Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Thursday

Patrick West

McDonald’s did not make Kemi Badenoch working class

Is it possible to change your class? Not just superficially – in moving up and down the hierarchy of social standing – but change it inwardly so that you transform your very sense of self? Conservative leadership contender Kemi Badenoch seems to think so. Speaking on Chopper’s Political Podcast this week, the shadow housing secretary said that although she grew up in a middle-class family, she became working class when she took a job at McDonald’s while studying for her A-levels. Explaining her conversion, she put it baldly: ‘I grew up in a middle-class family, but I became working class when I was 16 working in McDonald’s.’ She elaborates:  Just

Steerpike

Revealed: Starmer’s top five freebies

The Prime Minister has been generating scores of headlines lately – for all the wrong reasons. It has transpired this week that Sir Keir has accepted over £107,000 worth of gifts since 2019 – the most of any parliamentarian in the same period. Labour has insisted today that voters don’t care about all this carry on – but after the national outrage that followed the Partygate scandal, Mr S is pretty sceptical of that point. So what makes up Starmer’s most luxurious donations? Steerpike has compiled a handy list below… Footie freebies The PM hasn’t made a secret of his obsession with the beautiful game, and it didn’t take long

James Heale

What the Sue Gray row is really about

14 min listen

It’s been a sticky week for Labour. Whilst they will have hoped to spend the run up to this weekend’s conference talking about the policy wins of their first 100 days in power, Labour MPs are instead having to defend the Prime Minister for accepting freebies and talk down speculation of a rift at the heart of government. Is there a power struggle in Number 10?  James Heale speaks to Katy Balls and John McTernan, former political secretary to tony Blair.  Produced by Oscar Edmondson. 

Kate Andrews

Was the Bank of England wrong not to cut interest rates?

The Bank of England has held interest rates at 5 per cent. This was the expected outcome of the Monetary Policy Committee’s latest meeting, which saw members vote 8-1 to maintain the base rate.  Was it a mistake not to cut rates? The latest economic data appears to have persuaded the MPC to lean into their (now) hawkish tendencies and keep rates steady. The headline inflation rate is almost on target but the rise in core inflation in August (which excludes more volatile prices like food and energy) and in services inflation – as well as mixed signals from the labour market – gave the Bank good reasons to wait until later in the Autumn

James Innes-Smith

Can Sadiq Khan save Oxford Street?

Oxford Street’s spiralling tawdriness is a miserable advert for London. The ‘candy’ stores and tourist tat ‘luggage’ emporiums, the gang fights and phone snatchers are an embarrassment: tourists who are told that London is the greatest city on earth must struggle to reconcile that promise with the reality of the city’s main shopping street. Oxford Street has been on its uppers for as long as I can remember and I’ve been living nearby for over 20 years. Is it any wonder despondent locals like me steer well clear? But all that might be about to change if London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s plan to pedestrianise the capital’s benighted thoroughfare gets the go ahead.

Steerpike

End Tory leadership race early, says Tugendhat

While Labour’s dirty laundry over ‘frockgate‘ is being aired in public, it would be easy to forget there are still Tory leadership contests rumbling on in the background. The Scottish race will conclude at the end of the month, but the UK Conservative party leader will only be announced in November – a decision that has caused much consternation in the party. It now transpires that contender Tom Tugendhat believes the conclusion of the race should be brought forward to ensure a new party leader is chosen before the Budget. Currently the ex-PM Rishi Sunak will be in place when Labour’s financial statement announcement takes place on 30 October –

Steerpike

Labour minister: Freebies are ‘part of the job’

Dear oh dear. Things are only getting worse for Sir Keir, as it now transpires that the Prime Minister accepted £40,000 in hospitality gifts, a £4 million donation from a Cayman Islands-registered hedge fund, and regular use of an £18 million penthouse owned by top donor Lord Alli. Alright for some, eh? It’s been a rough week for the PM as ‘frockgate‘ continues to rumble on, and the scrutiny on Starmer’s acceptance of some rather extravagant donations is only growing. As reported by the Telegraph, not only did the Labour leader accept clothing and glasses from Lord Alli, he also used Alli’s 5,000 square foot home on election night, as

David Shipley

Why aren’t some released prisoners being tagged?

