Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Friday

Steerpike

Prison officer probes soar amid bonking craze

Prison is supposedly a place for wrongdoers to repent and reform – but it seems that even the staff inside are no angels themselves. After a female Wandsworth prison guard was suspended in July for a viral video of her, er, engaging with an inmate, Mr S did some digging into how widespread this phenomenon this really is. And Steerpike can reveal that dozens of prison officers have faced disciplinary action for ‘inappropriate relations’ with inmates or ex-offenders – with 65 probed since 2018 alone. Talk about the screws, eh? This figure was provided by the Ministry of Justice in respond to a Freedom of Information request by The Spectator and includes prison

James Heale

Can Labour really tame the unions?

11 min listen

Less than 48 hours after Transport Secretary Louise Haigh hailed a new deal with train drivers… the rail union Aslef announced further strike action. So what happened to Labour’s ‘relationship reset’ with the unions? And with recent pay deals, what incentive is there for workers to compromise with the government? Fraser Nelson and Isabel Hardman join James Heale to discuss. Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

Steerpike

Scottish Tory leadership candidates call for race to halt

All is not well in the Scottish Tory party. Now four of the six candidates have released a statement calling for the leadership race to be paused until they receive assurances on the contest’s ‘transparency and fairness’. The letter, signed by Murdo Fraser, Jamie Greene, Liam Kerr and Brian Whittle, is addressed to the party’s management board and comes in light of ‘disturbing claims’ about outgoing leader Douglas Ross. Oh dear… The Telegraph reported this morning that according to senior sources in the party, Ross wanted to ditch the leadership role over a year ago and coronate the current frontrunner Russell Findlay. Ross – who at the time was both

Steerpike

SNP in civil war over Israel deputy ambassador meet

It’s a day that ends in ‘y’ so the nationalists are fighting amongst themselves again. This time it’s over a controversial meeting between the Scottish government’s Culture Secretary Angus Robertson and Daniela Grudsky, the deputy ambassador of Israel to the UK. As Mr S revealed this week, certain Nats were rather upset about the encounter, in which discussions about energy, culture and the Middle East took place. Aberdeen Central MSP Kevin Stewart writing that: ‘I hope Angus Robertson also demanded an immediate ceasefire’ while his colleague Elena Whitham tweeted out, um, a sad face emoji. You can always rely on the SNP for serious politics, eh? The SNP’s National Secretary Lorna

Ross Clark

Are monthly retail stats that useful?

So, we were all so impressed with the swashbuckling performance of Gareth Southgate’s team that we all rushed out and bought replica England shirts and packs of lager – to the point that retail sales in July were 0.5 per cent higher than in June. No, I don’t buy that either – even though it has been widely reported today in reaction to the latest statistical release from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). As I have written here before, I don’t really trust the month-on-month figures for retail sales. They are too volatile to be meaningful. Moreover, they depend somewhat on how many weekends fell in the month: some

James Heale

More rail strikes are an embarrassment for Labour

It is less than 48 hours since the government hailed a new deal with train drivers as proof that two years of rail strikes would soon be coming to an end. So it will be some embarrassment that Aslef, the rail union, today announced a further 22 days of strike action on the east coast mainline. Passengers travelling between London, Leeds, York and Edinburgh face months of disruption, with walkouts starting on 31 August and lasting until 10 November. The announcement will undoubtedly cause a headache for ministers Rather than pay, Aslef claims that ‘a breakdown in industrial relations, bullying by management and persistent breaking of agreements’ is behind the

Matthew Lynn

Kamala’s economic plans are bonkers

She didn’t have to slog around New Hampshire, there were no debates, and there were few opportunities for voters or journalists to ask Kamala Harris any questions. The Democratic nomination for President fell into her lap when it became painfully clear that Joe Biden was far too old and too unwell to run for a second term. That may turn out to be very lucky, at least for her. Later today (Friday), Harris will unveil her first new policy of the campaign. The trouble is this: it is completely idiotic. After a campaign that has so far been strong on vibes, and weak on anything that vaguely resembles a detailed

Ross Clark

What should Starmer do about monkeypox?

