Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Tuesday

Ross Clark

Who becomes a Labour politician to slash benefits?

If you are an idler sponging off the state, you have every excuse to feel cheated. Throughout his years in opposition, Keir Starmer gave you every impression that he was on your side. During his Labour leadership election campaign in 2020, he promised to end Universal Credit and replace it with something more generous. In 2021, when Boris Johnson’s government proposed to remove the £20-a-week uplift in benefits, which it had introduced at the beginning of the pandemic, Starmer called a vote to oppose the move, accusing the then government of ‘effectively turning on the poorest in our society’. Shortly before last year’s general election, he agreed with the Big

James Heale

Trump escalates his tariff war on Canada

He has done it again. Donald Trump has announced that, from tomorrow, tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminium imports will be doubled to 50 per cent. In a statement on Truth Social, the President reiterated his call for Canada – which he labelled ‘one of the highest tariffing nations anywhere in the world’ – to become ‘the Fifty First State’. He explained that he was imposing the latest tariffs in response to a decision by Ontario premier Doug Ford to slap a 25 per cent tax on electricity exports to northern US states. Doug Ford’s policy was itself issued in retaliation to the sweeping 25 per cent tariffs that Trump had initially

Steerpike

Douglas Murray wins defamation case against Observer

Today brings the news that the flailing Guardian Media Group has had to pay out ‘substantial damages’ to The Spectator’s Douglas Murray – after the Observer was found to have defamed him. In a court statement, lawyers for the paper said it ‘apologises unreservedly’ for the ‘false’ allegations it made about Murray in a piece about last summer’s riots. Oh dear… Last August, the Sunday newspaper published an article by journalist Kenan Malik on the summer riots, titled: ‘The roots of this unrest lie in the warping of genuine working class grievances.’ In his piece, Malik alluded to an interview between Murray and the ex-deputy prime minister of Australia John

James Snell

Is this the deal that might give peace in Syria a chance?

A Kurdish-led rebel coalition which dominates north-eastern Syria has signed a deal with the interim government in Damascus. The agreement, which means the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) will look to hand over border posts and oil and gas fields under its control, recognises the Kurdish minority as ‘an integral part of the Syrian state’. Peace in Syria is now a little bit more likely. After a week of new threats to the stability of Syria, with hundreds killed in a series of massacres, this tentative deal is one that many thought might never happen. SDF commander Mazloum Abdi was not in his usual military garb when he signed the deal

James Heale

Starmer facing welfare rebellion

15 min listen

There is a row on the horizon over welfare cuts. Yesterday’s meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) was packed, with many lobby journalists expecting fireworks. The Prime Minister got a positive reaction for his message on Ukraine, with MPs impressed by his strong response since Trump took office, but there was some scepticism in the room about his plan to make £6 billion in welfare cuts. This is a difficult topic that cuts to the heart of the Labour Party and its position as the party of welfare – about 80 Labour MPs are said to oppose the government’s proposals. Can Keir Starmer weather the storm? James Heale speaks

Steerpike

Third of Reform voters want a new leader

Is Nigel Farage’s position under threat? Most inside Reform don’t seem to think so – but a new poll offers a warning shot to the Clacton MP. It transpires that a third of the party’s voters think Reform would be performing better if he stepped down and allowed another to take his place. Who might they have in mind? With the explosive events of the weekend threatening to derail the party, the YouGov survey could hardly land at a worse time… The civil war that has engulfed the right-wing party over the last week appears to have left its supporters feeling split too. The fallout between Farage and Rupert Lowe

Michael Simmons

Who’s doing well out of the Trump slump?

