Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Tuesday

Debbie Hayton

The flaw in Scotland’s new transgender prison policy

Almost twelve months after rapist Isla Bryson was sent to women’s prison, the Scottish Prison Service has come up with a new transgender policy. From 26 February 2024, trans women – including male transsexuals like me – will be barred from the female estate if they had been convicted of crimes that harmed women. Quite right, but behind the headlines – ‘Trans women who hurt females to go to male prisons’, according to the BBC – the devil is in the detail. Transgender criminals, including those with a history of violence against women, will be eligible to be admitted to women’s prisons if there is ‘compelling evidence’ that they do

Patrick O’Flynn

Why didn’t Sunak listen to Braverman’s migration warning?

Conventional wisdom about politics isn’t quite always wrong: it is merely shown by the passage of events to have been in error in the vast majority of cases. Consider the unhappy relationship between Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman over immigration policy. The Westminster Village – media and political practitioners alike – generally accepted that Sunak was super-smart and at heart one of the ‘grown-ups’ in the Tory party. Braverman, by contrast, was widely mocked, accused of being a lightweight in legal matters, said to be hopelessly out of her depth in high office and depicted as a comical entrant into the first Tory leadership contest of 2022. All of which

James Heale

Cleverly to sign fresh Rwanda deal

Fresh from his big statement in the Commons, James Cleverly has landed this morning in Kigali. The Home Secretary’s focus yesterday was on legal migration and bringing down the net total down by 300,000; today it’s on illegal migration and fixing the Rwanda scheme. Three weeks ago, the Supreme Court ruled it unlawful on the grounds that Rwanda is not a safe country to process asylum claims. In response, ministers are adopting a two-pronged approach. The first is a new treaty with Rwanda to stop asylum seekers being deported back to their country of origin. This is the purpose of Cleverly’s visit today, with Kigali now expected to receive an

Limor Simhony Philpott

Israel should think twice before assassinating Hamas’s leaders

Israel knows that airstrikes alone cannot help it to win its war against Hamas. To handicap its enemy, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) must kill or capture the group’s leaders, both in Gaza – where they are hiding out in intricate tunnel complexes – and elsewhere, in other countries in the Middle East, including Qatar. But the cost of such dangerous operations will be high – and could easily backfire. For now, the priority for Israel is targeting Hamas leaders in the Gaza Strip. On the hitlist is Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s leader in Gaza; Mohammed Deif, the head of Hamas’s military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades; and Deif’s second-in-command,

Monday

Steerpike

Gove promises ‘Dawn will be coming’

He has served under four of the last five Tory premiers. So who better to address revellers at the ConservativeHome Christmas shindig than Michael Gove? This evening the Levelling Up Secretary took to the stage to deliver the canapé equivalent of a state of the nation address. And, in true Gove style, he began by heaping praise on his hosts. ConservativeHome, he noted, was founded in 2005 and as such has now ‘been going for more than 18 years – it’s older than many members of the House of Lords!’ Having noted the attendance of several high-profile journalists and assured the crowd that he never spoke to the denizens of

Isabel Hardman

Sunak loses Commons vote for first time as PM

The government has just been defeated in the Commons for the first time since Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister. It wasn’t on one of the issues Sunak and his camp fret most about: it was on compensation for victims of the contaminated blood scandal. It was close: the government lost by just four votes on an amendment to the Victims and Prisoners Bill by Labour’s Diana Johnson. The new clause passed 246 votes to 242, with 23 Conservatives backing the motion.  Johnson was calling for the government to establish a new body chaired by a High Court judge to administer compensation for victims, and that this would be done within

Kate Andrews

The Tories’ migration crackdown will have many victims

The UK’s immigration system must be ‘fair, consistent, legal and sustainable’, proclaimed the new Home Secretary as he presented his ‘five-point plan’ to reduce legal migration in parliament. James Cleverly billed these changes as ‘more robust action than any government’ has taken before to reduce the headline net migration figure.  They involve increasing the skilled worker earnings threshold from £26,200 to £38,700 from next spring; increasing the NHS surcharge (paid every time most migrants secure or renew their visa), from £624 to £1,035; ending the 20 per cent salary reduction for shortage occupations (as well as reforming and reducing the list); increasing the minimum salary for a family visa to

