Politics Archives

Tuesday

15 Apr 2025

The sad death of ITV

The slow death of ITV makes for painful viewing. In its glory days of the 1980s and 1990s, the channel had a salty naughtiness, a thrilling random quality. Its kids’ shows were raucous or even scary, its crime dramas were raunchy, its quizzes and games were sparkly and crass and its highbrow offerings were spicy. The channel had an edge to it; watching ITV was aspirational and fun. It was cool. ITV has swapped any distinctive offering for constant retreads of the same generic thrillers But ITV has swapped any distinctive offering for constant retreads of the same kind of generic gloomy thriller; at the moment it’s tempting us with

Monday

14 Apr 2025

David Shipley

Why are violent prisoners continuing to offend in jail?

Even for our broken prison service it’s been a terrible few days. On Saturday the jihadi terrorist Hashem Abedi used boiling oil and ‘homemade weapons’ in an assault at HMP Frankland which hospitalised three prison officers, the Prison Officers’ Association has said. Given the severity of the injuries, with one man suffering a severed artery in his neck and the other being stabbed at least five times in the chest, it’s only thanks to luck that no staff were killed. Then, this morning, it emerged that John Mansfield, a convicted murderer serving his sentence at HMP Whitemoor, was killed by another inmate on Sunday. While few will shed tears for

Katy Balls

Scunthorpe’s steel and Birmingham’s bins: a tale of two Labours

10 min listen

Panic has subsided over the British Steel crisis as Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, while visiting the site in Scunthorpe, confirmed that the raw materials needed to keep the furnaces running have been secured. While questions remain over the long-term future of the site, the Government are quite confident in their handling of the crisis so far – something not unhelpful with just over two weeks to go from the local elections. Less helpful is the news that over in Birmingham workers have rejected a pay deal with the Labour-run city council; the bin strike will continue. Is there more the government could be doing to end the dispute? Political

Nigel Jones

German tanks always flop. The Leopard 2 is no different

The much-vaunted German Leopard 2 tank – 18 of which were sent to Ukraine in 2023 after prolonged national debates and foot-dragging by the outgoing Olaf Scholz government – is reportedly proving a flop on the battlefield. According to a confidential assessment by Germany’s own defence ministry, and published by the Daily Telegraph, the Leopards have disappointed their Ukrainian army crews, as they are said to be over-complex to operate and vulnerable to aerial attack by Russian drones. So limited are the Leopards’ capabilities proving in real battle conditions that their range and mobility are restricted. According to the study, they are being used as little more than moderately mobile

James Heale

‘Betgate’ is the latest blow to the Welsh Tories

It is a tough life these days being a member of the Welsh Conservatives. The party lost every Westminster seat in July and now have barely a hundred councillors across the country. In December, the fractious parliamentary party voted by nine votes to seven to retain leader Andrew RT Davies; he quit regardless, prompting his replacement by Darren Millar. He looks to be taking his party to a distant fourth place in the newly-expanded Senedd next year, with polls suggesting that the Conservatives will finish ten points behind Reform. Now, today, a fresh blow has hit Millar’s party. Among those who have been charged by the Gambling Commission in last

Patrick West

‘Stop Brexit Man’s court victory is a win for free speech

From today, ‘Stop Brexit Man’ is free. This character, whose real name is Steve Bray, the long-standing bane of broadcasters, politicians and pedestrians on account of his persistent and clamorous pro-EU protests, has been cleared of flouting a police ban after playing anti-Conservative and anti-Brexit songs outside Parliament. Bray was apprehended after blaring loud music through speakers last March, when the then prime minister Rishi Sunak arrived for Prime Minister’s Questions. Today, Westminster Magistrates’ Court found him not guilty of failing without reasonable excuse to comply with a direction given under a 2011 Act on ‘prohibited activities in Parliament Square’. Free speech matters for the underdogs Some might lament that

Steerpike

SNP backbencher blasts Nats over £20k pay rise

The cost of living crisis continues to afflict Brits across the country – but it would appear that Scottish government ministers aren’t having such a bad time of it. In fact SNP ministers will see their pay packets boosted by a whopping £20,000 after First Minister John Swinney’s government ended a voluntary pay freeze on salaries in a move the FM says was based on ‘fairness’. Not everyone is impressed by the decision, however, with opposition politicians slamming it as a ‘reward for failure’. Even SNP backbencher Fergus Ewing has taken a pop at party colleagues over the issue – tweeting this afternoon: ‘I read that Scottish government ministers are

Andrew Tettenborn

Would scrapping juries help tackle the courts backlog?

