Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Tuesday

Kate Andrews

Britain’s cooling labour market could spell trouble for Hunt

Is the UK’s labour market cooling down? While unemployment remains unchanged at 3.7 per cent, according to today's update from the Office for National Statistics, the number of job vacancies ‘fell on the quarter for the eighth consecutive period’, down 51,000. The overall number of vacancies, however, still remains above a million. But the biggest indicator things are changing is wage growth: the rise in average total pay fell to 5.7 per cent between November last year and January this year, down from 5.9 per cent in the previous three months. Adjusting for inflation, this means real wages fall by 3.2 per cent – the biggest fall since the pandemic hit, not to mention one of the biggest falls since records began in 2001.

Steerpike

Jeremy Hunt’s sober Budget briefing

How times change: seven months ago we were eagerly awaiting the Tiggerish Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng’s fiscal event, replete with much boosterish briefing about Truss's tax-cutting zeal. Now we await to see what their respective successors will unveil in one of the least anticipated Budgets of modern times. ‘Under promise and over deliver’ is the mantra of this government and they certainly haven’t promised much in the run-up to tomorrow’s statement. The corporation tax hike is expected to still go ahead; free market fix is out, replaced with the eminently less sexy subject of welfare reform. And to match the sober rhetoric, Mr S can confirm that Jeremy Hunt is planning on going sober himself in the chamber tomorrow.

John Curtice

Who are the polls predicting will be the next leader of Scotland?

Voting for the next SNP leader has begun. But who will emerge as the winner is far from clear. Nearly all of the polling to date has been of the general public. Among them, Kate Forbes, Scotland’s finance secretary – whose candidacy got into hot water when she revealed she would have voted against the introduction of gay marriage if she had been an MSP in 2014 – is clearly ahead. In four polls conducted over the last week, including two after a rancorous televised debate, she has on average secured 30 per cent support when voters were asked who they would like as their next First Minister.

Gavin Mortimer

How Albania’s mafia took control of Europe’s trafficking network

America must get tough against the Mexican drug cartels, former US Attorney General, William Barr, declared earlier this month. Likening them to Isis, he backed a joint resolution from two Republican senators, giving the US president authority to deploy the military against the cartels in Mexico. Failure to do so would, he warned, allow the cartels to continue flooding the US with their ‘deadly drugs on an industrial scale’. America’s anti-drug strategy was ineffective because, he said, ‘it leaves the drug supply chain untouched…real progress requires aggressively attacking the drug supply at its source. The head of the snake is in Mexico.’  Europe must apply a similar approach if it’s to solve the migrant crisis.

Terry Barnes

Could Donald Trump tank Aukus?

There are few surprises in the Aukus nuclear-powered submarine programmed announced by Rishi Sunak, his Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese, and US president Joe Biden overnight. Australia will get its fleet of nuclear submarines. The United States will supply Virginia-class boats to Australia for the 2030s; US Virginias and Royal Navy Astute-class boats will be stationed in Western Australia later this decade. And the three partners, under British leadership, will develop a new 'Aukus-class' of nuclear submarines for the 2040s and beyond. It's a hugely ambitious programme, and geopolitically astute. A risk-averse Sir Humphrey Appleby might have even called it 'courageous'.

Sophia Gaston

Aukus is a gamechanger

Aukus is one of the most significant security pacts in modern history. It marks a bold new era in how we think about our alliances and our national resilience. Brits are on board with the pact: 64 per cent are confident about its ability to make us safer; a similar number (65 per cent) think it will make the UK more competitive towards China. After 18 months of intensive research and negotiations, the Aukus trilateral pact is finally taking shape. An elegant solution has been found for Australia’s submarine deficit, with Rishi Sunak joining the American and Australian leaders in San Diego in the United States to announce the launch of a state-of-the-art SSN-Aukus submarine project.