As hundreds of prisoners are released early on to the streets of Britain, it’s vital that the authorities keep track of these criminals. Worryingly, this doesn’t seem to be happening: several recently released prisoners who have been out of jail for two to six weeks told me they have still not been tagged. It’s anyone’s guess what these people are up to – and where they are going. Even probation officers struggle to get clear answers about whether or not tags have been fitted A backlog in fitting tags appears to be causing this situation. But there are rumours that there is a wider shortage of tags. Whatever the reason,

Druin Burch

There’s nothing wrong with being a ‘junior’ doctor

‘The wise bustle and laugh as they walk, but fools bustle and are important,’ wrote F.L. Lucas a century ago. ‘And this, probably is all the difference between them.’ The government and the British Medical Association, who yesterday announced that henceforth junior doctors will be called ‘resident doctors’, are bustling and self-important fools. I was 37 when I ceased being a junior doctor and became a consultant. Not quite the glittering early success of Pitt the Younger, but I had the common comfort of being ordinary and surrounded by peers roughly my age. I search my memory for the awful horrors caused by carrying around the name ‘junior’ all those

Debbie Hayton

The trouble with Trafalgar Square’s transgender tribute

Seven hundred and twenty-six plaster face casts of transsexual, non-binary or gender non-conforming people were unveiled yesterday in London’s Trafalgar Square. Mil Veces un Instante (A thousand times an Instant) by Mexican artist, Teresa Margolles, sits proudly upon the Fourth Plinth around Nelson’s Column. The casts are arranged in the form of a Tzompantli, or a ‘skull rack’, that exhibited the remains of war captives or sacrifice victims, and the art is intended to draw attention to the rights of trans people worldwide. But is it really necessary? As another Transgender Day of Remembrance approaches on 20 November with its pseudo-religious trappings, this imagery is not what London needs. How

Gavin Mortimer

Diane Abbott doesn’t understand fascism

Diane Abbott believes that Giorgia Meloni is a ‘literal fascist’. That must come as a surprise to the 12.3 million voters who elected her prime minister of Italy two years ago. Not to mention King Charles, who hosted Meloni at Blenheim Palace in July. The Right Honourable Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington described Meloni as a fascist as Keir Starmer jetted to Italy this week to meet the country’s leader. ‘What does he hope to learn from her,’ asked Abbott. Perhaps the British premier would like to hear how Meloni has this year reduced immigrant arrivals on Italian territory by 65 per cent. Is this the behaviour of

Douglas Murray

Are the Tories brave enough to be conservative?

The Conservative party is out of power – and that’s not easy if you’ve been in power for more than a decade. Even after a short spell in government there are certain aspects of life that you miss. The drivers and others who used to manage your life and get you around. The legions of advisers. The security detail (if you held one of the high offices of state). And the civil servants who do your bidding. That last one is a joke, of course. I know most readers will, like me, have found it difficult to listen to Conservative ministers complaining about civil servants during their 14 years in

Ross Clark

How the EU turned on Ireland’s low-tax project

First, the good news. The Irish government is about to receive a €13 billion windfall in the form of back taxes from tech giant Apple, after the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled against the company. That should pay for a good few social homes in a country that has an even bigger housing crisis than Britain’s. It could even go some way to providing universal free public healthcare (at the moment most adults have to pay something, even at public hospitals). Why should countries which have been successful at managing their finances be forced to jack up tax rates? Now the bad news. Ireland doesn’t actually want to receive

James Heale

Ed Davey’s game plan

Ed Davey owes much of his election success to Boris Johnson – and in more ways than one. The slide-loving, bungee-jumping, paddleboard-slipping Lib Dem leader has, like Johnson on his zipwire, learned how to capture media attention while evading being placed on a conventional political axis. One day he’s intoning soulfully on social care in the Commons; the next rocking up to party conference on a jet ski. He wants inheritance tax hiked but decries Labour’s plans for VAT on school fees. Such shenanigans enabled him in the election to appear both serious and silly, left and right, using any publicity to deliver ruthlessly crafted messages on health, sewage and

The Spectator

Labour vs labour: how can the government claim to be promoting growth?

