Politics

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

Friday

23 May 2025

Is chemically castrating sex offenders really a good idea?

Convicted paedophiles could face mandatory chemical castration to suppress their libidos under plans being considered by the justice secretary. Shabana Mahmood is said to be weighing up giving the drugs to sex offenders to reduce reoffending and free up prison space. But while the idea – announced on the Sun’s front page yesterday under the headline ‘paedos to be castrated’ – is sure to be popular, chemical castration isn’t as effective as its supporters might hope. Its use could lull courts, and society in general, into a false sense of security about the danger that sex offenders pose. Chemical castration isn’t as effective as its supporters might hope The use

Robin Ashenden

Harold Wilson was awful and brilliant

Does anyone still talk about Harold Wilson, the Labour prime minister who died 30 years ago today? Though the Labour party often seems keen to forget a leader who won – almost uniquely – four out of five elections, he was, perhaps more than anyone, the prime minister who ushered in the modern age. When he stood in the general election of 1964, he was widely billed as a moderniser. Up against Tory Alec Douglas-Home – the grouse-shooting Old Etonian Earl, who described the old age pension as ‘donations’ to the elderly and had used matchsticks to understand economics – Wilson seemed like the dawning of a new age. Words

Thursday

22 May 2025

James Snell

The Chagos deal is a disgrace

It has been in the background for a few months, but it seems Keir Starmer has now decided to resurface and sign his deal to pay Mauritius billions to take ownership of a British territory. The Chagos Islands, and the broader British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), are strategically significant. On Diego Garcia, the largest of the islands, the only population either staffs or supports a joint British-American base. A base which is often used by the Americans; the base from which the B-2s ordered to bomb Iran’s nuclear programme might take off. But all of this is to be surrendered to Mauritius and then rented back by Britain. Why? Because

Freddy Gray

Errol Musk on Trump vs white racism in South Africa

33 min listen

Donald Trump exposed South Africa’s leader Cyril Ramaphosa in the White House yesterday over what he refered to as white racism against the farmers in South Africa. Freddy Gray speaks to Errol Musk — father of Elon Musk — from Cape Town about Trump’s confrontation. Errol shares personal experiences of being attacked on a farm, defends Trump’s intervention, and reflects on the country’s decline under ANC rule. The conversation also touches on Elon Musk’s influence, family history, and a surprising political reversal within the Musk household.

William Moore

The real Brexit betrayal, bite-sized history & is being a bridesmaid brutal?

44 min listen

The real Brexit betrayal: Starmer vs the workers ‘This week Starmer fell… into the embrace of Ursula von der Leyen’ writes Michael Gove in our cover article this week. He writes that this week’s agreement with the EU perpetuates the failure to understand Brexit’s opportunities, and that Labour ‘doesn’t, or at least shouldn’t exist to make the lives of the fortunate more favourable’. Michael makes the argument that ‘the real Brexit betrayal’ is Labour’s failure to understand how Brexit can protect British jobs and industries and save our manufacturing sector. Historian of the Labour Party Dr Richard Johnson, a politics lecturer at Queen Mary University writes an accompanying piece arguing

James Heale

The Chagos deal will haunt Keir Starmer

After months of negotiation, the UK has today signed a deal to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. Under the terms of the agreement, Britain will lease back the military base there for an annual rate of £101 million. The net value of the payments from the UK under the treaty will reach £3.4 billion. Keir Starmer insisted that the Chagos deal is in Britain’s best interests The Prime Minister insists that the deal – which involves a lease on the base for 99 years ‘and beyond’ – is in the country’s national interest. It comes after an ‘advisory opinion’ by the UN’s International Court of Justice (ICJ), that the Chagos Islands

Karl Williams

Britain really is becoming an island of strangers

New migration data released today by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) suggests Britain really is becoming an ‘island of strangers’. Around one in 25 people living in Britain today arrived in just the last four years. Nevertheless, there were probably sighs of relief in Downing Street this morning when the ONS data showed net migration last year had fallen by almost 50 per cent to 431,000. Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper could hardly have dared hope for better numbers. As things stand, by the time of the next census in 2031, almost a quarter of the population will be first generation migrants That reduction is mostly due to changes

