Politics

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

Saturday

Steerpike Steerpike

Naz Shah’s new community cohesion effort

Oh dear. It was just two weeks ago that Labour’s Naz Shah found herself in trouble for attending a pro-Palestinian rally in Bradford at which a speaker made antisemitic remarks in Arabic. Now the shadow minister for community cohesion appears to be again tempting fate after a scheduled appearance next month at a charity dinner alongside fellow frontbencher Imran Hussain MP. A poster circulated for the ‘Free Gaza, Free Palestine’ fundraiser at the Bradford Hotel on July 3, showed smiling images of the two MPs alongside Imam Asim Hussain for the £25 a head three-course dinner. Unfortunately, a quick check of the latter’s 187,000 follower strong Facebook page makes the Bradford

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Revealed: How the UK-Australia deal was struck

The basis of the UK’s first bespoke trade deal since leaving the EU was finalised with Australia over two dinners. One took place in the garden of the residence of the Australian High Commissioner to the UK, where guests were fed Australian lamb. The other in Downing Street where Welsh lamb was on the menu. They were menu choices that pointed both to what the deal would achieve – zero tariffs, including on agricultural goods – and the main point of contention in a negotiation that has spanned nearly a year since talks began last June. In that time, there has been a Cabinet row over protectionism on Australian meat imports and

Anthony Seldon

Will Boris Johnson be one of the great prime ministers?

Boris Johnson may have been unable to work his magic on the burghers of Chesham as he did on fellow G7 leaders last weekend at Carbis Bay. But as he approaches his second anniversary in power next month, it is worth asking whether he is on track to become one of the landmark prime ministers in British history. Since the office was created 300 years ago this April, just nine prime ministers have emerged as giants. These eight men and one woman changed the course of history, and had successors who tried to emulate them, or distance themselves – but none could escape their shadow. Of the remaining 46 PMs, the

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Will Boris Johnson face more southern rebels?

18 min listen

The surprise result of Friday’s Chesham and Amersham by-election has led to questions over why the Conservative lost just so badly – and why no one saw it coming. On today’s Coffee House Shots, Conservative Home’s Paul Goodman warns against over-reading the situation: ‘When it comes to by-elections, the golden rule should be, why not presume that voters will kick the establishment? … I really think, as I’m looking around at these Remainers coming out of their various holes and lairs, indulging these pathetic fantasies, that they have this out of proportion’ James Forsyth adds that the result isn’t so much a problem for the Conservative party, as it is symptomatic of the

Joanna Williams

What Meghan Markle can learn from Enid Blyton

The year is 2070 and English Heritage are unveiling their latest Blue Plaque: ‘The Duchess of Sussex, children’s author, lived here 2017 – 2018’. The accompanying online guide praises Meghan for her work promoting inclusion and diversity. I have no idea whether Meghan will one day be rewarded with an iconic plaque for her services to literature. But she’s certainly heading in the right direction. Following this week’s announcement that her debut book The Bench has topped the New York Times’ bestseller’s list for children’s fiction, the Duchess took the opportunity to declare: ‘While this poem began as a love letter to my husband and son, I’m encouraged to see

Mary Dejevsky

Biden and Putin have left Britain out in the cold

It would probably be wrong to say that Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin got on like a house on fire. But the results of the Geneva summit, which observed all the rules of Cold-War era summitry – from the venue to the formality of the arms-control and confidence-building agenda – far exceeded the deliberately doom-laden forecasts. In the space of around four hours at the Villa La Grange, the leaders of the United States and Russia effectively normalised relations that for the best part of four years had been bouncing around at rock-bottom, and dangerously so. The Russian and American ambassadors are returning to their capitals, working groups are being

Jon Yates

Television, not social media, is fracturing our society

All it took for the Twitter mob to descend on me was a retweet from Michael Gove. Message after message called for a resignation. Often it wasn’t entirely clear who the target was: me, the leader of a medium-sized youth charity, or him, the second best known member of the Cabinet. What on earth was in this few short sentences that had unlocked the world’s bile and aggression? Gove had committed the cardinal sin of recommending a book I have written. Ironically enough, it is a book on why our societies have become so divided and how we fix them. It is blindingly obvious to most of us why our societies have become

Theo Davies-Lewis

King of Fortress Wales: an interview with Mark Drakeford

Mark Drakeford sits opposite me in a small conference room on the third floor of Cathays Park, the nucleus of Welsh government operations during Covid-19. The First Minister of Wales is in bullish mood. Last month, he almost single-handedly delivered a thumping election victory for Labour in Wales – securing 30 seats in the Senedd and extending Labour’s 22-year-grip over the devolved parliament. The party in Wales enjoys starkly different electoral fortunes to its comrades across the border, with Drakeford now Labour’s only leader with experience winning national elections across the UK. I meet him a few hours after the first devolved Covid summit, where he and other devolved leaders

Friday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

What does Starmer’s backroom reshuffle mean for Labour?

Big changes afoot tonight in Sir Keir Starmer’s top team: his head of communications Ben Nunn has stepped down to pursue other projects, with deputy Paul Ovenden also resigning for family reasons. Steph Driver is taking over as director of comms while plans are being made for the new direction of the team. I understand that Nunn and Ovenden’s departures really aren’t for the same reasons. The latter has a young family and new caring responsibilities which he has decided he has to put first, but he is a particular loss for Starmer. He was very efficient and well-liked in the parliamentary press gallery (not always a given for opposition

Steerpike Steerpike

Labour axes its communications head

The No. 10 media operation has become notorious for releasing announcements late on a Friday night when most hacks have already filed their stories.  Now it seems Labour is learning from the masters of the dark arts, having finally pulled off a successful media strategy – revealing the resignation of its most senior communications official just an hour before the England v Scotland kick off. Ben Nunn, Keir Starmer’s longtime aide and current Labour director of communications, is out after months of criticism from MPs and journalists about the lack of a coherent message from the leader’s office. Nunn, who was described on his appointment as ‘a genuinely nice guy’

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Are England fans allowed to be proud of the St George’s Cross?

