Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Wednesday

Steerpike

When will the West Midlands Police chief go?

Congratulations to the Met: you are officially no longer the worst run police force in the United Kingdom. The West Midlands force, led by their flailing chief Craig Guildford, are doing the damnedest to take the crown off Sir Mark Rowley and his London rozzers. The centre of the Birmingham controversy is the intelligence used to make the decision to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from attending a football match that took place at Villa Park in November. Such intelligence seems to have been in short supply. For Guildford has today been forced to offer a ‘profound apology’ to MPs after admitting that he had given them incorrect evidence on

Steerpike

Full list: Labour U-turns to date

It was just 18 months ago that Keir Starmer took office, pledging to ‘stop the endless Conservative chaos’. How times change. Far from a politics that ‘treads more lightly on your lives’, it seems that every week now there is a fresh U-turn as the government totters like a punch-drunk boxer, stumbling from one crisis to the next. Mr S has done the honours and dutifully prepared a round-up of all the major policy switches that Labour has done since coming to office: The grooming gangs inquiry in June 2025 Winter fuel payment cuts in June 2025 Welfare cuts in June 2025 Two-child benefit cap in November 2025 Inheritance tax on

Stephen Daisley

Welcome to buffer-zone Britain

Are ‘buffer zones’ becoming the latest weapon in the political establishment’s clampdown on dissent? Scottish First Minister John Swinney says he will consider a buffer zone to ban protests outside migrant hotels. It comes after angry scenes at the Radisson Blu in Perth on Saturday, which saw competing pro- and anti-migration demonstrations. Anti-migration activists reportedly rushed up to the hotel and banged on the windows, though no arrests were made. Local MP Pete Wishart has described the actions of the anti-migration protesters as ‘disgraceful’ and called for ‘buffer zones’ around migrant accommodation. Buffer zones already exist in Scotland around abortion clinics and the surrounding 200 metres, making a criminal offence

Mahan Esfahani

Why Iranians like me long for the Shah’s return

As Iranians defiantly take to the streets, many outsiders wonder why the crowds are chanting the name of the late Shah and his heir, the Crown Prince. What is it about the last dynasty that ruled Iran that has such a great fascination for Iranians, both at home and abroad? The Shah’s return would not be the first time that this dynasty has helped to rescue Iran Many Iranians – including those, like me, who were born there but forced to flee – look to the past as a golden time. The Crown Prince has repeatedly said that he has every interest in overseeing a transition to a democratic and

Lawrence Newport

Crime in London is worse than Khan admits

‘Whatever your business in London is’, claimed the capital’s police chief Mark Rowley yesterday, ‘we’re creating a safe environment for you to thrive.’ In fact, he argued, London is an ‘extraordinarily safe global city’. For his part in Monday’s media blitz, Mayor Sadiq Khan wrote in the Guardian that ‘Londoners are safer in their homes and on our streets.’ This analysis is at best extremely misleading – at worst, it is deliberately ignorant of the experiences and concerns shared by Londoners and visitors alike. Indeed, the facts suggest quite the opposite of Mayor Khan and Commissioner Rowley’s comments. Recent statistics show that our capital is experiencing a theft epidemic. The

Pegah Banihashemi

Can Iran’s protestors keep going?

As Iran enters the third week of nationwide protests, the pace of events has become dizzying. News breaks by the minute, and, as Persians say: ‘One eye is filled with tears, the other with blood.’ We are all waiting anxiously for a change that feels both inevitable and profoundly uncertain. For five to six consecutive days now, the Iranian regime has completely severed the country’s communication with the outside world. Not only has internet access been cut, but even ordinary landlines and direct mobile phone calls to and from Iran have become impossible. In a digital age in which nearly every aspect of daily life depends on connectivity, the blackout

