Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Tuesday

Cindy Yu

James Cleverly faces his biggest challenge yet on his trip to China

Much has changed since the last time a British Foreign Secretary visited China. Back in 2018, when Jeremy Hunt met his Chinese counterpart, foreign minister Wang Yi, the world had never heard of Covid-19, Hong Kong remained mostly immune from interference from Beijing, and the truth about the mass internment camps in Xinjiang had only started emerging. Hunt and Wang agreed to keep ‘building the ‘Golden Era’ of China-UK relations’. How different the world looks, just five years later, as another British Foreign Secretary prepares to visit Beijing.  In British diplomatic circles, the term ‘golden era’ has been retired, as various human rights and geopolitical spats have led to the UK adopting

Christopher Snowdon

When will the Scottish government get a grip on alcohol deaths?

Is there any amount of evidence that could convince the ‘public health’ lobby that one of their bright ideas didn’t work? What would it take for them to admit that they failed? It is now five years since the SNP introduced minimum unit pricing for alcohol. It was supposed to be the most effective policy available to tackle alcohol harm — yet figures released today show that alcohol-specific deaths in Scotland have reached a 14-year high. Is it perhaps time for a rethink? Is it time to abandon a policy that has cost Scottish consumers hundreds of millions of pounds and instead start focusing on dependent drinkers who need help?

Steerpike

Scotland’s alcohol deaths reach highest level since 2008

Oh dear. The latest figures for Scotland’s alcohol-related deaths are out and it’s not good news. Deaths registered in 2022 have risen by 2 per cent from 2021 to total 1,276 mortalities overall. Strikingly, Mr S notes that the rise in deaths is attributable to women, with 440 deaths tragically recorded last year. With alcohol-related deaths at the highest levels since 2008, these figures are a damning indictment of the SNP’s self-proclaimed ‘world-leading’ minimum unit pricing policy. ‘We will need to better understand the reasons for this increase in deaths,’ said drugs and alcohol policy minister Elena Whitham. You can say that again – though perhaps leading on transparency would be a start.

Ross Clark

Is one badly filed flight plan really to blame for the airport chaos?

A faulty flight plan filed by a French airline is unofficially being blamed for the meltdown in our national air traffic control system on Monday. While Nats (National Air Traffic Services) has declined to comment, it should come as no comfort if it turns out to have been a cock-up rather than – as many initially feared – a cyber attack. If one badly-filed flight plan can cause delays for days on end – as the airlines are warning us – it is an alarming reminder of how vulnerable our transport infrastructure has become. It wouldn’t take much input from a hostile state to bring the country to a halt. You can see

Steerpike

Sadiq Khan dodges the question over Ulez

Could Sadiq Khan’s controversial Ulez scheme cost Labour the general election? Even before Ulez came into effect this morning, the policy has already proved costly for Khan’s party, having led to Labour failing to win the Uxbridge by-election in July. This morning, just hours after the scheme went live, Khan was asked whether more votes might be lost. Khan’s response on the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme suggests he isn’t too concerned: Mishal Husain: Have you thought about it costing Labour the general election? Sadiq Khan: Look I’m quite clear in relation to the policies to reduce air pollution in London: Londoners want to see cleaner air in our city…I

John Jenkins

How the West made a mess of Syria

It was the last week of August 2013. I was Her Majesty’s Ambassador to Saudi Arabia. The course of the Arab uprisings of 2011, which had been greeted with such naïve optimism at the time, had become bloody, not least in Syria. Only the previous week there had been a chemical weapons attack on opposition-controlled areas of Damascus in the ancient oasis – the Ghouta – that lies to the south-east of the city.  UN inspectors were begrudgingly and belatedly allowed access by the Syrian government. They concluded that the chemical in question was Sarin. Hundreds of people had been killed, many others severely injured. Some may have been insurgents. The overwhelming majority were civilians, men, women and children, all trapped in

Monday

Katy Balls

Why weren’t police forces investigating every theft?

Police must investigate every theft. This is the message from the Home Secretary as the government heralds an agreement from all 43 police forces in England and Wales to follow up on any evidence where there is a ‘reasonable line of enquiry’. In practice, that means the police should investigate low-level crimes such as stolen bikes, phones and shoplifting when there is reasonable lead such as a GPS tracker, CCTV footage or a doorbell video. As I noted earlier this month in a cover piece for the magazine, ‘investigate every crime’ doesn’t sound like a particularly novel concept. It raises the question: Why weren’t police investigating every theft? Over the

James Heale

Does Nadine Dorries have a point?

17 min listen

Nadine Dorries resigned from Parliament over the weekend, writing in a letter to Rishi Sunak that the Conservatives have been ‘corrupted’, and accusing the Prime Minister of ‘opening the gates to whip up a public frenzy against one of his own MPs’. Is Dorries, at least in part, right? James Heale speaks to Fraser Nelson and Kate Andrews.

Steerpike

Watch: Nish Kumar meets his match on women’s rights

Who says Britain no longer produces quality telly? Mr S this weekend thoroughly enjoyed the sight of Nish Kumar – a man who identifies as a comedian – being put firmly in his place by TV presenter Lowri Turner on women’s rights. Invited on to Jeremy Vine’s Channel 5 show, Kumar waxed lyrical on the subject, declaring that: I believe that the transgender community deserves our love and support. But there is a bizarre fixation with it in the British press. I don’t know what’s going on. It feels like everyone in the British media has like caught some sort of brainwaves about the subject. It is a community that

