Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Wednesday

Andrew Lilico

Rachel Reeves’s days are numbered

In her Budget speech today, Chancellor Rachel Reeves will have four goals. Two political – keeping her own job and keeping Keir Starmer in his as PM – and two economic – avoiding a financial crisis and getting the economy going. Her chances look poor on all of them. In the latest polling by Lord Ashcroft Polls, 76 per cent of voters expect the Budget to make them personally worse off, versus only 2 per cent who expected it to make them personally better off. Even amongst Labour voters, only 8 per cent expect the Budget to make them better off. As to making the country as a whole better

Michael Simmons

How bad will Rachel Reeves’s Budget be?

After a needlessly long run-up, Budget day is finally here. Investors, bond traders and house builders are breathing a collective sigh of relief – not because of what the Chancellor will say at around 12.40 p.m., but because the speculating, pitch-rolling and U-turning is finally over. Under the rules of engagement between the Treasury and the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), the fiscal watchdog must be given ten weeks to produce forecasts. After dithering over when to trigger the process, Reeves decided to give them 12. I’d argue that decision has proved close to catastrophic. Her hope that good news might materialise in the meantime has, in fairness, partly paid

James Kirkup

Will Rachel Reeves's two Budget gambles pay off?

It’s traditional to describe Budgets as a political gamble. Rachel Reeves is actually making two bets. First, that voters can be persuaded to see the big picture of the economy – and second, that Labour MPs can be persuaded to take the long view of this parliament. Both are long-odds flutters. On the macro numbers, Britain is… fine. Not flourishing, but not failing. GDP is still inching forward – up 1.3 per cent on the year to the third quarter of this year – better than France (0.9 per cent) or Germany (0.3 per cent). Services output is growing modestly; productivity is edging upward; and household debt is at its

Ed West

Starmerism was always doomed to fail

Numerous civil servants have recalled their first encounter with Labour ministers following their election victory last year. After the new rulers of Britain first walked into their departments, and following pleasantries with their officials, ministers asked them for their ideas about how to run the country, to which the confused officials responded: ‘That’s your job, minister’. The new government was woefully underprepared, and in opposition did little in the way of thrashing out policy It’s a tale repeated by various people in SW1, and might help to explain the surprising implosion of the Labour government so soon after their landslide victory. Eighteen months on, Labour are now polling in the

Michael Gove

The 'wickedness' of Labour's gender war

48 min listen

This week: After leaked EHRC guidance threw Labour’s position on biological sex into disarray, Michael and Maddie ask whether Bridget Phillipson is deliberately delaying clarity on the law – and why Wes Streeting appears to be retreating from his once ‘gender-critical’ stance. Is Labour quietly preparing to water down long-awaited guidance? And has the return of puberty-blocker trials pushed the culture war back to square one? Then: Shabana Mahmood unveils her first major moves as Home Secretary. But as the Labour left cries foul and legal challenges loom, Michael and Maddie assess whether her plans will really bring order to the asylum system – or whether Labour’s attachment to ‘process

Tuesday

Matthew Scott

Removing jury trials is a democratic outrage

In June 2020 the impact of Covid led some to argue that trial by jury should be temporarily suspended. David Lammy, who was at the time the shadow justice secretary, strongly opposed the idea. He tweeted: ‘Jury trials are a fundamental part of our democratic settlement. Criminal trials without juries are a bad idea.’ It now appears that Lammy thinks the time has come, and that he is the man, to destroy this fundamental part of our democratic settlement. He intends the destruction to be permanent. A memo seen by the Times says he is preparing to end jury trials except for murder, rape or manslaughter cases. The sole justification for

Stephen Daisley

Make Gordon McKee a minister

With his viral video explaining debt-to-GDP ratio through the medium of biscuits, Gordon McKee is putting the ‘nom’ into economics. Since his election to the Commons last year, the Glasgow South MP has established himself as the Labour politician with the best social media game, a sort of Robert Jenrick of the left. His latest video sees McKee, mug of tea in hand, build a 3D graph of international debt-to-GDP ratios using custard creams and bourbon biscuits. Custard creams equal national wealth; Bourbons, government debt. The 31-year-old stacks up bickie after bickie as he recounts the key points at which debt rose: Gordon Brown’s bank bailout; 14 years of the

Freddy Gray

What's going on with Marjorie Taylor Greene?

