Politics

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

Tuesday

Eliot Wilson

Why are the English embarrassed about St George’s Day?

How should the English celebrate St George’s Day? England is a country with plenty to boast about, but doing so is somehow not particularly English. The result is that 23 April is usually a day that passes most of us by. It’s a pity. The centuries-old flag of St George was for too long the preserve of the far right Embarrassed, we often seek expressions of Englishness in the sheepish and the mimsy. Egg and chips, rain coming on, mustn’t grumble, you’ve got to laugh, fancy a cuppa, watching the footy, how we love queueing. Thirty years ago, John Major was mocked for speaking of ‘the country of long shadows

Susannah Heschel

Shylock and the Nazis: the truth about Shakespeare’s most infamous character

None of William Shakespeare’s characters are more controversial than Shylock. The moneylender from The Merchant of Venice may be the most famous Jew in Western culture other than Jesus. But what kind of Jew is he? Is he a collage of stereotypes who has been useful to antisemites, including the Nazis? Or does he represent the Jew as cruelly vilified, a tragic victim of persecution? Shakespeare, who was born 460 years ago today, could never have envisaged the way in which the events of the 20th century would change the way we look at Shylock. Yet it’s impossible now to watch The Merchant of Venice without thinking of the Holocaust.

Monday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Commons sends Rwanda Bill back to the Lords

The Commons has just voted on the latest ping of the Safety of Rwanda Bill pong, after peers sent back just one amendment, which would prevent Rwanda from being declared a safe country for asylum seekers without the Secretary of State making a statement to parliament having considered the verdict of an independent monitoring committee. MPs rejected that amendment 312-237. So back up it goes to the Lords.  Lord Browne withdrew his amendment to exempt from deportation those who had helped the British armed forces because the government conceded on this point (though the minister in the Lords insisted it wasn’t a concession because that’s how politics and pre-school works).

Jawad Iqbal

Who would want to buy Selfridges?

A stake in Selfridges – the most iconic department store in the vast retail emporium of Oxford Street – is again up for grabs. It is the latest chapter in an ongoing financial crisis engulfing its Austrian co-proprietor Signa Group, the property empire built by self-made billionaire, René Benko. The original deal for Selfridges dumped at least £1.7 billion in debt onto the group, which owns four UK department stores, as well as de Bijenkorf in the Netherlands and Brown Thomas and Arnotts in Ireland. Central is now looking for ways to take greater control of Selfridges: last year, it took majority ownership of the Selfridges operating company with a

Patrick O’Flynn Patrick O'Flynn

Sunak’s bungled Rwanda scheme won’t save him

Like a cowboy builder sucking his teeth about unanticipated complications on the job, Rishi Sunak has just pushed back another deadline. The Prime Minister was meant to get flights off to Rwanda this spring but has now given himself until July. And this isn’t even the main job. The actual grand design he is supposed to be working towards is to ‘stop the boats’. For Labour a no-score draw on the issue will be a favourable result If sending irregular migrants off to Rwanda helps secure that then so much the better, but it would be remiss not to point out that illegal arrivals via cross-Channel dinghies have increased this

Steerpike Steerpike

Jon Sopel’s Rwanda Bill blunder

It’s hard these days being a teller of truths. So many of the leading lights in British broadcasting have found in recent years that they’re unable to do so in the less-than-lucrative halls of the BBC. Among those who have joined the exodus from the Corporation in recent years was Jon Sopel, who left in early 2022 to take up a role at Global with Emily Maitlis and Lewis Goodall. There the trio fearlessly dissect issues on which they all agree, on the wildly successful News Agents podcast. Yet in his haste to stick it to Sunak on the Rwanda Bill, it seems that Sopel has blundered quite spectacularly. Following

