Politics

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

Wednesday

25 Oct 2023

Dave Courtney and the grotty reality of true crime

The death of the gangster Dave Courtney – found in his bed with a gunshot wound at the age of 64 – has once more brought to the fore the odd fascination with ‘gangsters’ which certain strange sorts harbour. Call me dirty-minded, but as with the ever-growing fascination with ‘true crime’, I can’t help thinking it’s all about sex. Before we were modern, mean men with brawn rather than brain would have been the best ones to bag; now that bookish Musks and Zuckerbergs rule the world, the Neanderthal has found himself somewhat surplus to requirements. But he still rings a primeval bell with the dimmer members of society, who

Yascha Mounk

Identity Crisis: why doesn’t the West know who to back in the Israel-Hamas war?

When two planes flew into the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001, the world stood in solidarity with the United States. In London, ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ was played at Buckingham Palace. ‘We are all Americans,’ declared Le Monde. In Berlin, 200,000 people took to the streets to express their sorrow. This makes it all the more striking how different – and how morally obtuse – the reaction to Hamas’s slaughter of around 1,400 Israelis has been. Major news outlets were strangely reluctant to dwell on the horror before jumping straight to the Israeli response. Instead of declaring that we are all Israelis, Le Monde editorials fulminated against Israel’s ‘desire

Katy Balls

The Tory vote squeeze

When the cabinet gathered on Tuesday morning, the meeting started as a sombre affair. Just days before, the Conservatives had suffered – in the words of polling expert Sir John Curtice – ‘one of worst nights any government has endured’. The Tories lost both the Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire by-elections to Labour. The Environment Secretary, Thérèse Coffey, managed to lighten the mood when she intervened to say that it hadn’t gone unnoticed that it was Rishi Sunak’s 365th day as Prime Minister. Loud banging on the table ensued, led by Jeremy Hunt. A year into Sunak’s premiership, neither he nor his supporters are where they would have liked to be.

The Spectator

Portrait of the Week: Tory by-election misery, ‘jihad’ chants and emergency aid

Home Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, on his return from Israel (where he spoke with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister) and to Saudi Arabia (where he spoke with Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince), told the House of Commons: ‘Hamas is not only a threat to Israel, but to many others across the region. All the leaders I met agreed that this is a watershed moment. It’s time to set the region on a better path.’ Twelve Britons had died in the Hamas attack, and five were missing. Of the blast at Gaza’s al-Ahli hospital on 17 October, which killed numbers of people into the hundreds, he said it was likely to

Isabel Hardman

Starmer avoids Israel in knockabout with Sunak

It was revealing that Keir Starmer decided not to ask Rishi Sunak about Israel at Prime Minister’s Questions today. The Labour leader headed straight from the session into a crunch meeting with Muslim MPs and peers who are angry at the way he has handled the conflict (more from Katy here), and so he clearly decided that repeating last week’s series of statements about Labour’s support for Israel’s self-defence wouldn’t help internal party tensions. Instead, he went for a proper old political knockabout, and spent the entire session talking about the failed Tory candidate in the Tamworth by-election. By the time the Labour leader reached his pay-off, the Tamworth theme

Rod Liddle

What Hamas promised to its electorate

Things you do not hear very often, number one: a pro-Palestinian protestor denouncing Hamas for the barbarity of its incursion into Israel on 7 October, appalled at the savagery of those attacks upon children, grandmothers, etc. It may seem as if, in saying this, I am stating the obvious – because support for that pogrom was, I would suggest, strong among some of those carrying Palestinian flags on marches through London and elsewhere. Six Arab language journalists were suspended by the BBC when it was discovered that they retweeted messages glorifying in that day’s murder. They were not members of Hamas. Ordinary Palestinians interviewed, cowering in the rubble of Gaza, were

Peter Oborne

Britain should back a ceasefire

Six weeks ago, I invited Ahmed Alnaouq, a young diplomat who recently joined the Palestinian mission in London, to stay for a cricket weekend in Wiltshire. He resisted all entreaties to play the game but was in every other way a delightful guest. On Sunday, Ahmed learnt that his family in Gaza has been wiped out by an Israeli bomb. His father, siblings, and more than 15 nieces and nephews had all been killed. Twenty-three dead, no injuries. Another brother was killed by an Israeli bombing in 2014. His mother died three years ago because, he says, Israel denied her medical treatment. When I sent him a text message saying that

Andrew Liddle

How serious is Keir Starmer about devolution?

