Politics

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

Tuesday

Steerpike Steerpike

Top five lowlights from Sturgeon’s memoir

They say good things come to those who wait, but Steerpike will let readers be the judge of that when it comes to Nicola Sturgeon’s memoir Frankly. The 450-page account by Scotland’s former first minister was supposed to be hitting bookshelves on Thursday, but some shops decided to release it ahead of time and Mr S has got his hands on an early copy, reading it so you don’t have to. Here are the top lowlights from Sturgeon’s new tome… Trans U-turn One of the controversies that, some suggest, prompted her resignation in 2023 was the gender reform bill – and the scandal of double rapist Isla Bryson being housed

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Keir Starmer should smash the gig economy

No Frenchman has been as critical as the recent ‘one in, one out’ migrant deal than Xavier Bertrand. A grandee of the centre-right Republican party (and also the president of the Upper France region), Bertrand has denounced the treaty as ‘bad’ for France. He added that the small boats crisis is ‘the fault of the English’ because the migrants ‘know they’ll end up getting work there’. The only way to end the Channel migrant crisis, says Bertrand, is for the British government to ‘put an end [to] illegal labour immigration’. Bertrand has been banging this drum for a decade. In the summer of 2015, he wrote to David Cameron, then

Chris Bayliss

Why are schoolchildren making Valentine’s Day cards for refugees?

In Birmingham, schoolchildren as young as five have been reportedly asked to write Valentine’s Day cards to asylum seekers. One group of children were said to have created heart-shaped messages with slogans like ‘You are welcome here!. Let us count the ways that school children sending Valentine’s Day cards to asylum seekers might be misinterpreted or otherwise lead to unintended consequences. Let alone whether it might cause alarm to parents, and generally reinforce the idea that the people in charge in this country are either profoundly naive or politically malevolent. Firstly – how might a Valentine’s Day card be interpreted by the intended recipients?  In most of the world, the

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Rachel Reeves’s assault on the British economy continues

There really is no hiding place for Rachel Reeves in this morning’s employment figures. The Office of National Statistics (ONS) release shows that 164,000 payrolled positions have been lost in the 12 months to July, Labour’s first year in office. Those figures are still provisional, but the figures for the 12 months to June show pretty much the same picture, with the number of payrolled positions falling by 149,000. In May alone, 26,000 jobs were lost. The unemployment rate rose to 4.7 per cent. For those who are in work, the figures show a healthy rise in real earnings of 0.9 per cent. The Bank of England said last week

Lucy Dunn

Is Nicola Sturgeon liberated or lost?

Nicola Sturgeon isn’t someone for whom oversharing comes naturally. Throughout her career, she has regularly been labelled ‘dour’ or ‘frosty’ by both her opponents and those on her own side. As her profile grew through the 2010s, so did her popularity among the SNP’s expanding membership – and in her first week of being party leader she mustered a 12,000-strong crowd with which to celebrate in Glasgow’s Hydro. But she remained an introvert with a tight-knit circle of few friends. ‘I can come alive on a stage in front of thousands of people, but put me at a dinner table with four people and I will struggle much, much more,’

Lawrence Goldman

What Baroness Debbonaire gets wrong about Clive of India

Baroness Debbonaire, addressing the Edinburgh International Book Festival, has called for the removal of the statue of Clive of India, Baron Clive of Plassey, the site of one of his most famous military victories, from its prominent place adjoining the Foreign Office, at the end of King Charles Street, looking out across St. James’s Park from what are known as Clive Steps. Clive was a founder of British imperial power and control over India. Twice governor in the mid-18th century, he was a brilliant military commander, a determined administrator and an opponent of corruption, though he himself became rich on the profits of empire. He fought warlords by becoming one

Monday

Ian Acheson Ian Acheson

The Met Police dealt with the Palestine Action protest admirably

Jonathan Porritt’s arrest under the Terrorism Act 2000 is the apogee of a ‘luxury belief.’ Unlike the dozens of other younger people arrested in Westminster on Saturday for supporting the proscribed organisation Palestine Action (PA), Sir Jonathon Espie Porritt, 2nd Baronet CBE is a longstanding member of the administrative and political boss class. He declared himself ‘privileged’ to be nicked with the grandiose pomposity reserved for people who, by age or means, are insulated from any consequences. Others, inspired by their sanctimony, face potentially lifelong consequences for financial independence and freedom of movement, citizenship or employment, whether arrested or convicted. The decision to prosecute is likely not to be straightforward

Iain Macwhirter

Why is Nicola Sturgeon fighting the ghost of Alex Salmond?

