The overlooked brilliance of BBC’s The Hour

With reluctance – but enticed by its surprisingly starry cast and the fact that it had landed, ironically enough, on Netflix – I recently tuned in to The Hour, the BBC’s 2011 political drama series. It’s about a BBC TV news programme being launched in 1956, against the backdrop of the Suez Crisis. And, goodness me, isn’t it good? Better than good, in fact – it’s a high-carat television diamond, and not some lab-grown job either, but the real, romantic, sparkling deal hewn out of the earth and hawked via Antwerp before ending up in the Imperial State Crown.

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From the get-go – those classy, Hitchcockesque credits – you know you’re in for a treat, and it doesn’t disappoint: the dialogue brims with zingers and has the velocity of an assault rifle, like the West Wing in its pomp, while the plot zooms along, twisting this way and that, oozing corruption, sex and ambition. And all against a setting best described as nostalgia on heat.

The Hour teems with scratched furniture, green painted corridors, grunting Rover 75s, cracked beige linoleum, clacking typewriters, bulldog clips, smoking ashtrays, cut-glass decanters and cocktail shakers (by Jiminy, they sink an awful lot here during daylight hours), shimmering furs, pale-green teacups and saucers. It’s like the contents of your local Oxfam from the 1990s have been sent to Dickie Attenborough’s Jurassic Park island and brought to life by the scientific genius of Michael Crichton – and the story comes at you like an opener from Fred Trueman.

The genius behind this period piece is Abi Morgan, whose name will likely ring a bell because she has since gained higher prominence through hit television with shows such as The Split. She also wrote the script for The Iron Lady, which landed the same year as the first series of The Hour.

Most impressive of all is that surprisingly starry cast. Back in 2011 you might not have recognised them, with the exception of Romola Garai and Dominic West. But watch it now and you discover that virtually all of them are everywhere –and it’s probably not going too far to say they represent the cream of their acting generation.

Whether by sheer luck or judgment, The Hour was a kindergarten of soon-to-be overachievers. First there’s Ben Whishaw, who is destined to become Q in the James Bond films, not to mention the voice of Paddington – three times – and then everywhere else. As mentioned there’s West, who was already famous in 2011, but not so famous he couldn’t get the District line if he wanted (I seem to remember sitting opposite him once). But in the years that follow his career will go stratospheric – big screen, small screen along with plaudits for roles including Prince Charles in The Crown, arguably the biggest TV show in the biggest decade in TV history.

There’s also Andrew Scott – yes, the brilliant Andrew Scott who had recently begun as Moriarty in Sherlock but was five years away from Fleabag and emerging as one of the UK’s most bankable actors with roles in Spectre, 1917 and Ripley. And there’s Vanessa Kirby, who will blossom as one of the most well-known actresses of her generation as Princess Margaret in The Crown. And then there’s also the brilliant Joshua McGuire, who you might have seen in the BBC’s short-form comedy, Cheaters – a work of sustained, ten-minute-long brilliance over 18 episodes – who is a mainstay of the supporting cast as the overlooked assistant on the home desk.

The second series also features the talents of Tom Burke, who would go on to star in the BBC’s adaption of The Three Musketeers as Athos, before hitting the heights as Orson Welles in Mank and appearing in the Mad Max reboot (he also popped up in The Crown, too). And while the ghost of Paddington is still there, Peter Capaldi nearly steals the entire show in that second series. He would later become the 12th Doctor Who. There’s also Anna Chancellor in her best part since Duckface or including Duckface, as the world-weary, seen-it-all recovering war photographer. I realise I’ve not mentioned Anton Lesser, either, best known as Morse’s boss in Endeavour, who is a pillar of the first series. Like West, Kirby and Burke he would turn up in The Crown, playing Harold Macmillan.

And somehow, nearly 15 years on, the show still stacks up. It doesn’t feel dated, with stories and themes that if anything carry even more resonance now than then. I didn’t watch it 14 years ago or read the reviews – mixed, though it seems to have gone down well in the US – but clearly, looking back, we can see that The Hour offered a window into the world of television to come. It’s patently what the modern breed of ‘streamers’ were invented for.

It has been compared with Mad Men, the hit US show set against the backdrop of 1960s New York ad land. It’s rather a different beast. There’s just as much drinking and smoking, and there’s an undoubted sexiness to it, but The Hour doesn’t exude the same luxuriant whiff of Eames furnishings, Manhattans or air conditioning. It’s Mad Men with petrol rationing and smog. It’s got unironic tank tops, peeling wallpaper, five o’clock shadows, class hypocrisy and an aesthetic that smacks of grammar-school chic. And, for all that, it’s a delight from start to finish, an as yet unrecognised TV classic.

So before it disappears from Netflix next month, take a look and enjoy it – after all, you paid for it.

David Lammy and the trouble with foreign taxis

After decades on the road, I’ve collected a few rules that have served me well. Rule one: always go inside a cathedral. However dull, tiny or ugly it may seem, it will always tell you something. Even if that something is ‘avoid this town.’ Rule two: pack condiments wherever you go. I recommend Tabasco, soy, sriracha, and salt and pepper grinders – they can save the blandest meal. Lord Byron did this, so you’re in good company. Rule three: expect to be ripped off by the first taxi in any new country, and when it happens, grin and bear it.

This third rule is vital because it accepts human nature. When you arrive in a foreign land you are tired, disoriented, grimy, and likely grappling with a new currency and language. Taxi drivers know this. That’s why they swarm around airport exits like bees, aiming for the honeypot of bewildered new arrivals. Once they’ve whisked you to the hotel, they’ll smile and say, ‘That’ll be 18,000 Finno-Laotian Dong,’ in Swahili. At this point my advice is: simply sigh and hand it over. Yes, it’s 50 quid when it should be a fiver, but it’s not worth a two-hour strop. You’re on a steepish learning curve.

That said, this philosophy does not apply to David Lammy’s recent experience in the Alps, which makes most airport taxi cons look positively quaint.

If you missed the story, here’s the official version. After a grand state visit in Italy, Foreign Secretary David Lammy and his wife, Nicola Green, arranged a 360-mile taxi ride from Forlì to the ski resort of Flaine, across the French border. The trip was reportedly prepaid. However, on arrival, the driver, one Nassim Mimun, demanded an extra €700. Lammy supposedly refused. A row ensued. Mimun then drove off with the Lammy luggage, which included diplomatic passports and a coded briefcase.

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What was in that ‘coded briefcase’? One can speculate, but maybe it was the money we’re paying China to let Mauritius take over the British Chagos Islands. It would be fitting if the world’s most idiotic foreign policy decision – executive producers: David Lammy and Sir Keir Starmer – was scuppered by the world’s most idiotic taxi ride.

At this point the stories about the Lammys’ cab hell diverge. The French authorities have charged Mimun with theft. The Foreign Office says Lammy and Green are the victims. But Mimun alleges that Lammy stormed off without paying. He also claims Lammy became aggressive, striking the seat and shouting ‘fucking French.’ Perhaps the Foreign Secretary was still fuming that France declined his offer to take East Sussex and the Inner Hebrides, so long as Paris also accepts guaranteed Centre Court seats at Wimbledon.

Whatever the truth, it was clearly a hellish cab ride, and we should extend our sympathy to the Lammys. I do, because despite my third rule, I’ve had my share of taxi nightmares.

Nothing, for instance, quite beats the terror of climbing into a cab in some remote mountain region, only to discover that your driver is blind drunk. That’s happened to me several times, and it’s particularly grim if the cab is your only hope of reaching your destination. My rule in this instance is: ask the driver for some of his drink. Then you care less.

Another horror show is the driver who takes an unusual route for his own reasons. This can be as humble as a guy who goes through ten arrondissements in Paris merely to take you two kilometres, while gesticulating in a stagey way and complaining about ‘la circulation.’

And then there was Azerbaijan. I’d booked a driver to take me from Baku to the northeast Caucasus – a three-hour journey. He arrived in high spirits. I soon learned why. He’d decided to turn this unusually long fare into a familial Grand Tour. We visited his grandmother, then his sister, then his cousins, then some friends. Somewhere in the desert we dropped in on a retired accountant.

Eventually I realised I was just the excuse, around the time he introduced me to a folk duo. When I began to look annoyed, he gave me a saucer of homemade jam. We arrived the next day. Yes, the next day. By then I was so befuddled I’d drifted into a sort of Buddhist serenity – possibly the Bardo between life and death – so I tipped the driver with a box of excellent local baklava. I still don’t know why. The man was an artist of opportunism.

