Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Monday

Steerpike

Watch: Reform MP blasts Phillips over grooming scandal

To the Commons, where Reform MP Lee Anderson has taken a pop at Labour over Britain’s grooming gang scandal. First blasting Home Office minister Jess Phillips for not backing a full national inquiry, Anderson went on to question whether she was ‘part of the cover up’. Then the Ashfield MP took to Twitter to slam the lefty lot for their ‘weak’ handling of the matter. ‘Labour MPs shouted “shame” at me today when I asked this question,’ he wrote scathingly. ‘Sorry, minister, but the shame is with you.’ Shots fired! This afternoon Anderson described how ‘thousands of young, white British working class girls have been raped, tortured and abused by

Steerpike

Even the SNP is condemning Kneecap

There’s not much that the Conservatives, the SNP and Labour agree on – but it appears Irish rappers Kneecap have pulled off the improbable and united political opponents against them this week. The republican band has been the source of much outrage after video footage from a 2023 concert emerged, in which one of the trio appears to say: ‘The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP.’ In a political environment that has seen two UK politicians murdered within the last decade, the remarks are rather disturbing. Counter-terrorism police are now assessing the clip, while Prime Minister Keir Starmer has suggested that the group’s government funding

James Snell

The Vancouver car attack is all too familiar

A man named Kai-Ji Adam Lo, 30, has been charged with eight counts of second-degree murder after 11 people were killed and many more were injured in a car ramming in Vancouver, Canada. He allegedly drove his SUV into a crowd gathered for a festival celebrating Filipino culture. The police say the suspect has no connections to international terror groups such as Isis or al-Qaeda. The suspect’s motive is so far unknown. More dangerous these days, it seems, is the lone attacker Ramming attacks are common because most adults have a car parked outside their home. The 22 March 2017 terror attack on Westminster involved a van striking a crowd

Trevor Kavanagh

When Keir Starmer went to war on journalism

Through the winter of 2011-12, police dragged dozens of journalists from their beds in terrorist-style dawn raids. It was the beginning of a four-year nightmare; a politically motivated witch-hunt triggered, I believe, by a former state prosecutor who today presides as Britain’s Prime Minister. So I was astonished when Sir Keir Starmer popped up in my old newspaper, the Sun, recently to say: “This is a government that will always champion press freedoms.” Starmer did not think twice before putting innocent journalists in the dock. Yet he claims now that journalism “is the lifeblood of democracy” It was news to the men and women he dragged through the highest courts in

Edward Howell

What has Putin given North Korea for its help in Ukraine?

We knew it was happening all along, but it was only a matter of time before both Russia and North Korea confirmed to the world the inevitable fact that their relationship is more than rhetoric. Six months after the first North Korean soldiers were deployed to the Kursk region, the Kim regime has finally admitted that the country’s armed forces have ‘participated in the operations for liberating’ the area, in what marked ‘a new chapter of history’ in relation to the ‘firm militant friendship between the two countries of the DPRK and Russia’. Only days earlier, the Chief of the General Staff of the Russian armed forces, Valery Gerasimov, lauded

Lucy Dunn

‘The spring of discontent’

11 min listen

Are we looking at a spring of discontent? It’s the final push ahead of this week’s local elections, and what Keir Starmer wants to talk about is expanding the NHS app – which he says will cut waiting lists and end the days of the health service living in the ‘dark ages’. However, what people are actually talking about is public sector pay. The independent pay review body has recommended pay rises of around 4 per cent for teachers and nurses. Will there be industrial action? Are Labour going to be pushed into another round of public sector pay increases? Meanwhile, after Ben Houchen’s comments this weekend, the murmurs of

Steerpike

BBC report concludes some stars ‘behave unacceptably’

Back to the Beeb, which is better at making the news rather than breaking it these days. Now a new report on the conduct of its employees has concluded that a ‘minority’ of stars and managers ‘behave unacceptably’ at work with chiefs failing to address bad behaviour. The review was ordered by the BBC’s board after the disturbing Huw Edwards case last year, which saw the ex-presenter plead guilty to having 41 indecent images of children. Good heavens… The BBC-commissioned report interviewed 2,500 of the corporation’s staff members. It found that overall, the institution does not have a toxic work culture, but that there was ‘a minority of people who

James Heale

Will Labour’s migration crackdown work?

