Politics Archives

Monday

22 Sep 2025

The danger of defining ‘Islamophobia’

Many people have been warning for some time about the perilous consequences of introducing an official definition of ‘Islamophobia’ to this country, specifically in regard to its potential to curtail free speech and reintroduce de facto blasphemy laws. But it’s taken a leading KC – an adviser to the Attorney General, Lord Hermer, no less – to remind us of a further danger: the likelihood that it will deter police from investigating Muslim suspects or offenders for fear of accusations of racism. As reported in the Daily Telegraph today, Tom Cross KC has said it was ‘reasonable’ to Suppose that such a definition would in practice be relied on in

Ross Clark

Gatwick expansion won’t happen any time soon

How refreshing to hear transport secretary Heidi Alexander approve plans for a second working runway at Gatwick Airport, taking on the ‘eco warriors’ she has previously attacked for blocking airport expansion. Just the one thing, though. Does she really think she has heard the last from them? If she thinks she is going to drive this plan through so that planes will be taking off on the second runway by the time of the next election, as she seems to think, then she is going to be disappointed. Indeed, Sadiq Khan has already threatened legal action against the expansion. This is going to end up in the courts, and sadly

Jonathan Sacerdoti

What will Keir Starmer’s Palestine declaration achieve?

Keir Starmer has justified Britain’s declaration of Palestinian statehood by insisting that it will keep open the path to a two‑state solution and ultimately lead to peace. He has emphasised that Hamas could play no role in such a state, and seems to assume the move would position Britain as a key player in shaping the future of the Middle East. Is any of this accurate? Hamas welcomed the move, as did Husam Zumlot, the PLO representative in London, who went on television to say that Starmer’s declaration (made in concert with Canada and Australia) was simply recognition of an already existing fact. He even described historic Palestine as ‘the

James Heale

Reform thinks Boris Johnson is finished

This morning Nigel Farage will unveil Reform’s latest policy. The party plans to abolish the status known as indefinite leave to remain (ILR), which allows those who have lived here for more than five years to receive benefits and apply for citizenship. All migrants with permanent residency will have to reapply for visas under stricter criteria, including higher language and salary requirements. Foreign nationals will be barred from accessing benefits. Reform claims this will save £234 billion – though the think tank which produced those figures now suggests a revision is necessary. The announcement aims to address concerns about the party’s fiscal probity. Farage has previously said that plans to

Neal Pollack

America pays tribute to Charlie Kirk

In an exhilarating, often exhausting and unprecedented moment in American history, thousands of mourners gathered in an Arizona football stadium on Sunday afternoon to honour slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Attendees included dozens of members of Congress, half the cabinet, President Donald Trump, Vice-President J.D. Vance and the former shadow president, Elon Musk. They remembered Kirk as a husband, a father, a friend, a devotee of freedom of speech, a lover of classical Greek and Roman philosophy, and, perhaps most significantly, a warrior for the Christian God – belief in whom animated Kirk’s every utterance and action. Kirk’s memorial – or, as many speakers called it, ‘revival’ – was perhaps

Gavin Mortimer

Macron is abandoning France’s Jews by recognising Palestine

France will today officially recognise the state of Palestine at the United Nations General Assembly in New York. In justifying his decision, Emmanuel Macron said that recognition ‘is the best way to isolate Hamas’, adding: ‘Now is the time to act – not tomorrow, not in ten years. If we don’t move, the conflict will only deepen, and the hope of peace will vanish.’ Some are cynical about the timing of the President’s decision. ‘Emmanuel Macron is into performative politics,’ says Pierre Lellouche, who was a (Jewish) minister in Nicolas Sarkozy’s government. ‘He’s going to New York to make people forget the chaos reigning in France’. Macron’s declaration flies in

James Sunderland

Starmer risks repeating Britain’s Palestine mistake

Britain has formally recognised a Palestinian state for the first time. The Prime Minister Keir Starmer said his announcement yesterday keeps ‘alive the possibility of peace’. Given Britain’s history in the region the move is deeply symbolic, even if it is unlikely to change the reality on the ground. Britain will recognise a country with whose past it is deeply enmeshed and correct a historical injustice. But Starmer would do well to learn from Britain’s involvement with Palestine a century ago: promises and words are cheap, a viable two-state solution will require more. Seventy-seven years after the last High Commissioner left Palestine, his vision of two states for two peoples