Markets are not enjoying Donald Trump’s tariffs. Some 125 days have passed since his second election victory and the S&P 500 is on a clear downward trajectory thanks to Trump’s tariff policies and other poor US economic data. After the same number of days following Biden’s election, the S&P was up 13 per cent; for Obama’s second term it was up nine per cent; and at the same point in Trump’s first presidency it was up 11 per cent. For Trump 2.0 it’s down 3 per cent from election day. Trump has summoned Wall Street bosses to the White House in an attempt to calm nerves, but while US equities

John Nash

How to fix the civil service

This weekend, Pat McFadden, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, announced that he is attempting to improve the performance of the civil service. I genuinely wish him luck, but I am not optimistic. After a decade in and around government – including five years as a schools minister – I am convinced the Whitehall model of government is broken. Unfortunately, it seems like McFadden’s civil service reforms – such as performance related pay and more digitalisation – only scrape the surface. And with the Labour party in hock to the unions and with a dearth of business experience on its benches, I can’t see any serious change happening. It helps to

David Shipley

The Sentencing Council’s tone-deaf response to ‘two-tier justice’ criticism

The Sentencing Council – the organisation that advises judges on how long convicted criminals should be locked up for – has hit back at criticism from the Justice Secretary. Shabana Mahmood challenged the Council’s apparent embrace of ‘two-tier justice’ last week, after it told judges to order a pre-sentence report (PSR) if an offender is from a minority background. Lord Justice William Davis, the Council’s chair, has now responded – and has doubled down on its new guidance to judges. Davis said that Mahmood and her officials had been briefed in advance about the instructions on sentencing offenders from ethnic minorities. He also said that ministers could not “dictate” sentencing and vowed to

Steerpike

New SNP chief shared violent anti-monarchy posts

To Scotland, where the beleaguered Nats have appointed their third chief executive in two years. Yet Carol Beattie wasn’t able to celebrate for long after some of her rather unsavoury social media interactions aimed at the royal family were dredged up by her opponents. The most egregious example came after the Princess of Wales was praised for making a public appearance during her battle with cancer. At the time, Beattie reposted a tweet that made an apparent reference to the, um, guillotine, reading: ‘F*** all the way off with your gold-plated serfdom! Time for the French solution to monarchy.’ Charming! The party’s new permanent CEO has since deleted the posts

Elliot Leavy

Is this new Chinese AI even better than DeepSeek?

Each month brings another groundbreaking development in AI, only for it to be swiftly overtaken by the next. Manus, launched by the Chinese tech firm Monica.im, claims it’s not just hype, though. Unlike the chatbot-style assistants we’ve grown accustomed to, Manus is an autonomous AI capable of independently performing complex tasks without requiring human prompts. Manus’s capabilities, at least as demonstrated in its promotional video, are impressive. It swiftly processes dozens of job applications, identifying the ideal candidate; conducts sophisticated financial analysis, complete with an interactive, data-driven website; and rapidly generates detailed reports – all by scouring data on its own, generating its own commands, and executing them without human

Matthew Lynn

Does Trump want a stock market crash?

There ‘could be a recession’, said President Trump over the weekend with the kind of nonchalant shrug that suggested he was not too bothered one way or the other. He was even going to buy a Tesla to help out his ‘first buddy’ Elon Musk as the company’s share price collapsed. The markets had assumed there was a ‘Trump put’ – that is the President would always ride to the rescue to keep the bull market running. But there is no sign of it. Instead Trump seems perfectly relaxed about the huge losses, even encouraging the sell-off. Of course, it might just that he does not know what to do.

Steerpike

Rupert Lowe’s team rally around him

It was Alastair Campbell who declared that ‘if a story stays front page news for more than ten days, the chances are it is a real issue.’ Well, we are now on day five of the great Reform fall out and it is still making waves. Nigel Farage spoke to ITV Anglia about Rupert Lowe last night, saying that ‘there is a behaviour problem here – outbursts, anger, that kind of thing’ with regards to ‘these allegations of a bullying culture going on in his offices.’ He added that ‘I could do without this, it’s a huge distraction for the party, for me.’ You suspect Lowe could do without it too… And,

Iain Carter

Why are green groups giving Labour a free pass?