Gareth Roberts

Gary Lineker has exposed the truth about television

The Gary Lineker debacle has exposed the breathtaking historical and political ignorance of the supposedly educated. Lineker's suspension – and subsequent return – has also demonstrated (as if we didn't know it) the power of the managerial class establishment. But the transmission of Match of the Day last Saturday sans Gary and his co-mutineers revealed something else. The truth about much modern television is that the percentage of actual content is dwarfed by the amount of waffle. As the row rumbled on, the BBC was contractually obliged to run the day’s football highlights package. Without the banter, chat and flimflam Lineker is paid £1.3 million a year for, this clocked in at a mere 20 minutes.

Monday

James Heale

Can Aukus really counter China?

Rishi Sunak has announced in California the details of the UK-US pact to supply Australia with nuclear-powered submarines. Aukus was first-unveiled in September 2021: in the 18 months since, the three nations have agreed that the new fleet will be built in Britain and Australia to British designs. It's only the second time ever that the United States have shared nuclear submarine technology with its allies, following a similar UK/US deal in 1958. The first of these submarines are expected to be ready in the UK in the late 2030s and will mainly be built by BAE Systems at Barrow-in-Furness, and Rolls-Royce.

Katy Balls

Small boats bill sails through parliament

When No. 10 first planned the illegal migration bill – to stop those who enter the UK illegally from claiming asylum – the hope was that it would act as a unifying force within the Tory party. In a sign that the strategy is bearing fruit, the legislation passed its second reading late on Monday, with a majority of 62, with 312 ayes to 250 noes. Not one Tory MP voted against the bill - with critics opting to abstain instead. The Labour amendment to decline to approve the second reading failed at 249 ayes to 312 noes. Yet the debate before the vote wasn’t all plain-sailing for the government. Former prime minister Theresa May went on the offensive – arguing that ‘anybody who thinks that this bill deal with the issue of illegal migration once and for all is wrong’.

Owen Matthews

Is Georgia seeing a ‘colour revolution’?

On the face of it, the protests that rocked the Georgian capital of Tbilisi last week looked a lot like recent regional history repeating itself. Just as in Georgia’s own Rose revolution in 2003 or Ukraine’s Orange and Maidan revolutions of 2004 and 2014, vast crowds waving EU flags took to the streets to demand democratic change, to be met with police baton charges, tear gas and water cannons.  The cause of last week’s protests was a law passed by Georgia’s parliament requiring non-governmental organisations that received funding from abroad to register as ‘foreign agents’ – a requirement that looked uncomfortably similar to a longstanding Russian law which has been used by the Kremlin to crack down on civil society organisations and political opposition.

Isabel Hardman

Tory hawks aren’t happy with Sunak’s China stance

The tougher language on China in today’s refreshed Integrated Review hasn’t been enough for a number of Conservative MPs, who used the Commons statement on the matter to complain. When Foreign Secretary James Cleverly unveiled the updated security and foreign policy strategy to MPs, he described the ‘increasingly aggressive military and economic behaviour of the Chinese Community party’. The MPs who raised concerns were all well-known China hawks who were never going to be satisfied by the position Rishi Sunak has tried to take. Alicia Kearns, the chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, told Cleverly that China should not just be seen as an economic rival.

Cindy Yu

Is Rishi right about China?

16 min listen

Today Rishi Sunak's diplomacy is taking centre stage. He is currently in San Diego for talks with President Biden and the government has just released its refreshed Integrated Review, which includes strengthened language on China, the Russia-Ukraine war and science and tech. Cindy Yu speaks to Katy Balls and Sophia Gaston, head of foreign policy at the think tank Policy Exchange.  Produced by Cindy Yu and Oscar Edmondson.

Lucy Dunn

Voting begins – but the SNP leadership race is still wide open

After a tumultuous two weeks, voting is now open for the SNP leadership elections until 27 March. But are members any closer to knowing who they'll vote for? At the Glasgow hustings, Michael Russell, president of the SNP, urged members to get their votes in as soon as possible. But while the Scottish National party appears keen to see the majority of votes cast within the next few days, it is worthwhile remembering just how many ‘undecideds’ there were in the last SNP member poll. A third of those questioned by Savanta didn’t know who they’d be backing, while another third expressed their support for Humza Yousaf and a quarter said they’d back Kate Forbes.