Sunday

21 Sep 2025

James Heale

Keir Starmer: UK recognises a Palestinian state

This afternoon, Keir Starmer declared that the UK now formally recognises a Palestinian state. In a six-minute video, posted on X, the Prime Minister took the step that many of his colleagues have wanted him to do for months. ‘We are acting to keep alive the possibility of peace and a two-state solution’, said Starmer. He argued that the move was necessary because of the ‘growing horror’ of the Israeli offensive, insisting it did not amount to ‘a reward for Hamas’. The Labour leader urged Hamas to release the remaining hostages, with further sanctions expected in the coming weeks. A reformed Palestinian Authority would run the new state, with provisional

Steerpike

Ed Davey: arrest Elon Musk

Liberal Democrat party conference – four words which turn the blood of any lobby journalist cold. Yes, it is that time of year again: the annual five-day bonanza in which the perennial third party of British politics desperately tries to find some relevance. In his never-ending quest for headlines, Sir Ed Davey – the clown prince of Westminster – has alighted on a new stunt: leading a marching band, drum and all. Less Orange Book, more Orange Order… But for Davey, who furiously complains that his antics are not getting enough airtime, one wheeze is not enough. The Kingston MP is reprising his Love Actually routine by talking tough on

Joe Bedell-Brill

David Lammy: A Gaza ceasefire ‘lies in tatters’

Keir Starmer is set to announce the UK’s official recognition of Palestinian statehood later today. In July, the Prime Minister had said that the UK would recognise the state of Palestine if Israel did not improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza and commit to a long-term peace process. Speaking to Trevor Phillips on Sky News this morning, Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy said that Israel’s attack on Qatar and its highly controversial ‘E1 development’ plan to divide the West Bank show that Israel is not committed to ‘two states’. Phillips noted that the UK government had set conditions for Israel, but not Hamas. Lammy said the government has been ‘crystal clear’

Jonathan Sacerdoti

Where is the outrage over the aid trucks hijacked in Gaza?

Unicef has confirmed it in black and white: armed men in Gaza hijacked aid trucks at gunpoint, stealing ready-to-use therapeutic food meant for thousands of severely malnourished infants. According to the UN, at least 2,700 children have been deprived of life-saving nutrition as a result. And yet, the world barely blinked. When Israel takes military action, the scrutiny is immediate and unforgiving. When images of hungry children emerge from Gaza, they are broadcast with relentless urgency, almost always with the implicit or explicit framing that Israel is to blame. But when terrorists intercept UN aid trucks, seizing food for their own infants in need, that story scarcely registers. This incident reveals not

Cristina Odone

Can schools force parents to reconnect with their children?

Parents must be ‘front and centre’ in their children’s education, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has told schools. Her upcoming white paper will introduce clear expectations around parental engagement with schools. The idea, presumably, is that parents have the confidence and know-how to oversee their children, allowing teachers to focus on teaching rather than on being a therapist, a social worker, or a nanny. If only. Parents have lost confidence, courage, and, as a result, authority. Teachers quite understandably fear ‘engagement’ will require teaching parenting skills that have grown rusty: too many mothers and fathers seem to have abrogated all responsibility for their child’s hygiene, toilet training, and vaccinations. At a recent

Matthew Wilcox

What rewilders don’t understand about the British countryside

It comes without warning. A black shape shearing out of the sky, a clap of wings like a sail breaking. The foal has no time to startle. Talons hit, the ground shakes, and in the next breath it is gone, dragged upward into the light. Rewilding is the countryside’s answer to cosplay This summer on South Uist, a Scottish island in the Outer Hebrides, crofter Donald John Cameron says he lost five Shetland pony foals from his hillside farm, each one vanishing between May and July. He believes they were carried off by white-tailed eagles, reintroduced to Scotland in the 1970s after the species had been hunted to extinction. The foals,

Iram Ramzan

The mullahs’ grip on Iran is failing

Mahsa Amini was killed by Iran’s morality police on 16 September 2022. Her only ‘crime’ was wearing ‘improper hijab’. The 22-year-old Kurdish woman’s death galvanised the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ protests that shook the Iranian regime. Three years on, the anger behind the protests remains. On the anniversary of Amini’s death, residents of Tehran chanted ‘Death to the dictator’ (referring to the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei) from rooftops and windows, and shopkeepers in Mahsa’s hometown of Saghez, in Kurdistan province, went on strike. This week, I’ve been speaking to Iranian exiles in Britain. For Ellie Borhan, a 43-year-old Iranian exile and activist, Mahsa’s death marked a turning point. ‘Something switched on

Geoff Hill

Starmer recognises Palestine. Where next?