Steerpike

Watch: Scottish Lib Dem leader accused of voting from the pub

It takes a lot for the Scottish Liberal Democrats to make headlines, but party leader Alex Cole-Hamilton has today gone and done it. The Lib Dem leader made a rather embarrassing gaffe when trying to vote remotely on a recent Holyrood motion, prompting calls for the politician to apologise for his ‘inappropriate’ conduct. Absent from the Chamber, Cole-Hamilton used his phone to raise a point of order, projecting his face onto the parliament screen without quite managing to keep his background discreet. MSPs were quick to spot Cole-Hamilton in the parliament’s pub Margo’s, a mere minute’s walk away from the Chamber. Calls of ‘shame!’ and ‘disgrace!’ from his eagle-eyed colleagues

Steerpike

Six of the worst SNP sex scandals

It seems a fresh scandal is embroiling the SNP. In recent days, reports have emerged that two of the party’s politicians were so wrapped up in an extramarital affair during Covid that they disregarded their own government’s pandemic restrictions to continue it. Matt Hancock, step aside…  The SNP has denied the rumours as ‘categorically untrue’, but reports of the illicit affair continue to dominate the news. Mr S takes a look at some of the most recent SNP sex scandals to have hit the headlines. Here are six of the worst that we can report on: 1. Love triangle A storyline fit for the movies, this scandal began with three

James Heale

Cleverly promises to cut migration by 300,000

‘Migration to this country is far too high and it needs to come down’, began James Cleverly at the despatch box this afternoon. It has been a difficult three weeks since his appointment as Home Secretary, with the Supreme Court’s rejection of the Rwanda scheme and then the publication of record migration numbers. It was the latter subject of legal migration that dominated this afternoon’s debate in the Commons, ahead of Cleverly’s expected visit to Kigali in the coming days. The Home Secretary’s tone was hawkish on the subject, with repeated reference to migration being too high. That reflects a concern in his party that Rishi Sunak’s government is too

Stephen Daisley

The real reason the Tories are getting tough on the licence fee

You know the Tories are worried about their core vote when they start talking tough on the BBC licence fee. Rishi Sunak took time out of his Cop28 jaunt to declare that the Corporation must ‘cut its cloth appropriately’. Meanwhile, Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer is against the planned £15 increase in the fee, which comes after a two-year freeze agreed between Auntie and the government. The new hike, set for April, will reflect the 12-month average of inflation, bringing the annual cost to television viewers to £173.30.  Frazer is concerned about any increase being ‘sustainable for families across the country’ and so she reportedly wants to use a different metric for inflation,

Steerpike

Eddie Izzard’s charm offensive backfires

If there’s one thing Eddie Izzard can’t be faulted on, it’s enthusiasm. The comedian and actor, who also self-identifies as Suzy, is standing to become the Labour candidate for Brighton Pavilion. After Green MP Caroline Lucas announced she would not be standing for election in 2024, Izzard jumped at the chance to succeed her — less than a year after attempting to stand for Sheffield Central some 230 miles away. Since then, Izzard’s self-promotion has been nothing short of relentless, ahead of the upcoming local Labour selection meeting. Indeed Eddie is so committed to the area that Brighton will become Izzard’s ‘main home’ — but only if the constituents deign

Isabel Hardman

Starmer has no vision. Is that a bad thing?

Keir Starmer seems to be most comfortable when he’s pointing out how badly the Tories are doing, rather than when he is setting out his own plans. This afternoon he talked about the importance of long-term decision-making, skills and supply side reform: none of which would sound out of place in a speech by Jeremy Hunt or Rishi Sunak. The question-and-answer session afterwards was more enlightening than his speech. Starmer distanced himself not just from the Conservatives on public spending, but the Labour party too. There would be no opening of the spending taps, he said in his speech, and he further articulated this in answers afterwards, saying that having

James Heale

Was Starmer right to praise Thatcher?