All of which might sound damning of taxi drivers. But it isn’t. Because for every chancer, there is a saint.

I remember a cabbie in Medellín, Colombia, who refused to drop me off in a particular suburb. At first I was peeved. Then I saw a gang fight erupt in the rear-view mirror. He may have saved my life. I also remember a Russian driver near the White Sea who came and fetched me just before frostbite kicked in, then took me 50 kilometres out of his way to find vodka to revive me. Then he refused payment. He just liked helping strangers.

Finally, and most gloriously, there are the taxi drivers of Japan. In their pristine old Toyota Crowns, with their immaculate white gloves and swishy automatic doors, they treat every journey like a sacred trust. If you try to tip them, they disembowel themselves in shame.

Which brings us back to Mr Lammy. Perhaps the answer to his problems is this: for his next big diplomatic coup, he should offer Japan the Lake District. Then he’d have to fly to Tokyo. And then, at last, he might have a good experience with foreign taxis.

Gary Lineker is a joke

After a lifetime of being irritated by too many public figures to name, a few years back I discovered a way to bypass this minor but persistent feature of modern life. Whenever their asinine blatherings are splashed over the media, don’t read them as if they were the thoughts and utterances of reasonable – or even real people. Simply think of them as great comic creations of the type we see on screen in a ‘mockumentary’. Nigel Tufnel from Spinal Tap, David Brent from The Office or Alan Partridge. Instantly, your irritation will melt away and you can enjoy a good old snigger instead.

This clever trick first occurred to me when my fuming at the malignant foolishness of Meghan Markle started to affect my good humour some years back. Every day, it seemed, she would be pontificating about feminism or racism and being given an international platform to do so – for no other apparent reason but that a rather dim aristo picked her. But with the broadcast of that South Park episode two years ago, I had my breakthrough. Before it, MM was loathed by a massive number of people; after it, she is merely derided. The same goes for her walker. The only appeal the Sussexes have now is the comedy gold to be mined in the gaping chasm between what they believe they look like (fearless fighters for freedom and justice) and how they appear to the rest of us (two spiteful toddlers attempting to be bosses of a sandpit)

You can perform this transformative mood-booster with any number of people in the public eye; Harriet Harman, Owen Jones, Sandi Toksvig, Jolyon Maugham – pretty much anyone featuring in Gareth Roberts’s list of the greatest unintentional clowns of our age. He calls them Middle Class Holes; I call them Fundits – that is, public figures who believe themselves to be serious people but who are actually only there to amuse us, in the manner of a jester or a droll.

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If only Gary Lineker’s misadventures were so picturesque. Instead he has one bone of contention, Achilles’ Heel and fool’s errand all rolled into one: the Israel-Palestine conflict. Scholars and soldiers alike have agonised for decades about how this sad situation can be settled – and who is the most voluble and visible commentator on it now? A man who won fame kicking a synthetic rubber bladder about.

Lineker can’t shut up about it. The imbecility of the man is almost incomprehensible. It’s like David Beckham deciding to try out for secretary-general of the United Nations when Antonio Guterres steps down. Here is Lineker on the conflict in Gaza: ‘I’ve got kids. They’re grown-up now, but every day people are losing their children, their brothers and sisters.’ What does he think happens in every war? That people lose their cats and dogs? Do Jews lose their children too, or don’t they count? As Oliver Brown politely puts it ‘Lineker risks being portrayed as having selective sensitivity, only reacting to one side of the story. For example, on October 7, 2023, when Hamas launched an attack of psychopathic brutality that ended in 1,141 deaths, the worst single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, he apparently had nothing to say, his only tweet declaring: “Super Spurs are top of the league.”’, though Lineker has subsequently described the event as ‘awful’.

Incredibly, he can say straight-faced to Brown:

‘I won’t get involved in politics, I never really have. Apart from the Brexit vote, because I did a lot of research on that and decided, “This could be worse than we think.” I never back a government. I might criticise Sir Keir Starmer on Israel. But nobody knows my politics.’

Is he having a laugh? There are probably Martians who know his politics.

What will Gary do next, now that the gamut of Funditry has been run?

‘He discusses a wish to travel to India to watch cricket, and to return to Mexico for the first time since the World Cup in 1986, where he won the Golden Boot for England…at one stage, a radical career change was mooted by his employers. “It’s funny, when I was talking to the Beeb and they told me they didn’t want me to do another three years, they said, ‘We think you could do a cooking show’,” he recalls, rolling his eyes. “Are you kidding? I thought it was hilarious.”’

Of course he did. The very thought of tarring the name of this intellectual titan of our age with soggy bottoms! For Lineker truly seems to believe that he is one of the great political consciences of our time, a clear-eyed witness to the worst atrocity of the age, fearlessly speaking truth to power. He’s not planning on shutting up and putting on his travelling boots any time soon. He’s going to keep harping on about the Jews, for some weird reason. As I write, he’s in the throes of saying it wasn’t his fault he Instagrammed some anti-Semitic trope. He’s going to keep talking out of his fundament about an issue he knows nothing about.

But I don’t think he’s consciously lying – Fundits never knowingly lie, as they totally believe their own version of the truth. They really are supremely unconscious of that gap between how they see themselves and how the sentient part of society sees them. Just as Meghan Markle believed that she would be a powerful force for good on the world stage – probably bringing about world peace – and ended up making jam.

There are hints in the Telegraph interview that he’ll be getting involved in the transgender debate further in the future, though he demurs: ‘“Ugh,” he sighs, slumping so far forward in his chair he nearly hits the table. “You can’t cover that subject properly in a post. It’s too nuanced. I don’t actually think, in terms of sport, that it will ever be a real issue. Sport, as it’s already doing, will sort it out and work out rules. Like they did in boxing, when they realised they couldn’t have heavyweights against little fellas.”’

As the commentator Chris Rose summed it up on X:

‘Gary Lineker “logic”:
Tensions in the Middle East = Simple.
Immigration and border control = Simple.
Environmental issues = Simple.
Men in women’s sports = Woah, too complicated to form a straight answer!
He’s such a joke.’

He really is. But will this breast-beating, soul-baring Adrian Mole, 64 and a half, ever get it?

Why the Istanbul talks failed

Only one conclusion can be drawn from today’s talks in Istanbul: Russia has once again rejected the proposed unconditional 30-day ceasefire. In the first meeting between Ukrainian and Russian delegations in three years, Moscow demanded Kyiv withdraw its troops from the four regions Vladimir Putin has claimed but failed to capture completely. When Ukraine refused, Russia’s chief negotiator Vladimir Medinsky reportedly threatened to seize even more: Kharkiv and Sumy regions next. He warned that Russia is prepared to fight forever, before asking: can Ukraine? ‘Maybe some of those sitting here at this table will lose more of their loved ones.’ 

Threats and unrealistic demands are part of the Russian negotiation strategy to push Ukraine to withdraw from the talks. This is why Moscow opposed having a US representative at the table during the direct negotiations with Ukraine. Putin, who offered to renew meetings with Kyiv in Turkey, needs to preserve the illusion of a peace process for Donald Trump. At the same time, behind closed doors his cronies threaten Ukrainians with more war. 

The Kremlin sent a memo yesterday instructing Russian state journalists to emphasise that the new sanctions Russia is about to face – suggesting the negotiations as inevitably failing – ‘will not harm the country’s development’. The memo also stated that Ukraine’s position at the talks today is worse than it was in Istanbul in 2022. Putin even sent the same delegation to continue where they left off. But the reality is the Ukrainians sitting across the table, as well as the situation on the ground, have changed significantly. 

Since the last round of talks in Istanbul, Russia has failed to achieve a single one of its stated war goals. Ukraine has been neither demilitarised nor ‘de-Nazified’. Russian troops have suffered a number of military defeats, forced to flee from the Kyiv, Kherson and Kharkiv regions. Moscow lost a quarter of its Black Sea Fleet and seized less than 1 per cent of land in the past two years at the cost of tens of thousands of Russian lives.

Meanwhile, Ukraine has transformed. In March 2022, it only had rifles, helmets and fuel from its allies to fight. Today, it has a million-strong army equipped with western tanks, fighter jets and domestically mass-produced weapons. The front line is now in a stalemate, and with the current pace it will take Putin decades to capture the four regions he claims as his. If demands for Ukraine’s surrender were futile three years ago, today they’re downright delusional. The only reason Moscow insists on its unacceptable demands is to shift the blame onto Volodymyr Zelensky for obstructing the peace process when he rejects them.

