Politics

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

Wednesday

14 Jun 2023

Backbench Tories support Sunak at PMQs

Keir Starmer had a dilemma at Prime Minister’s Questions. Focus on the Boris Johnson psychodrama, or the more tangible story about mortgages and interests rates? He went for Tory infighting first. But then Sunak took the curious approach of deciding to use Starmer’s opener as an opportunity to address the Johnson question head on, rather than trying to argue that his sole focus was on the economy and the cost of living. He told the chamber that ‘I followed the process to the letter’ and that he had stuck by the convention of all prime ministers in sending Johnson’s peerages unamended, rather than blocking it as Starmer said he should

Iain Macwhirter

Why is the SNP refusing to give Sturgeon the boot?

Nicola Sturgeon – progressive icon, feminist champion, scourge of corrupt Tories – is, almost by definition, incapable of wrongdoing. As she insisted after her arrest on Sunday: ‘I know beyond doubt that I am in fact innocent of any wrongdoing.’ It is her truth. Her MSPs agree and have, we’re told, sent her flowers to soothe her distress at this injustice. It was therefore something of an inconvenience that Police Scotland noted in their press statement on Sunday that the former FM had been ‘arrested as a suspect’ in their investigation into the funds and fundraising of the Scottish National Party. She was released seven hours later without charge and with the

James Heale

Will Ulez be the undoing of Sadiq Khan?

London faces its seventh mayoral election next year and, yet again, the Tories are having trouble finding a suitable candidate. The publication this week of the final shortlist – Susan Hall, Daniel Korski and Mozammel Hossain – was accompanied by accusations of stitch-ups, counter-claims and legal threats between two of the defeated candidates. Sadiq Khan’s aides have enjoyed watching it all play out; Labour leads in London by a whopping 40 points. So a Tory victory next May is unlikely – but still not impossible. Air quality in the once-smoggy capital is the cleanest it’s been for centuries, but Khan has declared a pollution ‘emergency’. He’s introduced new taxes on

Cindy Yu

Nadine’s revenge

13 min listen

Having said she’ll step down, Nadine Dorries has now said that she won’t formally resign as an MP until later this year… It’s hard to see this as anything other than revenge taken on Rishi Sunak, so as to prolong the by-election pain, Katy Balls says. Cindy Yu also talks to Kate Andrews about the economic pain in the country at the moment – from lacklustre GDP growth to rising mortgage rates. Produced by Cindy Yu.

Steerpike

Nadine Dorries causes Rishi Sunak even more misery

She’s done it again. Having re-ignited the Tory wars with her shock plans to quit parliament last Friday, now Nadine Dorries is delaying her resignation plans – prolonging the by-election misery for Rishi Sunak. The former Culture Secretary may not leave the Commons until the summer recess, pushing a by-election in her Mid-Bedfordshire constituency into the run-up to the Tories’ annual conference in the autumn. Just when Rishi wants to sell himself to the nation… Friends of hers have told the Daily Mail – where Dorries writes a weekly column – that former Labour MP Rosie Cooper took two months to go after she formally resigned. ‘It’s her prerogative when

Douglas Murray

It’s been a bad week for former political leaders

The week of the three downfalls has been an interesting one. Boris Johnson resigning from parliament, Donald Trump going to court to face serious charges, Nicola Sturgeon arrested as part of a probe into SNP finances. I wouldn’t like to prejudge any of these cases, for I am – secretly – a fair-minded person. Of course, had Sturgeon not been involved, various leftist writers would now be penning articles claiming a great linkage between these events. Probably about the downfall of ‘populism’. But since Saint Nicola is involved this will not happen. Because as I have noted here before, our age sees all nationalism as poison, except for the Scottish

Nicholas Farrell

The visionary madness of Silvio Berlusconi

Silvio Berlusconi, whose state funeral will take place today in Milan, was the first modern populist. The media tycoon became a politician to take back control of Italy from the establishment on behalf of the people. The Italians called him Il Cavaliere (The Knight). He created a brand of politics that decades later would become a new driving force in America and Europe and would be called populism. Berlusconi reminds me of Jay Gatsby, the tragic hero of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s great novel Italians voted for him in their droves. Like Donald Trump, he was dead rich but loved by the dirt poor. He spoke their language: he loved beautiful football and beautiful women. He hated tax and red tape and fines and the big bad