What was Nicola Sturgeon thinking, reopening the war with Alex Salmond, her former mentor, who died last year, in her forthcoming book, Frankly? What did she hope to gain by raking over the darkest episode in Scottish nationalist history, claiming that it was all an attempt by Salmond to ‘destroy’ her politically? Poor me, wronged by the big bad man. What point was served by claiming that Salmond had ‘privately’ admitted to the ‘substance’ of the allegations of sexual misconduct levelled against him nearly a decade ago? These are allegations that Salmond always strenuously denied and of which he was acquitted in March 2020 by a woman-majority jury before a female

Svitlana Morenets Svitlana Morenets

Will Zelensky’s appeal to Trump fall on deaf ears?

Over 1,265 days of full-scale war, Volodymyr Zelensky has delivered almost as many nightly addresses to the nation. Only a handful have been truly decisive. There was one just hours before the invasion when he asked, ‘Do the Russians want war?’ and vowed that Ukraine would defend itself. The next day, standing outside his office in Kyiv with his top officials, he told the world: ‘I’m here. We’re all here.’ And last weekend, when he declared that Ukraine would not surrender its land to the occupier – and that the war must end with a just peace: [Putin’s] only card is the ability to kill, and he is trying to sell the

Andrew Tettenborn

Labour is going to have to leave the ECHR

The Home Secretary’s extension of the list of countries covered by the ‘deport now, appeal later’ scheme for foreign criminals, announced this morning, doesn’t actually add to the number of undesirables that we can deport. But it could lubricate the process of getting rid of them. Barring a Damascene conversion of the Strasbourg court, something pretty inconceivable, withdrawal is fast becoming not only an option, but the only option For criminals from the new countries just added, which include a number of African and Asian states, India, Canada and Australia, it means that once the Home Secretary rejects an objection based on human rights grounds, physical removal can be automatic.

Steerpike Steerpike

Sturgeon: I’m ‘partly’ to blame for loss of rationality in trans debate

Oh dear. If Scotland’s former Dear Leader thought she could have an interview about her legacy that didn’t touch on the question of putting male rapists in women’s prisons she was sorely mistaken. Nicola Sturgeon has come under fire for a promotional clip ahead of tonight’s ITV interview with the ex-SNP leader. In the clip, the former FM is quizzed on her gender reform bill and the scandal that saw the double rapist Isla Bryson – born Adam Graham – initially housed in a women’s prison. And yet despite the outrage the case provoked, Sturgeon still couldn’t bring herself to call Graham a man in her latest TV interview. Some

Tim Shipman

Introducing ‘Farage’s fillies’

13 min listen

Another day, another Reform party press conference. Following political editor Tim Shipman’s cover piece on how Reform hopes to win over women, this morning’s event was led by the party’s top female politicians: MP Sarah Pochin, Greater Lincolnshire Mayor Dame Andrea Jenkyns, Westminster councillor Laila Cunningham, and Linden Kemkaran, the leader of Kent County Council. Nigel Farage was missing in action as Reform tried to make the case that they are not a one-man band or a ‘boys’ club’. Has Farage solved his women problem? Elsewhere, Kemi Badenoch is in Epping as she tries to wrestle the agenda away from Farage when it comes to asylum seekers and migration. But

Steerpike Steerpike

What will Hermer do with Palestine Action protestors?

To Lord Hermer, Sir Keir Starmer’s controversial Attorney General. It transpires that the British barrister will be given the final say on whether hundreds of protestors arrested for supporting Palestine Action at the weekend will be prosecuted – with the Tories piling pressure on the government to ‘enforce the law’. Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick fumed: ‘If lawbreakers supporting a proscribed terrorist group aren’t prosecuted, it will be the clearest example yet of two-tier justice under Two-Tier Keir. Lord Hermer needs to enforce the law, not pander to activists he’s sympathetic to.’ Ouch! A demonstration on Saturday saw the Metropolitan Police arrest a staggering 532 people in Westminster, after hundreds

Richard Ekins

Why is Labour giving an amnesty to foreign criminals?

