Politics Archives

Monday

12 May 2025

Reintroducing elk can help restore England’s natural balance

After a 3,000 year hiatus, the mighty elk could soon return to England. Plans to reintroduce this towering creature were announced last week, as part of a growing movement to bring back lost species and help restore our natural ecosystems. But the uncomfortable truth is that restoration doesn’t just mean bringing certain animals back, but taking some away. Free to wallow, trample, graze, and knock down trees to create clearings, elk would reshape the small corner of England we give them for the better. Like beavers building dams or lynx hunting their prey, elk are a keystone species. They are critical for maintaining the balance and biodiversity of their wetland ecosystem and

Sunday

11 May 2025

Michael Simmons

US and China slash tariffs

The White House has announced a breakthrough in trade negotiations with China following two days of talks in Switzerland. Yesterday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the two sides had made ‘substantial progress’. This morning, he said that the US would lower tariffs on China to 25 per cent from 145 per cent for 90 days, and that China would lower tariffs on the US to 10 per cent from 125 per cent for 90 days. Trump’s trade chief Jamieson Greer (who gave his first European interview to Unherd last week) said yesterday it had been a ‘very constructive two days’. He added: ‘It’s important to understand how quickly we were able to

Joe Bedell-Brill

Yvette Cooper: ‘We are closing care recruitment from abroad’

Under pressure from the success of Reform, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has announced new measures designed to reduce net migration. The government will consider deporting any foreign criminals, and introduce new restrictions on visas for low-skilled jobs, including scrapping the care worker visa. On the BBC this morning, Laura Kuenssberg asked the home secretary how care homes would recruit enough staff. Cooper said that care companies should recruit from a ‘pool of people’ who are already here on care worker visas, but did not get jobs. The home secretary resisted giving a target number for immigration, but did say she expected these new measures to ‘lead to a reduction of

Patrick West

The police have lost it

When hyper-liberal identity politics went into overdrive in that year of madness, 2020, one of the greatest casualties in this country was to be our police forces. This wasn’t obvious at the time, although officers ‘taking the knee’ at the foot of Black Lives Matters protestors hinted at things to come, as did their growing inclination to attend Pride events and adorn their vehicles in LGBT+ colours. Only in recent months, however, has there emerged the extent to which our police have become contaminated and compromised by this ideology. As today’s Sunday Telegraph reveals, in November 2023 officers from Kent Police arrested and detained an old man for a social media

Steerpike

Watch: grooming gang victim criticises Lucy Powell

The row over Lucy Powell’s outrageous comments are not going away anytime soon. It was on Any Questions last week that the Leader of the House of Commons suggested that discussing the subject of grooming gangs effectively amounted to a ‘dog whistle.’ She has now been forced to issue a grovelling apology in the House, having, er, conspicuously failed to do so in her original post on X. But among the victims of those disgusting gangs, there is anger and dismay at the attitudes of politicians like Powell. This morning one of them was interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg on her flagship BBC show. Steph, who was abused when she was

Michael Simmons

How scuzzy is your neighbourhood?

Voters turned to Reform in the recent local elections for many reasons, but one theme resonated more than most: the state of our streets, neighbourhoods and communities. Across Britain – as Gus Carter writes for the cover of this week’s magazine – the same pattern repeats. Whether it’s car thieves smashing windows in London, shops being looted in daylight, or fly-tippers trashing local parks, anti-social behaviour is rife, and no one seems to do anything about it. Councils fob you off. Police don’t turn up. Victims give up reporting crimes because nothing happens. This, as Gus put it, is Scuzz Nation. It’s a country where taxes are high, services are broken, and

Nigel Jones

Could the death penalty return?

The attack on a prison officer by Axel Rudakubana, the killer of the three girls at a dance class in Southport in 2024, has revived calls for a restoration of capital punishment, as many ask why he is serving a 52-year jail term at huge public expense, rather than have been put to death at the time for his heinous crime. Rudakubana is reported to have thrown boiling water from a kettle over an officer from his cell at Belmarsh high security prison in south-east London. Although at the time he made his murderous attacks on the children, he was 17 and was therefore just under the age when killers

Sergey Maidukov

Has war healed Ukraine’s great divide?

