Politics Archives

Wednesday

21 Jun 2023

Britain risks turning into a stagflation nation

Inflation figures out this morning make for grim reading: the headline rate didn’t budge, sticking at 8.7 per cent on the year in May. Far worse, core inflation (which excludes food and energy) rose once again, to 7.1 per cent on the year in May, up from 6.8 per cent in April. This latest update from the Office for National Statistics carries far more weight than your usual monthly report. With mortgage costs spiralling into a crisis, the Bank of England will have been looking for any excuse to stick to a dovish interest rate hike or to even hold rates, as the Federal Reserve did last week for the first time

Andrew Tettenborn

Humza Yousaf’s troubling plan for an independent Scotland

Even with Nicola Sturgeon politically hors de combat, Scotland’s first minister Humza Yousaf has made it clear he intends to forge ahead with her plans to hold a second independence referendum. The Scottish government has produced its blueprint for the future constitution that could flow from such an independence vote. Any voter contemplating taking up Humza’s offer and voting Yes in a possible Indyref2 would do well to read this document closely. They could be letting themselves in for a great deal more than they thought. Put simply, the plan is to make the SNP’s soft-left Bruntsfield-style ideology an almost irremovable feature in Scottish public life. A lot will be familiar. The incredibly generous

Nigel Jones

Biden is right: China’s Xi is a ‘dictator’

Just as a stopped clock shows the correct time twice a day, so president Joe Biden, amidst the plethora of gaffes that regularly issues from his lips, occasionally utters the plain and unvarnished truth. So it was at a Democratic fundraiser in California yesterday when Biden called China’s president Xi Jinping ‘a dictator’. Explaining why he gave the order to shoot down a Chinese spy balloon that entered US airspace in February, the president said that Xi had been ‘embarrassed’ because the balloon had been blown off course and ‘he didn’t know it was there’. US diplomats, like secretary of state Anthony Blinken (who has just inconclusively met Xi in

Tuesday

20 Jun 2023

Lucy Dunn

Rebel backbencher creates trouble for the Scottish government

Scottish government minister, Lorna Slater, has managed to survive a vote of no confidence tabled by Conservative MSP Liam Kerr. The circular economy minister, and co-leader of the Scottish Greens, has faced heavy criticism for her handling of Scotland’s controversial deposit return scheme in recent months. To make matters worse, hours before politicians voted on Kerr’s motion, Slater was this afternoon forced to admit that the company running the scheme, Circularity Scotland, had appointed administrators. Though Slater saw off the vote, with 55 MSPs voting for the motion while 68 voted against it, her reputation did not escape unscathed from the rather unedifying debate. The anger at deposit return scheme-related

Steerpike

Mordaunt mauls Fleet Street’s finest

Penny Mordaunt might be the media darling since wielding the Coronation sword but it wasn’t always this way. The Leader of the House has had a fair few run-ins with the Four Estate in recent years, including last summer’s leadership election. So it was with great enthusiasm that Mr S attended tonight’s Parliamentary Press Gallery summer reception where Mordaunt was billed as the star speaker. Welcoming ‘friends – and Lord Frost’, Mordaunt introduced herself as ‘one of the handful of Conservative MPs not to have their own show on GB News.’ The former magicians’ assistant was quick to work her magic, referencing the infamous lobby briefing at which Mrs Thatcher’s

Mark Galeotti

The Kremlin is still afraid of Alexei Navalny

As Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is once again in court, facing charges that could extend his time in prison by 30 or more years, he is showing that he is not giving up his uneven but unyielding challenge to the Putin regime. When Navalny returned to Russia in January 2021 after recovering from a government attempt to poison him, it was to no one’s surprise that he was immediately arrested and sent to prison for nine years on spurious parole violation charges (which included the surreal accusation that he was in breach for not reporting to the police while he was in a coma). Since then, he has faced

Steerpike

Sturgeon’s dead cat wheeze

Coming soon to the Edinburgh Fringe: Evita without the self-awareness. Nicola Sturgeon trialled her one woman show today with an impromptu press conference at Holyrood, following her shock arrest less than a fortnight ago. Bravely, the former First Minister gave the performance of a lifetime, sticking to her Dalek-like insistence on her innocence while, er, managing to give away nothing new on the grounds that she is ‘heavily constrained’ by the police investigation. ‘I have done nothing wrong!’ she proclaimed, adding that she had ‘searched her soul’ on whether to step down as an SNP member but that, shock, horror, she had decided not to do so. How long did

