Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Tuesday

Theodore Dalrymple

Britain is not addicted to punishing criminals

Mr Timpson, the new prisons minister, is the head of a company that employs about 600 ex-prisoners, and this is an admirable and humane social service. But good as this experience is, it is insufficient to decide on public policy as a whole.  In a recent interview, Mr Timpson said that there were far too many people in prison in Britain, that at least a third of prisoners should not be in prison, and that Britain had a Victorian obsession with punishment. It would probably be more true to say that Britain has an obsession with absence or mildness of punishment.  It would probably be more true to say that Britain has

James Kirkup

David Cameron has quit. Is anyone surprised?

The Conservative party is in disarray. What the party does next matters for the whole of Britain and maybe even for all of liberal democracy. For the British centre-Right to follow its American and French counterparts into nativist populism would be a shift of global and historical significance. Such serious times call for serious people. So, naturally, David Cameron has quit.  Not for the first time, Cameron is waddling off into the emptiness of early retirement when the alternative was sticking around to do something difficult. Last time the difficult thing was ‘offer stable governance to the country you just broke’. Now it’s ‘help stop your party dragging the country’s politics towards all the

Steerpike

Tory hopefuls hit by the curse of Cameron

Oh dear. After last week’s bruising defeat for the Conservatives, the party has been left looking for a new leader and a way to win back voters. With only 121 seats, the Tory party has lost a number of key figures – and just last night, it was revealed that both party chairman Richard Holden and ex-foreign secretary Lord Cameron were stepping down. The Tory peer was a controversial addition to the cabinet last year when Rishi Sunak gave him the foreign brief – but was the ex-PM as helpful a choice as Sunak might have hoped for during campaign season? It transpires that every candidate Lord Cameron chose to

Gavin Mortimer

The ugly selfishness of France’s politicians

France play Spain this evening in the semi-final of the European football championship, and there may be a smile on the faces of some of the French players. Several have been social media in the last 24 hours, expressing their satisfaction with the success of the left-wing coalition in the election.  ‘Congratulations to all the French people who rallied round so that this beautiful country of France does not find itself governed by the extreme right’, said Jules Koundé. Aurélien Tchouaméni, who, like Koundé, plays his club football in Spain, called the result a ‘victory for the people’. Sunday night’s result was not, as Tchouaméni claims, a victory for the

Freddy Gray

Real Biden has crashed – but Artificial Biden is just getting started

Everybody knows that Joe Biden isn’t really there. His denials of ill-health are in fact a symptom of it – he clings angrily to his delusions because that is what people do when their minds go. And since he seems so immovable, the question is whether Democrats can somehow buy into Biden’s alternate reality again in time for 2024. Can the party re-delude itself into thinking that he is somehow reversing the ageing process, even if that makes them look and sound ever more ridiculous? What we’re seeing is the increasingly disembodied Artificial Biden who will fight the rest of this campaign And the answer is: yes, they can! We

Steerpike

Suella hits out at pro-LGBT Tories

As rumours continue to swirl about who will make a bid for the Tory leadership, Suella Braverman has been on manoeuvres in Washington. The former home secretary’s speech at the National Conservatism conference in the US constituted a rather scathing attack on her own party, and has ruffled feathers across the political spectrum. In a speech considered to be part of her leadership bid, Braverman refused to pull any punches. Slamming equality and diversity training, the ex-cabinet minister told her crowd that: We Tory ministers, nominally in charge of the system, completely failed. The Progress flag flew over our buildings as if they were occupied territory… I wanted to scrap

Gareth Roberts

Keir Starmer and the illusion of ‘seriousness’

The first few days of a totally new government are disorientating. Nobody knows quite how to react. The electoral dust is still settling. We are still in the process of recalibrating well-worn reflexes: rolling your eyes and tutting about Jeremy Hunt and David Cameron is no longer a thing, for they are no longer things. What do all the people on social media who ranted endlessly about ‘getting the Tories out’ do now, with their mission accomplished? When Carol Vorderman wakes up in the morning now, what is her first thought, her catalyst for the day? It’s rather like a new series of Big Brother – a bewildering array of

