Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.
34 min listen
What was once dismissed by the mainstream media as a right wing conspiracy theory, seems to have made its transition into credible possibility. It now seems very plausible that Covid came from a Chinese lab. But will we ever know for sure? And even if we did, what would we do about it? Freddy Gray talks to historian and journalist Thomas Frank, who recommends we all read this.
Heinz is expanding a huge factory in the UK. Tesla is reportedly scouting the north for locations for a new car or battery plant. Even the pound is bouncing to three-year highs. It has been a difficult few weeks for some hardcore Remainers. Still, at least there is finally something to cheer them up. Tim Martin, the pugnacious founder of the pub chain JD Wetherspoon argued today that the government should relax immigration rules to ease a shortage of labour. For the dwindling band of believers in the EU, it was a gotcha moment. At last, one of the leading backers of our departure from the EU was experiencing some ‘Bre-mourse’.
Belarus’s president Alexander Lukashenko has been roundly condemned following the arrest of Roman Protasevich, but he still has one ally. Lukashenko spent the weekend at Sochi, on the Black Sea, where he was hosted on president Vladimir Putin’s yacht. The two leaders greeted each other with a hug. After dolphin spotting, the pair wrapped up a deal on the release of a $500 million (£350m) loan to Belarus which will help blunt the effect of fresh western sanctions. The announcement followed a celebration in Minsk earlier in the week for the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist party, where ambassador Xie Xiaoyong lauded the bilateral relationship between China and Belarus. As ever, Beijing and Moscow
How damaging is the ‘culture war’ to the Labour party’s hopes of one day regaining power? On the left there is a fragile consensus in place that it doesn’t matter very much. The Times columnist David Aaronovitch set this out recently, using some opinion research from King’s College, London. According to the study most voters don’t fully understand terms such as ‘cancel culture’ or ‘identity politics’. For many younger people, the term ‘woke’ denotes something positive about appreciating the hurdles others may have to overcome. Only among the over-55s is ‘woke’ seen overwhelmingly as a negative thing, with just 13 per cent of people thinking it a compliment to be so
One of the many reasons I hate wokers is because they indulge so shamelessly in what Bebel coined ‘the socialism of fools’ – anti-Semitism – under the convenient cover of sticking up for the Palestinians. Pretty much all socialism is for fools these days and as we see the Tories ditch misogyny, racism and austerity (Chancellor Sunak ‘Soak the rich!’ – Sir Keir Starmer ‘No!’) we have seen anti-Semitism cross the floor too. This is not the sniggering Jew-hatred of the smug Surrey golf club; this is where the pampered and resentful spawn of the bourgeoise get down to the rapper Wiley, MBE, he of the profoundly inclusive tweets like
This was perhaps the most heavily-trailed Kleenex moment in recent TV history. The advance clips of Sir Keir Starmer’s interview with Piers Morgan suggested that the Labour leader would well up on-screen as he recalled his parents’ deaths and the fate of a family pet that was killed in a shed fire. We’re accustomed to seeing our leaders in tears. Mrs Thatcher wept after delivering her farewell address outside No. 10 in November 1990. She held it together for the speech itself but cracked up when she walked away from the microphone and towards her official car. Photos of her inside the vehicle showed her biting her jaw while her
One of the biggest challenges for any leader of the opposition is getting noticed. Doing that requires taking some risks and Keir Starmer’s sit down with Piers Morgan was a bit of a risk – politicians can get caught out in these more personal formats. Starmer did well, though. He didn’t fall into any Nick Clegg style traps; navigating the sex and drugs questions with relative ease. He talked movingly about his mother, and how she coped with her long illness. His relationship with his own father clearly wasn’t easy, Starmer said the only time his father ever said he was proud of him was when he passed the 11-plus,
It’s been a bad night for Stonewall. Yesterday, the Labour MP Dawn Butler created a Twitter Poll. ‘Who do you trust more?’ she asked her 150,000 followers, Stonewall or Liz Truss? It’s not exactly clear what inspired Butler to ask this question online, but this is, of course, the MP who last year told Good Morning Britain that she believed ‘babies are born without a sex.’ Why anyone would need to hand over good money to show they treat their staff with dignity and respect is a mystery to me Butler’s folly gave anyone with a Twitter account the opportunity to have their say. The numbers are not looking good
Oriel College, Oxford’s decision to retain the statue of Cecil Rhodes has generated the usual voluminous fury. It has also shown it to be just that: noise. The university’s willingness to face down activists could mark a turning point in proving that when campaigners don’t get their way, the world continues to turn. This might sound obvious but it marks a welcome change to the often depressing cycle of inevitability of protest-social media storm-surrender. All too often, it seems power really does lie with the various campaign groups, charities, and commentators pushing for change. The fact that Rhodes hasn’t fallen, whatever you might think of the man himself, shows that it doesn’t. This is why they are activists
Keir Starmer’s appearance on Piers Morgan’s ‘Life Stories’ is a sign of desperation. The Labour leader knows he must do something about the dire situation his party is in, following the disastrous defeat at the Hartlepool by-election. One of the big criticisms levelled at Starmer is that he lacks charisma. His decision to agree to be interviewed by Morgan is an attempt to do something about that, by showing people the ‘real’ Starmer. Unfortunately, though, it seems there are some things that remain off limits, not least what Starmer the student got up to during his time at Leeds university. Morgan quizzed Starmer at least ten times on whether the