22 min listen

Freddy Gray speaks to the Washington correspondent for Vanity Fair Aidan McLaughlin about his interview with Marjorie Taylor Greene. The Congresswoman, who was formerly a MAGA loyalist, announced her resignation having fallen out with President Donald Trump. Freddy and Aidan discuss the fallout, her unpredictable views on current issues & why the media loves a political convert.

Druin Burch

Only radical change can cut NHS waiting lists

A research letter in the Future Healthcare Journal, laying out the scale of performance failings in the NHS, has attracted a lot of attention today. It has shone a spotlight on the fact that, to fulfil its pledge to voters to reduce waiting times and ‘fix the NHS’, Labour must somehow find a way to cut the health service’s treatment backlog in half. The research explains that the NHS has a constitutional requirement that 92 per cent of patients must wait no longer than 18 weeks for treatment after being referred by their GP. That target was last met in November 2015. At that point, the total national waiting list was

Steerpike

Watch: Labour MP's bizarre Putin warning

To the Commons, where this afternoon parliamentarians have spent some time discussing the G20 and Ukraine. The Prime Minister updated politicians on his trip to the G20 summit in South Africa, while politicians focused on the Russian invasion of Ukraine given what has been widely interpreted as a Vladimir Putin-friendly peace proposal from the US. While Sir Keir Starmer’s statement was as, er, lacklustre as ever, one of his own MPs decided to inject a little more passion into the session. Dr Rupa Huq, the Labour MP for Ealing Central and Acton, started by lamenting the conflict in the East – noting the heartbreaking stories of child abductions by Russia

Joanna Marchong

No one wants to hear from the Tories

For a party long described as Britain’s ‘natural party of government’, the Conservatives have spent an astonishing amount of time recently behaving as if the electorate suffers from acute memory loss. Every crisis they now attempt to offer solutions to in opposition is one they helped engineer in government. Every principle they defend today is one they discarded yesterday. And every lecture on restraint or prudence is delivered with the tone of a headteacher whose school burned down on his watch. Take Send as an example. (‘Send’ stands for special educational needs and disabilities.) After years of cuts, expansions and unfunded, changing statutory obligations to the system by which pupils

Steerpike

Lammy to scrap jury trials in backlog crackdown

Under a shake-up of the legal system, it transpires that juries are to be scrapped in all cases except murder, rape and manslaughter. The majority of cases will be heard by a judge alone in new plans pushed by Justice Secretary David Lammy – in a move that goes much further than the suggestions of Sir Brian Leveson, who reviewed the UK’s criminal courts this year. Good heavens… As reported by the Times, a memo sent by Lammy to ministers and civil servants insisted there was ‘no right’ to jury trials in the UK – before adding that radical action was necessary to slash the justice backlog in England and

James Heale

Why Reeves's smorgasbord Budget won't fix Britain

14 min listen

James Nation, managing director at Forefront Advisers, and Michael Simmons join James Heale to analyse what we know, one day ahead of the Budget. James – a former Treasury official and adviser to Rishi Sunak – takes us inside Number 11, explains the importance of every sentence and defends the Budget as a fiscal event. Plus, Michael takes us through the measures we know so far – but is the chaotic process we’ve seen so far just symptomatic of ‘broken Britain’? Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

