Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Friday

Stephen Daisley

Israel goes for Hezbollah’s leadership

Israel has carried out a daring air strike against Hezbollah’s headquarters. The Islamist terror group’s underground command centre, located below civilian buildings in Dahieh, Beirut, was hit by what Israeli media are describing as ‘tens of tons of explosives’ on Friday night. There are unconfirmed reports that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was the target of the strike. Reuters is quoting a Hezbollah source saying Nasrallah is alive, but if he has been eliminated it would represent a seismic change in the Middle East. Nasrallah has led Hezbollah – ‘the Party of Allah’ – for more than three decades and has tightened the organisation’s stranglehold over Lebanon while waging war on

Eliot Wilson

Why couldn’t Labour save Harland and Wolff?

As expected, Harland and Wolff, the legendary Belfast shipyard which built the Titanic, has formally entered administration. This comes as a surprise to no-one: last year, the firm lost £43 million, on top of a £70 million loss in 2022, and it had become reliant on a high-interest loan from US investment managers Riverstone. Harland and Wolff’s management had hoped to restructure its borrowing with a loan guarantee from the government, and had spent months negotiating with UK Export Finance, which deals with export credit guarantees. In July, however, the newly appointed business and trade secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, told the House of Commons that he would not offer such a guarantee, nor any emergency liquidity

George Magnus

Beijing is seriously concerned about the Chinese economy

China’s leaders and economic policymakers – who have been optimistic and confident about the economy for years – are clearly spooked.  Just two weeks ago, Chinese state media was happily insisting that the country was experiencing ‘stable economic growth’. China requires a major rethink when it comes to the economy, something which may be politically impossible for a Leninist government Yet in the last week, Beijing has announced and is expected to approve over £319 billion in new fiscal measures – the biggest monetary policy stimulus since the pandemic. The move is a clear acknowledgement that China has a weak economy with an array of systemic economic and social problems. In another

Steerpike

Whatever happened to the ‘Office of Deputy PM’?

Poor old Angela Rayner. It seems she is not too happy about reports that she is being ‘frozen out’ of decision-making in the new government, amid claims that she is the victim of a media ‘briefing war.’ Various reports have appeared suggesting that she has lost control of Labour’s employee rights’ package to the Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds and planning reform to the Chancellor Rachel Reeves. Use of the grace-and-favour residence of Dorneywood has also been given to Reeves, unlike in the days of John Prescott. Bad luck improving your croquet skills Ange. It’s a far cry from, er, March when allies of Rayner were busy briefing about ‘plans to

Steerpike

Watch: JSO protestors attack more Van Gogh paintings

It didn’t take long for the eco-zealots to strike again. Just minutes after Just Stop Oil activists Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland were jailed for throwing Heinz tomato soup over Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, a trio of JSO protestors have again targeted the artist’s work at the National Gallery. How very tiresome… The climate protest group tweeted out a video of the group’s latest stunt, urging Brits to ‘support people in resistance’. The clip of the art attack, which was recorded this afternoon, shows passers-by remonstrating with the JSO activists. Shouting at a room of livid art enthusiasts, the protestors raged: ‘There are people in prison for demanding an end to

Ross Clark

Why did it take Baroness Warsi so long to quit the Tory party?

There will be little surprise that Baroness Warsi has resigned the Conservative whip; the greater wonder is that she didn’t do so years ago. In her leaving, she complains ‘how far right my party has moved’, but then she has been making complaints about the Tories for years. Warsi has never been slow to accuse the Conservatives of Islamophobia. In June 2020, for example, following the murder of three men in Reading by an Islamist extremist – an asylum-seeker from Libya – it was the then Conservative government which caught her ire. Describing the murders as a ‘lone wolf’ attack, she said: ‘How can the government seek the support of a community

Oscar Edmondson

Inside Starmer’s dinner with Donald Trump

16 min listen

The political equivalent of the Rumble in the Jungle happened last night when Starmer sat down for a two-hour dinner with Donald Trump, following the Prime Minister’s speech at the UN General Assembly. Details of what Trump and Starmer talked about are scant: the official read-out merely says they discussed the ‘longstanding friendship’ between Britain and America. Is this good politics from the prime minsiter?  Elsewhere, the Tory party conference kicks off in Birmingham this weekend and with it the beauty contest for the next Conservative leader. What should listeners expect?  Oscar Edmondson speaks to James Heale and Kate Andrews.  Produced by Oscar Edmondson. 