Arieh Kovler

Why Biden’s plan to sanction an IDF battalion could backfire

The Biden administration is planning to announce sanctions against a part of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). On the one hand, this would be the latest in a series of US and European sanctions targeting Israeli settler organisations linked to violence against Palestinians. On the other, it’s an unprecedented legal action by the United States against the Israeli military itself.  One of the long-running divisions in Israel society is between Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Jews and the rest of the public. Originally a tiny minority, Haredi Jews now form nearly 14 per cent of Israel’s population. The biggest tension is over the issue of military service: while most Jewish men are drafted

James Heale James Heale

Parliamentary researcher charged with spying for China

Chris Cash, the parliamentary aide accused of spying for China, is to be charged with espionage offences, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said today. Nick Price, the head of the CPS special crime and counter-terrorism division, confirmed that it has has now ‘authorised the Metropolitan police to charge two men with espionage offences’. Price said Cash, 29, and his alleged accomplice Christopher Berry, 32, would be charged with providing prejudicial information to a China. They will appear at Westminster magistrates court this Friday. ‘Criminal proceedings against the defendants are active,’ Price declared in a statement. ‘No one should report, comment or share information online which could in any way prejudice

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Will there be a summer election?

12 min listen

This morning Rishi Sunak delivered a press conference making the case that the Rwanda Bill should become law today – and the government is ready for when it does. James Heale speaks to Katy Balls and Fraser Nelson about what could be an all-night parliamentary showdown on the Rwanda vote, and whether an early summer election is on the cards. Produced by Natasha Feroze. 

Ian Acheson Ian Acheson

Suella Braverman is wrong to call for Mark Rowley to go

Why did Gideon Falter cross the road? Or try to? That is a question that went viral this weekend. A video emerged of Falter, who leads the Campaign Against Antisemitism, being threatened by police for trying to cross a pro-Palestinian protest in central London. He was wearing a kippah and carrying a prayer shawl bag, and had reportedly just emerged from a synagogue with some friends and was trying to get home. Police officers had spotted him leaving the pavement on a collision course with protestors and intervened. A tense standoff unfolded, with an officer telling him in that his ‘openly Jewish’ appearance was ‘antagonising’ the crowd. A calamitous initial response

Mark Galeotti Mark Galeotti

Why is Russia jamming plane signals across Europe?

The ‘Baltic Beast’ is at it again. Mysterious – or not so mysterious – GPS signal disruption has become a growing problem for civilian air traffic, not just in the Baltic but also the Black Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean. It is clear that Russia is behind it, but why? Airplanes have, while in flight, encountered signals designed to interfere with their GPS and other systems, whether by jamming them or spoofing, making them think they are somewhere else from their actual location. Last year, there were some 50 suspected attacks every week, but there were a full 350 in March and this month looks set to see a similar

James Heale James Heale

Sunak insists Rwanda scheme is ‘ready’

The Rwanda Bill should become law today – and the government is ready for when it does. That was Rishi Sunak’s message at a No. 10 press conference this morning, ahead of what could be an all-night showdown of parliamentary ping-pong. The House of Lords last week mounted a tougher-than-expected resistance to Sunak’s flagship legislation, with frustrated Tory MPs aiming to overrule peers on the last outstanding amendments later today. The number of small boat arrivals from Vietnam is up ten-fold the previous year As well as keeping the heat on Labour and the Lords, Sunak’s press conference was intended to look ahead to what happens after the legislation becomes

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Will there be a summer election?

It’s less than a fortnight till the local elections where Rishi Sunak will face his last major electoral test before going to the polls for a general election later this year. Tory MPs are braced for it to be a difficult night. The loss of Tory councillors en masse seems inevitable. If Sunak is really unlucky, he could lose one or both of the two Tory metro mayors. The West Midlands mayor Andy Street is viewed to be the most vulnerable – one poll last week suggested he is on course to lose, another said he could hold on by two votes. If the Tees Valley mayor Ben Houchen goes

Steerpike Steerpike

Why won’t the Scottish Greens accept the Cass report?

