Politics

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

Thursday

James Heale James Heale

Live by the rule of law, die by the rule of law

11 min listen

The Independent Sentencing Review chaired by former Lord Chancellor David Gauke has today announced its suggested reforms which sees a major shift from imprisonment to community-led sentencing. Measures include the recommendation that convicted criminals leave prisons after serving around one-third of their sentence, that short prison sentences of up to 12 months are drastically reduced and – the attention grabbing – expansion of chemical castration for paedophiles. What are the political ramifications of these policies, and will they work?  Danny Shaw, former advisor to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, and James Heale discuss with Lucy Dunn. Also on the podcast, they discuss a last minute obstacle to resolving the Chagos deal

Jonathan Sacerdoti

The Washington shooting is a chilling warning to Jews everywhere

Waking early on Thursday in London, I read the news on a half-lit phone screen: two people, Israeli embassy staff, gunned down outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington D.C. A man shouted “Free Palestine,” – of course he did – after he had fired his weapon and walked inside the building – where, in an extraordinary confusion of roles, guests offered him water and comfort, believing he too had been a victim. In a way, maybe he had. A man shouted “Free Palestine,” – of course he did – after he had fired his weapon Though our airwaves and streets have been filled with talk of genocide, that word

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Miliband’s 2030 clean power target looks increasingly impossible

The answer, according to Ed Miliband in an infamously toe-curling rendition of the Bob Dylan song, is blowing in the wind. But no longer, it seems, if you are on the board of SSE. The energy company, which was one of the first UK electricity companies to commit in a big way to renewable energy, has just pulled £3 billion worth of investment in renewables, citing the ‘changing macroeconomic environment’ and delays in the planning system. For that read that the projects it had intended to build have become economically unviable now that we no longer have near-zero interest rates, and that the national grid is struggling to absorb so

James Heale James Heale

Starmer owes Sunak for halving net migration

A year ago today, Rishi Sunak called the general election. Watching the rain-drenched prime minister struggling to deliver his speech, it seemed like the inglorious end to an unremarkable premiership. But 12 months on, the decisions Sunak took in office continue to yield results. This morning, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) confirmed that net migration fell to 431,000 in 2024 – down almost 50 per cent on the previous year’s total. Overall, some 948,000 people came to the UK in 2024, down almost a third on the previous year That is thanks primarily to the package of measures which Sunak and James Cleverly, his Home Secretary, introduced at the

Matthew Lynn

Will Wall Street jitters stop Trump’s budget bill?

Donald Trump has already caved in on tariffs, pausing the ‘retaliatory levies’ he announced on ‘Liberation Day’ at the beginning of April. Now the President is under pressure from the markets on spending. As his ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ on the budget goes through Congress, investors are panicking over the mix of spending and tax cuts, with bond yields spiking sharply upwards and equities falling. President Trump will now have to decide whether to yield to Wall Street again – or tough out a potential crash.  The US remains the biggest economy in the world, so investors cannot abandon it completely The post-tariff recovery on Wall Street came to a juddering

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Is Britain heading for bankruptcy?

We can thank Rachel Reeves for one thing: setting up a real-world experiment to show the Laffer curve in action. April’s figures for the public finances, like yesterday’s figures for inflation, are truly dreadful. April should have been a bumper month for tax receipts, being the month that the rise in Employers’ National Insurance Contributions (NICs) came into effect. Instead, borrowing surged to £20.2 billion in a single month. It took borrowing for the year 2024/25 to £148.3 billion, a smidgeon less that the Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimated last month but £11 billion higher than the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) had forecast. Government receipts in April did

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

What we know about the Israeli diplomat shootings in Washington so far

The suspect, identified as 30-year-old Elias Rodriguez, was seen pacing around Washington DC’s Jewish Museum in the minutes before last night’s attack. According to Pamela Smith, DC’s chief of police, he then shouted ‘Free Palestine’ before shooting and killing two Israeli embassy staffers – a couple, named as Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky, who reportedly were soon to be engaged. He then walked into the museum, where he was briefly mistaken for an innocent bystander before being apprehended by the police.  The murdered couple had been attending an event inside the building, described online as a ‘Young Diplomats Reception’ for Jewish professionals between the ages of 22 and 45. Israel’s ambassador

Danny Shaw

Is Labour tough enough to act on Gauke’s prison review?

