Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Wednesday

Madeline Grant

It's a bit rich for Starmer to talk about shame

You always know it’s going to be a good PMQs when things start with Ian Lavery. After a winding and angry monologue about things being grim up north – Holden Caulfield meets Ken Loach – Lavery, with supreme comic timing, asked the Prime Minister if there was much to look forward to on the horizon. Doubly funny was that Mr Lavery, a man so aggressive in his basic delivery that he makes an XL Bully look like a maiden aunt, managed to make this sound like a threat. Though, frankly, given the government’s track record it may as well be. Starmer’s pomposity came back to bite him as Mrs Badenoch

Lucy Dunn

Scotland bows to pressure to launch grooming gang review

The Scottish government is set to announce a national review of the grooming gang evidence in Scotland, after coming under pressure to take action on reports of organised sexual exploitation. An independent judge will assess the situation in Scotland, with their conclusions then used to help the government decide whether there should be full public inquiry. The Scottish Conservatives have been clear for some time that their position is to move straight to a national probe, while Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar has welcomed reports that a review is forthcoming.  The SNP government has, however, been accused of dragging its feet on the issue – with political opponents insisting that

Tim Shipman

PMQs: at least Kemi is enjoying herself

15 min listen

It was PMQs today and it is clear to see that Kemi Badenoch is starting to enjoy herself. She opened with the departure of the head of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), as it allowed her to suggest that Starmer was dodging taking responsibility himself. She asked: ‘Does the Prime Minister believe that when an organisation descends into total shambles, the person at the top should resign?’ To be fair, she has lots of ammunition between the leaks, botched Budgets and Cabinet discontent – however, the leader of the opposition does seem to be hitting her stride just at the moment when the Tories are enjoying a modest bump

Isabel Hardman

Kemi Badenoch is enjoying herself

Kemi Badenoch had plenty to work with at Prime Minister’s Questions today. She opened with the departure of the head of the Office for Budget Responsibility, as it allowed her to suggest that Starmer was dodging taking responsibility himself. She asked: ‘Does the prime minister believe that when an organisation descends into total shambles, the person at the top should resign?’ Starmer replied that he was ‘very proud to lead this party at the budget last week’, listing the positive announcements on the NHS, energy bills and so on, before adding: ‘We’re fixing the mess that they left, and I’m very proud to be doing so’.  Badenoch then made her

Joanna Williams

Are the Girl Guides ashamed of their trans ban?

In 1984, I was Middlesbrough’s most eager Brownie. Such was my enthusiasm, I happily chomped my way through raw potatoes after an older girl, having failed to light the campfire, ordered us to tell Brown Owl: ‘This is how we like them!’ That was sisterhood, and I was deeply committed. So imagine my horror upon discovering, a few years ago, that Brownies and Guides were now admitting boys. Not the rough and tough fun kind who probably could have got a fire started, no problem at all. But the drippy ones who like to wear dresses and call themselves girls. I was horrified, but not surprised. The organisation’s woke capture

Steerpike

Jenrick rules out Tory-Reform pact ahead of 2029

To the parties of opposition, about whom some rather interesting stories have emerged. The Financial Times has reported today that Nigel Farage has told his donors that he expects Reform UK to do an election deal with the Tories. The report describes how a donor claimed the Reform leader thought a pact with Kemi Badenoch’s lot could be done if it was on his terms, while an associate who met with Farage recently insisted the Clacton MP thought a deal was inevitable. But those willing the two groups to put aside their differences and warmly embrace may be feeling disappointed today, after both sides have publicly stated they are opposed

Steerpike

Did Reeves mislead voters over her chess prowess?

When it rains for Rachel Reeves, it pours. This time it isn’t revelations about the now-Chancellor’s apparently plagiarised book or her false LinkedIn ‘economist’ claims or, er, accusations she misrepresented the state of the national finances. No, now her chess ability has come under scrutiny. A former junior champion has hit out at Reeves over her claims she was a girls’ under-14 champion herself – claiming she was much nearer the bottom of the scoreboard when she played. Ouch. Alex Edmans, a finance professor at the London Business School, has taken issue with Reeves’s assertion that she was a top chess player in her youth. A year before Labour’s landslide

Jimmy Nicholls

What’s so great about juries?

