Politics

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

Friday

Ian Acheson Ian Acheson

Of course whole-life prisoners should be banned from marrying

Is there any point in rehabilitating prisoners sentenced to ‘whole life’ tariffs, who will die in custody? Today’s announcement banning such prisoners from a fundamental human right – to get married – would suggest the state thinks there isn’t. This act, contained in an innocuous statutory instrument is a rare example of retribution in action. We don’t hear much about revenge in our criminal justice discourse these days – that, after all, is the less pretty descriptor for one of the three main aims of imprisonment. Society takes revenge for harm done on the part of the individual because crime is a societal hurt. This is the reason why such trials are

Owen Matthews

Could the Russia prisoner swap help bring peace to Ukraine?

I can well understand that joy and relief experienced by the supporters and families of the hostages released yesterday by Vladimir Putin. For I myself owe my life to a Cold War spy swap.  In October 1969, the British government exchanged Peter and Helen Kroger, two senior Soviet career spies nabbed for running a very real espionage ring, for Gerald Brooke, a British student who had served five years in a Russian jail for ‘anti-Soviet agitation’. The exchange was so unequal that Brezhnev’s Politburo agreed to throw in three Soviet citizens who wanted to marry Britons in as a makeweight. One was my mother, Lyudmila Bibikova. Releasing Navalny would have

John Keiger John Keiger

Macron’s lavish spending is jeopardising French finances

In the last years of Louis XVI’s reign, French finances were in a parlous state. State debt had ballooned, its servicing became exorbitant, and France’s creditworthiness sunk. The need to raise taxes after years of profligacy forced the monarch to summon the Estates General – the first time since 1614 – to obtain their approval. A series of scandals linked to the monarchy fuelled popular anger. All ushered in the July 1789 Revolution.  Against a background of French debt at 112 per cent of GDP, a budget deficit of 5.5 per cent and the EU taking out special measures against France for persistently ignoring the EU stability pact, this week

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Starmer’s response to the riots raises several questions

It goes without saying that the riots in Southport, Hartlepool and London are a mindless reaction to the killing of three girls, based on false information which, according to former MI6 chief Sir Richard Dearlove, may have been propagated from Russia in a deliberate attempt to stir up social unrest in Britain. But is Sir Keir Starmer really wise to use these particular events to launch what he calls a ‘national capability’ to track across the country those suspected of plotting violent disorder? When he visited Southport on Tuesday he appealed to people not to play politics with the tragedy, yet to many people that is exactly what he is

Thursday

Jawad Iqbal

Boxing mismatch shows Olympic officials need to get a grip

The hugely controversial Olympic boxing bout between Italian Angela Carini and her opponent Imane Khelif from Algeria lasted just 46 seconds. After taking two punches from Khelif to the chin, Carini was forced to quit, saying she had done so ‘to save my life’. She said she had ‘never felt punches like it’, after sustaining a suspected broken nose. Carini sank to her knees in the centre of the ring and wept openly at having her Olympic dream shattered. ‘It’s not fair,’ she cried out. It is a damning charge that will go on to haunt these games. Carini was hit by two savage punches from Khelif, and the force

Lucy Dunn

Will Starmer’s thug crackdown get results?

When Sir Keir Starmer arrived in Southport on Tuesday to pay his respects for the victims of the stabbing tragedy, he was heckled by locals. ‘How many more children are going to die in our streets, Prime Minister?’ called one distraught resident, as another cried: ‘Get the truth out!’ Just hours after the PM left, the roads were filled by far-right protesters after misinformation about the identity of the perpetrator spread on social media. Two days of rioting and over 100 arrests later, the Prime Minister today called an emergency press conference after urgently meeting with the country’s top police chiefs. Starmer acknowledged that ‘fear is an understandable reaction’ to

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Sunak’s gift to Labour

12 min listen

Today the Bank of England has cut rates for the first time in four years, bringing more good economic news to the Labour government. On the episode, Cindy Yu talks to Katy Balls and Kate Andrews about how this raises the question – again – of why Rishi Sunak called an election before he could reap a summer’s worth of economic good news. Produced by Cindy Yu.

