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Britain’s lax immigration policy is making it an outlier
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has this week put out an official statement that could fairly be described as ‘Wir schaffen das nicht’ – ‘we can’t do it’. Its official title is the rather drier – ‘Work on designing innovative ways to counter illegal migration’ – but you get the drift.
It was back in autumn 2015 that Angela Merkel launched a policy towards undocumented migrants that had huge implications for the entire continent.
‘Wir schaffen das!’ – ‘we can do it’ – she declared, in response to the huge flow of irregular (thus also illegal) migrants heading into the EU, mainly from Syria and surrounding countries. However many people came in to seek refuge in Germany – and therefore, ultimately in its Schengen Area neighbours too – the country would welcome them and cope. Nine years down the line, we have a very different declaration.
At the start of her second term running the Commission, von der Leyen has told her immigration commissioner to ‘steer reflections on operational solutions that will help to counter illegal migration and address the proposals many membersStates have made in this area’. Part of the new approach will involve identifying ‘designated safe third countries’ and ‘the idea of developing return hubs outside the EU’.
The statement also namechecks the start of an Italy-Albania deal for holding and processing up to 36,000 asylum seekers a year in the Balkan country. Hanging over it, unreferenced, is the spectre of public opinion in many EU countries rapidly hardening against mass migration from Asia and Africa.
In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders got the biggest vote share in a general election last year. In Germany, the hardline AfD is scoring spectacular successes in state-level elections. In France, Marine Le Pen is on course to become the next President of the republic. In Italy, Giorgia Meloni is already installed as prime minister and enacting tough policies to repel illegal migrants.
In Denmark and Sweden, nominally centrist regimes are pushing ‘fit in or go home’ messages at largely Muslim migrant populations in a way that would have been unthinkable a decade ago. In Poland, Donald Tusk is on the brink of suspending the whole asylum process.
The designation ‘MENAPT’ – applied to those with origins in the Middle East, North Africa, Pakistan and Turkey – has entered European public consciousness when it comes to official data on crime, labour market participation and welfare dependency. And the story told by the data on these metrics and in respect of such populations is not a good one.
In short, there is a paradigm shift in progress. The ultra-idealistic Merkel approach has been seen to fail, and centrist technocrats everywhere are seeking accommodations with electorates in a desperate bid to fend off the populist right.
Everywhere, that is, apart from the United Kingdom where the new government has redoubled the political establishment’s subservience to the nebulous concept of ‘international law’, pulled the plug on its predecessor’s Rwanda removals plan and declared that it will never leave the European Convention on Human Rights or its supervisory court.
There is a paradigm shift in progress
This latter consideration is a live issue in the ongoing Conservative party leadership contest. Robert Jenrick has committed to a policy of getting out of the whole ECHR framework. Kemi Badenoch has called for time to be spent on drawing up a robust new policy to deliver secure borders and the ability to deport illegal entrants, which will be relevant to the circumstances prevailing in five years’ time.
Some say that’s dodging a difficult choice. Yet there is no doubt that things are changing fast across the EU. In the blink of an eye, Britain has gone from being the whipping boy of liberal media and pro-migration NGOs alike, to the only major European country supporting a status quo that renders borders largely illusory.
Keir Starmer and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper won’t make Merkel’s mistake of saying the quiet part out loud. But for all their ‘smash the gangs’ rhetoric, they are presiding over their own version of her failed policy: sky-high asylum grant rates, tiny numbers of removals, extensive welfare support – including access to scarce social housing – the suppression of data about migrant outcomes by country of origin and almost zero pressure to integrate.
We were once dubbed the ‘sick man of Europe’. We’re the ‘weak man of Europe’ now.
Scottish visas are a terrible idea
The last thing Labour needs right now, after the last hundred days of scandal and mishap, is a row over immigration. So the party will not have been pleased this morning to see reports in the Scottish press suggesting that the Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, is considering introducing a separate Scottish immigration visa, which would help Scotland counter its falling birth rate.
This is not the first time the idea of a Scottish visa has surfaced. It has long been campaigned for by the SNP, with the nationalist MP Stephen Gethins tabling an amendment this week to allow Scotland to set up its own visa regime.
The UK government certainly seems minded to make it easier to migrate to Scotland, by whatever means
Labour’s deputy leader, Jackie Baillie, also suggested in June that there would be ‘discussions’ over a Scottish visa, or ‘MacVisa’ if Labour won the general election, which of course it did. And in 2016, the then justice secretary Michael Gove suggested that it would be for ‘Scotland to decide’ its immigration levels after Brexit.
Still, the Home Office has now moved with unusual alacrity to squash the idea that a separate Scottish visa is on the way. It presumably fears it would be seen as an invitation to mass migration by the backdoor at a time when even Keir Starmer has been saying that the numbers entering the country are too high.
But visa or no, the UK government certainly seems minded to make it easier to migrate to Scotland, by whatever means.
This could involve some kind of points system, a relaxation of the earnings limits, or some version of the Scottish executive’s Fresh Talent initiative of 2005, under which graduates were permitted to remain in Scotland for two years after graduation. That was wound up by Labour in 2008, partly because of fears that it might become an uncontrolled route to the UK, especially for dependants.
There is clearly a need for more young workers in Scotland to help pay for the ageing population. Scotland’s birth rate fell to its lowest recorded level last year, and deaths outnumbered births by 19,000. The nationalists have long been calling for a ‘Live in Scotland’ visa to support migration to rural and island communities.
But the problem in a unitary state is how to prevent migrants coming to Scotland only to hop across the border. One solution would be to identify Scottish migrants by their tax code and ban them from seeking employment in the south. But apart from being unfair, it is not clear that this would be workable in practice. Many might simply disappear into Britain’s burgeoning black economy.
It would also raise awkward questions about citizenship. Would Scottish migrants, and their dependents, be denied the right to apply for citizenship after five years? Would such migrants be denied promotions in companies which operate both in Scotland and in England? That could look like discrimination.
A cynic might say that Labour’s apparent enthusiasm for increased migration to Scotland is precisely so it can provide a new ‘safe route’ for migration to the UK as a whole. No Labour politicians have ever suggested as much, and they insist that such talk is a Trumpian conspiracy theory. But that won’t stop people thinking that Labour is soft on immigration at the very least. The image of migrants crossing over the Scottish border is ideal fuel for Nigel Farage and Reform’s campaign efforts.
But it is not the lack of a Scottish visa that underlies Scotland’s migration deficit. A record 750,000 net migrants came to Britain in 2022, but only around 20,000 reached Scotland. The real problem may simply be that the SNP government, after 17 years in power, has failed to make Scotland a sufficiently attractive place to come and work.
Can the US force Israel to bow to its demands on Gaza?
The White House wants Israel to allow more aid into Gaza and implement humanitarian ceasefires within 30 days. If they don’t, the US has threatened to withhold military aid to the country. That’s according to a leaked letter sent over the weekend by secretary of state Anthony Blinken and defence secretary Lloyd Austin in which they set out a short but punchy list of demands.
The letter’s unusually harsh tone seems to be motivated by domestic pre-election pressure on the Democratic party. President Joe Biden’s fractured relationship with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has also played a part – which is why the letter was addressed to defence minister Yoav Gallant and minister of strategic affairs Ron Dremer rather than to Netanyahu himself.
There’s no guarantee that simply allowing more aid into Gaza would make much difference
America is concerned about a humanitarian crisis in Gaza and about the fall in aid last month. Their concerns were made worse thanks to calls by the retired IDF major general Giora Eiland for Israel to restrict aid to northern Gaza in order to apply more pressure on Hamas. Netanyahu denied that this plan has been adopted by the Israeli government, but Biden’s lack of trust in anything Netanyahu has to say complicates matters considerably.
Realistically though, the fact remains that there’s no guarantee that simply allowing more aid into Gaza would make much difference. There are great difficulties affecting the distribution of aid supplies in the Strip – in part thanks to local armed gangs and Hamas terrorists seizing or looting supplies. Without addressing this problem, it will remain difficult to get the aid to where it needs to go.
The US is also demanding that Israel allow the Red Cross to visit Palestinian detainees and that the Israeli Knesset halts a bill that would severe ties with the United Nations relief and works agency for Palestine refugees (UNWRA). America suspended its funding of UNWRA in January until March 2025 after it was alleged that members of the organisation participated in the 7 October massacre and that some of its employees are also active members of the terror organisations Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. There have been deep concerns about the anti-Semitic and radical content taught by UNWRA in Palestinian schools too. Nevertheless, Biden still considers the organisation indispensable.
America’s demands have been made for the benefit of domestic voters. Several Arab-American and muslim lobby groups have already withdrawn their support for Kamala Harris over America’s policy on Israel and the decision to send aid. The administration’s list of demands might not actually result in an embargo being implemented, but it could help appease voters – especially those who don’t consider Trump a better alternative to Harris.
The US has been supplying Israel with arms as well as military support in the form of aircraft carriers, destroyer escorts and guided missile submarines. Biden has been avidly committed to Israel’s security and its ability to defend itself, and US forces have been taking active roles in assisting Israel, including shooting down missiles and drones during two large-scale Iranian attacks earlier this year.
