Politics

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

Friday

20 Sep 2024

The wickedness of Mohamed Al Fayed

The allegations against Mohamed Al Fayed are dreadful: the former Harrods owner has been accused of raping five women and sexually abusing at least 15 others when they worked at his department store. A BBC investigation, which detailed the allegations, claimed that this abuse took place from the late 1980s to the 2000s. The name of the ‘phoney pharoah’, as Private Eye so aptly christened him, should live in infamy forever The consistent thread of the allegations against Al Fayed – who died last year aged 94 – was that he used his power and wealth to target women who worked for him at Harrods. Al Fayed, it seems, had a well-established

Ross Clark

Does the evidence support working from home?

I am sure that the business secretary Jonathan Reynolds picked up many useful skills in his previous job in local government, but does he really know more about how to run a business than the people who run one of the world’s most successful companies? Apparently, yes. Asked on LBC where his comments about encouraging remote working fitted in with Amazon’s decision to order its staff back to work five days a week in the office he said: If I was talking to a business like that I would say that every piece of evidence that has ever been collated suggests that flexibility, when agreed between employer and employee, is

Ross Clark

Is Rachel Reeves damaging the High Street’s recovery?

The former boss of Sainsbury’s, Justin King, warned on the Today programme this morning that Rachel Reeves has damaged the economy through her constant warnings of tax rises to come in October’s budget, causing anxious shoppers to draw in their horns until the big day. But if shoppers really are holding off purchases for fear that the Chancellor will raid their savings or hit them with tax rises there is scant sign of it in the Office for National Statistics’ (ONS) retail sales figures for August. They show that sales volumes increased by 1.0 per cent over the course of the month. July’s figures were also revised upwards from a 0.5 per cent

Gavin Mortimer

France – and even Michel Barnier – is tiring of Emmanuel Macron

France can’t go on like this. The country, and its overseas territories, are in chaos. On Wednesday night two men in New Caledonia were shot dead by security forces after a confrontation on the Pacific Island. The insurgency began in May and shows no sign of abating with the rebels determined to gain their independence from France. In total, 13 people have been killed and the damaged caused in the uprising is estimated to be 2.2 billion euros (£1.85 billion) and rising. French media report that Barnier is reaching the end of his tether with Macron Meanwhile, the Caribbean island of Martinique was placed under curfew on Wednesday after rioting erupted over rising

Alexander Horne

Owen Paterson must regret his appeal to the European Court of Human Rights

The European Court of Human Rights has thrown out a challenge by former cabinet minister Owen Paterson. The ex-Tory MP, accused of breaking lobby rules, took the government to court in a bid to have a 2021 parliamentary investigation into his conduct declared unfair. That Paterson went to the Strasbourg Court in the first place might be considered a remarkable show of chutzpah (or perhaps simply rank hypocrisy) given that he had previously campaigned for the UK to leave the ECHR, prior to his own personal travails. Paterson’s claim to the European Court of Human Rights was always rather quixotic. During Boris Johnson’s premiership, an investigation by the Parliamentary Standards

Luke Tryl

The freebie scandal could cost Keir Starmer

If you want a surefire indication that a politician has ended up on the wrong side of public opinion, it’s when they start saying: ‘The public don’t really care about this stuff. They want us to focus on the issues that matter to them instead’. So far, this has been the response from the government to the freebie scandal. Keir Starmer has had Taylor Swift tickets and £2,000-worth of glasses gifted to him. His wife has had clothes given to her. And the PM’s reaction? ‘It was because I insist on the rules that my team reached out to make sure we were declaring in the right way under the rules

Thursday

19 Sep 2024

Limor Simhony Philpott

Are Israel and Lebanon already at war?

This hasn’t been the easiest week for Hezbollah. It started with the terror organisation’s pagers mysteriously exploding, killing 37 people people (according to official reports) and injuring some 3,000 people, mostly members of the group. This has stunned Hezbollah – and the world. A day later, their walkie-talkies starting blowing up too. The attacks, which have been attributed to Israel, are a serious security breech and have humiliated Hezbollah. In response, the organisation’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah conceded today that Hezbollah has suffered a considerable blow and accused Israel of ‘crossing the red line,’ adding that they actions could be viewed as a ‘declaration of war.’ Israeli officials declared yesterday that a new phase in the conflict against Hezbollah has started.

