Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Thursday

Jawad Iqbal

It would be madness for Modi to change India’s name

India’s rulers are apparently unhappy with the country’s name and appear determined to do away with it altogether. They would prefer it if everyone – not just in India but across the rest of the world – used the name ‘Bharat’ when referring to it. Changing India’s name is political madness, amounting to nothing more than a divisive ploy dreamt up by Hindu nationalists for short term gain.  Rumours of an imminent name change have been flying after official invites for the G20 summit asked leaders to join the ‘president of Bharat’ for dinner. Officials also used the term in a handbook – called ‘Bharat, The Mother of Democracy’ –

Steerpike

Gillian Keegan defies the press critics

To Smith Square: scene of Tory triumphs of the recent past. And tonight it was the turn of Gillian Keegan to produce her own bravura display. Amid speculation that the under-fire Education Secretary might not show, Keegan – the much-touted speaker at tonight’s Women2Win event for Tories in Communications – arrived at the inHouse offices to deliver a defiant retort to her critics in the Fourth Estate. ‘One of the very first people who helped me in the media was inHouse Communications’ said Keegan, before pausing and adding: ‘I think I might need another session’ and after laughter: ‘I don’t want to learn how to stop swearing but maybe the

Wednesday

Lucy Dunn

Is Sturgeon’s Holyrood return a help or hindrance to Humza?

Nicola Sturgeon’s first speech back in Holyrood was a nostalgic return to the past. It felt natural to see the former first minister holding court again, speaking with a presence a leader would. So natural, in fact, that even the Presiding Officer couldn’t help herself from referring to Sturgeon as ‘First Minister’ – to much amusement in the chamber.  Widely expected to focus on childcare, Sturgeon’s speech verged more into the philosophical. She mused about the nature of modern political discourse, admitting that she herself had played a role in creating division. ‘I accept my share of responsibility,’ she told parliament. Urging parties to debate constructively, she went on: ‘Polarisation

Kate Andrews

Is the Bank of England done with raising rates?

Is the UK set for its 15th consecutive interest rate hike later this month? Markets expect that rates will peak closer to 6 per cent – up from 5.25 per cent now – but this might not happen immediately – or at all. Speaking at today’s Treasury Select Committee, the Bank’s governor Andrew Bailey suggested rate hikes were no longer a matter of certainty, as the headline rate of inflation is now back on track with the Bank’s projections for a significant fall by the end of the year. Speaking to MPs this afternoon, Bailey said that the UK had moved on ‘from a period … where it was clear rates needed

Steerpike

Watch: Nicola Sturgeon makes her Scottish parliament comeback

Nicola Sturgeon is back. The former SNP leader, who stood down as First Minister in March, popped up in the Scottish parliament today to issue a warning on the state of ‘political discourse’. It was Sturgeon’s first appearance in the chamber since she was arrested as part of a probe into SNP finances. Sturgeon, who was released without charge and denies any wrongdoing, called for politicians to engage in a more ‘mature debate’. She also insisted that ‘things look(ed) a bit clearer’ from the backbenches. She told MSPs: ‘Let me say that I accept my share of responsibility for the state of our political discourse. But if anything that makes

Jane Haynes

The Birmingham council disaster was entirely preventable

Last month, in the heart of Birmingham’s Grand Central station, a mechanical bull called Ozzy was unveiled to great fanfare, led by local politicians. With nostrils flared and red eyes shining, the bull had been transformed from a 2022 Commonwealth Games prop into a lasting, virulent symbol of this vital, diverse, brilliant city.   Among those lined up for the photo op were West Midlands mayor Andy Street and Birmingham City Council leader John Cotton, recently promoted to the top job after a Labour party coup. ‘Brand perception of Birmingham has moved forward dramatically since the Games,’ boomed Street, the Conservatives’ local poster boy.   The reality is that everywhere you look

Lloyd Evans

Sir Keir’s shouting beats Rishi’s stats at PMQs

Crumbling concrete dominated PMQs. Sir Keir climbed to his feet and announced in sepulchral tones that most of Britain’s schools are likely to be flattened by the first stiff breeze of autumn. He gave an example, from May 2018, of a primary school that suddenly imploded ‘over the weekend, and thankfully no children were injured’. He used lurid tabloid language to hammer home his point: ‘Children are cowering under steel supports that stop their classroom from falling in.’ How awful. Buildings we thought were permanent turn out to be flimsy pop-up structures that are apt to collapse faster than a Labour council’s credit rating. Sir Keir blamed it all on

Max Jeffery

Was Truss doomed to fail?