Uncork the Gauke! In the coalition years, whenever George Osborne found himself in a tight spot as Chancellor, advisers would send for David Gauke, who was then a Treasury minister. The tall, imposing but unflappable Gauke would tour the radio and TV studios to deliver a measured message of reassurance, calming the political waters and restoring some credibility to whatever government policy was in the spotlight.  This week, Gauke has been uncorked again – this time by Labour – to solve the prison capacity crisis. When the party came to office, the population in men’s jails across England and Wales was rising so fast it was about to outstrip the

Steerpike Steerpike

Kneecap member charged with terror offence

To Kneecap, the Irish republican band under fire over controversial concert footage – which appeared to show one of the band members calling for the deaths of MPs and yelling ‘up Hamas, up Hezbollah!’ Now one of the trio, 27-year-old Liam O’Hanna, has been charged with a terrorism offence for allegedly displaying a flag in support of Hezbollah at a gig in London, according to police. Dear oh dear… The Belfast local, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, was charged with displaying a flag in November last year at the O2 Forum in London in a way that, the Metropolitan Police said, aroused ‘reasonable suspicion that he is a

David Shipley

Can Labour prevent the justice system from collapsing?

David Gauke’s long-awaited Sentencing Review is here. If its recommendations are accepted, we will see thousands of people spared jail and thousands of inmates released as early as a third of the way through their sentence. The government is relying on the review to save the justice system from collapse. As the Lord Chancellor explained just last week, despite plans to build another 14,000 prison places, the system simply can not keep pace with the growth in our prison population. For months now, ministers and officials have been focused on keeping just enough space in the prison system until the Sentencing Review can be implemented. So now it has arrived,

Eliot Wilson

Could the EU sideline Britain in its defence loan scheme?

The Security and Defence Partnership which the government agreed with the European Union this week has had more spin applied to it than a thousand cricket balls. The central argument in its favour, apart from vacuous reiki-like attempts to change the ‘mood’ of relations with the EU, was that it would allow the UK defence sector to engage with the Security Action for Europe (SAFE) loan instrument providing €150 billion (£127 billion) for defence procurement over the next five years. It does not do that. You would be hard pressed to realise that the partnership has not succeeded in what many saw as its central purpose. Weasel words came in

Patrick West

How George Wendt embodied American television

The American sitcom Cheers depicted a Boston bar where everybody knew your name, and its most loyal customer, Norm Peterson, was the character practically everybody wanted to be. Norm, played by George Wendt in all the show’s episodes from 1982 to 1993, and who died on Tuesday aged 76, was the ultimate bar-fly, the role model for those who used to haunt bars and pubs, and for many who still do. This cuddly, ursine and somewhat shambolic character was held in affection by viewers and all in the fictional drinking-hole – he was greeted upon his arrival with the universal salutation, ‘Norm!’ – mostly because he was just consistently funny.

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Trump’s skewering of Cyril Ramaphosa was pure theatre

We got another round of extraordinary scenes coming out of Donald Trump’s Oval Office yesterday. During his meeting with ​​Cyril Ramaphosa, South Africa’s President, Trump asked his staffers to press play on video footage showing what appeared to be violent chants against white farmers. ‘We have thousands of stories talking about it, we have documentaries, we have news stories,’ the US President said over the audio. He would not let President Ramaphosa look away. The footage went on, to which President Ramaphosa finally responded: ‘This is not government policy.’ President Trump did not let up. ‘They’re being executed and they happen to be white, and most of them happen to

