Politics

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

Friday

4 Apr 2025

The Katie Lam Edition

28 min listen

Katie Lam was elected as a new Conservative MP, for Weald of Kent, at the 2024 election. While studying at Cambridge she was president of the Cambridge Union and chairman of the Conservative Association, and she was later a special advisor – first under Boris Johnson in the business unit at Number 10, and then later working on counterterrorism with Suella Braverman. In between university and politics, she worked at Goldman Sachs and at AI-specialists Faculty, and she is also an accomplished lyricist and scriptwriter having co-written five musicals. She was appointed a Tory assistant whip last year when Kemi Badenoch took over as leader. On the podcast, Katie talks

Andrew Tettenborn

Is Hungary right to quit the ICC?

When Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán, who is nobody’s fool, offered Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu a state visit to Budapest last year, he knew a storm would follow. Netanyahu has now arrived in Hungary – and the backlash has duly followed. Orbán has vowed not only to ignore the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest warrant against Netanyahu for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity during the war between Israel and Hamas; he has said his country will withdraw altogether from the ICC. During a joint press conference yesterday with Netanyahu, Orbán said the ICC had become a ‘political court’. Netanyahu hailed Hungary’s ‘bold and principled’ decision to withdraw from the court.

David Shipley

Unlocked was changing inmates’ lives. So why has Labour binned it?

Unlocked Graduates, a charity that recruited hundreds of high-calibre graduates into the prison service, was one of the few glimmers of hope in our broken justice system. But Unlocked’s future is now in doubt: its graduate programme is over. The current cohort of prison officers – who are making a huge difference to the lives of inmates and their hopes of rehabilitation – will be the last. Unlocked set out to transform prison officer hiring – and it succeeded Unlocked’s fate has been clear for some time: last year, the Ministry of Justice failed to renew the programme’s contract. This week, prisons minister Lord Timpson confirmed that discussions on the graduate

Edward Howell

South Korea must pick its next president wisely

Over 100 days since his impeachment trial commenced, South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol was unanimously voted out by the country’s constitutional court earlier today. This is the man whose presidency will be remembered for his infamous declaration of martial law on 3 December last year. For his detractors, today is a jubilant occasion and a day of celebration. For Yoon’s supporters, however, the court’s verdict predictably was a moment of melancholy. The clock is now ticking, as the country has 60 days to call a general election. Not only is South Korea’s political polarisation anything but ebbing, but voters must carefully consider just how beneficial a pivot in political

Thursday

3 Apr 2025

Freddy Gray

Trump’s tariffs: madman or mastermind?

29 min listen

President Donald Trump has announced sweeping new tariffs, including a 10 per cent duty on all UK exports to the United States, as part of his ‘Reciprocal Tariffs’ plan aimed at addressing trade imbalances and bolstering American manufacturing. This move is expected to impact approximately £60 billion worth of UK exports, with sectors such as automotive and Scotch whisky facing significant challenges. The UK government, while relieved to have avoided higher tariffs imposed on other nations, is now navigating the potential economic repercussions and exploring avenues for negotiation. Freddy Gray speaks with William Clouston, leader of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), to analyse the implications of Trump’s tariff announcement

Ben Delo

Why I’m giving my money to maths

When I was a teenager, mathematics saved my life. Diagnosed with Asperger’s, I had a knack for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time – usually the truth, which rarely wins popularity contests. Only in maths class did I find that the pursuit of truth was not a vice but a superpower. In a world full of grey areas and half-truths, here was a subject where things were either right or wrong, and no one could accuse you of being rude for pointing it out. My resulting passion for maths took me to Oxford, where I studied mathematics and computer science, and from there into the world of finance.