Michael Gove

Why Nadhim Zahawi (and Reform) are making a mistake

50 min listen

This week on Quite right!, Michael and Maddie examine Nadhim Zahawi’s dramatic defection to Reform UK and ask whether it strengthens the party’s insurgent credentials or exposes a deeper strategic mistake. Is Reform becoming a genuine outsider movement, or simply a refuge for disaffected Tories? And what does the pattern of Boris-era defections reveal about credibility, competence and the challenge of turning populist energy into a governing force? Then, Iran: mass protests against the regime have erupted onto the streets of Tehran and beyond. Are these demonstrations the prelude to real regime change – or another brutal crackdown waiting to happen? And what role should the West, and the United

Tuesday

Michael Simmons

Compulsory digital ID is dropped

Keir Starmer has just made his 13th u-turn since taking the No. 10 keys. The government, this evening, decided that the digital ID scheme would no longer be compulsory. The IDs were to be used to verify if job applicants had the right to work in the UK – something that is currently done using passports and National Insurance numbers. But, according to the Times, Starmer has now dropped the compulsory aspect of the scheme because of fears it was causing distrust in the principle of digital ID. Under the changed plans there will be an entirely optional digital ID, or workers can use digital versions of existing documents – such

David Spencer

West Midlands Police is rotten to the core

Each new revelation that has followed the banning of Israeli football fans from Birmingham shows that West Midlands Police is rotten to the core. As more evidence emerges, the case that the force responsible for policing our second city has been captured by sectional interests becomes stronger. The association between the police and Green Lane mosque is one which the mosque is keen to promote The most recent information released into the public domain shows just how deeply ingrained that infiltration has become – and how it goes to the very top. In 2022, when the force’s current chief constable, Craig Guildford, was recruited, the then chief executive of the controversial Green Lane

James Heale

Why Ed Davey is happy being boring

15 min listen

The Liberal Democrats have unveiled a new strategy on the NHS. Sir Ed set out his big, bold plan this morning: scrapping the UK–US pharmaceutical deal to redirect £1.5 billion into social care. It sounds like a substantial sum – until you remember it amounts to less than 1 per cent of the NHS’s annual budget. In today’s podcast, the team discuss why Ed Davey is leaning into being deliberately boring, in an effort to appeal to the perceived sensibilities of Middle England. Meanwhile, with the dust settling after Nadhim Zahawi’s defection, is Reform at risk of losing its outsider appeal, given that his resignation from government caused such a

James Heale

Why Ed Davey is happy being boring

The Sopranos is not an obvious starting point when discussing the Liberal Democrats. But a TV programme about mafia, murder and manicotti offers a useful analogy for comparing Ed Davey’s strategy to that of Reform UK. David Chase, the Sopranos creator, recalls once meeting a TV exec who wanted LOP – ‘Least Offensive Programming’, the idea that the more palatable and likeable a character, the more they would be popular with audiences. It is a theory which Davey seems to have taken to heart, donning cricket whites and wetsuits in a bid to appeal to the perceived sensibilities of Middle England. His party’s policy offering is carefully calibrated not to offend

Gavin Mortimer

TikToks won’t stop illegal migration

The Labour government may not like X these days but they have turned to another social media platform in their latest bid to smash the gangs and stop the boats. As of today, an official Home Office TikTok account will have the people smugglers quaking in their boots as it posts images of illegal migrants and foreign criminals being arrested, detained and deported. What is a TikTok channel if not gesture politics? Called ‘Secure Borders UK’, the TikTok channel’s mission statement is ‘restoring order and control to our borders’. It’s a similar refrain to the rhetoric deployed by Keir Starmer in May 2024 as he campaigned to become PM. In

David Jones

The Shah can’t save Iran

When authoritarian regimes start to wobble, outside observers often reach instinctively for the single, familiar idea of ‘the alternative’. It is a human reflex, but a dangerous one. In Iran, as the clerical theocracy shows signs of fracture and the country’s crisis deepens, some Western voices have begun to flirt with a thought that feels neat and historically legible: the return of the Shah’s son. That would be a profound mistake. Iran doesn’t need a restoration Iran’s tragedy since 1979 has been that an autocracy was replaced by another autocracy. The lesson should be plain: changing the personality at the top is not enough. What matters is the nature of

Eliot Wilson

Why won’t the government buy the RAF new helicopters?

