Politics

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

Svitlana Morenets

The missile strike on Poland will be a test for Nato

Since the start of the war, there has been a risk of Ukraine’s neighbours being caught in crossfire – especially when Russia turned to a missile-based strategy. This now seems to have happened, with two rockets hitting the Polish village of Przewodów, nearly six miles from Ukraine’s border, killing two farm workers. The stakes are obviously high: if Russian missiles struck a Nato member for the first time, that has implications. US president Joe Biden has said it is ‘unlikely’ that the missile was fired from Russia while Turkey said it must ‘respect’ Moscow’s fervent denial that Russia (which had just fired 100 missiles at Ukraine in a third wave of attacks) had anything

Isabel Hardman

Is there anything we don’t know about Hunt’s Autumn Statement?

What does Jeremy Hunt want us to know about the Autumn Statement? The Chancellor is in the final hours of writing the economic announcements for Thursday, and today he had his last Treasury questions in the Commons before he gives his long speech. Hunt has been rolling the pitch more assiduously than an MCC groundsman over the past few weeks, with endless briefings about black holes, tax rises and unpopular spending cuts. Today, he was talking again about how ‘difficult’ things were going to be. He said: ‘Despite the difficulty of the package I will be announcing, I will sadly not be drinking any whisky as I do so.’ Hunt

Cindy Yu

Why is the workforce shrinking?

11 min listen

Figures released today show that the number of people in employment has dropped by 50,000 since September, despite a national worker shortage of 1.25 million. Does this shed some light on the recession? Are these shortages simply because of disputes over pay or could the NHS waiting list be to blame?  Also on the podcast, as public sector pay stagnates, how many will be lost to the private sector?  Cindy Yu speaks to Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth.  Produced by Cindy Yu and Oscar Edmondson. 

Lisa Haseldine

Russia receives the cold shoulder at Bali’s G20 summit

In the warmth of the Balinese sunshine, Russia has received an unsurprisingly frosty reception at the G20 summit. We are barely a few hours into the summit and the tension is already acute. The source of this tension, of course, is Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.  This is the first G20 held since the beginning of the Ukraine war earlier this year. Ahead of the summit, some member states were already questioning whether Russia should still be allowed to retain its membership of the group. Meanwhile, in light of the war, Ukraine was invited to participate in this year’s summit as a guest. Perhaps in anticipation of this, it was announced

Freddy Gray

Will Trump run?

‘I don’t think anyone knows,’ someone close to Donald Trump told me at the end of last week. ‘My guess is he does but that’s just a guess.’  My question, of course, was ‘Is Donald Trump still going to announce?’ — despite the mid-term disappointments for his movement and the increasing certainty among Republican analysts that the party cannot win with him as its public face?  He’s expected to announce at 9 pm Eastern Standard Time – 2 am tomorrow, BST – after he declared yesterday on his Truth Social media platform that ‘Hopefully, tomorrow will turn out to be one of the most important days in the history of

Steerpike

Is Rishi backsliding on China already?

It used to be said that political parties were Eurosceptic in opposition, but Europhile in government. The same perhaps could now be said of China. Back in July, Rishi Sunak was keen to talk tough on the Beijing behemoth, which he called Britain’s ‘biggest long-term threat’. He tweeted that ‘China and the Chinese Communist party represent the largest threat to Britain and the world’s security and prosperity this century’. And Sunak also accused China of ‘stealing our technology and infiltrating our universities’ in one punchy attack: Abroad, they are propping up Putin’s fascist invasion of Ukraine by buying his oil and attempting to bully their neighbours, including Taiwan. They are saddling

Iran’s protests are coming to a head

Iran’s protest movement appears to be coming to a head. It’s been going on for two months, since the country’s ‘morality police’ beat Mahsa Amini, a young woman visiting Tehran, into a coma from which she never recovered earlier this year. The reason these thugs gave for dragging her into their van was that she was wearing her mandatory hijab incorrectly. Ever since, Iranians of all ages, across the country, have been on the streets, protesting for ‘women, life, freedom’.  Now the violence of that initial act is radiating outwards. From the ominous steps being taken by the Iranian state, and the extra-legal killers in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,

Kate Andrews

UK workforce falls, vacancies at 1.23 million

The workforce has not sprung back. According to the latest labour market figures, released by the Office for National Statistics today, the UK workforce is falling, not rising. Employers may be crying out for workers but the number in employment fell by 52,000 in the three months to September, twice what was expected. This was due to a remarkable drop of 249,000 in September alone. Meanwhile, job vacancies still stand near the record high, at 1.23 million – about twice the average seen in the past decade.  Unemployment, by formal definition, has fallen: a dip of 0.2 percentage points on the quarter, down to 3.6 per cent. Very few people seeking

Michael Shellenberger: What Just Stop Oil gets wrong and COP27 corruption

64 min listen

With climate activists around the world vandalising great works by Monet, van Gogh and Goya, Winston speaks with environmentalist, conservationist and pro-nuclear activist Michael Shellenberger. They discuss the validity of Just Stop Oil’s methods and environmental imperialism at this years United Nations Climate Change Conference. They take a deep dive into Shellenberger’s book ‘Apocalypse Never’, evaluate the environmentalist case for fracking and consider why nuclear will save us all.

Kate Andrews

Is Jeremy Hunt bailing out Bailey?