With a general election – and the prospect of forming a government – now firmly on the horizon, the Labour party has no shortage of long-standing policies that it is quickly seeking to recast, review or revoke entirely. Sir Keir Starmer’s earlier pledges to abolish tuition fees, increase taxes on higher earners and scrap the two-child benefit cap have all been unceremoniously dumped. Other commitments, such as a £28 billion per annum ‘Green Prosperity Plan’, have been significantly watered-down, while proposals for a tax raid on US tech giants have shifted to a wider review of business rates. This is, in many ways, a natural and prudent process for a

Katy Balls

Keir Starmer’s Israel problem is growing

It wasn’t so long ago that Keir Starmer was being widely praised for keeping his party united and on message over Israel at Labour’s conference in Liverpool. But fast forward a few weeks and the Labour leader is under pressure over his stance on Israel’s right to defend itself following the terror attacks by Hamas on 7 October. The trouble started as a result of an interview Starmer gave to LBC soon after the attacks. Speaking in Liverpool, LBC’s Nick Ferrari asked Starmer whether ‘cutting off power, cutting off water’ was appropriate as a response to the atrocity. The Labour leader replied: ‘I think that Israel does have that right…It

Martin Vander Weyer

Jeremy Hunt should stick to sensible pledges – it’s too late for big moves

Imagine you’re Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, drafting your Autumn Statement for delivery in three weeks’ time. Bookies’ odds for a Tory general election win have moved out to six-to-one (against Labour’s dead-cert one-to-seven) following by-election wipe-outs. The Lib Dems look set to nab your South West Surrey seat if you don’t stand down anyway. And you can’t give your back-benches red-meat tax cuts because public borrowing for this year could run £30 billion higher than forecast. Releasing the pension ‘triple lock’ to save money would alienate older Tories. Inheritance tax giveaways that might please them would be campaign gold for Labour. A stamp duty cut would do nothing for floating-vote home-buyers facing

Steerpike

The Guardian’s questionable Holocaust article

Oh dear. The world’s wokest media outlet is at it again. When they’re not moralising over artists or misattributing quotes, there’s nothing more the Guardian enjoys then a ritual round of Israel-bashing. A vintage example has been offered up today on its website. Barely a fortnight after more than 1,400 Israelis were butchered by Hamas terrorists, it has published an article claiming that Israel is misusing the history of the Holocaust. According to Israeli academic Raz Segal, President Biden was wrong to reference the historic suffering of the Jews in his response to the attack of 7/10. Segal argues that the ‘weaponisation of Holocaust memory by Israeli politicians runs deep’

Steerpike

Did Sir Keir mislead a mosque?

In his eagerness to stand with Israel, it seems Sir Keir might have slipped up. For a fortnight now Labour has been rowing about his comments in an LBC interview in which Starmer seemed to justify a water and electricity blockade of Gaza. Since then, it’s been damage control galore, amid an exodus of outraged councillors quitting the party in disgust. Starmer is due to meet Muslim MPs today to discuss their concerns about all this. The Keirleaders will just be hoping that today’s pow-wow goes better than Starmer’s previous peace mission. On Sunday he visited a mosque before sharing a selection of HQ-approved images of him shaking hands and

Andrew Tettenborn

The EU’s muddled response to Gaza has exposed its flaws

The EU’s response to the war between Israel and Gaza has been badly muddled. While Rishi Sunak and Joe Biden have been making their view crystal clear on Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas’s attacks, Josep Borrell, the top EU diplomat, has toed a different line. Borrell this week called for what was effectively an Israeli ceasefire to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza. Israel’s more ardent European allies are furious. ‘We cannot contain the humanitarian catastrophe if Gaza’s terrorism continues. There will be no security and no peace for either Israel or the Palestinians if this terrorism continues,’ Annalena Baerbock, Germany’s foreign minister, said. Her Austrian counterpart, Alexander Schallenberg, echoed that

