Politics Archives

Tuesday

22 April 2025

Watch: Starmer finally welcomes Supreme Court gender ruling

Hurrah! The day has finally come: Prime Minister Keir Starmer has, after almost a week of deafening silence, eventually got round to welcoming the Supreme Court’s unanimous judgment that backed the biological definition of a woman. In a rather revealing clip on ITV News today, the PM insisted to interviewers that he is ‘pleased’ about the ruling because it backs up his firm belief that a woman is an ‘adult human female’. But the question of how long Sir Keir has held this view is quite another matter… When quizzed by reporters today about whether he believed ‘a trans woman is a woman’, the Labour leader asserted: ‘A woman is

Eliot Wilson

British fishermen could pay the price for an EU defence deal

You’re being ridiculous, they kept saying. Why do you keep talking about fish? The Brussels lobby could scarcely conceal its disdain when rumours emerged that the price of Britain concluding a defence agreement with the EU at next month’s London summit might be concessions on fishing rights. Defence secretary John Healey chided Labour’s critics for their ‘Brexit rhetoric’. Daniel Zeichner, the food security minister, could hardly have been clearer when he appeared in front of the House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee at the beginning of April. He dismissed the idea of defence being negotiated as part of a wider conversation about the UK/EU relationship, including access

Matthew Lynn

Trump won’t win against the Fed

President Trump yesterday escalated his attacks on the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell over his reluctance to cut interest rates, prompting a fresh plunge on Wall Street. The President may appear determined to cut his central banker down to size. And yet the reality is that Powell is completely right not to cut rates – and the President won’t be able to fight the Fed forever. ‘There can be a SLOWING of the economy unless Mr. Too Late, a major loser, lowers interest rates, NOW,’ Trump said on Truth Social, his social media network, yesterday. It was the latest in a series of bitter attacks on Powell for

Stephen Daisley

Could this photo cost Mark Carney victory in Canada’s election?

Caryma Sa’d has captured the definitive image of the Canadian federal election. Over the weekend, the independent journalist posted a photograph from an event in Brantford, Ontario for Mark Carney, the former Bank of England governor who has replaced Justin Trudeau as Liberal leader and prime minister. The pic shows an older gentleman appearing to give two middle fingers to the camera while similarly-aged Carney enthusiasts around him laugh. In isolation, just another snapshot from an ill-tempered election. In the context of this poll, a readymade icon of everything Carney’s critics say he stands for and everything his Conservative opponent Pierre Poilievre is against. Elbows and/or fingers up. #cdnpoli #Brantford

Steerpike

Outrage as Green MSP denounces Supreme Court ruling

Just when you think the Scottish Greens can’t get any battier, they do. This Easter Weekend eco-zealot MSP Maggie Chapman took to the streets of Aberdeen on Sunday to pour scorn on last week’s Supreme Court ruling – that saw justices unanimously back the biological definition of a woman – and rant that she sees ‘bigotry, prejudice and hatred’ coming from highest court in the land. Talk about delusional, eh? Chapman – who blasted the judgment on Wednesday as ‘deeply concerning’ – appeared at a trans activist rally at the weekend to condemn the judgment. Addressing her audience, many of whom were draped in trans rights flags and kitted out

James Heale

Why Labour is finally publishing migrant crime league tables

Official league tables displaying nationalities of migrants with the highest rates of crime are set to be published for the first time in Britain. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has reportedly ordered officials to publish the detailed breakdown of offences committed by foreign criminals living in the UK while awaiting deportation. Unofficial tables have previously been published, but civil servants have resisted an official tally, arguing it would be too difficult to provide quality data. So why the change of heart? The answer, it seems, is good old party politics. A Labour source is quoted as boasting in the Daily Telegraph: ‘Not only are we deporting foreign criminals at a rate never seen

Alexander Larman

Prince Andrew’s Easter appearance was a royal blunder

Every Christmas, Easter and other public gathering, the Royal Family are faced with an unfortunate choice: what to do about the two pariahs in their midst? One of them, Prince Harry, is sulkily ensconced in Montecito, and tends mainly to pop up in this country when he’s fighting yet another legal battle. The other, however, who has been even more of a public embarrassment over the past six years, resists any entreaty to remove himself from the spotlight. Should the Firm simply throw Prince Andrew out altogether, or allow him to tag along whenever they’re all assembled, and hope for the best? It was the latter option that the royals