The phrase divide et impera has echoed through history, its power as relevant today as it was in ancient Rome. Divide and conquer; rule through division. Rulers, then and now, have wielded this principle like a double-edged sword – deepening rifts to maintain control, ensuring that wounds never fully heal. At best, they turn into scars, waiting to be torn open again at the slightest provocation. War is a terrible thing. And yet, even a tragedy of this scale has taught us something In my own country, Ukraine, I’ve witnessed the devastating impact of this strategy for many years. While Western Ukrainians once called for the Donbas to be fenced

Edward Howell

The North Korean saboteurs funding Pyongyang’s nuclear programme

If you think that it is only Chinese infiltrators roaming across the West, including on our very shores, then think again. For all the ever-expanding scope of ballistic missiles, frigates, and drones in North Korea’s arsenal, the hermit kingdom has been adding another body of weaponry to its toolkit: cyberwarfare capabilities. It is yet another example of the North Korean regime denying its people one thing but providing its confidantes with another. Whilst the North Korean people are forbidden from accessing the worldwide web, the Kim regime has long been cultivating a network of state-sponsored computer scientists and hackers to fulfil one of the country’s core goals, namely, making money

Fleur Elizabeth Meston

The assisted suicide bill has shown parliament at its worst

Kim Leadbeater has earned plenty of praise for her Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life), or assisted suicide, Bill. The Labour MP even won a gong for Political Speech of the Year award for her opening contribution to the parliamentary debate. If we cannot trust Parliament to debate life-and-death decisions responsibly, how can we trust it to implement them? “We saw Parliament at its best because the tone, the compassion, and the understanding that was shown was something we can all be proud of,” says Leadbeater, who has also described the bill as “Parliament at its best”. If only this were true. The reality is that the bill – which enters

Saturday

10 May 2025

Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

The India-Pakistan ceasefire is a triumph for Trump

After more than four days of clashes since the early hours of Wednesday morning, India and Pakistan have agreed to a full ceasefire. President Donald Trump announced it on his Truth Social Platform, confirming that the ceasefire had come ‘after a long night of talks mediated by the United States’. The announcement was made hours after Pakistan launched Operation Banyan al-Marsous with both Islamabad and New Delhi claiming to have struck each other’s military bases with heavy missiles. Pakistan’s strikes were a response to India’s Operation Sindoor that had been aimed at jihadist sites in Pakistan, following the April 22 militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir. While claims of both sides

Steerpike

Reform take over its first Conservative club

It seems that Reform are not content to just take the Tories’ seats. After coming for their MPs, councillors and members, now Nigel Farage’s party is turning its guns on one of the most visible remaining bastions of conservatism in the north of England: working men’s Conservative clubs. This morning, a new sign appeared above the Talbot pub in Blackpool, a onetime Tory club. It now reads thus: ‘The Talbot: Reform UK Club.’ Members and supporters will mix with locals there, as Reform aims to go after the Blackpool South constituency where they finished second last July. A senior party source confirmed to Mr S that the new Reform UK

Nigel Jones

Why the First Sea Lord stepping down is so shocking

The news that First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Ben Key, the head of the Royal Navy, has stepped down from his job while claims of an alleged affair with a junior female officer are investigated, have come as a shock. The armed forces have been relatively free of the sex scandals that have become so common in politics since the Second World War. Sir Ben, a 59-year -old married father of three, has made no comment on the subject , and his duties have been taken over by Vice Admiral Sir Martin Connell, his deputy. Nonetheless, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed that he has stood aside for ‘private reasons’. It is

David Shipley

Why was Axel Rudakubana given a kettle?

