Politics

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

Thursday

9 May 2024

Steerpike

Nadhim Zahawi standing down as Tory MP

Will the last Tory MP to leave please turn out the lights? Nadhim Zahawi today becomes the 67th Conservative to announce they are standing down at the next election. The former Chancellor – who has held nine different ministerial posts – announced the decision on Twitter/X this morning. ‘My mistakes have been mine,’ he wrote in a lengthy statement, declaring that: The time is right for a new, energetic Conservative to fight for the honour of representing Stratford-on-Avon and assuming the mantle of MP for Shakespeare. Parting is such sweet sorrow. I would like to thank all of my parliamentary staff and colleagues, civil service officials, special advisers, and everyone else who

Andrew Lilico

Why the Bank of England must cut interest rates

As the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) announces its interest rate decision today it has the chance to reverse the damage caused by its interest rate hikes. Rates have been fixed at 5.25 per cent since last August and the Bank has stubbornly refused to cut them. We’re all paying the price. Those final rate rises were clearly an error The truth is that inflation is lower and has fallen much faster than the Bank used as its justification for raising rates. In August, the Bank’s model indicated that, even with interest rates raised to 5.25 per cent, inflation would be 5 per cent last year. It was

Yascha Mounk

How universities raised a generation of activists

It was only a matter of time before America’s student protests spread to the UK. In Oxford, tents have been pitched on grass that, in ordinary times, no student is allowed to walk on. The ground outside King’s College in Cambridge looks like Glastonbury, complete with an ‘emergency toilet’ tent. Similar camps can be found at UCL, Manchester University and more. There have been no clashes with police, but that may yet come. In Leeds, for example, pro-Palestinian students tried to storm a university building, leading to bloody clashes with security guards. From the Sorbonne to Sydney University, the movement has gone global. Its ostensible cause is hardly ignoble. It’s

Katy Balls

Inside No. 10’s battle of the pollsters

There was plenty for Rishi Sunak and his cabinet to discuss on Tuesday morning. The Conservatives had lost half of the seats they defended in the local elections and Andy Street narrowly lost the West Midlands mayoralty to Labour. ‘We’re doomed,’ was one cabinet member’s verdict. Ben Houchen’s victory in Teesside was just enough to stop any serious move against the Prime Minister: he is safe until the general election. Isaac Levido, the Australian political strategist who ran the Tories’ successful 2019 campaign, did his best to fight off a sense of defeatism. He briefed the cabinet that this year’s election race is much closer than commentators and opinion polls

The Spectator

Tories for Starmer

Nick Boles was once at the heart of a mission to renew Conservatism. He was one of a small number of modernisers, central to the Cameron project, who ended up serving as Tory ministers. He quit over Brexit and this week made his public debut in a new job as an adviser to Rachel Reeves. He was chosen to introduce the shadow chancellor’s speech about how Keir Starmer’s government plans to revive the economy. The lack of any serious clash of ideals between the main parties has allowed a lazy consensus to thrive This is part of a new movement in British politics: Tories for Starmer. It’s something we will

Wednesday

8 May 2024

Oscar Edmondson

Why does Labour want Natalie Elphicke?

12 min listen

The MP for Dover, Natalie Elphicke, has shocked MPs and pundits across the political spectrum by defecting to the Labour party today. In her resignation letter, she accused the Conservative party for having ‘abandoned’ the ‘centre ground’. But for someone who has vocally criticised Labour in the past, how helpful is Elphicke’s defection? Oscar Edmondson talks to Katy Balls and Isabel Hardman. Produced by Oscar Edmondson and Cindy Yu.