Monday

Steerpike

Cameron and Holden resign as Sunak announces shadow cabinet

Richard Holden has resigned from his role as Conservative party chairman. The news comes as the Tory party has announced its shadow cabinet reshuffle – after it won just over 120 seats in Thursday’s election.  Despite holding onto the safe seat he was parachuted into just days before the nomination deadline, Holden has left his chairman role – with Richard Fuller take the post in the meantime. In a candid admission, Fuller said that the party has had had ‘a difficult election’, adding: ‘We should also challenge ourselves candidly and deeply on the strengths of the Conservative party across the country and outline where improvements can be made.’ You can say that

Katy Balls

Can Labour deliver economic growth?

13 min listen

This morning, Rachel Reeves made her first speech as chancellor. She announced mandatory housing targets, promising 1.5 million homes over the next five years, as well as an end to the onshore wind ban. What else does she have in store, and can Labour deliver the growth the country needs? James Heale discusses with Katy Balls and Kate Andrews.

Svitlana Morenets

Kyiv children’s hospital bombed 

I have been in Kyiv for a few weeks. The city has felt safe thanks to its improved air defences. But that changed this morning when the capital came under a huge attack. Ukraine’s largest children’s hospital, Okhmatdyt, was hit by Russian missiles. The area is strewn with collapsed concrete and smoke is rising still. Children may remain trapped under the rubble.  People are rushing to help – queuing to deliver water, food and medicine. Some have come to donate blood. Children have been taken out of the hospital on trolleys and are now in the streets, while some continue to receive their cancer treatments via IV drips. Mothers stand

Andrew Liddle

The newfound power of Anas Sarwar

On Sunday, Sir Keir Starmer made Scotland the first stop on his inaugural tour of the UK since becoming Prime Minister. The trip was nominally about delivering a ‘reset’ in relations between the UK and Scottish governments, which had grown particularly strained in the latter years of the Conservative administration. Starmer’s visit was also about reassuring the Scottish electorate, which heavily backed the Labour party once again, that he would continue to value them now the votes have been counted.  But the visit also reflected the changing dynamic between the Scottish and UK Labour parties, and the growing importance of the Scottish leader Anas Sarwar, who is now the most

Debbie Hayton

Will Anneliese Dodds finally see sense on trans rights?

The waiting is over. Anneliese Dodds has been named as minister of state for women and equalities, and will attend cabinet as part of her role. Meanwhile, Bridget Phillipson will be the official minister, tied into her Secretary of State for Education brief. It’s not the courageous change that some were hoping for: Dodds was equalities shadow to Kemi Badenoch in the previous parliament. Dodds needs to wise up to basic truths fast now that she is sitting round the cabinet table But let’s hope now she’s taken up the role that Dodds has worked out what a woman is, and her vision for equalities is – as Badenoch pointed

Steerpike

JK Rowling takes aim at Labour women’s minister

It’s the third day of Sir Keir’s Labour government and Starmer has finished making his ministerial appointments. But not everyone is thrilled by the final list. Emily Thornberry has already hit out at Starmer’s snub, after the long-time parliamentarian was passed over for a government role, and now JK Rowling has taken to Twitter/ X to slam the new PM’s choices. After Starmer’s appointment of Anneliese Dodds as women and equalities minister was announced, the Harry Potter author decided to remind her followers of one of Dodds’ more baffling conversations. Just two years ago, the Labour politician was quizzed by Emma Barnett on the BBC’s Woman’s Hour about her party’s

Steerpike

Conservative party Twitter/ X account is deleted

Has Rishi Sunak officially killed off the Tory party? As members of his battered party dusted themselves off to return to parliament this morning, they arrived to discover that the official Conservative Twitter/X account had been deleted. Viewers to the page were met with a message telling them that ‘This account doesn’t exist’ – an ironic turn of events, coming just three days after the party lost two-thirds of its MPs. Talk about timing… After Mr S made some enquiries, it turns out that the truth is slightly less exciting. A party spokesman say that the account was deleted by Twitter/X, not them. It came as a result of an

Ross Clark

Will Reeves be brave enough to take on the eco blockers?

