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Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Wednesday

Ross Clark

What’s stopping a housing crash?

Should we really believe that house prices rose by 0.9 per cent in September, as claimed by the latest release from the Nationwide House Price Index? The unexpected rise moderates the annual fall in house prices from 5.3 per cent in August to 3.3 per cent in September. There is a health warning on the Nationwide’s figures – and one which also applies to the monthly Halifax figures. Both these indices are derived from data on mortgage approvals for their own customers. When the market slows and there are fewer sales, it means there is less data on which to base the monthly figures, which inevitably makes them less reliable.

Sean Rayment

An Israeli ceasefire would be a major strategic error

It would be a major strategic error for Israel to agree to a ceasefire in Gaza, as some are calling for now. Any let up in air and ground attacks would simply allow Hamas to regroup, rearm and replenish its depleted ranks with new recruits ready and willing to kill women, children and babies the next time the opportunity arises. Israel’s approach should not just be viewed through the prism of rage or revenge for the atrocity which left 1,500 Israelis dead three weeks ago. The military operation in Gaza is designed to degrade Hamas’s military capability to such an extent that it will take years to recover. The primary

Sean Thomas

Rishi Sunak is too late – the AI monster is at the door

He must be a busy man, Rishi Sunak. When he’s not rescuing the country from inflation, sending the Royal Navy towards troublezones, making long term decisions for a brighter future, herding worried Conservative MPs towards the lemming-edge of the next election, and organising globally important AI summits, I doubt he has much time to read the darker recesses of TwitterX and Reddit where he might have come across a character named ‘Jimmy Apples’. Which is a shame, in terms of that AI conference – being held this week at Bletchley Park, the “home of computing”. Because this summit seems like a sincere and valuable attempt to achieve some global governance of artificial intelligence, even as it explodes into every corner of our lives. In which case Sunak, the host, would be better

Tuesday

Lloyd Evans

It’s a bit late for Dominic Cummings to apologise

Dominic Cummings showed up at the Covid Inquiry dressed in his signature white shirt. Plus, in a nod to formality, he’d added a shoe-string tie , rakishly askew. He was interrogated by Hugo Keith KC, a lawyer with a plausible manner and an expensive tailor. He looked like one of those shiny new MPs with an answer for everything. The kind who switches parties as easily as changing energy suppliers. Keith obviously hoped to make Cummings blush by reading out his famously sarcastic emails. He recited this from the archive. ‘The cabinet’, wrote Cummings, ‘is largely irrelevant to policy or execution… it’s seen by everyone in No 10 as not

Steerpike

Questions remain about the Scottish government’s Covid WhatsApps

The mystery of the missing WhatsApps continues. Deputy First Minister Shona Robison took to the floor at Holyrood today to issue an update about the Scottish Government’s interactions with the UK Covid Inquiry. Amid ongoing concern about whether ministers deleted public records, Robison’s contributions don’t offer a whole lot of clarity… Addressing the Scottish parliament today, Robison said that all requested Scottish Government messages that are still ‘held’ will be shared ‘in full and unredacted’ by 6 November. Any deleted messages ‘will be for individuals to explain to the inquiries any actions they have taken in relation to records retention,’ she continued ominously. But ‘with regards to the Scottish Government’s records management

Fraser Nelson

Boris Johnson was right to say the NHS was not overwhelmed

The triviality-obsessed Covid Inquiry has today been having fun with Dominic Cummings’s emails and finding rude words he used about colleagues. Trying to draw anything substantial from this is hard but one line did jump out at me: Boris Johnson saying ‘I no longer buy all this NHS overwhelmed stuff’. The inquiry should be asking: was he right?  It was October 2020. The Prime Minister messaged Lee Cain, his press chief, to talk about Covid deaths: I must say I have been slightly rocked by some of the data on Covid fatalities. The median age is 82-81 for men and 85 for women. That is above life expectancy. So get COVID