Annabel Denham

Elphicke is wrong: the Tories haven’t abandoned the centre ground

It takes some brass neck to cross the floor, but to do it in the manner of Natalie Elphicke also requires considerable levels of delusion. A year ago, the Dover MP warned Labour were not to be ‘trusted’ on immigration because they ‘really want open borders’. Yet a deciding factor behind her defection, she writes in her parting statement today, was the ‘safety and security’ of those borders – a matter on which Keir Starmer’s party has yet to convince anyone. Elphicke objects to the ousting of Boris Johnson, yet her new colleagues wanted him out on day one Elphicke also lambasts the Tories’ housing policy, although even Angela Rayner

Stephen Daisley

Swinney-Forbes should get the basics right

John Swinney, Scotland’s new first minister, has appointed his inaugural cabinet – and it’s almost unaltered from the team headed by Humza Yousaf. The only real change is the appointment of former leadership hopeful Kate Forbes as deputy first minister. She was promised a ‘significant’ role and in addition to the office of DFM she will hold the economy portfolio. Forbes’s return will be welcome news to those keen on healing internal rifts but will displease SNP progressives, who revile Forbes for her orthodox Christian views on same-sex marriage and gender identity ideology. She has called her new appointment ‘a moment of extraordinary privilege’ while Swinney has described her as ‘an immensely talented politician’. It doesn’t make up

Tatyana Kekic

Why Belgrade is cosying up to Beijing

Thousands of Serbs gathered outside the Palace of Serbia today to welcome the Chinese president Xi Jinping, chanting ‘China, Serbia’. Addressing the audience, Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vučić thanked Xi for choosing to visit Serbia: ‘We are writing history today…[Xi] hasn’t come to Europe in five years and he has again chosen our little Serbia.’ The visit has been choreographed to coincide with the 25th anniversary of Nato’s bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999. The strike killed three Chinese journalists and sparked mass protests across China. It is an incident China will never forget and has been a constant thorn in Sino-American relations. In a statement published yesterday in

Lloyd Evans

Keir Starmer is ashamed of his party

Questions from backbenchers dominated PMQs. Sir Edward Leigh is keen to end unfettered immigration and he announced a way to stop the boats that might actually stop the boats. ‘Detain all those who land illegally on our shores and offshore them immediately,’ he said. His specific goal was to prevent children from being shoved onto leaky inflatables crewed by emaciated refugees who paddle across channel at the dead of night. ‘End this callous trade,’ he said, citing the risks to innocent kids. No one could quibble with that. The PM agreed. Sir Keir Starmer has quietly rebranded the Labour movement as ‘the changed Labour party’ ‘He’s right,’ said Rishi. He

Iain Mansfield

Pro-Palestine campus protests have gone too far

The Prime Minister has summoned the vice chancellors of several universities to Downing Street to read them the riot act over pro-Palestine protests taking place on their campuses. But this meeting will need to have more impact than Rishi Sunak’s ineffectual gathering of police chiefs in February over public order – which has led to far too little improvement in the situation. Tomorrow’s meeting could not be more timely, with the campus protests in the UK now at a turning point. Last week, in a new low, the senior leadership of Goldsmiths, University of London surrendered to the lion’s share of demands by their pro-Palestine student protestors. Even the university’s

Euan McColm

The vindication of Kate Forbes

So much for Scotland being the home of ‘radical’ progressive politics. After almost two decades of the Scottish National party saying that Scots are fundamentally different to their neighbours – wiser, more compassionate, just generally better – the party now reckons Scottish voters might just share the same priorities as those south of the border. First, SNP members selected 60-year-old former deputy first minister John Swinney – a self-declared centrist – as leader to replace the hapless Humza Yousaf. Members clearly wanted to bring some calm to a party riven with splits over independence strategy and policy priorities. Then, shortly after Mr Swinney was sworn in as Scotland’s seventh first minister

Patrick O’Flynn

There’s nothing noble about Natalie Elphicke’s defection

With the best will in the world, it is hard to see the defection of Natalie Elphicke MP to the Labour party as a noble deed. You could paper the walls with disobliging observations that Ms Elphicke has made about Sir Keir Starmer’s party, especially when it comes to her supposed driving mission to restore control and rigour to UK borders. The Tory benches these days are far too full of careerist hacks prepared to put their grandmothers up for sale if the price is right Comments such as this from 2022: ‘If Labour’s only policy is to rely on the French, then they are not serious about stopping small