Sir Keir Starmer’s announcement last February that the government would increase defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP from April 2027 seems a long time ago. It was trumpeted as the ‘biggest sustained increase in defence spending since the Cold War’, but in fact represented a very modest rise from the 2.3 per cent of 2024/25. Events of the past year have now left it looking cautious and inadequate. As a direct consequence of this measly funding, Britain now looks set to lose out on the opportunity to update its stock of military helicopters, putting jobs – and the country’s defence – at risk. In recent days, we learnt

Gareth Roberts

This Labour government is fascinatingly awful

The eerie and the uncanny fascinate us, whether it’s the abominable snowman, the Loch Ness monster or the Bermuda Triangle. And now we have another great mystery to puzzle over: why is this Labour government so awful? What is it all for? At the election I was not optimistic about Starmer’s mob, but I allowed myself a brief moment of wondering – even hoping, a bit – that I was wrong. What if Labour actually had the wits and the nerve to jolt Britain out of its decline? It seemed very unlikely, yes, though stranger things have happened. This government is fascinatingly bad, in a way that attracts your wonder at the

Laurie Wastell

Is Reform really becoming the Tory party 2.0?

Nadhim Zahawi, the one-time Tory chancellor and former vaccines minister, has joined Reform UK. But is that a good thing? For some, his defection is yet another coup for the populist upstarts at the expense of the sinking Conservatives. For others, the arrival of the smooth-talking Tory grandee raises the hackles, suggesting Reform is slowly becoming just another wing of the dreaded ‘uniparty’. Baghdad-born Zahawi is a ‘walking rejoinder’ to tedious media witch-hunts about Reform’s alleged racism My brief survey of Reform’s grassroots shows feelings are mixed. One member is concerned about Zahawi’s views on immigration, but says putting the boot into the Tories with such a high-profile catch is

Stephen Daisley

Why can’t a Jewish MP visit his local school?

Ruth Wisse defines anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism as ‘the organisation of politics against the Jews’, and in Britain it is striking just how openly the organisers operate. During his remarks to Sunday’s Jewish Labour Movement conference, Communities Secretary Steve Reed revealed that a Jewish colleague was ‘banned’ from visiting a school in his constituency ‘in case his presence inflames the teachers’. Reed described this as ‘an absolute outrage’. Peruse the social media output of politicians and commentators otherwise agitated about threats to democracy and the targeting of MPs. I suspect they’ll be rather more muted about this episode The Jewish News reports that the politician in question is the Jewish MP Damien Egan

Clarissa Hard

Western feminists should be standing up for Iran’s women

As Iranians revolt against the brutal Islamic theocracy that has throttled their civilisation since 1979, striking images of young Persian women have been circulating online. They are lighting cigarettes by burning photographs of Ayatollah Khamenei. With their insouciant attitude, tumbles of curls, kohl-lined eyes and lolling fags, they could be on the cover of an Arcade Fire album. Originally a symbol of protest among the Iranian diaspora, the trend has now caught on in Iran. These women have reignited the same spirit that sparked widespread protests across the country in September 2022, when Mahsa Amini died in custody following her arrest for disobeying the country’s modesty laws. In the aftermath

David Turver

How much will net zero cost?

In the race to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, many Whitehall departments, Westminster thinktanks and independent bodies have produced cost estimates of the policy. These range from modest percentages of GDP to eye-watering trillions. Often, however, they rely on overly optimistic assumptions about the price of green technologies, and mask the potentially staggering financial burden on taxpayers. If we are to pursue net zero, transparency on this fact is essential. In 2019, then-chancellor Philip Hammond warned Theresa May against enshrining net zero in law. Citing estimates from the Climate Change Committee (CCC) and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Beis), he pegged the total cost at over