Politics Archives

Monday

18 Mar 2024

How Justin Welby should have responded to Gove’s extremism crackdown

When the government raises big questions about our national values, one has a choice: to see it as an opportunity to say something constructive, to deepen the debate. Or one could respond like a cynical intern at the Guardian, saying, in effect: how dare they try to sound all high and mighty? Where’s some holes we can pick? The Church of England is unfortunately inclined to the latter course, with the archbishops issuing a statement raising concerns that Muslims might be targeted by a redefinition of extremism. What Michael Gove announced was hardly earth-shattering What the communities secretary Michael Gove announced was hardly earth-shattering. He gave a new but not

Gavin Mortimer

The EU is divided in its bid to stop the boats

There was good and bad news for the European Union last week: the number of migrants arriving in Europe on the Central Mediterranean route in the first two months of 2024 dropped 70 per cent compared to the same period the previous year, the latest figures revealed. The bad news was that they were up 117 per cent on the eastern Mediterranean route. The really bad news was that they were up 541 per cent on the West African route as Malians, Senegalese and Mauritanians arrived in large numbers on Spanish territory. The nationalities crossing the Eastern Mediterranean in the greatest number are Afghans, Syrians and Egyptians. The figures will

Charlotte Henry

The Nova festival documentary revives the horror of 7 October

‘Yes… But…’. It is a phrase that Jews in Britain and around the world have become accustomed to hearing since the 7 October Hamas terror attacks on Israel and the subsequent war. It is a twisted attempt to contextualise atrocities, to justify the unjustifiable. When you hear, as I have, the stories of those who survived the massacre at the Nova music festival, though, or whose family members are still being held hostage, when you see the footage from that event, you realise there is no ‘but’. In the documentary Supernova: The Music Festival Massacre, a number of survivors of that day’s horrors tell their story. They include Gali Amar

Steerpike

Watch: Tories should keep Hester donation, says Badenoch

The Tory donor racism row has entered its second week, much to the dismay of politicians on all sides of the chamber. Both the Conservatives and Labour have had to face uncomfortable questions on Frank Hester’s remarks about Diane Abbott in the last week. After the Tories were criticised for taking too long to condemn the comments as ‘racist’, transport secretary Mark Harper defended his party on Sunday, telling the BBC that the Prime Minister had wanted to check the veracity of the remarks first. And the Labour party was blasted by Abbott herself last week, writing in an op-ed about her experience of ‘abusive’ officials in her former party

Patrick O’Flynn

Penny Mordaunt isn’t the answer

During her last Tory conference speech, Penny Mordaunt told her audience: ‘If you remember nothing else from what I have said today remember this – stand up and fight.’ This serial Conservative leadership candidate got her way on that at least, for it was the only point from her address that stuck in anyone’s mind. Mainly that was because she used the phrase, or near-variants, almost 20 times, including in a disastrously over-extended closing crescendo that ran as follows: ‘Stand up and fight. Because when you stand up and fight, the person beside you stands up and fights. And when our party stands up and fights, the nation stands up

Katy Balls

Sunak tries to put a stop to the plots

Rishi Sunak goes into the week hoping it will be better than the one that came before. Last week, the Prime Minister suffered one of his worst weeks since entering 10 Downing Street with Lee Anderson defecting to Reform, a racism row over a donor, and MPs on the right discussing whether they ought to oust Sunak and crown his former leadership rival Penny Mordaunt as his successor. It means that – once again – journalists are close to using the word ‘febrile’ when it comes to the mood in the Tory party. The weekend has been largely made up of briefings and counter briefings about the Prime Minister. Penny Mordaunt’s

Lisa Haseldine

Putin crowns himself president of Russia again

As expected, following a three day ‘vote’, Vladimir Putin has once again crowned himself president of Russia. As of 9 a.m. Moscow time, according to the central electoral commission, 99.7 per cent of ballot papers had been counted with Putin claiming 87 per cent of the vote – higher than he’s managed in any other previous election. That didn’t stop Putin calling a press conference on Sunday evening – when supposedly just 40 per cent or so of the vote had been counted – to declare himself the victor. As his gloating press conference showed, Putin considers the democratic charade of the past three days to have been a success