There’s a lot to digest in the new Crime and Justice Commission report, which came out today. Its proposals include, for example, a legal ban on access to social media for under-16s and a universal digital ID card system. But the most eye-catching idea in the Times-sponsored report is that for those outside the most serious crimes – notably murder, manslaughter, rape and serious violent and sexual offences – the right to jury trial should go. Instead, other crimes for which currently there is a right to a jury should, if the defendant chooses, instead be tried by a so-called intermediate court consisting of a judge sitting with two magistrates. There

Lara Brown

Museums need a new approach to restitution

Three years ago, the Horniman Museum agreed to return 72 Benin Bronzes to Nigeria. The museum’s chair hailed the decision as ‘moral and appropriate’. Curators were promised that they were handing those artefacts over to the National Commission for Museums and Monuments, a government agency tasked with preserving the country’s heritage. But where are the Bronzes now? The sad reality is it is almost impossible to find out. Since their return, Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria’s President, has signed an official gazette confirming the Oba of Benin, not the National Commission, rightfully own the artefacts. There is little evidence that they are on display in any Nigerian museums. Have they disappeared into his private

Eliot Wilson

Why is the army fixing Birmingham’s bin crisis?

‘Join the Army and see the world’ used to be the War Office’s boast. In those inter-war years it meant Egypt, Malta, Jamaica and Hong Kong, but for a lucky few recipients of the King’s shilling their next deployment will be to organise rubbish collections in Birmingham. The government has announced that a ‘small number of office-based military personnel with operational planning expertise’ will assist Birmingham City Council in dealing with the effects of a month-long strike by refuse workers. At the end of March the council declared a major incident, with up to 20,000 tonnes of rubbish lying in the city’s streets and reports of rats the size of

Steerpike

Ex-Tory MP charged with gambling offences

The 2024 general election may feel like a lifetime ago, but the Gambling Commission has certainly not forgotten about it. The watchdog has this morning charged 15 people over bets placed on the timing of the national poll – including former Tory MP and ex-parliamentary aide to Rishi Sunak, Craig Williams. Dear oh dear… The development comes after several political figures faced scrutiny last summer over placing bets on the date of the general election. Last June it emerged that Craig Williams, the Prime Minister’s closest parliamentary aide, placed a £100 bet on there being a July election — just three days before a rain-soaked Rishi Sunak announced the date

Steerpike

Siddiq hit with arrest warrant by Bangladesh court

Back to the curious case of Labour MP Tulip Siddiq, who has now had an arrest warrant issued against her in Bangladesh over alleged corruption charges. The warrant was issued by a judge in Dhaka on Sunday after the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) last week submitted a criminal charge sheet against the politician – who was until recently, um, Labour’s anti-corruption minister. The jokes write themselves… In one of at least three investigations against the Hampstead and Highgate MP, Bangladesh’s ACC has accused Siddiq of putting pressure on her aunt Sheikh Hasina – the country’s recently-deposed prime minister – to give plots of land in a Dhaka residential development to three

Stephen Pollard

Why the silence over the MP banned from Hong Kong?

This time last week there was near universal outrage on the left – and even from some Conservative MPs – after Israel barred two Labour MPs, Abtisam Mohammed and Yuan Yang, from entry. The Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, described the Israeli decision as ‘unacceptable, counterproductive, and deeply concerning…this is no way to treat British parliamentarians’. The Middle East minister, Hamish Falconer, opened an 80-minute statement on the matter by summoning all the gravity he could muster and telling the Commons that this was ‘unacceptable and deeply concerning. It is no way to treat democratically elected representatives’. Later that day, dozens of Labour MPs gathered for a photograph with Mohammed and