This isn’t the first time, however, that the US has threatened to hold back aid. In May, the Biden administration withheld shipments of high-payload bombs to Israel due to concerns that the IDF was using them in densely populated parts of Gaza. Shipments resumed after Gallant – the only person in Netanyahu’s cabinet trusted by the Americans – addressed these concerned.
Despite the stern language of this weekend’s letter, none of America’s demands pose a threat to Israel’s security or undermine its ability to defend itself. The US is as committed as ever to Israel’s safe-keeping, but this doesn’t mean they won’t use Israel’s dependence on them to force certain adjustments to their war strategy.
Just this week, the US confirmed that it was sending its powerful anti-missile system, Thaad, to Israel. This will allow Israel to strike Iran in retaliation for attacking them with nearly 200 ballistic missiles earlier this month. The Thaad system will also help protect Israel in the event that Israel hits back. It is likely that the system has been sent in return for an Israeli promise to avoid hitting Iranian nuclear and oil facilities that could destabilise the region further.
Israel doesn’t want to jeopardise its relationship with the US. It’s heavily reliant on its ally for a steady supply of weapons, including missiles for its Iron Dome defence system – which keeps Israelis safe from mass casualty incidents every day. Netanyahu, then, is left with few options but to smooth things over and fulfil the White House’s demands.
I’ve seen too many deaths to think that assisted dying is a good idea
Over my quarter-of-a-century of being a doctor, I have overseen thousands of deaths. For a busy hospital physician, this is not an unusual number. Helping people die is a core part of our job.
In the Commons today, the Assisted Dying Bill gets its first reading. But the debate about this bill is missing a crucial detail: assisted dying is already something of a reality. For those in unsalvageable agony, I like to think it happens almost automatically. Neither people, nor the NHS, being perfect, there will be errors and omissions. But I’m confident that assisted dying, in a sense, happens often already, and I speak from experience.
As junior doctors we were taught that we had the power to kill
Hospital is the most common place of death. When the end comes, its preceding indignities and inconveniences, its terrors and agonies, are more than familiar to me. Working in a wedding florists, perhaps, or an exuberantly joyous restaurant – somewhere people went out of happiness rather than necessity – would have made for a different life. As it is, my experience of death is extensive and new legislation to support assisted dying would, in my view, be a terrible mistake.
As junior doctors, we were taught that we had the power to kill. Not merely the technical ability, not only the moral and legal right, but often the duty. The doctrine of double effect holds it perfectly acceptable to cause someone’s death if you are doing it in order to relieve their pain. If I dose someone with morphine because they’re distressed, but in the full knowledge it may hasten their death, I act legally. My decision is subjective. I have no forms to fill in, no hoops to jump through, no supervisor to ask. If you suspect that I am deliberately describing my powers in such a way as to suggest that they are open to abuse, you are correct. I am doing so because it is useful to remember that powers always are.
Arguments justifying new laws for assisted dying tell stories – true and awful stories – of people tortured by suffering without any prospect of merciful release, at an apt time, via a fatal dose of medication. Perhaps their misery is that of decay, and not of pain. To decline into a state where one reasonably wishes to die, but is unable to commit suicide or to find anyone to help, is a horror. As, of course, is ending your life early because you feel that you are a burden, because you are depressed, or because you are nudged into feeling you should do so. About six thousand people kill themselves each year in the UK. Legislation to make assisted dying easier risks raising that number.
The problem, which does not get spoken of enough, is that no perfect solution exists when it comes to assisted dying; there is no system to help in one direction, without harming in the other. That people are willing to flex and break laws should never leave our mind. We should not forget that it happens now any more than we should pretend it will not continue.
Many poisons grow in our gardens or are sold in our shops. There are books and articles on how to end one’s life. I am not being coy in refraining from giving examples. It is wise not to publicise such things. Better that the barrier of effort keeps them from becoming too easy to find. Making something easier, even a little, has consequences.
Consider that minor irritation of modern life, the frustrating limit on how much paracetamol you are allowed to buy at one time. An intrusive bit of nanny-state public health policy, yes; but this rule has also likely cut the number of deaths from paracetamol poisoning. Even small changes have real impacts. Install railings on high bridges and it seems probable to assume that fewer people will jump to their deaths (nor do they necessarily go and find other methods: instead, they live). Making something even very slightly easier has serious consequences. If this bill becomes law, and we make assisted dying an option, we are introducing a change that is far more powerful than we may realise.
All effective interventions, we teach medical students, have side effects. The question is not whether a drug or a surgery or a piece of public health policy does good or harm; the question is whether it does more good than harm. Making euthanasia simpler and more available would undoubtedly save some people from awful misery and appalling deaths. The question is not whether it would have benefits, the question is what it would do overall.
In a long career of hospital medicine (about general practice, I cannot speak), I have never yet cared for someone who needed the help of this proposed legislation, someone with the judicious and irreversible desire to kill themselves, who was both unable to do so without help, yet free of the pain and distress that might allow me to act on their behalf. These people exist, and their suffering is terrible, but I do not believe they are many. Daily, however, I care for those who are depressed or suicidal, those whose spirits and hopes have faltered, those worried about being a waste of space or a burden on others. Even putting aside what it might do to relations between doctors and patients, legislation to make assisted dying easier would help some, but imperil many.
The SNP will regret expelling John Mason
You might have missed the news that the SNP has expelled one of its MSPs, announced as it was following the death of Alex Salmond. John Mason has represented the SNP almost continuously for a quarter-century, first as a Glasgow councillor, then as the MP who wrested away Labour heartland seat Glasgow East in a seismic 2008 by-election, and for the past 13 years as an MSP for the equivalent Holyrood constituency, Glasgow Shettleston. Shettleston is a place with many social and economic problems and even Mason’s opponents acknowledge that he is a hard-working representative.
Mason’s expulsion has nothing to do with principles or rules and everything to do with politics and prejudice
Mason has rather a lot of opponents, most of them inside his own party. He is a Christian who holds orthodox Christian views about marriage, abortion and gender identity, views which weren’t all that uncommon inside the SNP in the not-too-distant past. Although a polite and quiet-spoken man, he has a tendency to say what he thinks before thinking about what he’s saying. Like the time he questioned whether Skye was ‘a real island’ when it was connected to the mainland by a bridge.
However, it is not his religious creed or foot-in-mouth tendency that has seen him banished from the SNP. He has been expelled because he said Israel was not committing genocide in Gaza. Mason initially had the whip withdrawn in August after he tweeted: ‘There is no genocide. If Israel wanted to commit genocide, they would have killed many many more.’ It’s not the most artfully worded rebuttal to the charge levelled by Israel’s enemies, but that’s not really why Mason was suspended. At the time Angus Robertson, a senior minister in the devolved Scottish government, had come under intense criticism for meeting with an Israeli diplomat, with some even demanding his resignation. (In today’s SNP, being cordial towards an Israeli is much more objectionable than being cordial towards an Englishman.)
Mason was plainly sacrificed to appease the rabid Israel-haters in the SNP’s ranks and expelling him only compounds cynicism upon cynicism. There are those who believe Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and there are others who do not. The International Criminal Court is considering a case on this matter but has not issued a final judgement. So belief in the existence or non-existence of a Gaza genocide is a matter of opinion. In expelling Mason, the SNP’s member conduct committee said it was ‘unacceptable and offensive’ that he acted as the ‘arbiter’ of the definition of genocide, but in the absence of a ruling either way Mason was simply expressing an opinion in the same way as those who say there is a genocide. What the SNP is saying is that expressing the view that Israel is not committing genocide is inconsistent with continued membership of the party. That is an extraordinary position. It is one thing to cancel someone’s membership for denying a well-documented, universally-recognised genocide, but another entirely to show them the door for disputing a claim of genocide in the context of a contemporary debate in the middle of a conflict. As I have pointed out before, this dramatically lowers the bar for booting out a member targeted by factional opponents.
If saying Israel is not committing genocide is grounds for expulsion, then John Swinney and each of his ministers should be asked if China is committing genocide against the Uyghurs in Xinjiang or whether the Ottoman Empire’s mass extermination of Armenians was a genocide. Given the Scottish government’s dealings with the People’s Republic and Turkey, this is important information to know, but it will also gauge whether the genocide-disputing rule applies to all conflicts or only the Israeli-Palestinian one. There are other practical considerations. Let’s imagine an SNP member who is also a professor of international humanitarian law or genocide studies. He is a pre-eminent scholar, highly regarded in his field, but his research concerns the Holodomor and whether Stalin’s starving of millions of Ukrainians constituted a genocide. There is a dispute over this question, and our academic determines that the man-made famine was an appalling crime against humanity but falls short of the criteria for genocide. Could that professor face expulsion?
We all know that he wouldn’t because Mason’s expulsion has nothing to do with principles or rules and everything to do with politics and prejudice. Visceral loathing for Israel is a growing sentiment inside the SNP, and Mason was ejected to sate the haters. It won’t work, of course, because obsessive, all-consuming hatred of the Jewish state – as opposed to even fierce and fiery criticism of its policies and actions – is often a function of a more basic and much older bigotry. The Labour party learned the hard way what happens when you try to pander to this bigotry rather than root it out. If the SNP wants to learn the same lesson, and just as painfully, it’s going about it the right way.