10 min listen

It was the first PMQs since the summer recess today and Labour were on the attack, comparing the Tory government to ‘cowboy builders’ over the ongoing school concrete debate. Rishi Sunak replied by calling out the leader of the opposition as ‘captain hindsight’. Who came out on top?  Also on the podcast, it’s a year since Liz Truss’s doomed premiership. How should we reflect on her time as PM?  Max Jeffery speaks to Katy Balls and James Heale. 

Stephen Daisley

What’s lurking behind Humza Yousaf’s Sturgeon tribute act?

Humza Yousaf’s programme for government — Holyrood’s duller, drabber answer to the King’s Speech — was mostly a Nicola Sturgeon tribute act. Heavy focus on social and cultural issues. Lots of leftish-sounding buzzwords (‘progressive’, ‘equality’, ‘diversity’) but nothing truly transformative. Still, just because the SNP leader’s speech and the legislative agenda attached were retreads of his predecessor’s era, it doesn’t mean this programme should be overlooked. In fact, there are a number of provisions that are worth keeping an eye on.  First up is one of the most disputed pieces of legislation ever produced by the Scottish parliament, one authored by Yousaf in his former role as Sturgeon’s justice minister:

Iain Macwhirter

The SNP have created a housing nightmare

The SNP government can’t see a house fire without wanting to throw petrol on it. Scotland’s housing crisis is only too apparent to anyone looking for accommodation right now. Homelessness is rising rapidly with evictions doubling in a year; a quarter of a million Scots are on social housing waiting lists; and rents are going through the roof. Yet, the SNP Government and its Green partners seem determined to make matters worse by pursuing an ideological assault on private landlords which is forcing them out of the market.  It took governmental incompetence of epic proportions to create Scotland’s housing omnicrisis House prices have long been unaffordable in Scotland, having tripled since

Kate Andrews

Broken Britain: what went wrong?

Did Gillian Keegan need to apologise? The Education Secretary thought her ITV interview had ended and she could speak frankly. She insisted the schools’ concrete crisis was down to ‘everyone else’ who had ‘sat on their arse’. It was a fair point, inelegantly expressed. It’s been almost 25 years since the order first went out from Whitehall to inspect schools and hospitals for crumbling reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (Raac). When a roof eventually collapsed at the Singlewell Primary school in Kent in 2018, the government sent out surveys to inquire about building material – but that was largely it. Like lazy homeowners, or dodgy landlords, successive administrations assumed the problem

The Spectator

Will the collapse of councils be the next great scandal?

Last month India managed to land a spacecraft on the moon for a third of the price of refurbishing Hammersmith Bridge. This startling fact captures both New Delhi’s efficiency and the staggering incompetence of our local councils. It took two years and £9 million (in real terms) to build the bridge. It is set to cost almost £200 million to spruce it up and the work may not be complete until 2030. Hammersmith Bridge has become the perfect metaphor for what’s gone wrong with government: the carelessness, inertia and lack of concern for public money that is rife across the country. The bill for doing up Croydon council’s headquarters was

Joanna Williams

The hypocrisy of Birmingham’s council

Who is to blame for Birmingham City Council’s dire financial situation? The council has long been struggling to pay its bills and effectively declared itself bankrupt yesterday. In a brief statement, a spokesperson for the Labour-run council pointed the finger at ‘equal pay claims’ as the cause of the problem, explaining:  The council is still in a position where it must fund the equal pay liability that has accrued to date (in the region of £650m to £760m), but it does not have the resources to do so. Europe’s largest local authority has indeed paid a high price for its gender pay gap. After a 2012 legal case found in favour

Katy Balls

Does the public want reheated Blairism?