Kate Andrews

GDP grows by 0.2% as the economy continues to stagnate

The economy grew by 0.2 per cent in April, following on from a confirmed 0.3 per cent contraction in March. This fits the trend this year of small ebbs and flows in GDP, which all together add up to extremely little overall growth this year. This is now what the big forecasters have predicted, from the Office for Budget Responsibility, to the OECD and IMF. Overall services grew by 0.3 per cent, the ‘main contributor’ to April’s uptick in growth. The biggest sub-sector for growth was ‘wholesale and retail trade’ which is thought to have improved due to the lack of train strikes and transport hiccups in April. Consumer-facing services had a

Ben Domenech

Donald Trump’s arraignment was a circus

The scene in Miami was somewhat less than promised today. The predicted tens of thousands of protesters were replaced instead by the handful of eccentrics who always seem to find ways to show up at things involving Donald Trump – even historically significant things like the first federal arraignment of a president of the United States on criminal charges. As expected, inside the courthouse Trump pled not guilty to all thirty-seven counts brought against him by the feds, and his mood was reportedly somber. For Trump, it’s quite possible that this case will drag out well into the 2024 presidential race and potentially beyond. He has claimed that he will

Tuesday

13 Jun 2023

Kate Andrews

Andrew Bailey’s evidence session was the opposite of reassuring

‘There are obviously lessons to be learned,’ said Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey at today’s House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee. It was a point he repeated many times over, in reference to the inflation crisis that has plagued Britain for close to two years now. ‘We have to learn lessons from the experiences we’ve had, of course we must… We have to work out what those lessons are.’ But despite repeating this sentiment over and over again, Bailey could not meaningfully come up with one good example of such a lesson, nor could he go into much detail on the mistakes the Monetary Policy Committee has made over the

Melanie McDonagh

Carla Foster’s case isn’t a miscarriage of justice

What’s the difference between infanticide and an abortion at eight months’ gestation? This is one of the difficult questions thrown up by the grim case of Carla Foster, the mother who’s been jailed for 28 months (in practice, it’ll be half that) for inducing an abortion outside the legal limit using pills at home. Her foetus – or baby, as most of us would say – was 32 to 34 weeks old. That’s way past the stage of development where neonates who are wanted can survive. The judge’s summing up was, in this case, lapidary. Justice Edward Pepperall makes clear that the evidence shows that Foster knew she was far

Steerpike

SNP send flowers to Nicola Sturgeon ‘as a mark of sympathy’

‘Bizarre’ is a high bar in Scottish politics these days, but the SNP has comfortably cleared it once again. The party’s deputy leader Keith Brown revealed Nationalist MSPs have agreed to ‘send some flowers’ to Nicola Sturgeon ‘as a mark of sympathy, given what she has been through over recent days’. Sturgeon was arrested on Sunday by police investigating allegations of financial misconduct. She was released without charge after seven hours. Her husband, and former SNP chief executive, Peter Murrell and the party’s ex-treasurer Colin Beattie were previously arrested and similarly released without charge. The bouquet is a nice gesture from the SNP group, but Mr Steerpike wonders what they’re going

Joanna Williams

Carla Foster’s fate shows the need to reform Britain’s abortion laws

Carla Foster spent last night in a prison cell. In 2020, after having obtained abortion pills under false pretences, the 44-year-old mother of three terminated her pregnancy at between 32 and 34 weeks gestation. This week, she was found guilty under section 58 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 for administering drugs or using instruments to procure abortion. She has been sentenced to two years in prison. Foster’s imprisonment has sparked shock and anger among commentators, campaigners and politicians. ‘There is a mechanism the government can use to show mercy to women convicted today for having an abortion – it’s a royal prerogative and was last used in

James Heale

Are ‘sinister forces’ conspiring against Nadine Dorries?