The government has a bit of a conundrum. Given how Keir Starmer and his Labour colleagues damned the previous Conservative administration for failing to lock down the country early enough for Covid, what are they now going to do about the new strain of monkeypox (or ‘mpox’, as we are now supposed to call it)? Come on, now is the time to act, when 548 people are reported to have died in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the first case has reached Sweden, and the World Health Organisation has declared a global health emergency. So what are you going to do? Ban travel from the DRC? Place into

James Heale

Can Keir cope with Kamala?

After a year of speculation about how Keir Starmer would work with Donald Trump, the situation stateside has changed dramatically. Gone is the flailing Joe Biden as the Democratic presidential candidate; in his place is Kamala Harris, his resurgent vice president. She enters her party’s national convention as the bookmakers’ favourite to win the White House, with polls suggesting she has a slim lead over Trump. The change in momentum is privately welcomed by most Labour ministers, who would prefer working with a president who hails from their sister party across the pond. Both Starmer and Harris share a legal background and face shared challenges on crime, migration, and unorthodox

Steerpike

Tom Tugendhat’s war on TikTok

As the Tory leadership race heats up, all six candidates are trying to draw dividing lines to stand out to their fellow MPs – and the membership. Now Tom Tugendhat has taken to Twitter to make clear his stance on the all-important issue of, um, TikTok. The China hawk has slammed the Beijing-based social media platform, telling his Twitter followers that ‘unlike other candidates, you won’t have seen my videos on TikTok’. The app, Tugendhat says, is ‘controlled by a foreign country’ that ‘doesn’t share any of our values and in fact silences debate’. Don’t hold back… The Conservative leadership contender continued his tirade: TikTok is owned by a company

Katy Balls

From the archives: the Kemi Badenoch Edition

39 min listen

Women with Balls has taken a summer break and will be back in September with a new series. Until then, here’s an episode from the archives, with current Tory leadership hopeful Kemi Badenoch MP. Widely seen as one of the Conservative Party’s rising stars upon her election to Parliament in 2017, her star has only continued to rise. Serving under successive PMs, this episode was recorded in May 2022 when she was Minister of State for Local Government, Faith and Communities, and for Equalities. Now many consider her the frontrunner to be Tory leader.  On the podcast, Kemi talks about her childhood in Nigeria and the golden ticket that was

Jawad Iqbal

Why is David Lammy hiring Columbia’s disastrous president?

Few will shed a tear at the news that Columbia University president Minouche Shafik is stepping down after months of criticism of her handling of campus protests over the war in Gaza. Her abrupt resignation – just a few weeks before the autumn semester is due to begin – brings to a close her turbulent 13-month reign at Columbia, one of America’s most prestigious educational institutions. ‘This period has taken a considerable toll on my family, as it has for others in our community,’ Shafik wrote in an email to staff and students. ‘It has also been a period of turmoil where it has been difficult to overcome divergent views

Thursday

Stephen Daisley

Are Scottish nationalists having delusions of grandeur?

The Scottish nationalists are aggrieved. What’s new, I hear you ask. Well, a diplomatic row, one which has prompted some decidedly undiplomatic language. The Scottish establishment is worked up after it emerged that Angus Robertson, the Scottish government’s pretendy foreign secretary, met with Daniela Grudsky. Who’s she? Why, Israel’s deputy ambassador to the United Kingdom. Their confab took place on 8 August but word has only just got out.  The pair discussed fairly routine and low-level matters like cultural cooperation and renewables. To hear the howls from politicos and activists, you’d think Robertson leapt into a tank and rolled into Gaza. His colleagues have lined up to denounce the meeting, with one even

Svitlana Morenets

Power play: Zelensky’s plan for his Russian conquests

40 min listen

This week: Power play. The Spectator’s Svitlana Morenets writes the cover article in this week’s magazine exploring Zelensky’s plan for his Russian conquests. What’s his aim? And how could Putin respond? Svitlana joins the podcast alongside historian and author Mark Galeotti (02:10). Next: Will and Gus discuss their favourite pieces from the magazine, including Richard Madeley’s diary and Lara Prendergast’s argument that bankers are hot again. Then: how concerned should we be about falling fertility rates? In the magazine this week Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde argues that the problem is already far more grave, and far more global, than we realise. Why should we worry about this, and what can be done to stem

James Heale

Has GDP growth come at the wrong time for Labour? 