Andrew Tettenborn

Why the cost of replacing Britain’s border fleet has soared to £300 million

The fleet of border control cutters responsible for patrolling our waters (and at times for dealing with irregular migrants on them) is showing its age and needs renewing. Unfortunately we now know that the exercise will cost £300 million rather than the original estimate of roughly £50 million, and will be delayed until at least 2030. Why has this happened? The reason is a big post-Brexit legal snafu which cuts across the government’s wish to ensure that the vessels are built here. To keep it as simple as possible, an international treaty called the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, or GATT, prevents governments indulging in protectionism, but it has two exceptions.

Steerpike

‘Ignorant’ Lammy urged to retract Azerbaijan remarks

It’s a gaffe a day with David Lammy. Now the Foreign Secretary has come under fire after he hailed Azerbaijan for being able to ‘liberate’ territory – in an ongoing conflict widely viewed as an ethnic cleansing operation – in a recent Substack post. Lammy took to his blog to express his unsolicited musings about the Nagorno-Karabakh region, writing: The states of Central Asia look increasingly east and south. Azerbaijan has been able to liberate territory it lost in the early 1990s. Georgia and Moldova are engaging with Nato and [the] EU. Crikey. Talk about bad wording, eh? Mr S would remind readers that Azerbaijan has been locked in an

Steerpike

Abbott: I’ve never had a nice chat with Starmer

Diane Abbott is on the warpath, and her target is Sir Keir Starmer. Earlier this week, the Labour MP hit out at the Prime Minister during an interview with BBC Newsnight, in which she slammed the Labour leader for his behaviour towards her during the Frank Hester racism row, describing how he treated her as, er, a ‘non-person’. Now, the Hackney North parliamentarian has extended her attack, airing her woes on a podcast that might reach those less news-inclined. Interviewed by author Elizabeth Day on her hit podcast ‘How to Fail’, the veteran MP divulged her chosen three failures (not getting a first at university, losing her 2010 leadership bid

Steerpike

Watch: James O’Brien attacks Nigel Farage in scathing rant

Good heavens. Does no one teach journalistic etiquette these days? This afternoon James O’Brien caused a stir on social media after he delivered a rather bizarre handover on air about, er, one of his station’s own guests. Not long before O’Brien jumped behind the mic, Nigel Farage had joined LBC’s Nick Ferrari for a phone-in – in which he was quizzed on why he had not hosted constituency surgeries in Clacton, whether he had helped to trigger the recent riots and his own personal security. But while the station’s loyal listeners might have been interested in listening to what the Reform leader had to say, it seems that one of

Katy Balls

Farage’s plan, the ethics of euthanasia & Xi’s football failure

45 min listen

This week: Nigel’s next target. What’s Reform UK’s plan to take on Labour? Reform UK surpassed expectations at the general election to win 5 MPs. This includes James McMurdock, who Katy interviews for the magazine this week, who only decided to stand at the last moment. How much threat could Reform pose and why has Farage done so well? Katy joins the podcast to discuss, alongside Jovan Owusu-Nepaul, who fought Nigel Farage as the Labour candidate for Clacton (1:02). Next: who determines the morality of euthanasia? Matthew Hall recounts the experience of his aunt opting for the procedure in Canada, saying it ‘horrified’ him but ‘was also chillingly seductive’. Does

Patrick West

McDonald’s did not make Kemi Badenoch working class

Is it possible to change your class? Not just superficially – in moving up and down the hierarchy of social standing – but change it inwardly so that you transform your very sense of self? Conservative leadership contender Kemi Badenoch seems to think so. Speaking on Chopper’s Political Podcast this week, the shadow housing secretary said that although she grew up in a middle-class family, she became working class when she took a job at McDonald’s while studying for her A-levels. Explaining her conversion, she put it baldly: ‘I grew up in a middle-class family, but I became working class when I was 16 working in McDonald’s.’ She elaborates: Just