Watch: Jenrick drops the ball over England manager hire
To the Tory leadership race, which is picking up pace with only three weeks to go. The two finalists are set to take part in a GB News TV debate on Thursday, and have today been busy prepping viewers with their visions for the party. Kemi Badenoch featured in today’s Telegraph while Robert Jenrick hosted a campaign event in Westminster. Jenrick’s team are insistent that their man’s public-facing approach is better than Badenoch’s journalist-shy stance – but his rather awkward football fumble today may give them cause to think otherwise…
After a speech on house-building, income tax and the future of the welfare state, Jenrick opened the floor to a Q&A from reporters in the audience. More energised on questions of policy, the wannabe Tory leader was thrown off when quizzed on Tuesday night’s news that German football guru Thomas Tuchel has become the new manager of the England squad – replacing Gareth Southgate. Asked for his take on the new manager, the usually-slick Jenrick became a little less sure-footed – and revealed that the first he’d heard of the news was, er, at that very moment.
Muddling his way through the answer, the leadership contender replied uncertainly:
On the new England manager… I have to confess, I haven’t even seen the news while I’ve been here this morning… Thomas Tuchel? Ah, okay, that’s a good choice.
Hardly the most full-throated endorsement, eh? And more than a little humiliating for the candidate, not least given the Tuchel news was plastered across every UK newspaper this morning. Talk about dropping the ball…
Watch the clip here:
Starmer denies being soft on China
Prime Minister’s Questions today asked the same question that Katy raised in her magazine cover piece last week: what is the new government’s stance towards China? Oddly, the man asking that question never really answered it himself. Rishi Sunak spent much of his premiership in a semantic quandary over what kind of challenge or threat Beijing posed. Today, he opened by asking whether David Lammy would use his meetings in China this week ‘to condemn China’s dangerous escalatory acts’ in the Taiwan Strait.
Keir Starmer’s response was that the continued military activity in the strait was ‘not conducive to peace and stability’ and that the UK planned to:
cooperate where we can as permanent members of the UN Security Council, issues like net zero, health and trade, compete where we have different interests, but challenge, the point he makes is absolutely right, where it’s needed to protect national security, human rights and our values and we will put that challenge in.
Sunak then demanded that Lammy ‘condemn’ the military escalation, before moving onto Jimmy Lai, who has been imprisoned in Hong Kong for four years. He then called China a ‘decisive enabler of Russia’s war against Ukraine’ and asked Starmer to confirm that he was ‘prepared to sanction any Chinese business or individual involved in aiding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine’. Starmer replied that his party had called for that in the past and ‘I hope this is an issue where we can have unity across the House’. When the Prime Minister makes that kind of plea, it is always in a slightly stern, disapproving, tone, as though he shouldn’t receive questions on this matter because the other side should be backing him.
Being in opposition is much easier
There was then a curious exchange with Sunak where the Tory leader said the Prime Minister had closed the ‘foreign influence registration scheme’, and Starmer insisted ‘that is not correct’. Sunak stood by that assertion, and later Alicia Kearns complained in a point of order that the Prime Minister was wrong. Starmer was again disapproving of Sunak’s questions when the leader of the opposition asked about the freedom of speech act and ‘how without this tool the government will prevent Chinese influence over our universities’. The Prime Minister replied curtly: ‘I really don’t think party political points on national security are at all appropriate.’
It’s almost as though Starmer has become so convinced of his righteousness that anyone probing his actions and arguments is automatically being partisan, rather than just doing their job of scrutiny. This is not an unusual affliction amongst Labourites, and might also explain why Starmer continues to insist he is in some way less self-motivated than his Conservative opponents while also enjoying quite a lot of nice suits and concert tickets. Mind you, Sunak seemed to have unusual clarity on a topic he struggled over when in power. Being in opposition is much easier.
Starmer gave a significant answer to Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey, who asked about sanctions on two Israeli ministers. Lord Cameron yesterday revealed that as foreign secretary, he had been considering sanctioning finance minister Bezalel Smotrich and national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir after the pair made comments suggesting aid should be stopped into Gaza and encouraging violence from settlers in the West Bank towards Palestinians. The Prime Minister said the government was ‘looking at that because they’re obviously abhorrent comments’, and urged Israel more widely to ‘take all possible steps to avoid civilian casualties, to allow aid into Gaza in much greater volumes and provide the UN humanitarian partners the ability to operate effectively.’ As ever, though, the question is whether this action or indeed Starmer’s calls on Israel to target strikes and allow more aid through will get any kind of a hearing from the Israeli government when thus far they haven’t – and neither were the calls from Sunak and Cameron any more effective.
Britain shouldn’t take part in joint EU defence missions
Sir Keir Starmer has vowed to ‘reset’ the United Kingdom’s relations with the European Union. But at what cost? The EU has reportedly set out part of the price the UK might have to pay to be allowed back into its good books: Brussels wants Britain to contribute to the EU’s defence missions.
Foreign Secretary David Lammy travelled to Luxembourg this week to a meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs Council to address the issue of security – an important element of Starmer’s intended ‘reset’. In Monday’s meeting, the EU reportedly pressed the Foreign Secretary for UK participation in its peacekeeping and conflict prevention missions, of which there are currently more than a dozen.
It would be interpreted in Washington as a slap in the face
Brussels has indicated unofficially that this would be an easy way for the UK government to begin negotiating one of its manifesto commitments, ‘an ambitious new UK-EU security pact to strengthen co-operation on the threats we face’. But this is a hazardous project: the EU’s defence capability is weak and fragmented. Attempts to strengthen it are also likely to undermine Nato, the cornerstone of the UK’s defence policy.
Despite the existence of an EU common security and defence policy, military matters remain largely the preserve of member states. Article 42 of the Treaty on European Union draws relatively tight constraints around defence policy, and notes that some members ‘see their common defence realised in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’. This is an understatement: of the 27 EU member states, only four – Austria, Cyprus, Ireland and Malta – are not also members of Nato, and in military terms they are all minnows with a combined active strength of under 50,000.
The Brussels bureaucracy is eternally ambitious, however. The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has nominated former Lithuanian prime minister Andrius Kubilius for a newly created defence and space portfolio when the college of commissioners is confirmed next month. This follows the publication earlier this year of a European defence industrial strategy intended to increase collaboration, investment and readiness in defence procurement in the bloc.
This is a direction of travel the UK must not encourage, let alone join. There is a simple truth which is often overlooked: military assets cannot be in more than one place at one time, nor committed to more than one mission. Nato is the primary framework of UK defence and security policy, and should emphatically remain so: 75 years old, it is the most successful alliance in the world and has well-developed command, control and planning functions. Critically, it engages the United States and forms a vital transatlantic bridge.
Countless words have been spoken and written about the challenges Nato faces, especially if Donald Trump is elected president of the United States for a second term in November. Trump distrusts the alliance on an elemental and instinctive level, seeing it, in his childlike, paranoid way, as an example of ill-intentioned foreigners taking advantage of American goodwill. However, his accusation that Nato’s European members do not spend enough on defence was fundamentally accurate. It is only this year that the majority are expected to meet the target of 2 per cent of GDP on defence (which was first proposed 20 years ago).
There could hardly be a worse response to Trump’s threat to potentially reduce US support within Nato than for the UK, having left the EU more than four years ago, to contribute scarce military assets and capabilities to EU missions. We know that the defence budget is under almost intolerable strain, major equipment programmes are years behind schedule, recruitment is utterly inadequate and the army’s professed ability to mobilise a division-sized war-fighting unit at short notice is a myth. There is no slack in the system.
What kind of message would our participation in EU missions send? Even sources in Brussels are saying that it would not be a critical part of a mooted security pact, but that they expect it is something that could ‘be done really quickly’. Yet it would be interpreted in Washington as a slap in the face. EU members like France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands which, despite apparent agreement, shamefully backtracked on supporting the US-led Operation Prosperity Guardian to protect maritime commerce in the Red Sea. Britain, on the other hand, stood shoulder to shoulder with the United States. Would this proposed change put such displays of solidarity at risk?
The Prime Minister must decide how vital he believes a security pact with the EU to be. Since we are already partners in a defence alliance with 23 EU member states, it is hard to see what concrete gains there would be in signing up, save for making our European neighbours like us. But to contribute scarce military resources to an organisation of which we are not even a member, when funding and assets are at the centre of Nato’s immediate challenges, would be nigh on unforgivable.
Watch: Science Secretary grilled over latest cronyism row
Labour’s cronyism row has reared its head once again. It now transpires that Sir Keir Starmer’s government failed to disclose an official’s links with the Labour lot when trying to nab her a civil service job – omitting to add the rather significant detail on important transparency forms. As Mr S wrote in August, the appointment of Emily Middleton to the Department for Science and Technology raised ‘cash for jobs’ concerns after it emerged she was a party donor, with the former businesswoman’s consultancy firm having given a whopping £66,000 to the party in the past. With Starmer’s government already struggling with the freebie fiasco, this latest development is hardly likely to help matters…
As written in Politico, documents received under a Freedom of Information request reveal that the fast-track forms used to push Middleton into the civil service role in July made no mention of the businesswoman’s links to the Labour Party, the Labour Together group or the donation made to the, er, Science Secretary Peter Kyle’s office. In fact, Middleton even worked with the then-Labour frontbencher while on secondment from her tech firm Public Digital – the same business that donated the staggering sum to Kyle’s office. Good heavens. While there is not a suggestion that rules were broken, the fact the detail was not included on the forms has certainly raised eyebrows among those familiar with civil service hiring procedure.