12 min listen

Nadine Dorries has hit out on various platforms saying that ‘sinister forces’ stopped her from receiving her peerage, as promised to her by former prime minister Boris Johnson. This has been met by a strong rebuke from Number 10, but do Boris and Dorries have grounds to feel aggrieved? Also on the podcast, tomorrow we will learn the Privileges Committee’s findings on whether Boris Johnson knowingly misled the House. What should we expect? James Heale speaks to Katy Balls and Paul Goodman, editor of Conservative Home. Produced by Cindy Yu and Oscar Edmondson.

Ross Clark

Don’t get too excited about deglobalisation

One difference between the rivalry with China and the cold war is that the Soviet Union was completely economically segregated from the western world. That is not the case with China nowadays: cheap goods have flooded western markets for decades. But are we heading back to the multipolar world of the 20th century? China and the West are out of step in terms of monetary policy. China’s central bank actually moved to reduce interest rates this morning, after stronger-than-expected data on wages. A short-term lending rate was cut from 2 per cent to 1.9 percent. How come? Because inflation in China is beginning to go into reverse as its economy

Lucy Dunn

Why junior doctors in Scotland voted to strike

Junior doctors in Scotland will strike for three days in July after rejecting the Scottish government’s pay offer. Two thirds of eligible junior doctors turned out to vote on the pay deal, and 71 per cent rejected the offer. The 72-hour strike will take place from 7am on Wednesday 12 July to 6.59am on Saturday 15 July unless, the doctors’ union says, ‘an improved offer that the BMA believes it could credibly put to members’ is made by the Scottish government. Last month, Scotland’s junior doctors were offered a 6.5 per cent pay rise for this coming year. It was described as a 14.5 per cent pay increase by the

Stephen Daisley

What good will locking up Carla Foster do?

During the Covid-19 pandemic, a 44-year-old woman, Carla Foster, unlawfully aborted her unborn baby. She procured the necessary drugs from the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) by leading them to believe her pregnancy was just over seven weeks in. In fact, she understood herself to be either 28 or 30 weeks in gestation. A post-mortem on her otherwise healthy baby girl, Lily, indicated the pregnancy was somewhere between 32 and 34 weeks. The Abortion Act 1967, as amended in 1990, sets 24 weeks as the upper time limit for lawfully obtaining an abortion in Great Britain, with exceptions where the woman is at risk of death or significant harm, or

Steerpike

Boris Johnson: ‘I’ll be back’

Boris Johnson formally resigned as an MP yesterday – but don’t expect theformer PM to throw in the towel any time soon. After a pretty unedifying slanging match with Rishi Sunak in the press about his resignation honours’ list, Johnson stepped down from his role as the MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip. But, Boris wasn’t quite done torpedoing Sunak’s desperate efforts to preserve the fragile Tory peace since becoming leader last Autumn. Speaking to the Express last night, Boris couldn’t resist taking yet another swipe at the current No. 10 operation. He thanked readers for their ongoing support and declared: ‘We must fully deliver on Brexit and on the 2019 manifesto. We must smash Labour at the next election. Nothing less than absolute victory and total Brexit will

Damien Phillips

Putin’s anti-western oil alliance is coming unstuck

As Russia frantically attempts to hold on to its territorial gains in the face of the much-anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive, there are early signs that it is also failing to retain its diplomatic and foreign policy advances. The anti-Western energy alliances it had constructed around the world with many of the leading oil and gas producers, which had endured despite the invasion, are beginning to fracture. Its attempts to shutdown competitors to Russian oil and gas have proved futile. It all went wrong so quickly for Russia. Back in 2016, the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) expanded to include Russia as part of OPEC+. The deal, painstakingly brokered by Saudi

Gavin Mortimer

Berlusconi was the first leader to glimpse the looming migrant crisis

Silvio Berlusconi should be remembered for more than just his passion for football and sex. He was the first European leader this century to identity illegal immigration as an existential threat to the stability and cohesion of the continent. Ironically, the former Italian prime minister’s infamous ‘Bunga-Bunga’ parties reportedly owed their name to a joke once told to Berlusconi by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, a man who was also acutely aware of Europe’s vulnerability. The two leaders were close, a friendship that became politically important when Berlusconi was re-elected PM in April 2008. A significant factor in his victory was illegal immigration from Africa, which had been steadily rising since the

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