Politics Archives

Monday

4 Aug 2025

Kate Forbes showed real bravery

There is a certain worldly cynicism aroused by the announcement that a politician is stepping down to spend more time with their family. It was for a long time the refuge of MPs who had earned themselves an entry in the News of the World, the Who’s Who of romeos, rogues and reprobates, for their activities with ladies – or young gentlemen – of the night. Less commonly, it was regarded as an admission that someone could not hack it or was frustrated by their slow progress up the greasy pole. After all, no one wants to quit politics. Contra the cynics, Kate Forbes. Scotland’s deputy first minister will stand down from Holyrood at next May’s elections, having somehow

Theo Hobson

Bonnie Blue and the menace of ‘para-porn’

There are two proper responses to pornography it: to condemn it, and to ignore it. There are two other responses. One is to use it. It doesn’t bother me too much if some men are enriching internet prostitutes while debasing themselves, as long as everyone shuts up about it. It’s the final possible response to porn that concerns me: giving it air-time. Para-porn takes very different forms. One form of it is the reality show that’s all about casual sex Lots of media activity claims to be reflecting on porn in a thoughtful way, but is actually promoting it. News stories about porn, and documentaries about porn, and interviews with

Tim Shipman

Vance & Farage’s budding bromance

16 min listen

Nigel Farage hosted a press conference today as part of Reform’s summer crime campaign ‘Britain is lawless’. He unveiled the latest Tory defector: Leicestershire’s Police & Crime Commissioner Rupert Matthews. Amidst all the noise of whether crime in the UK is falling or not, plus the impact of migration on crime, is Reform’s messaging cutting through? Would US Vice President agree with Farage’s message that Britain is lawless? Vance is in the UK, staying in the Cotswolds, as part of his summer holiday. Tim Shipman and Lucy Dunn are joined by James Orr, associate professor at Cambridge University, and a friend of Vance’s to talk us through the dynamics between

Steerpike

Truss takes a pop at Badenoch over Tory record

Uh oh. As if Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch didn’t have enough on her plate with the rise of Reform eating into the Tory vote, now one of her predecessors has taken a pop at her. Liz Truss has taken to the august pages of the Telegraph to attack Badenoch, accusing the Leader of the Opposition of being ‘not willing to tell the truth to her own supporters’. The gloves are coming off… Truss’s scathing remarks follow a piece in the same newspaper by Badenoch, in which the Conservative leader said that Keir Starmer’s Labour government was failing to learn from the mini-Budget that led to Truss’s downfall. In an attempt

Steerpike

Edinburgh Fringe venue under fire over mixed-sex toilets

While the Supreme Court in April backed the biological definition of a woman, it would appear that in Scotland the ruling hasn’t yet been taken into account. Women’s rights campaigners have taken aim at an Edinburgh Fringe venue – Underbelly Bistro Square – for allowing biological men to use women’s toilets. Dear oh dear… The venue has been accused of breaking the law, after it added a disclaimer below the female bathroom sign – which told attendees to ‘use whichever toilet best fits your identity or expression’. While the men’s toilets featured a similar note, the cubicles themselves were reportedly still labelled ‘gents’. This is despite the Supreme Court ruling

Iain Macwhirter

Kate Forbes’s exit is proof the SNP has lost its way

In little over a week, the Scottish National Party (SNP) has lost two of its greatest political stars. Mhairi Black, the left-wing MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire South, threw in the towel last week, citing the ‘toxicity’ of politics and the party’s lack of support for transgender rights. Now, the deputy leader of the SNP, Kate Forbes – regarded as a social conservative – has stepped down to spend more time with her family. The trickle of nationalist departures risks turning into a flood. Forbes’s departure is the greater shock. Many regarded the 35-year-old MSP for Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch as the leading leadership challenger from the right of the

Lucy Dunn

Why Kate Forbes is standing down

A year is a long time in politics. Just over 12 months ago, Kate Forbes MSP was made Deputy First Minister of Scotland when John Swinney took the reins from Humza Yousaf. This morning, with less than a year to go until the 2026 Holyrood election – and after the SNP had finalised its candidate list – Forbes has announced she no longer plans to stand at the Scottish parliament election. While Forbes has claimed her turnaround is down to family reasons, others aren’t convinced In a letter she has shared on social media, the Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Gaelic has informed Swinney that ‘after careful thought over the summer

Matthew Lynn

Do motorists really need this car finance payout?