Matthew Lynn

Reeves's Budget is dead on arrival

The Budget speech has no doubt been finalised. The red box has been dusted off. And the pie charts are ready to be released. Assuming Chancellor Rachel Reeves doesn’t call in sick tomorrow, the Treasury, along with the rest of us, will be waiting to see how tomorrow’s Budget is received. But do we really need to wait? With the pound falling, the economy stagnant, and house prices sliding, the truth is that this Budget is dead on arrival. After all the leaks and spin we have endured over the past few months, it may seem as if there have already been ten Budgets. A dozen or more major tax

Steerpike

Starmer apologises over banned TikTok dance

Of all the things the public might think Prime Minister Keir Starmer should apologise for, a TikTok dance is probably not top of the list. Yet that is exactly what the Labour leader has expressed regret over, after a visit to a primary school on Monday. The PM found himself being dressed down by the headmistress of Welland Academy in Peterborough, after he engaged in a banned social media dance that has caused both parents and teachers no end of irritation. Not like Starmer to be unhelpful, eh? Sir Keir visited the school with his Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson in tow to promote the government’s expansion of free school meals.

James Heale

Rachel Reeves is running out of excuses

The Chancellor addressed her backbench troops last night, ahead of Wednesday’s Budget. Rachel Reeves’ remarks sought to impress upon her colleagues the importance of unity amid a likely onslaught of criticism. ‘Politics is a team sport,’ she said. ‘We have to stick together if we’re going to deliver the change, and get the second term that we want.’ She stressed that her Budget is a ‘package’, which will contain both good and bad choices. ‘It’s not a pick and mix – you can’t say you like the cola bottles but you don’t like the fruit salads. It comes together as a whole.’ That can be read as a warning to

Joanna Williams

Trigger warnings are out of control at the University of Essex

You don’t need a PhD to see that censorship thrives in universities. In the past few weeks alone, a professor has been banned from the University of Manchester and described as a ‘potential risk to colleagues’ for having allegedly used ‘the n-word’ in a disciplinary meeting; a sociology lecturer at Abertay University has been subjected to a smear campaign for inviting a speaker critical of Scotland’s rape laws; and pro-Palestinian student activists at City, University of London have called for the dismissal of a Jewish professor because he completed compulsory military service in Israel during the 1980s. Professors at this august institution have placed trigger warnings on essays discussing free speech

Steerpike

Two peers suspended over lobbying

To the House of Lords, where it transpires that two peers are to be suspended after they were deemed to have breached lobbying rules. Undercover footage recorded by the Guardian caught Lord Dannatt and Lord Evans of Watford offering parliamentary services to clients who were hoping to lobby the government. The House of Lords’ standards watchdog launched separate investigations into the two men – and now Richard Dannatt faces a four-month suspension while David Evans will be suspended for five months, once the House of Lords approves the commissioner’s sanctions. Oh dear… Lord Dannatt was found to have offered a potential client private meetings with ministers – and was secretly

Jimmy Nicholls

Does Rachel Reeves really get more online abuse than most?

In politics, as in life, it helps to get your excuses in early. That presumably is why, ahead of tomorrow’s Budget, Keir Starmer has mounted a vanguard action in defence of his chancellor Rachel Reeves. ‘I’m acutely aware that women get much more abuse and criticism than men do and I think it’s about time we acknowledge that,’ he told broadcasters over the weekend. Starmer was responding to earlier complaints from Reeves that she is the victim of patronising  – and, even worse, male – armchair critics. ‘I’m sick of people mansplaining how to be chancellor to me,’ she told the Times, adding in a grumble about those nefarious ‘boys

Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

Nigeria's mass school abduction is its worst yet – but the West doesn't seem to care

The kidnapping of over 300 students and teachers from a Catholic school by armed men in the Papiri area of central Nigeria is one of the worst mass abductions the country has ever witnessed. The horrifying incident on Friday is far from isolated: more than 2,500 students have been taken in at least 70 raids on schools in the last decade. The St Mary’s School attack came in the same week that gunmen killed a teacher and abducted 25 students from a girls’ secondary school in Nigeria’s Kebbi State. More than 2,500 students have been taken in at least 70 raids on schools in the last decade While no one