Steerpike

Four flashpoints from Cummings’ Covid Inquiry appearance

Today it was the turn of the Vote Leave gang to appear before the Covid Inquiry. And while Lee Cain, Boris Johnson’s onetime director of comms, gave a fairly sober appearance this morning, the arrival of Dominic Cummings produced the expectant headlines. Much of Cummings’ evidence today had first been revealed two-and-a-half years ago during his mammoth nine hour session before a special parliamentary select committee. But there were fresh messages and tense exchanges for the attendant hacks to chew over and fill tomorrow’s newspapers. Below are four flashpoints from today’s Covid Inquiry evidence session. X-rated language One of the first questions was for Cummings to explain his texts, published

Lisa Haseldine

Why Putin thinks war with Ukraine is like the Israel-Palestine conflict

Who is to blame for the shocking pogrom in the Dagestani city of Makhachkala, where a mob of hundreds stormed the local airport in search of Jews on a flight from Tel Aviv? Vladimir Putin has offered a predictable answer: the West. In a meeting with Russia’s security council and law enforcement agencies, president Putin said the actions of the anti-Semitic mob in Dagestan were ‘inspired through social media, including originating from Ukraine, created at the hands of agents of Western intelligence services’.  Putin is trying to present his invasion as an existential fight against encroaching Western influence Putin then went further, suggesting that the US could also be blamed for war in

Ellen Pasternack

When will XL Bully defenders admit that genes matter?

It’s not a good time to be an American XL Bully. The breed, an extra-large pitbull variant, has been blamed for a threefold rise in fatal dog attacks in the UK; after a series of high-profile maulings, bullies have today been added to the list of breeds restricted under the Dangerous Dogs Act. Incidents involving the dogs have been met with a bizarre insistence from some quarters that no, there is nothing especially dangerous about the XL bully. The RSPCA has long opposed ‘breed-specific legislation’, and denies that any breed of dog – including those bred for fighting, or, in the case of one prohibited breed, hunting down escaped slaves – poses more of a risk than another. The Dogs Trust put

Steerpike

SNP in civil war over Ash Regan’s Alba defection

All is not well in nationalist circles. Veteran SNP MSP Fergus Ewing has now lashed out at the ‘petulant’ response of Humza Yousaf and the SNP leadership to Ash Regan’s defection to Alba. Steerpike can’t blame him — with hapless Humza’s muddled indy strategy confusing, er, just about everyone, they’re all back to fighting like Nats in a sack… The SNP is ‘having a sort of late adolescence, as I would see it,’ Ewing told Mr S. ‘A sort of troubled, angry patch of door slamming and getting in with the wrong crowd… But the thing about adolescents is they grow up,’ he added, hopefully. For his sake, Mr S

Stephen Daisley

Suella Braverman is all talk

Three cheers for Suella Braverman, hammer of the left. The Home Secretary has provoked yet more howls of indignation from progressives after describing anti-Israel demonstrations as ‘hate marches’. Speaking after Monday’s Cobra meeting, Braverman said: ‘We’ve seen now tens of thousands of people take to the streets after the massacre of Jewish people, the single largest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust, chanting for the erasure of Israel from the map. To my mind there is only one way to describe those marches: they are hate marches.’ Suella Braverman’s right-wing philippics are her version of ‘build the wall’ Finally, someone willing to tell it like it is. That is,

Kate Andrews

What can Rishi learn from the EU’s plummeting inflation rate?

Good headlines are coming out of the Eurozone this morning, as the inflation rate slowed to 2.9 per cent in October. This is a spectacular fall from its double-digit peak last October, when the rate sat at over 10 per cent. Today’s news brings inflation to a stone’s throw away from the European Central Bank’s target of 2 per cent. But it’s not without trade-offs. Alongside today’s inflation news, we have also learned that growth across the Eurozone took a hit, averaging a 0.1 per cent contraction between July and September this year. This dip was worse than the consensus, which expected to see a small uptick in GDP. Some

Andy Maciver

Is Sunak winning over Scottish voters with his petrol ban delay?