Damien Phillips

Hamas has made the same fatal mistake as the IRA

As Israel releases body cam footage showing the stark reality of Hamas terrorists’ brutal attacks on civilians during their assault on 7 October – and as its forces begin launching limited raids into Gaza to prepare the ground for a full-scale offensive by land, sea and air – the severity of Hamas’s situation is finally dawning on its militants. The mood amongst its members in the labyrinthine tunnels beneath Gaza is likely to have darkened dramatically. Despite Hamas’s delusional boasting of bravely fighting to the death and ‘saving Palestine’, the penny is beginning to drop that these are the final days, both for the terrorists, and for Hamas as an

Tuesday

24 Oct 2023

Natasha Feroze

Labour’s foreign policy problem

14 min listen

Natasha Feroze speaks to Stephen Bush and Katy Balls about some of the geopolitical problems that lie ahead for Labour. Will David Lammy have to roll back on his views on Trump? Will Keir Starmer appeal to his muslim voter base whilst taking the standard Biden line on Israel/ Palestine? What about the Indian general election in November?

James Heale

Sunak to lift bankers’ bonus cap

Rishi Sunak is in office but Liz Truss remains in power. That’s the line that Labour are pushing on today’s announcement that the cap on bankers’ bonuses will be abolished next week. The change was initially announced by Kwasi Kwarteng in the infamous mini-budget of September 2022. It was one of the few measures to be retained when Chancellor Jeremy Hunt replaced Kwarteng at the Treasury on the grounds that it did not have an impact on state finances, unlike her tax cuts. Labour are naturally keen to suggest that this shows that Sunak has not moved the Tories on from the Truss era. Darren Jones, the party’s Shadow Chief Secretary, was quick to condemn it

Yossi Melman

Invading Gaza will cost Israel more than just lives

In an address to soldiers on Saturday, Israel’s chief of staff Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi outlined the aims of the country’s looming ground incursion into Gaza. ‘Our task is to destroy Hamas activists and their infrastructure’. But, he added, this will not be ‘an easy task’. That’s an understatement, to say the least. Despite the bravado and masochism expressed by Israeli generals, the war has so far caused the death of more than 1,400 Israeli civilians and troops and the kidnapping of 222 hostages (among them 30 children). Another 200 are missing. The ground invasion of Gaza will likely be even more costly in terms of lives lost. The war

Phoebe Hennell

All is not lost for Argentina’s anarcho-capitalist presidential hopeful

Argentina’s presidential hopeful Javier Milei will have to wait to turn his country into an anarcho-capitalist anti-state where the peso is swapped for the dollar, the central bank ‘burned down’, and half the ministries torn up. Milei had been considered the frontrunner in Argentina’s presidential election, but he was pipped to the post in Sunday’s vote by centrist rival Sergio Massa, who received 36.6 per cent of votes to Milei’s 29.9 per cent. While Milei’s supporters are disappointed, all is not lost for the chainsaw-wielding climate change-sceptical, pro-life economist: a run-off showdown between Milei and Massa is set for 18 November. Whichever candidate picks up the 6.3 million votes of defeated

Isabel Hardman

Will the UK proscribe Iran’s revolutionary guard?

Why won’t the government proscribe the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps? MPs have been asking that question for more than a year now, but it has gained impetus since the Hamas attack on Israel, given the suspicion that Iran has been aiding Hamas. So far, the line from the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary has merely been that the government never comments on sanctions or which organisations are being considered for proscription. But today at Foreign Office questions in the Commons, James Cleverly offered a little more insight, presumably because the parliamentary pressure is growing. A number of MPs asked why nothing had yet been done, including Liberal Democrat Layla Moran,

Steerpike

Labour’s Hansard howlers on Israel

Communication is everything in politics, as Labour’s overactive press office knows all too well. Earlier this month, Keir Starmer did an interview on LBC with Nick Ferrari in which the latter asked whether ‘A siege is appropriate? Cutting off power? Cutting off water?’ in Gaza. Starmer replied that ‘I think that Israel does have that right. It is an ongoing situation. Obviously everything should be done within international law, but I don’t want to step away from the core principles that Israel has right to defend herself.’ Cue much fury within the Labour party about Starmer justifying Israel’s water and electricity blockade of Gaza. His spokesman has since claimed that