Steerpike

SNP splits emerge over election message

Another day, another SNP spat. Humza Yousaf spent the weekend trying to drum up support amongst his core voters for his nationalist party, which is predicted to lose almost half of its Westminster seats to Labour in the general election. The main problem with the First Minister’s message, however, was that it seemed to focus on the wrong target. ‘In this election, we have the chance to finally make Scotland Tory-free, for the first time in almost a quarter of a century,’ Yousaf roared at his audience. ‘Most seats across Scotland are a straight fight between the SNP and the Tories. Let the message from our party be heard loud

Sunday

17 Mar 2024

Tatyana Kekic

Meet the Russians in Serbia who voted against Putin

Today, Russians in Serbia are heading to the polls to cast their vote and protest against what many see as a sham presidential election. A polling station in the capital Belgrade opened this morning at 8am, but many decided to turn up at ‘Noon against Putin’, a protest called by the late Russian opposition politician Alexey Navalny. Tens of thousands of Russians have settled in Serbia since the start of the war in Ukraine. Like millions of other Russian exiles around the world, they are eligible to vote in this weekend’s polls—which are almost certain to hand Vladimir Putin another six years in power. With no credible opponent and only

Elisabeth Braw

We need to talk about war

‘Don’t mention the war!’ Remember that? Today, war seems nearly all that European leaders want to talk about. The prospect of conflict with Russia is real, and a confrontation seems increasingly likely. That’s why Europe’s political leaders are beginning to discuss, in frank and sometimes alarming tones, the ways their countries should prepare to fight. Estonia’s prime minister, Poland’s head of national security and the Danish defence minister all say Russia could have the soldiers and equipment to launch an attack in three years. Emmanuel Macron last week met his German and Polish counterparts in Berlin to discuss Europe’s military support for Ukraine, after refusing to rule out – again

Freddy Gray

Will America ban TikTok?

20 min listen

Freddy Gray speaks to Matt McDonald, Spectator World’s managing editor about the campaign to ban TikTok; who from the Republican party supports the bill and what influence the Israel lobby has.

Brendan O’Neill

How was the puberty blocking scandal ever allowed to happen?

Remember when Irish singer Róisín Murphy was set upon by the mob last year? Her crime: she criticised puberty blockers and said we should stop dishing them out like candy to vulnerable kids. The blowback was furious. Armies of activists damned her as a transphobe, a bigot, a bitch. They pronounced her ‘over’, which is PC-speak for ‘unpersoned’. They threatened to boycott her gigs. Virtually every review of her new album, Hit Parade, contained a swipe about her sinful utterance. The most shameful was the Guardian’s. It’s a great record, the reviewer said, but it comes with the ‘ugly stain’ of its creator’s evil views. It was the liberty blockers

Leon Mangasarian

An ex-German diplomat’s withering verdict on Berlin’s ‘flawed’ Russia policy

Arndt Freiherr Freytag von Loringhoven couldn’t have had a worse start as Germany’s ambassador to Poland. Germany’s fraught historical legacy with the country – six million Poles killed in the Second World War and Prussia’s role in wiping Poland off the map from 1795 to 1918 – inspired Freytag von Loringhoven in his final posting to push hard to improve ties with Warsaw. But the Polish government saw things differently. His approval as ambassador – a role he finally took up in 2020 – was delayed by members of Poland’s then ruling PiS party, who campaigned against him using Nazi slurs. They targeted him because his father, Bernd, was a