Steerpike

Labour’s Luton expansion plans get the green light

The economy may not be expanding, but Labour is determined Britain’s airports will. Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander has today approved proposals to expand Luton Airport – with plans for a new terminal given a green light. So keen is the Labour minister to push the project, Alexander has overruled the Planning Inspectorate’s advice that she reject the Development Consent Order over environmental concerns. How interesting… The move will pave the way for the cap on passenger numbers to be raised from 18 million to a whopping 32 million. The existing Terminal 1 is to be expanded while a new Terminal 2 will be constructed alongside taxiways and car parks. More

William Moore

Cruel Labour, the decline of sacred spaces & Clandon Park’s controversial restoration

51 min listen

This week: Starmerism’s moral vacuum‘Governments need a mission, or they descend into reactive incoherence’ writes Michael Gove in this week’s cover piece. A Labour government, he argues, ‘cannot survive’ without a sense of purpose. The ‘failure of this government to make social justice its mission’ has led to a Spring Statement ‘that was at once hurried, incoherent and cruel – a fiscal drive-by shooting’. Michael writes that Starmer wishes to emulate his hero – the post-war Prime Minister Clement Atlee, who founded the NHS and supported a fledgling NATO alliance. Yet, with policy driven by Treasury mandarins, the Labour project is in danger of drifting, as John Major’s premiership did.

Rod Liddle

The BBC isn’t even pretending to be impartial about Trump

If, for some unfathomable reason, you missed Newsnight last night, do make sure you see, somehow, the interview between presenter Victoria Derbyshire and the former deputy assistant to Donald Trump, Sebastian Gorka. Derbyshire has had it coming for a long time. She believes it is sufficient, when interviewing somebody who takes a Trumpish view of the world, simply to screech her idiotic objections and prevent the interviewee from speaking at all. This happens every time a supporter of Trump is allowed on to her show. She is as bad as Maitlis, except without the charisma. Gorka refused to stand for it and told her three times to shut up –

Steerpike

Watchdog probes Prince Harry’s charity

To the monarch of Montecito, who is once again making headlines for all the wrong reasons. It turns out the Charity Commission is probing ‘concerns raised’ at Prince Harry’s African charity, Sentebale – as a battle over bullying rages in the boardroom. Oh dear… The royal renegade’s organisation has come under fire over its governance, as allegations of bullying, racism and mismanagement have also been flung around. The Commission announced today it had opened an inquiry in a statement and has already been in touch with those who flagged concerns about the company – including both the Duke of Sussex himself and chair Sophie Chandauka. The watchdog went on to

Keiran Pedley

How Farage can win power

There can be no doubt that Nigel Farage was one of the big political winners of 2024. His decision to lead Reform UK into the general election shaped the campaign and was a significant factor in the scale of the Conservative defeat. Reform won more than four million votes and polls suggest they have gained further support since, raising the real possibility that they could replace the Conservative party as the primary voice of small ‘c’ conservative Britain. Nigel Farage and his party have several things going for them. Number one is that immigration continues to be a key issue for the British public. We know that immigration and asylum

George Magnus

How Trump’s tariffs will hurt China

China has been hit hard by President Trump’s tariff list, which he unveiled yesterday in the White House rose garden. As part of his ‘Liberation Day’, Trump imposed new 34 per cent tariffs on China. This seems to be in addition to the 20 per cent tariffs levied on the country by the US since January. And in addition to 11 per cent tariffs previously applied after Beijing was accused of violating international trade and harming US commerce. That means the average tariff on imported goods from China possibly stands at 65 per cent. Next month, things will get even worse for China when the ‘de minimis’ exemption will be phased

Katy Balls

Keir Starmer plots retaliatory tariffs

How will the UK respond to Donald Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’? After the US President announced a batch of new tariffs yesterday, including a 10 per cent blanket levy on imports from the UK, ministers are discovering the pros and cons of the new normal. Supporters of Keir Starmer have taken comfort that the White House has imposed the lowest rate on the UK. China faces total effective tariffs of 54 per cent, and the EU will be on levies of 20 per cent. While some around the Prime Minister have suggested that the UK is receiving preferential treatment because of clever diplomacy, others point to the trade deficit and fact

