Politics

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

Tuesday

15 Oct 2024

Can Reeves get away with a national insurance hike?

The Budget is not due for a fortnight, yet with every day that passes its contents seem to become clearer. This morning Keir Starmer gave an interview to the BBC where he twice refused to rule out a rise in employer’s national insurance contributions in the Budget. Instead, he repeatedly stressed that Labour’s manifesto promise was specifically that it would not raise taxes on working people. Asked for clarity on whether employers could face a national insurance hike later this month, Starmer would only say that his government would ‘keep promises we made in the manifesto’ and not ‘raise tax on working people’. He also warned that the budget would

Kate Andrews

Could Ozempic actually boost Britain’s labour market?

Is Ozempic the miracle fix for Britain’s labour market woes? This morning Health Secretary Wes Streeting has announced a £280 million investment into the UK from US pharmaceutical giant Lilly, which will include the first ‘real-world trial’ to give weight-loss jabs to people out of work. The news coincides with the publication of the latest labour market overview by the Office for National Statistics, showing the number of people out of work due to long-term sickness is still at a near-record high: 2.75 million in the three months to August. As Streeting highlights in the Daily Telegraph today, obesity is creating both a strain on the health service and on the economy. As

Edmund West

Is Kemi Badenoch right about autistic people being advantaged?

Tory leadership candidate Kemi Badenoch has been criticised for endorsing ‘Conservatism in crisis’, a pamphlet put out by her campaign team that says autistic people like me get ‘economic advantages and protections’. Is this right? The report says that: ‘Being diagnosed as neuro-diverse was once seen as helpful as it meant you could understand your own brain, and so help you to deal with the world. It was an individual focused change. But now it also offers economic advantages and protections. If you have a neurodiversity diagnosis (e.g. anxiety, autism), then that is usually seen as a disability.’ The document suggests that other ‘perks’ we’re entitled to include getting ‘better

Jonathan Campbell-James

Iran has the most to lose if it closes the Strait of Hormuz

Following the mass ballistic missile attack on Israel at the beginning of the month, speculation is rife once again that Iran might close the Strait of Hormuz should it be subject to the reprisal attack promised by Israel. The thinking is that this is particularly likely if Israel were to attack Iranian oil facilities. Iran certainly has the capability to close the Strait, at least in the short term. Recent experience in the Red and Black Seas shows clearly that not every ship attempting passage needs to be attacked: the increased risk – and heightened insurance premiums – following a small number of attacks will be enough to persuade owners to

Steerpike

Sue Gray under fire over Taylor Swift security fiasco

Despite all the free concert tickets the Labour lot received to her gigs, Taylor Swift seems to be causing Sir Keir Starmer’s top team rather a lot of trouble. The US singer’s mother demanded special security measures for her daughter while she performed in London – and Starmer’s crowd capitulated. Today it has emerged in the Sun that, according to Whitehall insiders, Sir Keir’s former chief of staff Sue Gray played a crucial role in convincing police to provide taxpayer-funded protection to the American pop star. Talk about being the Anti-Hero, eh? Gray’s name cropped up following reports that police were concerned about the request to grant Swift a blue-light

Rakib Ehsan

Is class rather than race a bigger barrier to success in Britain?

Is Britain racist? At times, you’d be forgiven for thinking so. In recent years, our country has experienced considerable turbulence on the subject of race and equality. The spread of the American Black Lives Matter movement on these shores in the summer of 2020 – which led to protests from the Isle of Wight on England’s southern coast to Scotland’s Shetland Islands – contributed towards an acceleration in race-focused thinking. Yet the reality is that Britain is a tolerant place in which race does not usually hold people back. Ethnic minorities in the UK regularly outperform the white-British population in various spheres of life Ethnic minorities in the UK regularly outperform

Mark Galeotti

The Novichok inquiry raises some big questions for MI5

The inquiry into the death of Dawn Sturgess as an innocent victim of the attempt to murder Russian double-agent Sergei Skripal in 2018 has begun, a mere six years after the event. The question is, what can it tell us that we don’t already know? Britain’s love affair with lengthy, expensive and tardy inquiries continues with, in this case, a brief to ‘ascertain… who the deceased was; how; when and where she came by her death’, to identify ‘where responsibility for the death lies’ and to ‘make such recommendations as may seem appropriate’. On one level, all the inquiry can offer is a snapshot of what happened in what seems

