Politics

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

Tuesday

12 Nov 2024

Steerpike

Coutinho blasts Miliband’s energy claims as ‘total nonsense’

While Sir Keir Starmer faces the world’s media today at Cop29 in Baku, his Energy Secretary Ed Miliband is on the airwaves fielding questions from the UK press. As the cost-of-living crisis persists, Miliband has been keen to assure listeners that, under Starmer’s army, his clean power by 2030 plan will not drive up household energy bills – but it seems the lefty Labour MP hasn’t managed to quite convince everyone of the veracity of his claim… Quizzed on ITV’s Good Morning Britain about how much energy bills will first increase before coming down under Labour, Miliband insisted: ‘It is not about bills going up as a result of our

Leon Mangasarian

Germany has a bleak future thanks to Olaf Scholz

The demise of chancellor Olaf Scholz’s lacklustre coalition of Social Democrats, Greens, and the liberal Free Democrats is unsurprising. The ideological blend fits Germany, as Stalin might have said, ‘like a saddle fits a cow.’ The election that may truly define Germany’s future will be held in 2029 Scholz seems almost to have modelled himself on Liz Truss; though it took him longer to damage the world’s third-largest economy, he has done a thorough job. Germany’s economy, Europe’s largest, is expected to contract for a second consecutive year in 2024. Ludwig Erhard, the architect of the West German economic miracle, must be spinning in his grave. The Bundestag is likely

Katy Balls

Has Trump already derailed Reeves’s first Budget?

When Rachel Reeves went out to sell her £40bn tax-raising budget on the airwaves, she offered a message of reassurance: ‘We don’t need to come back and ask for more.’ The Chancellor suggested that last month’s fiscal event would be the one and only big budget – she was making the tough decisions early on so the Labour government wouldn’t have to keep coming back and asking for more. However, as ministers get their heads around the incoming Trump presidency, doubts are growing as to whether Reeves will be able to stick to her pledge. The problem is twofold. First, borrowing costs. If Donald Trump is true to his word

Gavin Mortimer

Ursula von der Leyen is Europe’s Kamala Harris

European farmers have called for a day of protest in Brussels on Wednesday, 48 hours before the EU is expected to sign the Mercosur trade deal. The agreement, which has taken two decades to negotiate, will give Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay access to EU markets. It will be good for the German car industry, and disastrous for European farmers, particularly smaller farms. The president of one farmers’ union in France, Véronique Le Floc’h, has said the deal will likely lead to the ‘death’ of French farming. In an interview at the weekend, Annie Genevard, the minister of agriculture, said: ‘It’s a bad agreement, which will bring a flood

Michael Simmons

There are now seven million migrant workers in the UK

For the first time ever there are seven million migrant workers in Britain’s job market. Figures released by the ONS this morning show that more than one in five jobs in Britain is now filled by someone born overseas – despite a fall in EU workers since Brexit. Overall, that’s an increase of 183,000 – equivalent to a town the size of Warrington or a city the size of Southend – since the election, and up over one million since the first lockdown. The rest of this morning’s ONS release suggest the jobs market could be about to face a slowdown. The ONS stats show employers reducing hiring. Above inflation pay

Eliot Wilson

RAF chief puts pressure on Starmer over Storm Shadows

I don’t know what the Ukrainian for ‘Well, duh’ is, but it might well have been heard in Kyiv yesterday. Speaking at the Royal United Services Institute, the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, observed that Ukrainian forces resisting the Russian invaders needed to be able to strike at their enemies well behind the border. ‘Ukraine cannot put up a shield to protect themselves against the 30,000 glide bombs lobbed into the Kursk oblast. Instead, what they need – and what we would need – is the ability to strike the aircraft launching these bombs on the ground.’ When he was asked to respond, the prime minister was

John Keiger

The irony of Starmer’s Armistice Day visit to France

Yesterday morning, the British Prime Minister travelled to Paris at the invitation of the French President to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Arc de Triomphe. Sir Keir Starmer was the first UK leader to attend an Armistice Day ceremony in Paris since Winston Churchill did so alongside General de Gaulle in 1944. Yet there is a degree of irony in these displays of Franco-British unity marking the war’s end. Despite having fought side-by-side for the conflict’s duration, and notwithstanding the integration of their economies to an unprecedented degree, at the war’s end the two countries reverted to traditional rivalry. One of the areas where