When should a foreign offender be deported? The government’s new policy is that foreign offenders should be deported immediately after conviction, rather than after having served some fraction of a sentence of imprisonment imposed by a court. The measure is framed as ‘radical action’ to strengthen border security and to fix the broken criminal justice system, with the Justice Secretary promising that new legislation will ensure that deportations happen ‘earlier than ever before’. She says that ‘Our message is clear: if you abuse our hospitality and break our laws, we will send you packing’. What the government is proposing is simply to let foreign offenders walk free without punishment This is an

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Kemi is wrong about council tax

From Lord Kinnock’s demand for a wealth tax and VAT on private health fees to Gordon Brown pressing for gambling taxes, it is plain that Labour has run out of ideas other than dreaming up new ways to part us from our money. Even so, Kemi Badenoch is ill-advised to go on an all-out attack on council tax reform, as she did in a Mail on Sunday column yesterday. You don’t have to be a socialist or even a Labour supporter to see that council tax is horribly regressive According to the Conservative leader, Rachel Reeves is plotting to do as Labour have done in Wales: to set up an

Matthew Lynn

Is Britain’s wind power gamble about to backfire?

Over the last few years, we heard a lot about how the giant turbines that dominate hillsides and coastlines across Britain and Europe would power a new era of prosperity. They will generate an endless supply of cheap, environmentally friendly energy. They will create hundreds of thousands of ‘well-paid green jobs’. And the countries that embraced it would become the technological leaders of the 21st century. Indeed, the former prime minister Boris Johnson promised to turn the UK into the ‘Saudi Arabia of wind’. And yet, the outlook for the wind power industry currently looks far from secure. Today, Orsted, the Danish giant of the industry, has been forced into

Stephen Pollard

Do the Palestine Action protestors really care about Palestine?

There have been some interesting takes on Saturday’s protest in London by supporters of Palestine Action. The police arrested 522 people for expressing their support for the organisation, which has been proscribed under the Terrorism Act. But shockingly, according to a social media post by German comedian Henning Wehn, those arrests include geography teachers. ‘I can’t believe the police are put in a situation where they have to arrest hundreds of harmless pensioners and geography teachers,’ he wrote. I have never previously encountered the argument that geography teachers should be exempt from terrorism laws.  But Herr Wehn has hit upon one truly absurd aspect to the protest, albeit unwittingly. Because

Mark Galeotti Mark Galeotti

How Russia is preparing for Putin’s meeting with Trump

Amidst contradictory leaks and rumours coming from the US administration, no one is quite sure what to expect when Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin meet in Alaska on Friday – not even the Russian press. Nonetheless, they seem rather less convinced that Trump is about to stitch up the Ukrainians than the Western media. On every side there are cautions not to expect miracles Of course, there is satisfaction at the prospect of Putin’s first visit to the US since 2015. Facing a campaign intended to try and isolate Russia, Putin had just sent troops into Syria to reverse what seemed then the imminent collapse of the Assad regime, and

Steerpike Steerpike

George Galloway to stand in Holyrood election

What comes around goes around. After a short stint in Westminster after he won the Rochdale by-election in February 2024, George Galloway is now eying up a political comeback north of the border. The leader of the Workers Party of Britain has revealed that he will be the party’s second option on the regional list in Glasgow next year, with new joiner Yvonne Ridley – formerly of Alex Salmond’s Alba party – the party’s lead candidate. How very interesting… The Workers Party has its eye on some rather high profile central belt seats, held by two former SNP first ministers. Ridley will also contest the Glasgow Pollok constituency seat –

Michael Simmons Michael Simmons

Don’t forget Nicola Sturgeon’s real legacy

Nicola Sturgeon gets an easy ride with the English media. This weekend, with a book to flog and an image to launder, we’ve had to endure another round of interviews with the former first minister. And what have we learnt? Her sexuality is ‘non-binary’; she has ‘famed emotional intelligence’; she handled Covid better than Boris; she is the most successful woman in politics since Margaret Thatcher. Some of that may be true, some of it demonstrably false. But what matters is the Scotland she left behind. To judge the success of Scotland – and those who lead it – three categories matter most. Two were once sources of national pride;