Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Monday

Freddy Gray

Trump looks unstoppable in Iowa

The bitterly cold conditions in Iowa today have at least given journalists something to talk about. There’s a distinct lack of political drama, given everyone expects today’s Republican caucuses to be a blowout win for Donald Trump. The main questions of interest are: will Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis finish second? And will Trump break Republican records and win more than 50 per cent of the vote? Given that polls suggest Trump voters are far more enthusiastic than the supporters of his rivals, the arctic temperatures may only give him a further advantage. The weather is also a handy metaphor for the frozen state of Republican politics: Haley and DeSantis’s

Patrick O’Flynn

The damning poll that could inspire Tories to move against Sunak

The debate about whether Rishi Sunak’s Tories are heading for a 1992-style against-the-odds narrow election win or a 1997-style landslide defeat is pretty much settled now: it’s the latter. A terrible few months for Sunak had been pointing that way in any case, but now a huge political data-dump has confirmed it. YouGov’s giant opinion survey and analysis, with a sample size of 14,000, published overnight in the Daily Telegraph estimates that the party is heading for 169 seats and that Labour will have a majority of around 120. But for the Tories there is much more scope on the downside than the upside as regards this finding. To reach

Steerpike

Tory MPs squabble over migrant housing

A new year has seen the resumption of Westminster’s favourite parlour game: endless Tory infighting over the Rwanda Bill. But ahead of Rishi Sunak’s flagship legislation to ‘stop the boats’ returning to the Commons tomorrow, some Tory MPs spent the weekend arguing over a similarly thorny issue: where to house the 50,000-odd asylum seekers who have arrived in the UK already. Unsurprisingly, with a tough election ahead of them, few Tories are keen on taking hundreds of migrants into their patch. The main WhatsApp group for Conservative MPs duly ignited on Sunday as various MPs made the case for why it should not be them. Caroline Johnson, who sits for

Jake Wallis Simons

Why the West should target Iran as well as the Houthis

Peace cannot always be won by peaceful means. This is a truth that is as tragic as it is perennial. When history forges an enemy that cannot be placated, the blind pursuit of ‘peace in our time’ only shores up an even more devastating conflict in the future. This lesson, learned so painfully by previous generations, has faded in the somnambulant years of postwar Britain. It is one that we are starting to remember. Today, the defence secretary Grant Shapps pledges 20,000 British personnel to take part in a major Nato exercise to prepare for a potential Russian invasion of Europe. His words are unvarnished. ‘We are in a new

Stephen Daisley

Could a 1997-style wipeout spell the end of the Tories?

There is not a crumb of comfort for the Conservatives in the YouGov poll splashed across the front of this morning’s Daily Telegraph. It forecasts that the Tories will lose 196 seats in the coming general election, a bigger slump than the party suffered in 1997, 1945 or 1929. This would represent the second-worst defeat in the party’s history, after Henry Campbell-Bannerman’s Liberal landslide in 1906. Sir Keir Starmer would be looking at a majority of around 120. The poll suggests election night, whenever it comes, will serve up a steady stream of Portillo moments, with Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, Defence Secretary Grant Shapps, Education Secretary Gillian Keegan, and Leader of

Hardeep Singh

Why China benefits from the Maldives’ spat with India

Think of the Maldives and you’re likely to conjure up images of expensive honeymoons and golden beaches, but the archipelago is also the focus of an extraordinary spat with India. The Maldives’ high commissioner was summoned by the Indian government last week after three Maldivian deputy ministers published derogatory posts on X/ Twitter, labelling Indian prime minister Narendra Modi a ‘terrorist’, ‘clown’ and ‘puppet of Israel’. One message even compared India to cow dung. The fallout from this imbroglio has been swift. The trio were suspended and the posts have now been deleted. But India is furious: the hashtags #BoycottMaldives and #ExploreIndianIslands have been trending and there have been reports

Gavin Mortimer

Macron governs Paris but Le Pen rules France

There has never been a more Parisian government than the one selected by Emmanuel Macron last week. Ten of its 15 ministers come from the capital, despite the fact that the Greater Paris region represents 18 per cent of the population.  New prime minister, Gabriel Attal, is a Parisian, the MP for a district in the south of the city. I was one of his constituents for a number of years; he did a decent job and, during political campaigning, I sometimes took a leaflet from one of his minions. They were all very much like Attal: same age, same breeding, same self-assurance.   I’m no longer a Parisian. Last