Sasha Lensky

What the rise of Islam means for Putin’s Russia

The term ‘Russians’, which the world likes to use for the 144 million citizens of my country, is often a misleading one. Granted, in the 2020 census, 71 per cent of those surveyed identified themselves with this label, with only three ethnic groups coming in above one per cent: Tatars (3.2 per cent), Chechens (1.14 per cent and Bashkirs (1.07 per cent). This all suggests a near mono-ethnic state with only minor influences from other nationalities and cultures. But nothing could be further from the truth. Many non-Russians, provided they master the language well enough, simply prefer to identify themselves with the ‘title nation’. Sticking with the majority and even mimicking it

Saturday

16 Mar 2024

Jawad Iqbal

British politics has a democracy problem

Vaughan Gething, the victor in the Welsh Labour leadership contest, will now become Wales’s first black First Minister. It is both a historic moment and a huge personal achievement. Gething, born in Zambia and raised in Dorset, was also the first black person to become a cabinet minister in one of the UK’s devolved governments, and is the first black leader in any European country. His rise is part and parcel of a wider, equally remarkable, transformation across the political landscape. Once Gething takes up his post (after a formal vote in the Senedd), three of the United Kingdom’s four governments will have non-white leaders. The Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, is

Fraser Nelson

Vaughan Gething’s very British victory

Something happened today which, if it were any other country, would be seen to be remarkable: Vaughan Gething, the new First Minister of Wales, became the first black leader of any country in Europe. But having a non-white leader is not remarkable in British politics. The governments of London Scotland, Wales and the UK governments are now led by what no one calls ‘politicians of colour’. In the past few years we have seen a Buddhist Home Secretary (Suella Braverman), a black Foreign Secretary (James Cleverly) and a British Asian (Sajid Javid) rival Churchill for the number of Cabinet jobs held. They are all admired or criticised for a whole

Steerpike

SNP leader’s bizarre Anas Sarwar rant

In the midst of a new development in the never-ending motorhome saga, Humza Yousaf addressed a rather, er, sparse crowd at the SNP’s ‘national council’ event in Perth today. With a speech that was much longer than it should have been, Yousaf spent most of his time lashing out at the Conservatives. Quelle surprise. ‘We have the opportunity to ensure that Scotland is Tory free,’ the First Minister told his devotees this afternoon. ‘Not a single Tory MP left in Scotland. That is definitely a prize worth fighting for.’ Possibly because he knows that trying to retain all his party’s Westminster seats would be to fight a losing battle… But

Ross Clark

Vaughan Gething’s Covid failures

A man who has the honour of being his country’s first leader from an ethnic background but who comes to office with the baggage of a questionable performance running the health service during the pandemic. It could be Humza Yousaf, but equally it could now be Vaughan Gething, who was elected as Labour leader in Wales this morning and will become First Minister when Mark Drakeford steps down this week. It is fair to say that his elevation will not be welcomed by everyone, not least by the relatives of those who died in Welsh care homes after patients were discharged there in March 2020 without being tested for Covid.

Steerpike

We want our campervan back, demand Nats

The SNP finance saga continues to drag on – but today it’s taken a rather strange turn. Last year, a £110,000 motorhome was seized by police from outside Nicola Sturgeon’s mother-in-law’s house as part of Operation Branchform into the party’s finances. On the same day, Sturgeon’s husband Peter Murrell was arrested, while Sturgeon and the SNP’s treasurer were taken in for questioning at later dates. All three were released, though the campervan purchase is currently being investigated alongside other transactions, including gardening equipment and, er, women’s razors. The unused vehicle, said to have been purchased for campaigning, caused a stir last year when SNP treasurer Colin Beattie admitted that he

Katy Balls

Will Penny Mordaunt be the next prime minister?

Could Penny Mordaunt lead the Tories into the election? This is the talk this weekend after several papers splashed on a push by Conservative MPs on the right of the party to oust Sunak and replace him with his former leadership rival. The Daily Mail reports that these MPs met with supporters of Mordaunt this week to discuss the possibility of coalescing around her should Sunak face a confidence vote in the coming months. The argument goes that Mordaunt is the only person that would improve the party’s chances after polling suggested she was the only candidate who would fare better than Sunak (by seven points according to one poll).