Politics

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

Friday

Steerpike Steerpike

Why the Valuation Office Agency isn’t value for money

Another day, another dispiriting quangocracy revelation. This time the spotlight is on the Valuation Office Agency, whose performance has been rapidly declining year on year – while complaints about the organisation have skyrocketed. Freedom of Information data received by the TaxPayers’ Alliance shows that call wait times have more than doubled over the last three years, targets have been increasingly missed and complaints about the organisation have shot up by 200 per cent. Dear oh dear… Over the last three years, targets have been increasingly missed and complaints have shot up by 200 per cent In the 2024/25 financial year, average call wait times for the VOA – which works

Sophia Falkner

Why Starmer is courting TikTok influencers

Some of my oldest and dearest school friends absolutely hate reading the news. One called me up nearly a week after Rishi Sunak called last year’s election to ask if I fancied a weekend in the countryside. ‘That sounds great,’ I said ‘but you know I’m working on the election?’ ‘Oh my gosh, there’s an election?! Totally missed that!’ she squealed. Sometimes, ignorance really is bliss. Her bliss, however, has been somewhat disrupted by TikTok. I nearly fell off my chair when she asked if I’d seen Keir Starmer’s Labour party conference speech last year. Starmer’s demand for the release of the sausages (instead of hostages), had understandably, gone viral,

Matthew Lynn

Rachel Reeves has crushed confidence in Britain

It doesn’t look like the Chancellor will hit her target for turning the UK into the fastest-growing economy in the G7. Nor has ‘stability’ unlocked a wave of foreign investment. Instead, it has plunged. As for Rachel Reeves’s fiscal rules, they have been missed almost every month since they were announced. Now there is more bad news for the Chancellor. Business confidence has collapsed to an all-time low. It is not hard to work out why the mood is so bad Leaving the EU’s single market was tough for Britain; so was the financial crash of 2008 and 2009. The pandemic, too, was never going to make business owners feel

Steerpike Steerpike

Labour accused of ‘social engineering’ over working class internships

Well, well, well. It transpires that in plans to make Whitehall more working class, civil service internships will only be offered to, er, students from low income families. The Cabinet Office has said that only those from ‘lower socio-economic backgrounds’ will be able to apply to Whitehall’s internship scheme – with eligibility based on, um, what jobs their parents did when they were 14. Good heavens… Currently the summer scheme is up to two months long, and open to undergraduate students in the last two years of their degree, allowing them to shadow civil servants, write briefings and take part in policy research. Those deemed successful will then be put

David Shipley

Can AI prevent prison violence?

The government desperately needs to save the justice system, and it believes that technology might be part of the solution. The Ministry of Justice has announced that it will be using AI to ‘stop prison violence before it happens’. The need is urgent. There were over 30,000 assaults in prisons during the 12 months to the end of March 2025, a 9 per cent increase on the previous year. The reality is that this will all rely on the data provided by prison staff, which is often of very low quality This is now Labour’s problem. As Andrew Neilson, Director of Campaigns at the Howard League said yesterday, ‘these statistics

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Trump hasn’t won the trade war

Maybe Trump doesn’t always chicken out after all. Rapid trade deals with the UK, Japan, the EU and others in recent weeks may have given the impression that the trade war was essentially over. Today, though, comes Trump’s Ardennes offensive, with immediate tariffs of 35 per cent announced for Canada. Other countries have been given a week to prepare for steep increases: India will be subject to 25 per cent tariffs, Taiwan 20 per cent and Switzerland – far from neutral in this particular conflict – 39 per cent. Those who insist Trump has a very clever strategy and is winning tend also to be people who, in any other

