops prepared to defend Ukraine?

The events of the last few days – the Trump/Putin summit in Anchorage, the visit of European leaders to the White House and the virtual conference of the ‘Coalition of the Willing’ – have felt strangely detached and surreal. It has been almost like the anxiety dream of a stressed European diplomat: full of famous faces and sententious words, none of it making much sense. Even summing up the status quo is a challenge. Thanks to President Trump, we know that the idea of a ceasefire in Ukraine is now off the table and branded unnecessary. He has also said that the country will not be admitted to Nato, while

Michael Simmons

Is inflation here to stay?

Inflation is up again. CPI climbed to 3.8 per cent last month – up from 3.6 per cent in July, now well above the 2 per cent target that the Bank of England no longer seems all that bothered about missing. It throws fresh doubt on the wisdom of the Bank’s decision to cut rates just a fortnight ago, with prices now climbing to a 19-month high. This morning’s inflation figures, released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), show that much of the increase in prices was driven by a large jump in plane tickets and petrol. Economists had expected inflation to tick up – but not by this

Terry Barnes

Australia’s relations with Israel are in tatters

Australia and Israel are – were – traditional allies. A former leader of Australia’s Labor party and then president of the United Nations General Assembly, Herbert Evatt, played a significant role in the establishment of Israel in 1948. In recent decades, Labor prime minister Bob Hawke was one of Israel’s staunchest international supporters, once observing ‘if the bell tolls for Israel, it tolls for all of us’. That was then. Now, Australia’s Labor government, headed by left-wing prime minister Anthony Albanese, and his factional ally, foreign minister Penny Wong, are clear that their sympathies are no longer with Israel almost two years after the 7 October atrocities. Last week’s decision

Henry Donovan

Can Friedrich Merz save Germany from becoming irrelevant?

Friedrich Merz arrived in Washington this week alongside Europe’s most senior leaders, ostensibly to coordinate the continent’s response to Trump’s Ukraine designs. Here was Germany’s moment to demonstrate the leadership it perpetually claims to seek – a chance to shape the conversation that will determine Europe’s security architecture for years to come. Instead, before the Chancellor could even present his case to the Americans, his own foreign minister Johann Wadephul delivered a masterclass in diplomatic self-sabotage from Berlin. Germany must play ‘an important role’ in any future peacekeeping mission in Ukraine, declared the CDU politician, before categorically ruling out German soldiers on Ukrainian soil. ‘That would presumably overwhelm us,’ he

Edward Howell

Trump must not give Kim Jong-un the recognition he craves

When dealing with rogue states, being pessimistic often means being realistic. The much-anticipated summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin last week allowed the Russian leader to relish the bright Alaskan lights of summitry with Trump, buy the precious commodity of time, all while maintaining his ambition to defeat Ukraine. Amidst this week’s numerous meetings between Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a resolution to the Ukraine war remains elusive. But we must not forget that hours before Trump and Putin met in Alaska, another high-level meeting took place in Pyongyang between Kim Jong-un and the Chairman of Russia’s state Duma. It was a stark reminder that ending the Ukraine war on

Tuesday

19 Aug 2025

Tom Slater

The Bell Hotel’s closure is not the end of the story

Protest works. That will be the take-home message to activists across the country, now that Epping Forest District Council has been granted a temporary High Court injunction blocking asylum seekers from being housed at the Bell Hotel in the leafy Essex market town. Thousands have demonstrated outside the Bell in recent weeks, sparked by the charging last month of an Ethiopian asylum seeker with three counts of sexual assault, one count of inciting a girl to engage in sexual activity and one count of harassment without violence. Hadush Kebatu, a resident of the Bell, had arrived in the UK by a small boat just eight days prior. The hotel has been used to

Matthew Lynn

Does no one care about Britain’s soaring gilts?

The Chancellor Rachel Reeves is threatening a round of tax rises. RMT is on strike over the bank holiday. And something or other is going on with Masterchef. As the summer unfolds, British domestic politics is worrying about all its familiar issues. In the background, however, something far more serious is happening. The country is going quietly broke, and hardly anyone cares. Very soon the Chancellor will be raising our taxes to pay the interest on our outstanding debt On the bond markets, the yield on the UK’s 30-year gilt rose yesterday to 5.6 per cent, overtaking the equivalent US yield for the first time in a generation, and approaching

Steerpike

Migrants to be removed from Epping hotel after council wins injunction

Asylum seekers will be removed from the Bell Hotel in Essex after Epping Forest district council was granted a temporary injunction by the High Court. The legal action comes after a series of protestors gathered outside the venue after a resident was charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl. The council’s lawyers claimed that Somani Hotels had breached planning rules, given the site is not being used for its intended purpose. The barristers argued that the situation ‘could not be much worse’, with Philip Coppel KC adding: ‘There has been what can be described as an increase in community tension, the catalyst of which has been the use of the