Fewer than one in five Scots can reliably be expected to vote for the Conservative party, but a poll this weekend showed that well over half are in favour of his delay on the banning of the sale of new petrol and diesel cars. In rural areas, much of which is still considered SNP territory, this is nearer 70 per cent. The Tories aren’t popular north of the border — but Rishi Sunak’s green pushback rhetoric is making an impact on Scotland. Our electric vehicle charging infrastructure in Scotland is very poor. The government built a network which is now both dismally slow and almost unfeasibly unreliable. Now, the Prime

James Heale

Vote Leave duo turn on Johnson at Covid Inquiry

Boris Johnson wasn’t in attendance at the Covid Inquiry this morning, but he was certainly there in spirit. The ex-Prime Minister suffered a bevvy of blows in absentia, in the form of WhatsApps published from his former No. 10 team. Among the more explosive were his blunt views on a second national lockdown in October 2020: ‘We should let the old people get it [coronavirus] and protect others’ he wrote in one. ‘The median age is 82-81 for men & 85 for women. That is above life expectancy. So get Covid and live longer.’ A diary entry from Sir Patrick Vallance complained that  Johnson is ‘obsessed with older people accepting their

Ross Clark

Why railway ticket offices are here to stay

So it seems that rail ticket offices will be reprieved. After a vociferous campaign – not least on behalf of elderly travellers who might find it difficult to use mobile phone technology, let alone the network of often-dysfunctional ticket machines – the government has undertaken a U-turn and told rail companies to withdraw their proposals to close most ticket offices on the network. Any other – genuinely private – industry would be deeply engaged in cost-cutting It may be the right decision. We certainly don’t need as many booking clerks as we did in the day before ticket machines or online ticket sales. It is good that passengers have the

Katy Balls

Starmer takes on his party over Gaza ceasefire demand

Keir Starmer has tried to get back on the front foot today over his party’s position on Israel and Palestine. Following growing discontent in Labour over Starmer’s refusal to call for a ceasefire, the party’s leader used an impromptu speech at Chatham House to insist that he would not bow to demands to change his mind. Despite more than a fifth of his MPs calling for one, Starmer argued that ‘a ceasefire now is not the right way forward’ as it would stop Israel from dismantling Hamas and could embolden the terrorist group. Starmer said a ceasefire would ‘freeze’ the situation as it is – which would be a bad

Jake Wallis Simons

Is Suella Braverman wrong about pro-Palestine ‘hate marches’?

Supporting the Palestinians is a reasonable thing to do. Flying their flag is not an act of hatred. Expressing sympathy for their hardships is not bigotry. There is nothing invalid about arguing for their national self-determination.  The problem has always been the proximity of the Palestinian cause to the Jews. Is accusing the ‘Zionist lobby’ of pulling the strings of politics a reasonable expression of support for the Palestinians? Is accusing Jews of ‘white supremacy’, even though a majority of Israelis are non-white? Is trying to lynch them at an airport? If, as I argue, Israelophobia is the newest version of the oldest hatred, then it is as adept as

Matthew Lynn

Will Elon Musk end up humiliating Rishi Sunak?

Bill Gates was probably otherwise engaged. Mark Zuckerberg was busy in the metaverse. And Jeff Bezos was tied up on his next rocket trip. When the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was looking for a major technology tycoon to host a conversation with at his Artificial Intelligence summit later this week those were probably the names at the top of the wish list. When all of them declined, however, the Prime Minister settled for the Tesla founder Elon Musk instead. But hold on. While Musk is without question a major tycoon, he is also a huge wild card. And Sunak may well end up regretting his choice.  Whether he lights up

Steerpike

Len McCluskey’s mad Mossad theory

Since slinking off into ignominious retirement two years ago, Westminster has been blessedly free of the pronouncements of Len McCluskey. Amid ongoing questions about a controversial hotel project, the former Unite boss has seemed largely content to reinvent himself as a scribe of sorts, teaming up with longtime comrade Jeremy Corbyn to release, er, a collection of ‘accessible’ poems – though now without the musings of Russell Brand. But last night the duo returned to the spotlight, reuniting in LBC’s Millbank studio to opine on the ongoing conflict in Gaza and Andy McDonald’s suspension from Labour. And ‘Red Len’ certainly brought his trademark tact, wisdom and diplomatic touch to the