Gareth Roberts

Have I Got News for You is a sad, unfunny spectacle

Like most people, I haven’t tuned in to Have I Got News For You for years. But when I heard of a staggering omission in last Friday night’s edition, I just had to see it – or, rather, not see it – with my own eyes. The biggest news story of the week – the momentous ruling by the Supreme Court on the meaning of sex in the Equality Act 2010 – was not covered at all, even obliquely. You’d think that the absurdity of the highest court in the land being called to adjudicate on one of the most basic facts of observable reality – that there are two

Stephen Pollard

Why are the police boasting about how useless they are?

If you’ve been in the City of London recently, you’ll likely have seen one of the blue plaques that have sprung up on pavements. Instead of pointing out the home of someone memorable, these tell a very different story: “A member of the public had their phone stolen here” reads the message, with the City of London Police’s logo underneath and the slogan, “Look up, look out” on the bottom of the plaque. When I first saw one, I assumed it was the work of the wave of anti-crime campaigns that have sprung up on social media, which highlight the extent of crime in the capital – and the uselessness

Monday

21 April 2025

Rod Liddle

Does Farage have a path to No. 10?

My contention was always that Reform UK would struggle to reach 30 per cent in the polls and, while the party is edging upwards, that still seems to be a ceiling. However, the latest MRP poll in the Sun suggests that, for Nigel Farage to become our next Prime Minister, the party need not gain much more support than it is currently attracting. The Sun had Farage on course to win 180 seats, largely by polling at about 30 per cent in some of the red wall constituencies. Labour and the Conservatives were each predicted to gain 165 seats. In such a finely balanced parliament, discussions about a Conservative–Reform deal

The Spectator

World leaders pay tribute to Pope Francis

Pope Francis has died aged 88. At 7.35 a.m., the Vatican announced that Pope Francis had ‘returned to the house of the Father’ at his residence in the Vatican’s Casa Santa Marta. Cardinal Farrell, who announced the death, added that Francis ‘taught us to live the values of the Gospel with fidelity, courage and universal love, especially in favour of the poorest and most marginalised’. Tributes are already pouring in from political and religious leaders around the world. These are the messages that have been sent so far: J.D. Vance, the US Vice-president Vance, the last statesman to meet Francis, having been granted a brief audience with the pontiff yesterday

Damian Thompson

Pope Francis dies – what will his legacy be?

29 min listen

Pope Francis, the head of the Roman Catholic Church, has died. The Argentinian, the first Latin American – and the first Jesuit – to lead the Church, has been the head of the Holy See for 12 years, succeeding Pope Benedict XVI who resigned in 2013. Francis presided over the funeral of his predecessor, who died in 2022 – a first in modern history. But Francis’s leadership has been historic for many other reasons. In fact, says Damian Thompson, his reign has been ‘one of the most memorable, if controversial – not just in recent years but in recent centuries’. Liberals lauded his position on a number of social issues,

James Heale

How the Liberal Democrats conquered Middle England

17 min listen

The Liberal Democrats’ foreign affairs spokesperson Calum Miller, elected as the new MP for Bicester and Woodstock last year, joins James Heale to talk about the ambitions of the party that became the largest third party in Parliament in 100 years at the 2024 general election. They want to overtake the Conservatives to be the second party in local government – could they one day overtake the Tories to become the official opposition? A former civil servant, Oxford University policy manager and councillor, Calum joins Coffee House Shots to talk about why he got into politics, how Brexit radicalised his desire for good governance and why, for all the fun,