Steerpike

Labour climate envoy sports Extinction Rebellion badge

When it rains for Sir Keir Starmer, it pours. Labour isn’t yet in the clear over the freebie fiasco that dampened the party’s conference this week and now another uncomfortable revelation has emerged. It transpires that Labour has chosen a new climate envoy with links to a hedge fund that donated millions to the party. The new appointee also appears to have had previous ties with, er, Extinction Rebellion. Rachel Kyte has been made the new UK special representative for climate, filling a role that was awarded a six-figure salary of £130,000 when it was last taken. The climate envoy is, it turns out, on the advisory board of the

James Heale

Will ‘flatgate’ damage Keir Starmer?

Labour conference has been and gone and still Lord Alli remains in the headlines. The latest claims regarding the multimillionaire peer surround his £18 million penthouse flat in Covent Garden which Keir Starmer used repeatedly during his time as Leader of the Opposition. Two periods in particular are being scrutinised by the press. First, the use of Alli’s flat by Starmer during the later stages of Covid. Second, his decision this spring to move his family there to allow his son to revise for his GCSEs. While the criticism of Lord Alli initially centred on claims of wealthy donors and ‘cash for access’, the story has now moved on to

Steerpike

Russell Findlay becomes Scottish Tory leader

The first of two Conservative leadership contests has concluded and today it has been announced that the new leader of the Scottish party is Russell Findlay. The former crime journalist was widely seen as the party establishment favourite after former leader Douglas Ross announced he would be resigning from the post in June. Now Findlay faces the rather daunting prospect of reuniting his group after months of bad briefings mired the race in scandal. Best of luck… Ross stepped down after losing the support of his colleagues when he ousted ill colleague David Duguid in the Westminster parliamentary selection process. Not long after the ex-party leader had announced he would

Philip Patrick

Japan’s next prime minister is a bit of a maverick 

The 67-year-old Shigeru Ishiba will become Japan’s new prime minister on 1 October after winning a surprisingly exciting play-off vote against his rival Sanae Takaichi. For a moment it looked as if Japanese MPs were set to elect the country’s first female leader (Takaichi was ahead of Ishiba in the first round of voting) but in the end the Liberal Democratic party (LDP) opted for experience and former defence minister Ishiba’s safe, and crucially clean pair of hands. Ishiba is at first glance a typical Japanese politician and an unexciting choice for PM. He’s a former banker and has been in politics for nearly 40 years. He doesn’t have a

Jonathan Sacerdoti

Why didn’t the BBC air this 7 October documentary earlier?

We all know what happened on 7th October 2023. But those of us who have watched the Israeli government’s compilation of footage from the day, as well as other videos sourced from the darker corners of the internet, know more than most the extent of atrocities carried out by the Palestinian terrorists who invaded through the Gaza border. There is no sanitisation here, no softening of the terror Now everyone can get a sense of what truly happened, thanks to Surviving October 7th: We Will Dance Again, the film by Yariv Mozer which screened last night on the BBC and is available on iPlayer and Paramount+ in the US. The documentary delivers a

Dalibor Rohac

Slating Nato won’t help Donald Trump

Reacting to Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to Scranton, Pennsylvania, earlier this week, Donald Trump reiterated his long-standing ambition to bring Russia’s war in Ukraine to a quick negotiated settlement instead of continuing with open-ended military support to Kyiv. If he wins the election, Trump said, ‘the first thing I’m gonna do is call up Zelensky and call up President Putin and I’m gonna say, “You gotta make a deal, this is crazy”.’ Trump is often seen as mercurial and unpredictable – an impression he revels in – but his desire to solve conflicts with real estate-like deals forms a consistent pattern of his foreign policy. In the context of Ukraine, that framing