Time is running out for Bibi Netanyahu. In the next couple of days, the fate of Israel’s next government will be decided. If opposition parties manage to reach a deal tonight, it will mean that Bibi and the Likud will no longer be in power – for the first time in twelve years. Four rounds of elections made two things clear: that about two-thirds of the public votes for right-wing parties; and that Bibi has become the Israeli’s right’s biggest problem. A dozen years in power has made Netanyahu arrogant, entitled and hated by a large portion of the public, including right-wing voters. This has been made worse by deep resentment
Time is, I fear, running out. Running out, that is, to avoid handing to a small number of multinational corporations our right to buy and sell things. Running out to prevent governments and central banks helping themselves to our savings, by means of negative interest rates. The payments industry is closing in on its target of driving cash out of circulation and instigating cashless payments as the only way of doing business. That, at least, is the conclusion one might reach from reading a report by Worldpay: the Global Payments Report 2021. It claims that cash payments in UK shops in 2020 made up 13.4 per cent of total payments,
Amidst the drama of Dominic Cummings’s appearance in front of MPs last week, perhaps the most important thing the PM’s former adviser said was almost entirely ignored. As well as slating his former boss, Cummings criticised the UK’s disaster planning. The pandemic has shifted attention to how Britain would deal in the future with another respiratory virus, but arguably a bigger threat to this country – and, indeed, the world – has been forgotten. When it comes to dealing with solar flares, Cummings’s said, ‘the current Government plan is completely hopeless. If that happens then we’re all going to be in a worse situation than Covid’. Cummings is right to be worried: the worst effects of a
12 min listen
Now officially in June, the significance of the 21st seems even greater for the country, but with the Indian variant still on the rise how safe is the date? Katy Balls says that for the government: ‘The plan is to offer all over fifties two doses before June 21st.’ And a glorious weekend of weather for the Prime Minister’s secret nuptials, but what does this wedding mean for the warring factions that circle No. 10? Some questions were raised about the ceremony; just how Boris Johnson gets a Catholic service raised a few eyebrows and Katy has also heard: ‘There were reports of dancing at the wedding, in the garden… you’re
While Boris Johnson used the bank holiday weekend to get married, scientists have been busy filling the airwaves with various warnings about proceeding with the final lockdown easing on 21 June. There have been a series of statements from both government advisers and other scientists arguing that in the face of rising cases of the Indian variant – which the World Health Organisation now calls ‘Delta’ – it would be unwise to press ahead with the next stage of the roadmap this month. Nervtag member Prof Ravi Gupta has said the UK appears to be in what could be described as the early stages of a third wave – with an
The most difficult time for a new secretary of state is normally the first three months in the job. An early mistake can sink confidence among both the public and Whitehall officials. But for Sajid Javid, his first three months as health secretary will be his easiest. The real challenge will come later. The easing of restrictions on 19 July will almost certainly go ahead, which means Javid will be able to point to an early success. I understand that the current plan, which the government will set out next week (though the formal decision on whether to proceed will only be taken a week beforehand), is for a comprehensive
A large, investigative collaboration between Scandinavian public service outlets and European newspapers such as Le Monde and Süddeutsche Zeitung has revealed a rather sensational espionage story. US intelligence agency NSA has reportedly been snooping on American allies, including Swedish politicians, with the help of…Sweden’s neighbour, Denmark. To make matters worse, the Danish defense minister has apparently been sitting on the information for a whole year, without telling her Swedish counterpart. Ouch. Things will be chillier than usual at this June’s Nato-led maritime exercise (‘Baltops 50’) in the Baltic Sea. Germany has been kept in the dark by the Danes, too The closing of the bridge between Denmark and Sweden to
Librarians aren’t known for causing trouble. But at our elite universities, in the grip of an increasingly unhinged culture of offence-taking, it doesn’t take much to cause trouble nowadays. This is the news that a library director at King’s College London has been forced to make a grovelling apology for emailing around a photo of Prince Philip. Hot on the heels of that student at Abertay being investigated for saying women have vaginas, this one is right up there with the most absurd campus stories to date. In a bulletin marking the Duke of Edinburgh’s death, Joleen Clarke, associate director of the university’s libraries, sent a photo of Philip and
The five most frustrating words a journalist can hear are: ‘This is not a story’. Over the years, I have heard that warding charm invoked by press officers governmental and party, private sector and charitable. Every time, it guaranteed I would work doubly hard to ensure the story in question made it into print. Political journalists, in particular, are thrawn by nature and cynical through experience. They begin from the assumption that you did it, everyone around you knows you did it, half of them are doing it too, and if they keep at you long enough you’ll eventually end up reading a prepared statement outside your front door one
It is a leading player in finance, and it’s companies are giants in life sciences and consumer goods. There were already lots of similarities between the Swiss and British economies, except that they are quite a bit richer and more successful than we are. Now we have something else in common: we have both been frozen out of the European Union’s Single Market. But hold on. Isn’t there an opportunity there as well? In truth, this would be the perfect moment to offer the Swiss a deal that would work for both sides – a common market. The Swiss have always had a fractious relationship with the EU. It has