Criticising m’learned friends has been a risky undertaking since a certain newspaper described a few beaks as ‘enemies of the people’ during the kerfuffle about Europe a few years back. In the age of populism, you are either a defender of the rule of law or an incipient fascist accusing an honest judge of being an ‘ex-Olympic fencer’. It is therefore with some trepidation that I’d like to suggest the government’s plans to restrict jury trials might not in fact signal the end of democracy. An absence of 12 angry men (or indeed women) at the trial of Burglar Bill probably won’t ‘break the increasingly thin connection between the state

Michael Gove

Why Rachel Reeves should go & would Corbyn be a better prime minister?

48 min listen

This week: Rachel Reeves reels as Labour’s Budget unravels – and a far-left Life of Brian sequel plays out in Liverpool. After a bruising seven days for the Chancellor, Michael and Maddie ask whether Reeves’s position is now beyond repair. Did Keir Starmer’s bizarre nursery press conference steady the ship – or simply confirm that the government is panicking? And is the resignation of the OBR chair a shield for Reeves – or a damning contrast with her refusal to budge? Then: the inaugural conference of Your Party delivers pure comic gold. As Zarah Sultana’s collective-leadership utopians clash with Corbynite diehards and Islamist independents, Michael explains why the far left’s

Tuesday

Madeline Grant

David Lammy’s jury reforms aren’t bold – they’re brazen

King John placing his seal on Magna Carta 810 years ago is widely held to be a low point for the monarch and a boon for the rest of us. Now all those centuries later his work is about to be undone by none other than David Lammy who arrived in the House today to announce the partial abolition of trial by jury. The Sage of Tottenham makes an unlikely tyrant; his air is of someone who should be losing control of a children’s birthday party somewhere. Yet John wasn’t exactly a man of steel either – though he at least had a sort of animal cunning. We have gone from

Owen Matthews

Why Putin thinks destiny is on his side

The Kremlin pulled out all the stops for the visit of Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and special envoy Steve Witkoff to Moscow today. Accompanied by Putin’s envoy Kirill Dmitriev, Witkoff and Kushner strolled through crowds on Red Square with minimal security after lunching at a fancy restaurant on Petrovka street. Not coincidentally, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi was also in town for a meeting with Russian Security Council head Sergei Shoigu, where Russia affirmed its support for Beijing’s One China policy.  It was a sophisticated piece of great power signalling intended to send a multi-part message to Donald Trump. First and foremost, the Kremlin was showing off its new

Brendan O’Neill

The scandal of the Maccabi ban must not be allowed to fade

The scandal of the Maccabi Tel Aviv ban keeps getting worse. Now we discover that West Midlands Police (WMP), in their report calling for the barring of Maccabi fans from the football game against Aston Villa last month, cited an entirely fictitious football match. Their report said the last time Maccabi played in the UK was against West Ham in 2023. But no such clash took place. Which begs the question: what else in their Maccabi-mauling report was made up? The fictitious match came to light during the grilling of Craig Guildford, WMP’s chief constable, at the home affairs select committee yesterday. Lord Mann, the government’s adviser on anti-Semitism, pointed

Steerpike

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor could face MP grilling

Oh dear. It seems that the horror never ends for the Andrew formally known as Prince. Mountbatten-Windsor – as he must now be called – was formally stripped of his last remaining royal titles last night, as the anger over the Jeffrey Epstein scandal shows no sign of abating. And today it has got even worse for Andrew as MPs try to get in on the act too. Did someone say ‘photo opportunity’? The public accounts committee has this afternoon announced plans to launch a wide-ranging inquiry into the Crown Estate property leases held by the Royal Family. The onetime former Duke of York only paid a ‘peppercorn rent’ for his

