Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Tuesday

Kate Andrews

Would Starmer’s government have any cash to spend?

16 min listen

If Labour wins the next election, will Keir Starmer have any money to spend on his programme of government? In a piece for the Times yesterday, journalist Philip Collins says it won’t, and he thinks Labour is suffering because of this constraint. How can Labour be intellectually interesting if the government purse strings are so tight? Fraser Nelson disagrees. He says that, thanks to the Tories taking tax levels to record highs, Starmer will have plenty of cash to work with. Kate Andrews speaks to Philip and Fraser. Produced by Natasha Feroze and Max Jeffery.

Steerpike

Wandsworth Council’s troubling trans case

News of a troubling case reaches Steerpike. Earlier this month the Administrative Court handed down judgment in the case of R (AI) -v- London Borough of Wandsworth and Secretary of State for Education [2023] EWHC 2088 (Admin). It’s a complex ruling on a complex case, not likely to catch the attention of the public. But that judgment does contain details that raise some striking questions about medical treatment as it relates to issues of sex and gender. This relates to the claimant in the case, a 22-year-old with a heart-rending personal history and a string of serious problems. The claimant, named only as AI, was born female and now identifies as

James Kirkup

Would a young Starmer really not be able to afford university today?  

Keir Starmer reckons that under today’s economic conditions and policy framework, he would not have gone to Leeds University when he left school in the early 1980s: ‘It was a financial stretch then; if I were a student today, I wouldn’t be able to go.’ I’m not completely convinced this is true, but I have a lot of empathy for what he says about university access. I also think it’s a politically interesting and astute comment.  Let’s start with the politics. Compared to the population as a whole, Starmer is a very rich man who lives in a big house in London. He’s a KC and a knight. Like a lot of

Michael Simmons

Scotland’s drug deaths shame

Scotland continues to suffer drug deaths at levels unseen anywhere else in the UK or Europe. Three Scots die as a result of drugs every single day. That is nearly three times worse than any other country for which records exist. This scandalous figure has just been updated, and shows that, although the number of drug deaths in Scotland fell by a fifth in 2022, it is still nearly double what it was when the SNP came to power. It is also four times as high as it was at the turn of the century. A fall, the government says, is progress. But why so slow? Why did more than

Stephen Daisley

The rise of America’s anti-corporate populists

They are the Odd Couple of the United States Senate. She is a progressive Democrat and senior senator from true-blue Massachusetts, he a nationalist Republican and junior senator from ever-reddening Ohio. She has a 100 per cent rating from the National Abortion Rights Action League; he is ‘100 per cent pro-life’. She wants a path to citizenship for undocumented aliens; he wants a wall and to double the border patrol. She backs a federal assault weapons ban; his hero is his grandmother, who owned 19 handguns.  Although hailing from different sides of the culture wars, each is articulating material concerns that matter much more to the lives of Americans than whether Bud Light is woke No, Elizabeth Warren and JD Vance

Kate Andrews

Jeremy Hunt’s big spending pledges are coming home to roost

The Office for National Statistics reports this morning that public sector net borrowing in July came in at £4.3 billion. This is the fifth-highest July borrowing month since records began, with an additional £3.4 billion being spent to fund the government’s spending pledges compared to July last year. Still, there is fast talk of room for manoeuvre for Chancellor Jeremy Hunt to spend more or cut tax, as cumulative government borrowing continues to undershoot the Office for Budget Responsibility's (OBR) latest forecast for the fiscal year. In July, borrowing reached £56.6 billion, £11.3 billion less than had been expected by this point. In the Chancellor’s response to the figures this morning, the

Ben Domenech

2024 is America’s ‘lock him up’ election

It’s time to acknowledge the obvious truth about 2024: it’s going to be an election about who Americans want to go to the White House – and who they want to go straight to jail. There are, of course, all the normal caveats about unexpected crises, and typical issues like the economy, Ukraine, abortion, China and the border must be acknowledged. The uniquely aged nature of the likely nominees themselves also increases the possibility of a health event between now and November 2024. But in a race between Hunter Biden’s dad and any Republican, but particularly Donald Trump, the orange jumpsuit looms over all. Trump’s status as a figure of chaos

Monday

Fraser Nelson

Starmer will have cash to spend, thanks to the Tories

It’s great to see Philip Collins back in the Times: you may agree or disagree with him as a columnist but his writing is always elegant and thought-provoking. Today’s column looks at the conundrum facing Keir Starmer. ‘In all honesty I don’t think anyone involved can really say they know what it means to be a Labour government in a time in which there is no money left,’ he says. I know what he means: Tony Blair turned on the spending taps and Gordon Brown, when in power, turned them on even more. But Starmer will have more money to spend – far more – than any Labour government in history.  The tax

Matthew Scott

Should Lucy Letby have been allowed to miss her sentencing?

Until a few years ago I had never heard of a single case of a murderer declining to go into the dock to hear their sentence. I doubt whether any of them even realised that they had the choice.  Yet in recent years, the word seems to have spread and something of a fashion has developed for them to stay in their cells and refuse to enter the court-room.  It hardly surprising that many bereaved relatives are astonished and disgusted that such a thing is possible.  Judges, including Mr Justice Goss at Lucy Letby’s sentencing hearing, have decided that they have no power to do anything but accept this state

Brendan O’Neill

Sadiq Khan’s racial dystopia

Imagine if the Mayor of London was a Tory and his website featured an image of a black family alongside the words: ‘Doesn’t represent real Londoners.’ Imagine if this right-leaning mayor had weird rules on ‘branding’, one of which was that images of young black families should not be used in mayor-related publicity because these people, with their dark skin, are not reflective of ‘our’ vision of London.  If someone can explain how judging a family on the basis of their whiteness is any better than judging a family on the basis of their blackness, I would be most grateful There would be uproar, possibly protests, and rightly so. It