Yet, oddly enough, the Science Secretary was rather reticent to delve into the matter in the Commons today. When quizzed by his Tory counterpart Andrew Griffiths, the Labour man – of a government said to be interested in ‘grown up‘ politics – instead opted to, er, avoid fully answering the question.
AG: Did the Secretary of State fully disclose to the Civil Service Commission the Labour links of one of the most senior civil servant appointments, or the £66,000 donation he received?
PK: Every donation that was made to this party in opposition has been declared in the appropriate way. I’m proud to be part of a party that raises standards in public life rather than votes to lower them. And, Mr Speaker, I’m also proud to be part of a party that comes into government and attracts talent to working for it, whereas when they see talent, they libel it.
AG: Well, Mr Speaker, thanks to Whitehall Watch, we have a copy of the form. It’s clear the Secretary of State failed to mention the conflict of interest as required by the ministerial code. In the words of the Prime Minister’s favourite pop star, some would say he’s ‘Guilty As Sin’. Will he refer himself to the adviser on standards, or will we have to wait for the Prime Minister to finish organising VIP motorcades and do it for him?
Shots fired…
Watch the clip here:
A German managing the England team? It’s depressing
Hand back the Falklands. Why not? FedEx over the Elgin Marbles. What’s the point of any of it anymore? They have put a German in charge of the England football team. It’s over.
Can there be a more depressing, or more obvious, sign of national decline than this utterly abject capitulation at the sport we love most – the game we invented, for God’s sake – to our greatest rivals? From Munich to Frankfurt to Hamburg they today must be howling at the appointment of Thomas Tuchel as England manager from the start of next year. The humiliation is searing.
Ignore if you want to the fact that appointing a foreign coach to any national team is very obviously cheating. By definition, a national team is a national effort. Everyone involved in it, from kit manufacturers to catering staff to players should, as a fundamental prerequisite, hail from the same land. But a German? Is nothing any longer sacred?
Yes, we had an Australian coaching the England cricket team for a bit. At the time, I thought things couldn’t get any worse than that. We also had the unlovable Eddie Jones, another Australian, coaching the England rugby team, and our rowing team between 1991 and 2020 was overseen by the German Jürgen Gröbler.
But this latest slap in the face, the appointment of Tuchel, hurts the most, not least because he’s so obviously brilliant. Dynamic, intelligent, charismatic – a proven winner – he’s everything Gareth Southgate wasn’t. No doubt on day one he will solve the impossible riddle and do what no England manager in my lifetime has seemed capable of doing: namely, picking our best players in their correct positions and getting them to win matches consistently.
How then we will all be impelled to applaud ze famous German know-how. What fun.
Yes, I know, we’ve had two exciting and hugely expensive experiments with foreign England football managers before, both a mistake. At the time of the appointment of Sven-Göran Eriksson in 2000, such was the approving fervour whipped up by our leading football and culture writers that to have gainsaid it would have been deemed the worst kind of little England-ism. The less said about the ludicrous Fabio Cappello, the better.
Can there be a more depressing, or more obvious, sign of national decline?
Neither won us a trophy, of course, and the likelihood is Tuchel won’t either. Since 1966, only one team managed by a foreign coach has secured either the World Cup or the European Championship: Greece in 2004 at the Euros under the German Otto Rehhagel, a result still regarded as one of the sport’s greatest ever flukes. This is a statistic you would have thought might have given the corporate droids at the Football Association pause before signing off the new manager’s £5 million annual salary.
There’s a very good line in one of my favourite films, Days of Thunder, in which the owner of a motor racing team played by Randy Quaid complains bitterly that with their antics his drivers have made the team look not merely ridiculous, but rather like ‘a monkey humping a football’.
For the longest time, this has been the image I have conjured every time the England football team has done something particularly idiotic: lose to Iceland, for example, or fail to appoint Harry Rednapp as manager, or omit Paul Gascoigne from the 1998 World Cup, or more recently leave out either Jack Grealish or Cole Palmer from the starting XI. I could go on and on. So could every England fan.
But at least the monkey humping the football – Eriksson and Capello notwithstanding – was our monkey. There was honour in that. Our mistakes were precisely that: ours. By drafting in some foreign wunderkind to change our fortunes, we effectively thumb our nose not just at the spirit of international competition, but also at all nations who cannot afford to do similar.
We’re behaving, in other words, like a corporate Goliath – one prepared unsmilingly to do whatever it takes to crush our rivals, no matter how grotesque or underhand. The appointment of the hugely likeable and capable Tuchel as our national team manager is then a day of great shame not just for English football, but also for England.
Who’s backing whom for Tory leader?
There have now been four ballots of MPs to decide the next leader. Following the elimination of Priti Patel, Mel Stride, Tom Tugendhat and James Cleverly, two finalists remain. Now Tory members will vote on who they want of Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick to lead their party, with the victor to be announced on 2 November. While MPs won’t have the final say in this last round of voting, endorsements now may inform the next leader’s shadow cabinet. Below is The Spectator’s guide on which of the final two candidates is backed by the 121 Conservative MPs in parliament:
Robert Jenrick (23):
- Danny Kruger – ‘He’s got the competence and the personality and the temperament, also he has got the right policies.’
- Caroline Johnson – ‘Sound Conservative principles and the temperament and attributes to be a great leader.’
- Edward Leigh – ‘Jenrick’s the one.’
- Mark Pritchard
- Jack Rankin
- Sir John Hayes
- Esther McVey
- Gareth Davies – ‘We can end one term of hard Labour and I believe Robert is the best person to achieve this.’
- John Cooper – ‘Robert doesn’t just talk the talk when it comes to strengthening the bonds entwining Scotland in the Union, he has walked the walk too.’
- Matt Vickers – ‘He had the clearest diagnosis of why we lost and set out the most compelling vision for how we change, rebuild and win again.’
- John Lamont – ‘Robert’s vision for the party extends well beyond controlling and radically reducing immigration.’
- Chris Chope
- Mark Francois – ‘Best placed to lead that process of both intellectual and organisational revival.’
- Neil O’Brien – ‘The reason I’m supporting Robert Jenrick is because we need to use this leadership election to make a decisive change.’
- Peter Bedford – ‘Robert understands the ‘common ground’: he is the best placed candidate to take us to victory at the next General Election’
- Ed Argar
- Andrew Rosindell – ‘There is no issue more important to communicate than our changed position than immigration – and Robert is the candidate with the credibility to do it.’
- Victoria Atkins – ‘He’s speaking to younger people… Rob has got a really interesting story to tell about younger generations.’
- Bradley Thomas – ‘A conviction politician whose principles are rooted in a common-sense conservatism.’
- Katie Lam – ‘Like me, Robert has a very rural seat so he understands the issues.’
- Lewis Cocking – ‘As a sound conservative he will confront Labour on the issues facing our country.’
- Sir Desmond Swayne
- Nick Timothy – ‘My party needs to be unsparing in its analysis of why we lost and what we must do next. Rob has shown his willingness to do that, so he has my full support.’
Kemi Badenoch (23):
- Alex Burghart
- Julia Lopez
- Andrew Griffith
- Andrew Bowie – ‘I’ve got huge respect for what she achieved in government, and I think she is exactly what the Conservative party needs if we are to renew and take the fight to the Labour party’
- Jesse Norman – ‘The right person to take these challenges on, to draw the best from the past but galvanise fresh energies and set a new direction, is Kemi Badenoch.’
- Ben Obese-Jecty – ‘She has consistently demonstrated the steel required to be a leader.’
- Ben Spencer – ‘A leader who can talk to our values and core beliefs and use them to present the case for Conservative solutions.’
- Gareth Bacon – ‘Kemi embodies core conservative values and principles.’
- Nigel Huddleston – ‘There is a star quality about Kemi.’
- Laura Trott – ‘Like Lady Thatcher, she instinctively understands that the government is the custodian of the public purse.’
- Alan Mak – ‘She’s a problem solver. She’s a team builder. And she’s the bold thinker that our party needs.’
- Chris Philp – ‘I think she has a lot of energy, I think she has a lot of conviction, a lot of integrity but also a lot of courage to take on difficult issues when she needs to.’
- Claire Coutinho
- Kieran Mullan – ‘Kemi knows that the common ground is where we need to be.’
- Helen Whately
- Andrew Snowden – ‘Courage, moral conviction and the mettle needed to take on this fight.’
- James Cartlidge – ‘Kemi combines star quality with moral strength.’
- Kevin Hollinrake – ‘She is blessed with that rare gift in politics: the X-factor’.
- David Davis – ‘Kemi’s speech today was the conference speech of a leader.’
- Helen Grant – ‘I have seen firsthand how Kemi connects with our members.’
- Iain Duncan Smith – Capable of returning the Party to its central values and core beliefs.’
- Bernard Jenkin – ‘[Kemi] has the most potential.’
- Andrew Mitchell – ‘Kemi Badenoch is a fresh and original voice.’
Knocked out…
James Cleverly (15):
- Peter Fortune – ‘A communicator. A unifier. A leader.’