Monday

11 Nov 2024

Steerpike

Gary Lineker to leave Match of the Day

After years of tweaking the tail of BBC bosses, it seems that Gary Lineker has finally had enough. The left-wing centre forward is reportedly stepping down from Match of the Day at the end of this season after 25 years in post. The 63-year-old is currently the Beeb’s highest-paid star, earning more than £1.3m a year. So at least the accountants will be cheering eh Gazza? The former Leicester City star is likely to be spending more time with his millions, thanks to his wildly successful ‘Goalhanger’ series of podcasts. He will now be freed from the Corporation’s impartiality rules meaning, at long last, we can finally know what Gary

Cindy Yu

Why Beijing is wary of a Russo-North Korean alliance

56 min listen

There have been reports that some 11,000 North Korean troops are present in Russia and preparing to take part in the Russian invasion. While not acknowledged by either country, if true, this would mark a historic milestone: the first East Asian state to send troops to Europe since the Mongol Empire. And yet, both countries’ most powerful neighbour and ally – China – has remained suspiciously quiet about this new development. Beijing’s silence may well express a deep distrust and unease that actually characterises China’s relationship with its so-called allies. To get into the recent developments and what we can learn from the history of the relationship between these three countries, the

Alex Klaushofer

The truth about Britain’s transition to ‘clean energy’

The timing couldn’t have been worse. Under leaden November skies, came news of what many have suspected: energy rationing for British households could be officially on the cards. The NESO-Miliband plan for a low-carbon future is going to involve a lot more than just waiting a while for a cup of tea The bearer of these tidings is the National Energy System Operator (NESO), the UK’s new energy systems operator which began work last month. NESO’s first main act has been to publish a report arguing that ‘demand side flexibility’ – which appears to be a euphemism for rationing at peak hours – is vital if the country is to make the

Raquel Rosario Sánchez

How Trump won over Latino voters

A huge surge of support from the Latino community helped Donald Trump to victory in the US election. I could never envision myself voting for Donald Trump. But my aunt in New York, who became a citizen many years ago did just that: last week she cast a ballot for the Republican candidate. So why did she, and so many other Latinos, turn to Trump? There has been an outpouring of racism and xenophobia from liberal circles aimed at the Latino community for choosing to back Trump. Jokes about mass deportation and accusations of how ignorant, uneducated or misogynist the community is for voting Republican are thriving. But my aunt isn’t a stupid woman who doesn’t know

Steerpike

May backs Hague for Oxford Chancellor bid

In a year of elections, none are bigger than that for Oxford Chancellor. Just five candidates remain in the race to head England’s oldest university, with William Hague and Dominic Grieve of the Tories taking on Labour peers Jan Royall and Peter Mandelson plus Dame Elish Angiolini. Voting in the second – and final – round kicks off next Monday, with Oxford’s notable failure to publish the first round of results sparking rumours about whether or not Lord Mandelson topped that ballot. So in their bid to ensure their man comes top of the all-important second round, the Hague camp has lined up some big names to boost his case.

James Snell

Why was Europe not ready for Trump?

Donald Trump has won his third presidential election and across Europe heads are exploding. This should not be the case. Many European leaders were briefed earlier this year that a Trump victory was more likely than not. But wishful thinking appears to have defeated grim experience in many minds and many civil service buildings. To hear the Europeans tell it, they are now confronted with a unique threat. The last time Trump was in office, Ukraine had been fighting Russia since 2014, but its survival was not hanging by a thread. It was not seriously likely that Russia would invade Moldova, Estonia, Latvia or Lithuania, as now seems possible. Finland

Michael Simmons

How did pollsters get Trump’s victory so wrong?