It was, at least, far better than the City feared. Shares in banks and finance houses such as Lloyds and Close Brothers were soaring on the London market this morning after the Supreme Court rejected claims that they potentially owed tens of billions in mis-sold car finance. Instead, they are likely to get away with a mere £9 billion to £18 billion instead. But this still doesn’t address a pretty important question: it is not really clear why Britain’s motorists deserve a few billion from the banks. All it is doing is putting us on a slippery slope to an out-of-control compensation culture. A lot of holidays will be paid

Alexander Kolyandr

Putin’s economic alchemy can’t last forever

The Kremlin’s accountants are having a problem: Russia’s state budget, once the engine of spectacular growth, is now flashing red. The mathematics are brutal. Russia’s fiscal deficit has ballooned to 3.7 trillion rubles in June – roughly £34 billion – skating perilously close to this year’s legal limit. As a share of GDP, the deficit threatens to breach the 1.7 per cent ceiling, a prospect that has Valentina Matviyenko, speaker of the Federation Council, preaching the gospel of ‘strict savings’ with all the enthusiasm of a Victorian governess. The transformation of a petro-state into a war economy was supposed to demonstrate Russian resilience The root of Moscow’s monetary malaise lies in

Ross Clark

Picking on foreign students won’t solve the migration crisis

We can’t stop the illegal migrants, so let’s crack down on legal ones instead. That pretty well sums up the government’s policy on migration. Last year foreign students earned Britain £12.1 billion in revenue. They are one of our strongest export industries (while the students might physically be entering Britain, they are an export because it is the direction the money is flowing in which matters). Some universities have become truly international institutions – Imperial College and UCL now draw more than half their students from abroad. Mickey mouse courses aside, UK higher education has become one of Britain’s success stories. This government’s biggest error was one of its very

Brendan O’Neill

The West has rewarded Hamas for the torture of Evyatar David

They’re making Jews dig their own graves again. In grim mimicry of their Nazi heroes, who would often force Jews to dig ditches before shooting them into them, Hamas has released a video showing a shockingly emaciated Israeli hostage digging a grave. ‘This is the grave where I think I’m going to be buried,’ says the bag of bones as he feebly scoops up dirt with a spade. It is one of the most chilling images we have seen in this century. The man in the video is 24-year-old Evyatar David. He was abducted from the Nova music festival during Hamas’s pogrom of 7 October 2023. He has been held

Sunday

3 Aug 2025

James Heale

Why JD Vance is worth watching this summer

America’s two most powerful men are visiting Britain this summer. After Donald Trump’s trip to Scotland last month, his Vice President is expected shortly in the Cotswolds. Both men share an interest in the UK – but for different reasons. Trump’s ties are ancestral; Vance’s passion is more intellectual. ‘What’s going on with Reform?’ he asked Peter Mandelson at a recent function. His choice of England as a holiday destination reflects an engagement in this country’s politics. Among Vance’s friends and contacts are several prominent British academics. They include Blue Labour founder Maurice Glasman, who corresponded with Vance over email, and James Orr, with whom Vance bonded in 2019 after

Lloyd Evans

Jess Phillips: ‘I’m being controlled by aggression and violence’

Jess Phillips begins her interview with Iain Dale at the Edinburgh Fringe with a meandering homage to her hometown, Birmingham, which is still in mourning for Ozzy Osborne. ‘Birmingham is like a village. I can link anyone in my family to someone in your family in three steps. Barbara Cartland is from Birmingham. Lawn tennis was invented on the Cartland estate. I grew up around Ozzy Osbourne’s first son, Louis. I count them as good friends. My son went to the funeral procession. And Sharon is a lovely, lovely woman.’ ‘There were fireworks thrown, tyres slashed and constituents threatened at polling stations. And they were almost exclusively men’ Phillips makes

