Politics

China is back on the agenda in Westminster, with Liz Truss expected to make a speech on the subject later this month. This week, MPs have been rocked by the news that the Foreign Office has asked the governor of the Xinjiang region for talks. Erkin Tuniyaz – who has been sanctioned by the US – is planning to visit the UK next week, followed by trips to other European countries to meet ‘stakeholders’ to ‘discuss the situation in Xinjiang.’ Mr S scarcely need remind his readers about the region’s appalling treatment of Uyghur Muslims. Survivors of detention camps in Xinjiang have testified that prisoners there are routinely raped, tortured and forcibly

This week Mark Steyn became the latest star to leave GB News, following a lengthy leave of absence for health reasons. The TV shock jock has made a name for himself with his diatribes about the Covid vaccine. But it seems that not all at the channel welcomed Steyn’s multiple Ofcom investigations. The presenter uploaded a resignation video on Monday, complaining that TV bosses wanted to make him financially liable for any fines imposed because of his show’s output and calling CEO Angelos Frangopoulos an ‘habitual liar.’ And it seems that Steyn is not done yet unloading on his former colleagues. Announcing the launch of his first ‘post cardiac Steyn

William Shawcross’s long-awaited review of Prevent – the Government’s counter-radicalisation programme – is one of the boldest official documents of recent times. As such, it constitutes a radical reappraisal of a key state policy which has gone seriously off-piste and is in urgent need of rebalancing. Much of the critique of Prevent has historically come from Islamists – who contend that it singles out Muslims for particular obloquy. For a programme that cost the Home Office a little less than £50 million per annum in 2020-1, Prevent commands a lot of attention.   In his comprehensive ‘anatomy lesson’ published today, Shawcross lays bare in painstaking detail the ways in which

‘There have been so many accomplishments under this administration, it can be difficult to list them in a distilled way.’ So said Pete Buttigieg, America’s Transportation Secretary, last weekend, when asked why Americans don’t share the White House’s sense that President Joe Biden is doing a brilliant job. Well, in his second State of the Union address on Tuesday, Biden attempted that laborious exercise in success distillation. He spent an hour and 13 minutes telling Congress and the world about the great work he’s doing. Biden feels he’s winning and he isn’t going to let any pesky polls tell him otherwise He talked about having created ‘12 million jobs’ and

PMQs looked like a comedy routine. But there was nothing funny about it. President Zelensky, AKA Uncle Volod, has come to town to address a joint session of both houses. As a warm-up act, MPs behaved like a gang of armchair Rambos and competed to fawn over Uncle Volod while pledging taxpayers’ cash to the defence of his borders. This wasn’t a debate but a scripted event staged to please a leader who appears to have no trouble travelling the world, or welcoming celebs like Boris to his capital, even though he claims to be personally locked in a life-or-death struggle with the largest country in the world. The party