James Heale

Parliament votes to ban Boris

10 min listen

In last night’s vote on the Privileges Committee’s report into whether Boris Johnson misled parliament, just six MPs backed the former prime minister. What’s the reaction in Westminster today? Also on the podcast, after shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves rowed back on Labour’s £28bn green projects pledge, why are both parties in such a mess on energy? James Heale speaks to Katy Balls and Fraser Nelson. Produced by Oscar Edmondson.

Tom Slater

Mark Zuckerberg won’t kill Twitter

Is Mark Zuckerberg losing his touch? Having just thrown tens of billions at his weird virtual-reality ‘metaverse’, only to see it flop with users, the Meta CEO and co-founder of Facebook appears to be spying another questionable new venture. It’s reportedly called Threads, a cloying techspeak name for what is essentially a rip-off of Twitter. You might think that the last thing the world needs is another Twitter, den of sanctimony and cancellation that it is. But not our Zuck. Threads appears to be an attempt to capitalise on the unease over at Twitter Towers, as advertisers and high-profile users alike have been rattled by Elon Musk’s unpredictable new leadership

Isabel Hardman

Neither party is fully trusted on the economy

Jeremy Hunt was bombarded by MPs worried about the ‘mortgage timebomb’ when he took Treasury questions in the Commons today. Everyone on all sides was concerned, and offering their own ideas of what to do and who to blame. One problem for the Chancellor is that ‘everyone’ includes members of his own party, many of whom are pushing him to do something ‘more Conservative’. The main ‘more Conservative’ policy that Tory backbenchers were promoting was mortgage interest relief. Jake Berry suggested it, arguing that without this kind of support, all the other money spent by the government would be wasted if people lost their homes. Other Conservative backbenchers including Jonathan

Steerpike

Full text: James Cleverly’s party season speech

To Dean’s Yard, for the second best party of the summer season. The Tory establishment assembled last night for ConservativeHome’s annual bash, hosted in the shadow of Westminster Abbey. It was this august event which kicked off last year’s summer madness: a point not lost on this year’s star speaker. James Cleverly, the Foreign Secretary, took to the lectern to deliver a veritable tour d’horizon. In a speech which encompassed everything from Ukraine and the Spanish Civil War to Jeremy Corbyn and Joseph Bazalgette, Cleverly riffed on music festivals, London refuse policy and even ConHome’s sponsors WaterUK and the RSPB. ‘Nobody is expecting tonight’s speech to be the starting gun

Ed McGuinness

Keir Starmer is dangerously naive about the army

Keir Starmer has vowed to create a ‘squaddies tsar’ if he wins the election. This ‘Armed Forces Commissioner’ would represent the military and their families and sit outside the military chain of command. But it’s here that the problems start. The Labour leader says this issue is personal to him because his uncle served aboard HMS Antelope in the Falklands War. But Starmer could do with turning to another military reference point – the 1998 film, Saving Private Ryan – to appreciate why such a ‘tsar’ could cause trouble. ‘I don’t gripe to you, Reiben,’ captain Miller explains as his soldiers traipse through the French bocage. ‘I’m a captain. There’s a

Gavin Mortimer

Is Macron having a Meloni makeover?

Emmanuel Macron never does anything by chance, so why did he allow himself to be filmed downing a beer in one on Saturday night? The clip, which has gone viral, has angered puritanical progressives. Green MP Sandrine Rousseau has branded Macron’s behaviour ‘toxic masculinity’. The president of the French Republic slaked his thirst just before midnight in the dressing room of the Toulouse rugby team in the Stade de France. Toulouse had beaten La Rochelle to win the French rugby championship, an event at which Macron had been introduced to the players before kick-off. He ducked out of a similar invitation in April at the final of the French football