Lara Brown

King’s College Cambridge is wrong to cut ties with arms firms

Who says that student activism is pointless? Setting up a tent, donning a keffiyeh, and camping out on your university’s front lawn might look like a waste of time, but at Cambridge it’s a strategy that pays off. King’s College – which has been repeatedly targeted by pro-Palestinian protestors – has agreed to cut ties with arms companies. The college announced that it will divest money from weapons manufacturers after its governing body voted to ‘adopt a new responsible investment policy’. King’s College – which has been repeatedly targeted by pro-Palestinian protestors – has agreed to cut ties with arms companies In an email sent to students on Tuesday, King’s College said it

Michael Gove

Starmer vs the workers: the real Brexit betrayal

Keir Starmer looked blank. The shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, seemed confused. Only the old Stalinist Seumas Milne seemed really to understand. It was 2019. Labour’s front bench team, and their leader Jeremy Corbyn’s close advisers, were being upbraided – from the left. Why were they putting the interests of international capital ahead of our workers? Why were they abandoning the chance to implement a meaningful industrial policy? Why were they giving up on the chance to save British steel, to give all support necessary to our manufacturing sector, to make a stand against neo-liberalism? The person in the room making the challenge, over ginger beer and sandwiches, was not Owen

Richard Johnson

Labour must learn to love Brexit

The problem with Keir Starmer’s approach to Brexit is that it fundamentally misunderstands the country. It isn’t that the Leave-voting public have realised that they made the wrong choice, foolishly tricked by the slogan on the side of a bus a decade ago. Voters in Grimsby have not suddenly been won round to the virtues of the Common Fisheries Policy. Most Leavers do not suddenly think shorter queues at the airport in Sofia is worth the downward pressure on wages caused by thousands of young Bulgarians who (understandably) will think Britain’s £12.21 minimum wage is more attractive than Bulgaria’s roughly £3 per hour. The reason people feel dissatisfied with Brexit

James Heale James Heale

What do ‘Labour values’ actually mean?

Keir Starmer’s appearance before Labour MPs on Monday was a crowded affair. Such was the level of excitement that organisers set up an overspill room in parliament. A fortnight after a dire set of local election results, the Prime Minister promised to fight the next election ‘as Labour’. Yet his troops seem increasingly divided as to what that actually means. More than two dozen MPs spoke at that meeting, criticising Starmer’s Gaza policy, migration speech and welfare cuts. It is those benefit changes that are causing the most immediate grief to the whips. Ministers want to restrict the eligibility requirements for disability payments, meaning only those with the most serious

Wednesday

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Trump confronts South African president

Just what is it with Oval Office encounters? Three months after his spat with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Donald Trump is at it again. The US President ambushed a visiting Cyril Ramaphosa today, playing footage that appeared to show white South Africans being persecuted. Trump ordered aides to dim the lights and play a video showcasing what he called a ‘genocide’ of white farmers in the country. Turning to Ramaphosa, his South African counterpart, Trump said people ‘were fleeing’ while demanding an ‘explanation’ for what he said was a ‘very sad situation’. ‘We have thousands of stories talking about it, we have documentaries, we have news stories… it has to be responded to,’

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

The UN’s claim about babies dying in Gaza is unravelling

Just when you thought Israel couldn’t be any more evil, yesterday we learned that thousands of babies are set to perish under its ruthless writ in Gaza. Fourteen thousand to be precise. All in the next 48 hours. Thousands of innocent lives snuffed out as the Jewish State, that most wicked of states, looks the other way. Now we know, the cry went up, just how barbarous the State of Israel can be. Israelophobia is out of control. It is the most dangerous bigotry of our times This story spread like a pox through the internet yesterday. It infected influencers everywhere. Everywhere you looked you’d see those cruel numbers –

Katja Hoyer Katja Hoyer

Is monarchism a threat to the German state?

Last week a man called Peter Fitzek was apprehended by police. He calls himself King Peter I, and he is the head of the ‘Kingdom of Germany’, the largest of a number of groups that don’t accept the legitimacy of the current German state and want to replace it with their own. Monarchism may not be widespread in Germany, but the idea certainly has a dedicated following. Police came down hard on Fitzek’s realm in coordinated morning raids last Tuesday. Over 800 police officers stormed and searched properties in seven German states, leading to the arrest of ‘King Peter’ and three other people deemed to be the ringleaders of the