It’s starting to feel like the only flag you can’t fly in England is the England flag. Wave the Pride flag out of your living room window and your neighbours will gush. In fact, flying the Pride flag is practically mandatory in June, Pride month. Every town hall, school, bank and social-media site is draped in the rainbow colours. Such is the omnipresence of the Pride flag that it is actual headline news when someone refuses to wave it. For the second year running, Ockbrook and Borrowash Parish Council in Derbyshire has decided not to fly the Pride colours. The BBC was on this bizarre case pronto. ‘Anger as Pride

Henry Hill

Euros 2021: Should we scrap the England team?

Look back through the archive photos of England’s victory over Germany at the 1966 world cup and you’ll notice something rather strange. The cheering supporters aren’t waving the flag of St George. Instead the jubilant crowds are draped Union Jacks — reflecting the more fluid blend of loyalties of an age when Britain was much more at ease with itself. Now tune into the delayed Euro 2020 matches: you’re unlikely to catch the red white and blue standard of the United Kingdom. During the last England match, there was a lone pair of Rangers fans defiantly waving their Union Jack. These are my people. I’ll watch for them during tonight’s

Charlie Peters

The Tories should ignore the Amersham by-election

Chesham and Amersham has fallen. The once uber-Tory Chilterns citadel has been snatched by the Lib Dems, with local campaigners citing planning reform and HS2 as the main drivers for their success. After the ginormous swing — from a 16,000 majority to an 8,000-vote deficit — fears are growing that the Tories’ planning reforms might become a victim to demographic subsidence. Many of the government’s backbenchers are keen to undermine the party’s house-building efforts. They fear Amersham-style retribution from similar voters, eager to punish them for devaluing their most-prized asset and adding congestion to their quaint country lanes. The Nimbyist revolt has been a major political force for yonks Isle of Wight

Steerpike Steerpike

Dominic Grieve’s Bucks blunder

Following this morning’s shock by-election result, gloom and despair are gripping much of the Conservative party in the South of England. But one ex-Tory Cabinet minister was in brighter spirits today, with former Attorney General Dominic Grieve popping up on BBC News to explain why his onetime colleague turned Brexit nemesis Boris Johnson is to blame for the defeat in true blue Buckinghamshire. Grieve, who lost the Tory whip on Johnson’s orders in September 2019 after voting with opposition MPs on a three line whip, has repaid the snub by frequent jibes at the Prime Minister, such as labelling him a ‘vacuum of integrity.’  This morning was no different with Johnson being

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

How do you explain the Lib Dems’ stunning victory?

11 min listen

In a political upset the Liberal Democrats have won the by-election in Chesham and Amersham in a massive poll swing from the Tories.  ‘What they’ve done is overturned a majority of 16,000 and then they’ve had quite a few votes to boot!’ – Katy Balls And in other political the new DUP leader Edwin Poots has resigned, leaving his party to figure out what to do next. To dissect what happened, Cindy Yu is joined by James Forsyth and Katy Balls.

Nick Tyrone Nick Tyrone

Why I was so wrong about the Lib Dems

Right, I got that one spectacularly wrong. On Monday, I made a prediction that the Lib Dems were going to get thumped by the Tories in the Chesham and Amersham by-election. In fact, the Lib Dems pulled off a stunning victory, overturning a 16,000 majority in a seat that has always voted Conservative. But while the result surprised me, even as a lifelong Lib Dem, I won’t be celebrating.  This week, for the first time in my political life, I made a faulty prediction of the Lib Dems’ electoral chances because I wanted them to lose. This clouded my judgement as much, if not more, than my previous desire for them to win.

Tom Slater Tom Slater

GB News and the fight against the outrage mob

Cancel culture is a reflection of our society’s cowardice. The more institutions bow to the demands of an intolerant fringe, the more powerful these unrepresentative bores become. The GB News boycott is a perfect example of this. A handful of tweeters, ginned up by the censorious hate group Stop Funding Hate, tweeted their dismay at companies advertising on the new anti-woke channel, and these firms actually listened to them. Kopparberg, IKEA, Specsavers, Octopus Energy, Grolsch, Moneysupermarket, Vodafone, Bosch and more responded like a rabbit in the headlights and pulled their ads before bothering to think of the consequences. That several of them have since tried to walk it back, following

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Does ‘Johnson’s law’ explain why people won’t work from home?

Even after the one metre rule and the limits on numbers are removed on July 19th, we will not be back to anything approaching normal life. From self-isolation to travel we will not be returning to the status quo ante. Another way in which life will be different, as I say in the Times today, is that offices will still be nowhere near as busy as they were before the pandemic. Ministers will end the work-from-home guidance next month. But there’ll be no national ‘back to the office’ day. It will be left to employers to decide how much they want to push the issue. Most ministers think people won’t

Andrew McQuillan

Edwin Poots’s resignation could cause a crisis in Northern Ireland

The end of Edwin Poots’s 21-day spell as leader of the DUP sums up the ordeal of being a unionist leader. Elected as a hard-line replacement for Arlene Foster, he has departed now after being seen to have given too much away to Sinn Fein over the Irish language. Who will replace him? The early candidate appears to be Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, the party’s Westminster leader who was defeated by Poots in last month’s contest. His supporters are championing him as a stabilising influence in a party which has ripped itself apart, with others suggesting that he should be elected without a contest. Poots’s election was a last roll of