11 min listen

This weekend Keir Starmer’s team took the opportunity to discuss Margaret Thatcher in an op-ed for the Sunday Telegraph. Whilst Starmer also praised other former prime ministers – such as Tony Blair and Clement Attlee – his admission that ‘Margaret Thatcher sought to drag Britain out of its stupor by setting loose our natural entrepreneurialism’, has ruffled a few feathers in the Labour party. Could this be a genius piece of politics to reach out to those on the right? Or is it a misfire?  Also on the podcast, Rishi Sunak has started the week with the news that he has recorded his lowest rating ever in the latest ConservativeHome league

Kate Andrews

Starmer offers a heavy dose of the big state

Keir Starmer wants to set expectations early. Speaking at the Resolution Foundation’s economy conference later today, the opposition leader used his speech to emphasise just how little scope he’d have at the start of any Labour government to splash the cash. His party will not ‘turn on the spending taps’, he told an audience of economists and policy analysts. Anyone expecting them to do so is ‘going to be disappointed.’ The speech seemed to deliberately echo the infamous ‘I’m afraid there is no money’ note left for the incoming Tory government by a Labour minister.  Starmer responded to the spending trap laid out in the Autumn Statement last month: where

Katy Balls

Sunak to unveil new measures on legal migration

Rishi Sunak has had a bad start to the week, with the latest ConservativeHome cabinet league table placing him at the very bottom at minus 25.4, just below his Chancellor Jeremy Hunt. Now, the Prime Minister is hoping to move his government onto firmer ground with a package of measures aimed at reducing legal migration. Sunak has been under renewed pressure to act since new figures showed that net migration reached a record high of 745,000 in 2022. Given the Tories promised to reduce overall levels of migration in the party’s 2019 manifesto, they are some way off delivering their pledge. When the Home Secretary addresses the Commons later, the

Steerpike

Union hosts festive bash after derailing commuters

Merry Christmas to the rail unions – they strike quicker than Harry Kane. On Friday, the Aslef union began a week of industrial action and reduced service, ruining Christmas parties across the nation. But like the good trade unionists that they are, Aslef boss Mick Whelan made sure that his own union’s party plans were unaffected by the service, hosting a 100-strong, full-trimmings bash at the four-star Earl of Doncaster hotel. So much for solidarity…. Whelan was featured in the Sun this morning, sharing a festive cracker with Labour MP Kate Osborne who on social media later praised her union ‘comrades’ and celebrating the ‘womderfully [sic] Christmas venue.’ Good night was it,

James Heale

Starmer risks a backlash with his Thatcher praise

Two Telegraph stories in successive days illustrate Labour’s dilemma. Today the paper gives a favourable write-up to the party’s Australian-style scheme for AI to analyse hospital scans. It comes after the Sunday edition yesterday splashed Keir Starmer’s praise for Margaret Thatcher – a tactic they have previously deployed in the same paper to great success. Alongside warm words for Tony Blair and Clement Attlee, Starmer wrote that the Tory premier effected ‘meaningful change’ in the UK as she ‘sought to drag Britain out of its stupor by setting loose our natural entrepreneurialism.’ Both stories are positive for Labour, making use of the opposition’s relatively-few tools to try to dominate the

Gavin Mortimer

France isn’t buying Macron’s excuses after the Eiffel Tower attack

There was more bloodshed in Paris this weekend, this time involving a man who, prosecutors claim, had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (IS). A German tourist was killed as he strolled close to the Eiffel Tower with his wife during the attack on Saturday evening. Two other passers-by, including a Briton, were wounded by the assailant, who French interior minister Gerald Darmanin said shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ and ranted about Muslims dying in Afghanistan and Palestine as he launched his deadly assault. Police used a stun gun to stop the man who is being questioned by anti-terror police. France is supposed to be on high alert following the outbreak of war in

Sean Thomas

Why the world loves Margaret Thatcher

There are many rituals surrounding the placement of a new Japanese Emperor on the Chrysanthemum Throne. Perhaps the most peculiar is the would-be emperor’s encounter with aquasi-sacred, 1300-year-old bronze mirror, the Yata no Kagami. This object, which embodies ‘wisdom’, is so enigmatic the aspirant emperor isn’t even allowed to see it; instead, functionaries are sent to assure the mirror of the new emperor’s fidelity. Some historians believe the mirror no longer exists, and was lost in a fire in Honshu’s Ise Shrine, 980 years ago. Thus it is with Labour leaders and Margaret Thatcher. Ever since the departure of the Iron Lady, aspiring or actual Labour prime ministers have made obeisance to the strange, overpowering ghost of British politics, years after her retirement and death, when her continued omnipresence is therefore a kind of Zen mystery. Tony Blair, as ever, got in his fealty precociously early. As a young Labour frontbencher, he expressed his high regard for her election winning clarity,