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Farage is right: our police must be tougher
A few years ago, I was encouraged to apply for a role within the College of Policing for an advisory body on a revamped code of ethics for police officers. When asked what sort of qualities the code should embody, my answer was succinct: ‘moral and physical courage.’ I didn’t make the cut, of course, and was sent a rejection letter that said the days of insolent corner boys like me were over, thanks very much.
I was put in mind of this yesterday when Reform announced its new agenda on crime and policing. The party’s leader Nigel Farage said that thousands of new police officers will fill the streets, paid for by cancelled bat tunnels and wind farms. He said that he would demand a ‘physically tougher’ standard of police officer, and Reform MP Sarah Pochin, who flanked Farage at the announcement, said she wanted to see more ‘great big, strapping male police officer[s]’. Reform wants to put the fear back into a criminal class who currently swagger about with impunity. Farage wants more rough men ready to do violence on our behalf, as Orwell nearly said.
I have some experience in doing violence on the state’s behalf. As a prison officer, then a volunteer police officer, I’ve had to go toe-to-toe with people bigger than me on more than one occasion. It is received wisdom to say that in these circumstances it’s not the size of the dog in the fight that matters, more the fight in the dog. This is normally opined by people who have no concept of how chaotic and exhausting the use of force often is, but there is, a kernel of truth in it. An athletic female constable is more use than a fat male colleague.
Physicality is an essential part of policing, particularly when ‘problem solving’ fails. This side of the job is being wrecked by the meddling bureaucratic class who make officers think twice before intervening. I’m thinking of the ludicrous persecution of the Dorset officer who was sacked for gross misconduct for using ‘aggressive’ and unreasonable force in arresting a 15-year-old carrying a knife after a foot chase. PC Lorne Castle is now appealing this verdict after huge public outcry. Ordinary people, fed up with criminal impunity, saw his assertive actions on his bodycam as completely reasonable in the circumstances. Officers facing a physical threat to themselves or others are required to use words and actions to dominate and control the environment. It never looks or sounds pretty but it’s very often the one thing that stops a tense situation turning into a tragedy. If we don’t have officers who feel able to use these skills when required – because they fear their actions will be dissected by rear echelon bureaucrats in the comfort of their offices later – we are in trouble. Accountability cannot mean paralysis.
Farage’s off-the-cuff remarks will make the professional classes and the criminal justice commentariat wince, but they reflect the unravelling of the social contract between government and governed. Men and women with physical and moral courage are required more than ever.
DVSA bosses celebrate ‘progress’ as car test waits worsen
The ability of Britain’s quangos to sugarcoat their rather unflattering performance figures will never fail to amaze Mr S. The Driver and Vehicle Standards Authority (DVSA) is just the latest example. The organisation’s chair and chief executive have both issued glowing reports of the company’s ‘progress’ thus far, using an exciting range of buzzwords to distract from the fact that wait times for driving tests have risen to, er, a staggering 22 weeks. Talk about a car crash, eh?
The average waiting time for a practical car driving test is 22 weeks across the UK, as of the end of May this year. The figures vary across the country – but not by much. In Wales, the wait is 19 weeks, while in Scotland learners are having to wait 21. England is worse still, with waits at 22.8 weeks on average – and in much of London, from Barking to Tottenham to Uxbridge, waits are a whopping 24 weeks, or approximately six months. Steerpike would remind readers that the DVSA’s current target is to reduce the national average waiting time for a test to just seven weeks by the end of the year. Good luck, as they say, with that.
Yet the DVSA’s chair doesn’t seem to quite appreciate the scale of the problem. In a statement titled ‘Chair’s Introduction’, Nick Bitel lauded the ‘progress we have made’ and praised his staff for their contributions, which he describes as ‘invaluable in maintaining our essential services’. He goes on to add, rather bizarrely, that: ‘I’m also particularly proud of our environmental achievements, having reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 45 per cent from our 2017-18 baseline’. Priorities, priorities…
Despite the DVSA’s own report stating that the average test times for car practical driving exams has increased from 16.1 weeks at the end of March 2024 to 21.9 weeks at the end of March this year, the DVSA’s chief executive Loveday Ryder – who received a pay uplift and a £27,000 pension benefit boost last year – instead applauded ‘colleague wellbeing’. This was ‘reflected in the launch of our comprehensive mental health strategy’, she gushed, which was much needed due to ‘pressures our colleagues have faced while working to…meet customer expectations’. Mr S would point out that seeing test waiting times elongate is hardly meeting expectations…
The TaxPayers’ Alliance’s head of campaigns, Elliot Keck, insisted in a social media post: ‘It’s time to shut the DVSA down and hand driving tests to the private sector.’ Certainly it’s hard to see how things could be driven any more off-road…
Will one final push by Israel destroy Hamas?
For more than 650 days of war in Gaza, one swathe of territory remained mostly untouched by Israeli ground manoeuvres: the dense, urban core of the central camps – Nuseirat, Deir al-Balah, Maghazi, and Bureij. That pattern has now decisively changed.
On Sunday morning, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) issued evacuation orders for southern Deir al-Balah. Within 24 hours, the area was under sustained air and artillery assault, with Gazan sources reporting the advance of Israeli tanks near the Abu Holi junction, adjacent to Salah al-Din Road. Though precise details of the strikes remain unclear, what is beyond doubt is that Israel is now expanding its war effort into one of the last remaining Hamas redoubts in the Strip.
The central camps are the last operational and symbolic bastion of Hamas rule in Gaza
Deir al-Balah, situated on the Mediterranean coast between Gaza City and Khan Yunis, is strategically flanked by Nuseirat to the north and the critical Salah al-Din Road to the east. It forms part of a compact band of territory, roughly 10 per cent of Gaza’s area, and has emerged in recent months as a symbolic stronghold for Hamas: an operational base for continued attacks and a stage for its narrative of unbroken resistance. Originally established as refugee camps after 1948, these zones have developed into some of the most densely built urban environments in the region. They have also, crucially, been spared the full brunt of Israeli operations. Until now.
The reasons for this previous Israeli restraint are twofold. First, there is the matter of hostages. Israel believes that some of the remaining captives taken by Hamas on 7 October may be held in or around the central camps. That suspicion is not without precedent. In June 2024, Israeli special forces rescued four hostages from Nuseirat. Intelligence assessments have long suggested that Hamas has embedded its leadership and military assets deep within civilian infrastructure, including in these very areas.
Second, the operational complexity of the central camps is extreme. Unlike other areas of Gaza where the IDF has already conducted operations – Shejaia, Jabalya, Khan Yunis – the camps are a labyrinth of alleyways, apartment blocks, and subterranean networks. Hamas has had nearly two decades to entrench its presence there. The density of the civilian population, much of it displaced from earlier phases of the war, compounds the difficulty. Any military advance risks catastrophic humanitarian consequences and international outcry, particularly from governments that appear increasingly indifferent to Hamas’s continued intransigence.
Indeed, one of the most striking features of the current phase of the war is the lopsided nature of international statements weighted against Israel’s actions. Despite Hamas’s repeated rejection of ceasefire proposals brokered by the United States and Qatar, much of the public external pressure continues to fall on Israel. Over two dozen states, including the UK, have just urged Israel to halt its campaign, without any meaningful demand on Hamas to accept a truce, release hostages, or relinquish power. To pressure only one side to cease fighting is to call for surrender, and they are demanding that of the wrong side.
This diplomatic asymmetry is not lost on Jerusalem. The advance into Deir al-Balah may be, in part, a calculated signal that the war will not be dictated by an international community willing to overlook Hamas’s role in starting, prolonging and complicating the conflict. But it also marks a significant strategic shift. Israel is willing to target new centres of gravity, however tough that might be internationally. Israel’s Chief of the General Staff, Lt. General Eyal Zamir explained it clearly this morning:
The IDF is required to act proactively across multiple arenas, alongside essential defence in the arenas and along the borders… The war in the Gaza Strip is one of the most complex the IDF has ever known. We have achieved significant accomplishments – Southern Command continues to lead with regular and reserve brigades operating every day in both offence and defence. We are paying a heavy price in combat – as we saw just today. We will continue operating to achieve our objectives: the return of the hostages and the dismantling of Hamas.
The central camps are, in effect, the last operational and symbolic bastion of Hamas rule in Gaza. After heavy campaigns in the north and south, including in areas like Beit Hanun, where Israeli forces recently had to re-engage following a Hamas resurgence, the battle for the central Strip could prove decisive. The objective, from Israel’s perspective, is not merely to degrade Hamas’s capabilities but to extinguish the possibility of its return to power. That means seizing and holding territory, eliminating command infrastructure, and denying Hamas the ability to reconstitute itself as a governing force.