Since both sides remain miles apart in their vision of what the peace should look like, and since Putin has no real intention to end the war, the sham talks organised to impress Trump will continue to fail. The only good news from today’s negotiations is that Russia and Ukraine agreed to a ‘1,000 for 1,000’ prisoner exchange. It is not the ‘all for all’ Kyiv asked for, but it is something. Putin is using every chance to stall the talks, and prisoners of war tortured in Russian jails are just another trump card in his sleeve. 

Gender ideology is still dictating NHS policy

The NHS have decided that there is no minimum age before a child can begin treatment for gender dysphoria. Freedom of Information requests seen by the Telegraph have revealed that toddlers under the age of five are being treated in new specialist gender clinics. The health service had previously proposed that referrals could only be made for children over the age of seven, but after pressure from activists this has now been dropped.

The Cass review was thought to be a turning point for child safeguarding. The government then started making positive sounds on puberty blockers and women’s single sex spaces. Was this a new dawn? However, underneath the surface, trans activists have continued to shape public policy, to the detriment of children’s safety.

It should go without saying that a minimum age of seven for gender treatment is already far too young. No child that young is mature enough to make serious decisions about their gender: decisions that will impact their future fertility, development, and mental health. The proposed age limit of seven was the flimsiest commitment possible, and now even that has been dropped. Already 157 children under ten are waiting to be seen. Without intervention that number will only increase.  

This news comes just a few months after the Sullivan review found that a parent had been permitted to change her baby’s gender weeks after they were born – a move that was never even flagged as a child protection issue by social services. Wes Streeting promised that lessons would be learned, and findings implemented, but this latest backtrack from the health service gives little cause for confidence. 

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Those who have been fighting at the coalface of gender ideology will recognise this story all too well. At the now closed Tavistock clinic, three new children under seven were seen each month before whistle-blowers raised the alarm. Labour have promised us that in these new gender identity clinics things will be different, but recent events raise the alarm. It would be all too easy to allow the medical scandal of the last decade to be repeated, hidden from view behind promises that lessons will be learned. If the NHS is bowing to minor pushback in one consultation, then there is no saying how far they could go to appease activists. 

The treatment of ‘transgender toddlers’ is not the only cause for alarm. Look at the new £10.7 million drug trial which will investigate the impact of puberty blockers on children. While many were relieved to see the last government’s emergency ban made indefinite by the health minister, there is now a serious risk that the drugs will be rolled out through the back door. The trial references no age limit, no cap on the number of participants, and makes no reference to those who won’t be eligible. What is to stop every child currently being seen by a gender clinic being prescribed these potentially harmful drugs in the name of a ‘clinical trial’. Can this sort of experimentation on children ever be justified? Researchers will be studying the impact of puberty blockers on IQ, sexual function, and bone health – how can any doctor ever sign off on subjecting even one child to such extreme risks for a medication which does not treat a real illness. 

Campaigners and whistle-blowers have sacrificed their livelihoods to protect children from the harmful excesses of gender ideology. Women have lost their jobs trying to protect single-sex spaces. In some cases, parents have lost custody of their children for questioning medical interventions in the name of ‘gender affirming care’. The victories that these women won must not become pyrrhic. If the government’s commitments fade in response to just one consultation, which activists will have featured vocally in, then none of their other promises can be trusted. 

Emily Maitlis doesn’t understand grooming gangs

‘You are focusing on Pakistani grooming gangs, because, probably, you’re racist.’ That’s what Emily Maitlis told ex-Reform MP Rupert Lowe when he had the misfortune of appearing on the News Agents podcast yesterday. But is she right?

In fact, Pakistani men are up to five times as likely to be responsible for child sex grooming offences than the general population, according to figures from the Hydrant Programme, which investigates child sex abuse. Around one in 73 Muslim men over 16 have been prosecuted for ‘group-localised child sexual exploitation’ in Rotherham, research by academics from the universities of Reading and Chichester has revealed.

Lowe has highlighted these cases and is crowdfunding an inquiry into the grooming gang scandal. Yet his attempt to uncover the truth about the identity of the men involved appears to have upset Maitlis.

‘Two-hundred-and-twenty-four white grooming gang suspects were found compared to 22 Pakistani suspects…Those are police statistics from the Times,’ she told Lowe.

Maitlis’s figures come from Hydrant, too – she’s just chosen to use the absolute numbers, rather than the relative ones. Pakistanis are a small proportion of Britain’s population, and yet are well represented in these sex abuse figures. They make up 2.7 per cent of the population, but in the first nine months of 2024 accounted for 13.7 per cent of grooming suspects.

In the report that Maitlis appears to have read, Hydrant references a much broader definition of ‘group-based’ abuse. This, Hydrant says, ‘is defined as two or more individuals…who are known to one another and are known to be involved in or to facilitate the sexual exploitation of children and young people.’ Lowe, of course, is speaking specifically about grooming gangs – and in such cases many offenders do have a Pakistani background. Perhaps next time Maitlis accuses someone she doesn’t like of being racist, she should do some more careful research…

Equalities watchdog faces legal action over trans rules

Oh dear. Now legal action has been launched against the UK’s equalities watchdog – alleging that guidance around transgender people and toilet facilities breaches human rights law. Jolyon Maugham’s Good Law Project has today announced it has instructed a team of lawyers in a case against the Equality and Human Rights Commission and Labour’s equalities minister Bridget Phillipson. Good heavens…

It comes after the ruling by the Supreme Court last month that backed the biological definition of a woman, concluding that ‘sex’ in the Equality Act referred to biological sex. The equalities watchdog insisted the ruling meant that transwomen should be prohibited from using female toilets and changing facilities – but despite the unanimous judgment coming from the highest court in the land, Maugham still isn’t happy. ‘Along either with a man and a woman who are trans and someone who is intersex,’ he said, ‘we are suing the EHRC and the equalities minister over the disgraceful and unlawful EHRC guidance.’ The Good Law Project director said a formal 32-page letter had been sent to Phillipson and the watchdog, with the claimants asking the High Court to declare the EHRC guidance in breach of UK human rights obligations. Oo er.

The news follows reports that civil servants are threatening to take both legal and industrial action over guidance that stops transwomen from using female toilets in government buildings. It transpires that civil service members of the Public and Commerical Services Union have hit out at the new rules, claiming they would ‘segregate our trans and non-binary members in the workplace’. Union activists plan to put forward a motion at the union’s annual conference this month calling for ‘legal and human rights challenges’ to the guidance. The motion states that ‘conference rejects biological essentialism and reductionism’, while both the general secretary and the president of the PCS union have slammed the new rules as ‘damaging’ and ‘impossible to implement’. Will the pressure force the watchdog to U-turn? Stay tuned…

Parliament is changing its mind on assisted dying

There was a markedly different feel to today’s debate on Assisted Dying. The last time the House debated Kim Leadbeater’s Bill at the end of November, there was plenty of pep and self-congratulation among the speeches. But today, it was a decidedly more bad-tempered affair, as MPs met for the first day on the Bill’s report stage, ahead of its Third Reading in a month’s time.

There are four obvious reasons why today saw a shift in the mood of the House. The first was the chop-and-change of the Bill’s safeguards during committee stage, with roughly 150 changes since the last vote. Labour’s Florence Eshalomi gave one of the most powerful speeches, declaring she was ‘even more worried now’ about the Bill than before, citing coercion fears. Rebecca Paul, a Tory, claimed there had been a ‘massive shift’ in the Bill’s emphasis from ‘pain’ to ‘choice and autonomy.’

The second reason was Esther Rantzen’s last-minute letter, published last night, accusing some MPs of being influenced by ‘undeclared personal religious beliefs.’ That prompted a series of scornful remarks from various MPs. Eshalomi called her intervention ‘frankly insulting’; fellow Labour opponent Jess Asato invited Leadbeater to condemn Rantzen’s comments ‘distasteful and disrespectful’. The Bill’s sponsor demured, suggesting she had not seen the letter.

The third reason was the lack of time for various MPs’ speeches. The Deputy Speaker was forced to tell MPs to reduce their interventions to just five minutes, with Meg Hillier – the respected chair of the Treasury Select Committee – raising a Point of Order to raise concerns. Jeremy Wright was forced to wrap up his remarks on the panel process which replaced the previous High Court safeguard. That is despite the ex-Attorney General warning that these panels will sit in private and might consider each case with as little as three hours’ thought, without proper investigation.

But the fourth reason was due to the behaviour of the Bill’s sponsor itself. Debating assisted dying without Kim Leadbeater might be considered akin to a performance of Hamlet without the Prince – or first gravedigger, depending on your perspective. Yet there is no doubt that Leadbeater irritated some in the chamber today, not least by her curious disappearance from the debate mid-way through. As Tory MP Simon Hoare noted in a Point of Order, it was a discourtesy to the House not to listen to arguments made in response to her own legislation.