Helena Busiakiewicz

Let the prisoners cook

After Hashem Abedi allegedly attacked three prison officers with hot cooking oil at HMP Frankland last weekend, there has been a crackdown on inmates using kitchens. Self-catering facilities have been suspended in separation facilities like the one that housed Abedi, the convicted terrorist who helped his brother plan the Manchester Arena bombing. This is a sensible approach, but this horrific incident cannot be allowed to overshadow the important work done in food education in prisons. I’ve been working for prison food charity Food Behind Bars (FBB) for nearly four years, teaching in men and women’s prisons across the UK. Throughout my time there, I have come to understand that cooking

Sam Leith

Keir Starmer’s Easter message wasn’t offensive

Fun though it is to bash Keir Starmer for everything he says or does, there’s surely a point at which the self-respecting anti-Starmerite will want to cut the man a bit of slack – if for no other reason than that if the spite grows too ridiculous you will sound deranged, and it will recruit the odd floating voter to his cause out of sympathy. Such a point, I submit, might be the Prime Minister’s Easter message. Sir Keir, or some minion, put out a tweet yesterday saying the following: ‘Wishing a very happy Easter to Christians across the UK and around the world, as they celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

William Wright

The plight of Bethlehem

War seldom has true victors – and for Bethlehem, where tourism once accounted for approximately 70 per cent of income, the Israel-Gaza conflict has left businesses shuttered and livelihoods in ruins. Since the October 7 attack, my home country of Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs has classified Bethlehem and the rest of the West Bank under its highest Level 4: “Do Not Travel” risk advisory. Earlier this month – despite my better judgement – I ventured into Bethlehem to witness firsthand the impact of the Israel-Gaza war on the city’s economy and dwindling Christian population. ‘There are dozens of hotels in Bethlehem, and they’re almost all empty.’ Under the Oslo

Sunday

20 April 2025

Steerpike

Labour MPs rage against trans ruling fall-out

Happy Easter Sunday to LGBT+ Labour. Today’s Mail on Sunday splashes on leaked messages from a WhatsApp chat of MPs who all belong to the campaign group. The paper claims that Labour ministers are now plotting to defy the Supreme Court ruling on Wednesday that the legal definition of a woman should be based on biological sex. A judgment that not all within Labour seem to agree with… In the messages, sent on Thursday evening, Culture Minister Sir Chris Bryant joined an attack on Baroness Falkner, chairwoman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, who earlier that day had said that the ruling – that a woman is defined by biological

Ross Clark

Ed Miliband is talking nonsense about energy prices – again

I guess I must be one of Ed Miliband’s ‘siren voices’. Writing in the Observer today, the Energy and Climate Secretary complains about people he thinks: ‘Would keep Britain locked in dependence on global markets we don’t control. They will also make up any old nonsense and lies to pursue their ideological agenda, the latest example being their attempt to use the crisis facing the steel industry for their deeply damaging agenda.’ He goes on to assert: ‘UK Steel says that it is the “UK’s reliance on natural gas power generation” that leaves us with higher prices than international allies – not too much clean energy, but too little.’ Steady

Damien Phillips

The US-Iran nuclear talks are doomed to fail

US and Iranian diplomats are meeting in Rome this weekend for further talks on Iran’s nuclear programme, in what looks set to be another forlorn bid to rein in the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism – and a regime which makes North Korea look like a paragon of good faith. In some ways, the new talks feel like déjà vu. The Gulf state of Oman has resumed its role as the go-between for the US and Iran, with its embassy in Rome providing the venue for the latest phase of talks and its foreign minister Badr Al Busaidi mediating what the Iranians insist will be ‘indirect’ negotiations. Oman has maintained

Francis Pike

Putin’s Russia is part of a global Orthodox revival

Boris Berezovsky, the Russian oligarch, was found hanged in his Sunningdale home in March 2013. Born to Ashkenazi Jewish parents, Berezovsky converted to Russian Orthodoxy in 1994. His leap of faith, I suspected, was more political than spiritual. ‘So why,’ I asked him at dinner one evening, ‘do you buy Russian Icons?’ Berezovsky told me that he tried to bribe Vladimir Putin with motor cars, but he refused them. He was more successful with gifts of Russian Icons, which Putin passed on to churches and monasteries. Throughout his political career, the Russian president has taken care to look after the Russian Orthodox Church. Does this reflect a genuine religious belief?