- Simon Hoare
- Gagan Mohindra – ‘Only James can unite our party, hold the government to account, and win the next General Election.’
- Charlie Dewhirst – ‘He is a unifier who can bring every wing of our party together.’
- Ashley Fox – ‘The person most capable of unifying our party and guiding us to election victory.’
- Shivani Raja
- Blake Stephenson – ‘He knows how to get us battle-ready once again.’
- Greg Smith – ‘He’s got a clear vision, is best placed to unite the party and get us back to winning.’
- Alec Shelbrook – ‘Has the skills and experience needed to win back the voters.’
- Mims Davies – ‘James has shown he’s a stand out candidate, with the positivity, reach, experience and charm to be our next leader and our future Prime Minister.’
- George Freeman – ‘We need a leader who can inspire the entire nation. Someone our opponents fear.’
- Mel Stride – ‘We need to be the very best version of ourselves if we are to get back to winning ways.’
- Paul Holmes – ‘He’s the leader we need to take us forward and take the fight to the Liberals, Labour and Reform.’
- Saqib Bhatti – ‘James will reach across the party to build a strong team and get us back to winning.’
- Caroline Dinenage – ‘He has a wealth of experience and the ability to unite us with action, not just words, and restore trust.’
- Joe Robertson – ‘He is a frequent visitor and friend of the Isle of Wight and will help bring people together.’
Tom Tugendhat (9):
- Patrick Spencer – ‘The field is full of talent and ability, but I know Tom can unite the party.’
- Nick Timothy
- Karen Bradley
- Neil Shastri-Hurst – ‘He is a decent and honourable man.’
- James Wild – ‘Has the character and ability to lead a strong team and unite our party to do that based on Conservative principles.’
- Harriet Cross – ‘With Tom at the helm, the Union will always have a champion.’
- David Reed – ‘Tom is the leader the Conservative Party needs and the leader our great country deserves’
- Sarah Bool – ‘Tom is the most popular candidate with the wider public.’
- Alicia Kearns – ‘We don’t just need a safe pair of hands, we need a leader who stands by their convictions.’
Mel Stride (7):
- Mark Garnier – ‘We need a serious, competent leader who has the track record and ability to bring our whole party together.’
- George Freeman – ‘Our next leader needs to be a heavyweight with the experience to unite and set out a coherent program for reform, renewal and economic growth.’
- Desmond Swayne – ‘He has the credibility and respect to: deliver unity, drive change, secure victory.’
- Jerome Mayhew – ‘A leader that can unite the coalition of voters needed for victory.’
- David Reed
- Mims Davies – ‘I’m backing Mel Stride to rebuild trust, drive change and attract younger voters back.’
- Andrew Murrison – ‘I’m backing Mel Stride to rebuild trust and drive real change in our party.’
Priti Patel (5):
- Alec Shelbrooke – ‘Priti has had senior roles, she’s respected on all wings of the party.’
- Greg Smith
- Andrew Snowden
- Saqib Bhatti – ‘While she was campaigning for her own seat, she was also helping colleagues up and down the country.’
- Wendy Morton – ‘Priti has served at almost every level of the party in the past three decades, she gets this, and she will deliver.’
Jenrick takes aim at Khan over house-building
The Tory leadership contest is gathering pace with voting due to open up to the membership in less than 24 hours. Kemi Badenoch was quick to secure a top slot in Wednesday’s Telegraph, while rival Robert Jenrick gathered supporters together in the heart of Westminster for yet another campaign event today. The ex-housing secretary went heavy on – you guessed it – housing, and was certainly pulling no punches about his political opponents…
‘We are 1.3 million homes short of the number that we need,’ Jenrick declared from London’s Old Queen Street today. He went on, blasting mayor Sadiq Khan – and his lefty Labour government – over the city’s housing crisis:
The Labour government seems to think that you can fix things by declaring arbitrary targets. But as always with central planning, they’re going to build homes in the wrong places. They’ve imposed a 1,300 per cent increase in Redcar and a 623 per cent increase in Burnley. Well, in London and Birmingham they’re slashing the housing targets – to save the blushes of failing Labour mayors.
Ouch. Don’t hold back!
The leadership hopeful went on, dubbing the current planning system as ‘sclerotic’ before adding that the Tories ‘have to be the party that takes on the planning system and improves it.’ He fumed today that:
The market is screaming at us to build in London, in Manchester, in our big city centres. Precisely the opposite policy to the one being pursued by this Labour government. Rather than settling for urban sprawl, we need to build densely and we need to build beautifully. Our plan is a simple one: to unpick the housing deficit and ensure that we add millions of homes that we need across the country to add them in London and Manchester and Birmingham and our other world class cities.
How interesting. But will Labour’s mayors take note? Jenrick’s attack on Khan comes after new research by property development company Aprao revealed this year that less than 150,000 new homes have been built across London since the lefty politician became mayor – the smallest uplift in new home delivery of all English regions. In a rather damning statement, Aprao’s CEO lamented in May: ‘Regardless of your political allegiances, there’s no disputing the fact that the London property market has slumped somewhat since Sadiq Khan became mayor, both with respect to house price growth and the increased delivery of new homes.’ Oh dear. It seems that on ‘failing Labour mayors’, Jenrick may have a point.
Will the wannabe leader’s housing pitch convince the Tory membership to flock to him in the upcoming ballot? Stay tuned…
Meloni’s migration strategy is working – and the rest of Europe is watching
Nicholas Farrell has narrated this article for you to listen to.
Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s first female Prime Minister, has this week achieved what the Tories failed so fatally to do with their doomed Rwanda scheme. Thanks to her determination and charm, Italy has become the first European nation to successfully offshore illegal migrants to a non-EU country.
However bogus the claims of migrants, once they’re in the EU it’s virtually impossible to deport them
Under Meloni’s scheme, migrants picked up by Italian naval and coastguard vessels from small boats in the Sicilian Channel will be ferried directly to Albania, 750 miles away. They will not set foot in Italy. It is potentially a game-changer, particularly as voter fury across Europe forces politicians to do something to stop illegal migrants.
The plan is now operative, and on Wednesday the Italian ship Libra docked in the Albanian port of Shengjin to disembark the first migrants destined for what Meloni’s critics compare to Nazi concentration camps. The aim is to fast-track up to 3,000 asylum applicants a month in two purpose-built structures and send most back to their countries of origin.
Her detractors say the cost – €670 million across five years – is an astronomical waste of money. Yet that is peanuts compared to the monthly cost of each migrant to the Italian taxpayer of €945 a month. Last year, a near record 158,000 migrants arrived by sea in Italy, which cost €150 million a month.
There were only 16 migrants on board Libra: ten from Bangladesh and six from Egypt, neither of which is a war zone. But their arrival in Albania may well prove to be highly significant – for one simple reason. However bogus the claims of migrants to be refugees, once they’re in the EU it’s virtually impossible to deport them. So Meloni has been adamant: the only way to stop illegal migrants is to stop them getting to Europe. This scheme – signed off with Albania’s left-wing Prime Minister Edi Rama last November – is a vital part of that strategy, designed not just to deport migrants but, perhaps above all, to act as a deterrent.
Usually when migrants reach Italy, they are more or less free to do as they please while their asylum applications meander through the courts. But if they realise they will be detained – i.e. jailed – in Albania for up to 18 months, or deported, how keen will they be to fork out £2,000-odd for a place on a trafficker boat: a sum that is well over the average annual income in a sub-Saharan country?
As Europe continues to shift to the right, Meloni’s strategy gathers ever more momentum. Fifteen EU governments out of 27 have already written a joint letter to the EU Commission urging the introduction of an EU-run equivalent scheme. Even Germany’s Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, desperate to counter the collapse in support for his left-wing coalition, has said he is considering a similar plan.
Last month Sir Keir Starmer visited Rome to seek advice from Meloni on stopping migrant boats. This prompted Diane Abbott to tweet: ‘Why is Starmer meeting with Italian PM Giorgia Meloni, a literal fascist, to discuss immigration?’ But Meloni is far more in tune with the times than the Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington.
The recently re-appointed EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has praised Meloni’s scheme as ‘out of the box thinking’. Before this week’s EU summit, she wrote to the bloc’s heads of state saying there are ‘lessons from this experience’.
Legally, as opposed to politically, the Tory Rwanda plan failed because Britain’s Supreme Court ruled Rwanda was (a) not a safe country; and (b) migrants sent there risked deportation to unsafe countries. It was, to say the least, a bit shortsighted of the Tories to choose a place where, in living memory, up to a million people had been slaughtered. But even a human rights lawyer of the mighty calibre of Sir Keir would find it hard to convince a court that Albania is unsafe. Indeed, in 2022 Rishi Sunak struck a deal with Albania to reduce the number of Albanian migrants arriving in small boats.
There are other key differences. With the Rwanda scheme, Rwanda, not Britain, was to have jurisdiction; with the Albania scheme, Italy does. In addition, crucially, only healthy adult men of fighting age from 22 countries deemed safe by Italy – and thus demonstrably not refugees – will be sent to the Albanian migrant centres, where the aim is to fast-track asylum applications within a month. Those few granted asylum will then be allowed to go to Italy, while the vast majority will be deported to their countries of origin. It so happens that people from safe countries account for most migrants who arrive in Italy by sea. This year, for instance, the most common country of origin is Bangladesh. Egypt, Tunisia, Pakistan, and Gambia also figure in the top ten. None is at war.
