Politics

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

Friday

Eliot Wilson

What hope does John Healey have of influencing Trump?

In the eight months since he was appointed Secretary of State for Defence, John Healey has undertaken so many foreign visits that his residency status must be dubious. The Yorkshireman, who turned 65 last month, has travelled to Ukraine, Estonia, Poland, Germany, Belgium, Israel, Cyprus, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Norway and the United States. On Wednesday, he returned to Washington for a meeting with his American counterpart, Pete Hegseth. It is a marker of these extraordinary times and the volatility of President Donald Trump’s instincts – they are not policies in any meaningful sense – that British ministers visiting Washington do so with trepidation. On the agenda for Healey were the

Katy Balls Katy Balls

The Julia Lopez Edition

33 min listen

Julia Lopez has been the Conservative MP for Hornchurch and Upminster since 2017. Her first political experience was working for the then-MP for the Cities of London and Westminster Mark Field, before she became a councillor for Tower Hamlets – working to improve the standards of an area marred in scandal and heightened community tensions. She went on to hold ministerial roles under three Prime Ministers and is now the PPS to Tory leader Kemi Badenoch. On the podcast, Julia talks to Katy Balls about the impact Margaret Thatcher had on the politics of her family, how she gained political experience touring London’s sewers and skyscrapers, and the mixed emotions of

David Spencer

Two-tier justice is taking over the courts

Two years ago, few had heard of the term ‘two-tier justice’. Indeed, Ministers and leaders across the criminal justice system have spent much of that time vigorously denying its existence. Yet the examples of a justice system which is failing to deliver ‘equality before the law’ are numerous: the failures of the police and prosecutors to act when individuals chanted for ‘jihad’ at a political rally; the sexual abuse of many hundreds of children in Rotherham because professionals feared being accused of racism; the postcode lottery of how non-crime hate incidents are recorded depending on which police force area you live in.  The publication of the sentencing council’s instructions on how judges and magistrates

Robin Ashenden

Help, I’ve become a news junkie!

I’ve always been something of a news addict, but recent events in America and Ukraine have turned me into the kind of junkie films get made about. ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome,’ an affliction you once sniggered at in others, is now sweeping the world faster than Covid-19, and is oddly easy, at the moment, to fall into. Speaking of the White House’s pivot to Russia and apparent abandonment of Europe, a friend said it was like ‘sitting in an articulated lorry being driven by someone who’s just downed an entire quart of bourbon.’ Another remarked: ‘There’s this complete, jaw-dropping disbelief at what’s happening. Each time I turn on the TV for

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Matt Wrack will be a hardline teaching union boss

It has a whiff of the old trailer for Jaws 2, the one where viewers were disabused of the idea that it was safe to go back into the water.  In January, Matt Wrack, the left-wing, Corbyn-supporting general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) lost his attempt for re-election. But if anyone thought it was a sign of the trade union movement adopting a less combative attitude now that it had its much-wished-for Labour government, they were fooling themselves. Wrack has resurfaced, this time being nominated to lead the NASUWT, which until now has a reputation as the more moderate of the two largest teaching unions. That Wrack has

Alfie Pearce-Higgins

What’s the point of foreign aid?

The UK signed up to a UN target of spending 0.7 per cent of GNP on aid way back in 1970, but didn’t hit that level until 2013. In 2020, aid spending was cut to 0.5 per cent and last week Keir Starmer reduced it further to 0.3 per cent. This will save about £4 billion which will instead be allocated to military spending. There were predictable howls of anguish from aid advocates at the news, and the development minister resigned. There was also begrudging praise from Starmer’s Conservative opponents. But few seemed to question what the point of aid is, and whether a spending target, at any level, makes

Thursday

Andy Maciver

Should the Scottish Tories ignore the Reform threat?

