Politics

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

Tuesday

21 May 2024

Steerpike

Europe’s leaders hail Rwanda scheme

Well, well, well. Rishi Sunak’s immigration plans have been met with a fairly underwhelming response in Britain – only a quarter of people believe the Rwanda scheme will work, while the PM has faced some rather public dissent from within his own ranks over his record on small boats. But the Rwanda policy does in fact have some political admirers – in the form of leaders from across the Continent. Finally a piece of good news for the PM… Austria’s Chancellor Karl Nehammer is the latest European politician to heap praise on Rishi’s Rwanda plan. At a press conference in Vienna this morning, Nehammer hailed Britain as a ‘pioneer’ on

Connor Allen

How did the EU get Raisi’s death so wrong?

Most of the world will not mourn the president of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash near Varzaqan in Iran, this week. Dubbed the ‘Butcher of Tehran’, Raisi was responsible for the deaths of thousands in a purge of political dissent in the 1980s. Since becoming president he has overseen the brutal crackdown on Iranians protesting against the regime’s punitive morality police. And he has led a country which is a key supplier of drones and weapons to Vladimir Putin, causing countless civilian deaths. Why was it obvious to democratic countries that commemorating Raisi would be morally contemptuous, but not to the bureaucrats in Brussels? Accordingly, most

Ross Clark

A crackdown on foreign students isn’t the only reason universities will struggle

Reducing the number of overseas students able to come to Britain would be a needless attack on one of our most successful export industries. But should we really believe David Cameron’s warnings to Rishi Sunak that universities are in danger of going bust if the graduate visa scheme is removed, or reformed (graduate visas give graduates the chance to stay on and work in Britain for up to two years)? The government would be foolish to choke off foreign students Data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) does not appear to show any desperate crisis in university finances. On the contrary, their income has shown a steady and healthy,

Steerpike

Will Ken Clarke lose his peerage?

In the aftermath of the tainted blood scandal, there is no shortage of blame to go around – but some are more culpable than others. As a junior health minister from 1982 to 1985, Ken Clarke was at the heart of Whitehall as reports of the risks from blood transfusion began to be published. According to Sir Brian Langstaff’s inquiry, by 1982 there was evidence that infections were occurring through imported blood products. The Department of Health even admitted it was ‘likely’ that HIV/Aids was transmitted through blood products. Yet still in 1983 Lord Clarke continued to say that there was ‘no conclusive proof’ of infection via this route. Sir Brian

Kristian Niemietz

The trouble with Labour’s new towns plan

Since last October, when Keir Starmer declared that he was a ‘Yimby’ – a ‘yes in my back yard’ – Labour has tried to position itself as the pro-housing party. We are now finally getting a glimpse of what this might look like in practice. Deputy leader Angela Rayner has promised a revitalisation of the postwar ‘New Towns’ programme, which, in the quarter-century from 1946 to 1970, delivered hundreds of thousands of new homes. New Towns are not a panacea This certainly signals the right ambitions, and if done in the right way, New Towns could indeed make a major contribution to solving Britain’s housing crisis. But they are not

Jay Mens

Ebrahim Raisi’s death won’t change the course of history

The Middle East never fails to surprise. Sunday was no exception. Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi, foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, and several other senior Iranian politicians were killed in a helicopter crash in East Azerbaijan. One cannot help but wonder at the extraordinary misfortune not only of crashing, but of doing so in a foggy, rainy, muddy area that took rescue workers 15 hours to reach. Despite the profile of the accident’s victims, however, this is probably not an accident that changes the course of history. The Iranian presidency has become increasingly irrelevant in an increasingly-Soviet system. That trend is set to continue. The president is something of an afterthought To

Gareth Roberts

The sad truth about ‘saint’ Nicola Sturgeon

The Independent Press Standards Organisation found that Gareth Roberts’s article breached Clause 12 (i) of the Editors’ Code of Practice. A link to the adjudication is here. The Spectator’s response to the ruling can be found here. Nicola Sturgeon has finally come clean: ‘I was part of the problem,’ Scotland’s former first minister has admitted, referring to the ‘trans rows’ that dogged the late stages of her time as First Minister. What’s this? Is this, at last, a frank admission of fallibility and regret from Sturgeon? A reflection on her own flaws? No, of course it isn’t. The sainted Sturgeon stepped down, by her own account, because politics in Scotland is

Seth Alexander Thévoz

Why MPs love to hate the register of interests

The register of members’ interests for the House of Commons turns 50 today. Few MPs will be celebrating. Politicians have long shuddered over a document that provides fertile ground for journalists from which to dig out stories. The register – and the declarations within it – have cost more than a few MPs their careers. Plenty of other MPs and even PMs have come a cropper as a result of what is, and isn’t, in the register: Rishi Sunak is just one of the more high-profile figures to end up in hot water after being accused of failing to fill the register out fully. While politicians dislike the register, its

Monday

20 May 2024

Isabel Hardman

Sunak apologises during ‘day of shame’

Rishi Sunak’s Commons apology for the contaminated blood scandal was reasonably comprehensive. The statement opened with him saying he wanted to speak directly to the victims and their families, and ‘make a wholehearted and unequivocal apology for this terrible injustice’. The Prime Minister listed what the government was apologising for: the failure in blood policy and blood products, the repeated failure of the state and medical professionals to recognise the harm caused; for the institutional response to the failings, including denying and attempting to cover them up. He said: ‘This is an apology from the state to every single person impacted by this scandal. It did not have to be