The five-hour debate concluded with a series of votes on amendments put down on the Bill. Asato raised the farce of MPs casting votes without actually hearing speeches from those sponsoring the amendments in question. But, nevertheless, the House voted 288 to 239 to conclude debate. The closest of the rejected amendments was Rebecca Paul’s effort to allow hospices to opt out of assisted dying – opposed by 279 votes to 243. That suggests that there will be no hospice, nor care home, where a family can be certain ending the life of the terminally ill will not be suggested nor normalised.

Still, opponents of the Bill can take heart from one thing: the half-a-dozen MPs who have flipped this week from backing Leadbeater’s legislation to opposing it. Among them include Labour’s Jonathan Hinder, who raised the question of private providers profiting from assisted dying. With a month to go until the next stage of the Bill, there appears to be a shift in momentum. But whether enough minds will be changed to overturn the Second Reading majority of 55 remains to be seen.

Listen to James’s analysis on today’s Coffee House Shots podcast:

A 10mph speed limit is preposterous

The increase of 20mph speed limits in Britain has been sending drivers around the bend. But if an organisation called the Road Safety Foundation (RSF) has its way, things could be about to get even slower – and more frustrating – for motorists. The RSF says that road speeds in cities should be cut to 10mph to prevent deaths and reduce serious injuries. Talk of a 10mph speed limit is preposterous. Does the RSF want to take us back to 1903, when the Motor Car Act of that year first raised the speed limit to what was then a blistering 20mph?

The RSF’s report says, with an apparent straight face, that drivers should not be allowed to go faster than 10mph in any urban street where cyclists or pedestrians are likely to be around, or near any school, hospital or sports ground. In the country, it is true, you could be permitted to let your hair down a bit. But don’t overdo it. On a rural single-carriageway road, the limit might be 20mph, with perhaps as a special concession 30mph where there are no pedestrians or cyclists, and just possibly more where there are ‘fully segregated facilities for any pedestrians or bicyclists’, no T-junctions or crossroads.

Even our remarkably bossy Labour government must surely give this foolish idea short shrift. For all his lack of political acumen, Keir Starmer surely knows that he needs to curry favour with voters who actually want to be able to drive 20 miles on clear roads in something less than an hour, and to be able to do the weekly shop at Tesco on the other side of town without taking up the whole evening.

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But even if the report is binned, don’t be complacent: it may be just a matter of time before do-gooders find another way of making driving in Britain even more miserable.

Yes, cars and vans are ugly, noisy and at times dangerous. But they also increase our quality of life immeasurably. Just consider the cities of 100 years ago, where for many the journey to work took two buses and a tram, and shopping involved trudging home uphill in the rain with a burden of dissolving paper bags. Is anyone keen to go back to this?

The RSF appears to be following a slightly dotty progressive international movement known as ‘vision zero’, which, the report tells us, holds ‘the moral position that no death or serious injury should be considered an acceptable by-product of mobility’. Really?

Of course nobody actually wishes injury or death on anyone. But nearly all of human progress – imagine railways, factories, electricity, complex agricultural machinery, or whatever – involves trade-offs between advantages and risks. To take an absolute safety-first attitude and tell the rest of us that we have to eschew the advantages of modern life to reduce to zero the chances that anyone may get hurt is not only anti-progressive. Many would say it was, in addition, deeply immoral.

There’s also an interesting class divide here. Those who run organisations like the RSF are often middle-class and highly earnest. They typically live in leafy areas where stuff comes quickly from Amazon or Ocado; where public transport is good; and where, as often as not, you can genteelly shower off after cycling to work. Things are different for those living in out-of-town estates or tower blocks who need quick transport to juggle their lives – or those who need a van for work. The 10mph speed limit brigade would be wise to listen up to these folk.

There is an unpalatable logic behind calls for limits on what people are allowed to do with their cars or vans: namely, the unspoken idea that ideally private motor transport is something that shouldn’t really exist at all. If we don’t insist today on our right to use our private vehicles, within reason, as we like, in a few years we could well see them being taken away from us entirely. We have been warned. It’s now up to us to see the signs and force a U-turn.

Is Keir Starmer ‘far right’ now?

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s new ‘far right’ mission to lock up asylum seekers in distant countries yesterday suffered an embarrassing setback on live television.

The former human rights supremo – who cancelled the Tory Rwanda scheme on day one in office – was in Tirana, less than one year later, to discuss setting up a similar scheme in Albania.

Or so the media were led to believe in press briefings beforehand: that it would be a main item on the agenda at his bilateral meeting with Albania’s socialist Prime Minister Edi Rami.

But at their joint press conference, Rami soon put the kybosh on the idea by announcing most undiplomatically that such a deal would never happen.

In evident discomfort, Sir Keir did not respond to what Rami had said but spoke instead of talks he is having ‘with a number of countries’ about similar schemes. These are thought to include Serbia, Bosnia and North Macedonia.

Sir Keir remains in Tirana today for the biannual meeting of the European Political Community of 47 nations.

His trip to Albania comes hard on the heels of his ‘island of strangers’ speech on Monday in which he announced it is ‘time to take back control’ of Britain. The speech came after Reform’s recent local election triumph and surging popularity (one poll this week has Nigel Farage’s party on 33 per cent, Labour on 21 per cent and the Tories on 16 per cent).

The Albania scheme would have involved construction of what is euphemistically called a ‘return hub’ – i.e. a prison – paid for and run by Britain to house and deport failed British asylum seekers.

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Italy’s conservative Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, has already launched such a scheme in Albania. She is still called ‘far right’ by most media above all for her tough stance on illegal immigration.

Yet in Tirana yesterday, Sir Keir described such ‘return hubs’ as ‘a really important innovation’. So what should we call him?

Meloni’s scheme consists of two separate structures: one for identification and processing, the other for detention.

Starmer has had two bilateral meetings with Meloni – in Rome last September, and in London in March – and praised her ‘remarkable progress’ on illegal migration.

There has been considerable interest in Meloni’s Albania scheme, not just from Starmer but from both left and right-wing leaders across Europe, increasingly desperate to find effective solutions to the ever-worsening migrant crisis.

But they, like him, will have to find somewhere else to house theirs.

For as Rama, who earlier this week was elected for a fourth term, spelled out at yesterday’s joint press conference: 

The Albanian Prime Minister was referring, not to the annexation of Albania in 1939 by Italy’s fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini, but to its decision in the early 1990s to allow tens of thousands of Albanians to remain in Italy who had arrived by boat in Puglia in the south after the collapse of Communism.

But what he said yesterday he has said countless times in the past few years.

Even more bizarre than the apparent ignorance of Sir Keir and his advisers about Rama’s refusal to strike similar deals with any other country apart from Italy, is their apparent ignorance as well about the immense legal obstacles such schemes involve.

Sir Keir, as a top human rights lawyer, surely knows all this like the back of his hand as those obstacles stem primarily from human rights laws. So why is he pushing the idea so hard?

Meloni’s original plan was – and remains – to transfer to Albania only migrants from safe countries of origin (thus theoretically not refugees) picked up in the Mediterranean by the Italian coastguard and naval vessels. The plan was to ferry them straight to Albania without them setting foot in Italy. Their asylum applications – given their safe country of origin status – would then be dealt with after a month, with deportation soon afterwards. Safe country migrants who actually reach Italy cannot be transferred to Albania and their asylum applications often take years to process.

Most migrants who arrive in Italy by sea from Tunisia and Libya are from safe countries of origin. Bangladesh is the top country of origin and can hardly be considered unsafe – unless every country outside the ‘Global North’ is unsafe.

Meloni’s scheme seemed like a game changer, hence all the interest throughout the bloc. EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen praised it as ‘out of the box thinking’.

The scheme launched last October but judges in Rome immediately stopped it dead. They refused to approve the detention in Albania of the first migrants sent there who were from Bangladesh and Egypt (another safe country) – on the grounds that both countries were in part unsafe. The judges referred the matter to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg seeking clarity. It is due to issue a ruling in early June.

Meloni was forced to suspend the scheme pending the Luxembourg court ruling. Meanwhile, she has begun to send to Albania failed asylum seekers, mainly from safe countries of origin, for detention pending deportation.

This is precisely what Sir Keir has in mind with his off-shore ‘return hubs’, if he can find a willing country. They too, however, are vulnerable to legal challenge. As he must know.

