Politics Archives

Saturday

24 Jun 2023

Lucy Dunn

Humza Yousaf’s independence plan is a desperate power grab

During her eight years as Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon perfected the art of false promises. She consistently told SNP supporters that a second independence referendum was within reach, but the truth was that she had no power to deliver one. All Sturgeon was able to do was lead her troops halfway up the hill before having to bring them back down again. ‘Continuity candidate’ Humza Yousaf, the SNP’s new leader, seems to think that this is a strategy worth copying. In a speech at the party’s independence convention in Dundee, Yousaf unveiled his new Indyref plan. His latest brainwave appears to be, on the face of it, a complete

Mark Galeotti

Why did Wagner get so far?

13 min listen

Fraser Nelson is joined by Svitlana Morenets and Mark Galeotti as Vladimir Putin faces an armed insurrection from the Wagner mercenary group – what could happen next?

Owen Matthews

Why Prigozhin rebelled

Civil war broke on Russia like a thunderstorm, replacing weeks of mounting political heat with a deluge of fire and fury. The sound of rifles and mortars echoed around Rostov-on-Don hours after mercenaries of the Wagner private military company took over the headquarters of the Russian Army’s Southern command. Wagner troops were filmed placing anti-tank mines on intersections in downtown Rostov. In Voronezh, Russian army KA-52 attack helicopters rocketed a tank park, apparently to stop the armoured vehicles falling into the hands of the rebels, as a burning oil refinery outside Rostov sent flames hundreds of feet into the air. A column of Wagner tanks on low-loaders was filmed heading

Geoff Hill

A trophy hunting ban won’t save Africa’s wildlife

British rule over South Africa ended in 1910, but now parliament is busy with legislation that could have a devastating effect on its old colony. A landmark law to ban trophy hunting imports is making its way through the Lords. The Hunting Trophies Bill would prevent tourists importing animal skins, severed heads and carcasses of certain animals to the UK after shoots abroad. But the planned law has holes wide enough for a hippo to walk through. The crackdown may be well intended but it also betrays a lack of understanding about South Africa – and the trade many people, not least farmers, rely upon to survive. In South Africa, many farmers

Steerpike

The SNP’s independence convention gets off to a shaky start

It’s finally here. The SNP independence convention has been in the works for quite some time – it was initially supposed to be Nicola Sturgeon’s de facto referendum conference – so you’d think that its execution would be slick, its planning well organised. Think again. It will come of no surprise to readers, Mr S is sure, that there is little about this conference that has been ‘slick’ or ‘well organised’. The decision to keep Indyref superfans waiting outside until the (very late) start meant that anti-separatist protestors had time to set up shop on the steps of Dundee’s Caird Hall. A suitably Scottish brawl broke out between those from

Robin Ashenden

Rostov-on-Don: scenes from an occupation

The main thoroughfare of Rostov-on-Don is today crawling with military vehicles and masked soldiers carrying automatics, and the entrance to that circus – which backs onto the Rostov military headquarters – is blocked aggressively by a tank. The city is now controlled by the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin’s private army out on the rampage and rebelling against the Russian military high command. It is a city now under occupation, and many of its citizens, under ‘official advice’, are staying home. Telegram channels report that all civilian vehicles have been placed at a standstill, the city governor is arranging food deliveries for those caught in traffic jams, and in Rostov prisons

Kate Andrews

The case for capitalism

27 min listen

Kate Andrews is joined by Fraser Nelson and Johan Norberg, author of The Capitalist Manifesto: why the global free market will save the world. On the podcast Johan talks about its why lockdown societies never worked; whether he finds the word capitalism useful and his endless optimism for a better future.

Mary Wakefield

Matt Ridley, Martin Newland & Mary Wakefield

22 min listen

This week: Matt Ridley reveals the identity of the Chinese scientists in the lab linked to Covid, Martin Newland makes the moral case for becoming a foster carer, and Mary Wakefield has a plan for her old age to rid the world of drones. Produced by Linden Kemkaran

Sergey Radchenko

This failed coup will be just the beginning

Yevgeny Prigozhin has just exposed the full extent of Vladimir Putin’s weakness. In less than 24 hours, the leader of the Wagner mercenary group made extraordinary progress – taking control of the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, the headquarters of the Southern Miliary District, and posing the most serious challenge to Putin’s leadership. The president did not look all-powerful, but unable to control Prigozhin as he said his 25,000 troops were willing to march on Moscow. Back on 9 May, when Prigozhin’s challenge to Vladimir Putin first became evident, I argued in The Spectator against the idea that Putin was ‘in charge’ of the situation. My analysis was based on

Lisa Haseldine

Full text: Putin on Wagner coup

Vladimir Putin has just released a speech to Russians after the Wagner mercenary group took over Russian military headquarters in the south of the country in what is described by the Kremlin as an attempted coup. Full text below. ‘We are fighting for the life and security of our people, for our sovereignty and independence, for the right to be and remain Russian: a state with a 1,000-year history. This battle, when the fate of our people is being decided, requires the cohesion of all forces: unity, consolidation and responsibility. We must throw aside everything that weakens us, any strife that our external enemies can and will use to undermine

Philip Patrick

Japan’s dark history of forced sterilisation

A Japanese government report has revealed that over a 50-year period, under a policy of forced sterilisation, 16,500 people were operated on without their consent. The youngest, a boy and a girl, were just nine. Another 8,000 apparently gave their consent, though under what sort of pressure is unclear. A further 60,000 women had abortions due to hereditary illnesses. This was all done under a eugenics law enacted in 1948 and not repealed until the 1990s. Victims of the policy, often young girls spirited away to clinics for mysterious operations they didn’t understand, have been campaigning for compensation for decades. Last year a court awarded damages of 27million yen (£150,000)