Growth, growth, growth: that was what Keir Starmer told us would be his government’s priority in his first press conference as Prime Minister. Nearly three months on, as the Labour party heads into its first conference in power for 15 years, it is becoming ever harder to reconcile Starmer’s promise with the policies that his government seems determined to deliver. With junior doctors voting to accept a 22 per cent pay rise, yet another group of public sector workers has been lavished with financial reward without any obligation to accept or implement more productive working practices. The NHS is in the midst of a pay bonanza at a time when

Paul Wood

Hezbollah’s exploding pagers are just the start

Israel’s security cabinet met in a bunker in the ministry of defence in Tel Aviv on Monday night. The main item on the agenda was Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia whose missiles and rockets have forced tens of thousands of Israelis from their homes in the north. The meeting lasted into the early hours of Tuesday. At 2.26 a.m., the Prime Minister’s office issued a statement saying Israel’s war aims had been ‘updated’ – no longer just destroying Hamas in the south, but also the safe return home of everyone in the north. ‘Israel will continue to act to implement this objective.’ This seemed like a bland restatement of existing policy

Katy Balls

Nigel’s next target: Reform has Labour in its sights

At this weekend’s Reform conference in Birmingham, the opening speech will be given by a man who wasn’t even a member of the party until four months ago. James McMurdock stood in what was once a Tory safe seat. Against the odds and after three recounts, he won, and is now Reform’s accidental member of parliament.  The day after the general election, Reform leader Nigel Farage held his celebratory press conference alongside fellow seat-winners Lee Anderson, Richard Tice and Rupert Lowe, announcing their new gang of four. Half an hour later, from a Westminster pub, they learned that they would be five – after McMurdock, a supposed ‘paper candidate’, was

Wednesday

Stewart McDonald

Is there any hope left for the independence movement?

As we mark 10 years on from Scotland’s independence referendum, the entire political ecosystem in Scotland is engaged in attempts to define, or redefine, the narrative of that time. Those on my side of the independence argument remember a campaign of energy, optimism and positivity that is simply unmatched. It’s also the case that, for many on the pro-union side, they recall a divisive and hostile experience of the Yes movement. Both points of view can, of course, be true and are equally valid. Yet, it’s a uniquely Scottish curiosity that my side – ultimately, the losing side – speaks more fondly of that time than the actual winners. But this is Scottish politics,

Eliot Wilson

Why shouldn’t Sue Gray earn £170,000?

We are a day short of Sir Keir Starmer marking 11 weeks as prime minister. His first 76 days have not been easy ones, and it is striking how often they have been dogged by relatively minor stories which have nonetheless contrived to make the new occupant of Downing Street look out of touch, high-handed or even slightly grasping. The most recent brickbat is a report that Starmer’s chief of staff, Sue Gray, earns more than her boss, receiving a salary of £170,000. The mechanics of this have been clumsy: shortly after Starmer took office, he signed off on a shake-up of pay scales for special advisers which was, in

Katy Balls

What the Sue Gray row is really about

Another day, another story about Sue Gray. Today the BBC reports the details of Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff’s salary. Gray is paid the handsome sum of £170,000 a year – £3,000 more than her boss, the prime minister. She therefore earns more than any cabinet minister or Tory predecessor in the role. In a sign of how some in Whitehall feel about her pay, a source tells the BBC’s political editor Chris Mason: It was suggested that she might want to go for a few thousand pounds less than the prime minister to avoid this very story. She declined. A Cabinet Office spokesman responds: It is false to