Steerpike

Guardian apologises for controversial 7 October review

Back to the Grauniad, the bastion of journalistic integrity. Last week Mr S spotted that the newspaper had first uploaded and then quickly deleted a rather controversial 7 October review – about Channel 4 documentary One Day in October. Today the Guardian has issued an apology over the ‘unacceptable’ way in which the article blasted the film. Talk about a volte face! The eyebrow-raising review sparked outrage after the writer suggested the documentary had depicted Gazans as ‘testosterone-crazed Hamas killers’, adding: I am reminded of Cy Endfield’s film Zulu, with its nameless hordes of African warriors pitted against British protagonists with whom we were encouraged to identify. TV and cinematic narratives

Gavin Mortimer

Macron is in office, but is he in power?

Emmanuel Macron is said to be appalled by his new right-wing government. A confidant of the French president conveyed to AFP the depth of his despair. ‘I did not choose this government,’ Macron reportedly told his inner circle. ‘They make me feel ashamed.’ Macron’s approval rating has fallen to its lowest level of his second term There’s little doubt who Macron had in mind when he made his cri du coeur: Bruno Retailleau, the interior minister, a conservative Catholic, who has vowed to crackdown on immigration. Macron hit back at Retailleau last week during a radio interview on France Inter, pointing out that immigration is ‘our wealth, a strength’. He gave a

Jawad Iqbal

India’s ‘murder’ spat with Canada has come at the worst time

The alleged involvement of agents of a foreign government in the murder of a citizen is a crime that violates national sovereignty and the established norms of international relations. Put simply, no government can ignore or overlook such actions. This is the reasoning behind Canada’s momentous decision to expel a group of Indian diplomats and go public with an explosive set of allegations against India itself. Hardeep Singh Nijjar was gunned down by masked men Canadian authorities have accused Indian agents of involvement in ‘homicides, extortion and violent acts’ on Canadian soil. Police said the criminal activity had particularly targeted supporters of the pro-Khalistan movement, which seeks a separate homeland

Terry Barnes

Australia’s republicans are embarrassing themselves over King Charles’s visit

Australia, where King Charles will return to on Friday, is where the monarch became a man. In 1966, Charles had a memorable half-year at the Timbertop bush campus of Victoria’s Geelong grammar school, where, he once said, he ‘had the Pommy (metaphorically) bits bashed off me’. The following year, his first major adult engagement was representing his mother Queen Elizabeth at the memorial service for the drowned Australian prime minister Harold Holt. Since then, the now King has returned to Australia another 14 times, most recently in 2018. It’s clear that Charles has great affection for the country of which he once almost became governor-general. This week, the bags are

Ross Clark

Tim Davie and the death of BBC ‘talent’

Has anyone ever come up with a better put-down for Nick Robinson? It is even better that it came from his own boss. Interviewed on the Today programme yesterday morning, BBC director-general Tim Davie said ‘we often refer to people like yourself as ‘talent’, but I’ve kind of banned that.’ From now on, he intimated, Robinson and his colleagues would be known as mere ‘presenters’. The heavies will still be clamping down on those who fail to pay the licence fee Davie also went on to speak about ‘bad actors’, although it turned out he wasn’t talking about the cast of EastEnders – he meant propagandists in Russia, whose activities

Gareth Roberts

Thank God for Elon Musk

Like many people this weekend, I couldn’t tear myself away from videos of the booster rocket of Elon Musk’s Starship shrieking back to earth, to be clutched in the giant ‘chopstick’ arms of a towering metallic cradle. I must have watched it now about 50 times from varying angles. The most impressive are the videos recorded at a distance on ordinary phones. The thing thunders down like a missile launch on a strip of film run backwards, and there’s a tantalising moment at the very end where you think it’s going to miss. Then it rights itself with a neat little manoeuvre, like an Edwardian gent straightening his cravat before he steps into

Monday

14 Oct 2024

William Atkinson

Is Kemi Badenoch scared of Robert Jenrick?