To understand the political journey of Sir Keir Starmer, look to Liz Kendall. This week the Blairite and one-time leadership contender was put in charge of Labour’s welfare reform policy. Her promotion has upset the party’s left-wingers, who already think Starmer is too right-wing on welfare. ‘She’ll be more hard-line than Jonathan Ashworth,’ says one shadow minister in reference to her predecessor. But her real influence started well before she was given a place at Starmer’s shadow cabinet table. Even those who were demoted or axed put on a brave face: ‘It shows Labour senses it is about to win’  Kendall’s role in the 2015 contest was to speak hard

Isabel Hardman

Starmer lays blame for the schools concrete crisis at Sunak’s door

Rishi Sunak didn’t use the same language as Gillian Keegan today when he returned to Prime Minister’s Questions. But he clearly also thinks people should be thanking the government for the good job it is doing. The session was dominated by the concrete crisis in schools, but Sunak also wanted MPs to give him some credit for the economy recovering and inflation falling. He complained that both Keir Starmer and SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn had failed to mention these in their questions, and even rather boldly proclaimed that small boat crossings were down – despite them passing the 100,000 mark this summer and despite the Bibby Stockholm fiasco.  Sunak

John Keiger

How Africa fell out of love with France

On Wednesday last week, a new Gabonese military junta installed itself, having ousted President Ali Bongo, whose family have ruled the country since 1967. Just two days earlier, the French President Emmanuel Macron gave a speech to his ambassadors in which he spoke of an ‘epidemic of putschs’ in what was formerly France’s greatest sphere of post-colonial influence. Although most of these states have been independent for decades, Paris kept them firmly in the French orbit There have now been six coups d’état in francophone sub-Saharan Africa in three years – Mali, Chad, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Niger and now the small but wealthy nation of Gabon. France’s whole African policy

Jake Wallis Simons

Banning Iran’s IRGC makes more sense than cracking down on Wagner

Is the Wagner Group a terror threat to Britain? Until this morning, the thought had probably never occurred to most people as they went about their lives. The mercenary group has indeed done terrible things in Ukraine and Africa. But a threat to British subjects on our own soil? Today, however, the government will add Wagner to its list of proscribed organisations, which includes groups like Islamic State and al-Qaeda. This means that joining or supporting the organisation carries a penalty of up to 14 years in prison. Officials will be able to seize Wagner’s assets more easily, and members of the group will be barred from silencing journalists and

Melissa Kite

‘We need to start the road to rejoin’: Gina Miller on Brexit, farmers and her ambitious plans for Epsom

Gina Miller is trying to convince me that she understands why I voted Brexit. The woman who went to the High Court in 2016 to effectively try to cancel my vote by insisting the EU referendum result be referred back to a Remain-dominated parliament, plunging Brexit into years of legal and parliamentary wrangling, says she feels my pain and always has. How can this be? Well, maybe it’s just the magic of politics. ‘My case was not to do with Brexit. It was to do with parliament’ Ms Miller is attempting to turn her single-issue, referendum-wrecking fame into a broader platform, by standing in leafy Epsom and Ewell as one

Patrick O’Flynn

Kemi Badenoch’s growing popularity makes her vulnerable

The news is grim for supporters of Kemi Badenoch: our heroine has climbed to the top of the Conservative Home website’s monthly cabinet popularity table. This further cements her rating with the bookies as favourite to take over as Tory leader when Rishi Sunak’s race is run – and let’s be honest, that race does not seemed destined to go beyond the mid-distance.  Surely this is a happy turn of events for we Badenochians, you might think? Hardly. She might as well now have a target painted on her back. As one colleague puts it: ‘When you are seen as heir apparent, you are the person standing in the way

James Heale

Was Truss doomed to fail on day one?

‘I’m sorry for the damage and the loss. It was a scary time, and I’m sorry for that.’ Kwasi Kwarteng’s contrite apology on TalkTV last night was a striking contrast with the confidence, excitement and ambition which he and others exuded on taking up their new posts in Liz Truss’s government exactly one year ago today. Back then, there was talk from the likes of Truss’s chief of staff Mark Fullbrook about it being a ‘seven year premiership’. Yet it ended up being over in just seven weeks. How did it all go so wrong, so quickly? Loyalty to the leader was prioritised over party unity By the time the