Politics

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

Tuesday

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

The persecution of Graham Linehan

I have been lamenting Britain’s authoritarian turn for years. Yet even I was taken aback, physically repulsed in fact, by a news alert that pinged my phone today. It was from the Telegraph. It contained just 11 words — 11 words that ought to chill the blood of all who believe in liberty. This is what it said: ‘Graham Linehan arrested by five armed police officers for trans tweets.’ So this is England. A country where a once-beloved comedy writer can have his collar felt by cops over things he said on the internet. A country where a cultural legend can be treated like a common criminal simply for expressing

Michael Simmons Michael Simmons

How bad is the UK bond crisis?

‘UK in the drain’, a trader exclaimed earlier today as 30-year gilt yields punched through to their highest level since 1998. London stocks were down and the pound fell too. The message to trading desks was clear: dump Britain. Things have worsened, at least in part, because yesterday’s Downing Street and Treasury reshuffle included no suggestions that the government has emergency plans to fix Britain’s broken fiscal maths and attempt to balance the books. And as I set out in last week’s cover story, markets are not amused. Wherever you look on the yield curve, Britain’s debt is cementing itself as the most expensive in the developed world. Long-term debt – the

Steerpike Steerpike

Listen: Yvette Cooper’s bizarre bunting claim

Summer recess has only just ended but the government has not enjoyed a relaxed return to Westminster. After Reform UK controlled the narrative over the holidays, with its ‘lawless Britain’ campaign and immigration announcement last week, Labour is struggling to take back control of the agenda. On Monday, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper made a statement to the Commons in which she laid out the government’s plan to overhaul the asylum system. Now, she has turned to the issue of flag flying. The Raise the Colours campaign has seen parts of England fly St George’s and Union flags, with a group called the Weoley Warriors claiming responsibility for showing ‘the country

Eliot Wilson

Norway’s warship order is a boost for Britain’s defence industry

There was some good news for the government as politicians return to Westminster and Whitehall after the summer break: the Royal Norwegian Navy will buy at least five Type 26 anti-submarine warfare frigates from BAE Systems Maritime. The vessels will be built by BAE’s shipyards at Govan and Scotstoun in Glasgow and the overall agreement is being billed as worth £10 billion. There are aspects of the deal which are unquestionably positive. Norway’s selection of the Type 26 frigate over the American Constellation-class, the F126 from Germany and France’s Fregate de Defense et d’Intervention is a fillip for the UK’s defence industry. It is also a welcome boost for BAE’s

Madeline Grant

It’s impossible to take the Greens seriously

The Green party’s leadership announcement was live streamed using a phone which seemed to be wrapped in clingfilm and held by someone who appeared to be suffering from delirium tremens. You may not have realised that the Greens were electing a new leader. You may not even have realised that they have a leader at all – in fairness, until recently they didn’t, opting instead for a bizarre job-share arrangement whereby they had a sort of weird progressive hydra of ‘spokespeople’. Leadership for the polycule era.  The core argument against taking the Greens seriously is any engagement with the party itself There is an argument that says we ought to

Tim Shipman

Asylum reform: is Labour bold enough?

18 min listen

Danny Shaw and Tim Shipman join Lucy Dunn for today’s Coffee House Shots to talk about the government’s reforms to the asylum system. Having worked with Yvette Cooper before, Danny argues that the reforms are a great approach for a long-term solution – but he worries that they are not bold enough for the public mood. Is Labour putting procedure above politics? And, with the migrant hotel issue bubbling under the surface, is the public’s patience wearing thin? Plus: as Zack Polanski is elected leader of the Green Party, is Labour about to be out-flanked by two radical populists to its left? The Greens and Jeremy Corbyn’s new party could

Stephen Pollard

Graham Linehan’s arrest is a turning point

The hoo-ha over free speech being trampled on has always seemed exaggerated. I earn my living through voicing my opinions, and not once have I ever felt unable to say exactly what I think – especially when that’s controversial or offends large numbers of people. It is terrible that Linehan should have had to go through this. But if it wakes more of us up, his arrest will have served our country well I am, of course, well aware that some people have had a very different experience – such as the comedy writer Graham Linehan, creator of Father Ted, who has robustly pointed out that biology means that men