Is Kemi Badenoch running scared? It’s not an accusation often levelled at the shadow housing secretary, who is usually criticised for being too keen on a scrap. Badenoch’s campaign team say she wants to tell the Conservatives ‘hard truths’, and that she is the opponent Keir Starmer would most dread across the despatch box. But for all her pugnaciousness, Badenoch isn’t the candidate pressing for a face-off with her opponent. Badenoch has no need to debate, and it makes tactical sense for her to avoid it Yesterday Robert Jenrick asked the BBC to host a TV debate between him and Badenoch. He is apparently happy to debate his rival ‘any time,

James Heale

Tories try to hammer Labour on freebies

It seems that one of the great posts in British politics has been filled at last. The title of ‘Minister for Sticky Wickets’ was held by the likes of David Gauke and Michael Ellis during the Tory years. Now, with Keir Starmer on the back foot over freebies, it is Ellie Reeves filling that role. The Cabinet Office minister was today sent out to defend the government on an Urgent Question. It followed further allegations this weekend about the role of ministers in Taylor Swift’s security arrangements. Reeves opened the batting for the government, explaining how it proposes to change the ministerial register of interests. She was up against John

Kate Andrews

Will Labour keep its promise not to hike National Insurance?

Despite getting off to a rocky start – including nearly losing £1 billion worth of investment – Labour’s much-anticipated Investment Summit seems to be delivering exactly what ministers had hoped for. The good news, including a combined investment of £6.3 billion from four US technology firms to expand data-centre infrastructure in Britain – is rolling in. The biggest question for plenty of businesses at today’s Summit will be about tax Business is struck, perhaps awestruck, by Labour’s commitment to slash red tape. During a panel event with the Prime Minister and ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt, the tech guru expressed how ‘shocked’ he was to learn that Labour was now ‘strongly

Steerpike

Watch: ‘Apparatus of state turned on Alex Salmond’

Heartfelt tributes were paid to the late Alex Salmond in the Commons today. A number of politicians from across the house shared memories of the former first minister of Scotland in a series of points of order, with the SNP’s Westminster leader Stephen Flynn first to speak on the ‘most talented, formidable and consequential politician of his generation’. Scotland Secretary Ian Murray joked that the Scotland Office had brought Salmond and his wife Moira together, while Conservative John Lamont insisted that the pro-indy politician was ‘undoubtedly a giant’ in politics. Next it was the turn of close friend and confidante of Salmond, Sir David Davis MP. ‘Very, very few people

Jonathan Miller

SpaceX has put Europe to shame

The flawless launch of SpaceX’s 5,000-ton Starship and its Super Heavy Booster, and the precision recovery of the booster on its launch pad, has opened the way to a manned mission to the moon next year and perhaps to Mars as soon as 2030. One giant leap for Elon Musk’s company on Sunday was one more reminder that Europe’s space programme is a colossal failure. Elon’s Musk’s dream has become Europe’s nightmare Europe is currently unable to launch even its own weather satellites, and India, which managed a soft landing on the Moon last year, now has a more credible space program. Twenty years ago, before SpaceX had launched a

Steerpike

Five flops from Labour’s investment summit

It’s investment summit day for Sir Keir’s Labour government and, like much else about Starmer’s reign, it hasn’t got off to the greatest start. Despite drafting in the King to win over big business, the Starmer army has still managed to rather make a mess of proceedings. From reckless cabinet minister comments to embarrassing email errors, Mr S has pulled together a list of all the lefty lot’s summit slip-ups so far. Privacy problems It transpired just days before Sir Keir’s big investment summit was due to kick off that the government, er, accidentally leaked the email addresses of a number of industry big wigs – including that belonging to

Steerpike

Beeb investigated MasterChef star over alleged sexual remarks

These days, it seems the Beeb is better at being the news than making it. Now the co-host of BBC MasterChef, Greg Wallace, is on the Sun’s front page, after it emerged that broadcasting bosses had investigated the TV star over alleged inappropriate sexual comments made to a female member of staff. It transpires that in 2018, BBC chiefs met with Wallace after complaints were logged by a team left ‘mortified’ by his behaviour while working on the game show Impossible Celebrities. Wallace was accused of ‘taking his top off’ in front of a female production worker, after ‘boasting about his sex life’, according to a source – who also