The only really effective way to stop mass illegal immigration to Italy is to stop migrants setting off from North Africa across the Mediterranean. Meloni and the EU have had some success here thanks to deals with Tunisia and Libya which give them hefty cash incentives to stop departures.

But if Meloni is ever allowed to detain safe country of origin migrants in Albania, then fast-track their asylum applications and deport them, it could prove a game changer, especially as it would also act as a powerful deterrent.

But Britain’s real migrant problem is not the illegal migrants arriving across the Channel from that well-known unsafe country, France. No, it is the hundreds of thousands of migrants who arrive legally in Britain each year. Between 2014 and 2024, net migration to Britain (the difference between the number who emigrated and immigrated) was over four million. What does Sir Keir have in mind with regard to them?

The anti-Israel Eurovision mob are Hamas’s little helpers

Imagine booing a survivor of a fascist attack. People actually did that this week. Pro-Palestine activists heckled and insulted a young woman who survived Hamas’s anti-Semitic butchery of 7 October 2023 by playing dead under a pile of bodies. Take a minute to consider the depravity of this, the sheer inhumanity of tormenting a woman who experienced such terror.

The woman is Yuval Raphael. She’s the 24-year-old singer who’s representing Israel at Eurovision. The last big music event she attended was the Nova festival in the desert of southern Israel on 7 October 2023. What she witnessed there almost defies belief. Mass murder. Heaps of corpses. The infliction of the most unforgiving violence on young people whose only ‘crime’ was that they were Jews in Israel. It is a miracle she survived.

In a normal world, in a world that was not so riddled with the sickness of Israelophobia as ours is, Ms Raphael would have been given a hero’s welcome in Europe. She’d have been celebrated as a symbol of Jewish defiance, of Jewish survival in the face of the armies of anti-Semites that are hell-bent on destroying this valiant people. Not in 2025, though. The moment Ms Raphael touched down in Switzerland for Eurovision, the boos rang out.

The taunting of the terror victim really kicked off during the Eurovision parade in the host city of Basel, where contestants waved to onlookers from trams and buses. Angry activists lined the route to jeer at the Israeli. They waved the Palestine flag, the banner under which more than a thousand of Ms Raphael’s fellow Jews were slaughtered 18 months ago. It was a spectacle of cruelty masquerading as protest.

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Some spat in her direction. One man in a keffiyeh even made a throat-slitting gesture towards her. Israel’s public broadcaster has filed a complaint about this incident with the Swiss police. It heaps shame on Europe that a young Jew who survived a neo-fascist carnival of murder should now have violent threats made against her here. What was that gesture-making man saying exactly? That he’d like to finish what Hamas started? It is beyond grim.

Raphael was booed during her rehearsals too. She says she knew she’d be booed and even ‘practised’ for it. How awful is that? That in the 21st century a young woman from the Jewish State is forced to prep herself for public jeering? It’s like when black civil-rights activists in the American South would train for the inevitable roughing they’d receive when they defiantly sat in the ‘Whites Only’ section of a diner.

Let’s leave to one side the daft debate over whether Israel should be allowed to compete in Eurovision. (My view: of course it should.) Let’s just focus on the fact that a survivor of 7 October is being mocked and demonised in Europe. Imagine how dangerously adrift from basic decency you would need to be to taunt a victim of fascist terror. If this persecution of Ms Raphael doesn’t open people’s eyes to the hatred and hysteria of Israelophobia, nothing will.

This is a woman who witnessed the most grotesque outrages against her people. When the massacre at Nova started, she took refuge in a concrete bomb shelter along with 50 others. Hamas, determined to kill as many Jews as possible, repeatedly fired into the packed shelter and threw hand grenades in too. Raphael survived under the crush of dead bodies. She laid there for eight hours. She was one of only 11 people to make it out of the shelter alive.

It was an act of racist savagery, echoing the pogroms of mid-20th century Europe when Jews were likewise forced into buildings or town squares and massacred. And now one of the survivors of this modern-day pogrom is booed. She’s gobbed at. She’s threatened. To my mind this is every bit as vile as if an elderly survivor of Kristallnacht or the death camps were to be harangued and menaced on the streets of Europe.

Surely everyone can now see the bigotry that courses through the veins of anti-Israel activism. Europe’s gleeful persecutors of Ms Raphael are essentially rubbing the salt of Israelophobia into the wounds left by the pogrom she survived. They are Hamas’s little helpers, continuing its sick mission of hunting down the young Jews of the Nova festival, only this time for humiliation rather than death.

Even in the face of all this, Ms Raphael seems incredibly upbeat. She is admirably free of self-pity and is determined to do her best at the Eurovision final tomorrow night. I’ll be voting for Israel, because what better embodies the human spirit than a young woman coming through such horrors to sing her heart out on stage?

MPs should get a say on Starmer’s trade deals

Sir Keir Starmer has been busy talking up his trade deals with the US and India, while also planning ‘reset’ talks with the EU next week. Yet are these agreements all they are cracked up to be? The simple answer is that it is hard to tell because MPs are unlikely to get an opportunity to scrutinise them adequately. However, with all these deals, the devil is likely to be in the detail – and there is every chance that each one may prove to be politically contentious in the coming weeks and months.

Over the past year alone, Labour has proposed a controversial new deal with Mauritius over the sovereignty of the Chagos Islands, which could have security implications for our dealings with China. Meanwhile, the FTA with India will provide a sensitive national insurance exemption to Indians working temporarily in the UK. The limited deal with the US might yet metamorphosise into something more significant too. Details on pharmaceuticals and a possible digital trade deal remain unknown, although reports suggest Trump has demanded Britain scrap its digital services tax in exchange for getting an agreement over the line. Any new deal with the EU is also bound to provoke debate, particularly on issues such as fisheries and the much-discussed youth mobility scheme.

And yet, unlike controversial legislation, MPs are likely to have little say in the conclusion of any of these new international deals, because they are very unlikely to be given a vote on any of them. Under the royal prerogative, the government is free to sign and ratify new treaties without parliament giving its direct assent. All that is required is that the new agreement is laid before parliament for 21 sitting days, without the Commons objecting. The Commons has the power to delay ratification of a new deal coming into force in that time, but it has never successfully managed to do so. Parliamentarians often get no chance to pick through and debate its finer detail.

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Remarkably, important political arrangements (often referred to as ‘memoranda of understanding’) with foreign states, which fall short of a legally binding treaty, do not even have to be laid before parliament. This state of affairs has not gone unremarked. As far back as 1872, in the second edition of his seminal work The English Constitution, Walter Bagehot observed that:

Treaties are quite as important as most laws, and to require the elaborate assent of representative assemblies to every word of the law, and not to consult them even as to the essence of the treaty, is prima facie ludicrous.

More recently, a number of select committees (including the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee in the Commons and the International Agreements Committee (IAC) in the Lords) have concluded that the current legislative framework is not fit for purpose and that parliament should be given a vote on important new agreements.

Unfortunately, these recommendations have not found favour with the government. One of the results of this is that treaties remain poorly scrutinised in the House of Commons (which, unlike many countries, does not have a dedicated committee to perform this function). One imagines that the ‘meaningful votes’ in 2019 on Theresa May’s proposed Brexit deal did not make for an enticing precedent for giving parliament a say.

Detailed parliamentary scrutiny is not sexy. Promoting it always sounds like asking people to eat more vegetables, or give up a pleasurable vice. Unsurprisingly, MPs do not tend to enjoy the line-by-line examination of technical material. It is exhausting and rarely brings praise or reward. Moreover, unlike Bills, the signed treaties which are laid before parliament are finished deals. It is almost impossible to reopen them and make changes. So detailed scrutiny can feel somewhat futile.

Yet international agreements are important. Trade deals, in particular, can be far-reaching and have an impact on the day-to-day life of both workers and consumers, affecting the prices of goods in the shops and the international demand for British products. As elected representatives of the people, MPs should have the chance to pick through the terms being struck, challenge harmful proposals and mould them to serve their constituents’ best interests.

Coming down the tracks are proposed new trade deals with Israel and the Gulf States. It seems astonishing to think that parliament may not get a substantive vote on the principle of these agreements, or those Starmer has already struck. This means that future arrangements with foreign states and the EU will lack democratic legitimacy.

The Lords IAC is currently conducting an inquiry into the process by which treaties are scrutinised, but it is hard to envisage that its review is likely to be met with much more enthusiasm by the current government than the previous select committee inquiries. While I have a vested interest, since I am currently promoting a draft Treaties Ratification (Parliamentary Consent) Bill, I would argue that we will not see substantial change until parliament decides to change the law and demand its consent to significant treaties.

