Politics

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

Friday

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Police investigate Tory donor’s Diane Abbott comments

The Tory racism row looks set to run on for some time. West Yorkshire Police today launched an investigation into alleged racist comments made by top Tory donor, Frank Hester. Officers are to investigate reports that Hester, a Leeds businessman who has given £10 million to the Tories, said former Labour MP Diane Abbott made him want to ‘hate all black women’. Sunak has been accused of handling the situation badly The alleged comments date back to a meeting at Hester’s headquarters in 2019. Hester has since apologised for making ‘rude’ comments but insisted they were not racist as they ‘had nothing to do with her gender nor colour of

Patrick O’Flynn Patrick O'Flynn

Keir Starmer is right to ignore Doreen Lawrence

Is Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer right to have limited the access to and sway held over him by Baroness Lawrence, the mother of murdered black teenager Stephen Lawrence? Lady Lawrence, a Labour peer who was made the party’s race relations adviser by Starmer after he became leader early in 2020, is in no doubt that this is what has happened in recent weeks. According to the Times, she told a meeting with shadow ministers and senior party officials, ‘I wish Keir listened to me’ and blamed ‘gatekeepers’ around the Labour leader for obstructing her work. Baroness Lawrence seems only to have one approach when it comes to race relations

David Cohen

Why is New Zealand’s deputy PM rowing with Chumbawamba?

In their musical heyday, the English anarchist punk band Chumbawamba enjoyed a reputation for having an irreverent attitude towards those in political authority. Twelve years after they musically packed it in, a political figure abroad is making even more of a name for himself for his own irreverence towards Chumbawamba. The group has asked New Zealand’s deputy prime minister, Winston Peters, to stop using their best-known song, ‘Tubthumping’, as a curtain-raiser at his rallies and in his fulminations against the woke peril. The populist politician, though, is vowing that the show will go on. It doesn’t help that the 78-year-old Peters is not only his country’s longest-serving parliamentarian but one

Eliot Wilson

Nike should leave the St George’s Cross alone

England’s football kit has changed dramatically over the years but one feature typically remains unchanged: the cross of St George. Nike, which is designing the England kit for this summer’s Euro 2024 tournament in Germany, has redesigned the red and white flag in navy, light blue and purple. Why did it think doing so was a good idea? The backlash has been predictably swift: Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said the St George’s flag was a unifying symbol which should not be changed: ‘We just need to be proud of it. So I think they should just reconsider this and change it back.’ Rishi Sunak said the flag should not

Steerpike Steerpike

Fake Labour minister polls better than real frontbenchers

While the polls continue to predict a Labour victory at the next election, it’s not all rosy for Sir Keir Starmer. It transpires that his Labour party is still struggling to make a dent in the public consciousness. When quizzed on the big personalities at the top of the Labour Party, the good people of Great Britain weren’t particularly bowled over. In fact, polling for Times Radio found that one of Starmer’s more popular MPs was, er, entirely made-up. The general public appears to be rather in the dark about who makes up Keir Starmer’s top team. Almost half of all respondents felt that they knew the fabricated frontbencher Fiona

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Will Fine Gael call an election?

14 min listen

Leo Varadkar resigned as Ireland’s Taoiseach this week, and as Fine Gael leader. ‘Personal and political reasons’ informed his decision, he said. Will his party now call an election? Katy Balls speaks to Ben Scallen, from Gript Media, in Dublin. 

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Douglas Murray schools Al Jazeera journalist on Israel-Gaza conflict

When you’re interviewing an expert, it never hurts to come prepared. But when Al Jazeera journalist Jane Dutton quizzed Douglas Murray on the conflict in the Middle East, the unsuspecting interviewer quickly became the interviewee in a rather humiliating twist… ‘You’ve got to inform your viewers of the facts, and you just misled them,’ Murray told Dutton during a heated debate about the Israel-Gaza conflict. First discussing the definition of genocide, the Al Jazeera reporter quickly moved on to state that there was an illegal occupation of Gaza by Israel, adding that ‘Israel is internationally recognised as an occupying state’. ‘No, no, it’s not at all. That’s your view,’ Murray

Iain Macwhirter

Why is the police’s SNP probe taking so long?

Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf has plenty to worry about right now with the imminent implementation of his much-criticised Hate Crime crackdown. But there is mounting anxiety within the SNP about something else: the progress, or lack of it, of the police probe into the party’s finances. Activists always put two and two together and come up with Unionist Perfidy It is nearly a year now since Nicola Sturgeon’s home was raided by police, as part of Operation Branchform, their investigation into what happened to £660,000 of donations for a referendum campaign that never took place. The nation was agog last April as stony-faced officers descended on the former first minister’s home

Ian Acheson Ian Acheson

Only radical reform will save our overcrowded prisons

What should we do when there’s no cell space left in our disordered jails? The prison population figures published yesterday show a small drop compared to last week, with nearly 87,900 currently incarcerated. There’s precious little room for manoeuvre. We are perilously close to a time I can remember back in the mid-90s when governors refused to take convicted prisoners from court because there was no cell space left in their establishments. While numbers at the top fluctuate week by week, the trend only ever goes up, driven by courts getting rid of their backlogs and our tendency to sentence more offenders to longer spells in custody that only make

Thursday

Max Jeffery Max Jeffery

Will Reform overtake the Tories?

12 min listen

A new YouGov poll has Reform just four points behind the Conservatives. Richard Tice’s party is on 15 per cent, and Rishi Sunak’s party is on 19 per cent. What is driving the Tory decline? Max Jeffery speaks to Katy Balls and to James Johnson of JL Partners.