Carson Becker

Viktor Orban’s adviser has made a big mistake

This week Balazs Orban, the bespectacled political director to the Hungarian Prime Minister (and of no relation to him), has found himself in trouble after a podcast interview he gave on Wednesday. He seemed to imply that Ukraine should not have resisted the Russian onslaught – and that if Hungary had been in a similar position, it would have given up without a fight.  ‘We probably wouldn’t have done what President Zelensky did two and a half years ago, because it’s irresponsible,’ Orban said. ‘Because obviously he put his country into a war defence, all these people died, all this territory was lost – again, it’s their right, it’s their

Jawad Iqbal

Starmer needs to make peace with Elon Musk

It is tantrums at dawn between Elon Musk and Keir Starmer’s Labour government. The Tesla billionaire and owner of Twitter is hopping mad after being denied an invitation to a government-led tech summit due to take place next month. In response Musk – certainly no one’s idea of a shrinking violet – said on Twitter: ‘I don’t think anyone should go to the UK when they’re releasing convicted paedophiles in order to imprison people for social media posts’. He appeared to be referring to the prisoner early release scheme, initiated by the Labour government to ease pressure on a prison system it has claimed is ‘on the point of collapse’ due to

Steerpike

Boris gave Prince ‘manly pep talk’ to keep him in UK

Well, well, well. When the monarchs of Montecito decided to cut ties with the UK and live stateside, Prince Harry and his wife Meghan seriously ruffled feathers in the royal family. But it now transpires that, before Harry’s big move, the Prince faced a rather curious intervention – from none other than the prime minister of the day, Boris Johnson. How very interesting… In Johnson’s upcoming memoir, Unleased, the ex-PM claims that officials from Downing Street and Buckingham Palace are thought to have conspired together in a bid to convince Prince Harry to stay in the UK. The former Tory leader writes in his soon-to-be-published tome that it was requested

Steerpike

Trump on Starmer: ‘I actually think he’s very nice’

After months of diary-juggling, Keir Starmer finally got his meeting with the man who could be the next US President. The political equivalent of the Rumble in the Jungle happened last night when Starmer sat down for a two-hour dinner with Donald Trump, following the Prime Minister’s speech at the UN General Assembly. Details of what Trump and Starmer talked about are scant: the official read-out merely says they discussed the ‘longstanding friendship’ between Britain and America. But we do know that among attendees at the Trump tower dinner was David Lammy, who once called his host ‘a woman-hating, neo-Nazi sympathizing sociopath.’ How times change eh? Prior to the meeting,

Katy Balls

The Bridget Phillipson Edition – live at Labour conference

33 min listen

Labour’s Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson returns to Women With Balls in a special live edition of the podcast, recorded at Labour Party conference. The MP for Houghton and Sunderland South since 2010, Phillipson joined Keir Starmer’s shadow cabinet in 2020, and was appointed Shadow Education Secretary the following year. She retained her brief following the general election, and was also appointed Minister for Women and Equalities. Katy talks to Bridget about her priorities for Education, what she thinks about the idea that too many people go to university, and the recovery of schools and pupils post-pandemic.  Produced by Oscar Edmondson and Patrick Gibbons.

Michael Evans

Joe Biden has tried and failed to fix the Middle East

No one can accuse President Joe Biden of failing to do his utmost to prevent a full-scale war from breaking out in the Middle East. He and his indefatigable envoys must have spent more time this year working on the Middle East than any other issue.  The intensive diplomatic efforts by Antony Blinken, secretary of state, Jake Sullivan, national security adviser, Bill Burns, CIA director, and Amos Hochstein, Biden’s man covering Lebanon, among others, were supposed not only to find a workable solution to the myriad of crises but also enhance the President’s foreign policy legacy after what has turned out to be only one term in office.  Biden began his administration

John Foreman

How to evacuate a country

As fighting continues between Israel and Hezbollah, planning for a potential evacuation of British nationals from Lebanon has seen troops, ships and aircraft preparing in Cyprus and the wider region. Defence Secretary John Healey has chaired meetings in London to avoid the government being caught on the hop as happened before the evacuation from Kabul in 2021, following the unexpected collapse of the Afghan National Army. UK tabloids are already screaming about a ‘Dunkirk-style’ amphibious evacuation should an air extraction route become unavailable. This comparison is misleading. Naval planners had only seven days before launching the miraculous evacuation of 330,000 members of the British Expeditionary Force in 1940 under ferocious German attack. Evacuation plans of perhaps