Was Donald Trump’s win unexpected? Not if you followed the betting markets, which had Trump at a two-thirds chance of winning days out from the election. The polls, on the other hand, told a different story. Analysis of polls carried out in 15 competitive states in the three weeks before last Tuesday’s election shows that whatever the method of polling used, there was a clear and consistent bias in favour of the Democrats. Pollsters spent an estimated half a billion dollars (£388 million) on this election, but most polling methods were still biased towards Kamala Harris by around three percentage points. One method – recruiting participants by mail – managed

Oscar Edmondson

Will Trump push the UK closer to the EU?

11 min listen

Keir Starmer is in France today to hold talks with Emmanuel Macron where they will discuss the impact of a Trump second term, and what it will mean for Ukraine. The Prime Minister marked Armistice Day at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier under the Arc de Triomphe – the first time since 1944 that a British Prime Minister has been in France for the ceremony. What will come from this bilateral meeting? How does a Trump victory bring the UK and the EU closer? Elsewhere, a minor row broke out over the weekend around the UK’s Remembrance Day commemorations, with Reform UK leader Nigel Farage not being allowed to

Steerpike

SNP health secretary under fire over football

What is it with separatist health secretaries claiming from the public purse for the footie? First there was the £11,000 iPad scandal, which caused a headache for hapless Humza Yousaf and pushed former SNP health secretary Michael Matheson out of his government job. Now his successor Neil Gray is in the spotlight after the Sunday Mail revealed that the nationalist minister had been using ministerial cars to take him to sports matches. Alright for some! It transpired that Aberdeen FC-fan Gray had been chauffeured to three cup games at the national stadium, as well as a Pittodrie league match. The newest SNP health secretary declared his excursions in line with

Jonathan Miller

Keir Starmer’s pointless meeting with Emmanuel Macron

It’s extremely difficult to imagine that today’s meeting between Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron produced anything substantive beyond a photo opportunity at the Arc de Triomphe to mark the 106th anniversary of the 1918 armistice. This year is also the 120th anniversary of the Entente Cordiale and it suits both Starmer and Macron to big up the idea of Franco-British friendship, not that there has been much substance to it of late. Various bromides will certainly appear in the read-outs of the meeting but in substance nothing will have been achieved Downing Street briefed before today’s meeting that the agenda would cover the victory of Trump, and his threatened tariffs, and

Rod Liddle

Why Farage should – and shouldn’t – be UK ambassador to Trump

It is very kind of Nigel Farage to offer his services as a kind of intermediary between our government and the new American president. Keir Starmer certainly needs one, because protest though he might, nobody believes the line that Donald Trump is hugely impressed with the Labour government or that JD Vance has a new best friend in the magnificently dim David Lammy. I fear that Farage’s yearning to be in Washington DC rather than the agreeable Thames-side resort of Clacton-on-Sea spells trouble for Reform For eight years, Labour has behaved abominably towards Trump, flinging at him every conceivable insult, a number of its MPs demanding he not be allowed

Matthew Lynn

Labour is doomed if it is blamed for price rises

It emerged over the weekend that Tesco might have to start putting up prices. So, we have learned over the past few days, will Sainsbury’s, BT, and even JD Wetherspoons, a company that is usually committed to keeping prices as low as possible. One by one, many of the major consumer brands in the UK have said they will have to push up the amount they charge their customers, and are pinning the blame for that on the Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s Budget. The trouble is, the government seems unable to find a response. It is losing control of the narrative, and will soon find itself blamed for a fresh spike

Steerpike

JK Rowling blasts Alastair Campbell over women’s rights remarks

Has The Rest is Politics podcast peaked? Its hosts have certainly had a rather rocky ride of late – with ex-Tory MP Rory Stewart widely mocked last week over his bullish assertion that ‘Kamala Harris will win comfortably because Biden’s admin has been solid’ before the Democrat candidate went on to lose to Donald Trump. Now Tony Blair’s former spin doctor Alastair Campbell is in the spotlight over women’s rights concerns and his, er, ignorance of the whole matter. In a recent podcast episode, Campbell spent much time opining on the trans issue – first expressing surprise at how much gender ideology concerns were cutting through with voters before confessing