For all those international voices insisting that Israel has not truly defeated Hamas and that the group could rebuild and eventually reimpose its tyrannical control over Gaza, posing once again a horrific, genocidal security threat to Israeli civilians, it should be easier to understand why, after 21 months of war, Israel is reluctant to leave that possibility open. The cost has already been too high, and will only grow steeper in the future if it capitulates now, as Britain and others appear to urge. But the strategy is by no means easy, nor guaranteed to deliver success. There is a cost, too, to continuing the war in this way – for the soldiers in battle, the hostages still out of reach, the Israeli public, Israeli leaders, and of course those living in the Gaza Strip. This is an equation which cannot be easily balanced.
Whether this is also part of a final push to secure a hostage release deal is unclear. Negotiations of that sort are conducted in deep secrecy for good reason: the public spotlight distorts incentives, inflates prices, and risks collapse. What can be said with certainty is that military and diplomatic tracks are increasingly intertwined, and that the central Strip is now the crucible in which both will be tested.
The toll on civilians is undeniable. For those trapped in Deir al-Balah and its environs, life is once again upended, terrifyingly uncertain. Yet the larger context remains: Egypt continues to deny entry to Gazans fleeing the fighting, and Hamas continues to embed itself among the population. In such a war, urban, asymmetric, and prolonged, Israel’s choices are grim. But leaving Hamas’s final strongholds intact, while it continues to reject all ceasefire proposals, presents a risk Israel may feel it cannot responsibly accept.
James Cleverly returns to Tory frontbench in shadow cabinet reshuffle
Former home secretary James Cleverly is expected to make a return to the Tory frontbench as Kemi Badenoch reshuffles her shadow cabinet. Cleverly has been content sitting on the backbenches since losing the leadership race in November, but with the Tories’ poll rating dropping to 17 per cent, the Braintree MP is returning to the fray.
Badenoch is using Argar’s departure as the chance to make what she calls ‘a few changes to my frontbench’
The full list of changes will be announced this afternoon, with Kevin Hollinrake likely to move from shadow levelling up secretary to party chairman. The 61-year-old Yorkshireman has proven his worth in recent months on the morning media rounds. With a difficult set of elections looming next May in Scotland and Wales, he could be the man sent out to bat by Badenoch.
So why has the Tory leader opted to shuffle around her frontbench? At the beginning of the year, Badenoch’s team were keen to stress stability, dismissing talk of an early reshuffle. But, as so often in politics, events have forced her hand. Ed Argar, the shadow health secretary, had a health scare earlier this summer. He has today stepped back from the frontbench to focus on his recovery. Badenoch is therefore using his departure as the chance to make what she calls ‘a few changes to my frontbench.’
Several other members of the shadow cabinet are reported to be having a difficult time personally. Not all are enjoying the arduous nature of opposition. So a refresh of the team can inject some new blood and try to put square pegs in square holes. The party whips have been taking soundings for weeks. ‘The right people have been called in to speak to the Chief’, said one senior source.
After so long in government, the 120 remaining Conservatives have had to rediscover the art of opposition. Some, such as Robert Jenrick and Andrew Griffith, have taken to it well. Others, like those typically found at the bottom of the Conservative Home league table, are still taking time to learn. But for Badenoch, facing a resurgent Reform UK, time is no longer a limitless commodity.
Why don’t we let Thames Water go bust?
Hurrah! We are going to get a new water regulator. Sir John Cunliffe’s independent water commission has recommended that Ofwat be abolished and replaced with a new body which also incorporates the drinking water inspectorate. It will be yet one more opportunity for a quangocrat to take a plumb job, while Ofwat’s bosses are pensioned off generously, no doubt. But what are the chances of getting rid of Thames Water, Southern Water or any other failing water company?
Water companies which get into financial trouble should be allowed to go bust
That doesn’t seem so likely. Rather, Cunliffe has pitched his report as an attempt to rebuild confidence in the existing water companies. It doesn’t recommend what the government should do when faced with businesses which have mortgaged their assets to pay themselves fat dividends and bonuses, failed to invest properly in new infrastructure – and which then go to the government with a begging bowl.
If the likes of Thames Water are not allowed to go bust, then just what was the point of privatising the water industry? Surely the two main objectives of privatisation are to transfer financial risk from the taxpayer to private capital and to improve performance by introducing competition. In the case of the water industry, neither was achieved. All it succeeded in doing was to swap a state monopoly for private monopolies, while water customers are left with the tab of picking up the pieces when water companies get into trouble.
It says all you need to know about the water industry that companies are still threatening hosepipe bans even after a sopping weekend when many places received half a month’s rainfall. Water companies bleat about climate change causing more droughts and therefore making rationing necessary; what they don’t say is that actually rainfall in Britain has increased by around 10 per cent over the past 60 years.
Why can’t they capture some of that extra water and provide the water we want rather than trying to patronise us by telling us how we could use less water? No significant new reservoir has been built in Britain since Kielder Water, which was completed in 1981. Thames Water once built a desalination plant but then chose not to use it even during a drought, saying it was too expensive. Water companies don’t really want to supply us with water – they remain stuck in a public sector rationing mindset, even though they act very much as private companies when it comes to paying salaries and bonuses.
The Cunliffe Review is a damp squib which will do little to improve the current situation. If we want a private water industry, it needs to be one with multiple players which compete to supply us with water, inviting us to choose between providers and tariffs. If that is too difficult to organise – and it is difficult to see how we could ever have more than one network of water pipes, so it would require complex market structures such as those which haven’t always worked well in the electricity and gas industries – then there is little point in keeping the industry in the private sector.
Water companies which get into financial trouble should be allowed to go bust and their assets picked up by the government from the receiver at the sort of discount you would expect when the assets of any failed company are auctioned off. I am no great fan of nationalised industry, but then at least we would have a monopoly which was accountable, unlike what we have now.
Instead, we look doomed to carry on pretty much as we have been for the past 35 years, with water companies choosing to sweat their assets rather than invest in new infrastructure, and a regulator rather than consumers deciding how much water we need and how much we should be paying for it. The only difference is that that regulator will have a new logo.
Stephen Colbert’s Late Show should have been axed long ago
Things are not going so well with left-wing comedian talk show hosts over the water. Last week came the news of the cancellation of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert by CBS/Paramount. And Ellen de Generes, whose daytime chat show was chopped back in 2022, revealed this weekend that she’s moved permanently to the Cotswolds, where she is currently farming chickens (she was keeping sheep too, but they kept running away from her).
Both of these developments are being attributed to the reelection of one Donald J. Trump as President. Colbert’s firing by Paramount came very soon after his outburst on his show about the company settling a lawsuit by Trump, who had accused them of favourable editing of a campaign interview with Kamala Harris. Many have linked Colbert’s exasperated blast at his bosses to them firing him – which occurred less than 48 hours later.
There is a place for lectures and spluttering rants, but it is a small place
Paramount/CBS, for their part, issued a statement saying that the axing ‘is not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount’. Though it also states that the decision was a ‘financial one’, taken ‘against a challenging backdrop in late night’. Which looks very much like the ‘performance’ of the show was indeed their main consideration.
All linear TV is in its death throes, yes, and the late-night talk show is no exception. Hilariously, this week we kept hearing that Colbert has the highest-rated of these shows; which, as commentator Matt Osborne noted on X, is ‘like saying he’s the hobo with the biggest shopping cart’.
One of the strangest spectacles of the culture wars of the last decade has been that a formerly ruthless business – television – has been so absorbed by its role on the ‘progressive’ side, that its previously sharp edge when it comes to a show’s ‘performance’ has been blunted. American TV in particular was always legendary for pulling under-performing shows – even if they were critical hits – the moment that their bottom line was threatened. The history of American TV is littered with cancelled shows, yanked off the air mid-season, of hard business decisions and orders relayed to studios from above to down tools, right now.
But, according to Puck News, Colbert’s show was losing $40 million (£30 million) a year – and costing $100 million (£74 million) a year to produce. Lest we forget, this is not a sci-fi spectacular or a razzle-dazzlin’ showbiz extravaganza. It is just Colbert, riffing to the camera and then talking to a few other people on sofas. Why did it cost so much to make, and why has it taken Paramount so long to can it?
The reaction to the canning explains why, I think. It is a truism of the TV industry (or it used to be) that dying, unwatched shows attract the most public comment. ‘If Paramount and CBS ended the Late Show for political reasons, the public deserves to know. And deserves better,’ tweeted California Senator Adam Schiff. ‘America deserves to know if his show was cancelled for political reasons,’ fumed Elizabeth Warren.
Personally, I think America ‘deserves to know’ why the show was kept on air for so long when it was losing cash hand over fist. My suspicion is that CBS/Paramount delayed the agony until the last possible moment because of the show’s politics, to try to avoid losing face and taking a culture wars hit, to deny commercial reality because thousands of conservative Twitter accounts gloating ‘go woke, go broke’ would’ve been too unbearable. Anything but that! It was more acceptable to lose millions and millions of dollars.