Steerpike

The ministerial casualties from a 1997-style wipeout

It’s blue Monday today for Tory MPs as they read the findings of the Daily Telegraph’s mammoth new poll. The paper splashes today on a YouGov survey of 14,000 people – the biggest such poll since the 2019 election. It points to the Conservatives suffering an electoral wipeout on the scale of their 1997 defeat by Labour. It forecasts that the Tories will retain just 169 seats, while Labour will sweep to power with 385 – giving Sir Keir Starmer a 120-seat majority. Every Red Wall seat won from Labour by Boris Johnson in 2019 will be lost, the poll indicates, and the Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, will be one of 11 cabinet ministers to

Sam Leith

Why didn’t the British Library pay a ransom to cyber attackers?

‘They’ve turned one of our most important pieces of national infrastructure into an internet café,’ was how my friend Marcus, a scholar of early modern literature, put it to me, talking about the cyberattack that crashed the British Library at the end of last year. He’s not wrong. Since October, when a ransomware attack by the Rhysida criminal gang knocked all the library’s digital services offline, there really hasn’t been much more to the library’s Euston headquarters than a large airy building with a couple of expensive coffee shops. The Integrated Catalogue, which is the means by which readers search the library’s vast collection and call books up from the stacks or down from its

Katy Balls

It’s crunch week for Rishi Sunak

It’s a crunch week for Rishi Sunak as MPs prepare to cast their verdict on his Safety of Rwanda bill. The bill, which aims to get the government’s ‘stop the boats’ policy off the ground by unilaterally declaring Rwanda a safe country, returns to the Commons on Tuesday for its committee stage. There could then be a third reading vote as early as Wednesday night. Unfortunately for Sunak, as many as 60 Tory rebels on the right are getting behind amendments to toughen up the bill and reduce the opportunity for would-be migrants to appeal. This could ultimately lead to a resignation, with Tory party deputy chairman Lee Anderson considering

Ian Williams

China calls the shots in its alliance with Russia

There has been a strange atmosphere at recent top level meetings between ‘best friends’ China and Russia. It is not so much the elephant in the room as the pipeline running through it, with Moscow almost over-eager to talk about what has been billed as one of their most important joint economic projects, while Beijing has been doing its best to change the subject. That project is the Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline, which is supposed to carry 50 billion cubic metres (bcm) of natural gas a year from the Yamal region in northern Russia to China, by way of Mongolia. It was conceived more than a decade ago

Sunday

Steerpike

Civil servants urged to ‘suppress’ Douglas Murray in counterterrorist lecture

For all the talk of a Tory ‘war on woke Whitehall’, more examples just keep cropping up. In an article for Fathom Journal, Anna Stanley, a former civil servant, this week painted a vivid picture about the kind of counter-terrorist training which is being given to her colleagues. Stanley writes that she recently attended a Kings College London (KCL) course called ‘Issues in Countering Terrorism’. It was, in her words, a ‘deeply, existentially depressing experience.’ Examples were reportedly cited on how such educational institutions are delivering what Stanley called ‘politically biased, anti-government training, amounting to indoctrination’. According to her the ‘overriding emphasis’ of the KCL course was that ‘Islamist extremism

Joe Bedell-Brill

Cameron says ‘military action was only option’ in Yemen

David Cameron: western strikes on Houthi rebels are ‘a very clear message’ This week the US and UK launched military strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen, following repeated Houthi attacks on Red Sea cargo ships. Speaking to Laura Kuenssberg, David Cameron suggested the strikes sent a message that western countries were prepared to ‘follow our words and warnings with actions’. Kuenssberg questioned whether the strikes would have much impact, given the Houthi rebels’ declaration that they will step up their own attacks. Cameron pointed out that Houthi attacks have been escalating since November, and said military action was the only option.  Cameron: South Africa’s genocide case against Israel is ‘nonsense’

