Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Wednesday

18 October 2023

‘It’s a necessity that the Middle East fears us’

Micah Goodman is done being nice and even-handed. He became a best-selling philosopher by telling Israelis that the Palestinians needed more freedom. He said if the West Bank had better roads and an airport and more land and fewer checkpoints, relations between Israelis and Palestinians would improve. There was a way through the stalemate, if only people worked together. But now he wants war. Goodman is rageful about what Hamas did to his Israeli brothers and sisters ‘It’s a necessity that the Middle East fears us’, Goodman says, calling from Jerusalem. ‘That Hezbollah gets a panic attack when it pronounces the word Israel. That in Iran they have a panic attack from the thought of a military interaction

Michael Simmons

The Covid inquiry asked the wrong questions of Neil Ferguson

SPI-M-O are at the Covid inquiry this week. They’re the shadowy group of mathematical modellers who contributed – more than most – to the evidence that backed up lockdown. On Monday we heard from Professor Mark Woolhouse of Edinburgh University. Surprisingly – for an inquiry that seems from the outset to be focused on the deaths of the vulnerable and how we should have ‘locked down sooner’ – Professor Woolhouse focused his evidence on the mistakes of lockdown. Lockdown was ‘disproportionate, unsustainable and not as effective as was being claimed’, he told the inquiry. He also said they were ‘a failure of public health policy’. Blame lay with the government, who

Tuesday

17 October 2023

Angus Colwell

Both sides deny being behind Gaza hospital strike

Who is responsible for the bombing of a hospital in Gaza? This evening as many as 500 people are thought to have been killed in one terrible act in a medical building in Gaza. Thousands of civilians were reportedly sheltering there, after fleeing their homes following an Israeli order to evacuate the northern part of the Gaza strip. Israel were quick to deny having a role in the attack, blaming Palestinian militants – and a misfired Palestinian rocket barrage – for the disaster. It follows an incident earlier on Tuesday, when – according to the UN – a school in central Gaza where 4,000 people were sheltering was hit, killing

Iain Macwhirter

Humza Yousaf’s election strategy? Keep the spending taps open

Humza Yousaf’s main objective at this week’s SNP conference, his first as leader, was to free himself from the constitutional millstone placed round his neck by his predecessor Nicola Sturgeon: the ‘de facto’ referendum. He has united the party in ditching that phrase, though the phoney plebiscite remains in spirit. The new policy states that if the SNP win a majority of seats at the next election the Scottish government will ‘begin immediate negotiations with the UK government to give democratic effect to Scotland becoming an independent country’. The Labour party and the Conservatives will negotiate by empty chair and, if the SNP lose seats next year as expected, will say

Lucy Dunn

Will Humza Yousaf’s conference promises save the SNP?

Humza Yousaf took SNP politicians and activists to the blistering cold of Aberdeen this week to host his first party conference as SNP leader. Yousaf was under great personal stress with his wife’s family currently trapped in Gaza and the event had a sombre tone to it, not helped by an audience turnout that didn’t quite manage to fill the main hall. Off the back of a disappointing defeat in the Rutherglen by-election, a defection of one of his own MPs to the Tory party and polling predicting that Yousaf’s party might lose over half of their Westminster seats to Labour next year, there was a lot hinging on the

Ross Clark

Neil Ferguson wasn’t a lockdown fanatic

Is the Covid inquiry running out of steam? Today, it saw one of Covid’s biggest stars take the ‘witness stand’: Professor Neil Ferguson, of Imperial College, whose paper in March 2020 was instrumental in persuading Boris Johnson to call a lockdown. Ferguson, of course, went on to achieve notoriety by breaking the very lockdown rules he inspired by meeting his lover, leading to his resignation from Sage. For the duration of Ferguson’s evidence, which spanned several hours, the number of people watching the live feed rarely reached more than 600. But for those who did take the trouble to listen, what did they learn? Ferguson, it turns out, was initially

Katy Balls

Has Humza Yousaf turned things around?