Nigel Jones

Horst Mahler, the far-left terrorist who became a neo-Nazi

One of the strangest German lives in the post-second world war era closed on 27 July 2025 with the death of Horst Mahler at the age of 89. Mahler’s life epitomises the fatal German tendency for much of the 20th century to embrace extremist politics Mahler’s life epitomises the fatal German tendency for much of the 20th century to embrace extremist politics of the far-left and ultra-right, since he converted from being a hunted and jailed leader and lawyer of the Red Army Faction (RAF) terrorist group, also known as the Baader-Meinhof gang, to become Germany’s most notorious neo-Nazi, an outspoken anti-Semite and a Holocaust denier – activities for which

Jonathan Hearn

The strangeness of Edinburgh’s race review

The University of Edinburgh’s recently released ‘Race Review’ is an intriguing document. Commissioned after the death of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter protests, you would think it would look at present problems with racism at the university. Why bother otherwise, if there are no issues to solve now? The report implies that people inherit their moral relationships from their ancestors. This is barbaric Yet the race review, titled ‘Decolonised Transformations: Confronting the University of Edinburgh’s History and Legacies of Enslavement and Colonialism’, does not look at staff or student grievances or complaints, or employment tribunals around matters of race, which would be the surest evidence of a problem.

Lloyd Evans

Rachel Reeves couldn’t be prouder of crippling the economy

Rachel Reeves strode onto the stage at the Edinburgh festival in a black jumpsuit and an orange scarf. Iain Dale, in a dark maroon jacket, kicked with a dare. ‘Try, if you can, not to use the phrase “13 wasted Tory years” or “22 billion pound black hole.”’ She likes anything that involves net zero. She regards the Labour party as the saviour of this self-harming energy policy. ‘What else am I going to talk about?’ said Reeves. She’s a much warmer and funnier soul than her TV image suggests. Dale asked about the awkward moment when she wept during PMQs in June. ‘I was having a bit of a

Theo Hobson

The Church of England must stop feeling guilty about the Reformation

Thomas More has a richly ambiguous place in our religious and political history. Like a brave hero of conscience, he defied the will of a tyrant, even unto death. A herald of modern liberty, then? Not quite. Before he found himself on the wrong end of the axe, as Lord Chancellor he calmly sent many dissidents to their death. His cause was not modern liberty, but the defence of the old version of authoritarian order. The Catholic Church calls him a saint. The English Reformation was a good thing. Thomas More was on the wrong side of history He is back in the news because a church in Canterbury has

Iain MacGregor

How did the Enola Gay’s crew live with bombing Hiroshima?

Eighty years on, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima continues to provoke fierce debate, reflection, and deep moral inquiry. How did the thirteen men aboard the Enola Gay – the US aircraft that delivered the bomb that killed at least 150,000 people – live with the knowledge of what they had done? The morning of 6 August 1945 began like any other on the Pacific island of Tinian. That was until the Boeing B-29 Superfortress lifted into the sky. Its destination: Japan. Its payload: ‘Little Boy’, the first atomic bomb ever used in warfare. Piloted by Colonel Paul W. Tibbets Jnr. and manned by a crew of twelve, the mission forever

Saturday

2 Aug 2025

Lucy Dunn

Could the Scottish Tories do a deal with Reform?

Senior Tories are floating the idea of an electoral pact with Nigel Farage’s Scottish outfit It’s not a good time to be a Scottish Conservative. While the SNP has seen a bounce in the polls – despite the infighting that followed Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation and the Operation Branchform police probe – the Tories and Labour have both suffered from a surge in support for Reform UK north of the border. Scottish Labour is projected to lose Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) but ultimately it is the Tories who look to be hit the hardest. It is the fear of an electoral wipeout next year – and projections that suggest

Eliot Wilson

Is David Williams the MoD’s fall guy?

Yesterday the Ministry of Defence (MoD) confirmed that its permanent secretary, David Williams, will be stepping down in a matter of weeks. He has served for just over four years, almost exactly the average tenure of his predecessors since the department was created in 1964, but it is difficult to regard the timing as a coincidence. It is still not yet three weeks since the catastrophic loss of data on Afghan nationals and others, and the MoD’s use of a super-injunction, were disclosed to parliament by defence secretary John Healey. This is not a failing individual. This is an ingrained, systemic, cultural malaise. And it has to be fixed. Williams