Lucy Dunn

Eco-populist Polanski wins Green leadership race

The Green party leadership contest has finished and the results are in: Zack Polanski is the new leader of the Greens. The insurgent candidate has spent the summer ramping up his social media strategy, pushing his own brand of ‘eco-populism’ and participating in some pretty blistering debates. This has all paid off, with Polanski sailing to victory with 20,411 votes and 85 per cent of the vote. His rivals, former leader co-leadership contender Adrian Ramsay and Ellie Chowns, who ran on a joint ticket, receieved just 3,705 votes. Today’s result doesn’t quite mark the end of the Green party’s leadership races, though. As Polanski is not an MP, another contest

Edward Howell

Kim Jong-un’s alliance with Xi and Putin is growing stronger

When analysing authoritarian states, not least North Korea, most of the time we have to read between the lines. But on other occasions, things are more obvious. Today, China celebrates eighty years since its victory over Japan in the second world war. Xi Jinping has invited Western and non-Western leaders past and present, but all eyes will be on the guest list’s top two invitees: Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un. Marking the first multilateral gathering of all three leaders since the Cold War, today’s spectacle aims to send a clear signal to the West. Xi, Putin, and Kim might have their differences in foreign policy priorities, their relations may fluctuate,

Matthew Lynn

The markets don’t trust Keir Starmer

The pound is starting to slide. Gold is punching through record highs, and long-term gilt yields are hitting levels that have not been seen in thirty years. It is not a Liz Truss style crisis, at least not yet, although it is worth noting that the price the government has to pay to borrow money is way above the levels it reached when the former prime minister ‘crashed’ the economy. But it is starting to become painfully apparent that the Labour government is rapidly losing the confidence of the financial markets. It is yet another nervous week for the economy. The yield on 30-year gilts, the best long-term measure of

Mark Galeotti Mark Galeotti

Why is Putin so happy in China?

The often dour Vladimir Putin is looking very cheery in China, which has just hosted the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Tianjin to the north, and is preparing for a grand parade to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Beijing tomorrow. Xi Jinping is clearly the man of the hour, Vladimir Putin seems to be having a good trip, too While Xi Jinping is clearly the man of the hour, Vladimir Putin seems to be having a good trip, too. Even as his Alaska summit saw him getting the literal red carpet treatment from Donald Trump, this is a chance

Julian Jessop

Why are UK debt costs still so high – and does it matter?

The yields on UK government bonds, commonly known as ‘gilts’, are now consistently the highest among the G7 group of advanced economies. Why is this, and why should the rest of us worry? Yesterday’s No.10 reshuffle has done little to help but there’s a lot more going on.  The numbers alone are disturbing. The cost of new government borrowing for ten years is now around 4.7 per cent in the UK, compared to 4.2 per cent in the US, around 3.5 per cent in France, Italy and Canada, 2.7 per cent in Germany, and just 1.6 per cent in Japan. This is all the more remarkable because UK public debt

Francis Pike

Is Xi Jinping still in charge of China?

China will celebrate the 80th anniversary of the end of the ‘war of resistance against Japanese aggression’ (i.e. what we call VJ day) tomorrow. Given that Japan’s invasion of China started some four years earlier than Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941, and cost an estimated 20 to 30 million Chinese lives, this week’s military parade is a major milestone. As the People’s Liberation Army Daily newspaper has explained: One of the highlights is a grand military parade at Beijing’s Tian’anmen Square themed on commemorating the great victory and promoting the enduring spirit of the War of Resistance. Not surprisingly, China is pushing the boat out in terms of

Julie Burchill Julie Burchill

Why must the English respect every flag other than their own?