And my goodness, this show was political. The friendly format created by David Letterman – your pal easing you into the night after a hard day – was exchanged for Colbert’s increasingly insufferable exasperation and ranting.
I get tired of viewers saying that they are ‘disappointed’ in entertainers who take stances they dislike; it’s not as if we have relationships with these celebrities. But I’ve watched Colbert’s trajectory with sadness. He was one of the funniest people on TV, a long time ago. He co-created, produced and starred (as teacher Chuck Noblet) in the bad-taste sitcom Strangers With Candy (1999-2000), a gem of a forgotten show – swiftly yanked from the air for low ratings, ironically. His transformation to a partisan ranter was horrible to behold. Doing angry stuff very last thing at night, when people are looking to unwind, seemed particularly wrong-footed.
Similarly, Ellen de Generes dropped what made her special – a light comic touch – and became something of a deranged culture wars activist. Her asylum flight to Gloucestershire is the funniest thing she’s done in years, though sadly unintentionally so.
Because I am an awkward sod, political comedy of the ‘clapter’ kind – where the performer and audience are united in a partisan way – automatically makes me antsy and I start rooting for the other side, even on the rare occasions when the performer aligns with where I stand. British attempts at this style – The Mash Report, The Last Leg – are even more repellent than their American inspirations.
Hopefully the return of the bottom line will mean that TV comedy, both in America and over here, can just be funny again. There is a place for lectures and spluttering rants, but it is a small place.
The other day, scrolling through YouTube, I stumbled on a sketch from ancient BBC hit Three Of A Kind (1981-1983) in which the stars David Copperfield and Tracey Ullman perform a ridiculously silly spoof of the then-current hit makers Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes as ‘Joe Cock-Up and Jennifer Prawn’. It was crude, obvious, kind of pathetic in its perfunctoriness – and very, very funny.
This is the comedy we desperately need in today’s horrible world: knickers falling down, limericks, smut and sauce, the surreal and the silly. Ellen should extend an invite to Colbert to join her in her rural idyll. Perhaps he could rustle up her lost sheep. Let them rave and fume at each other while we have fun again.
Why won’t Anas Sarwar champion Sandie Peggie?
When nurse Sandie Peggie complained about the presence of a trans-identifying man in the women’s changing room at Falkirk’s Victoria Hospital, she was treated as a dangerous bigot. A witch-hunt saw her suspended from the job to which she had devoted thirty years of her life and she faced horrifying allegations of placing patients in danger. Today, Peggie is not only a household name in Scotland, she’s fast becoming a national hero.
An industrial tribunal called by the nurse – started in February, paused, then resumed last week – has heard how doctors and management turned on her while rallying round Dr Beth Upton, a man who claims to be a biological woman. Whether Peggie wins her claims of sexual discrimination against her employers, NHS Fife, and Upton remains to be seen, but it is already clear that public sympathy lies firmly with the working-class nurse rather than the middle-class doctor.
There is a space for Sarwar to position his party as champions of women’s rights
This is a truth not only revealed in polling – a recent YouGov survey found more than 60 per cent of people backed the Supreme Court ruling that womanhood is a matter of biology – but also in focus groups commissioned by political parties. Gender ideology may remain popular among self-identifying ‘progressive’ politicians but voters from across the political spectrum have had more than enough of the ‘trans women are women’ hooey so enthusiastically pushed by the SNP and others at Holyrood over recent years.
When the Scottish parliament voted in 2022 in favour of reforming the Gender Recognition Act (GRA), allowing anyone to self-identify into the sex of their choosing, Scottish Labour’s Anas Sarwar whipped his MSPs into supporting the proposal. Back then, having swallowed the be-kind Kool-Aid, he showed no sign of recognising the irreconcilable conflict between the rights of women and the demands of militant trans activists.
But, in February, as Peggie’s case began making headlines, Sarwar saw (or chose to see) sense. Not only did he support the nurse’s case, but he also expressed his regret over backing former first minister Nicola Sturgeon’s plan to reform the GRA. If, said the Scottish Labour leader, he had known in December 2022 what he now knew, he’d never have voted in favour of changing the law.
Fortunately for the women and girls of Scotland, then Conservative Scottish secretary Alister Jack blocked the new legislation in January 2023 on the grounds that it would conflict with the UK-wide Equality Act, which protects the sex-based rights of women.
The backlash against reform of the GRA contributed to Nicola Sturgeon’s decision to step down as First Minister. Her successors – both the hapless Humza Yousaf and the bland John Swinney – remain committed to the proposal (in theory, anyway,) even as public opposition to gender reform mounts.
This baffling support for a discredited ideology left Swinney looking especially foolish as Peggie’s tribunal resumed. The First Minister declared his complete confidence in NHS Fife, placing him on the opposite side of this high-profile battle to the majority of voters. Swinney missed his opportunity to free himself from the gender politics swamp.
Anas Sarwar has been every bit as politically inept. When Scottish Labour’s leader U-turned on gender reform, he managed to upset both those in favour of self-ID and those opposed. To the former – forever now lost to him – he was a traitor; to the latter, he was a cowardly opportunist.
Every working day until next Wednesday, crowds of supporters will gather outside the tribunal hearing in Dundee to cheer Sandie Peggie as she arrives. Recording these moments will be camera crews from all major broadcasters. Why, then, isn’t Anas Sarwar there, each morning?
In common with other party leaders, Sarwar has seen the focus group results and private polling which show the majority of voters believe a woman is an adult human female, not a magical kind of man. The Scottish Labour leader – having made a fool of himself in February – should turn up in Dundee, brace himself for a spot of heckling, and brave it out. ‘I know I’m late,’ he should tell Peggie’s supporters, ‘But I’m here, now.’
We’re bang in the middle of ‘silly season’, when summer holidays and parliamentary recesses leave the news agenda rather bare. This being so, the already gripping case of Sandie Peggie is receiving blanket coverage across Scottish media (with the exception, of course, of the SNP’s court comic, The National, which – as is always the case when things look embarrassing for the separatists – maintains a ‘nothing to see here’ position). There is a space, right now, for Sarwar to position his party as champions of women’s rights.
While Labour and the SNP (and, of course, the cranks of the Scottish Greens and Liberal Democrats) continue to fail women, this issue represents a free kick for the insurgent Reform UK, which will stand candidates in next May’s Holyrood election. Nigel Farage’s party is on course to devour much of the Scottish Tory vote but parties of the centre-left are also vulnerable when it comes to the issue of women’s rights. Senior SNP and Labour figures privately conceded that Farage’s party can take votes from them on the regional lists from which 56 of Holyrood’s 129 MSPs are elected.
John Swinney has set his course on this matter and he’s heading away from voters. But, instead of capitalising on this foolishness, Scottish Labour’s leader remains bafflingly unwilling to seize ownership of the issue.
Anas Sarwar’s past betrayal of women’s rights was morally indefensible. His failure to attend Sandie Peggie’s tribunal and declare Labour her champions is politically inept.
Britain is broke
Britain is continuing to chuck billions onto our mounting pile of debt. Figures just released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that last month the state had to borrow just under £21 billion. That was £6.6 billion more than in June last year and the second-highest June borrowing total since records began 32 years ago.
The ONS confirmed the surge in borrowing was a continuation of the fiscal doom loop this country now finds itself in. ‘The rising costs of providing public services and a jump in the debt interest we have to pay on inflation-linked gilts outweighed increased revenue brought in from tax hikes.
Interest due on our debt hit £16.4 billion in June, which was £8.4 billion more than June last year and again the second highest figure since records began. We’re reaping the results of what might prove to be a financially fatal decision by the treasury to issue billions of ‘index-linked gilts’ when borrowing costs were so low. Now that inflation has returned, that borrowing has become cripplingly expensive and is why we’re paying Greek levels of debt interest on Canadian levels of debt.
We’re paying Greek levels of debt interest on Canadian levels of debt
This morning’s news is yet more evidence that the Chancellor’s wafer-thin headroom against her ‘ironclad’ fiscal rules has been more than wiped out. The borrowing figure for June was £3.5 billion more than the Office for Budget Responsibility had assumed in their forecasts. Their overall forecast for the year is more on track but economists expect that to slip as we approach the budget in Autumn.
It does not seem at all sustainable that we can tolerate debt interest doubling in the space of a year. Yet this is the mess the Treasury created by issuing so many inflation-linked gilts with little foresight – and one the Bank of England, as I wrote in last week’s cover, helped entrench with its addiction to cheap money and painfully slow response to rising prices. Now that inflation has returned, the bill is coming due.
Britain is no longer borrowing to invest and grow. It is borrowing simply to stand still. We’re chasing our tail to service past decisions, patch up public services, and cover the interest on our own excess. We’re broke and we should be angry about it.