Ross Clark Ross Clark

How independent is the Bank of England?

As Kate Andrews argues here, the Bank of England were never going to cut interest rates during an election campaign for fear of being accused of favouring one side or the other. That ruled out a rate cut in June, while in July there was no meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee. But are those five members who voted for a quarter-point cut today really confident that they have not opened themselves to charges of bias, by cutting rates at the earliest opportunity after the election of a Labour government? For months, the MPC was telling us that it was too early for a rate cut – in spite of rapidly falling inflation

Lisa Haseldine Lisa Haseldine

Russia and the West agree largest prisoner swap since the Cold War

The Kremlin has released Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, former marine Paul Whelan and British-Russian dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza from captivity. This is the biggest prisoner swap between Russia and the West since the end of the Cold War. The three men form part of a group of prisoners released this morning, reportedly numbering as many as 16. In return, the US and its allies will return as many as eight prisoners to Russia. While it is unclear exactly when and where the exchange is taking place, a plane belonging to the elite flight squadron ‘Russia’ was tracked flying from Moscow to the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad this morning. The plane was the

Steerpike Steerpike

JK Rowling hits out at Olympic bosses over boxing controversy

To the Olympics, where a rather contentious boxing match has come to an abrupt end. The sport came under the spotlight after it emerged that Algerian boxer Imane Khelif had been allowed to compete in the women’s boxing category in 2024 Paris Olympics despite, um, being thrown out of the women’s world championships after failing a sex test. Good heavens… Today, Khelif was allowed to fight Italy’s Angela Carini – but the match didn’t even last a minute. After receiving a harsh blow to her face, Carini asked for time out – before abandoning the match altogether just 46 seconds in. Breaking down in tears after the referee signalled that

Lucy Dunn

England’s GPs vote to take industrial action

Just days after junior doctors in England were offered a cumulative pay rise of 22 per cent, general practitioners across the country have voted in favour of industrial action over funding. Now over 98 per cent of senior unionised GPs have voted to take industrial action, on a turnout of just under 70 per cent. It comes after months of disputes over contract changes that would see community doctors receive a practice funding uplift of just 1.9 per cent. Slamming the sub-inflationary rise, the BMA says that without more support GP surgeries will ‘struggle to stay financially viable…and risk closure’. The concern is that more patients will flock to A&E

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

The Bank of England finally cuts interest rates

The Bank of England has just announced a rate cut of 0.25 percentage points, reducing the base rate from 5.25 per cent to 5 per cent. The tight decision – voted 5-4 by the Monetary Policy Committee – is the first reduction in rates since March 2020. It starts what is likely to be a slow and steady process of reducing the base rate, and marks the end of the inflation crisis, which saw Threadneedle Street hike rates from the floor to a 16-year high over the course of twenty months. Financial markets were cautiously expecting a rate cut, but the decision was thought to be on a knife-edge. It

Gus Carter Gus Carter

Keir Starmer’s plan to soften Brexit

42 min listen

This week: Keir Starmer’s plan to soften Brexit Katy Balls writes this week’s cover piece on Labour’s plans to establish close ties with the EU. Every member of Starmer’s cabinet voted Remain, and the government is trying to ‘reset EU relations through a charm offensive’. Brussels figures are hopeful: ‘There was no real goodwill for the Conservative government.’ There are tests coming: the first deal, Katy writes, could be harmonisation on veterinary standards. But will the UK have to abide by the European Court of Justice? Then there’s the issue of Chinese electric cars: will Starmer accept cheap imports, or follow the EU in raising tariffs on them? For now,