Iain Macwhirter

The return of rickets is a damning indictment of the SNP

Among the exhibits in Edinburgh university’s famous anatomical museum are the bones of ‘Bowed Joseph’, a notorious 18th century rabble-rouser who could allegedly assemble a crowd of 10,000 by beating his drum. He was ‘bowed’ because Joseph had rickets, a disease that ravaged Scotland’s working classes until the middle of the last century. Rickets is a disease of poverty, caused by poor diet and lack of sunlight and it is back, to the shame of the Scottish government. Cases have risen 33 per cent from 354 in 2018 to 442 last year. Well, poverty is caused by Tory austerity, say SNP MSPs and nationalists on social media. This shows why Scotland

Patrick O’Flynn

Is the Home Office working against the Tories?

It has long been suggested by senior politicians from both main parties that civil servants in the Home Office pick and choose which government policies to implement and which to ignore or undermine. On the Labour side, David Blunkett once complained of his reforms being ‘swamped by the history and practices of the Home Office’ while John Reid famously branded the section of the department charged with running immigration policy as ‘not fit for purpose’. It certainly looks like yet more evidence of a department whose personnel are engaged in a cultural rebellion against the policies of an elected administration On the Tory side, a source ‘close to Amber Rudd’

Steerpike

Watch: DeSantis grinds teeth during grilling

Poor Ron DeSantis. Once, he was the frontrunner to take over the Republican mantle from Trump. But now, following a staff exodus, tanking ratings and a barrage of insults from The Donald, the Florida Governor looks to be yesterday’s man. DeSantis is currently a whopping 45 points behind in the polls for the Republican nomination, with Trump refusing to attend Wednesday’s debate on the basis that he is ‘leading the field by “legendary” numbers.’ And the strain now appears to be getting to DeSantis, judging by his appearance in a clip he recorded yesterday. The Florida Governor was asked about a leaked memo from a friendly Super PAC detailing his

Mark Galeotti

Sanctions are failing to turn Putin’s oligarchs against him

When personal sanctions on Russian oligarchs and officials were imposed by the UK, US and EU after Putin’s invasion, the rationale was that this would undermine the Kremlin. In the main, this has failed – and there is still no coherent strategy to encourage those Russians willing to turn against the regime. Wider economic sanctions are slowly grinding away at the economic base of Putin’s regime and its war machine. The case for personal sanctions is much less clear. It is absolutely right and proper that those directly involved in the war, conducting repressions or justifying aggression ought to be punished. However, in their enthusiasm to be seen as taking a determined stand (and, in part,

Sunday

Nick Turse

America has lost the war against Islamist terror in Africa

After 9/11, the US built a network of military outposts across the northern tier of Africa to fight a shadow war against Islamist groups, and Niger became central to the effort. From Base Airienne 201, known to locals as ‘Base Americaine’, US drones were sent across the region to track down Islamist terrorists. The coup against President Bazoum marks another disruption in this long-running, mostly secret, war on terror. American troops in Niger are currently confined to their bases. The future of America’s two-decade counterterrorism campaign there is in doubt. In 2008, about 2,600 US military personnel were deployed in Africa, but today, there are around 6,500 troops and civilian

Patrick O’Flynn

After Sunak, who?

Nothing happens, and nothing happens, and then everything happens, the author Fay Weldon once declared.  This observation about life’s tendency to deliver sudden squalls between periods of apparent calm could certainly be applied to the leadership of the Conservative party.  It is only a year ago that Kemi Badenoch rather brilliantly used the leadership contest that followed the downfall of Boris Johnson to force her way into the top rank of Conservative politicians after having been overlooked during various Johnsonite Cabinet reshuffles. Now her merits are widely acknowledged and she is firm favourite at the bookies to become the next leader of the party. Of course, nothing is happening on

Ian O’Doherty

Ireland’s bonkers plan to kill cows to save the planet

You have to hand it to the green movement. When it comes to their increasingly farcical and delusional race towards the illusory target of net zero, they’re never short of ideas. Bad ideas, that is. E-bikes and E-scooters that have an unfortunate tendency to explode in the middle of the night. Electric cars which take days to charge – when you can find a charger. Motorists threatened with eye-watering fines if they dare to go faster than 20 miles an hour. Honestly, don’t be surprised if the next generation of cars come equipped with only two gears and a built in speed inhibitor. But here in Ireland, we have really taken the

Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

Christian churches are under attack in Pakistan

On Wednesday, 19 churches and more than 80 Christian homes in Pakistan were ransacked after the inhabitants of the city of Jaranwala were accused of blasphemy against Islam. Perhaps the most unacknowledged aspect of the violence was just how expected it was.  Nationwide, non-Muslim places of worship, especially churches, have been on high alert for the past month following burnings of the Quran carried out in Sweden by anti-Islam protesters. All the Islamic clergy and groups in Pakistan needed was an excuse to ignite the tinderbox. It’s unfortunate that Pakistan can’t seem to muster even residual security for some of its citizens The excuse was provided by a rumour that desecrated pages of the Quran were

Josh Barrie

Au revoir to Le Gavroche

You do not need to be a ‘food person’ to know the name Roux. Or to be familiar with Le Gavroche, the family’s cherished Mayfair restaurant, soon to close after 57 years. They are a name and a restaurant that transcend beyond the world of Michelin stars. And this despite the fact the restaurant requires a considerably plump paycheck or a lot of saving up to become familiar with its riches. Michel Roux – formerly Jr. – the son of the late Albert who founded Le Gavroche with his brother Michel Roux Sr. in 1967 – announced the restaurant’s closure late on Friday. The need for an improved ‘work-life balance’