How much is the defence deal with the EU going to cost Britain?
The UK-EU summit in London in May was proclaimed as a ‘new chapter’ in the post-Brexit relationship. Only now are we finding out the true cost.
Perhaps the British government should not have so eagerly chased a scheme that was bound to work to our disadvantage
The EU’s Security Action for Europe (Safe) – a fund of €150 billion (£130 billion) to provide loans for member states to undertake urgent, large-scale defence procurement projects – was a key talking point at the meeting. The programme is a sensible one, aimed at boosting the European defence industry’s production capacity. However, it is now clear that the UK will need to pay a fee to participate. The amount has not yet been fixed, but EU diplomats reason that ‘since British businesses would receive EU money to create jobs and expand capacity under the scheme, London should recompense Brussels’. France is said to be pushing for a significant contribution, while others, including Germany, are keen not to set the tariff so high that the UK does not participate at all.
This should come as no surprise. The prima facie terms of the Safe scheme, initially excluding the US and the UK (between them home to ten of the world’s twenty biggest defence contractors), left French and German manufacturers like Thales, Rheinmetall and KNDS at the head of the queue to benefit from new spending. Thales and KNDS, as well as Naval Group and Safran, are, as it happens, part-owned by the French state. In these circumstances, the question of who benefits was not a particularly challenging one.
Surely this wasn’t supposed to happen? At the summit in May, Sir Keir Starmer said that the UK-EU agreement would ‘open the door to working with the EU’s new defence fund – providing new opportunities for our defence industry, supporting British jobs and livelihoods’. That was, I argued at the time, one of the main motivating factors behind the agreement. After all, the rules for Safe make it clear:
Safe will also allow acceding countries, candidate countries, potential candidates and countries that have signed a security and defence partnership with the EU, such as the United Kingdom, to join common procurements.
Alas, there was a brief cautionary note that Britain’s participation would be ‘subject to a separate negotiation and conditions, including a financial contribution from the UK’. The European Commission’s spokesman for defence, Thomas Regnier, told the Financial Times that, under the terms of the agreement, UK-based companies could provide up to 35 per cent of the value of procurement through Safe, but going beyond that would depend on ‘an agreement with the EU on the precise modalities on aspects such as budget contribution and security of supply’.
This was inevitable. The EU is a fundamentally protectionist organisation which seeks to gain as much advantage as possible for the economies of its member states. That is not a criticism, merely an observation: but it has highlighted the disadvantages of pursuing defence policy through the EU, of which we are not a member, rather than Nato, a dedicated military alliance of which we have been part for more than 75 years.
(It is true the overlap between the EU and Nato is not complete: although acting through the latter would include the US, Canada and Turkey, it would exclude the military superpowers of Austria, Ireland, Malta and Cyprus.)
The Cabinet Office has offered bland, reality-defying reassurance: ‘It is in all our interests for the UK and EU to bring together our unique capabilities and expertise to make Europe a safer, more secure, and more prosperous place’. Indeed so, but perhaps that is a message better directed towards the French government, while there still is one.
There have been pious expressions of hope that ‘parochial national interests’ do not undermine Safe’s potential to contribute to Europe’s overall security. But this is the EU, the bare-knuckle fight club of national interests. It has weak defence institutions but strong ambitions to accrete more competencies to the centre. And the hard-edged realpolitik of Brussels is showing the relative emptiness of the clutch of bilateral agreements Starmer has concluded.
There is a clear choice. What is Europe’s overriding priority: building the continent’s defence capabilities or strengthening national defence industrial bases? The rules governing Safe effectively choose the latter; that is a matter for member states. But perhaps the British government should not have so eagerly chased a scheme that was bound to work to our disadvantage. The Strategic Defence Review set out a ‘Nato First’ policy – perhaps we should have focused more closely on that mantra.
Can Wes Streeting avert the junior doctors’ strike?
In just a few days, doctors across England will stage strikes for five days. Hospitals are preparing for staff shortages from Friday until next Wednesday, hoping that bulked-up locum rates will attract enough ‘scabs’ to mitigate the walkouts. But now the BMA has taken aim at NHS bosses, warning that the decision not to cancel all routine appointments between 25 and 30 July will mean consultants are ‘spread too thinly’, leaving patients at risk.
The Health Secretary’s refusal to budge on pay makes any other package a harder sell
During the last round of industrial action – which spanned 44 days across 2023 and 2024 – 1.5 million appointments were cancelled, with the strikes costing the health service around £1.5 billion. This time around, as up to 50,000 medics prepare to picket for better pay in action that could affect up to a quarter of a million patients, Health Secretary Wes Streeting has hit out at the BMA’s ‘completely unreasonable’ demands and warned of the potential cost of strikes to patients. While both sides agree the relationship between Labour’s Department of Health and the doctors’ union has been more ‘constructive’ than under previous Conservative governments, Streeting has remained firm that demands for full pay restoration – a pay rise of around 29 per cent – cannot be met this year.
The Health Secretary held a 90-minute meeting in Westminster with the union’s co-chairs last Thursday, with talks dragging on past the hour that had been pencilled in. While Streeting refused to reopen negotiations on this year’s pay uplift of 5.4 per cent, other ways of improving working conditions were discussed. Changes to pensions and student loan debt have been floated in recent weeks. The talks were lauded by both sides as being constructive, with more in the works – although as BMA co-chair Dr Melissa Ryan pointed out at the subsequent presser:
We have precious few days in order to make sufficient progress in order to avert strike action. Hopefully we can meet at a pace that is sufficient and reasonable.
Streeting is lucky that – for now – he is seen in a relatively positive light by the union: BMA officials begrudgingly praise his ability to understand the pay and working condition complexities facing the NHS. (‘Wes gets it,’ an insider told me.)
But while some hospitals have started rescheduling outpatient appointments and procedures that would have fallen in the strike dates, NHS England chief Sir Jim Mackey is urging hospital bosses to keep elective operations going ‘to the fullest extent possible’ and only cancel in ‘exceptional circumstances’. It’s a new approach: in previous instances, a ‘Christmas Day’ attitude was adopted, with all but urgent care cancelled during periods of industrial action.
It’s a move designed in part to put pressure on the doctor’s union – and the BMA has been quick to lambast Mackey’s decision. While the union adheres to the ‘derogation’ process – where hospitals call striking doctors back in emergencies – it doesn’t support returning medics from the picket line for non-urgent work.
As the Times splashes this morning, BMA council chair Dr Tom Dolphin and deputy chair Dr Emma Runswick have written to the NHS England chief, urging him to tell hospitals to cancel all non-urgent care as current plans will, they believe, ‘put patients at risk’. Union reps say the decision to try and run the service as normal will not only affect patient safety in emergency situations but also in planned procedures too – while likely leading to more same-day cancellations for patients.
Analysis by right-leaning think tank Policy Exchange suggests that each day of strike action could cost £17.5 million a day. Former Tory health secretary Victoria Atkins has warned Labour not to ‘cave in…on pay, on student loans or other exceptional terms’ – in a statement that underlines the fraught relationship between previous Conservative administrations and the doctors’ union.
There does remain a concern that any movement on the salary uplift could prompt issues with other public sector workers, particularly nurses who are not happy with their uplift of 3.6 per cent. While the BMA is concerned solely with doctors, insiders are not particularly worried about this potential knock-on effect – saying that they also believe nurses are underpaid.
With less than three days to go until the strike is due to start, Streeting doesn’t have long to avert the action. Could pushing the problem away for a year or two work? ‘I think on pay, what we’re seeing is not this year,’ Streeting’s parliamentary private secretary (and surgeon) Zubir Ahmed told me. ‘It doesn’t mean we’ll never be able to move on pay in the future.’ While positive noises were made after last week’s discussions, the Health Secretary’s refusal to budge on pay makes any other package – whether on student loans, pensions or exam fees – a harder sell. An eleventh-hour halt will be quite something to pull off.
The women of Epping don’t need Tommy Robinson’s help
The people of Epping have a message for Tommy Robinson: stay away. The far-right activist is currently mulling joining protestors in Essex who have taken to the street outside a hotel used to house asylum seekers. While there have been violent clashes between police and demonstrators – and a number of arrests – many of those who have gathered have done so peacefully. They deserve to be listened to. Yet the arrival of Robinson would make it easy for politicians to cast these locals as far right – and ignore them.