There are many words to describe Patrick Harvie but ‘clinician’ certainly isn’t one of them. Yet his trademark arrogance was out on display this weekend when the co-leader of the Scottish Greens deigned to sully himself with a round of media interviews. Appearing on BBC Scotland, Harvie was asked about the decision of NHS Scotland to pause the use of puberty blockers on children, following the publication of the Cass report. That decision has prompted an outcry from members of Harvie’s band of eco-zealots, with fellow Green MSP Ross Greer describing the review as ‘a straight up transphobic and conservative document.’ Harvie was asked three times by the BBC whether he

Eliot Wilson

Is there any way back for the Met Police?

‘You are quite openly Jewish, this is a pro-Palestinian march, I’m not accusing you of anything but I’m worried about the reaction to your presence.’ These were the words of a police officer to Gideon Falter last week as he walked along Aldwych after attending synagogue. The chief executive of the Campaign Against Antisemitism was not protesting or making a public statement of any kind, yet an officer of the law warned him that his ‘presence’, wearing a yarmulke, was a ‘breach of the peace’. The Met is not improving, or at least not improving nearly quickly enough Once the first wave of open-mouthed incredulity had passed, the widespread reaction

Jon Pelson

After TikTok, there’s another app we should ban

The American House of Representatives has passed a bill ordering Bytedance, a Chinese company, to divest from TikTok or stop operating in the USA. Their involvement in the app risks national security, the critics say. But what about other apps owned by Chinese companies? Should they be banned too? The most insidious part about Gauth? Look at the reviews. Apparently it gets the homework wrong. Gauth, or Gauthmath as it is known in the UK and elsewhere in the world, is a tutoring app designed to help children complete their homework in maths and science. It’s currently the #2 educational app in the Apple app store, and is targeted at

Sunday

James Heale James Heale

Donald Trump’s U-turn could vindicate his Tory enthusiasts

Better late than never. In Washington, the House of Representatives last night voted to approve £49 billion funding in aid for Ukraine by 311 votes to 112. It came after months of wrangling in the Republican party, with the situation in Kyiv continuing to deteriorate. The extent to which the GOP is split was shown in the final voting tally: 101 Republicans voted for the package while 112 voted against. The Speaker, Mike Johnson, who helped marshal the package to passage, said after the vote: ‘We did our work here, and I think history will judge it well.’ Trump’s silence can be a powerful thing But Johnson’s decision to rely

Julie Burchill Julie Burchill

The Met doesn’t care about anti-Semitism

We’re familiar by now with the peculiar paradox of left-wingers and feminists, those weird well-born women who would scream blue murder if a white bus driver called them ‘love’, but who are now marching every Saturday in support of Hamas, a supremacist terror group who used sexual assault as a weapon. As dopey as these people are, they don’t actually have any power over us. When it comes to the police though, it’s a different story. Last Saturday in London, a policeman threatened to arrest a Jewish man, Gideon Falter of the Campaign Against Antisemitism, for literally wanting to cross the road in front of a Palestinian march, saying ‘Sir,

Owen Matthews

The US war aid might be too little, too late for Ukraine

At the last possible moment, after months of prevarication and with Russian troops on the brink of a major breakthrough in Ukraine, the US Congress last night voted to approve more than $61 billion (£50 billion) worth of military assistance for Kyiv. In a vote that a vocal minority of Republicans had desperately attempted to stop through procedural objections and threats to remove speaker Mike Johnson, 210 Democrats and 101 Republicans finally joined to support Ukraine. A majority of Republicans – 112 Congress members – voted against. The money comes at a critical moment in Ukraine’s war effort. With US aid stalled in Congress since last October and European allies

Glynn Harrison

Are smartphones really destroying the mental health of a generation?

If you want to make your name in psychiatry, find a problem, identify a plausible one-factor solution, and then offer a big fix at low cost. And provided you can make at least some of the sums add up, even editors of academic journals will find it hard to resist. I was first offered this tongue-in-cheek advice on the threshold of a lifetime in academic psychiatry over four decades ago. But the idea of the one-factor solution has never been particularly attractive to me. After all, over the first half of the last century, the lure of a surgical solution to mental health ailments scarred the lives of tens of