11 min listen

The broader story this morning paints a positive picture for the UK economy. While growth in June took a pause, growth in Q2 for this year is estimated to be 0.6 per cent, roughly in line with what markets were predicting, as forecasts for UK growth have been repeatedly revised upwards since the start of the year. Growth was 0.8 per cent in the three months to May, indicating the positive upward trend only paused at the start of the summer. This sounds like great news, but has it come at the right time for Labour?  Today we have also had A Level results and top marks have risen despite

Eliot Wilson

No, the British army should not recruit Afghan soldiers

John Simpson, the BBC’s world affairs editor, is a distinguished broadcaster whose career spans seven decades, from interviewing the exiled King Mutesa II of Buganda to covering the post-Gaddafi civil war in Libya. Like any of us, however, he is not immune from a poorly considered opinion. This week, on Twitter, he stumbled awkwardly over the notion of recruiting former Afghan soldiers into the British army: The British Army is in serious need of recruits. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of highly motivated, SAS-trained Afghan soldiers who want to join up — but can’t because British officialdom insists they have to live in the UK for five years first. Not

Gavin Haynes

It’s not so bad that JD Vance is ‘weird’

For almost a fortnight, the Democrats have had only one word in their word cloud when it comes to JD Vance: ‘Weird.’ On Sunday, Vance finally responded to the charge, on CNN’s State of the Union, calling it: ‘fundamentally school yard bully stuff.’ ‘No, we’re not ’, Trump had told a rally in Montana, a couple of days earlier. ‘We’re very solid people.’ Yet on it goes. From dawn to dusk, the CNBC/USA Today/NPR message machine has been pumping out the same word in the mouths of different commentators. This is no accident. The ‘weird’ meme is supposed to have started with Tim Walz, Kamala Harris’ VP pick, during an appearance on the TV breakfast

Steerpike

Labour poach Mirror political editor

Will the last lobby hack please turn out the lights? After Torcuil Crichton and Paul Waugh made the jump from journalism into politics by being elected last month, now another scribe has formally joined the Starmer army. After much Westminster speculation about the slowness of SpAd appointments, today Guido Fawkes revealed an interesting new hire. It transpires that the political editor of the famously partial Mirror tabloid has jumped ship – and right into the Cabinet Office. John Stevens has opted to leave the world of lobby journalism for go and spin for top Keirleader Pat McFadden. During the Tory years, Stevens relished causing headaches for Tory spads with his scoops on

Steerpike

Former Irish PM defends Olympic boxer at centre of gender row

Well, well, well. Now Ireland’s former Taoiseach has swooped in to defend the Olympian at the centre of a gender row. Leo Varadkar’s gushing Instagram post in support of gold medallist Imane Khelif hit users’ feeds last night, accompanied by some rather odd graphics. The ex-Irish PM reposted a screenshot from the ‘@fitnessgayz’ account, with the words ‘Get em girl!!’ emblazoned across the image in bright pink. The former Fine Gael leader then launched into an impassioned defence of Khelif – who has faced backlash for competing in the women’s boxing after previously failing gender eligibility tests – and even suggested he would make a donation to her cyberbullying lawsuit

Kate Andrews

Britain’s growing GDP is good and bad news for Labour

The UK economy flatlined in June, as uncertainty over the general election and industrial action took their toll on economic growth. It wasn’t expected to be a strong month for the economy, with markets forecasting very little GDP growth, if any. But the small dip in services output – a fall of 0.1 per cent, driven primarily by a fall in retail trade – was disappointing after five months of consecutive growth. Still, June’s figures are the perfect example of why one month of data rarely tells the full story. Businesses reported to the ONS that ‘customers were delaying placing orders until the outcome of the election was known’ which