Steerpike

Reform gains another Scottish Tory councillor

To Aberdeenshire in Scotland, where a fourth Scottish Tory councillor has defected to Reform UK. It transpires that Dominic Lonchay – represents the East Garioch ward on the council – has jumped ship to Nigel Farage’s real army in another blow to the Scottish Tories. Lonchay’s defection makes him the 13th councillor to join Reform UK in Scotland – and the fourth on Aberdeenshire Council. The tide is turning… Commenting on his decision, Lonchay remarked: The reasons for this decision are many, and I have particularly recently been unable to influence the running of the council for the benefit of my constituents. I have therefore decided to join Reform Scotland, and I

James Heale

Live by the rule of law, die by the rule of law

11 min listen

The Independent Sentencing Review chaired by former Lord Chancellor David Gauke has today announced its suggested reforms which sees a major shift from imprisonment to community-led sentencing. Measures include the recommendation that convicted criminals leave prisons after serving around one-third of their sentence, that short prison sentences of up to 12 months are drastically reduced and – the attention grabbing – expansion of chemical castration for paedophiles. What are the political ramifications of these policies, and will they work? Danny Shaw, former advisor to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, and James Heale discuss with Lucy Dunn. Also on the podcast, they discuss a last minute obstacle to resolving the Chagos deal

Jonathan Sacerdoti

The Washington shooting is a chilling warning to Jews everywhere

Waking early on Thursday in London, I read the news on a half-lit phone screen: two people, Israeli embassy staff, gunned down outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington D.C. A man shouted “Free Palestine,” – of course he did – after he had fired his weapon and walked inside the building – where, in an extraordinary confusion of roles, guests offered him water and comfort, believing he too had been a victim. In a way, maybe he had. A man shouted “Free Palestine,” – of course he did – after he had fired his weapon Though our airwaves and streets have been filled with talk of genocide, that word

Ross Clark

Miliband’s 2030 clean power target looks increasingly impossible

The answer, according to Ed Miliband in an infamously toe-curling rendition of the Bob Dylan song, is blowing in the wind. But no longer, it seems, if you are on the board of SSE. The energy company, which was one of the first UK electricity companies to commit in a big way to renewable energy, has just pulled £3 billion worth of investment in renewables, citing the ‘changing macroeconomic environment’ and delays in the planning system. For that read that the projects it had intended to build have become economically unviable now that we no longer have near-zero interest rates, and that the national grid is struggling to absorb so

James Heale

Starmer owes Sunak for halving net migration

A year ago today, Rishi Sunak called the general election. Watching the rain-drenched prime minister struggling to deliver his speech, it seemed like the inglorious end to an unremarkable premiership. But 12 months on, the decisions Sunak took in office continue to yield results. This morning, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) confirmed that net migration fell to 431,000 in 2024 – down almost 50 per cent on the previous year’s total. Overall, some 948,000 people came to the UK in 2024, down almost a third on the previous year That is thanks primarily to the package of measures which Sunak and James Cleverly, his Home Secretary, introduced at the

Matthew Lynn

Will Wall Street jitters stop Trump’s budget bill?

Donald Trump has already caved in on tariffs, pausing the ‘retaliatory levies’ he announced on ‘Liberation Day’ at the beginning of April. Now the President is under pressure from the markets on spending. As his ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ on the budget goes through Congress, investors are panicking over the mix of spending and tax cuts, with bond yields spiking sharply upwards and equities falling. President Trump will now have to decide whether to yield to Wall Street again – or tough out a potential crash. The US remains the biggest economy in the world, so investors cannot abandon it completely The post-tariff recovery on Wall Street came to a juddering

Ross Clark

Is Britain heading for bankruptcy?