Such an approach would mean that MPs would need to take a view on important agreements which are legally binding in international law. It would also allow them to pressure the government about the agreements that it is minded to sign up to, ensuring that legitimate concerns around sovereignty and the impact of new deals on agriculture, UK workers, and the environment are taken seriously. It might even give the government an advantage when negotiating new agreements with other states if it could say ‘our parliament won’t put up with that’.

Some of Starmer’s new deals might well be seen as substantial political achievements. But the absence of sufficient parliamentary scrutiny should also be seen as a warning: if parliamentarians do not act soon, they may come to regret it.

The red lines delaying an American nuclear deal with Iran

Speaking to reporters on his Middle East diplomatic tour, Donald Trump hinted at what could be his biggest foreign policy achievement to date. A nuclear deal with Iran is ‘close’, he said. Tehran has ‘sort of’ agreed to curbing its suspected clandestine atomic weapons programme.

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The US and Iran have now had four rounds of indirect negotiations in Oman, and although the content has remained confidential, the atmosphere between the two sides has been candid but amicable, raising expectations that a deal to stop Tehran ‘breaking out’ and building a nuclear bomb could be brokered diplomatically without the need for Trump to resort to military force.

When the first round of talks began in Muscat last month the US position appeared to be that Iran would need to limit all enrichment of uranium to 3.67 per cent. This would be the level appropriate for use in a civil nuclear programme.

However, this position changed in an interview Trump did on NBC’s Meet the Press on 4 May. His goal was the ‘total dismantlement’ of Iran’s uranium-enrichment programme, he said. Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy at the Muscat talks, underlined his boss’s demand by saying it was Washington’s ‘red line’. 

Abass Araghchi, the Iranian foreign minister and the official chosen by the Tehran government to be the negotiator at the Oman talks, said the continuation of the enrichment programme was Iran’s red line. He accused the US of ‘inconsistency’ and said it was unhelpful.

Trump also wants any deal with Iran on its nuclear programme to embrace two other areas of concern to the US: the Iranian ballistic-missile programme and the support Tehran provides for proxy militia and terrorist groups in the Middle East, notably Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and the Popular Mobilisation Forces in Iraq. 

When Trump in his first administration withdrew the US from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) signed in 2015 during Barack Obama’s presidency, he cited the failure to include any clauses on Iran’s state funding of terrorism. He also described the deal, agreed by Iran with the US, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany, as a ‘horrible one-sided nuclear agreement’ which wouldn’t stop Tehran from building a bomb eventually. This was partly because there was a finite period for limiting Iran’s enrichment programme of only 15 years.

Iran has insisted that it has no intention to build a nuclear weapon. But the rapid development of its uranium-enrichment programme tells another story. The number of gas centrifuges required to ‘spin’ the uranium at accelerating speeds to higher grades have proliferated at Iran’s key nuclear facilities at Fordow and Natanz. Enrichment has also progressed way beyond what is suitable for civil nuclear power and is approaching weapons-grade level – 90 per cent enrichment.

In its latest report for 2025, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which has had the job of trying to keep track of Iran’s overt and covert nuclear programme, said nearly 275 kilograms of uranium had been enriched to 60 per cent. Another 606 kilograms had been enriched to 20 per cent.  The Hiroshima bomb used about 64 kilograms of uranium. The IAEA is due to produce an updated report at the end of this month.

Different estimates have been given about how long it might take Iran to build its first nuclear bomb after a decision is made to go ahead. But the timescales have come down rapidly. The estimates range from a few months to a year. 

The talks between the US and Iran have been constructive for a number of reasons.

Attempts at moving the nuclear issue along failed to make any headway during the administration of President Joe Biden, although efforts were made to put new life into the JCPOA which, by the way, is still supported by the other 2015 signatories. 

The arrival of Trump in the White House for a second term gave new impetus to the nuclear threat posed by Iran. Trump said he would prefer a diplomatic solution but made it clear the military option was one he would take if necessary.

When six B-2 Sprit strategic bombers arrived at the British-owned US base on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean in March, joined a few weeks later by four B-52 bombers there was widespread speculation that the military option might be on the cards sooner than anticipated. The US military focus, however, was at that time on the Houthis in Yemen. Still, Tehran would have got a fright.

The political and strategic dimension has also changed dramatically since 2015. Israeli military action against Hamas and Hezbollah, and US attacks on the Houthis, dealt massive blows to Iran’s so-called ‘forward defence’ aimed at deterring the US and Israel from launching an attack. Also, crucially, Israeli airstrikes on Iranian air defence systems in October, in retaliation for Tehran’s direct strikes on Israel, have made Iran more vulnerable to any attempt by the US to bomb its nuclear facilities.

Last month Iranian foreign minister Araghchi said Iran was ready to ‘seal a deal’ provided the US withdrew its ‘military solution’.

While it seems unlikely Trump would want to rule out an option that can only put pressure on Iran to sign a new nuclear deal,  the optimistic comments coming out of the talks so far suggest that Tehran is now more desperate than ever to get an agreement with Trump. Doing so will remove at least a proportion of the sanctions that have crippled the country’s economy and provoked unrest in the population, particularly among the younger generation. 

More talks are being planned.

Rachel Reeves’s war on family businesses

The Environmental and Rural Affairs select committee is surely right that the government imposed the inheritance tax changes on farmland without proper consultation – and ignored the likelihood that they will cause serious hardship for family farms.

Never mind the threshold which Rachel Reeves claims will mean most farms can still be passed on IHT-free – something questioned by the NFU and other critics – the new rules will inevitably drive many larger farms out of business when the current generation passes on.

But is there really any point in what the committee is proposing: that the changes are simply delayed for a year? Surely what we really need is some serious thought put into how government can close the loophole whereby wealthy individuals can avoid inheritance tax by putting their wealth into farmland – without impacting family farms.

It is not just farms that are affected by Reeves’s tax grab – it is family businesses of all kinds.

What we really need is a legal concept which I will call a Family Business Trust, allowing genuine family businesses to pass down the generations without being clobbered by inheritance tax. So long as the family remained engaged in the business, it could be inherited by the next generation with neither inheritance tax nor capital gains tax being payable.

There is a way, however, to prevent such a system being abused by wealthy tax-avoiders. Sell out of the business, and capital gains tax would become payable. The rules could go further and stipulate that whenever a business was passed on to a succeeding generation it would be deemed to have acquired all its assets at zero cost. Thereafter, if the company sold off any of its assets, capital gains tax would become payable on the full value of those assets – not just the uplift in their value since they were acquired by the business.

That would prevent wealthy families using a Family Business Trust for purposes of speculation – and ensure that they could only benefit from IHT if they were genuinely engaged in business.

I am sure there will be people who can poke holes in this proposal. Fair enough; I am proposing it as a means of opening debate on how we handle the issue of IHT and family businesses – while accepting that working out the details could be tricky.

As I have written here several times before, I am not in favour of simply abolishing IHT – which I know is a totemic policy for many conservatives. To do that would exacerbate the growing division in society between those who are fortunate enough to have wealthy parents and those who are not.

Nor do I believe in making IHT punitive or confiscatory – rather I believe that a penny should be taxed in the same way whether it has been earned, inherited or gained through investment.

To create the vehicle of a Family Business Trust would seem to me to be a fair compromise – one that retains IHT, yet ensures that entrepreneurs are allowed to build up successful businesses without seeing them dissolved, or sold to larger suitors, on their death.

Sturgeon earns more from second jobs than her MSP role

To the SNP’s Dear Leader, who just can’t seem to keep out of the spotlight. Now Scotland’s former first minister – who is still a sitting MSP – has been accused of prioritising herself over her constituents after her declared extra earnings reveal she is earning more from her second jobs than her role as a parliamentarian. Alright for some!

Alongside her £74,000 a year MSP salary, it transpires that Sturgeon has declared almost £200,000 of additional earnings since resigning from the top job as FM in 2023. Alongside her day job, the Glasgow politician has received yet another bumper sum of £76,500 for her upcoming memoir, Frankly, which is already available to pre-order. It comes on top of an initial book advance of £75,000 from publishers Pan Macmillan, as the second in a series of four instalments for her writing. More than that, however, the former SNP leader banked a staggering sum of £25,000 for her punditry on ITV during the general election – where she ruffled nationalist feathers by referring to the SNP as ‘they’. She may still be getting paid for her parliamentary job, but clearly her mind is elsewhere…

Since stepping down from her leadership role, Sturgeon has spoken just seven times in Holyrood – prompting accusations from the Scottish Tories that she has ‘become a part-time MSP’. The latest revelation comes just a month after it emerged that people attending an in-conversation event with Sturgeon this October in Edinburgh’s Usher Hall will have to pay a hefty charge of £150 to meet the ex-FM before bagging a front row seat at the show. There must be better ways to spend your money, eh?

