Politics

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

Wednesday

Danny Shaw

The riots have proved swift justice is possible

John O’Malley and William Nelson-Morgan; Adnan Ghaffour and Leanne Hodgson; Sameer Ali and Stacey Vint – some of the dozens of people who were arrested, charged, convicted and sentenced within days of taking part in the riots that swept across parts of the UK.  No delays in the police investigation for them, no waiting for the crown prosecution service (CPS) to make a charging decision and no adjournments in court. All cogs in the criminal justice machine working together, sending out a strong message of punishment and deterrence. Punch a police officer on Monday, hear the clang of the cell door on Friday.  The staggeringly long gap between crime and

Matthew Lynn

Why is Germany still cosying up to China?

Growth is slowing down. The property market is wobbling. And the government is tightening its grip on every form of economic activity. Global investors have made a decision about China over the last few months. It may have one of the biggest markets in the world, but the risks are simply too high. Over the second quarter of this year, foreign investors pulled a record amount of money out of China. A total of $15 billion was taken out of the country, and if that continues for the rest of the year it will be the first time the total has turned negative since 1999. There is, however, one exception:

Steerpike Steerpike

Sadiq Khan doubles number of City Hall fat cats

While the new Labour government continues to wax lyrical about the dire state of the country’s finances, it seems not everyone is feeling the pinch. For staff working in the Greater London Authority under Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan, business is positively booming. In fact, according to a Freedom of Information response sent to Mr S, the number of GLA staffers on the top rates of pay in 2024 has more than doubled since 2016. Alright for some… When London last had a Tory mayor in Boris Johnson, there were 45 staff on the top three rates of pay, with just 12 in the highest salary bracket. Yet under Khan’s eight

Oscar Edmondson

Why has the inflation rate gone up again?

11 min listen

We’ve got some news today on the inflation rate, which rose to 2.2 per cent in July, slightly up from the Bank of England’s target of 2 per cent, where the rate sat in May and June. It’s the first rate uptick this year – and though widely expected, it will be used to explain why the Bank’s continued hawkish stance, despite starting its rate-cutting process earlier this month. Is this a sign of economic conditions improving? Could it lead the way to interest rate cuts later this year?  Also today, the Treasury its under scrutiny after a Labour donor received a top civil service job. Do we need more

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

No EU migrant deal will stop the small boats

The sea lanes of Europe were busy last weekend. On Sunday, more than 700 migrants crossed the Channel from France to England, taking the total number this year to 18,342 – a 13 per cent increase on 2023. On the same day, 421 migrants in twelve boats disembarked on the Italian island of Lampedusa, and more have arrived since, swelling the numbers to over 500. The diversity of the nationalities of arrivals in Lampedusa is a fascinating and alarming snapshot of the crisis confronting Europe. The people stepping ashore hailed from Egypt, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Ghana, Gambia, Malaysia, Nigeria, Liberia and Syria.  There are now too many gangs operating in Asia, the Middle East

Steerpike Steerpike

RSPB told off over ‘party political’ anti-Tory post

To the matter of ‘inappropriate’ party political tweets – from a rather unlikely culprit. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) has come under fire after it took to Twitter last year with a rather odd campaign post. The charity took a fierce stance against proposals from the then-Tory government to scrap water pollution restrictions for housing sites in England – and decided to channel its fury online at Conservative ministers. In a tweet written in August 2023, the RSPB accused former prime minister Rishi Sunak, ex-housing secretary Michael Gove and former-environment secretary Therese Coffey for U-turning on environmental protections, slamming the trio as ‘liars’. Crikey. The furious

Steerpike Steerpike

Treasury under scrutiny after Labour donor bags top civil service job

Back to the Labour government, which is under scrutiny as more questions about party donor Ian Corfield’s new job arise. The banker has a history of donating hefty sums to Sir Keir’s lefty lot, with Electoral Commission records showing Corfield gave more than £20,000 to Labour politicians (including now-Chancellor Rachel Reeves) over the last nine years. Just last month, the Labour donor landed a job as a director of investment at the Treasury – and now it has emerged that the civil service watchdog was not informed of his donation history when it approved Corfield’s appointment. How curious… While most civil service jobs are filled through ‘fair and open competition’,

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Why has the inflation rate gone up again?

