Politics

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

Thursday

Anna Arutunyan

Latvia’s Russian media crackdown will delight Putin

When Russia was preparing to annex Crimea in the late winter of 2014, the newly-appointed head of the Russian agency that published our newspaper, the Moscow News, laid down some new rules. The age of disinterested, objective reporting was over. Our job, this Kremlin-picked patriotic zealot told staff, was to love the Motherland. We all resigned. As a journalist, striving for disinterested objectivity was literally my job description – the values instilled in me when I trained in New York. Praising your Motherland for money can be called all sorts of things, just not love. Instead, I went on to report on the start of Russia’s incursion into Ukraine for Western

Wednesday

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Is Starmer blaming Rishi Sunak’s wife for the nurses’ strike?

What’s causing the nurses’ strike? At PMQs we found out. First, came a tale of anguish. Sir Keir raised the distressing case of 11-year-old Alex who needs a gallbladder operation. Surgical dates have been cancelled. Vital weeks at school have been missed. ‘Alex’s mum is worried sick,’ said Sir Keir, his voice trembling with outrage. ‘She wants [the PM] to explain what he is going to do to resolve the nursing strike.’ Then he upped the stakes. ‘Alex’s mum is listening,’ he said. ‘She’s tuned in now.’ This sounded ominous. Was she being detained in a panelled office near parliament, surrounded by Labour strongmen cracking their knuckles? ‘It’s not just

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Did Starmer flop at PMQs?

12 min listen

Keir Starmer put in a weak performance in today’s Prime Minister’s Questions, Isabel Hardman says on today’s podcast. Is Labour’s fence sitting and vagueness on the strikes starting to hurt them? Cindy Yu talks to Katy Balls and Isabel Hardman. Produced by Cindy Yu.

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Keir Starmer had a weak PMQs

Keir Starmer had an unusually weak Prime Minister’s Questions today. He chose to attack Rishi Sunak on the nurses’ strikes, insisting that the Prime Minister could avert the walkouts, which begin tomorrow, by having a meeting with the nurses. ‘All the Prime Minister needs to do to stop that is to open the door and discuss pay with them,’ he claimed. He also described the first nationwide strike by nursing staff as a ‘badge of shame’ for the government.  Sunak looked comfortable throughout Not only was Sunak able to deflect this by pointing out that Labour wasn’t prepared to give in to the Royal College of Nursing’s demand for a 19

Nigel Jones

Have the Tories passed the point of no return?

If an election were held tomorrow, not only would Labour win, they would bury the Tories with a landslide majority of 314 seats, leaving the Conservatives with a forlorn rump of just 69. That’s the verdict of an opinion poll from Savanta. Even for an embattled Tory party, the verdict is notably grim. According to the poll, not only would former prime minister Boris Johnson lose his Uxbridge seat – there would be no Tory MPs left in London at all. Rishi Sunak would also get the boot from his hitherto rock solid safe rural seat of Richmond in Yorkshire. Every single one of the famous Red Wall of former

Winston Marshall

Sohrab Ahmari: Hunter Biden’s laptop and the Twitter files

49 min listen

Winston speaks Sohrab Ahmari, author of The New Philistines, From Fire By Water and The Unbroken Thread, a co-founder of Compact magazine and former editor at the New York Post. Sohrab was an editor at the Post when they dropped the Hunter Biden laptop story and explains its significance and what the Twitter files reveal. They also discuss the future of free speech in America.

Jamie Gillies

There’s worse to come in Scotland than the Hate Crime Bill

The Scottish Government has courted controversy with its social policy agenda: sweeping hate crime legislation, and gender recognition changes that undermine women’s rights. But what’s coming down the tracks at Holyrood looks even more troubling. In fact, the next item on the agenda could be one of the most controversial seen since devolution. Following activists’ demands, politicians’ promises and the rowing back on parallel plans by the UK government, the Scottish government is moving towards a ban on so-called ‘conversion practices’.  Some readers might take umbrage with this suggestion. Most of us agree that trying to forcibly change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity – perhaps through pseudo-scientific quack ‘treatments’ – is

Tuesday

Max Jeffery Max Jeffery

Will Rishi’s immigration plan work?