15 min listen

At his first speech as SNP leader at the party’s conference, Humza Yousaf gave a policy-filled address. He hasn’t had an easy start to his leadership, but can he turn things around? Katy Balls talks to Lucy Dunn and Iain Macwhirter. Produced by Oscar Edmondson and Cindy Yu.

David Shipley

Alex Chalk has bought the prison service a little time – that’s all

In his House of Commons speech yesterday, Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor Alex Chalk shifted the blame for problems with our prison system, announced liberalising reforms and promised a bright future. Ultimately though he’s only bought a little time. Chalk began by reaffirming the government’s commitment to public protection. In a significant shift rapists will now spend their entire sentence in prison, as opposed to half of it or two-thirds. While this headline will probably prove popular, it does carry some risk: under this arrangement they will be released without any supervision from probation. There’s a chance they will be more likely to reoffend as a result, but that problem

James Heale

How long can the cross-party consensus on Israel hold?

12 min listen

So far, both major parties in the UK have aligned on their approach to the Israel-Gaza conflict, but can the Labour party really hold their position, considering how much of the party’s grassroots support come from Muslim backgrounds? James Heale talks to Katy Balls and Conservative Home’s editor, Paul Goodman. Produced by Oscar Edmondson and Cindy Yu.

Lisa Haseldine

Putin will be hoping for gifts from Xi in Beijing

In the early hours of this morning, Vladimir Putin touched down in Beijing to attend the third forum of the Belt and Road initiative (BRI) at Xi Jinping’s invitation. The trip is clearly important to Putin: it is just the second time that he has left Russia, and the first time travelling beyond the former Soviet Union, since the international criminal court (ICC) issued a warrant for his arrest in March. Xi invited Putin to attend the forum back in March in a show of unity when the former visited Moscow just days after the ICC issued its warrant. At the time, the visit – during which both leaders were

Ross Clark

Calm down about bedbugs

Matt Hancock, don’t retire just yet – we may need you back. There’s a new terror spreading across Britain – and even better for the tabloids, this one seems to have come from France. It is all a big and rather silly panic The great bedbug scare bubbled up a few weeks ago as an infestation in Paris, but within days the critters seemed to have jumped the Channel, quite possibly brought here by rugby fans – or by a pair of Australian tourists who claimed to have been bitten on an overnight train from Austria. Within a week the great terror had reached Luton, Stevenage and Hull, where the

Steerpike

Humza ‘Useless’ unpopular as ever with Scots

It’s all very well judging political parties on their polling figures. But what exactly do voters think about their leaders? Look no further: thanks to Savanta polling for the Scotsman, Mr S has discovered just how negatively the people of Scotland view those vying to be their next First Minister. Bottom of the pile is, shock, horror, flailing First Minister Humza Yousaf. Quelle surprise! The polling confirms what we already previously knew: hapless Humza is officially ‘Useless’. His first six months in power at Holyrood have seen him struggle to escape the shadow of his predecessor – and that ongoing police probe. A new word cloud generated about him from voter

Katy Balls

How long can the cross-party consensus on Israel hold?

When Rishi Sunak spoke in the Commons chamber on Monday, he reiterated the UK government’s ‘total condemnation’ of the attacks by Hamas on Israel which have left at least 1,300 dead. Sunak said his government ‘must support, absolutely, Israel’s right to defend itself. To go after Hamas, take back the hostages, deter further incursions, and strengthen its security for the long term.’ However, he added that this ‘must be done in line with international humanitarian law’. Sunak also said he had spoken to the Israeli Prime Minister about the need to ‘minimise the impact on civilians in Gaza’. The comments were echoed by Keir Starmer. The Labour leader used his