What do the Tories do with a problem like Reform? Kemi Badenoch’s party in Westminster has some time to consider this, with over four years to go until it has to put her strategy – whatever that is – to the test. But the same cannot be said of Russell Findlay, the Scottish Conservative party leader, who has an election in just over a year. While the UK group will be benchmarked against an historically poor Tory result in the 2024 general election, Findlay will be benchmarked against the best Holyrood election result in Tory history, with Douglas Ross winning 31 seats and a near one-quarter vote share. Seat extrapolations

William Moore William Moore

Why Ukraine’s minerals matter, the NHS’s sterilisation problem & remembering the worst poet in history

42 min listen

This week: the carve-up of Ukraine’s natural resources From the success of Keir Starmer’s visit to Washington to the squabbling we saw in the Oval Office and the breakdown of security guarantees for Ukraine – we have seen the good, the bad and the ugly of geopolitics in the last week, say Niall Ferguson and Nicholas Kulish in this week’s cover piece. They argue that what Donald Trump is really concerned with when it comes to Ukraine is rare earth minerals – which Ukraine has in abundance under its soil. The conventional wisdom is that the US is desperately short of these crucial minerals and, as Niall and Nicholas point

Lisa Haseldine Lisa Haseldine

Will the EU ever get tough on defence?

European leaders are in Brussels today for an emergency summit on defence, and the future of both Ukraine and the continent. In a further attempt to hash out a peace plan for Ukraine, the 27 EU heads of state are joined by Volodymyr Zelensky. Arriving this morning, Zelensky declared, ‘It’s great we are not alone’. As part of today’s agenda, members of the bloc are expected to endorse Ursula von der Leyen’s ReArm Europe plan – which will make €150 billion (£125 billion) available in loans for members to boost defence spending. The summit will also likely discuss French President Emmanuel Macron’s proposal to extend his country’s ‘nuclear umbrella’ to its

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Tice forgets names of Reform defectors

Oh dear. Poor Richard Tice is the latest politician to have an embarrassing memory lapse. During his first trip to Scotland of 2025, the Boston and Skegness MP appeared in Glasgow this morning to reveal his party’s newest defectors. Except, er, he couldn’t quite remember their names… When he was grilled by one Scottish hack about the surnames of new recruits ‘John and Ross’, Tice couldn’t recall them. In fact, the party’s deputy leader didn’t appear to know all that much about the pair at all. ‘What are their surnames?’ the journalist pressed. ‘I’m answering policy questions,’ an irate Tice shot back. An excruciating back-and-forth ensued – during which Tice

Dean Godson

A tribute to Blair Wallace, a hero of the Troubles

The names of leading republicans like Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness and Bobby Sands are well known, but how many in Great Britain can identify a Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary – or, indeed, a single security force hero of the Troubles? Blair Wallace, who has died aged 87 and will be buried tomorrow, was just such a hero. He was the last of the “big beasts” of the RUC Chief Officers from the height of the conflict, rising to the post of Deputy Chief Constable – until he lost out on the top job in 1996. Wallace led from the front and was injured five times during the

Steerpike Steerpike

NHS Scotland: call bearded trans staff ‘women’

It seems that NHS Scotland still hasn’t learned the lessons from the Sandie Peggie furore. Now it turns out that a ‘cultural humility’ training module for healthcare workers produced in December 2023 told them to call bearded trans staff ‘women’ – and even suggested gender-neutral toilets should be introduced in care homes. With over 700,000 patients stuck on Scottish waiting lists, it’s not like hard-pressed NHS staff don’t have more pressing issues to contend with… The Scottish NHS Cultural Humility training module puts forward one situation in which ‘Lucy’ is a male-to-female trans nurse who has not formally changed their name from Lee. The healthcare worker is described as ‘still

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Labour’s ‘two tier policing’ headache

12 min listen

Labour have found themselves facing accusations of enabling ‘two tier policing’ following new guidelines from the Sentencing Council. Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick has been quick to criticise the government, but Labour’s Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood has also urged the council reconsider their recommendations.  Yvette Cooper’s former adviser Danny Shaw joins Katy Balls and James Heale to discuss the row. While Danny points out that the issue is more nuanced than the row makes out, to the public the very perception of ‘two tier policing’ will damage the government – and at a time when confidence in the justice system is at an all-time low. How will they fix the

Patrick O’Flynn Patrick O'Flynn

Is Reform serious about stopping the boats?