Who is the most powerful woman in government? For some, it is the Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper. Next month, her department will publish a new White Paper, outlining its plans to curb legal migration. It is expected to make it harder for foreign students who come to the UK on graduate visas to stay here through taking low-paid jobs such as healthcare roles. Officials are reportedly exploring ways to close this loophole by setting a wage threshold for the types of jobs to which foreign graduates can switch. Cooper’s preference is for a time-limited visa regime for highly skilled workers in occupations where there is a shortage. Inevitably, such changes

Steerpike

Revealed: Over a thousand quango staff earn six figures

In its war on waste, Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour government has been busy scrutinising the effectiveness of quangos – and today’s news may intensity the process somewhat. For it has now emerged that more than 1,300 public body staff earn over six figures a year, with their salaries and benefits topping £100,000. More than that, over 200 staffers are taking home more money a year than the Prime Minister – who himself is on £172,000. Alright for some! A whopping 1,379 quango workers were remunerated over £100,000 in 2023-24, according to analysis from the Taxpayers’ Alliance (TPA), while almost 300 people received benefits totalling over £200,000. The body employing the

Matthew Lynn

Has Rachel Reeves blown her shot at a US trade deal?

The pictures of a triumphant Rachel Reeves holding aloft a US trade deal as she boards a plane home from Washington should have been all over the front pages this morning. After spending the weekend in Washington, and with a personal meeting with the US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, the advance briefings were that a deal with the US was very close. Instead, there are now warnings from Pat McFadden that it may take longer than expected. Has Labour blown the chance to sign the first trade accord with the Trump White House? A chance like this is unlikely to come again.  A trade deal with America was never completely

James Heale

Three problems with a Tory-Reform pact

The final week of the local election campaign begins today. Much of the weekend discourse was dominated by the fall-out from Robert Jenrick’s comments about a potential ‘coalition’ with Reform. Strikingly, Ben Houchen – the most senior Conservative left in elected office – used his appearance on Laura Kuenssberg’s BBC show to suggest that if both parties win seats in 2029 then ‘obviously there is going to be a conversation to form a coalition or some sort of pact’ to keep Labour out. Now, in one sense, Houchen is correct to say that, in the event of a 2010-style hung parliament, it would make sense to discuss a deal with

Ross Clark

Labour must refuse pay rises for teachers and nurses

Never was there more truth in the old adage about every organisation that is not specifically right-wing eventually becoming left-wing. The pay review bodies which are supposed to provide independent advice to the government on public sector pay have become a menace. They have become advocates for trade unions and care not a jot about the taxpayer. Teaching and nursing unions are threatening strikes if the government does not accept the recommendations of pay review bodies. The one concerned with teachers’ pay has suggested a 4 per cent rise and the one regarding nurses’ pay is suggesting over 3 per cent. They may seem modest rises, except that inflation is

Gavin Mortimer

Macron has let an epidemic of violence grip France

These have been terrible days in France. On Thursday, a 15-year-old girl was stabbed to death and several of her classmates wounded at a private school in Nantes. It was an attack of singular ferocity. The victim, who was stabbed 57 times, was killed by a fellow pupil, a boy her own age. According to police, he had no ‘clear motive’ for his crime. On Friday a 20-year-old, named by police as Olivier H, walked into a mosque in southern France and told Aboubakar, a 24-year-old of Malian origin, that he would like to pray. Aboubakar, who performed odd jobs in the mosque, led Olivier into the prayer room and