15 min listen

Rishi Sunak today revealed a plan he says will tackle illegal immigration. ‘Enough is enough’, he said. The asylum backlog of 150,000 will be cleared by the end of next year, and the government will do a deal with Albania to return people from the country. Will it work? Max Jeffery speaks to Fraser Nelson and Katy Balls.

Steerpike Steerpike

Union outcry over working conditions in parliament

Trains, hospitals and schools – there are few aspects of British life left untouched by the winter of discontent. And now Steerpike hears rumblings of industrial discontent at the heart of British democracy itself: in the Houses of Parliament itself. Long-suffering staffers have had to endure months of vermin-infested kitchens, crumbling masonry and asbestos aplenty. Now power cuts over the past two days in the One Parliament Street building have pushed some of those working on the parliamentary estate to the brink. The GMB branch for Members’ staff is now gathering signatures for a letter to the Serjeant at Arms, outlining their urgent concerns. ‘One Parliament Street’, they write ‘is

John Keiger John Keiger

Brexit’s critics are strangely quiet about the European parliament scandal

The corruption scandal embroiling the European parliament and the European Union’s institutions at the highest level is shaping up to be its biggest to date. Belgian police have arrested Eva Kaili, a vice-president of the parliament, and three others in an investigation into alleged bribes involving spectacular sums in cash, allegedly from Qatar, to influence EU officials and parliamentary voting. ‘The shockwave of ‘Qatargate’ is Le Monde’s take on a story it says threatens to ‘destabilise Europe’s institutions’. This isn’t an exaggeration: the probe ripples out to the whole progressive ecosystem surrounding the parliament. Among the suspects, according to the BBC, is former MEP Pier Antonio Panzeri, who now manages the

Patrick O’Flynn Patrick O'Flynn

Rishi Sunak’s immigration plan could be a game changer

Rishi Sunak today gave a potentially game-changing statement in the Commons, finally committing the Conservatives to effective action when it comes to combating illegal immigration. The five-point plan unveiled by Sunak for addressing the issue of the Channel boats in the short-term will garner most of the headlines, but it is small beer compared to his most significant announcement. Electoral salvation for the Tories won’t come via a new ‘unified small boats operational command’, a doubling of immigration enforcement raids, 10,000 new non-hotel accommodation places, faster processing of claims or even a fancy new deal with Albania. These are all incremental measures that will, at best, help at the margins.

James Kirkup James Kirkup

Rishi Sunak will regret his Channel crossings crackdown

Rishi Sunak’s latest promises on asylum and immigration suggest the PM has learned very little from his Tory forebears. Ken Clarke used to compare eurosceptic right-wing Tories to crocodiles circling the prime ministerial boat. Most Tory leaders chose to feed the crocodiles buns to keep them happy. But what happens when you run out of buns? David Cameron knows the answer to that one. Sunak is also offering buns. But when the buns run out – or simply don’t appear – his problems will only grow. The PM is vowing to crack down on illegal Channel crossings. He promises to clear the backlog of asylum cases. He promises to reject more claims from Albanians. He

Steerpike Steerpike

Jacinda Ardern caught on camera name-calling rival

Jacinda Ardern’s political philosophy is simple. When the New Zealand PM was asked to explain the qualities that led to her success, she said she valued: ‘Kindness, and not being afraid to be kind, or to focus on, or be really driven by empathy’. But does Ardern practise what she preaches? Not so if a clash between her and a fellow party leader in the New Zealand parliament is anything to go on. Ardern was caught calling rival politician David Seymour an ‘arrogant p***k’ during a fiery debate last night. Seymour’s crime was to ask Ardern: ‘Can the prime minister give an example of her making a mistake, apologising for