Andrew Tettenborn

The worrying flaws in Lammy's plan to cut jury trials

David Lammy clearly spotted that he had set the cat among the pigeons when his plans to cut back on jury trials were leaked last week. Realising how many noses he had put out of joint by proposing to go further even than Sir Brian Leveson’s ideas of last July, in his speech to the Commons today he essentially returned to the Leveson scheme.  Under the new rules, fraud trials will largely become judge-only. In addition, the aim is for anything with a likely sentence of three years or less to be tried by a judge alone in a new crown court bench division. For offences currently triable either way,

Oscar Edmondson

Lammy on trial over plans to scrap juries

12 min listen

Today we’re going to be talking about David Lammy, and his brand new plans to drastically reduce the number of jury trials in the UK in an attempt to address the backlog. With the backlog of cases due to be heard in courts already at 78,000, and heading for 100,000, the Justice Secretary believes that only radical solutions can tackle the ‘courts emergency’. But is he being too radical? This comes on the same day that Lammy announced that 12 prisoners have been accidentally released in the last three weeks. But first, the Budget fallout continues and there has been a resignation but – crucially – it’s not the Chancellor.

Steerpike

Watch: Jenrick rips into 'Lammy dodger'

It is David Lammy’s big announcement on juries today – so that means another outing for the Tory Trident, Robert Jenrick. The heat-seeking-missile of the Tory frontbench has been itching for a shot at his hapless opposite number, ever since the debacle over leaked prisoners at PMQs three weeks ago. So it was clearly with some relish that Jenrick rose in the Commons this afternoon to denounce the ‘Lammy dodger’ for briefing various statements to the press before first telling parliament. Not something the sainted Conservatives would ever do themselves of course… That teed up the Lord Chancellor for a fairly torrid time in the House. The Labour awkward squad

David Shipley

Why won’t Lammy tell us about prisoners released by mistake?

It’s now over six weeks since Hadush Kebatu’s ‘release in error’ sparked a two day manhunt, and highlighted our prison system’s disastrous habit of regularly releasing inmates who should remain in jail. Since then we’ve heard about the accidental releases of Kaddour-Cherif, a prolific criminal from Algeria who overstayed a visa six years ago, and Billy Smith, released on the day he received a 45 month prison sentence. The government has promised to get a grip, but today we learned that another 12 prisoners have been released in error in the past three weeks, and that two of them are still at large. It’s clear from these answers that the

James Heale

Lammy unveils plans to slash jury trials

David Lammy has this afternoon set out his plans in parliament to drastically reduce the use of jury trials in England and Wales. With the backlog of cases due to be heard in courts already at 78,000, and heading for 100,000, the Justice Secretary believes that only radical solutions can tackle the ‘courts emergency’. He has announced that jury trials will be scrapped for crimes carrying a likely sentence of less than three years. However, the changes will not apply to more serious offences such as rape, murder and robbery.  Lammy believes his plans are proportionate, given the scale of the problem Lammy is depicting himself as the heroic defender

Debbie Hayton

A four-day week won't save teachers from burnout

Campaigners have urged Bridget Phillipson to give teachers in England and Wales a day out of school every week with no loss of pay. The 4 Day Week Foundation believes that shorter working weeks can reduce burnout, improve productivity and support better work-life balance. What’s not to like about that? Quite a lot, actually. The aim is not to introduce three-day weekends but allow teachers to work from home one day in every five. Teachers like me certainly need time to plan schemes of work, prepare lessons, mark our pupils’ work, and deal with the next crisis. We need more of it during the school day. But that does not

Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

Tulip Siddiq can’t turn her back on Bangladeshi politics now

A Bangladeshi court sentenced the Labour MP Tulip Siddiq to two years in prison in absentia on Monday. Siddiq, who stepped down as anti-corruption minister earlier this year, has been found guilty of ‘influencing’ her aunt, the former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina, to secure a plot of valuable piece of land for her family outside Dhaka. Hasina was pushed out of power following massive demonstrators last year and has since been sentenced to death by Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal. She is currently living in exile in India. It does appear that Siddiq is now complaining about the very forces in Bangladesh that propelled her to power in the first place Siddiq