Thursday

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

There is no escaping politics with Palestine

Foreign relations are among the most political functions of a government. Ministers favour or disfavour other states based on calculations about which relationships might better serve the national interest. Human rights violations are condemned here, while a blind eye is turned there. Dictators are treated as democrats and democrats as dictators depending on the diplomatic needs of the day. It’s a dishonest, venal, hypocritical business conducted by people with almost no morally redeeming characteristics. Like I said, it’s politics.  Too many state actions are compelled – or claimed to be compelled – by law or judicial interpretation of the law. This bodes ill for parliamentary sovereignty, even if it is parliament that keeps passing

Svitlana Morenets Svitlana Morenets

Zelensky’s anti-corruption overhaul will not be forgotten quickly

Last week, the Ukrainian parliament voted to destroy two key anti-corruption institutions. Outrage followed, and now lawmakers have been forced to cut short their summer holidays and return to Kyiv to reverse the law. More than a thousand demonstrators shouted ‘Shame!’ as the MPs drove past them to the Verkhovna Rada.  In two rapid back-to-back readings, 331 lawmakers voted to restore the independence of Ukraine’s anti-corruption agency, Nabu, and the office of the anti-corruption prosecutor, Sapo. Zelensky signed it immediately. The reputational damage, though, was irreversible. The circus that followed the vote only deepened public disgust toward the politicians they no longer want to represent them.   For the first time

Ross Clark Ross Clark

It’s no surprise that nurses want to strike

Wes Streeting was recently revealed to have said in private that junior doctors (or resident doctors, as they now like to be called) must be made to ‘feel pain’ for going on strike – for fear of encouraging other public sector workers to copy their example. Today comes a reminder of why he said it: the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has just voted to reject the 3.6 per cent pay deal offered by the government, with 91 per cent voting to dismiss it – although the turnout was only 56 per cent. Is it any surprise that nurses are not content with the offer? Two years ago, after a

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

How progressivism killed American Protestantism

Freddy Gray speaks to Christopher Mondics who is a legal affairs writer about how the left-wing orthodoxy has destroyed Protestantism in America. They discuss the mainline denominations in America, how ‘wokeness’ infiltrated the churches and why, despite some drop off, religion is still so present in America.

Natasha Feroze

Will the junior doctors regret picking a fight with Wes?

13 min listen

The dispute between the British Medical Association (BMA) – a trade union for doctors – and the government continues, following the five-day strike by junior doctors. Doctors argue that pay is still far below relative levels from almost two decades ago, combined with the cost of study, the cost of living and housing crises, as well as challenging conditions within the NHS. Nevertheless, with an average pay rise of 5.4% for resident doctors this year, support for the strikes appears to be falling – both with the public at large, and within the BMA. Health Secretary Wes Streeting has hit back at the BMA and said they ‘will not win

Steerpike Steerpike

No babies called ‘Keir’ after Starmer took office

There are a number of ways to measure the public’s dissatisfaction with their politicians: party polling figures, favourability ratings and, of course, the result at the ballot box. But a less obvious indicator is baby’s names – and 2024’s most popular list is a damning indictment of Britain’s Prime Minister. It transpires that a grand total of, er, zero children were called ‘Keir’ last year. According to data released today by the Office for National Statistics, the PM’s first name was nowhere to be found on the list of most popular names for boys and girls in England and Wales. While the name had fast been losing favour for a

Steerpike Steerpike

Should the Prime Minister take a summer holiday?

Silly season is upon us, as MPs jet off on holiday (or back to their constituencies) to get a well-needed break from Westminster. Sir Keir Starmer had to cancel his summer holiday last year after riots broke out across the country – but hopefully this year the Prime Minister will manage to enjoy some time to recharge before party conference season hits. But on whether the PM should be taking any downtime at all is a contentious subject among the public. Mr S has got hold of some new polling that shows just how much time off – and where – Brits believe Starmer should be allowed… According to Ipsos