Naturally, human rights groups will go to court relentlessly to argue that not one of those 22 ‘safe’ countries is safe. But they will surely struggle to win unless the courts’ default position – which can’t of course be ruled out – is that by definition any Global South (formerly ‘Third World’) country is unsafe. If they do decide this, all that Meloni’s lawyers will be left with is to point out that it is racist and hateful to insist that Global South countries are necessarily unsafe.
Even prior to this scheme, Meloni has already reduced the number of migrant sea arrivals. In September last year, 12,000 arrived in less than one week in Lampedusa. But an EU deal in July 2023 – orchestrated by Meloni with von der Leyen’s backing – has begun to take effect. This was an agreement to pay Tunisia, where most migrants bound for Italy currently set off from, to stop them departing. There were similar deals with other north African countries, notably Egypt, and Italy’s agreement to pay Libya to stop the boats has continued. As a result, migrant arrivals by sea to Italy this year are down 65 per cent on last year’s near record.
The project to offshore migrants to Albania should reduce the numbers even more – and Meloni can expect a hefty influx of European leaders arriving in Italy to seek her out and ask for her advice.
Boris Johnson is no Pericles
Boris Johnson’s Unleashed imagines him, like Cincinnatus, leaving his plough, saving Rome, and returning to it. But given that Boris is among the international elite, perhaps Alcibiades (c. 451-404 bc) would fit him better.
Athenian elites had long had connections with the other power-brokers of the classical Greek world, Sparta and Persia. Born into such a family, the young Alcibiades, at the death of his father in 447 bc, was placed in the care of the great Athenian statesman Pericles, who chose Socrates as his mentor (we are told he tried to seduce Socrates but failed). A charismatic and handsome young man, he led a life of ‘lawless self-indulgence’ but, as a formidable strategist, he built an alliance to sustain the long war against Sparta, though it was defeated in 418 bc. But many Athenians still adored him, and in 415 bc, Alcibiades persuaded them to put him at the head of an expedition to conquer Sicily. The fleet set off but was called back on the grounds of sacrilege committed by Alcibiades and friends during a drunken party on the eve of departure.
Well aware of his enemies in Athens, Alcibiades jumped ship and offered his services to the grateful Spartans. He told them of Athens’ plans for Sicily – Spartan intervention led to Athens’ loss of the whole expedition – and urged them to bring in the Persians against Athens. But he also had a child by the king of Sparta’s wife. Wisely fleeing to his contacts in Persia, he suggested they supported Athens. But Persia decided for Sparta, and in 410 bc Alcibiades promptly offered his services back to the Athenian fleet, which greeted him with adulation. This provided a turning point in Athens’ fortunes, but a disastrous mistake in 406 bc saw him deposed. He retired, and then tried his luck again in Persia – where in 404 bc it ran out.
Like Boris – except in dealings with Sparta – Alcibiades had a ‘world king’ mentality. In 405 bc the comic poet Aristophanes, knowing he was both loved and loathed, raised with his audience the question: ‘Whatshould we do with Alcibiades?’ Nota question anyone would have asked of Cincinnatus…
Meet England’s octogenarian matador
It’s a sunny October morning at a bull-breeding ranch north of Seville, and 82-year-old Frank Evans is preparing to step into the ring. Born in Salford, Evans is one of the few British men ever to become a professional bullfighter, or torero. There is something of the retired rock star about him. He is dressed in the traditional matador’s outfit of black trousers, white shirt and red-and-black waistcoat. Although a little frail, he is toned. His thinning hair is dyed brown but still reaches his shoulders.
‘There are a million people in the local cemetery who’d love to have my eye problem’
Evans and I are here for a tienta – a practice session in a private bullring, in which young cows and bulls are assessed for breeding. The two-year-old females (vacas) that he will face aren’t as big as the four- or five-year-old males, but it would be a mistake to underestimate them. Last year, Evans was knocked to the ground and kicked in the face by a vaca. He was left with a broken cheekbone and eye socket, but the injury hasn’t deterred him: ‘There are a million people in the local cemetery who’d love to have my eye problem.’
When the tienta begins, and the first vaca comes racing out of the pens towards him, Evans’s assured movements are those of a much younger man. With his feet planted on the ground, he smoothly directs the animal past with a dark red cape (muleta). Poise is essential to good bullfighting – yet even experienced toreros can fail to achieve it. A few weeks before, at a bullfight in Antequera, I witnessed a dismal performance by one of Spain’s top bullfighters. He was unable to keep still as the animal passed him. Evans’s style, by comparison, is light and serene. It’s almost as if he is not there. After a few minutes, the cow is entirely focused on the muleta, apparently unaware that there’s someone behind it.
Despite the risks, these practice sessions are important to Evans. On the drive to the farm, he tells me ‘bullfighting is not just about putting on a nice suit on Sundays’ (when bullfights in small towns and villages usually take place). ‘It’s about the lifestyle. Going to ranches in Andalucia, in Madrid, in Salamanca, it’s marvellous, I just love all that.’
The athleticism that Evans demonstrates in the tienta is down to hard work and natural ability. At the age of 15, he set a record for the 80-yard hurdles, at 11.2 seconds, and in his early twenties he played rugby league for Sale, before the sport became professional. Between bouts in the ring, he has enough energy to demonstrate his hurdling technique to me. El Ingles, as he’s known in Spain, trains diligently for the tientas: ‘I do a little and often, like sex.’ Every morning, before breakfast, he runs up and down the stairs of either his Salford or Marbella home, and does several 50-metre sprints. He practises daily with his capes to maintain the strength in his arms.
Despite retiring from work in 2005 because he could ‘hardly walk’ due to an old rugby injury, Evans returned to the ring three years later, with a titanium knee and having had a quadruple heart bypass. He has no patience for people who express surprise: ‘Well what the fuck did they do the heart bypass for? They do these things so that you can carry on with your life.’
Evans attended his first bullfight in Granada in the 1960s at the age of 19. He was inspired to try bullfighting himself after he read the autobiography of Vincent Hitchcock, the first Brit to become a professional torero. Evans trained in Valencia and Barcelona and made his debut as a novillero (apprentice or junior bullfighter) in Montpellier in 1966, aged 23 – and that was only thanks to a mistake. As he puts it, ‘There was some other man going around as El Ingles’, a bullfighter called Henry Higgins. The promoter thought that he’d booked Higgins and ended up with Evans instead. By the time he realised his error, Evans had signed a contract to fight in France.
Still, Evans was unable to earn a living from bullfighting and returned to England in 1969. As well as investing in property and starting a kitchen business (which he still owns with his two sons), he acted as George Best’s unofficial business manager and second to the boxer Steve Foster. With some money in the bank, Evans was able to re-enter the ring in the 1980s, where he fought in Spain as a novillero again. Most of the other apprentices were young men, and Evans started to feel embarrassed that ‘I was going out there with kids and a bald patch’. Still, he persevered and finally became a full matador at a bullfight in Arles in 1991 – at 49, around the age when many toreros retire. In 2003, he achieved a career-high position of 63 in the official bullfighting rankings.
Evans estimates that he’s killed about 500 bulls over the course of his career, fighting in France, Spain, Mexico and South America. But now he’s advocating that the animal be dispatched backstage by gunshot, rather than in the ring by a sword thrust. Killing is one of the hardest and most dangerous parts of bullfighting, because the torero is required, by law, to go in over the horns and place the sword between the shoulder blades. If it’s done well, the bull dies within seconds. But, as Evans points out: ‘When you get a matador who’s incompetent, or frightened, or who lacks technique, the animal suffers.’ He says that botched kills are inhumane and that changing the rules would reduce the chances of bullfighting being banned in Spain, as it has been in Colombia.
There is, perhaps, a slight tension in Evans’s position on a ban in Spain. On the one hand, he argues that bullfighting must embrace change in order to survive: ‘You know with this last election we’ve just had? Labour think they won that, but they didn’t. The Conservatives lost it by their behaviour. This is what’s happening in bullfighting. These dickheads, the animal rights people, will win – not because they’re doing the right thing, but because the bullfighting world is doing the wrong thing.’
On the other hand, he considers animal rights agitators, especially those who wish injury and death to bullfighters, a ‘disgrace’. He points out that in the 1860s, during a visit to Spain: ‘Hans Christian Andersen went to a bullfight and hated it. Andersen said, “Don’t worry, there’s a group of people who have got together and they’re going to get it banned.” Well, that was 150 years ago and they still haven’t done it, because of how they behave.’
Evans continues to live a double life. He travels all over Spain to appear in tientas, and took part in another in Segovia before flying back to the UK. After almost 60 years in the ring, Evans has found the thrill of his vocation still hasn’t lost its allure. ‘Even the most complete matador has fear. We’re all frightened. And that in itself, in a funny way, is one of the enticements.’
Labour’s crackdown on hereditary privilege is hard to stomach
Do our new Labour rulers ever pause to think about how something they say or do might look to others? Do they consider, even for a nanosecond, how their behaviour in office or in private stacks up with the public positions they take, or how all this might look to ordinary voters outside the confines of Westminster? The whiff of brazen political hypocrisy – one rule for us and another for everyone else – hangs like a cloud over the new government. It goes some way towards explaining why this summer’s donor scandals, involving free clothes, spectacles and tickets to Taylor Swift concerts, have resonated so strongly with the public.