Steerpike

Five times Natalie Elphicke criticised Starmer’s Labour

Another one bites the dust. The second Tory to defect to Labour in as many weeks is none other than Natalie Elphicke, MP for Dover. In a shock announcement just before Prime Minister’s Questions today, Labour declared that one of the Conservatives’ most hawkish MPs on immigration had defected to the Starmer army. Elphicke released a statement at noon, claiming that ‘under Rishi Sunak, the Conservatives have become a byword for incompetence and division’ and that ‘the centre ground has been abandoned and key pledges of the 2019 manifesto have been ditched’. Not really what Sunak wanted after last weekend’s dire local election results. ‘The modern Labour Party looks to

David Shipley

Releasing prisoners early is a mistake

Some prisoners will be freed up to 70 days early to ease overcrowding in jails. This isn’t the first time the government has resorted to letting prisoners go before the end of their sentence: Alex Chalk, the Justice Secretary, announced in March that prisoners would be released up to 60 days early. This followed a 35-day early release policy announced in October. How long will ministers pretend that extending early release every couple of months is a serious solution to the dire state of Britain’s prisons? ‘Lower level offenders’ are the most likely to reoffend Letting prisoners go early makes a mockery of the idea that sentencing should be transparent.

James Heale

Sunak’s ex-ministers demand Home Office overhaul

Eight months ago, Robert Jenrick and Neil O’Brien were serving ministers under Rishi Sunak. But both are now out of government and keen to show where their former colleagues are going wrong. The two backbenchers today published a big paper on migration with the Centre for Policy Studies. It calls for the Home Office to be broken up to create a new ‘Department of Border Security and Immigration Control’. The aim is to get the number of legal arrivals to Britain down to the ‘tens of thousands’ – a target which has eluded every Tory leader since David Cameron. Speaking at the report’s launch in Westminster, both Jenrick and O’Brien

Isabel Hardman

Elphicke defection baffles Tories at PMQs

If Natalie Elphicke’s defection had much of an effect on the mood of Tory MPs at today’s Prime Minister’s Questions, it was largely to leave them looking a bit baffled. Their former colleague was not a clear candidate to cross the floor to Labour. Labour MPs looked a bit confused too, in fairness, having previously seen Elphicke as a bit of an oddball of a very different political persuasion to theirs. She has said she will stand down at the next election, so her new party won’t have to spend much time pretending to be nice to her (defectors are often rather lonely figures at the best of times). Keir

James Heale

Tory MP Natalie Elphicke defects to Labour

Shortly before Prime Minister’s Questions today, Labour dropped a bombshell. Natalie Elphicke, one of the most hawkish Tory MPs on migration, has defected to Sir Keir Starmer’s party. Elphicke, who has sat for Dover and Deal since 2019, said in a statement that she was switching parties because of how much the political landscape had shifted over the past five years. Under the Conservatives, she said, ‘the centre ground has been abandoned and key pledges of the 2019 manifesto have been ditched’. Labour, by contrast, ‘has moved on from Jeremy Corbyn and now, under Keir Starmer, occupies the centre ground of British politics.’ Elphicke attacked the ‘broken promises of Sunak’s

Steerpike

Second Green councillor investigated for ‘inflammatory’ comments

The Green party has no problem getting attention these days – but it’s for all the wrong reasons. A second Green councillor is now being investigated by the party for using ‘inflammatory rhetoric’ about the Israel-Gaza conflict in the Middle East. When will they learn? Alexi Dimond was re-elected in last week’s local elections to his council seat in Sheffield. Though newly under investigation, the eco-activist has made no secret of his views over the last few months. Posting regularly on X about the conflict in the Middle East, Dimond has regularly placed blame at the feet of Western leaders for their role in the war — and has even

Ian Williams

Why is the UK not blaming China for the MoD hack?

The personal details of members of the UK’s armed forces appear to have been the latest target of China’s prolific cyber spies, with the Ministry of Defence’s payroll system containing the names, bank details and some addresses of up to 272,000 people on its books targeted by hackers. The government though is directing its fury at the hapless MoD contractor whose systems were breached, rather than the suspected perpetrators in Beijing. Defence secretary Grant Shapps said the attack was carried out in recent days and was ‘the suspected work of a malign actor’. He would not name the actor, though in multiple background briefings China was identified as prime suspect