Ross Clark

Starmer is teaching Europe a lesson on tariffs

The reactions to Donald Trump’s tariffs between London and Brussels could not be more different. Where Keir Starmer was conciliatory, stressing that his government still hoped to negotiate with the US, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was quickly out of the blocks with threats of retaliation, saying that a package of measures was being finalised. It has since emerged that the EU plans to wait four weeks before imposing any retaliatory measures. Nevertheless it does rather expose the difference between the EU and post-Brexit Britain. The EU sees itself as a match for the US, and views Trump’s declaration of trade war as a power game. Britain, on the other

Sam Olsen

Trump’s tariffs could help China

Donald Trump is, at least, a man of his word. Before he won the US election, Trump said that China had ‘really taken advantage of our country’ and vowed to slap punitive tariffs on imports from the People’s Republic. As we have repeatedly seen, Trump carries through on his threats. ‘Liberation Day’ saw China hit with 54 per cent tariffs as payback for what the president deemed unfair policies, the highest rate on any country. Punishing US allies in Asia is not helpful for countering the threat from Beijing That this is part of a wider move against Beijing was made clear this week when, in a leaked memo, US

Andrew Lilico

Trump doesn’t understand how trade deficits work

After Donald Trump’s Liberation Day, the US now imposes far and away the highest tariffs of any developed country in the world. In the process of doing so Trump has completely rejected the cornerstone of the World Trade Organisation: the ‘most favoured nation’ principle whereby tariffs have to be the same on all countries you don’t have an explicit trade agreement with. He has also cast aside the US’s system of free trade agreements – for example, imposing tariffs on Australia despite there being a decades-old Australia-US agreement removing tariffs. His reasons for doing this reflect his dissatisfaction with the way the international financial order has worked for many years.

James Snell

Israel is playing a dangerous game in Syria

As Donald Trump’s tariffs dominate the headlines, in the Middle East, Israel is stepping up its campaign against Syria. Israeli air strikes hit targets across the country, including the T4 airbase in Homs, last night. The latest campaign which has been conducted over the last few months – involving dozens of air strikes and the deployment of troops – is a big escalation. The strikes in Syria overnight were intended to deter Turkey from making use of bases inside the country. The bombings were to ‘convey a message to Turkey,’ an Israeli official told the Jerusalem Post. Turkey has made much of its closeness to the new leadership of Syria. It had an uneasy relationship with the now-dissolved

Philip Patrick

Japan has been stunned by the Trump tariffs

Virtually the whole world is waking up to the reality, not threat now, of President Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs, but in few places will the sense of shock and resultant anxiety be greater than Japan, where a whopping 24 per cent has been slapped on exports to the US. The Japanese, who have grown used to a decent relationship with successive American administrations and a whopping trade surplus, will have many sleepless nights ahead. The reaction here has not been one of anger or resentment – more stunned bemusement. Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, who did his best to cozy up to Trump on a recent summit in Washington (he presented Trump

Steerpike

Scottish Tory MSP storms out ‘Trump-esque’ party

All is not well in the Scottish Tory party. Onetime leadership hopeful Jamie Greene MSP has dramatically quit the party today, announcing his exit in a scathing letter to current leader Russell Findlay. Raging that the group has become ‘Trump-esque in both style and substance’, Greene fumed that the Scottish Conservatives were at risk of being once again labelled the ‘Nasty Party’ by ‘chasing the votes’ of Reform voters. Ouch. The Scottish politician – who believes he was sacked from the party’s frontbench in 2023 over his support for Nicola Sturgeon’s gender reforms – blasted his party for a rightwards shift as Reform UK continues to gain momentum north of

Oscar Edmondson

Trump’s tariffs explained

12 min listen

It’s the day after America ‘reclaimed it’s destiny’, or so Donald Trump says. The President announced a raft of ‘reciprocal’ new tariffs from the White House rose garden, including a 10% levy on the UK which – before it comes into effect on 5th April – the government hope to negotiate down. Other countries have come off much worse. China, for example, will experience a 34 per cent ‘discounted reciprocal tariffs’, compared to the 67 per cent Trump claims China puts on US goods. The European Union will experience 20 per cent levies, compared to the 39 per cent Trump also says is put on US goods. ‘We’re a very