Sam Leith

How the EU youth mobility scheme could save Brexit

Rachel Reeves sounds surprisingly perky. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has, of course, been forced – we may think, through gritted teeth – to say nice things she cannot possibly have believed about the Trumpian tariff programme that threatens to take a guillotine to her beloved fiscal headroom without her being able to do a damn thing about it. But, interviewed by the Times, she professed herself encouraged by better-than-expected statistics on consumer spending. And she also showed signs of doing something rather interesting, i.e. rolling the pitch for a bit of a climbdown on youth mobility. ‘No plans for a youth mobility scheme’ had been the line before the

Debbie Hayton

The truth about trans rights in Britain

The Supreme Court judgment on sex and gender was a welcome return to common sense. As far as the Equality Act is concerned, even Keir Starmer now knows that a woman is a biological female and a man is a biological male. The task of producing new – and legally compliant – guidance for employers and service providers falls on the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). The organisation has moved quickly. In an interim update published on Friday, the EHRC asserted that where services are segregated according to sex: The EHRC is mindful of trans people’s needs Trans women (biological men) should not be permitted to use the women’s facilities

Melanie McDonagh

Trans men using women’s toilets isn’t always a problem

The Equalities and Human Rights Commission’s clarification of the Supreme Court ruling on what is a woman is not as clear as it looks. It says that trans people may not use single-sex spaces – notably lavatories – but must not be left without spaces to use. So, the hunt is on in hospitals, restaurants, sports arenas for space that can be turned into gender neutral lavatories. Perhaps disabled loos can be turned into gender neutral ones, on the basis they’re intended for one person, so long as wheelchair users can jump the queue. I don’t think any of us have a problem with individual lockable lavatories; it’s the ones

Sunday

Steerpike

Houchen mulls anti-Labour pact with Reform

After the 4 July wipeout last year, Ben Houchen became the most senior Conservative left in public office across the UK. So it is intriguing then to hear the Tees Valley mayor make a series of remarks that are not entirely helpful to party leader, Kemi Badenoch. First, there were his comments last month to PoliticsHome in which Houchen warned that: We do not live in a world of academia and think tanks. That’s not what modern politics is about. It’s a street fight. You’ve got to get out there. You’ve got to dig your nails in. You’ve got to dig your heels, and you’ve got to make progress one

Steerpike

Watch: Gaza protestors disrupt London marathon

Just as day follows night, protestors accompany spectacle. Thousands took part this morning in the London marathon to raise millions of pounds for charity. But for two activists on London Bridge, it seems that the heroic efforts of others were an excuse to make it all about them. A pair wearing ‘Stop Arming Israel’ t-shirts jumped in front of the men’s elite group as they crossed the bridge at 10:30 a.m. It was only thanks to the quick-thinking of stewards that they were not nearly trampled… Both activists proceeded to throw red powder paint as they entered the race route – before being quickly hauled off the bridge and arrested

Thomas Edwards

Pope Francis leaves behind a divided church

Pope Francis’s death at the age of 88 was neither untimely nor a great surprise. Having made what appeared to be a miraculous recovery from double pneumonia and kidney failure – and subsequently turning up at St Peter’s in a poncho just two weeks ago – Francis appeared to have been granted a new lease of life. Despite this, he left this world on Monday morning, the day after administering the Urbi et Orbi blessing and the second day of the Easter Octave. As times go for a Pope to depart this life, he picked a suitable moment. Many of the accounts of the Pope’s life, following his death, have

Jane Stannus

Canadians need saving from Mark Carney, not Donald Trump

Tomorrow’s election will be one of the most important in Canadian history. The results hang on one crucial question: what’s the biggest threat to Canada right now? The Liberals, under the guidance of Mark Carney, have used every tool at their disposal to frighten, persuade, and cajole voters into believing the biggest threat to Canada is American tariffs and America’s president. But while relations with America are indeed something Canadians should care about, let’s hope that they’re not quite gullible enough to fall for that one. Let’s hope they recognise what Liberals have spent ten years proving over and over: the greatest threat to Canada as we know it isn’t