Alex Massie Alex Massie

James Cleverly’s shameful silence on the fate of Jimmy Lai

Have you heard about the British citizen facing the prospect of spending the rest of his life in a Chinese prison? Perhaps not, because the case – the cause, indeed – of Jimmy Lai has not attracted quite the level of attention in this country that you might expect.  Last week, Lai – founder of the pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper – was convicted of fraud in Hong Kong. To the outside, lay, observer the case seemed suspicious: it involved the subletting of an office and a five year prison term, a disproportionate response even if you accept – as you need not – a crime had been committed.  The fraud

Steerpike Steerpike

Listen: Strike leader Mick Lynch loses his temper on BBC’s Radio 4

Britain’s railways have ground to a halt for a second day running – but this time it’s strike action, rather than snow, that is causing the chaos. Mick Lynch, the general secretary of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT), has been out on the airwaves again justifying why workers are right to walk out. And the union firebrand was not happy with the BBC’s Mishal Husain for her line of questioning. During their clash on the Today programme this morning, Husain asked Lynch how much workers had lost as a result of the walkouts. Lynch responded by attacking Husain: ‘What I do find annoying though Mishal

Mary Dejevsky

It’s no surprise Britain can’t cope with snow

If you’ve managed to avoid the dimly-lit pictures of people’s back gardens, count yourself lucky. Yes: snow has arrived in the capital. The Foreign Secretary made a point of thanking London-based diplomats for showing up to his speech in Westminster yesterday – or, as he put it, ‘battling through’ two or three inches of snow to get there. James Cleverly had a point: St James’s Park next door was a veritable winter wonderland; Whitehall was now clear, but had received a generous covering of the white stuff the evening before, while the capital’s transport was as disrupted as it inevitably is during a ‘snow event’. This morning, the snow continues

Monday

Lucy Dunn

Is Scotland’s strike momentum slowing?

Finally, good news on the strike front: NHS staff in Scotland have decided against walking out after voting to accept an improved pay offer from the Scottish government. The deal means healthcare workers will get pay rises ranging from £2,205 to £2,751. But this isn’t an offer to end all strike threats yet – nurses and physiotherapists are yet to decide whether they will halt strike action after the government’s latest offering. For now, Nicola Sturgeon is hailing the announcement as a victory: the SNP’s health secretary Humza Yousaf – who has faced calls to resign as NHS waiting lists continue to grow – welcomed the decision by Unite and

Steerpike Steerpike

The National Archives fires back at Matt Hancock

Oh dear. It seems that Matt Hancock has been called out on his Covid record, again. In his newly-published ‘Pandemic Diaries,’ the former Health Secretary appears to pin the blame on the National Archives in Kew for the late publication of restrictions introducing the ‘rule of six’ on 13 September 2020. Hancock suggested that the new rules – which were made public just 15 minutes before they were due to take effect – were nearly derailed thanks to the Archives closing early that day. He wrote in his memoir that: As far as I was aware, everything was in place, until I received a message from the office saying there

Katy Balls Katy Balls

The polite radical: Rishi Sunak on economic repair, migrants and faith

After Rishi Sunak lost the summer Tory leadership contest, he started on Plan B: to be selected for the Kirby Sigston cricket team in his Yorkshire constituency. He had hoped to play for the club when he was first elected as an MP seven years ago, but politics got in the way. Suddenly with more time on his hands, he began to enquire about this ‘friendly, sociable and inclusive’ team – only to find out that its inclusivity had its limits. ‘They told me that I shouldn’t assume I could make the starting XI, because they’d won their league for two years in a row. They said I might have to

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Is the Tory party undemocratic?

10 min listen

Rishi Sunak has now served as prime minister longer than his predecessor Liz Truss, but that doesn’t mean that it’s all plane sailing. Former Home Secretary Priti Patel has backed a campaign to ‘restore democracy’ in the Conservative party. Should the government be worried?  Also on the podcast, as Rishi prepares to set out his agenda, is there a narrow path to conservative re-election?  Katy Balls speaks to Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth.  Produced by Oscar Edmondson.