The people of Epping have a message for Tommy Robinson: stay away
Even Robinson doesn’t seem able to make his mind up about what to do. On Sunday, he tweeted: ‘Hear you loud and clear, I’m coming to Epping next Sunday ladies and bringing thousands more with me’. By lunchtime on Monday, Robinson appeared to have had second thoughts, posting a video in which he appeared to backtrack. The far-right activist said that, despite people asking him to go to Epping, he thinks it ‘may not benefit the cause’. He went on to describe the Epping protests – which erupted after the arrest and charge of an asylum seeker last week on suspicion of alleged sexual assaults in the town – as involving ‘local families, local women, local mothers, local children’. He noted that his presence might give the authorities an ‘excuse’ to ‘label it a different way’. Robinson might be desperate for attention, but he isn’t stupid.
Many locals in Epping would certainly prefer Robinson stays away. Monday night’s peaceful protest began with the striking sight of a line of women holding hands and chanting ‘protect our kids’. They waved hand-made signs with slogans such as ‘Make England safe again’, ‘I’m not far right – I’m worried about my kids’ and ‘deport foreign criminals’.
Orla Minihane is one local mum who is worried. A Reform council candidate, she found herself giving an impromptu speech on Thursday, as violent clashes were beginning between locals, counterprotestors from Stand up to Racism, and police. Speaking through a megaphone, Orla described the crowd as ‘good, local, taxpaying people’, who ‘don’t want trouble, don’t want fights’, but who oppose the presence of hundreds of strange, threatening men in their community.
When I spoke with Orla she made it clear to me that the community’s concerns are not about race: ‘I wouldn’t care if they were from Iceland, blonde, blue-eyed and Christian. At the end of the day, they’re strange men who nobody has checked’.
She described increasing fears in the Epping area over the past year, as women have reported being followed home and blatant shoplifting has soared. There have been reports of men approaching young girls outside schools. Yet the authorities seem reluctant to provide specific details about the men involved, adding to the suspicion and distrust felt by the local community.
For many locals, the arrest and charge of an asylum seeker this month was the final straw.
Reform leader Nigel Farage has said that most of the protestors in Epping are ‘genuinely concerned families’, before warning that politicians shouldn’t ‘underestimate the simmering anger and disgust…that we are letting in every week hundreds of undocumented young males from cultures where women and girls are not even treated as second class citizens’. Farage went on to say ‘I don’t think anybody in London even understands how close we are to civil disobedience on a vast scale in this country’.
Perhaps Tommy Robinson won’t turn up in Epping. Or perhaps his love of the limelight will draw him there. If he does attend next Sunday though, it would likely mean significantly more violence. Stand Up To Racism have already announced a ‘No to fascist Tommy Robinson’ protest to begin in Epping next Sunday afternoon. If they, and Robinson’s followers, attend in large numbers, large-scale disorder may be inevitable. This would be in no one’s interests, and would harm the local campaign, likely allow the government to paint all opposition to migrant hotels as ‘far right’ and do nothing to make the women and girls of Epping safe. Let’s hope Robinson stays away, and the peaceful, local voices are heard.
Dogs have no place at my table
I love dogs. I love lunching. I love seeing dogs in restaurants where I’m lunching. But one thing I don’t love one bit is a dog being brought to a luncheon which I’m participating in – and, most likely, paying for. Luncheons are for humans – not for our furry friends.
Let’s face it, it’s not like they’re particularly thrilled to be indoors while their owners indulge in a little light character assassination. They’d be having far more fun running around outside eating vomit and sniffing each other’s bums.
They can be big dogs, like the one belonging to my friend K. His gentle nature is swamped by the physical reality of him being the size of a small horse and taking up enough room for two people in a snug bistro. They can be small dogs, like the one N brought to an extremely expensive watering hole, who then attempted to hump my hand (he wasn’t large enough to try it on with a leg) and had to be bought off with an eye-waveringly extortionate steak tartare. But what they all have in common is that they will render a pleasant repast into something of a sideshow.
Maybe there exists a different social milieu to mine where dogs are simply brought out, given a biscuit from the jar on the bar and left to chew it quietly under the table, their presence not acknowledged until it’s time to go home. I seem to recall my father treating Prince the Alsatian in such a manner. But with my cohort, dogs are like furry, daft smartphones. Their owner will never get over the wonder of them, and is forever checking them. I wouldn’t like my guest to behave like this with a gadget, and certainly don’t wish to tolerate it when that gadget has its nose up the waitress’s skirt into the bargain.
I remember the first time I went to Tel Aviv two decades ago and saw dogs everywhere in restaurants; I didn’t associate my adored Jewish people with being big on dog-owning, and this seemed yet another wondrous aspect of how they had bloomed in their hot homeland. As I said at the start, I still like seeing them in restaurants if they’re at other tables with other people. I just don’t want them at mine – and I get that this may be partly selfish and self-adoring, as I wish to be the centre of attention. There’s an old saying ‘Never put two divas at the same table’ – that goes for bitches, too.
I’ve heard some good stories on this sticky subject: ‘My friend’s huge whippet constantly licks her and everything she touches. So when a few of us had a drink in my front garden the other day, as soon as he licked the glass she was pouring prosecco into, we all said in unison “That’s Jen’s glass!”’ ‘I witnessed some dumb parents tying their dog’s lead to their child’s highchair in a cafe with the inevitable outcome – luckily the dog was unharmed.’ ‘I tied his lead to one of the legs of the table and ordered some beer. It arrived when a cat walked past. Dog and table set off in hot pursuit; rather than make a kerfuffle I just looked the waiter in the eye and asked “Encore une bière s’il vous plaît.”’
Dogs are like furry, daft smartphones. Their owner will never get over the wonder of them, and is forever checking them
‘A friend met her husband after her lovely idiot of a rescue mutt scarfed his chips in a country pub garden. She replaced his meal, then he bought drinks for her and her friend… the dog went up the aisle with them.’ ‘My schnauzer makes a point of pooing in front of people dining al fresco; the sight of people enjoying a nice, pricey lunch in a pavement cafe seems to do something to his bowels. But it’s not just eating. He once interrupted what was clearly a marriage proposal by assuming the classic ‘weightlifter’ pose and gifting the happy couple with a log. I said they should look on it as a blessing. She laughed; her intended, not so much.’
‘Once in a gastropub we took our eyes off our beagle and all hell broke loose. He jumped up, crashed on to various tables and grabbed as much food as he could. Recently while walking him on Hampstead Heath while still on the lead, he bolted towards picnickers. Before we could pull him back he grabbed a bacon roll, a chicken salad wrap as well as several sausages.’ ‘I went on a date and during it realised I hadn’t fed the dog, who was with me. So I ordered steak and chips and proceeded to sit him on the banquette and share it with him. Oddly I never heard from the date again.’
But sometimes the dog is the diva: ‘We were having a kid’s birthday party in our garden and our dog Diva obviously had enough of screaming brats, headed up the side path and out of the house. I soon got a phone call from a bus driver asking could I come and get her; when I got there she was sitting on a seat, being spoiled rotten by all the old ladies on the bus. Diva indeed.’
Dogs are lovely. They have beautiful natures – so enthusiastic. They are somewhat like me in that they resemble Brilliant Boy from The Fast Show – ‘Look, a tree, isn’t that brilliant!’ They’re so enchanting that if there’s a dog present, despite my disapproval, I’ll probably get distracted myself. If they’re at my table, I’m probably going to pay it more attention than its owner. So for both our sakes, desist. I repeat: luncheons are for ladies – not for Lassies.
The BBC’s mistreatment of the Proms
The Proms – the BBC Proms, to stick a handle on its jug – remains a good deed in a naughty world. Eight weeks of orchestral music, mainly, performed nightly at the Royal Albert Hall by artists from every continent, for as little as £8 if you are prepared to stand.
One of those artists, the Georgian fiddler Lisa Batiashvili, supplied the highlight of this year’s ‘first night’ with a mighty performance of the Sibelius concerto. The concert ended with Sancta Civitas, a rarely heard choral work by Ralph Vaughan Williams, performed with love by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under its principal conductor, Sakari Oramo. Musically, it was a good start, despite the tiresome clapping between movements of the Sibelius.
So why did the occasion, carried live on BBC2, fall flat? For the same reason that so many televised events do. It was presented as a compound of sporting event and talent show, designed to titillate adolescents who might feel ‘excluded’ by anything formal.
You had to feel a tinge of sympathy for the presenters. Petroc Trelawny has one of radio’s most pleasing voices, and Georgia Mann is a bright lady. Both love music. Here, though, they were following instructions laid down from above: make it groovy!
There was much joshing and gurning, and as the evening wore on, Mann ignored her Ts and lurched into ‘Mockney George’ territory. There was also a comedian on hand, one Nick Mohammed, who said nothing funny, nor offered an observation that might not have been said with more brevity by a Prommer plucked from the queue. But he said ‘staggering’ four times, to go with ‘phenomenal’ and ‘surreal’, so he served his purpose.
Trelawny gave the game away in his introduction, referring to the ‘crowd’ that had gathered inside the hall. Sporting events have crowds. Concerts have audiences. It’s an important distinction, because language establishes tone. Nor was it wise for Trelawny to invoke ‘a sense of democracy’. The Proms is a musical festival, open to all, not a rally for zealots.