Ellie Reeves is just one of many high-profile examples of Labour’s very own closed family shop
Yet even now the government appears incapable of learning lessons. Ministers continue to give the impression that they simply don’t get it. The latest example of this tone-deaf failure to read the public mood came during the second Commons reading of the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill, aimed at kicking out the 92 peers who inherited their seat. Afterwards, Ellie Reeves MP, Minister without Portfolio, was exultant about the new legislation, writing on X:
‘I was extremely proud to close 2nd Reading of the Bill that will remove the right of hereditary peers to sit in the House of Lords. It cannot be right in modern Britain that there are Lords who serve in our legislature simply because of the family they were born into.’
This is the same Ellie Reeves whose sister, husband, father-in-law, and mother-in-law were all Labour MPs before she was. It is a bit rich, to say the least, to sound off about getting rid of hereditary peers while being apparently not too fussed about the idea of Labour party royalty.
Ellie Reeves is just one of many high-profile examples of Labour’s very own closed family shop. She is the MP for Lewisham West and Penge. Her husband, John Cryer, was the Labour MP for Leyton and Wanstead from 2010 to 2024. His parents, Bob and Ann Cryer, were both Labour MPs. Ellie’s sister, Rachel, is the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Our new Labour rulers are very much a family business, even though in theory they are strongly against any whiff of privilege or special treatment. The reality is that all too many people in the party are umbilically linked to someone important, whether it be through marriage or family.
Morgan McSweeney, the new Downing Street chief of staff, is married to a Labour MP, Imogen Walker. Hamish Falconer, only elected this summer but now a junior minister, is the son of former Labour Lord Chancellor, Charlie Falconer. There’s Hilary Benn, who is the son of that great campaigner against hereditary privilege, Tony. Stephen Kinnock (son of Neil) is another who sits on the Labour benches. Both Miliband brothers (Ed and David) climbed the greasy pole quickly enough. There are the Eagle twins, Angela and Maria, as well as Valerie Vaz (sister of Keith). There’s Georgia Gould, daughter of Philip, who was a senior adviser to Tony Blair. The list is simply endless.
Labour insiders will point out that there is a big difference between following family members into politics and simply getting power and influence as a birthright. Yes, but it sure helps to have family links to ease your way into the circles of power.
The Labour party likes to talk the talk about equal opportunities and a fairer world, standing firm against all forms of privilege. Yet in reality, it reeks of nepotism, open to those with the right family connections, and packed to the rafters with nepo babies – and red princes. It might be described as hereditary privilege, but of a very special Labour kind. So that’s all right then.
What does Britain ‘owe’ Caribbean nations in reparations for slavery?
Still afloat
Transport Secretary Louise Haigh nearly lost Britain an investment in an expansion of London Gateway docks by calling P&O a ‘rogue operator’ and imploring us all to boycott its ferries. The company, owned by DP World since 2006, was once considered by the UK government to be the most trustworthy shipping line around. As the Peninsula Steam Navigation Company, it built its reputation on a contract awarded by the Admiralty in 1837 to carry mail to Spain and Portugal. Three years later it was also awarded the contract to carry mail to Egypt, adding the name ‘Oriental’ to its name. By 1914 it was carrying mail to India.
Sorry figures
Some fantasy figures for what Britain apparently owes Caribbean nations in reparations for slavery:
– £200bn: what 15 nations are said to be going to ask Britain for at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting next week.
– £205bn, according to Michael Banner, dean of Trinity College, Cambridge.
– £3.9tn is owed to Barbados by Britain and other former slave-owning nations, according to Mia Mottley, the island’s Prime Minister.
– £18.8tn is owed by Britain to 14 former colonies, according to Brattle Group Report, commissioned by the University
of West Indies and others.
– No, £18.8tn is an underestimate, according to UN judge Patrick Robinson, although he hasn’t suggested a higher figure.
Direct hits
The government held an investment summit. How did G7 members fare for net foreign direct investment last year?
US $310.9bn
Canada $50.3bn
France $42bn
Germany $36.6bn
Japan $21.4bn
Italy $18.2bn
UK –$168.4bn
Source: UN Trade and Development
Reaping the benefits
Pensioners are to lose their winter fuel payment unless they are in receipt of pension credit. What proportion of eligible pensioners actually claim benefits?
– In 2023, 65% of those entitled to pension credit claimed it, up from 63% in 2022.
– 78% of the money which could have been claimed was claimed (up from 73% in 2022).
– Single males (68%) were most likely to claim, followed by single females (65%).
Source: Department for Work and Pensions
Ukraine’s Nato fantasy
Ukraine’s President Zelensky was in Downing Street last week – as well as Paris, Rome, Berlin and Dubrovnik – asking for Nato membership. In every city, he heard the same ‘not yet’ as he’d received in Washington last month.
Some of Kyiv’s western allies believe membership is the only way to guarantee Ukraine’s independence. Russia has never attacked a Nato country, because of the Article 5 guarantee that an attack against one is an attack against all. Therefore, Ukraine will never be safe from Russia unless it joins.
The US government wants to avoid the war that Ukrainian membership would oblige it to fight
But there’s a fundamental flaw to this logic: Ukraine cannot join Nato in the foreseeable future. Legally, the organisation’s charter bans any state with disputed borders from joining – and no state in modern times has more viciously disputed borders than Ukraine. Politically, new members must be ratified by all members – and Hungary, Turkey, Croatia, Germany and the US have weighty constituencies who believe Ukrainian admittance would be a profound folly. The Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte was peddling a dangerous fantasy when he promised this month: ‘Ukraine is closer to Nato than ever before. And will continue on this path until you become a member of our alliance.’
Kyiv finds itself in the worst of all possible worlds. It suffers the downsides of remaining an aspiring member, to which Vladimir Putin is violently opposed. At the same time, it receives military and financial aid from Nato countries, but not enough to beat Russia.
The US won’t give Zelensky permission to use Nato-supplied missiles on targets inside Russia. Washington doesn’t trust him following the Kursk incursion in August (the US had advised against it, according to both a senior Nato official and a member of Zelensky’s administration). The White House’s ‘absolute priority remains preventing the war from tipping into a direct Nato-Russia kinetic war’, one Nato source tells me. The Biden administration, in other words, wants to avoid the war that Ukrainian membership would oblige America to fight.
Many western leaders – including Boris Johnson in The Spectator – have argued that failing to sign up Ukraine to Nato is appeasement. Given that there is no chance of the country actually joining, this is a debate of abstract principle, not of reality. Turkey relies on Moscow for its gas and its export economy, as well as for a balance of power in Syria. The likelihood of it voting to admit Ukraine – even without considering the relationship between Presidents Erdogan and Putin – is zero. Ditto for Hungary; and the US, where support for continued aid to Ukraine of any kind has fallen to under 48 per cent.
Even strong advocates of Ukrainian Nato membership such as Professor Mary Elise Sarotte of Johns Hopkins University acknowledge that the sole practical path is a kind of Nato-lite. ‘Although Nato’s 1949 founding treaty does obligate allies to treat an attack on one as an attack on all,’ she argues, ‘it doesn’t impose one-size-fits-all membership requirements.’ France, for example, withdrew from Nato’s integrated military command in the 1960s. Norway – the only founding member to have a land border with Russia – unilaterally declared in 1949 that no foreign troops or nuclear missiles could be stationed on its soil in peacetime. West Germany got around the disputed-borders ban by renouncing ‘recourse to force to achieve the reunification of Germany’, notes Sarotte. ‘They made it clear that they were enduring, not accepting, that division.’
The practical options for Ukraine, then, are a kind of Nato-minus arrangement or security guarantees from the West without membership. These would amount to a beefed-up version of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances, where the UK, US and Russia guaranteed the sovereignty of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine in exchange for their giving up nuclear weapons. Those guarantees were forgotten when Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, making Kyiv understandably sceptical about their revival. In practical terms, the difference between a ‘Nato-minus’ and a ‘Budapest-plus’ guarantee is small.
Ukraine’s attempts to join Nato made it vulnerable to Russian aggression originally. It has been ‘the brightest of all red lines for the Russian elite (not just Putin)’, wrote William Burns – then US ambassador to Moscow, now head of the CIA – as far back as 2008. ‘In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers… to Putin’s sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in Nato as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.’ From the early Yeltsin period, the Kremlin has regarded the prospect of Nato missiles and forces in Ukraine as an existential threat. Putin annexed Crimea in 2014 and launched his invasion in February 2022 fundamentally to prevent Ukraine from joining. His theories of the unity of the Ukrainian and Russian peoples were ideological window-dressing.
According to three of the Ukrainian negotiators in Turkey in March and April 2022 (to whom I have spoken), Russia demanded Ukrainian ‘neutrality’ – i.e. staying out of Nato. Kyiv’s negotiators were ready to accept the condition, but talks broke down because the Kremlin also demanded restrictions on the size of the Ukrainian army.
In peace talks this winter, Ukraine will be asked to endure, West German-style, the de facto partition of the country, even though it will certainly refuse to accept it de jure. But what does Kyiv do if neutrality becomes the key concession required to achieve peace?
