Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Wednesday

Steerpike

The knives sharpen for GB News

The GB News row rumbles on, with its enemies seeing the perfect chance to call for its closure. A genuinely indefensible blunder from two of the channel’s regulars, Laurence Fox and Dan Wootton, has seen both suspended. But questions are now being asked about the overall culture – and even whether it should be banned entirely. Adam Boulton, former political editor of Sky News, was on Newsnight last night saying that it’s time for GB News to be taken off air, even going so far as to compare the station to Russian state media: I have to say I think the complaints have piled up against GB News. I think

Steerpike

SNP suspend rebel backbencher Fergus Ewing

Is open debate now too painful for the SNP? Fergus Ewing, one of the party’s longest serving (and most outspoken) politicians has tonight been suspended for a week after criticising his own government’s ministers and policies. The disciplinary action comes after a series of statements Ewing made in recent months attacking the direction of the SNP — which in some cases resulted in his voting against government itself. Heresy in Humza Yousaf’s ultra-conformist regime… It was thought Ewing would lose the whip in June after he voted with the opposition in the no confidence vote against junior minister Lorna Slater — a decision deemed ‘very, very serious’ by Yousaf —

Max Jeffery

Would Labour grant more oil licences?

12 min listen

The UK’s largest untapped oil and gas field has been given the green light in a move that has been criticised by Labour, although Keir Starmer has said he will honour the Tories’ approval of the controversial Rosebank site should Labour enter government next year. Has the language changed around net zero?  Also on the podcast, new polling suggests that Sadiq Khan holds only a slender lead ahead of Susan Hall in the London mayoral race, should he be worried?  Max Jeffery speaks to James Heale and Fraser Nelson.  Produced by Max Jeffery and Oscar Edmondson. 

Ross Clark

Net zero zealots will probably find a way to stop Rosebank

So, Rosebank is to go ahead, or so we think. The North Sea Transition Authority has granted a licence for the extraction of oil and gas from the field, which lies to the west of the Shetlands. For its part, Labour has said that while it opposes the project, it will not withdraw the licences should it win power next year. Despite the best efforts of Mark Carney and others, someone evidently thinks it is worth investing £3.1 billion in new oil and gas production. That is the sum that the developers, Equinor and Ithaca Energy, say they will invest in the first phase of the scheme. Eventually, more than

Jonathan Sumption

Judgment call: the case for leaving the ECHR

The debate about the European Convention on Human Rights is in danger of being diverted into irrelevant byways. Hostility to the convention has become a trademark of the right wing of the Conservative party, which invites unnecessary partisanship. This is unfortunate, because the United Kingdom’s adherence to the convention raises a major constitutional issue which ought to concern people all across the political spectrum. It is far more important than Suella Braverman’s battles with boat people and ‘lefty lawyers’. Yet so far, the debate has rarely risen above the level of empty slogans, meaningless mantras and misleading claims. The real purpose of the convention is to make us accept rights

Freddy Gray

Emergency on Planet Biden

‘If aliens attacked Earth, do you think we would be safer under Joe Biden or Donald Trump?’ That’s a question in a new poll of American voters, and 43 per cent of respondents opted for Trump, 32 per cent for Biden, while 25 per cent sagaciously picked ‘Don’t know’. It’s fun to imagine President Donald in charge against the extra-terrestrials. ‘Zogblark the Magnificent is a good friend of mine,’ Trump would shout from the White House lawn, as the helicopter blades of Marine One clattered away behind. ‘He’s said some very nice things about me. Believe me. Things you wouldn’t believe… But we can’t have him exerting the supreme authority

Katy Balls

‘The zealots are turning people off’: Claire Coutinho on net zero and her bond with Rishi Sunak

When Claire Coutinho picked her A-levels in 2002, she received a phone call from her grandmother in India. ‘She could see that I’d not picked medical subjects,’ Coutinho says: she’d gone for maths, history of art and English – a glitch in the matrix for a family that tends to choose medical school. ‘She told me that she may not last very long and it was her final wish that I reconsider.’ Coutinho stuck to plan A; her grandmother lived for another ten years. Last month, at 38, she became one of the youngest secretaries of state in British history. We meet in her soon-to-be-vacated office with a rooftop view

Ian Williams

Can China contain Evergrande’s collapse?