Sir Keir Starmer will recognise Palestine as a country despite objections from both the US and Israel. Yet when it came to independence for Scotland, the three main parties at Westminster were against the idea at the 2014 referendum, and none have called for a similar vote in Wales. How, then, to decide which ‘two-state solutions’ deserve our support? In 1974, the government of Cyprus was overthrown in a coup, and plans to merge the island with Greece followed. That might have worked, given Greek Cypriots made up 80 per cent of the population, but the Turkish minority, already marginalised, feared expulsion. Just five days after the coup, Turkey invaded

Saturday

20 Sep 2025

Gus Carter

Meet Britain’s new RoboCops

‘Small but mighty,’ is how Baroness Casey described Bedfordshire Police when she released her report on grooming gangs over the summer. She told MPs that most forces had failed to properly record child abuse. ‘A bloody disaster, frankly’. But Bedfordshire is different. They’re using artificial intelligence so police can spend more time hunting criminals. ‘I didn’t know about Louise Casey’s comments until you contacted us,’ says Trevor Rodenhurst, the chief constable of the county. That’s unsurprising. Rodenhurst is a busy man. We meet in his office on the outskirts of Bedford, under an official portrait of the King; behind his computer is his ceremonial tipstaff and photographs of his children. When Rodenhurst took over

Matthew Bowles

London must break its temporary housing cycle

London is often held up as the jewel in Britain’s crown. Yet beneath the city’s gleaming skyline lies a less celebrated reality: ‘temporary housing’ that is anything but. Across the capital, families in need are housed by local councils in hotels, hostels and B&Bs at extraordinary expense. What is meant to be a short-term emergency fix has calcified into a way of life for tens of thousands, sometimes for years. It is expensive, unsuitable and corrosive, to both family life and the public purse. Councils across England spent £2.29 billion on temporary housing last year, up nearly 30 per cent in only twelve months. Half of that went on the

Angela Epstein

Andy Burnham isn’t the answer to Labour’s woes

There was a palpable feeling of euphoria across my home city of Manchester when the Gallagher brothers finally buried years of ferocious feuding and reunited Oasis. After all, we Mancunians are nothing if not effusive in both pride and ownership when success blooms in our own back yard. We feel it personally. So, as Keir Starmer struggles through the gluey mess of the Mandelson/Epstein (no relation) scandal, are we locals cheerleading Andy Burnham’s mooted leadership plans? Don’t bet on it. Are we locals cheerleading Andy Burnham’s mooted leadership plans? Don’t bet on it Our Mayor of Greater Manchester is reportedly circling to challenge the Prime Minister. Burnham has never been shy about

Andrew Tettenborn

Deploying the military won’t stop illegal migration

There was a grain or two of truth in what Donald Trump said last week about migration. A polity is indeed vulnerable to being eaten from the inside by the entry of large numbers of people from very different backgrounds who are not inclined to embrace its culture in preference to their own. But the same does not go for his further advice that the best way to stop the rot was by bringing in the military. For one thing, there would be legal difficulties. By international treaty every country has to require its vessels to do what they can to rescue those in danger of being lost at sea.

James Heale

Should Britain recognise Palestine?

17 min listen

The government is expected to press ahead with recognition of Palestinian statehood, before a formal declaration at the United Nations. Prime Minister Keir Starmer set out plans earlier this year to recognise Palestine – but what does this actually mean? And what does the move actually achieve; is it driven by principle, by politics – or by pressure from within his own party? Michael Stephens of RUSI and Gabriel Pogrund of the Sunday Times join James Heale to assess the significance of this shift. They discuss the backlash from countries like the US, the unease within Labour ranks and the growing tension between domestic politics and Britain’s standing with allies