As long as Nato membership remains impossible, western security guarantees are the only option. The terrible choice for Kyiv will be whether to leave open the option of joining at some distant future time – thereby making any peace deal unstable – or to agree to official neutrality, which would be a capitulation to Putin’s demands. But could a neutral Ukraine, its borders firmly guaranteed by the West, result in a more secure country than one stuck in what Zelensky describes as Nato’s ‘perennial waiting room’?
Did Hitler really ‘have some good ideas’?
Mary Wakefield has narrated this article for you to listen to.
One of the many good reasons to want every new generation to study the second world war is that it forces you to confront your own cowardice. Last weekend, my husband and I went to Prague – the first time we’ve been away together since the birth of our son eight years ago. We wandered the city and ended up crying in a church crypt – as you do on a romantic mini-break. The church was the Czech Orthodox cathedral of Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius and, as we discovered after we had entered, the scene of the final, bloody showdown of Operation Anthropoid, the mission to assassinate SS Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, ‘the butcher of Prague’.
TikTok was forced to remove an AI-generated video of Hitler’s speeches viewed a million times
Heydrich was Himmler’s protégé, a man so brutal that Hitler’s admiring nickname for him was ‘the man with the iron heart’. The young Czechs selected for the mission, Josef Gabcik and Jan Kubis, were paratroopers trained by the SOE in Britain, then flown over occupied Europe and dropped into the snow near Prague. After months of planning and hiding, in May 1942 they succeeded in ambushing Heydrich as he drove by in his open-topped Merc and blew him up with an anti-tank grenade. They fled and laid low in the crypt at St Cyril’s, which was where they were discovered by SS and Gestapo and where they died, right in the place where we were standing. The stone around the crypt window is still pockmarked with little craters from the SS bullets.
Studying the second world war in school, you put yourself in a child’s position. What would it have been like in a bomb shelter? Could I have stayed quiet in Anne Frank’s annex? As an adult, a parent, it’s much worse. Almost every member of many Czech families that hid and fed Gabcik and Kubis was later tracked down and murdered, often tortured first. The museum in the church crypt has photographs of the families who helped the parachutists: the Kral family, the Denemareks – happy Czech mothers next to their happy sons. Could I have encouraged my own child to join the resistance? Would I even have had the guts to take in poor Kubis and Gabcik and hide them, knowing the sort of punishment Heydrich and his SS would dole out? The soundtrack to the story of Anthropoid is the nonstop crack of pistol shots. Pretty much every member of the Czech resistance who aided Anthropoid turned their guns on themselves in the end. The alternative was torture and the risk of revealing resistance secrets.
After Heydrich’s assassination, the Gestapo raided the flat of Marie Moravcova, known to Gabcik and Kubis as ‘Tante Marie’. Marie bit into a cyanide capsule and died but they took her teenage son Vlastimil. He was tortured but refused to talk until they force-fed him brandy, showed him his mother’s severed head in a bucket and told him that his father would be next. Vlastimil was executed by the Nazis in Mauthausen on 24 October, with his father, his fiancée, her mother and her brother, 82 years ago next Thursday.
I mention this now in particular because on that same day we visited the crypt, a poll was released which found that about one in five of both Gen-Z voters and black and Hispanic voters in America think that Hitler wasn’t all evil. They actually ticked a box marked: ‘He had some good ideas.’
I have a nasty feeling that the same shift in attitude has happened across the West. Earlier this month, TikTok was forced to remove an AI-generated translated video of Hitler’s speeches that had been seen more than a million times. Somehow the idea of Nazis as the example of ultimate evil has lost its hold. Is it the fashion for Gaza protests and unthinking anti-Semitism? Perhaps it’s that the living memory of the second world war has nearly gone. As the last few who actually saw the war die off, so the horror of it fades.
It could also be that we have a skewed idea of evil now. Netflix turns psychos into heroes: Dahmer, the Menendez brothers. Next up: Ironheart, how Heydrich subdued the citizens who failed to appreciate Hitler’s ‘good ideas’.
But one of the instructive things about Heydrich’s story is that he doesn’t conform to the comic-book stereotype of damaged psycho hellbent on sticking it to a cruel world. His family were musical, church-going, reasonably loving. He did well at school. His best friend was Jewish, son of the local cantor, yet he helped organise Kristallnacht, founded the Gestapo and in 1941 drew up plans for the Final Solution. Video footage playing in the church crypt showed Heydrich, newly arrived in Prague, inspecting troops, visibly excited by the power he’s been given; smiling a little, licking his lips.
Heydrich was logical, methodical, a man who loved an index system. On his arrival in Prague he had made up a chart of different skin colours and eye colours to help officials sort the Czechs who might decently be ‘Germanised’ from the darker Czechs who should be gassed, so as not to pollute the breeding stock. It was Churchill who founded the SOE and authorised the hit on Heydrich. But in 2020, BLM activists sprayed the statue of Churchill in Prague with the words: ‘Byl rasista’ (‘He was a racist’). Go figure.
My husband got talking to some young Czechs about our visit to St Cyril and St Methodius and they told us about the revenge attacks that followed the assassination. A rumour spread that the villages of Lidice and Lezaky had harboured the fugitives, so they were entirely razed. The men were shot on Hitler’s orders and the women and children sent to the Terezin camp to be gassed. The rumours proved untrue but that didn’t matter one bit. I tried to find out the names of the Czech families that had sheltered Kubis and Gabcik using Google’s new AI search engine. The information is easily available but ‘AI Overview’ now gives you the first result. It’s what any googling school child will use and what they’ll assume is true. ‘Sorry,’ replied AI Overview cheerily, ‘we don’t know the names of those families.’
The mystery of Huw Edwards’s missing phone
The best thing about being a playwright? The satisfaction of creativity. The worst? Press-night parties attended by friends, industry people and celebs. Playwright Terry Johnson says he knows writers who find such occasions so hellish they’ve been put off writing plays altogether. The problem is the corrosive, deeply unsettling belief that everyone is lying to you. Everyone knows the rules: on press night, say something nice, even if it was a giant turkey. No negatives. That’s the critic’s job. But writers know this, so never believe any compliment, ever, even if the person paying it is telling the truth. The only time a writer can be sure of something is when they hear the dreaded words ‘You did it again!’ or ‘What an achievement!’, which, translated, mean only one thing: ‘I really hated it.’
I have bravely – foolishly? – agreed to play the minor role of myself as the play is about my relationship with my mother and the director thought it was a good idea. I hope he’s right. The usual response when I tell people this is: ‘That should be easy. You just have to get up there and be you.’ But it isn’t. Being yourself on stage is different from being yourself in real life. Which of your selves do you portray? And how? And I’m no Olivier. But I have acted before and hope to be better than O.J. Simpson, who played himself in films. His director said: ‘His acting was like his murdering: nobody believed him but he got away with it.’
An old stage joke: it’s easy to make a million in the theatre – you just need to start with a billion. There is truth in this jest, especially for investors. Not so much for producers though. They pay themselves generous production fees and benefit from theatre tax relief, which keeps the industry afloat. One of my plays, at London’s 200-seater Park Theatre, earned its producer around £150,000 in five weeks. My royalty? £3,000. The justification for this is that producers take financial risks and so should reap the rewards. But how risky is it? Most of them use OPM (Other People’s Money.) I am thinking of becoming a producer.
A midweek distraction from rehearsal stress: a visit to the Old Vic and Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing. The line ‘I don’t like bands, I like singles’ – uttered by the Stoppard-esque lead character – struck a chord, as it defines my theatrical taste: I don’t like playwrights, I like individual plays. A fascinating theory about Stoppard, advanced to me by a friend of his, is that he owes his success to the fact that, unlike most of his literary peers, he didn’t go to university. The dazzling intellectual prowess of his work, the theory goes, stems from his desire to prove he’s just as intelligent and well-read as any literature graduate. Cod psychology – or a good argument for not sending your offspring to university?
Off to the Frontline Club, Paddington’s pleasingly quiet journo hangout, for some end-of-last-week dinner gossip with an old friend from BBC days. Turns out we haven’t heard the last of the Huw Edwards scandal. Several different documentary ideas are being pitched to various broadcasters and streamers. Big editorial teams have been assembled, former colleagues of his are being asked to go on camera, and much research is going on, particularly into his digital imprint. His mobile, we were told, was ‘lost’. Much will depend on whether it can be found. And if not, whether the information therein can be retrieved.
Visiting the BBC last week, I noticed a large wooden box covering the Eric Gill statue outside Broadcasting House. What is going on? Spies tell me the artwork is being placed in bullet-proof glass following a hammer attack on it last year. (Gill abused his daughters, at least one of his sisters and, it is said, his dog.) Could this be the BBC’s next PR disaster? Think of the possible Mail headline: ‘BBC PROTECTS PAEDOPHILE.’ For once, I have sympathy with the Corporation. Usually its scandals are self-inflicted. But this seems like a classic no-win situation. Had it done nothing post-attack, it would have been accused of failing to protect a national treasure (sculpture, not sculptor). But by bullet-proofing it they risk the wrath of the anti-woke mob. Were it up to me, I would do nothing. Isn’t a defiled statue a more exciting and relevant piece of art than a perfectly formed one? It hasn’t done the Venus de Milo any harm.