The Chinese Communist party appears set to kill off its largest economic zombie, while gambling that it can control the fallout. Evergrande, the world’s most indebted developer, first defaulted almost two years ago, as China’s property bubble began to burst. It has since been able to stagger on from one crisis to another, while struggling to restructure its mountain of debt and sell its assets. Now even the CCP seems to have decided this is untenable. The problem for the party is that Evergrande is not the only occupant of China’s economic valley of the living dead, and the impact of its collapse may be impossible to control. The signs

Steerpike

Watch: Lucy Frazer struggles through painful Sky News interview

The morning broadcast round is often dreaded by politicians sent out to bat for the government. Today it was the unlucky turn of Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer, who ended up being savaged by Kay Burley on Sky News while defending Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s call to reform the UN refugee convention.  Early on, Frazer had declared ‘that’s not my job, I’m not the education secretary’ when challenged by Burley about the government not doing enough to get kids back into schools. The presenter then scathingly told Frazer ‘I’m sure you’re going to tell me you’re not the Home Secretary either’, before asking her ‘whether ‘the government [will] commit to staying

Stephen Daisley

Can the SNP hold on to Rutherglen?

Last night’s televised hustings entrenched the battle lines already drawn in the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election. Labour candidate and local teacher Michael Shanks sought to pin unpopular SNP policies, including council tax rises and lengthy NHS waiting times, on the Nationalists’ Katy Loudon, a South Lanarkshire councillor. Loudon retreaded her two-point case for giving the SNP another chance: Westminster Tories had created a cost-of-living crisis and Labour was no different from them. For his part, the Conservatives’ Thomas Kerr tried to paint Loudon as too deferential to the SNP hierarchy while accusing Labour of having ‘more flip-flops than Blackpool beach’. The by-election was prompted by a recall petition in

Steerpike

It’s Fox vs Wootton, as GB News debacle deepens

Oh dear. It seems that the self-proclaimed ‘People’s Channel’ has been at it again. GB News has been forced to formally suspend both Laurence Fox and Dan Wootton after comments on his show last night about the political commentator Ava Evans. In a segment ostensibly responding to Evans’ comments about male mental health, Fox called her a ‘little woman’, declaring: ‘Show me a single self-respecting man that would like to climb into bed with that woman ever, ever, who wasn’t an incel.’ As Wootton laughed, Fox continued: ‘We need powerful, strong amazing women who make great points for themselves. We don’t need these sort of feminist 4.0. They’re pathetic and embarrassing.

Michael Simmons

Why has it taken the SNP so long to act on Scotland’s drug deaths?

Britain’s first ‘drug consumption room’ will get the go-ahead later today. A health centre in the east end of Glasgow (where nearly 200 people died from drugs last year) is expected to be used for a pilot project. It will offer nurse-led supervision for drug users while they take heroin, cocaine and other illegal drugs. Sterile needles will be provided too. The NHS and Glasgow City Council, who proposed the scheme, hope that the ‘400 to 500 people [regularly] injecting drugs in public places in Glasgow’ will move off the streets and into the consumption room. Scotland is the drugs death capital of Europe with death rates nearly treble the

Freddy Gray

Americans care less and less about Trump’s legal troubles

Another day in America, another judgment against the Trump family. In the latest, New York state Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron has ruled that the Trump Organisation is liable for ‘persistent and repeated fraud’ and stripped the 45th president’s family business of its operating licenses in the Empire State.  At first glance, it appears to be a devastating piece of news for the Trumps’ fortunes and a victory for New York’s unabashedly anti-Trump Attorney General Letitia James. And, if the judgment is upheld after appeal, it would be exactly that. But that still could be years away. So for now, this new fraud verdict can simply be added to that ever-expanding, unclassified file marked ‘Trump’s ongoing legal troubles’. Judge Engoron, in rejecting Team Trump’s ‘bogus arguments’, suggested that the family’s lawyers had attempted to ‘glaringly misrepresent’

Ross Clark

Will Ulez spell the end for Sadiq Khan?