Jake Wallis Simons Jake Wallis Simons

Israel is assassinating its way to victory

This piece was originally published in a different form on 16 July. If the Pimpernel was damned and elusive, he had nothing on Mohammed ‘the guest’ al-Masri, the head of Hamas’s military wing. The ‘guest’ moniker – ‘Deif’ in Arabic – was gained by decades of moving from house to house nightly to avoid assassination. Despite reportedly losing an eye and a leg in attacks, he continued to evade the missiles as if charmed. The 58-year-old shadow was by far the longest-surviving senior leader of Hamas. This morning, one day after the sensational assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, the IDF has finally confirmed his death. On 10.29 a.m. on Saturday 13 July, the

Steerpike Steerpike

Beeb faces questions after Huw Edwards’ guilty plea

After Wednesday’s news that BBC veteran Huw Edwards pleaded guilty to making indecent images of children, the Beeb is facing a period of reckoning. And the institution is very much under the spotlight after it transpired last night that despite knowing Edwards had been arrested last November, it employed him on his top salary for five more months. Crikey. The broadcaster’s star newsreader was paid a whopping £480,000 between March 2023 and April 2024, according to the BBC’s annual accounts. Yet on Wednesday evening, the Beeb admitted it had been ‘made aware in confidence’ that the former News at Ten presenter had been ‘arrested on suspicion of serious offences’. Edwards

Katy Balls Katy Balls

From the archives: the Rachel Reeves Edition

40 min listen

Women with Balls will be back in the Autumn with a new series. Until then, here’s an episode from the archives, with the new Chancellor Rachel Reeves.  On the podcast, she talks to Katy about being a teen chess champion, going to a school where her mum worked and what Labour needed to do to turn its losing streak.

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

Give us a pubs tsar – but spare us Tim Martin

More than a third of UK universities are in financial doo-doo: staff cuts, cancelled courses, slashed research budgets and possible bankruptcy beckon. Behind this is the fact that domestic students paying £9,250 in fees (way behind inflation since that figure was last raised in 2017) cost £11,750 to teach, representing a collective annual £5 billion loss hitherto made up by international students paying £20,000 each. But the last government’s ban on foreign students bringing dependants with them has provoked dramatic falls in non-EU recruitment: bizarrely, the straw that’s breaking some universities’ backs is a 49 per cent decline in Nigerian students applying for one-year Master’s courses. ‘Anything short of an

The Spectator

Rachel Reeves has proved that strikes pay

Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves were adamant that economic growth would be their first priority in government. It is hard to square that with the decisions the Chancellor has announced this week. The Chancellor claims to have discovered a £21.9 billion ‘black hole’ in the nation’s finances, yet she has created the largest part of that sum by deciding to spend £9.4 billion on inflation-busting pay settlements for public-sector workers without asking for reforms in return. This, it seems, is the first Reeves doctrine: pay now to avoid strikes later Junior doctors are to receive a rise of more than 20 per cent, spread over two years. But it is

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Who’ll be blamed for Rachel Reeves’s tax hikes?

Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt entered Downing Street with one mission: to clean up the public finances after Liz Truss’s mini-Budget debacle. They posed as the fiscally credible option. All bills would need to be covered, even if the tax burden had to rise. If the Tories were to lose power for being disciplined and truthful, then so be it. Reeves would like to pin any rise on the Conservatives: an extension of ‘Tory austerity’ rather than her own Rachel Reeves has sought to demolish their responsible reputation in her first weeks as Chancellor by announcing that she has discovered a £21.9 billion ‘black hole’ in the public finances this

Peter Mandelson

Things can always get worse for the Tories

Before migrating to Wiltshire where I will be for August, I had a friendly dinner with a clutch of Conservative aficionados. Inevitably the conversation turned to the leadership contest and, having disposed of the poison pill, Suella Braverman, they asked me which candidate, as a Labour person, I would fear most. This was quite a challenging question. James Cleverly is clearly a nice chap but his fondness for blokeish chat may prove career-shortening. Robert Jenrick’s views seem to depend on who he is talking to. Ditto the vanilla Tom Tugendhat. Mel Stride is inoffensive and otherwise undefinable. I doubt Priti Patel’s appeal will reach beyond a segment of her party.