Why the BBC wants to go German

The BBC’s Director General Tim Davie made a speech this week which suggests he’s leaning toward a radical fix for the Corporation’s financial woes. The question is whether even this government will buy an idea that, to put it politely, seems unlikely to be popular.

Davie’s problem is that the writing is on the wall for the licence fee. Last year the Corporation’s annual report noted that half a million households had stopped paying in the previous 12 months. All of which makes for grim reading for an organisation which has seen its real-term income fall by over 30 per cent in the last decade. Finding a replacement to the licence fee is now a matter of urgency which must be settled by 2027 when the current BBC charter runs out.

That is the background to the speech which Davie made in Salford setting out the challenge the Corporation faces. And while Davie did not state his preference for how to replace the licence fee, a close reading of his speech gives strong clues about the way the BBC’s top brass is thinking. Davie began his speech – as any DG would – by outlining the case for the BBC in general terms. There was, he said ‘a crisis of trust’ in the UK today and that the BBC was willing and able to play its part remedying this state of affairs. It would do so, he claimed, by expanding its fact-checking operation BBC Verify, teaching children about disinformation, and doing more to scrutinise local politicians.

The fact that many of the BBC’s problems stem from a feeling among growing numbers of our fellow countrymen that the BBC itself is part of the ‘disinformation’ problem was not addressed by Davie but he did say that he intended to double-down on restoring objectivity and impartiality to news output. Pardon me for pointing out that we’ve heard that one before – and to date the BBC is still running on the same-old ideological tramlines.

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Then Davie turned to how to pay for the BBC at a time when the customers are fleeing the other way. He said he wasn’t asking for the status quo on the licence fee but then went on to say it was essential that any future funding scheme guarantees the ‘universality’ of the BBC. He went on: ‘The thing is, do we want a universal fee? The current licence fee works and I think is a very good system, but we are saying that based on changing audience behaviour and these huge changes in the world, the system should be reformed and should be modernised. But what we do want is a way in which everyone pays for the BBC fairly, and that is absolutely what we’re hunting for.’

But he then ruled out paying for the Corporation by advertising or by subscription; which, when you think about it, doesn’t leave much except perhaps paying for the BBC out of taxation.

Which brings us to the Rundfunkbeitrag – literally ‘broadcasting licence fee’. The way Germany pays for public service broadcasting is by levying a tax on every household and every business – justifying this by arguing that a national public service broadcaster is in everyone’s interest.

It’s easy to see why this would be very much favoured by the BBC; it would guarantee income in the same way the current system does but set it on an even firmer footing. Will the government buy it? Obviously imposing a new tax to pay for an organisation many people don’t use and others actively dislike wouldn’t be popular. On the other hand it would ensure the survival of an organisation that in most fundamental ways is ideologically aligned with the liberal-left. Furthermore, I don’t think any government, of whatever stripe (save perhaps Reform) would willingly dismantle the BBC because even Tory governments have found it too useful.

A problem for the BBC is that a Rundfunkbeitrag would make the Corporation look even more like a ‘state broadcaster’ than it already is. BBC types bridle at this, claiming the Corporation is proudly free-standing and ‘independent’. That claim rests partly on the licence fee which frees the BBC from direct government control through financing. But in many other ways the BBC is obviously a ‘state broadcaster’.

Consider what happened when Covid struck; the BBC became a handmaiden of government and over the course of that dismal and damaging episode made sure that no voices of dissent about lockdown were ever broadcast. Or take climate change; 20-odd years ago the BBC decided it was all-in on the catastrophist interpretation of rising global temperatures and has made sure no counter-narratives are entertained. Time and time again, the BBC has taken the official line – which is what all state broadcasters actually do.

There’s a caveat of course; the BBC only reinforces those ideas with which it wholeheartedly agrees; any government which wants to do something the BBC doesn’t like – Brexit comes immediately to mind – will find the propaganda machine turned against it. And therein lies the whole weakness of the BBC’s position. The truth is that if the BBC had for the last two or three decades been doing the job it always claims to be doing – providing an impartial news service – things would be different. Imagine if all political parties, all shades of opinion, felt they were getting a fair hearing at the BBC; in that case would we be having this debate at all? No because we’d all think the BBC was doing a great job and the licence fee was just fine and dandy. The reality, as we know, is very different.

Inside Zia Yusuf’s Reform masterplan

On Monday, I sat down for a lengthy interview on Spectator TV with Zia Yusuf, the chairman of Reform UK. This weekend, many of his party’s 677 newly-elected councillors will come to London to hear from him on how to make the most of their bridgehead in local government. One thing that Yusuf is clearly thinking hard about is the role of these councillors in crafting Reform’s narrative for 2029. He believes that they will demonstrate that his party is fit to govern and expose the failings of the established parties in office.

Much of his focus will be fighting the Home Office in court to stop asylum-seekers being put up in Reform–controlled areas. ‘We’ve got a great group of lawyers, led by a KC, who are working for free, completely pro-bono, from their chambers in order to bring cases to resist the dispersal of illegal migrants’, he said. Yusuf is realistic about this: ‘Yvette Cooper is able to do things that no one in local government can – but even by having the fight, Reform will show how taxpayers’ money is being spent on forcing councils to billet illegal migrants.

As an ex-businessman, Yusuf has a nuanced approach to the thorny issue of remuneration too. ‘I would actually expect the average salary to increase’, he said, with regards to council chief executives, arguing that ‘compensation should be heavily tied to results.’ Crucially, Reform’s local election campaign was not on a platform of low council tax – but rather a policy of stamping out waste. Yusuf says that DOGE-style campaigns serve a dual purpose: as well as savings on staff costs, they prevent mission creep and further expenditure on programmes unrelated to frontline services. He promises a website and ‘a place whistleblowers can come forward.’

There are plans for innovations too. Yusuf says he wants a ‘potholes dashboard’ to publish transparent data on just where ‘millions of pounds’ are being spent in each community. It is part of his personal obsession with procurement, which he suggests is responsible for ‘most problems in this country.’ Yusuf cites ‘multi-million pound contracts going to local taxi companies with one bidder.’ Intriguingly, he argues that ‘Once our teams are fully gone through everything, I wouldn’t be the least surprised if the Fraud Squad wasn’t called in in certain cases.’

He promises a zero tolerance approach to councillors accused of any form of misconduct too. ‘If you’re caught up in one of those scandals’, he says, ‘you should expect us to respond in the way it would be appropriate for a party that has stood up very much against that sort of thing.’ That fits in with the attitude of experimentation that Reform has operated since last July. As I write in the Washington Post, the Farage approach to party management evokes the Ship of Theseus: elements of his ship are constantly changed over time, but always the vessel sails on.

Currently, the omens look good for 2029 – but stormy winds can always blow a ship off course. As one Tory remarked to me this week, Reform’s councillors will be treated as the equivalent of a parliamentary party. Opponents will scrutinise them closely; already, a handful of councillors have departed Reform for various reasons. ‘We’ve got people paying more attention to local government than they’ve done in 20 years’, jokes one source. Many Tories are counting on a Farage ‘blow-up’; some even make inquiries into the state of the leader’s mortality.

Yet with each passing month, it is getting harder and harder for both Labour and the Conservatives to put Farage ‘back in his box’. Reform now boasts more members than the Tories; next year it hopes to have more seats in the Senedd and Holyrood. Bigger parties are often better at accommodating big egos: Reform’s continued growth will enable it to withstand personal rows in the future. Farage may be the front and centre of the machine but Yusuf is happy to be the man behind it.

Could Starmer’s ‘return hubs’ work?

Yesterday, following the publication of Labour’s immigration white paper, Sir Keir Starmer tried to pull a rabbit out of the hat by announcing what he described as ‘return hubs’ for failed asylum seekers.

On a visit to Albania to discuss measures to crack down on organised crime and illegal immigration, Starmer said he was in talks with a number of countries about the idea and that he saw return hubs as ‘a really important innovation’.

Unfortunately, he was left like a stage conjuror with a malfunctioning prop when his host – the Albanian PM, Edi Rama – immediately discounted the idea of Albania hosting any such project. It is hard to see the announcement as anything but an embarrassment.

Few will be surprised that Starmer is finding the question of asylum and immigration no less of a thorny issue than his Conservative predecessors. The underlying issues remain the same and there are few obvious solutions.

