Politics Archives

Friday

24 February 2023

What does Starmer really stand for?

Keir Starmer is no longer a leader under pressure – at least for now. When he set out his ‘Five Missions for a Better Britain’ yesterday during a speech in Manchester he did so from the vantage point of a huge Labour lead in the opinion polls and an election victory seemingly in the bag. A few days ago, he consigned his troublesome predecessor Jeremy Corbyn to history by confirming he would not be allowed to stand at the next election. Starmer dominates his party like no Labour leader since Tony Blair in his pomp. But when Blair became prime minister, everybody thought they were clear what Blairism was about. However less than eighteen months from a general election there are still big questions about what Starmerism represents.

Robert Service

Putin’s fatal miscalculation over Ukraine

It is a full year since Vladimir Putin started his latest war against Ukraine, and only optimists expect that the next anniversary will occur in peacetime. There is little comfort to be taken from the twin possibilities of victory or defeat for the Ukrainian forces. If they win, Russia will remain a potent threat on their borders even though Putin would be likely to fall from power. And if Ukraine loses, it will sink back into the corruption and maladministration that plagued the country before 2022 – with the additional curse of a Russian colonial oppression. Many people had assumed that such invasions could no longer be perpetrated by one European state against another. But it did not shock opinion in the countries of eastern Europe that broke away from the USSR’s grasp in 1989.

Thursday

23 February 2023

Steerpike

Poll: public demand frugal living for MPs

With inflation and strikes gripping the nation, it seems that the public are not in a generous mood when it comes to the perks afforded to our political class. Following Labour's much-hyped 'GPC files', Mr S has done some polling and the results don't make good living for those in Westminster who enjoy a life of largesse. Given a set of four options, 40 per cent of the public would put the Foreign Secretary up in a basic hotel for a conference overseas for two nights – though thankfully with their own room. Just 14 per cent would select the kind of five-star accommodation which Rishi Sunak stayed in for the G20 summit in Venice. Some 30 per cent would stretch that to four-star while seven per cent would rather they share a room in a basic hotel.

William Moore

Farewell to arms: Britain’s depleted military

39 min listen

This week: In his cover piece for the magazine, Andrew Roberts says that the British Army has been hollowed out by years of underfunding and a lack of foresight when it comes to replacing the munitions we have sent to Ukraine. Historian Antony Beevor and author Simon Jenkins join the podcast to discuss Britain’s depleted military (01:04). Also this week: do religion and politics mix? In The Spectator Isabel Hardman asks why it is that only Christian politicians are forced to defend their beliefs. This is of course in light of the news this week that Kate Forbes’s bid for SNP leadership may be derailed by her views on gay marriage.

Isabel Hardman

Why Kate Forbes is apologising

Somewhat inevitably, Kate Forbes has issued a lengthy apology for her rather forthright comments on moral issues in the early days of the SNP leadership contest. The Scottish Finance Secretary put out a lengthy post on Facebook in which she said: Every leader’s identity is multifaceted – I am a woman, I am a Highlander, I have a faith. Of all these characteristics, the questions over the last few days have focused on my religious faith. I feel greatly burdened that some of my responses to questions in the media have caused hurt, which was never my intention as I sought to answer questions clearly. I will defend to the hilt the rights of everybody in Scotland, particularly minorities, to live and to love without fear or harassment in a pluralistic and tolerant society.

Andrew Tettenborn

Is it right to criminalise verbal sexual harassment?

In febrile times, politicians tend to have a touching belief in their ability to pass laws and make men good. The well-meaning, but actually slightly sinister, Protection from Sex-based Harassment in Public Bill, which went through its committee stage yesterday with full support from Labour and no dissenting voices, is a case in point. The proposed legislation is a private member’s Bill brought by Greg Clark, Conservative MP for Tunbridge Wells, but it is broadly supported by the government. At first sight it does very little. It has long been a crime under the Public Order Act to intentionally cause someone harassment, alarm or distress by saying or doing anything threatening, abusive or insulting. This can clearly stretch to covering sexual harassment.

Steerpike

Why did Humza Yousaf miss the vote on gay marriage?

With all the focus on Kate Forbes' social views, it's perhaps worth another look at Humza Yousaf's own record on gay marriage. Back in November 2013, the now-favourite to succeed Nicola Sturgeon was a junior minister for External Affairs. He voted that month in favour of the general principles of the Marriage and Civil Partnerships (Scotland) Bill; however he subsequently missed the key final vote on 4 February 2014. Nine years on, he is now facing questions about why he did so. Yousaf claimed at the time that he had a prior meeting he couldn’t avoid. He wrote on Twitter: 'Had ministerial engagement arranged beforehand but signed pledge, voted for stage one and v public about my (continued) support!

Annabel Denham

What Miriam Cates gets right – and wrong – about declining fertility

Fulfil your civic duty. Get married. Have children. That was the message from Miriam Cates, the increasingly prominent Conservative backbencher, to guests at a drink reception earlier this week. In what even her fiercest critics would have to concede was an impressively bold speech, Cates suggested that many of her female constituents want to work less and spend more time with their children. She claimed that politicians belonged to a class that had been protected by marriage and family, insulated from family breakdown to such a degree that they fail to realise how important it is. Few politicians can ride out a Twitterstorm without some sort of retraction, and Cates is no exception.