Coffee House

Prigozhin leaves Rostov

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner mercenary group, has left Rostov-on-Don and ended the armed insurrection against Vladimir Putin. After one of the most extraordinary days in Russian history, he said he marched within 125 miles of Moscow but said he decided to go no further to avoid bloodshed. Putin, who had ordered his army to crush Prigozhin and imprison his men, has agreed to drop all charges. After a Belarus-brokered peace deal, Prigozhin will self-exile in Minsk, according to the Kremlin. Footage emerged showing him being bid farewell by cheering crowds in Rostov and winding down his window to greet them. A few hours earlier, he released the

Patrick O’Flynn

Could the election herald the rise of the small party?

These are heady times for Britain’s smaller political parties. Seldom has there been as much interest from voters in breaking away from the stale embrace of the entity known to many as the ‘LibLabCon’. On the left, the Greens keep growing – though their addiction to identity politics in general and the militant trans movement in particular puts a ceiling on their potential progress. In the muscular centre, there is a revival of the SDP making steady progress. The party, which these day is stoutly pro-Brexit and leans to the left on economics and the right on culture, won a second seat on Leeds City Council from Labour in May.

Friday

23 Jun 2023

Svitlana Morenets

Russia’s nuclear blackmail

‘Dear Ukrainians! And all people of the world: everyone! I emphasise this,’ Volodymyr Zelensky said in a televised speech yesterday. Russia, he said, is planning a ‘terrorist attack’ using radiation leakage at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant – Europe’s largest. Ukrainian intelligence repeatedly warned that Russian forces have sown mines in the plant, as it appears that they did with the Nova-Kakhovka dam. Ukrainians are gripped by an unsettling sense of déjà vu, fearing that the nuclear plant, which is under Russian control, will inevitably suffer the same fate. The Zaporizhzhia plant has been under Russian control since last March and has served as a safe facility for weapons and ammunition storage.

Andrew Tettenborn

Brussels will regret its crackdown on Hungary’s migrant plan

Hungary, a magnet for numerous would-be migrants because of its 110-mile land border with Serbia, has taken its own steps to stem the flow. One is brutally physical: a twelve-foot razor wire fence. The other is legal. Three years ago, Budapest passed a law preventing anyone not already lawfully resident seeking asylum, except through nominated Hungarian embassies abroad, one of which was that in Belgrade. The application had to be made in person there: the embassy would then decide whether to issue a temporary travel document allowing entry to Hungary while the application was processed. The object was entirely practical: requiring irregular entrants to leave Hungary in order to apply

Gerry Hassan

The SNP needs a clean break from Sturgeon if it wants to survive

The SNP meets in Dundee this weekend for a special conference on independence. Four months since Nicola Sturgeon resigned as leader and three months since Humza Yousaf narrowly became leader and the police investigation into party finances began, it’s fair to say that the party is in a confused state. The mood is febrile. Some think that normalcy will return; others that the independence project can triumph in the near-future by some miracle fix. Many cling to the wreckage of Sturgeon, while a few still yearn for the return of the emperor over the water Alex Salmond. What is missing is an honest assessment and understanding of where the SNP is, the deep hole it occupies (much of

Cindy Yu

Do Brits regret Brexit?

11 min listen

Today is the seven years’ anniversary of the Brexit referendum, and new polls find that a majority of Brits would prefer a closer relationship with the EU, or rejoining the European Union altogether. Can Labour capitalise on this? Cindy Yu talks to James Heale and Fraser Nelson. Produced by Cindy Yu.

Stephen Daisley

How Winnie Ewing transformed Scottish politics

Icon. Legend. Pioneer. None of the descriptions we have heard since the news of her passing are fitting for Winnie Ewing. She was an iconic figure in Scottish nationalism, to be sure – her victory in the 1967 Hamilton by-election heralding a new political consciousness north of the border. She did take on a legendary quality, not least after she was dubbed ‘Madame Ecosse’ and became a symbol for an outward-looking Scottish Europeanism. She was a pioneer, the first female SNP MP at a time when both her party and parliament were the domain of men. Yet Ewing’s foremost contributions were not symbolic but tangible and practical. In five decades

Gavin Mortimer

France shouldn’t lecture anyone

Numerous heads of state from the third world are in Paris for a summit hosted by President Macron. The aim of the conference – or the Summit for a New Global Financing Pact to give it its full lofty name – is to ‘address the needs of developing countries in the fight against poverty.’ Is France, or indeed the rest of the West, in a position to dish out advice to developing nations? The days of Europe being able to lecture developing countries about efficiency, integrity and prosperity are long gone. It was bleakly ironic that on the eve of the summit Paris was rocked by a huge gas

Thursday

22 Jun 2023

Steerpike

Scotland’s newest pro-indy media outlet launches

You might have thought that the National had successfully cornered the fiction market among SNP devotees. But now Mr S has discovered the existence of another pro-independence media outlet keen to shake up Scotland’s media landscape. ‘Skotia’ claims it will divert from the ‘obsessive hysteria of Scotland’s political class’ by making ‘life difficult for the architects of Scotland’s political consensus’ and maintaining a ‘constant vigilance on those who sow hate and inhumanity’. Noble stuff. Its launch video features the outlet’s new editor, Coll McCail, an earnest redhead, who proclaims: While the British state looks out for its own, the Scottish establishment is too comfortable. It’s too cosy with the people and institutions