Late last night, news broke of another attack by a high-profile prisoner at what should be one of our most secure jails. This time it seems that Axel Rudakubana, the Southport killer, has thrown boiling water in the face of an officer at HMP Belmarsh, the London jail which Hashem Abedi was moved to after his brutal attack on staff at HMP Frankland last month. Rudakubana is reported to have committed this attack on Thursday afternoon. Thankfully the member of staff has already been released from hospital and is expected to make a full recovery. The Ministry of Justice have insisted that ‘violence in prison will not be tolerated and

Julie Burchill

Why the Germans don’t do it better

When I was a girl – shortly after the repeal of the Corn Laws – a common rhetorical question was ‘Who won the bloody war anyway?’ whenever the Germans came up in conversation. We were The Sick Man Of Europe; they were My Perfect Cousin. Not any longer: German politics now looks rather chaotic compared to ours. Their chancellor Friedrich Merz stumbled into office this week on the second go. So terrified is the paternalistic, pompous German establishment that they are considering banning the AfD: that notorious fascist party led by a lesbian in a relationship with a Sri Lankan woman. Where did it all go so wrong for our

Alexander Evans

Is there an off-ramp for India and Pakistan?

‘What happens next?’ is the worried question I keep getting from Indian and Pakistani friends as military exchanges between the two countries continue. The current crisis was eminently predictable – in nature, if not in timing – as terrorist incidents persisted, albeit at lower levels, in Kashmir and given relations between India and Pakistan were so poor. Both countries had long signalled their approach and rehearsed it during crises in 2016 and 2019. India had made clear that it would respond to significant terrorist incidents with kinetic actions at a time and in a manner of their choosing. Pakistan’s military and political leadership were equally forthright: if India did so,

Marat Iliyasov

Why Ramzan Kadyrov doesn’t really want to resign

Once again, the ruler of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, is making headlines. And once again, he has announced his intention to step down from his position. But is it for real this time? Kadyrov has hinted at resigning on at least five separate occasions. Each time, the official explanation as to why he hasn’t stepped down has been that President Vladimir Putin refused to accept his resignation. As Kadyrov, who likes to call himself Putin’s loyal infantryman, dutifully points out, he is always willing to serve his patron – and so he remains in power. These announcements are often accompanied by choreographed public outcries from Chechnya, where citizens, as reported by

Damian Reilly

Why the Tories must bring back Boris

The British people adore Boris Johnson. That is unarguable. It’s why he doesn’t lose elections. It is therefore very funny – the way idiocy so often is – that the Conservative party even in this, its moment of greatest existential crisis, is not right now prostrating itself before the great man to beg for his return. Boris used his farewell speech in Downing Street to liken himself to the ancient Roman statesman Cincinnatus ‘We are profoundly sorry that we thought we knew better than you, and accept that all evidence since we deposed you has proved us entirely and unforgivably wrong,’ it should be snivelling. ‘Please come back and save us, like you did when, not six years ago against all odds, you delivered the biggest parliamentary majority we’ve had since

Michael Gove

Coffee House Shots Live with Zia Yusuf and Jacob Rees-Mogg

The post-mortem has begun on a historic set of local elections – but where does each party go from here? Is Reform unstoppable? Is Kemi the one to lead the Conservative rebuild? Do Labour really ‘get it’? Michael Gove, James Heale and Lucy Dunn are joined by special guests Zia Yusuf and Jacob Rees-Mogg to unpack these questions – as well as the broader ramifications of the local elections on British politics. Listen for: Zia’s understanding of why Reform did so well; Jacob’s concession that a Tory/Reform pact of some description could be the only way for the Conservatives to avoid extinction; and Michael’s assessment of whether Labour will force us

Lloyd Evans

What happened to Canterbury?

War is raging over Canterbury’s future. Only two Labour councillors are left in the whole of Kent, in the north and south of the city, compared to the 57 Reform councillors who now control the county. Reform entirely replaced the Tories, who were left with just five councillors. Canterbury’s tale is one of general decline. The lucrative parties of French schoolchildren and day-trippers have largely gone, partly because Ashford International, the Kent stop of the Eurostar, was shut and never reopened after Covid. The local economy has suffered as a result. The remaining businesses are coarsening the appearance of a city which is as important to the Anglican communion as Rome