We can thank Rachel Reeves for one thing: setting up a real-world experiment to show the Laffer curve in action. April’s figures for the public finances, like yesterday’s figures for inflation, are truly dreadful. April should have been a bumper month for tax receipts, being the month that the rise in Employers’ National Insurance Contributions (NICs) came into effect. Instead, borrowing surged to £20.2 billion in a single month. It took borrowing for the year 2024/25 to £148.3 billion, a smidgeon less that the Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimated last month but £11 billion higher than the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) had forecast. Government receipts in April did

Freddy Gray

What we know about the Israeli diplomat shootings in Washington so far

The suspect, identified as 30-year-old Elias Rodriguez, was seen pacing around Washington DC’s Jewish Museum in the minutes before last night’s attack. According to Pamela Smith, DC’s chief of police, he then shouted ‘Free Palestine’ before shooting and killing two Israeli embassy staffers – a couple, named as Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky, who reportedly were soon to be engaged. He then walked into the museum, where he was briefly mistaken for an innocent bystander before being apprehended by the police. The murdered couple had been attending an event inside the building, described online as a ‘Young Diplomats Reception’ for Jewish professionals between the ages of 22 and 45. Israel’s ambassador

Danny Shaw

Is Labour tough enough to act on Gauke’s prison review?

Uncork the Gauke! In the coalition years, whenever George Osborne found himself in a tight spot as Chancellor, advisers would send for David Gauke, who was then a Treasury minister. The tall, imposing but unflappable Gauke would tour the radio and TV studios to deliver a measured message of reassurance, calming the political waters and restoring some credibility to whatever government policy was in the spotlight. This week, Gauke has been uncorked again – this time by Labour – to solve the prison capacity crisis. When the party came to office, the population in men’s jails across England and Wales was rising so fast it was about to outstrip the

Steerpike

Kneecap member charged with terror offence

To Kneecap, the Irish republican band under fire over controversial concert footage – which appeared to show one of the band members calling for the deaths of MPs and yelling ‘up Hamas, up Hezbollah!’ Now one of the trio, 27-year-old Liam O’Hanna, has been charged with a terrorism offence for allegedly displaying a flag in support of Hezbollah at a gig in London, according to police. Dear oh dear… The Belfast local, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, was charged with displaying a flag in November last year at the O2 Forum in London in a way that, the Metropolitan Police said, aroused ‘reasonable suspicion that he is a

David Shipley

Can Labour prevent the justice system from collapsing?

David Gauke’s long-awaited Sentencing Review is here. If its recommendations are accepted, we will see thousands of people spared jail and thousands of inmates released as early as a third of the way through their sentence. The government is relying on the review to save the justice system from collapse. As the Lord Chancellor explained just last week, despite plans to build another 14,000 prison places, the system simply can not keep pace with the growth in our prison population. For months now, ministers and officials have been focused on keeping just enough space in the prison system until the Sentencing Review can be implemented. So now it has arrived,

Eliot Wilson

Could the EU sideline Britain in its defence loan scheme?

The Security and Defence Partnership which the government agreed with the European Union this week has had more spin applied to it than a thousand cricket balls. The central argument in its favour, apart from vacuous reiki-like attempts to change the ‘mood’ of relations with the EU, was that it would allow the UK defence sector to engage with the Security Action for Europe (SAFE) loan instrument providing €150 billion (£127 billion) for defence procurement over the next five years. It does not do that. You would be hard pressed to realise that the partnership has not succeeded in what many saw as its central purpose. Weasel words came in

Patrick West

How George Wendt embodied American television

The American sitcom Cheers depicted a Boston bar where everybody knew your name, and its most loyal customer, Norm Peterson, was the character practically everybody wanted to be. Norm, played by George Wendt in all the show’s episodes from 1982 to 1993, and who died on Tuesday aged 76, was the ultimate bar-fly, the role model for those who used to haunt bars and pubs, and for many who still do. This cuddly, ursine and somewhat shambolic character was held in affection by viewers and all in the fictional drinking-hole – he was greeted upon his arrival with the universal salutation, ‘Norm!’ – mostly because he was just consistently funny.