On the eve of the election the then shadow minister without portfolio Nick Thomas-Symonds appeared to be getting Labour’s excuses in early. If an incoming Labour government started to look at the books and realised that things were even worse than they had thought, he said, then the new government’s fiscal policy might have to diverge from the Labour manifesto. He was immediately slapped down by Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies who pointed out that the government’s books are not hidden away in a Whitehall cellar – they already are open to whoever wishes to inspect them. What does Reeves’ have in mind to prevent developments being

Isabel Hardman

Starmer is prioritising experience in picking his ministerial team

Keir Starmer has finally filled the women and equalities brief in his government with Bridget Phillipson and Anneliese Dodds. Phillipson is the minister for women and equalities, along with her role as Secretary of State for Education. Dodds is minister of state for women and equalities, and has also been appointed a minister of state in the Foreign Office. Starmer is trying to underline that this is a government with bags of experience even after 14 years of Labour in opposition This is an interesting move given how thorny this policy area has become in the past few years. Dodds is well-known within the Labour party for being much more

Steerpike

Thornberry fumes at Starmer snub

Uh oh. Not everyone in Sir Keir’s Labour party is in celebration mode right now. The Prime Minister has finished dishing out government roles and one MP in particular has voiced her unhappiness about not receiving a position. Passed over for a government post, Emily Thornberry has taken to Twitter to opine on her snub from Starmer. The new PM has instead opted to make Richard Hermer KC – a lawyer who represented Gerry Adams – his attorney general over Thornberry, despite her comfortable win in Islington South last week and her years of experience in the shadow cabinet. In a less than humble statement, the Labour MP and former shadow

Ian Acheson

How Labour’s jail strategy could come unstuck

Let’s talk cobblers. The Prime Minister has responded to the jail space crisis by ennobling the nation’s shoe mender-in-chief James Timpson and making him minister for prisons, probation and parole. This is a bold move but not one without risk. It would only take one high-profile crime committed by a prisoner on early release to plunge the strategy into crisis Timpson has made his fortune out of the ubiquitous key cutting and watch repair outlets that sprout from many big supermarkets. He’s less well known for a passionate interest in penal affairs. He became the first household name retailer to employ carefully screened prison leavers in his shops and they have returned his trust by

Katy Balls

Why MPs are braced for an ‘extremely turbulent few years’

Four days on from Keir Starmer’s landslide victory, Westminster is still soaking up the results of the general election. With the Labour leader safely ensconced in 10 Downing Street with a working majority of 181, the Tories are licking their wounds following their worst-ever defeat. The Conservatives’ greatest comfort is that they have managed to remain the official opposition – but research from Focaldata on the pattern of voting sets out the challenge ahead: namely, that the Tories lost ‘a huge amount of their middle-aged voters’. The survey of more than 52,000 respondents finds that Tory voters under 40 tended to switch to Labour whereas those over 40 plumped for

Freddy Gray

The Democrats’ greatest fear about Joe Biden

Stick or twist? The gambler’s choice is the Democrats’ awful dilemma as the US presidential election draws ever closer. Do they stick with Joe Biden, their painfully decrepit Commander-in-Chief, who is losing in the polls? Or twist and gamble on replacing him, which could tear the party apart and make Donald Trump’s victory even more likely? The President may already be on borrowed time The news over the weekend showed that the Democrats are already at war with themselves. Biden’s ABC interview with George Stephanopoulos did little to reassure the President’s anxious supporters and Sunday brought more news of House Democrats, and other senior Democratic figures, calling for him to make way. A newly hatched plan for