Starmer’s proposals for asylum and immigration reform currently seem somewhat half-baked.  Attacked by critics as ‘Reform lite’, the government’s white paper offered a loose promise to clarify rules around Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (the right to family life) in the hope that judges allow fewer applications based on ‘exceptional circumstances’. Also announced were stronger enforcement powers and tougher action against foreign offenders. We have heard much of this before.

The PM’s new announcement of return hubs seems somewhat premature. He is currently not even able to announce which countries might host failed asylum seekers; how many people might be removed; what it might all cost; and whether the result would be large numbers of individuals being detained indefinitely in Eastern Europe at taxpayer expense.

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The idea of return hubs is hardly a new one. However, it is important to note that Starmer’s proposal is very different to the previous government’s Rwanda scheme. In particular, it would only apply to people refused asylum with no further routes to appeal.

The idea is apparently aimed at failed asylum seekers using ‘stalling tactics’ to prevent their removal. The BBC has reported that proposed hubs are likely to be situated in Balkan countries such as Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. 

Such a policy may have some limited effect on the government’s ability to remove illegal migrants. But drilling down into the practicalities, it seems unlikely to have a major impact. First, it will only apply to those whose asylum applications have failed – yet it appears from Home Office data that the majority of irregular entrants to the United Kingdom between 2018-2024 were either granted asylum or some other form of leave to remain.

Second, the only effective way to ensure that failed asylum seekers do not delay their removal (by way of further appeals) is to ensure that their removal is ordered judicially at the same time that their asylum claim is rejected. They would then need to be removed from the country swiftly. There is no reason this could not be done, but the Home Office has not exactly proved itself effective in this regard in the past.

Finally, to secure such a scheme against domestic legal challenge, it would probably have to be established by primary legislation – which would obviously delay its implementation.

Legally, removing failed asylum seekers to countries which are members of the Council of Europe (and the ECHR system) is likely to be somewhat more straightforward than removing people to Rwanda. It is worth recalling that when the Supreme Court made its ruling against the Rwanda scheme in November 2023, it did not say that it was unlawful to outsource the asylum process. Rather it observed that Rwanda was not, at that time, a country to which it was safe to send asylum seekers.

The idea of outsourcing asylum is also becoming more mainstream. Both the EU and the UN Refugee Agency have endorsed the idea of establishing some form of return hubs – although Italy’s asylum deal with Albania, which is based on this model, has been held up by legal challenges which are now due to be determined at the European Court of Justice.

Starmer’s plan seems more pragmatic and less performative than the impractical and extortionately expensive Rwanda scheme. Whether he can find any countries willing to accept large number of individuals who might be eligible for removal is another question though.

In order to win any credit with the public, Starmer will have to demonstrate that the idea of introducing return hubs is a practical, effective and affordable innovation, rather than simply a sleight of hand. When it comes to the asylum system, the electorate has heard far too many excuses already.

Bets for Newbury and York

The form of the Virgin Bet-sponsored Scottish Sprint Cup at Musselburgh last month is rock solid. The winner, American Affair, and the runner-up, Jm Jungle, filled the same two places in a hotter race at York yesterday off their revised marks.

Fifth at Musselburgh after being backed into 2-1 favourite was COVER UP trained by the father and son team of Simon and Ed Crisford. The five-year-old gelding was beaten less than three lengths but I am pretty sure he is better than that.

The horse can be tricky at the start but tomorrow he will be in the safe hands of William Buick, who has won on him three times before, when he runs in the Hong Kong Jockey Club Handicap at Newbury (3.45 p.m.).

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The race, over six furlongs, has attracted 12 runners for a first prize of more than £38,000. At the time of writing, only William Hill was offering prices on the contest so back Cover Up 1 point each way at 17-2 with that bookmaker, paying four places. However, you might well get better odds on the horse later today with other bookies.

As usual, York has delivered some wonderful fare this week and it stages the final day of its May meeting today. I like a couple of horses in the same race: the Knights Solicitors Handicap (2.42 p.m.), a competitive contest over more than 10 furlongs for a first prize of nearly £31,000.

My first fancy is AUSTRIAN THEORY for the local Tim Easterby yard because this six-year-old gelding was unlucky in a Chester handicap just eight days ago. Running from a poor outside draw in stall 12, he was short of room entering the straight and then failed to haul in the winner Paddy The Squire.

Austrian Theory is up 2 lbs in the official ratings for that run but a mark of 87 is still fair on his best form. Back him 1 point each way at 8-1 with Paddy Power, Ladbrokes or Coral, all paying four places.

However, I also want to be on ZAIN BLUE for the John Butler/Connor Beasley trainer/jockey combination. Newmarket handler Butler has his string in fine form and he also has a good record when sending his horses up to York.

Zain Blue clearly needed his first run of the season when down the field in a Newmarket handicap last month but he will be fitter today and the step up in trip looks sure to be in his favour.

The four-year-old colt also has winning form at York from his final start last season and cheekpieces, fitted that day, are back on for his race later today. In short, he ticks a lot of the right boxes and so back him 1 point each way at 10-1 with bet365, Paddy Power or BetVictor, all offering four places.

The Group 2 Boodles Yorkshire Cup at York (3.45 p.m.) has attracted only five runners and one horse, Rebel’s Romance, has easily the best form. However, at odds of little better than evens on this seven-year-old gelding, it’s easy just to watch this race and enjoy it with no financial interest.

Next week I will take an early look at Royal Ascot which runs for five days from Tuesday June 17 to Saturday June 21 inclusive.

Pending:

1 point each way Austrian Theory at 8-1 for theKnights Solicitors Handicap, paying 1/5^th odds, 4 places. 

1 point each way Zain Blue at 10-1for the Knights Solicitors Handicap, paying 1/5^th odds, 4 places. 

1 point each way Cover Up at 17-2 for the Hong Kong Jockey Club Handicap, paying 1/5^th odds, 4 places. 

Last weekend: + 2.2 points.

1 point each way Zoffee at 20-1 for the Chester Cup, paying ¼ odds, 4 places. 3^rd. + 4 points.

1 point each way Caballo de Mar at 6-1 for the Chester Cup, paying 1/5th odds, 5 places. 2^nd. + 0.2 point.

1 point each way Metal Merchant at 11-1 for the Victoria Cup, paying 1/5th odds, 7 places. Unplaced. – 2 points.

2025 flat season running total – 1.8 points.

2024-5 jump season: – 47.61 points.

2024 flat season: + 41.4 points on all tips.

2023-4 jump season: + 42.01 points on all tips.

2023 flat season: – 48.22 points on all tips.

2022-3 jump season: + 54.3 points on all tips.

Lammy hits back in row with French taxi driver

Back to our hapless Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who has found himself embroiled in a new war of words. No, not with Sergey Lavrov or president Xi – this time, it’s with a French cab driver. Zut alors!

Lammy got into a dispute with Nasin Mumin after the taxi driver charged the Foreign Secretary and his wife Nicola Green an additional fee of €700 (£590) for a 360-mile trip from Forli in Italy, where the King made a state visit, to Flaine in France, where the couple were holidaying.

Mumin alleges the couple’s entourage had agreed to pay the extra money (on top of the €850 (£720) that had already been paid), because Lammy was a higher-risk client. He has branded Lammy a ‘liar’ and a ‘thief’ after the Foreign Secretary refused to cough up.

For his part, the Foreign Secretary has quite a different story. Lammy and Green have claimed that the cabbie demanded more money at their destination, despite agreeing that the fee had been paid in full on starting their journey. It is also claimed that while the taxi driver demanded more cash, he opened a compartment in the car to reveal a knife to Lammy’s wife. Sources close to the Foreign Office denied Lammy had been aggressive in any way, with the department adding:

‘We totally refute these allegations. The fare was paid in full. The Foreign Secretary and his wife are named as victims in this matter and the driver has been charged with theft. As there is an ongoing legal process, it would be inappropriate to comment further.’

Mumin, who has since been fired by GetTransfer and charged with stealing luggage and cash from Lammy and Green, admitted he drove off with the Lammys’ luggage after the pair got out of the taxi, but says he phoned the Swiss police afterwards and passed over his details. The driver – who alleged the Foreign Secretary became aggressive over his fee demands and ‘hit me in the neck’ – also insisted he had returned all the couple’s belongings ‘of his own accord’. He added: ‘If you carry a minister, there are all sorts of protocols to follow, including informing the French embassy in Rome and even having a security agent in the car. That’s why when I found out who it was in Italy, I demanded the extra fee and his entourage agreed it would be paid.’