Trelawny gave the game away in his introduction, referring to the ‘crowd’ that had gathered inside the hall. Sporting events have crowds. Concerts have audiences
This year, for unfathomable reasons, they have decided to go backstage before and during Proms, in search of ‘colour’. The man selected for this absurd exercise was Linton Stephens, whose banal questions, read from a crib sheet, would have shamed a six-year-old. ‘What’s it like to perform this epic work?’ he asked Batiashvili, who responded with admirable tolerance. Other questions followed, to baffled choristers preparing for the Vaughan Williams: ‘What’s it like performing at the Proms?’ ‘What does it mean to you?’ ‘What’s going through your head?’ ‘What does your family think of you performing at the Proms?’
Drivel like this wouldn’t be acceptable at a lower league football match. At the Proms it was excruciating. Suzy Klein, the corporation’s head of arts and classical music, must know this sort of rubbish is strictly for amateur hour. Get rid.
A living composer was brought on to freshen the bloom in the second half. Errollyn Wallen is Master of the King’s Music and, in Mann’s estimation, ‘a Proms trailblazer’. The trail she blazed here was a ten-minute piece called The Elements, written for the occasion, and it sounded pretty thin. The lady wore dazzling yellow specs, though.
What’s to come later this season? The Traitors Prom, of course, and another CBeebies entertainment. They’ve cleared the decks for Star Wars, ‘Soul Revolution’, a Classic Thriller Soundtracks evening (which sounds promising), and Anoushka Shankar and her wretched sitar.
This is not traditional Proms territory, and there’s a reason for it. The BBC, obsessed with cultural identity, is embarrassed by the undeniable fact that orchestral music has been composed over the past four centuries by white men. In our world, where ‘diversity’ is the thing, that great tradition makes people uneasy. Hence the desire to introduce new features that have less to do with quality than the fulfilment of quotas. That way the clever producer clambers up the greasy pole.
So here are a few ideas for Klein and her band of groovers to consider: a brass band Prom; a Fred Astaire tribute; a flamenco evening; a return for Roby Lakatos, the great Magyar gypsy fiddler; a George Formby night; a bubblegum pop spectacular; and a gathering of Nordic jazzers. There have been enough Soul Revolutions of various sorts in recent years, though it should be said the Northern Soul two years back night worked. A rare triumph.
Carry on, Petroc and Georgia. But remember, to thine own selves be true. And please, no comedians.
Will AI kill off Captchas?
It was a line on Poker Face (the excellent US detective drama currently streaming on Now TV) that piqued my interest. Hunched over a laptop, Natasha Lyonne’s heroine, Charlie Cale, claimed to be working as a ‘Captcha technician’ – someone who solves those fiddly, occasionally infuriating internet puzzles for money. You know – the ones that ask you to ‘Select all the squares with traffic lights’, ‘Select all the squares with bridges’ or simply tick a box to say you’re human before you can log into a website.
Given the series has satirised everything from New York City rent controls to multi-level marketing schemes, I originally assumed it must be a joke. But not for the first time the writers had wrong-footed me: it’s actually perfectly possible to earn money (around $1 per 1,000) by solving batches of Captchas from the comfort of your own home.
Who pays for these services in the first place? Like many things involving the underlying plumbing of the internet, the answer isn’t particularly pleasant. It turns out that the legions of hackers, bot networks and web-scrapers who make money from our data, sometimes with malicious intent, are often willing to pay remote workers in order to help them force entry to websites.
So there you have it. But just one more thing, as Cale’s predecessor Columbo used to say: why are Captchas still such a big deal in 2025 anyway, given that artificial intelligence is surely capable of differentiating between photos of motorbikes and fire hydrants?
As much as we might find them annoying, Captchas, which were developed in the early 2000s, still play a vital role in keeping the internet safe, says Matt Bliss, technical director at agency This is Embrace. Though they have got less annoying over the years (apparently), with much of the work happening behind the scenes. ‘We think that Captchas are about solving puzzles, but most of the time it’s just computers talking to computers,’ he tells me over Zoom.
When you try to enter a website, things like your IP address, your browser version, your time zone and even your internet history can help verify that you’re a genuine user. Even crossing that ubiquitous tick-box to say you’re not a robot isn’t without purpose, given that the Captcha can track the way that you moved the mouse. For example, if your clicker travelled in perfectly straight lines at a constant pace, it’s more likely you’re a bot.
By the time you’re asked to complete a puzzle, you’ve already been flagged as a risky prospect, at which point the system flips the burden of proof on to you to prove your innocence. In theory, the tests it gives you are meant to separate robots from humans (hence the full name for Captchas: ‘Completely Automated Public Turing Tests to Tell Computers and Humans Apart’), but is that really the case?
Not quite. Last year, a Zurich-based PhD researcher, Andreas Plesner, developed an AI model to solve the ubiquitous Google Captchas (the ones that use images from Google Maps) with 100 per cent accuracy. ‘It was actually just a side project,’ he tells me over Zoom from California, estimating that the entire endeavour took him and his colleague around ten hours a week over a single semester.
Some have suggested that the age of AI could actually make it easier for websites to detect bots on the basis that they will be the ones who solve Captchas the quickest
So will AI mean the end of Captchas? Not necessarily, say cyber security experts. Ironically, some have even suggested that the age of AI could actually make it easier for websites to detect bots on the basis that they will be the ones who solve Captchas the quickest. By contrast, those users who pause or even make small mistakes are much more likely to be genuine (as Alexander Pope put it, ‘to err is human’).
If Captchas are here to stay, can they at least be improved, so we no longer end up in a loop of repetitive traffic light-based tasks? There are plenty of bright sparks working on that exact question. Researchers at the University of Genoa have devised an alternative test for smartphone users involving simple physical challenges (such as tilting your phone in a certain direction) which bots will find impossible. Meanwhile, programmers at the University of Alberta have suggested ‘contextual Captchas’ which ask intuitive questions (i.e. ‘What do you think happened next?’) based on Dilbert-style comic strips. In theory, sussing these kinds of human narratives will be harder for AI-driven bots to crack – at least for now.
In the meantime, it isn’t just the writers of Poker Face who are having fun with Captchas. On Reddit, a small community of devotees post screenshots of particularly surreal examples of Captcha. Meanwhile the website World’s Hardest Captcha has turned some of the most recognisable formats into a nightmare vortex of endless puzzles, each more difficult than the last.
As for Charlie Cale’s side-hustle solving Captchas for beer money, it looks like it’s safe for now. So perhaps those poor souls in less prosperous countries making their living toiling away on platforms like 2Captcha and CapSolver can also provide some welcome perspective to the rest of us.
After all, if you think having to identify images of tractors when you use a new wifi network is a pain in the neck, then imagine having to do it all day for a job. Forget ‘I am not a robot’: after eight hours of Captchas, you may feel like you might as well be.
The Liaison Committee summed up Starmer’s woes
If you want a sign of how badly things have gone wrong for this government, compare Keir Starmer’s third Liaison Committee grilling with his first. Back in December, it was all stonewalling and smiles, as the Prime Minister gently dead-batted questions in front of a (largely) sympathetic crowd. Seven months on, the audience remains the same: 18 of the 26 select committees in the Commons are chaired by Labour MPs. But now the tone has hardened considerably.
Today’s session focused on poverty and international affairs. Normally, these might be regarded as areas in which a redistributive social democrat premier would excel. But after the benefits U-turn a fortnight ago, Starmer found himself subjected to some hostile grilling. His worst moment came when Debbie Abrahams, the chair of the welfare panel, said that his ditched reforms were ‘so far removed from Labour values of fairness and social justice I have to say I felt ashamed.’
In his wearisomely-familiar style, Starmer gave Abrahams a set of stock lines which any No. 10 spokesman could have mustered: he wants more people back in work and has commissioned a review to ensure it. A similar formula was deployed when Florence Eshalomi, the chair of the housing select committee, asked about the Budget’s freeze to local housing allowance. Starmer defended the decision – before pledging ‘there will be a chance to look again across the board.‘
As the recent India series has shown, there is often merit in a Geoffrey Boycott-style approach to defence. But refusing to even attempt to score some runs can certainly tire the patience of the crowd. The frustration on the face of Liam Byrne and others was visible as Starmer made his way through the 90-minute grilling, stubbornly refusing to enlighten his assembled colleagues. Challenged multiple times on the detail of an answer, the PM begrudgingly promised to write in due course.
A classic case was offered in an exchange with Meg Hillier. ‘What other accomodation are you planning to take over to provide temporary accommodation for families?’ she asked in a discussion on migrants. ‘Oh, there’s lots of housing in many local authorities that can be used and we’re identifying where it can be used’, Starmer gaily replied. ‘Have you got any examples you can give us?’ retorted Hillier. ‘No but I’ll write in and give you details’, he answered, haltingly.