Steerpike

Revealed: Starmer’s top five freebies

The Prime Minister has been generating scores of headlines lately – for all the wrong reasons. It has transpired this week that Sir Keir has accepted over £107,000 worth of gifts since 2019 – the most of any parliamentarian in the same period. Labour has insisted today that voters don’t care about all this carry on – but after the national outrage that followed the Partygate scandal, Mr S is pretty sceptical of that point. So what makes up Starmer’s most luxurious donations? Steerpike has compiled a handy list below… Footie freebies The PM hasn’t made a secret of his obsession with the beautiful game, and it didn’t take long

James Heale

What the Sue Gray row is really about

14 min listen

It’s been a sticky week for Labour. Whilst they will have hoped to spend the run up to this weekend’s conference talking about the policy wins of their first 100 days in power, Labour MPs are instead having to defend the Prime Minister for accepting freebies and talk down speculation of a rift at the heart of government. Is there a power struggle in Number 10? James Heale speaks to Katy Balls and John McTernan, former political secretary to tony Blair. Produced by Oscar Edmondson.

Kate Andrews

Was the Bank of England wrong not to cut interest rates?

The Bank of England has held interest rates at 5 per cent. This was the expected outcome of the Monetary Policy Committee’s latest meeting, which saw members vote 8-1 to maintain the base rate. Was it a mistake not to cut rates? The latest economic data appears to have persuaded the MPC to lean into their (now) hawkish tendencies and keep rates steady. The headline inflation rate is almost on target but the rise in core inflation in August (which excludes more volatile prices like food and energy) and in services inflation – as well as mixed signals from the labour market – gave the Bank good reasons to wait until later in the Autumn

James Innes-Smith

Can Sadiq Khan save Oxford Street?

Oxford Street’s spiralling tawdriness is a miserable advert for London. The ‘candy’ stores and tourist tat ‘luggage’ emporiums, the gang fights and phone snatchers are an embarrassment: tourists who are told that London is the greatest city on earth must struggle to reconcile that promise with the reality of the city’s main shopping street. Oxford Street has been on its uppers for as long as I can remember and I’ve been living nearby for over 20 years. Is it any wonder despondent locals like me steer well clear? But all that might be about to change if London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s plan to pedestrianise the capital’s benighted thoroughfare gets the go ahead.

Steerpike

End Tory leadership race early, says Tugendhat

While Labour’s dirty laundry over ‘frockgate‘ is being aired in public, it would be easy to forget there are still Tory leadership contests rumbling on in the background. The Scottish race will conclude at the end of the month, but the UK Conservative party leader will only be announced in November – a decision that has caused much consternation in the party. It now transpires that contender Tom Tugendhat believes the conclusion of the race should be brought forward to ensure a new party leader is chosen before the Budget. Currently the ex-PM Rishi Sunak will be in place when Labour’s financial statement announcement takes place on 30 October –

Steerpike

Labour minister: Freebies are ‘part of the job’

Dear oh dear. Things are only getting worse for Sir Keir, as it now transpires that the Prime Minister accepted £40,000 in hospitality gifts, a £4 million donation from a Cayman Islands-registered hedge fund, and regular use of an £18 million penthouse owned by top donor Lord Alli. Alright for some, eh? It’s been a rough week for the PM as ‘frockgate‘ continues to rumble on, and the scrutiny on Starmer’s acceptance of some rather extravagant donations is only growing. As reported by the Telegraph, not only did the Labour leader accept clothing and glasses from Lord Alli, he also used Alli’s 5,000 square foot home on election night, as

David Shipley

Why aren’t some released prisoners being tagged?

As hundreds of prisoners are released early on to the streets of Britain, it’s vital that the authorities keep track of these criminals. Worryingly, this doesn’t seem to be happening: several recently released prisoners who have been out of jail for two to six weeks told me they have still not been tagged. It’s anyone’s guess what these people are up to – and where they are going. Even probation officers struggle to get clear answers about whether or not tags have been fitted A backlog in fitting tags appears to be causing this situation. But there are rumours that there is a wider shortage of tags. Whatever the reason,