On no issue are Britain’s established political parties so compromised as on efforts to stop illegal immigrants gatecrashing our borders via the English Channel. For half a decade the Tories told us they would stop the crossings and yet the volumes of arrivals kept increasing. Rishi Sunak has just declared that the biggest regret of his premiership is not that he failed to ‘stop the boats’ but that he promised to do so in the first place, showing that his reverse electoral Midas touch is very much intact. Since July, Labour has been peddling a different three-word promise, ‘smash the gangs’. Yet so far the gangs have remained resolutely unsmashed

James Heale James Heale

Rupert Lowe’s warning shot to Nigel Farage

There is a striking interview in today’s Daily Mail between Andrew Pierce and Rupert Lowe. The Reform MP is known for speaking his mind and he certainly does not hold back. Asked whether he thinks Nigel Farage would make a good prime minister, Lowe praises him as a ‘fiercely independent individual’ but says that ‘it’s too early to know whether Nigel will deliver the goods. He can only deliver if he surrounds himself with the right people.’ Lowe adds: ‘He has got messianic qualities. Will those messianic qualities distil into sage leadership? I don’t know.’ Such remarks about Farage are unlikely to improve the often-strained relationship between the two men. The Great

Irwin Stelzer

How the Democrats fell into Trump’s trap

Fox News’s Brit Hume, one of America’s most respected political analysts, and a man more given to wry scepticism than to partisanship or hyperbole, described Donald Trump’s speech to Congress as: ‘the most boisterous, the longest, the most partisan speech I’ve heard a President give… to a joint session of congress… and I go back maybe about 50 years on this. I also think it may have been the most effective. If you ever doubted that Donald Trump is the colossus of our time and our nation, this night and this speech should have put that to rest…’ There is no quarrelling with Hume about length. At one hour and

Jonathan Sacerdoti

Will Hamas take Trump’s Gaza ultimatum seriously?

‘“Shalom Hamas” means Hello and Goodbye – You can choose.’ So began Donald Trump’s furious social media post, an ultimatum wrapped in a linguistic dagger. The Hebrew word ‘shalom’ has a third meaning – peace – but Trump left that one out. Perhaps we can all agree: that option is no longer on the table in any outcome. Instead, what followed was a declaration of war, at least rhetorically. Trump threatened Hamas with total destruction if they do not release the remaining hostages and return the bodies of those they have murdered. He called them ‘sick and twisted’ for keeping the corpses. He promised Israel everything it needed to ‘finish the job’. He

Mark Galeotti Mark Galeotti

Trump’s pausing of intelligence sharing will hit Ukraine hard

The United States’s decision to suspend all intelligence sharing with Kyiv is a less visible but almost as serious and more immediate blow to Ukraine as the pause to arms deliveries. It also raises worrying questions about the future of intelligence sharing amongst Western allies. Ukraine is used to supplies of military materiel coming in fits and starts, and can and does stockpile ammunition, spare parts and the like to cover the dry seasons. It will probably be a couple of months before the pause really begins to have an appreciable impact on their operations. Besides, while some items such as Patriot missiles cannot be duplicated, domestic production and European

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Macron’s late-night address will infuriate Trump and Vance

Emmanuel Macron spoke to his people last night in a television address and told them that the future of Ukraine cannot be decided by America and Russia alone. It can, and it probably will, after Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelensky signalled his intention to sign Donald Trump’s minerals deal, the first step in the peace plan drawn up by the USA. One of the curiosities of Macron’s speech was that he spent most of it warning about war, as America, Russia and Ukraine talk about peace. Putin’s bellicosity ‘knows no borders’, declared the French president, adding: ‘Who can believe today that Russia would stop at Ukraine?’. The martial tone of Macron’s

David Shipley

Could ethnic minority criminals soon find it easier to avoid jail?

Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, has accused his Labour counterpart Shabana Mahmood of not believing in ‘equality under the law’ and ‘enshrining’ a ‘double standard’ over who is, and isn’t, sent to prison. The accusations against Mahmood – and the Labour government – came after new guidelines from the Sentencing Council were published, which appear to make prison less likely for ‘ethnic’, ‘cultural’ and ‘faith’ minorities who are convicted of crimes. This shake-up appears driven by a belief that the justice system is biased against minorities The Sentencing Council’s updated rules state that, for a number of groups, the assumption should be in favour of a pre-sentence report (PSR).