The inflation rate rose to 2.2 per cent in July, slightly up from the Bank of England’s target of 2 per cent, where the rate sat in May and June. It’s the first rate uptick this year – and though widely expected, it will be used to explain why the Bank’s continued hawkish stance, despite starting its rate-cutting process earlier this month. The slight speed up in the inflation rate is largely attributed to the overall cost of household services, where the ‘prices of gas and electricity fell by less than they did last year’. This was somewhat offset by the ‘largest downward contribution’ which was attributed to falling costs for

Tuesday

Steerpike Steerpike

Pro-indy politicians at loggerheads over Israel’s deputy ambassador visit

Back to Scotland, where there appears to be trouble in Holyrood’s progressive paradise. The Scottish government’s Culture Secretary Angus Robertson has received strong backlash after appearing in a photo with Daniela Grudsky, the deputy ambassador of Israel to the UK. It transpires that the Scottish government minister met with Grudsky to discuss ‘culture, renewable energy and engaging with the country’s respective diasporas’. A Scottish government spokesperson added that the discussion ’emphasised the Scottish Government’s continued work with Police Scotland to protect Scotland’s faith communities and tackle all hate crimes, including antisemitism’. But Robertson’s meeting has ruffled feathers – particularly with the SNP’s former coalition partners. First slamming the party of

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Is Elon Musk a great man of history?

34 min listen

On this week’s episode of Americano, Freddy Gray sits down with journalist and Spectator author Ed West who writes the Substack Wrong Side of History and Richard Hanania who writes the Richard Hanania Newsletter to discuss Elon Musk’s interview with Donald Trump on Twitter (X), how much influence Twitter has both in the UK and America, and whether the right-wing men are ‘weird’.

Oscar Edmondson

Keir Starmer’s first foreign policy tests

18 min listen

After successful showings at NATO and Blenheim Palace Keir Starmer is facing his first foreign policy tests, with big developments in Ukraine and in the Middle East. On the one hand, Ukrainian troops are continuing push into the Kursk region of Russia and on the other it looked last night that Iran had ramped up preparations for a possible invasion of Israel. Keir Starmer made a phone call last night to Tehran urging them to ‘refrain from attacking Israel’, warning against a ‘serious miscalculation’.  Also today, Tory leadership hopeful Tom Tugendhat gave a press conference and took the opportunity to criticise the government response to the riots. Is he the

James Heale James Heale

Is Tom Tugendhat the law and order leadership candidate?

There is still a fortnight to go until parliament returns – but one Tory contender clearly cannot wait to get back to Westminster. Tom Tugendhat this afternoon gave a speech on a theme and at a venue which suited him perfectly: an address at the RUSI military think tank on security. This speech was billed by Tugendhat’s supporters as a chance to show that he is a serious thinker. Yet while there was little here that was truly original, much of it will have had the Tory grassroots nodding along in agreement. ‘We need to end the culture of denial’, he declared, ‘the tendency to move hurriedly on from acts

Lisa Haseldine Lisa Haseldine

Putin is panicking about Kursk

As Ukrainian forces continue to gain ground in the Russian region of Kursk, the humiliation for Vladimir Putin is growing. Faced with a mounting crisis, the Kremlin is responding in the only way it knows how: deflection and disinformation. A briefing by Russia’s foreign intelligence service (SVR) published this morning argued that ‘Zelensky is taking crazy steps that threaten to escalate far beyond Ukraine.’ The SVR claimed that there is growing unhappiness in the US with the Ukrainian president over the incursion and that they are looking to replace him with a more malleable candidate – supposedly one who will better represent the West’s interests at future peace negotiations. The intelligence