It says something when Gaza offers easier ground for a Labour PM to discuss. Pressed by Andy Slaughter on how the government will ‘protect Palestinians from mass killings’, Starmer offered the usual line about the need for an immediate ceasefire and aid to enter the region. It was a depressing and predictable note on which to end an underwhelming and angst-ridden first year for Starmer.
Asked by Hillier for the highlight of his initial 12 months, the Prime Minister responded ‘walking into Downing Street.’ Being something, rather than doing something – with this government, the jokes all too often write themselves.
Sausage King Starmer’s bad afternoon on the grill
Sir Keir Starmer has a sausage problem. Stop sniggering at the back. Not only was there his infamous slip demanding that Hamas ‘return the sausages’, but there is also the fact that he increasingly resembles a great British banger: pink-skinned, spitting and whistling when grilled and filled with all kinds of rubbish. Sir Keir has become the Sausage King of Westminster and today – at the House of Commons liaison committee – he was due a spell on the barbecue.
Part of the problem for the Sausage King is that he’s managed to wind up a fair few of the select committee chairs who make up the grilling committee: quite an achievement given that almost all of them are his own MPs. Emily Thornberry was there, looking extraordinarily jolly for one who’d been passed over for attorney-general in favour of one of Starmer’s lawyer mates. Dame Meg Hillier spearheaded the rebellion that forced his humiliating climb-down on welfare, while Florence Esholami led much of the resistance to the assisted suicide legislation, a bill which purports to be the brain-child (which in this case is unfair on both brains and children) of Kim Leadbeater but which Westminster insiders know has the Sausage King’s porky fingerprints all over it. There’s also the small matter of how badly things are going.
The first few minutes were relatively uneventful; not so much a grilling as a quick go on the sunbed. But soon both Dame Meg and Ms Esholami rounded on him over the housing crisis. Eshalomi pointed out that councils were currently being forced to bid for the same housing stock for multiple uses – thus pitching homeless children against asylum seekers. Did the Sausage King plan to do anything about this?
‘I’m furious’, he said in a voice that betrayed all the emotion of the announcement of a rail replacement bus service. Hillier tried again; ‘precisely’ what accommodation would the government be taking over to house asylum seekers at the expense of local residents, she asked? The PM replied that there was ‘lots of housing’ going spare, ‘and many local authorities that can be used’. With a look of real exasperation Hillier asked whether he could provide just a single example. ‘No, but I’ll write in and give you details’, came the inevitable reply.
Someone who actually was furious was Debbie Abrahams who launched into a remarkable broadside over the government’s botched welfare reforms. ‘This was poor legislation, so far removed from Labour values that I felt ashamed,’ she said, and I promise this is not hyperbole, bristling with contempt. ‘We must do better, Prime Minister’. The Sausage King opened his nostrils and shot Mrs Abrahams a look of genuine venom. The grilling was getting hotter. Sizzle sizzle!
Even possible allies turned on him; Liam Byrne asked about potential tax cuts. ‘No Prime Minister can set a budget six months in advance’, stammered the PM. The sausage turned pinker and pinker.
Dame Caroline Dinenage asked what the PM was doing to support charities forced to cut their staff due to NIC increases. The Prime Minister belched out an answer of purest word vomit; ‘We are looking at what we can do on – sort of, business rates for charities and, sort of, putting in the support they need’.
‘That’s it?’, replied Dame Caroline, raising a quizzical eyebrow. She accused him of ‘balancing the books on the backs of charities like children’s hospices’. By now, the Banger looked like he was actually going to go bang. Dame Caroline went one further when she asked him why his constituents were so mean when it came to charitable giving. After all, she observed, ‘you and your colleagues aren’t averse to being on the receiving end of a bit of philanthropic giving yourselves’.
Finally, the grilling came to its end. In everything from the economy to migration to welfare it had revealed a litany of failures. Dame Meg ended proceedings with a softer tone: ‘What’s been your best moment in the last 12 months?’ The Sausage King said it was walking into Downing Street. On that it was very hard to take issue with him; it’s certainly been downhill from there!
Lowe brands Farage a ‘stinking hypocrite’ over crime policies
Reform UK has dominated headlines this morning, as the party kick off their six-week campaign on crime. During a central London presser this morning, Nigel Farage told journalists that his party will halve crime in Britain if it gets into government – insisting that all foreign criminals will be deported and serial offenders would have life sentences imposed. Strong stuff, eh?
But one right-winger in particular remains pretty unimpressed with the party’s latest law and order policies. Rupert Lowe, formerly of the Reform parish before he was ousted earlier this year, has taken aim at Farage on Twitter – attacking his ex-party leader for their use of the police force over his suspension. After Farage tweeted that ‘Reform UK will require the police to investigate all crimes’, he received a rather fiery response from his former colleague, who fumed:
The Reform leadership tried to put me in prison on false allegations, all because I bruised your ego. Wasting an incredible amount of police/CPS time, even leading to my family home being raided by armed police late on a Friday night. You’re a stinking hypocrite, Farage.
Crikey. There’s no love lost there, eh?
It’s not the first time Lowe has publicly denounced his onetime boss, branding Farage a ‘coward and a viper‘ in a statement released after the CPS announced it was not going to press charges against Lowe in relation to an allegation of threats towards the party’s then-chairman Zia Yusuf. And Lowe isn’t the only person Yusuf has found himself at odds with lately. Rael Braverman, the husband of former Tory home secretary Suella, quit the party last week after Yusuf attacked his wife over the Ministry of Defence leak scandal.
It’s been a rocky month for Reform after the parliamentary party found itself back down to just four MPs when James McMurdock lost the whip over allegation of Covid fraud. Farage’s group will have been hoping today’s swathe of announcements will have got them back on track – but, as ever, Lowe seems committed to taking the shine off…
What Suella Braverman’s plan for quitting the ECHR gets right
This morning’s paper on leaving the ECHR from Suella Braverman and the Prosperity Institute doesn’t say much that hasn’t been said somewhere before. It reiterates the fairly obvious political case for a UK ECHR exit.
It talks about the erosion of sovereignty over immigration, policing and vast swathes of social policy; the baneful ‘living instrument’ doctrine that means we have now effectively given a blank cheque to a self-selecting and unaccountable bench to second-guess our democratic process in ever more intrusive ways; the Strasbourg court’s arrogation of powers, such as the right to order interim measures never contemplated in 1950; and so on. The paper then goes in detail through the legal machinery of disentanglement, starting with the obvious point that the Convention itself provides for a right to leave on giving six months’ notice, and then describing the legislative and administrative processes involved.
Whisper it quietly, but human rights scepticism is becoming the new mainstream
But don’t be fooled. This may not be exciting reading (Suella is, after all, a lawyer); but the appearance of this document at this time matters a lot.
One very significant point is that the paper in one place meets head-on the arguments lazily trotted out as slam-dunk wins for the case against withdrawal. Does the UK’s good reputation depend on ECHR membership? Doubtful. There are plenty of countries not members of regional agreements that are admirably free (think Canada and Australia), not to mention ECHR members that, shall we say, leave something to be desired (stand up, Azerbaijan).
Reform the ECHR from within? We’ve tried that, and it’s had no effect in the areas that matter. Tweak the Human Rights Act? It won’t work with the Strasbourg court sitting in the background waiting to pounce. The right of the EU to withdraw police cooperation under the Withdrawal Agreement if we denounce the ECHR? Bring it on, and if need be, call their bluff. They have as much to lose as we have: it’s a small risk, and one worth taking.
What of the elephant in the room, the Good Friday Agreement? More awkward, but nothing insuperable here. For one thing, it doesn’t actually bar the UK from withdrawing from the ECHR. Instead it talks much more vaguely of the incorporation of ECHR provisions in Ulster law and court remedies to enforce it. If necessary, there must be some political horse-trading here, and in the end, Westminster must be prepared to put its foot down and face down Irish nationalists if necessary in the interest of a common rights regime in the UK.
To this extent, the Braverman document has continued the process of moving ECHR scepticism away from the fringe and placing it firmly in the range of the sayable and even politically plausible. More to the point, it also fills another void. So far, calls to ditch the ECHR have suffered from a similar difficulty to that which faced the Leave movement right up to the 2016 referendum and might well have tipped it into defeat: it has been heavy on criticism but light on practicalities. By laying down in some detail the measures to be taken to remove the ECHR from our law both in form and substance and opening these to debate, this may well reassure electors otherwise wavering.