There is a conundrum at the heart of Jeremy Hunt’s comments leading up to the Autumn Statement. Hunt describes inflation as an ‘​​evil’ that ‘erodes the pound in your pocket’: uncontroversial. So Autumn Statement, he says, has been designed by his Treasury to ‘help the Bank of England bring down inflation.’ But controlling inflation is the Bank of England’s remit, so any action will be indirect. By tightening fiscal policy, Hunt is lifting pressure off the Bank to keep pushing raising interest rates. This will be by design on the part of the Treasury. After Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng’s disastrous mini-Budget, markets were predicting rates headed for over 6

Isabel Hardman

Is Braverman’s French Channel migrant deal a sign of progress?

Is the deal struck between the UK and French governments on policing Channel crossings really going to make a difference? MPs don’t seem to think so, with Suella Braverman getting a rather chilly reception from her own side in the Commons this afternoon. The Home Secretary signed the deal this morning, and returned to tell Home Office Questions that this was a ‘step change and a step forward’. But she also admitted, after criticism from Tory MPs, that it was important not to ‘overplay’ what it meant.  The Home Secretary cannot win politically on hotel bookings for asylum seekers, or on Channel crossings Braverman was criticised by Dover MP Natalie

James Forsyth

Has the next cold war been put on hold?

The Biden-Xi meeting at the G20 seems to have been relatively productive, and has at least improved the lines of communication between the two superpowers. The Chinese readout has them declaring that the relationship is ‘not what the international community expects from us’.   The first in-person meeting between Biden and Xi since Biden became president does seem to have moved US-China relations on from the depths they fell to after Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan. In a sign of the relative détente, the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to visit China in the New Year. But the aggressive Chinese language about the status of the island is

Steerpike

Rishi gets the Budget bubbly in

With just three days to go until the awful Autumn Statement, Westminster is agog to find out just how truly terrible it’s going to be. Taxes? Up! Cuts? Aplenty! Growth? Flatlining! So, as we await with morbid fascination to see what the new season of Jeremy Hunt’s Fiscal Drag Race has in store for us, what better to drown your sorrows than the latest tin-eared stunt from CCHQ? It seems that the wonder kids over at Tory high command have cooked up a deal with Virgin Wines to give long-suffering party members some liquid respite from their woes. In an email that went out on Friday, activists were invited to

Ross Clark

Crypto is being hoisted by its own petard

Like Liz Truss, Sam Bankman-Fried will be the stuff of pub quizzes: who lost his entire $16 billion fortune in days? A quick trawl of the internet suggest his only real challenger in losing so much money so quickly was Masayoshi Son, the founder of Softbank, who was estimated to have made a paper loss of $70 billion in the dotcom crash. But he wasn’t completely wiped out, and retained considerable wealth as Softbank rose again. Bankman-Fried, on the other hand, is believed now to be worth pretty much zero following last week’s collapse of the crypto exchange he founded, FTX. At its peak, Bankman-Fried’s stake is estimated to have

Isabel Hardman

What can we expect from the G20 summit?

11 min listen

The G20 summit kicked off as world leaders arrived in Bali overnight. Ahead of the summit, Biden and Xi met to discuss tensions over trade, tech and human rights. The two claim they are ready for candid exchanges as China-US relations are at their lowest in decades.  Rishi Sunak also flew to his first G20 summit. The Prime Minister is expected to hold multiple bilateral meetings as he tries to make his mark on the world stage. Meanwhile, can he keep a grip on domestic issues ahead of the Autumn Statement this Thursday? Isabel Hardman speaks to Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth.

Matt Hancock has united Britain

Some people deal with failure better than others. Matt Hancock, it seems, has spent the past three years trying to get over losing his bid to be leader of the Conservative party. But good news! Finally, Hancock has found solace. Upon being declared leader of the I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here jungle, he told his campmates his new position ‘more than makes up for’ his previous loss. Hancock has, yet again, attempted to explain why he is in the game show jungle. ‘What I’m really looking for is a bit of forgiveness,’ he declared. Whether that was forgiveness for discharging Covid-patients into carehomes, preventing people visiting dying

Steerpike

Rayner’s war chest is wound up

Cast your minds back sixteen months ago. Back then, Boris Johnson was in his pomp, having narrowly missed out on winning the Batley by-election. The vaccine roll-out was underway, with the UK leading the world out of Covid. And in the Labour party, there was much excited talk of a challenge by Angela Rayner to Keir Starmer’s flatlining leadership. How the picture has changed, one year on. Labour is twenty points ahead in the polls, with Johnson (temporarily?) consigned to the history books. Now Starmer reigns supreme in his party, with the Tories in disarray. And rather than mount a challenge, Rayner’s allies have now moved to wind up her

Gabriel Gavin

The Istanbul bombing will deepen Turkey’s rift with the West

Istiklal Avenue is a picture of chaos at the best of times. Istanbul’s answer to Oxford Street, the bustling pedestrian area is lined with upmarket shops, cafes and overpriced kebab stands. Groups of men sit out till late at night on benches drinking tea and playing chess, while families pushing buggies jostle with tourists for ice cream and pastries. On Sunday, though, that chaos gave way to outright panic when an explosion ripped through the heart of the city, Europe’s largest and home to more than 15 million people. One shopper captured the moment the fireball erupted in the packed crowd, sending women and children scrambling to escape. Meanwhile, pictures