Matthew Lynn

Starmer’s late payment crackdown is pointless

They face higher National Insurance charges, increased business rates, crippling energy costs, and if they hire anyone: crushing employment rights. Still, never mind about any of that. The Prime Minister has today come up with a plan to finally show that he is on the side of small businesses and entrepreneurs. He will crack down on late payments. There is just one catch. This policy is completely pointless – and won’t do anything to undo all the damage his government has already done. It is hard to believe that anyone could look at the state of the British economy right now and decide what it really needs is another group

Laurie Wastell

Labour’s shameful response to the Manchester Airport attack

On Wednesday at Liverpool Crown Court, Mohammed Fahir Amaaz, one of the two brothers accused of the Manchester Airport attack last July, was found guilty of assaulting two female police officers, as well as a member of the public. The jury was unable to reach a verdict on a charge that Amaaz and his brother, Muhammad Amaad, assaulted armed police officer PC Zachary Marsden. Both defendants will now be retried on that charge. It has been a year since the viral incident at Manchester Airport. The question for many still is why Labour figures responded in the way they did – initially seeming to sympathise with the brothers rather than

Alexander Horne

Palestine Action shouldn’t be unbanned

Yesterday, the High Court allowed Palestine Action to challenge the Home Secretary’s decision to ban it. Since its proscription, under terrorism legislation, it has been an offence to be a member of the group, or to invite support for it. There is absolutely no need for peaceful protestors to associate themselves with a group concerned in unlawful acts While it was not a final determination, the High Court hearing was revealing. Mr Justice Chamberlain’s decision followed judicial consideration of a file of ‘closed material’ – evidence not disclosed to the claimant – and an open hearing which was reported in the press The judge ruled that Palestine Action could proceed to bring

William Moore William Moore

Under ctrl, the Epping migrant protests & why is ‘romantasy’ so popular?

39 min listen

First: the new era of censorship A year ago, John Power notes, the UK was consumed by race riots precipitated by online rumours about the perpetrator of the Southport atrocity. This summer, there have been protests, but ‘something is different’. With the introduction of the Online Safety Act, ‘the government is exerting far greater control over what can and can’t be viewed online’. While the act ‘promises to protect minors from harmful material’, he argues that it is ‘the most sweeping attempt by any liberal democracy to bring the online world under the control of the state’. Implemented and defended by the current Labour government, it is actually the result

Charles Moore Charles Moore

What the media doesn’t tell us about Gaza

Sir Keir Starmer’s apparent justification for threatening to recognise a Palestinian state by September is pictures. ‘I think people are revolted at what they are seeing on their screen,’ he said on Monday. On Tuesday, he spoke of ‘starving babies, children too weak to stand, images that will stay with us for a lifetime’. Pictures, however grim, seem a weak basis for a massive constitutional change. Sir Keir is also assuming that the pictures in question are ‘true’. Yet pictures, precisely because of their emotional impact, often undergo less editorial scrutiny than words and are frequently reproduced by other media unchecked. At the weekend, the New York Times put an

Max Hastings

Britain shouldn’t put up with Donald Trump

History is the march of folly and far too many of my countrymen are hearkening to a drumbeat which would lead us to disaster. On Tuesday several of our newspapers led with variations of the same headline: ‘Trump: cut tax to beat Farage.’ This is idiotic counsel, given the state of Britain’s public finances. I would have thought the way to beat populism was not by emulating its idiocies but by prudent, cautious, sensible management of a nation tired of liars. If Donald Trump teaches us anything, it is how to ruin a great nation. Far more useful than parroting the US President’s delusions would be telling the British people

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Israel has gone too far

If any other country in the Middle East had behaved as monstrously as Israel has in recent weeks, the jets would be lined up on our runways ready to do a bit of performative bombing. Never mind BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) and diplomatic pressure. I mention this because those of us who support Israel, and have done so largely uncritically since 7 October 2023, need the scales to fall from our eyes a little – for the good of Israel, as well as the good of those starving Palestinians. I have been to Israel many times, as a journalist, as a holidaymaker, as a friend. I accept without demurral