Stephen Daisley

Roz Adams’s tribunal win is a victory for liberty

As the edifice of gender identity ideology continues to crumble, along comes another example of an institution not only captured but utterly distorted by this regressive and harmful theory. Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre (ERCC) has lost an employment tribunal case brought by a former staff member whose work life was made a living hell because she thought rape victims should be told whether the support worker assigned to them was male or female. Roz Adams was employed as a counselling support worker between 2021 and 2023, when she resigned after having been put through a gruelling disciplinary process over her belief in biological sex. In a scathing judgment issued today,

Steerpike

Sturgeon takes aim at young people in politics

Back to Scotland, where Nicola Sturgeon is once again stealing the spotlight. This time the former first minister decided the Charleston literary festival held in Sussex this weekend would be the perfect place from which to ruffle feathers in her own party. The SNP’s Dear Leader bemoaned the number of young people entering politics ‘for all the wrong reasons’, telling her audience that: ‘I think politics, including in my own party now, is probably too full of young people who have just come through the political ranks’. Ouch. It’s a kick in the teeth to senior SNP figures like net zero secretary Màiri McAllan who spent time as, er, Sturgeon’s

James Heale

Infected blood scandal was ‘no accident’, says report

17 min listen

Nick Cohen

The infected blood scandal should make us think twice about revering the NHS

Blood is central to the myths British people tell themselves. One of the many consequences of the contaminated blood scandal is that it may blow those myths apart. For if this scandal can make us face the reality of how badly we are governed, and indeed how selfishly we govern ourselves, then some good may come from so much needless suffering. The scandal began in the 1970s. At the start of that decade, Richard Titmuss, the great social democratic theorist, placed blood at the centre of the justification for the British welfare state with an argument that complacent we Brits could not help but feel reflected rather well on us.

Jim Lawley

Javier Milei won’t stop insulting Pedro Sanchez’s wife

The Spanish ambassador in Buenos Aires was recalled to Madrid yesterday after Argentina’s president Javier Milei described the wife of Spain’s prime minister as ‘corrupt’. Today Spain’s foreign ministry summoned Argentina’s ambassador in Madrid to demand an apology. Albares declared that unless Milei apologised, Spain’s government would ‘take any measures deemed necessary to defend our sovereignty’ Milei, who was speaking at a rally in Madrid, also mocked Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sánchez for taking a five-day break last month in order to decide if he wanted to continue as prime minister. Even so, it seems something of an exaggeration for Spain’s foreign minister, José Manuel Albares, to describe Milei’s words

Limor Simhony Philpott

The ICC’s desire to arrest Netanyahu is far from impartial

In a dramatic announcement, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Karim Khan, declared today that he has applied for arrest warrants to be issued for Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant. He has applied for three more for the Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniya. On Hamas, Khan emphasised crimes against humanity, including murder, torture, taking hostages, rape and other sexual violence committed as part of a ‘widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population of Israel by Hamas and other armed groups’ as reasons for issuing the warrants. The chief prosecutor didn’t include alleged crimes perpetrated by Hamas again

Isabel Hardman

Will the NHS change after the infected blood scandal?

The victims of the infected blood scandal have had to wait a very long time for there to be a public inquiry into what happened to them and the loved ones they lost, let alone for the report itself. The reason they wanted a public inquiry was that it would have the powers that other independent inquiries would not. They have also hoped it will lead to proper compensation, to conclusions that will stop another scandal with similar roots, and to a line being drawn under an injustice that has been ignored by the establishment, including the NHS, for too long. It is not yet clear if any of those

Katy Balls

Infected blood scandal was ‘no accident’, says report

The Infected Blood Inquiry has finally concluded after a five-year investigation. This lunchtime, the inquiry’s chair Sir Brian Langstaff said thousands of deaths could have been prevented and the ‘worst ever’ NHS scandal, which saw thousands of Britons between 1970 and 1998 become infected by contaminated blood, could ‘largely, though not entirely, have been avoided’. The 2,527-page report finds that the ‘life shattering’ scandal was made worse by a ‘subtle, pervasive and chilling’ cover-up extending to both the government and NHS: ‘The response of those in authority served to compound people’s suffering.’ Langstaff – a former High Court judge – found that the ‘scale of what happened is horrifying’ with

Steerpike

Bank of England’s £80k social media advertising spend

Once upon a time, the Bank of England was headed by a series of anonymous figures, whose identities remained largely unknown to the public. Yet now, in the age of the Monetary Policy Committee, the Governor and his team have become familiar figures in the financial world – thanks partly to Liz Truss’s regular swipes at Andrew Bailey et al. So it is perhaps no surprise then that the BoE has stepped up its spending on social media – with even Bailey making a guest appearance on the Bank’s TikTok account. So keen is the Bank to promote its work online that it has just shelled out £2,417 on equipment

Andrew Tettenborn

Press freedom means protecting Julian Assange

James Cleverly won’t be able to move the Julian Assange file out of his inbox quite yet after all. The High Court has allowed Assange to appeal once more against extradition to the US on the basis that no sufficient assurances have been received over his ability to rely on the First Amendment if tried there. We don’t know what the result will be (today’s hearing merely gave permission to appeal, with no guarantee as to its outcome). Nevertheless, we should still think twice before we hope that the appeal will ultimately be dismissed, thus allowing the final removal of someone who has been a thorn in the UK authorities’

Sean Rayment

Raisi’s successor is unlikely to end Iran’s western shadow war

Even before Tehran had formally announced the death of President Ebrahim Raisi, conspiracy theories as to whether foul play was to blame began coming in rapidly. Was Israel’s Mossad, the go-to organisation Iran likes to blame for almost any catastrophe that befalls the Islamic Republic, behind the helicopter crash? Was it the CIA, the same organisation which swept the Shah to power in a coup d’état in 1953? Or was it one of many internal enemies Raisi had managed to accumulate after his years in power? Raisi, after all, had no shortage of enemies both within and outside the regime. He was responsible for the mass executions of an estimated