Steerpike

Sir Graham shines at 1922 shindig

The grey suits were out in force today at the launch of the official history of the 1922 Committee’s first centenary. Knights, grandees and peers of the realm all crammed into Committee Room G of the Palace of Westminster to hail the release of Philip Norton’s updated book. As one quote on the blurb put it: ‘The 1922 is probably the most significant body in British politics that almost no one knows anything about – and what they do think they know is probably wrong.’ Reflecting on the Committee’s history, Norton remarked that: When they started, there was quite a high turnover [in chairmen] but not a high turnover in

Jake Wallis Simons

Calling a terrorist a terrorist

Last night, after a suspected Islamist fanatic gunned down two Swedish football fans in Brussels to ‘avenge Muslims’, the BBC ran a headline calling it a ‘terror’ attack. This should seem entirely unremarkable. After all, it was a terror attack, so the language had the benefit of being accurate. The problem, of course, is that the corporation has a policy of refusing to describe the butchers of Hamas in the same terms. It is true that the BBC amended the headline pretty quickly after realising its error. The broadcaster has insisted in its guidelines that its journalists should use descriptive terms like ‘bomber’, ‘attacker’, ‘gunman’, ‘kidnapper’, ‘insurgent’ and ‘militant’ by default. As John

Patrick O’Flynn

Is migration really about to halve?

Could our current record levels of immigration be a flash in the pan, a statistical spike brought about by the confluence of several exceptional factors? After the figure for the twelve months to June 2022 came in at 606,000 net and more than one million gross, that would be a comforting notion for those who believe that mass immigration on this scale is feeding multiple social pathologies, from housing shortages to collapsing cultural cohesion. So perhaps we should rejoice at the news that two of our leading universities have put their seal upon a report suggesting that 2022’s net migration is not the shape of things to come but the

Kate Andrews

Say goodbye to tax cuts?

‘We are in a horrible fiscal bind’ says the Institute for Fiscal Studies this morning, as it publishes its Green Budget report ahead of the Autumn Statement. A combination of stagnant growth, stubborn inflation, rising debt interest payments and a tax burden at a postwar high has produced a grim assessment of the UK economy, which the IFS suggests will worsen in the coming years, as ‘huge fiscal pressures’ around the National Health Service and public sector pensions increase (more on that here). The report’s conclusion is that now is not the time to raise taxes. It would make terrifying reading for a Conservative prime minister and chancellor if they weren’t already aware

Isabel Hardman

Why didn’t Alex Chalk see the prison crisis coming?

Yesterday’s statement on prison reforms from the Justice Secretary Alex Chalk was very much one of those why-didn’t-you-see-this-coming affairs. Chalk has only been in the brief since April, but he has had more warning than the past fortnight that prison capacity was running out. One of the problems Chalk has is that he is mopping up thirteen messy years for the Ministry of Justice Yesterday he sought to reframe the story by arguing he had in fact seen it coming. He told MPs: ‘I have been candid from the moment I took on this role that our custodial estate is under pressure.’ But he tried to suggest that this was

Michael Simmons

It’s official: we don’t know how many people are unemployed

For perhaps the first time in its history, the Office for National Statistics does not know how many employed, unemployed and economically inactive people there are in the country. This morning, the monthly labour market figures were due to be published. But late last week news slipped out that the employment portion of the release would have to be delayed. The reason: plummeting survey response rates. You simply cannot make decisions about which levers to pull if we do not know how many people are in work Each month, Britain’s statisticians work out how many people there are in the workforce based on responses to a national ‘Labour Force Survey’.

Fraser Nelson

In defence of Steve Bell

One of Britain’s best-known cartoonists, Steve Bell, says he has been ‘effectively sacked’ by the Guardian after drawing Benjamin Netanyahu. It wasn’t published, but he released it on Twitter (above). It depicts Netanyahu operating on his own stomach, showing a cut in the outline of the Gaza Strip. Bell then used Twitter to say what happened next: Losing him over this cartoon was a mistake and sets a dangerously low bar for what counts as unacceptable satire I filed this cartoon around 11 a.m., possibly my earliest ever. Four hours later, on a train to Liverpool I received an ominous phone call from the desk with the strangely cryptic message