Looking more widely, today’s events could just indicate a subtle shift in political tectonics. Doubts about the way the ECHR is chipping away at the institutions of this country are engaging electors who might previously have shrugged off human rights as something remote and unconcerning. Whenever they read of an undeserving visitor to this country allowed to stay, often at our expense as taxpayers, on the basis of family life here or possible beastliness abroad, they increasingly connect this with the ECHR; so too when, as a harassed commuter or housewife, they find they cannot go about their business because of some demonstration said to be protected by a European right to cause inconvenience to the public.
Nor is it only electors. Teasingly, this morning’s Telegraph said that Suella’s proposals had cross-party backing not only from key figures on the Tory right (predictable: after all, even Kemi has said she is open to talk of abandoning the Strasbourg regime) and also from Reform, whose position has always been clear, but also from the DUP and even some from blue Labour (no names yet, but an educated guess might light on figures like Jonathan Brash, the free-thinking MP for Hartlepool).
Whisper it quietly, but human rights scepticism is becoming the new mainstream. Defenders of the Strasbourg status quo are shrinking to an increasingly small caucus of senior Labour figures, Tory grandees and a motley collection of urban intellectuals and academics. It’s quite possible that within a few years, ECHR enthusiasm will have declined to a niche interest in much the same way as, say, Euroscepticism did twenty years ago. Now that’s a change worth contemplating.
Scottish Greens publish Holyrood candidate list amid party infighting
As the 2026 Holyrood election looms, parties are scrambling to get their candidate lists finalised. Today the Scottish Greens have released their regional list names – with some rather interesting selections amid party splits. One of the most significant decisions sees the current MSP for the North East region, Maggie Chapman, demoted on the list as her rival Guy Ingerson secures the top spot. While Chapman is second on the list, party insiders have admitted they are not expecting to elect two MSPs in the area – which would mark the end of the eco-activist’s five-year career in frontline politics.
Attempts were made to oust outgoing co-leader Patrick Harvie from the top of the Glasgow list by a new group of radicals called the ‘Glasgow Faction’.
The move is the latest development in infighting that has caused schisms in the party. Last month, Ingerson made a formal complaint against the North East MSP, accusing her bullying. Ingerson said that Chapman contacted his employer to tell them he was ‘untrustworthy’. The Green party’s leader in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire, Ingerson is also the co-convenor of the party’s LGBT group.
Chapman’s skirmish with Ingerson isn’t the first time she has proven herself a controversial figure. She was criticised after describing the 7 October attack on Israel by Hamas as ‘decolonisation’, not terrorism, in a now-deleted Twitter post. After being spoken to by her party leadership – with co-leader Lorna Slater saying she did not support Chapman’s comments – she later wrote that the ‘upset and anger’ her tweet had caused was ‘never my intention and I regret where this was the result’.
After the Supreme Court ruling that reaffirmed the biological definition of a woman, Chapman sparked outrage after taking to the street of Aberdeen to denounce the ruling and fume that she believed there was ‘bigotry, prejudice and hatred’ coming from the country’s highest court. Scottish Tory MSP Tess White subsequently tabled a motion calling for the removal of Chapman from her role as deputy convenor of Holyrood’s equalities committee – though thanks to SNP support, Chapman held onto the job.
There is trouble elsewhere in the party too. Attempts were made to oust outgoing co-leader Patrick Harvie from the top of the Glasgow list by a new group of radicals – called the ‘Glasgow Faction’ – made up of vocal campaigner Ellie Gomersall and one-time general election candidate Iris Duane (who has been placed fourth on the party’s Glasgow list). Alongside councillor Seonad Hoy, the pair argued in a social media video that the party needed a ‘fresh start’ and took aim at the current leadership of the party (co-ran by Harvie and Slater, but with a leadership contest taking place this summer), saying internal power had been ‘consolidated into a smaller and smaller group of people’.
The emerging group is also critical of the time the Greens spent in government – before the Bute House Agreement was scrapped under Humza Yousaf – and have lamented a lack of community investment during that time. Speaking to the BBC, Harvie hit back at his rivals in a statement that perhaps reveals some long-overdue self-reflection:
For a long time, the Greens sometimes were guilty of – and sometimes even felt satisfied – just saying ‘we’re right, everyone else is wrong’. Sometimes that can make activists feel satisfied, but it doesn’t achieve very much. And I think to a lot of voters, it comes across as smugness.
The rowing goes back further, with the party’s former general election candidate, Niall Christie, suspended during the candidate selection process for the 2026 elections after publicly criticising the Green party leadership. Christie has since backed Gomersall and Duane as ‘excellent candidates’ – and has in the past called on Harvie and current Green MSP Ross Greer to stand aside for ‘radical women’, even if they were ranked top of the regional list race by party members. With Greer especially ambitious (he is standing for the party leadership, with Slater and current MSP Gillian Mackay also throwing their hats into the ring) it doesn’t seem likely this will happen anytime soon.
Despite the rifts within the party, the polls suggest the Greens are on track to gain seats next year – with one Ipsos survey from June suggesting the environmentalists could even double their current MSP intake. But as both the Conservatives and SNP have demonstrated in the recent past, party infighting can seriously harm your chances in the eyes of the electorate. And while today’s candidate list suggests that some sitting MSPs may be right to fear for their jobs, a ‘fresh start’ isn’t quite on the horizon yet.
Will Reform’s crime crackdown work?
It’s hard to disagree with Nigel Farage’s diagnosis that ‘Britain is lawless’. The Reform leader painted a bleak image of London in particular, as he unveiled his party’s crime crackdown in Westminster.
Farage’s message for criminals is that a Reform government would have ‘zero tolerance’
Farage spoke of a city where ‘moped gangs [are] running amok’ and shoplifting has soared. ‘We are facing nothing short of societal collapse,’ he said.
He’s right: even the Home Office has acknowledged there has been a ‘44 per cent rise in street crime, record levels of shop theft and a million incidents of antisocial behaviour’. But it’s debatable whether Reform’s proposed remedies for restoring law and order to Britain’s streets are the right ones.
Farage’s message for criminals is that a Reform government would have ‘zero tolerance’: every shoplifter would be prosecuted, every stolen mobile phone which can be tracked will be pursued, and intensive stop and search would be applied to ‘drive knives off the street’.
His goal is clear; he wants ‘criminals to slightly fear the police’. To achieve this, Reform plan to recruit 30,000 more police over five years, prioritising the hiring of military veterans and scrapping all DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) roles and regulations. I sensed from Farage’s remarks that he would prefer a return to frontline policing primarily delivered by strong, tall men, who criminals will fear. Reform would also seek to make life easier for the police by establishing ‘pop-up custody centres’ allowing officers to get back on the beat faster.
And what happens when criminals are caught in Reform Britain? There will be fast-track courts, no bail for serious violence or sexual offences, and a concerted effort to hire more magistrates. Sexual offences, serious violence and knife possession would all carry automatic prison sentences with no chance of early release. A Reform government would also look at life imprisonment for people who commit more than three serious offences, recognising that ‘10 per cent of criminals commit 50 per cent of all the crime’.
All of this would, of course, require a huge expansion of our prison system. Reform intend to build ‘Nightingale prisons’ on Ministry of Defence land, creating 12,400 lower-security prison places. This may prove difficult, as I understand the MoD will be unwilling to give up ‘their’ property. The party would also seek to deport all 10,000 or so foreign nationals in our prisons, subject to reaching agreements with other countries. Farage insisted that he is close to agreeing a deal with Albania, and believes others would follow. Reform also hope to create thousands more ‘dynamic’ prison places overseas, where serious offenders will serve their sentences – including in countries such as El Salvador.
Finally, the party intends to ‘cut the cost of prison by 20 per cent’, pointing out that a cell in France costs around £40,000 per year, versus the £52,000 per year they cost in the UK.
Reform’s crime crackdown might generate good headlines but I am not convinced by this approach. Expanding the use of prison to the extent Reform is proposing would probably require another 20,000-30,000 spaces here, even if we do deport all foreign nationals, which may well prove hard as it relies on achieving international agreements. Relying on overseas prison cells to house those on longer sentences also seems ill-thought out. These programmes would likely be difficult and costly to set up, and seem to show a lack of interest in what happens inside prison. After all, even in Reform Britain, most prisoners would be released one day. This is why rehabilitation must be a crucial part of any crime crackdown.
Farage, to be fair, recognised this, saying that the aim of prison should be ‘to train, educate and rehabilitate’. But no meaningful rehabilitation can happen if someone serves their sentence in a foreign land.
So, while Reform has diagnosed much of what makes people feel scared and angry in modern Britain, its crime crackdown raises some questions.
Our society is increasingly lawless. But our prisons are too, and any serious policy needs to grapple with that. It’s not just about how long we lock people up, but what happens to them inside. The battle against crime has to be fought behind bars too, especially given the extent to which organised crime has penetrated our penal system. Hopefully, over the next six weeks, we will hear more from the party about this detail.