Sadiq Khan showed little sign of being discomfited by the result of the Uxbridge by-election in July. In spite of Keir Starmer imploring him to reflect on his Ulez expansion he went ahead anyway, with a token offer in the form of slightly enhanced grants for motorists replacing elderly vehicles. But perhaps Khan should have taken more notice of Starmer. A poll by JL Partners for the Sun this morning reveals that Khan’s lead over Conservative candidate Susan Hall has fallen to 3 per cent, with Khan now on 35 per cent of the vote and Hall 32 per cent. Outer London won it for Johnson twice, and it is

Amber Athey

Democrats are terrified that Joe Biden will fall over again

President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign has a major disadvantage. With no pandemic, Biden can no longer campaign from his basement and instead has to navigate the real world, which is filled with all kinds of hazards. Rogue sand bags, stairs, and bicycle pedals all threaten to trip up the president at any moment. It sounds absurd, but Operation Don’t Let Biden Fall is a ‘critical project’ for Team Biden, Axios reports. Surrogates for the president have publicly brushed away concern about Biden’s age as a right-wing conspiracy, but the campaign is well aware that there is a serious problem. Will Biden’s team put him in front of the voters and

Mark Galeotti

Ukraine’s Crimea strike is a warning shot to Putin

Admiral Viktor Sokolov, commander of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, appears to be Schrodinger’s admiral, alive according to Moscow, dead according to Kyiv, with no clarity as to who may be right. The real significance of the missile strike on his headquarters, though, is not so much whether it did kill him, but what it says about Ukrainian goals and capabilities. On Friday, Su-24M bombers of Ukraine’s 7th Tactical Aviation Brigade launched British-supplied storm shadow cruise missiles at the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet in the Crimean port city of Sevastopol. Some were apparently jammed or shot down, but two slammed into the building, leaving it in flames. Kyiv hopes

Brendan O’Neill

Justin Trudeau’s Nazi blind spot

Justin Trudeau’s government sees fascists everywhere, except when one is standing right under their nose. That’s the brilliant if bleak irony of the Canadian parliament’s standing ovation for Yaroslav Hunka, a 98-year-old veteran of the Ukrainian military who, it turns out, fought under the Nazis in the Second World War. It was an extraordinary sight, surely unprecedented in the modern West. At the behest of the House Speaker, Anthony Rota, MPs rose to their feet and gave rousing applause to an old bloke who once fought on the same side as Hitler. It occurred following an address to the parliament by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. He clapped too. Trudeau himself,

Tuesday

Kristina Murkett

Starmer’s private school tax is a terrible, vote-losing idea

Today Labour have confirmed that they will impose VAT on private schools in its first year of power if it wins the next general election, rather than phasing in new charges over several academic years. In order to improve state education, Labour needs to raise money from somewhere, and private schools are an easy ideological target. The problem is that no one is exactly sure how much money the VAT will actually raise: Keir Starmer has estimated £1.7 billion, but schools will be able to offset certain costs against the VAT (for example, utility bills and building projects).  Inevitably, some parents will also pull their children out of the private

James Heale

The Lib Dems are learning lessons from 2019

Sir Ed Davey has just finished his speech at the end of a broadly successful four-day conference for the Liberal Democrats in sunny Bournemouth. The venue for Davey’s speech could not have been more apt: the International Centre, scene of Margaret Thatcher’s final conference address in 1990. The once true-blue Tory shires that voted for the Iron Lady in droves are now firmly in Davey’s sights and the speech he delivered this afternoon was laser-focused at them. Virtually all of his attacks were directed at the Tories: the word ‘Conservative’ featured 27 times in Davey’s address, compared to just three mentions for Labour and one for the SNP. Indeed, given

Fraser Nelson

Can Dr Jenny Harries accept her lockdown mistake?

Next time there’s a pandemic, the advice of Dr Jenny Harries will be crucial. She runs the UK Health Security Agency, set up during Covid to replace the much-maligned Public Health England. In her interview with the Telegraph there seemed to be a penny-dropping moment where she suggested that Britain may be more like Sweden next time: What we saw with Omicron and later waves of the pandemic, and even now, is that people are good at watching the data and they will take action themselves. You can see it in footfall going down. People actually start to manage their own socialisation, and the [viral] waves flatten off and come down. She