One of the more curious developments in British politics is the apparent willingness of environmental charities to let the Labour government off the hook for policies they once railed against. When Liz Truss’s brief tenure in Downing Street saw proposals for planning deregulation, habitat law reforms, and changes to the Green Belt, these groups reacted with fury. Now, many of those same proposals are back under Labour – yet the response has been muted, even deferential. Heathrow’s third runway, strengthened housing targets, a stronger presumption in favour of development without any extra environmental safeguards: these were once red lines for Britain’s biggest nature charities. Under the Conservatives, such measures were

Gavin Mortimer

Calin Georgescu is a victim of illiberal Europe

Violence erupted in Bucharest on Sunday evening after Romania’s Central Electoral Bureau disbarred Calin Georgescu from standing in May’s re-run presidential election. In a statement, the bureau justified its decision to exclude Georgescu on the grounds his candidature ‘doesn’t meet the conditions of legality’ because he ‘violated the very obligation to defend democracy’. Supporters of Georgescu, who has been described by the BBC as a ‘far-right, pro-Russia candidate’, gathered outside the Central Electoral Bureau to vent their fury, and they soon clashed with police. Until six months ago the name Georgescu was unknown outside Romania. Then the 62-year-old stormed to victory in the first round of November’s presidential election, a

Gareth Roberts

The sad truth about the BBC

When will the BBC get a grip? The corporation which, remember, is funded by licence payers, appears to be strangely overgenerous to its ‘marginalised’ executives with saintly protected characteristics. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT), ethnic minority, disabled and female BBC bosses typically earn more money than their colleagues, statistics buried in the corporation’s annual report have revealed. Senior managers who are LGBT earn salaries 15.6 per cent larger than those who are not, the Daily Telegraph reported – while top bosses from ethnic minority backgrounds earn around 12 per cent more than those who are white. This questionable generosity with licence fee cash comes after a slew of other recent

Nigel Jones

Is snobbery behind Rupert Lowe’s row with Nigel Farage? 

One aspect of the furious row that has split Reform UK which has yet to receive the attention it deserves is the part the good old British subjects of class and snobbery have played. The row erupted last week after Reform MP Rupert Lowe voiced mild criticism of party leader Nigel Farage in a Daily Mail interview, accusing him of being a ‘Messiah’ and voicing doubts about whether he had it in him to become prime minister. The two men’s relative differences in wealth may have added to the animosity between them Farage promptly hit back by saying that Lowe was ‘completely and utterly wrong’. The row then escalated to toxic levels

Brendan O’Neill

Migrants who hate Jews shouldn’t be allowed in Britain

If you’re a foreigner who hates Jews, should you be allowed to move to Britain? For me it’s a no-brainer: absolutely not. The safety and dignity of Britain’s Jews count for infinitely more than the ‘rights’ of a racist migrant. Does the Labour government agree? Does it agree that overseas anti-Semites are not welcome here? We are about to find out. There are disturbing reports emerging that a man from Gaza with very iffy views has arrived in Britain. He goes by the name Abu Wadee. He is said to be an ‘influencer’ with a substantial following on social media. Last week he reportedly posted a video of himself sporting

Monday

Steerpike

Michael Gove takes aim at Jolyon Maugham

To the Covid Inquiry, the longest-running farce outside of the West End. With costs for the great gravy train now expected to top £200 million, Fleet Street hacks are certainly getting their money’s worth. There was the mammoth grilling of a brooding Boris Johnson in December 2023. The ritual humiliation of ‘simple’ Simon Case back in May. And the spectacular sniping of Matt Hancock too at which the former Health Secretary concluded almost everyone was to blame except, er, himself! So who would be the latest ex-politician to enter into the crosshairs of Baroness Hallett today? Step forward Michael Gove, up before the inquiry to face questions about his role

Hamish McRae

The Wall Street plunge isn’t over yet

The plunge continues. It’s always a mug’s game trying to call the top of any market, but the plunge on Wall Street does feel as though it has got legs, so it is quite possible that we have indeed seen the peak for US equities.  Since last week the Nasdaq has moved into correction territory – jargon for a 10 per cent or more fall – and on Monday was off another 3 per cent. I rather like the expression ‘correction’ because it implies that the markets have simply made a bit of an error, a ‘terribly sorry, folks, but we all make mistakes, and give us a few weeks