It’s strange to think that the British people were once addressed as adults by those who governed them. In theory, this shouldn’t have been the case; in previous times, there was more social rigidity and more class deference. But everyone from weather forecasters to prime ministers somehow resisted the temptation, until relatively recently, to speak to us as if we were wayward school kids – or ‘half devil and half child’ as Rudyard Kipling had it in The White Man’s Burden. If Winston Churchill was giving one of his wartime broadcasts today, he’d have to end it: ‘And wrap up warm/Take a brolly/Stay hydrated!’ When did this ruling-class obsession with

Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

How the Taliban will deal with Afghanistan’s earthquake

More than 800 people have been killed, and thousands more injured, as of Monday evening after a magnitude-6 earthquake struck eastern Afghanistan late Sunday night. With the epicentre around 27km away from Afghanistan’s fifth-largest city, Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar, heavy tremors were felt as far as Kabul, around 130km westwards, and also eastwards in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad. The death toll is expected to rise ominously, with entire villages collapsing in Nangarhar’s bordering Kunar province where much of the rugged region is difficult to access, amid relief teams’ best efforts to reach the worst-hit sites in time. In 2022, a 6.2-magnitude earthquake in eastern Afghanistan killed at least 1,000 people,

Iain Macwhirter

Badenoch’s Tories have seen sense on North Sea Oil. Will Starmer?

Kemi Badenoch’s rediscovery of the North Sea oil and gas industry would be more convincing had it not been successive Conservative governments that promoted its decline in the first place. In a speech in Aberdeen today, she will call for “every last drop” of oil to be extracted from our waters. Contrary to popular belief, there is still a lot of the black stuff lying there: up to 15 billion barrels, or enough to fuel the UK for 30 years. Norway has been drilling in the Arctic. “Bor ja Bor” (“Drill, baby, drill”), as they say in the Storting No one really knows how much is left because, while the North

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Keir Starmer must not ban Eric Zemmour from Britain

Eric Zemmour will be in London on 13 September at the invitation of Tommy Robinson. In a message posted on X, the leader of France’s Reconquest Party said he will ‘stand alongside the hundreds of thousands of Britons demonstrating against the submergence of our countries.’ Zemmour is an advocate of the ‘Great Replacement’ theory Robinson is the organiser of what is being billed as a ‘Free Speech Festival’ in central London. It aims to bring together three movements: UTK (Unite the Kingdom), MEGA (Make Europe Great Again) and MAGA (Make America Great Again). Various left-wing groups, among them Socialist Worker and Stand Up to Racism, are encouraging their members to

Monday

Lucy Dunn

Yvette Cooper pledges to overhaul Britain’s asylum system

Addressing the Commons today, Yvette Cooper promised the government will overhaul the asylum system. This will include changing the way the appeals system works for asylum claims and the suspension of new family reunion applications. The Home Secretary’s remarks coincide with figures that show the overall number of successful applications for family reunion visas has surged by five times in the last three years. Cooper also hinted that there may be changes to how the ECHR is interpreted. She suggested that Article 8 (the right to respect for private and family life, which has been used to help block deportations) may be interpreted differently. The Home Secretary claimed that promises

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

What’s the point of Starmer’s reshuffle?

Will Keir Starmer’s mini-reshuffle of ministers and key aides solve the Prime Minister’s problems? The Prime Minister has moved Darren Jones from the Treasury to the Cabinet Office in a change widely interpreted as an attempt to sideline Rachel Reeves and boost the government’s ability to deliver on its reforms. Jones was Chief Secretary to the Treasury, but his new Chief Secretary role is designed to ‘drive forward progress in key policy areas’. It is a response to Starmer’s growing frustration that the Whitehall machine isn’t moving fast enough to deliver his reforms. Over the summer there have been more briefings against the new Cabinet Secretary Chris Wormald for being

Nick Boles

Starmer must embrace the Thatcher paradox

Most of the people I deal with outside government agree that Darren Jones, whom Keir Starmer has just appointed as his chief secretary, is one of the most effective ministers in it. And both Tim Allan and Minouche Shafik bring to their new jobs as director of communications and chief economic adviser the authority and judgment that come from long experience in communications and economic policymaking. So Keir Starmer’s reorganisation of his No. 10 team has a good chance of improving his grip on the government machine. But nobody in the Labour party should be under the illusion that the government’s woes are simply a result of dysfunction in Downing