Gareth Roberts

Harry and Meghan may still have a bright podcasting future

After Spotify sacked/let go/‘mutually agreed to part ways’ with, in the words of one of its executives, those ‘f-ing grifters’ Harry and Meghan, there have much discussion about where it all went wrong for the podcasting pair. The general consensus is that the Sussexes may have overestimated public interest in anything they have to say beyond self-pitying tittle-tattle. Their recent statement that they’re not even going to do that any more makes you wonder what else they have stocked up in their ideas cupboard, and why the world would want to pay it their attention. The duff duo haven’t even been paid the full $20 million (£16 million) they signed

Monday

19 Jun 2023

Isabel Hardman

Parliament votes to ban Boris

MPs have just voted 354 to 7 in favour of the Privileges Committee report’s finding that Boris Johnson deliberately misled parliament over partygate, and that he should be banned from having a former members’ pass. At some points in this evening’s lengthy debate, it appeared that there wasn’t going to be a vote, and even when there was one, there were significant absences as the Commons is on a one-line whip. But in the end, a division was forced in order to flush out how many supporters Johnson still had who thought it was worth going over the top. Johnson, meanwhile, is speaking at a dinner on democracy Most of

Steerpike

Watch: Jacob Rees-Mogg backs up Boris

It was rare to find anyone willing to stand up and defend Boris Johnson in parliament this afternoon. But cometh the hour, cometh the Mogg as the Honourable Member for the eighteenth century arose to deliver his best defence of his former boss. Jacob Rees-Mogg described it as a ‘deliberate attempt to take the most unfavourable interpretation that the committee can of Mr Johnson’s activities.’ The Tory backbencher jested that the panel of MPs of acting like ‘an Elon Musk particle’ inserted into ‘Mr Johnson’s brain’ and ridiculed them for refusing to allow criticism in the chamber: For some reason the Privileges Committee thinks it’s in communist China, and that

John Ferry

Humza Yousaf’s pound shop populism isn’t cutting through

Have you opened a letter recently from your energy supplier and gasped at how much of your monthly budget is now going on electricity and gas? Are you living in constant pain or discomfort because you need an operation, but under the Scottish NHS you’ll have to wait years for treatment? Or do you live on one of Scotland’s islands and have been forced, for the first time in your life, to take to the streets in protest at the Scottish government’s failure to provide lifeline ferry services for your community? If Scotland ever does cut away from the UK, the split is many years away. This makes it all

Andrew Liddle

Will Labour’s green energy strategy convince Scottish voters?

The launch of the Labour party’s new green energy mission did not go to plan. The party had promised to ferry journalists to the venue in a hydrogen-powered bus, only for this to be quickly replaced with a diesel alternative on the day. To make matters worse, the bus driver then got lost on route, twisting and turning his way through the narrow streets of Leith. Only after several U-turns, and some helpful directions from a generous journalist, did the bus eventually chug its way – much delayed – to the location of Starmer’s great launch. As a metaphor for the Labour party’s energy policy, you would be hard pressed

Isabel Hardman

The Tories can’t escape partygate

Is partygate all in the past? That’s what Rishi Sunak is hoping. He sent Penny Mordaunt to the Commons this afternoon to back the Privileges Committee report into Boris Johnson, while saying the vote on sanctions for Johnson himself ‘is a matter for individual members’. The chamber had far more opposition MPs in it than Conservatives. Sunak himself has packed his diary so he is unlikely to attend the Commons for the vote. Labour’s aim for the debate is to tie Johnson very firmly to the current administration. Shadow leader of the Commons Thangam Debbonaire gave a furious speech in which she accused Sunak of being too weak to take

Steerpike

Watch: Theresa May lambasts Boris

They come not to praise Caesar but to bury him. Watching today’s debate on the Privileges Committee report into Boris Johnson, Mr S was struck by how many critics of the former PM were there to administer the last rites. Harriet Harman and Thangam Debbonaire were there for Labour; on the Tory benches David Davis, William Wragg and Tobias Ellwood were watching on eagerly. But this wouldn’t have been a proper parliamentary occasion without Theresa May. Lips pursed, pearls in place, Johnson’s predecessor – the woman he brought down – slowly stood to catch the Speaker’s eye. Speaking just after the SNP, May told the House that she would be