Steerpike

Now it’s Theresa’s turn to write her book

'Former Prime Ministers' remarked William Gladstone 'are like untethered rafts drifting around harbours – a menace to shipping.' And as the good ship Sunak seeks to avoid the guns of Messers Johnson and Truss, at least the SS Theresa May is posing somewhat less risk to the government's structural integrity. May has largely maintained a dignified silence during Sunak's first six months in office but has today revealed an exciting new development. She's writing a book on 'The Abuse of Power', which is due out in September. According to the press release: As Prime Minister for three years and Home Secretary for six years, Theresa May confronted a series of issues in which the abuse of power led to devastating results...

Cindy Yu

Beijing is likely to react badly to Sunak’s Integrated Review

It was only last summer that Rishi Sunak declared China ‘the largest threat to Britain’, but in today’s refreshed Integrated Review, the ‘T’ word has been reserved only for Russia. Instead, China has been labelled ‘an epoch-defining and systemic challenge’ in a document setting out the UK’s approach to foreign policy. What happened to the bolshy Sunak of the Tory leadership race? The Prime Minister now says that ‘I don’t think it’s smart or sophisticated policy to reduce our relationship with China… to just two words.

Isabel Hardman

The junior doctors’ strike is about more than just pay

Junior doctors have begun their 72-hour strike today, with tens of thousands of NHS appointments cancelled. NHS chiefs are more worried about the impact of this industrial action than they were about strikes by nurses or ambulance workers. This is not least because doctors who are members of the British Medical Association (BMA) and the Hospital Consultants and Specialists Association are walking out from emergency care as well as elective treatment.  The political dynamic between ministers and the BMA in particular is very different to that with the Royal College of Nursing (RCN). The BMA has been at loggerheads with successive governments throughout the 75 years of the health service's existence.

Cindy Yu

Does the triumph of Gary Lineker spell disaster for the BBC?

10 min listen

Two stories dominated the news agenda over the weekend, one concerning a household name and the other involving a bank which – before Sunday – few had heard of. What is the political significance of Gary Lineker's row with the BBC? And after the fall of Silicon Valley Bank, are we heading for a regional banking crisis?  Cindy Yu speaks to Katy Balls and Kate Andrews. Produced by Cindy Yu and Oscar Edmondson.

Patrick O’Flynn

The triumph of Gary Lineker is a disaster for the BBC

The BBC-based sitcom W1A centred on a running joke about how the spinelessness and ineptitude of senior management led them to dig themselves ever-deeper into holes. At one point in the series, the Corporation’s 'Head of Values' is wrong-footed by an ex-footballer who wants to be a television pundit. Another episode centres on him closing down an orchestra which turns out to be widely admired by licence-payers. Well, life imitating art and all that then. Today’s 'resolution' of the Gary Lineker furore, which began on the basis of the director general Tim Davie’s determination to defend the Corporation’s impartiality, could hardly have done more to cement its reputation as a redoubt of liberal Left bias and groupthink.

Mark Galeotti

Wagner’s founder Evgeny Prigozhin is in a fight for his life

As Wagner mercenaries are being deliberately expended by the regular military as cannon-fodder in the battle for Bakhmut, their backer, Evgeny Prigozhin, is learning a hard lesson in Kremlin politics: it doesn’t matter how useful you were yesterday, what matters is how useful you may be tomorrow. Last year, the Russians were desperately short of soldiers. Ukraine was fully mobilised, but Vladimir Putin was unwilling for political reasons to follow suit, only launching a partial mobilisation in September. His generals simply lacked the soldiers they needed. In politics, as in economics, the laws of supply and demand meant that whoever had soldiers to offer – such as Prigozhin – could command a high price.

Steerpike

Gary Lineker to return to Match of the Day

Well, it was nice while it lasted. Following the farce of last night's 14-minute episode of Match of the Day, BBC management have come out this morning waving the white flag to sue for peace with Gary Lineker. The ex-football star is going to return to the Beeb after after the corporation announced a review of its guidance on social media. Quelle surprise. Lineker, who was suspended after his controversial tweets about the government’s asylum policy, said in a statement issued by the BBC: 'I am glad that we have found a way forward. I support this review and look forward to getting back on air.