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Justin Welby takes a pop at CofE ‘whiteness officer’ job

Just when you think the woke wars can’t get more ridiculous, they do. It transpires that the Diocese of Birmingham is advertising for the role of ‘Anti-Racism Practice Officer (Deconstructing Whiteness)’ to work in a ‘racial justice’ team across churches in the West Midlands for £36,000 a year — and Justin Welby is not happy about it. The Archbishop of Canterbury has taken a pop at the job advert, telling Times Radio today that he rang up the diocese and asked them: ‘What on earth does that mean?’ If they’ve got any answers, Mr S would like to know too… The 11-person team has received funding to ‘fan into flame

William Moore William Moore

War on words: is Scotland ready for its new hate crime law?

51 min listen

On the podcast: Scotland’s new hate crime law; the man who could be France’s next PM; and why do directors meddle with Shakespeare?  First up: Scotland is smothering free speech. Scotland is getting a new, modern blasphemy code in the form of the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act, which takes effect from 1 April. The offence of ‘stirring up racial hatred’ will be extended to disability, religion, sexual orientation, age, transgender identity and variations in sex characteristics. The new law gives few assurances for protecting freedom of speech writes Lucy Hunter Blackburn, former senior Scottish civil servant. Lucy joins the podcast, alongside Baroness Claire Fox, unaffiliated peer and

Steerpike Steerpike

Sturgeon will campaign for SNP, says Yousaf

Since she stepped down from her role as First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon has played witness to her party’s extraordinary slump in the polls, months of SNP infighting and her own arrest as part of the ongoing police probe. But, Humza Yousaf insists, his predecessor will still campaign for the SNP in the upcoming general election. Talk about being out of touch… When asked in a ITV interview whether Sturgeon would be involved in the election campaign, Yousaf replied: ‘Oh, she definitely will — I’ve got no doubt about that.’ He went on: She’s one of the most successful politicians in Europe, she’s got a formidable track record in terms of

Matthew Lynn

The Swiss are cutting interest rates. Why can’t we?

Mortgage rates will finally start to come down again. Consumers will have a little more money in their pockets. And companies will find it cheaper to invest. Today’s cut in interest rates was a much needed boost for the economy. Oh, but hold on. That was over in Switzerland, where the central bank this morning cut rates by 0.25 per cent. By contrast, the Bank of England has today kept them on hold. This raises the question of whether the Swiss or British central banks have a better record of managing monetary policy. If most people in the markets had to put money on it they would probably place a franc

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

The Bank of England is edging closer to an interest rate cut

The Bank of England has voted to keep rates at 5.25 per cent – but there are signs that a rate cut may not be far off. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) voted 8-1 to hold the base rate. Yet there was a dovish shift in direction compared to the last meeting. In February, the MPC voted 6-3 to maintain rates, with two members voting to raise rates by 0.25 percentage points. Today, no one voted to raise rates – the first time this has happened since 2021. Instead, eight members voted to hold the base rate, while one member voted to reduce rates by 0.25 percentage points. It was widely expected that the

Andrew McQuillan

Varadkar’s true achievement was screwing over the Brits

The departure of Leo Varadkar as Taoiseach yesterday should really be marked by Irish nationalists with elaborate memorials and tributes in Dublin, on a par with those for the founders of the Irish state. This smooth-talking politician achieved more in one dinner than so-called freedom fighters did over 20 years  Despite the ignominious manner of his departure, having been conclusively told where to go by a chunk of the Irish population in a recent referendum designed to change fundamental elements of the constitution, Varadkar achieved something which most Irish leaders desire deep down: he managed to stiff the Brits. His star turn at a dinner in Brussels in 2018, when

Dean Godson

The rise and fall of Leo Varadkar

Leo Varadkar, who resigned yesterday, has certainly earned his place in the history of Anglo-Irish relations as one of the most consequential taoiseachs of all time. His role in Anglo-Irish relations was defined by Brexit, and Ireland’s remarkable role in shaping its outcome. The marked contrast with John Bruton – a previous Fine Gael taoiseach of the 1990s, who died last month – could not be greater. Bruton was also a militant Europhile, but he rarely sought to fan the flames of Anglophobia in the Irish Republic. Varadkar, by contrast, sought to ride that tiger relentlessly.  The UK caved to the EU/Irish demands. Dublin could hardly believe it Varadkar became taoiseach just as the

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Gove’s ‘war on landlords’ is not going to plan

Levelling up the housing market, it is fair to say, is not quite going according to plan. Rents in the year to February, the Office for National Statistics (ONS), reveals today increased by 9 per cent – the largest rise since the ONS started its rental price index. In some cases, tenants have been complaining of far steeper increases as landlords seek to recover rising mortgage costs. They have been able to get away with jacking up rents because the withdrawal of many landlords from the market has led to a fall in properties available to rent. Over the past year, according to the National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA), 21

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Donald Trump’s bid to woo Latino voters

President Joe Biden has been touring Nevada and Arizona in an attempt to win back disgruntled Hispanic voters. ‘This guy despises Latinos,’ he said, speaking of his adversary Donald Trump, the inevitable Republican nominee. Trump’s response? He posted the following on his Truth Social page: Laugh or scorn all you want. The polls show Trump now has majority support Hispanic voters.

Patrick O’Flynn Patrick O'Flynn

Why Labour secretly fears the Rwanda scheme

When Boris Johnson and Priti Patel first launched the Rwanda scheme, in the Spring of 2022, there seemed every chance that it could win the Tories the next election. Despite the ‘Partygate’ furore taking chunks out of the Conservative poll rating and ushering in a febrile atmosphere, Labour was struggling to create a large and durable poll lead. Exactly two years ago, the Politico website’s poll of polls had the Labour lead at just four points and Keir Starmer’s party was highly vulnerable to a Tory fightback based around the touchstone issue of tackling illegal immigration. These days the poll gap is so vast that not even the most Tiggerish