Jonathan Sacerdoti

Hamas is exploiting the freedoms it wants to destroy

In any sane world, it would be dismissed as grotesque fantasy: Hamas – the Iranian-backed terror group responsible for the 7 October massacre – petitioning British courts to lift its designation as a terrorist organisation. But this is one of those times it seems the entire world has gone mad. For here we are, in Great Britain, witnessing Hamas, aided by British lawyers, seeking to launder its blood-soaked record under the false banners of ‘liberation’ and ‘resistance’. This is not mere absurdity. It is a direct assault on the integrity of British democracy – and on very survival of western civilisation. While our principles of justice rightly insist that all

Sunday

13 Apr 2025

Rod Liddle

British Steel and the death of dim-witted globalisation

The dewy-eyed and rather dim-witted vision of globalisation is dead, I think for good. Labour is to effectively re-nationalise British Steel in Scunthorpe and in making the announcement that Parliament was to be recalled, Sir Keir Starmer said: ‘This afternoon, the future of British Steel hangs in the balance. Jobs, investment, growth, our economic and national security are all on the line.’ The crucial part of that sentence is ‘national security’: an acceptance that trade does not happen in a vacuum, separated from the rest of life. It was always contingent. It was never sensible to have the Chinese running our only virgin steel blast furnace, just as it was

Ian Acheson

The HMP Frankland attack should never have happened

How do you break the rule of law inside our jails? You could do worse than try to murder a prison officer on duty, which by all accounts nearly came to pass yesterday. The terrorist Hashem Abedi, the brother of the Manchester Arena bomber, reportedly came within seconds of doing so in a frenzied attack on prison officers in the separation unit of HMP Frankland. Three were sent to hospital, seriously injured by a combination of stab wounds and burns from hot oil. I know a thing or two about separation units. I called for their creation when I did an independent review of Islamist extremism in our prisons, as

Svitlana Morenets

Dozens dead after Russian strike on the city of Sumy

Two Russian missiles loaded with cluster bombs hit the city centre of Sumy this morning – on Palm Sunday, when Ukrainians traditionally go to church ahead of Easter. At least 32 people were killed, including two children. More than 80 were injured. The deadliest hit was on a trolleybus, pictured above. After the strike, a Russian military blogger calling himself ‘Terem’ posted this: ‘My opinion as a good Christian – the Russians must destroy these people. They are preventing us from building the Third Rome… they must pay with their blood. The end justifies the means.’ The attack on Sumy comes just a week after another Russian Iskander missile, also

Katy Balls

‘Nationalisation in all but name’: the blame game over British Steel

11 min listen

Parliament was recalled from Easter recess for a rare Saturday sitting of Parliament yesterday, to debate the future of British Steel. Legislation was passed to allow the government to take control of the Chinese-owned company – Conservative MP David Davis called this ‘nationalisation in all but name’. Though, with broad support across the House including from Reform leader Nigel Farage, the debate centred less around the cure and more around the cause. Katy Balls and James Heale join Patrick Gibbons to discuss the debate, the political reaction and how much of a precedent this sets for Starmer. Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

Stephen Daisley

Why are British lawyers acting for Hamas?

This week on Britain: The Decline Years, a firm of London solicitors has announced it is acting on behalf of Hamas in a legal challenge to the Islamist group’s inclusion on the UK government terror list. The paramilitary wing has been proscribed since 2001 and the political wing since 2021. It took the British political class 20 years to establish a link between the Hamas department that calls for the Jews to be blown up and the department that does the blowing up. This was in the days before streaming services, so Netflix couldn’t make a drama explaining the connection. Riverway Law will lodge a 106-page application with the Home Office

Jim Lawley

Why Spain is cosying up to China

‘You’ll be cutting your own throat,’ US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned countries thinking of aligning with China. The remarks were made just before Spain’s prime minister, socialist Pedro Sánchez, arrived in Beijing on Thursday with a delegation of ministers, seeking to boost trade, attract investment, and to position Spain as the EU’s chief interlocutor with China. Bessent’s threat came as no surprise. President Trump had just lifted global tariffs above 10 per cent for 90 days for everyone except China, which instead now faces a staggering 145 per cent rate. Bessent’s message couldn’t have been clearer: any friend of our enemy is an enemy. To an extent the hostility