Steerpike Steerpike

Nadine Dorries’s warning to Starmer about ‘slick’ Sue Gray

It’s not been the best start to the week for Sue Gray. Reports that there are divisions among Sir Keir Starmer’s top team have put the Prime Minister’s chief of staff under the spotlight. The Mail on Sunday splashed on claims made by Whitehall sources about Gray ‘thinking she runs the country’. An insider claimed that the former civil servant ensures even top mandarin Simon Case asks her permission to speak to the PM. Meanwhile tensions between Gray and Starmer’s adviser Morgan McSweeney are thought to be running high, and the reported friction between the pair has been dubbed the ‘battle between Gray’s girls’ gang and McSweeney’s boys’ brigade’. Good

Eliot Wilson

Labour have already made a massive mistake on defence

It is possible to have some sympathy for the Defence Secretary John Healey, despite the irritating self-serving mantra of Rachel Reeves that the Conservatives have left a £22 billion fiscal ‘black hole’. Healey, generally a straightforward and sensible politician, has inherited a department with huge cultural problems, and real financial issues. In March, the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee revealed that the MoD’s Equipment Plan for the next decade had a deficit of £16.9 billion, though some have suggested it may be more like £20 billion. Spending is out of control, wasteful, and unrealistic. The most alarming aspect of this move is that it suggests a catastrophic misdiagnosis However, the way

Jawad Iqbal

Hong Kong’s justice system is an insult to democracy

Lord David Neuberger of Abbotsbury, the British lawyer who sits on Hong Kong’s highest court, needs to take a long hard look in the mirror. The territory’s court of final appeal has upheld verdicts and prison sentences against some of Hong Kong’s leading pro-democracy activists for taking part in a peaceful protest in 2019. The court ruling has been decried as ‘unjust’ by Chris Patten, the last British governor of Hong Kong before the territory was returned to Chinese rule in 1997. The court unanimously agreed to uphold the convictions of seven activists who participated in the the unauthorised 2019 protests, during which 1.7 million people took to the streets

Kristina Murkett

Can we really teach children to spot fake news?

As part of the ongoing review into the primary and secondary school curriculum, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has announced that children in England will be taught how to spot misinformation and extremist content online, so that students can arm themselves against ‘putrid conspiracy theories’. In the wake of weeks of rioting, with children as young as 12 and 13 now in court for their involvement, this announcement seems like a sensible idea, but it is not necessarily a straightforward one. You simply cannot embed critical thinking without establishing a firm foundation of factual understanding first Children and teenagers are excellent targets for fake news, but they are notoriously bad at spotting it. Research by

Steerpike Steerpike

Now Scotland’s First Minister hits out at Musk

Elon Musk’s war on the SNP was on no one’s bingo card this year – but the animosity has ramped up after First Minister John Swinney waded into the row. The SNP leader is the latest UK politician to take a pop at Musk, blasting the tech billionaire for allowing Twitter to become a ‘platform of the fomenting of hate’, adding that the language used by the Twitter boss was ‘not only reprehensible, it’s baseless’. Ouch. Honest John has gone so far as to suggest that the US businessman hadn’t removed racist posts from the social media platform because he agreed with them. Scotland’s FM fumed: I think it tells

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Public sector pay rises are hurting the economy

Today’s labour market figures ought to bring good news: they show that growth on earnings has moderated to 5.4 per cent, the lowest level in two years. That should ease fears of inflation – it is growth in pay which has most concerned the Bank of England in recent months – and pave the way for further cuts in interest rates. The trouble is, though, that the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has undermined this by granting pay rises of 5.5 per cent to several million public sector workers – threatening to reignite wage growth again. The public sector has become an inflationary engine chugging away in one corner of the economy

Steerpike Steerpike

Do the Sussexes have a staffing problem?

The Sussexes never seem to keep out of the news for too long, and this time they’re back in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. It now transpires that Prince Harry and his wife Meghan have managed to lose yet another staff member – taking the total to an estimated 18 since their marriage in 2018, while around nine are thought to have ditched the ex-royals since 2020. Talk about a high turnover… The renegade royal took on a new chief of staff just three months ago, with Josh Kettler described as the best man to ‘guide’ the Prince ‘through his next phase’. But, as reported in the Daily