Steerpike

Keir Starmer’s morning of U-turns

Another day, another U-turn from Keir Starmer. Or to be precise, two new U-turns from the Labour leader before midday. Appearing on BBC1’s Laura Kuenssberg show this morning, Starmer tried to make clear his support for the UK military strikes on the Houthis after Sunak sanctioned action on Thursday. However, the part of the interview that has grabbed the most attention relates to two pledges he made during his campaign to be Labour leader. Asked about his plans for a Prevention of Military Intervention Act which would mean military action could only be taken if ‘you got the consent of the Commons’, Starmer decided to water down his pledge. He

John Keiger

France is tiring of Macron’s gimmicks

President Emmanuel Macron and his freshly installed Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, appointed a new French cabinet this week. It is little more than a reshuffle – and unlikely to lead to sunlit uplands for Macron’s beleaguered presidency. Of particular significance are the two centre-right ministers whose appointment testifies to the continuing rightward drift of the Macronist project in search of that elusive parliamentary working majority. At the same time, and despite all denials, policy is also being drawn rightwards towards the agenda set by Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella’s Rassemblement National on immigration, crime and policing. But the desired effects of the fresh cabinet are already proving vain (as I wrote earlier this

Tom Goodenough

‘I still need to live’: Christian preacher Hatun Tash on the plot to kill her

When Hatun Tash went missing before Christmas her friends and family had good reason to be worried. In recent years, Tash has moved house dozens of times and been repeatedly warned by police about threats to her safety. She has been stabbed and wrongly arrested. Tash has been harassed on the street and followed by strange men outside her home.  Tash, who is 41, has been targeted because she is a Christian preacher who used to be a Muslim. Last week, an Islamist terrorist who tried to buy a gun to kill her had his jail sentence increased. Edward Little, a 22-year-old Muslim extremist from Brighton, will now spend at

Louise Perry

Britain is soft on crime

I’m not actually a journalist, although I’m often described as such. Along with all the other critics, polemicists, and columnists, I should more accurately be described as a ‘commentator’, since my job is to sit around and opine.  Real journalists do exist, but they are a dying breed. When newspapers and magazines started to move online at the beginning of this century, it was discovered that the public weren’t very interested in journalism. Outlets realised that it was the commentary that actually attracted clicks, along with porn and funny cat videos, and so the commentators were rewarded while many of the journalists lost their jobs.  Over the last two decades,

Phillips O'Brien

Does Rishi Sunak care about Ukraine?

I’m told that these days you can still buy pastries which look like Boris Johnson, or drink beers with Boris Johnson’s face on the label, in Kyiv. There is even a Boris Johnson street somewhere in southern Ukraine. Though it has been described as ‘nondescript’ it’s still a sign that Britain’s early support for Ukraine after Russia’s full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022, lives on in the imagination of many Ukrainians.     The tragedy is that those with the greatest ‘imagination’ about the subject are probably in the UK itself.    For all the triumphalism, back-slapping and self-congratulation, the UK is one of the least generous supporters of Ukraine

Michael Martins

When will Kamala Harris come clean?

The world has changed since Kamala Harris ran for president in 2019. The US has withdrawn from Afghanistan (a decision she supported), war rages in Ukraine (as western funding and materiel commitments face domestic opposition in the United States and the EU), and tensions remain high in the Middle East as conflict continues in Israel/Palestine, catalysed by Hamas’ attack on 7 October.  But for all the attention paid to the US presidential contest (set to have its first caucus vote next week in Iowa), and its implications for American foreign policy, little has been paid to vice-president Harris’ foreign policy ambitions. Given how much power the White House has to

Zoe Strimpel

How Hamas radicalised Israel’s liberals

I have visited Israel three times in the past year. The first trip was in the spring, just as the anti-government protests – triggered by Benjamin Netanyahu’s attempts to control the Supreme Court – were beginning. The day before we travelled, protestors forced Tel Aviv’s Ben-Gurion airport to close, and a general strike was announced. Every Saturday night, out went the protestors – mostly liberal and secular, but not entirely, so widespread is frustration with the government. ‘You could not be seen sitting and drinking wine on a Saturday night’, Moran Alon, the owner of the Nilus bar in Tel Aviv told me. ‘People would wonder: why aren’t you at