Steerpike

Trussites inspire their peers in parliament

So. Farewell Then. Nadine Dorries. The departure of the bestselling author from parliament got Mr S wondering just which books her colleagues have been reading this past year. Fortunately, the Commons Library publishes a list of all works purchased and borrowed, allowing us to discover just what is on our honourable members’ minds… The latest list, covering the period up from October 2022 to March this year, tells us that £638 worth of new books purchased include scholarly insights on US-China relations, treatises on diplomacy and leadership, practical paths to Korean reunification, memoirs on American policing, genetic studies on inequality and a history of the debate on climate change. The

Ross Clark

Net Zero is condemning more Brits to energy poverty

Here’s another great idea from the net zero establishment: only heat your home when it is warm and sunny outdoors. In its Sixth Carbon Budget paper, the government’s Climate Change Committee advises homeowners to turn their heating on in the afternoon, so that they can turn it off again during the evening when demand for electricity is higher. ‘Where homes are sufficiently well-insulated,’ it says, ‘it is possible to pre-heat ahead of peak times, enabling access to cheaper tariffs which reflect the reduced costs associated with running networks and producing power during off-peak times.’ In other words, boil yourself when the outdoor temperature is relatively warm, and with any luck

Michael Taube

Is the game up for Justin Trudeau?

In the dog days of summer, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberal government are skating on thin ice once more.  An August 18-23 national survey by Abacus Data of 2,189 adults revealed that 56 per cent of respondents believed he ‘should step down’ rather than run again for re-election. Only 27 per cent felt he should stay, and 17 per cent were unsure.  The Canadian public is clearly tired of his ineffective, mediocre leadership and want him to return to private life This number is in line with recent polling data in Canada. Pierre Poilievre and the opposition Conservatives have led in almost every opinion poll conducted since he became party leader

Sunday

Steerpike

Nadine Dorries blasts Sunak in first interview since resigning

It’s only been a day since Nadine Dorries announced her resignation as an MP – in a scathing letter released to the Mail on Sunday blasting Rishi Sunak’s premiership. But it seems that the former culture secretary still has plenty of ammunition left over. Dorries appeared on TalkTV this afternoon to explain why she felt she had to resign now, and to take another pop at the Prime Minister for good measure. In the interview, she claimed that she had actually told Cabinet Secretary Simon Case last summer that she planned to resign, but that ‘there was a huge amount of pressure not to go’ from her colleagues. She held out

Mark Hollingsworth

The real origins of Putin’s war

In 1992, Richard Nixon assessed the future of Russia in a remarkably prophetic interview. ‘Russia is at a crossroads’, said the former US President: It is often said the cold war is over and the West has won. But that is only half of the truth. Communism has been defeated but the ideas of freedom are now on trial. If they don’t work, there will be a reversion not to communism but to a new despotism which would pose a mortal danger to the rest of the world. It will be affected by a virus of Russian imperialism which has been a characteristic of Russian foreign policy for centuries.   Therefore,

Richard Rout

The disturbing rise of the rural Greens

In the shire counties of England, a dark force is rising. No, this isn’t a dreadful attempt at Tolkien fanfiction, but rather the challenging electoral predicament we Conservatives find ourselves in as we confront a new kind of opposition. And this time, the little furry-footed gardening folk are not on the side of the angels. I’m talking, of course, about the rise of the rural Green.  In Suffolk, they are now the protest vote of choice, having taken control of three local councils – one outright and two in coalition. They’re springing up from Surrey to Staffordshire. And this is, I’m afraid, just the beginning.    We like to call them

Christian Wolmar

Why is HS2 costing so much?

The members of the Denham Waterski Club are among the few people in the Chilterns who are grateful for HS2. They have a superb new clubhouse overlooking the tiny lake where their motorboats whizz round in ever tighter circles, thanks to the fact that their old one was in the way of the massive viaduct being built over the Colne Valley for the new line. The heavy concrete structure does somewhat blight their view but they are undoubtedly delighted with their Faustian deal. The escalating costs and the dithering of ministers have meant that many of the original advantages of HS2 have been lost The few hundred thousand pounds this

Saturday

Fraser Nelson

Nadine Dorries is vindicating Sunak’s refusal to ennoble her

After waiting for months, Nadine Dorries has today served her resignation – as several MPs have done recently. But, enraged by Rishi Sunak’s refusal to put her in the House of Lords, she is also triggering a by-election which the Tories are highly likely to lose. In her letter, released in time for the Sunday newspapers, she makes some fair criticisms of Sunak. But the crux of it borders on delusional: a claim that Boris Johnson was forced out of office, even “assassinated“, by a small cabal of Sunak allies. I was never wild about the idea of defenestrating Johnson. Sunak’s assessment that the Tory poll lead would soon recover was (to

Katy Balls

Nadine Dorries isn’t making life easy for Rishi Sunak

Nadine Dorries has finally bowed to pressure from Labour, the Liberal Democrats and her own party and quit as an MP. The former culture secretary has announced – through an interview with the Mail on Sunday – that she will today inform the Chancellor of her intention to take the Chiltern Hundreds, the formal process for quitting, therefore enabling the writ to be moved on September 4th when parliament returns. This means Rishi Sunak faces a potentially bruising by-election test in the autumn as he attempts to shake-up his premiership ahead of an election year. Rishi Sunak faces a bruising by-election test in the autumn as he attempts to shake-up his premiership

Steerpike

Nadine Dorries quits again with final blast at Rishi

Nadine Dorries is off – and this time it’s for real. Following weeks of criticism, the former Culture Secretary has finally announced that she will be quitting the Commons when parliament returns from recess on Monday 4 September. That will trigger a by-election in her Mid-Bedfordshire constituency, helpfully timed to coincide with Tory party conference. Dorries first declared she would leave the Commons at the same time as Boris Johnson and Nigel Adams back in June but has hung on ever since, giving the Lib Dems in her constituency time to organise. In a scathing letter published on the Daily Mail’s website, Dorries says Sunak has ‘squandered the goodwill of