Cindy Yu

Was there anything Labour about Labour’s five missions?

10 min listen

Keir Starmer has set out Labour's five missions for government in a speech today, but was there anything Labour about them? Cindy Yu talks to Katy Balls and Isabel Hardman about where this speech leaves the Labour party's chances to win the next election. Also on the podcast: the government's plan to cut the asylum backlog. Produced by Cindy Yu.

Ian Acheson

The chilling attack on a Northern Ireland police officer

An off-duty senior detective in Northern Ireland’s police service was ambushed last night by masked gunmen as he helped at a football coaching event in Omagh, Country Tyrone. Two assailants fired at least four bullets into Detective Chief Inspector John Caldwell, shooting him on the ground as his terrified son looked on. He remains critically ill in hospital. PSNI detectives investigating his attempted murder are pursuing dissident republican terrorists in the ‘New IRA’ as a strong line of inquiry. Three men have been arrested. Twenty five years ago, this sort of casual barbarity gained not much more than a sidebar in a local newspaper.

James Heale

Will Starmer be trusted on his ‘five missions’?

The most interesting moment from Keir Starmer’s big set speech today came during the questions. The Labour leader had just set out his ‘five missions’ to fix the NHS, economy, crime, energy and education systems – the issues on which Labour hopes to fight the next election. But journalist after journalist preferred to ask Starmer instead about the last election he fought – the leadership contest to succeed Jeremy Corbyn. How, they asked, can voters trust the Labour leader’s promises, when he’s broken so many that he made to his own member? Starmer’s answers were clear: the goal is a Labour government, anything else is an irrelevance. The old Fortress Twickenham slogan could have been tattooed on his forehead: ‘Winning – that is why we are here.

Rakib Ehsan

Can a football regulator save the beautiful game?

English football will soon have an independent regulator, with the power to block clubs from joining breakaway leagues and also try and prevent teams from going out of business. The football watchdog is part of plans set out in the government's white paper, published today. For a struggling Tory party, this presents a golden opportunity to stand up for the game’s working-class supporters in provincial towns and post-industrial communities. It will also spark much-needed life into the Tories' flagging levelling-up and social-cohesion agendas. Plans for a regulator to protect the beautiful game are overdue.

Theo Hobson

Kate Forbes and the conundrum of marriage

The fuss over Kate Forbes’ opposition to gay marriage shows that the concept of marriage has become a serious muddle. The depth of the muddle tends to be evaded, as pundits don’t generally want to admit that a basic thing like marriage is really confusing. But it is. It’s oddly hard to say what marriage is. Does it still have a religious dimension? Or is it an essentially secular thing that only has a religious dimension if you’re religious? It’s oddly hard to say what marriage is. Does it still have a religious dimension? Or is it a secular thing? Until recently, such questions troubled no one. Marriage was a mix of religious and secular elements, but the ambiguity was unproblematic.

Steerpike

Defence ministers clash in battle of the egos

There’s nothing Mr S likes more than a clash between two monumental ministerial egos. And they don’t come much bigger than Ben Wallace, the Forces’ Flashheart, and Johnny Mercer, the veteran thorn in No. 10’s backside. Both men serve in posts at the Ministry of Defence: Wallace as Secretary of State and Mercer in a junior role but still attending cabinet. But in recent weeks the pair have had something of a difference of opinion on defence spending. First, there was a brief skirmish at the end of January when Mercer said that Wallace's claims that Britain's defence capabilities have been 'hollowed out' were 'fundamentally not true' and a 'little bit disingenuous to the Prime Minister.

James Heale

Rishi risks another asylum outcry

With the likelihood of a deal on the Northern Ireland Protocol fading this week, a new issue has emerged to enrage the Tory right: fresh plans to cut tackle the asylum backlog. Asylum seekers will no longer be subjected to face-to-face interviews, with more than 12,000 migrants from five countries having their claims assessed on paper instead. These five countries – Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Eritrea and Yemen – have the highest asylum success rate. Asylum seekers will have 20 days to fill in and return the fast-track official forms. Officials expect 95 per cent of applicants to be given leave to remain for at least five years, although those who fail to complete the ten-page form ‘without reasonable explanation’ could have their claims withdrawn.

Andrew McQuillan

The DUP has a right to be difficult over the Northern Ireland Protocol

It’s easy to take an unsympathetic view of the Democratic Unionist Party. For many, its politicians are caricatures of the dour Ulsterman come to life; flinty types with an antediluvian outlook. An unfortunate reminder – for a certain type of Englishman – of all that ‘Irish stuff’ they would rather not have to deal with. The back and forth over the Northern Ireland Protocol has seen this sentiment ratcheted up. Jeffrey Donaldson’s standpoint – no return to devolution without his party’s tests being met – is engendering incredible frustration among government ministers and a press tired of having to surrender column inches to this intractable tale.

Lucy Dunn

Five graphs that show Humza’s health service disaster

Humza Yousaf has been described as the ‘continuity candidate’ in the SNP leadership race. Yousaf remains the bookies’ favourite and has managed to avoided the media storm that his rival Kate Forbes has faced following her comments about gay marriage. But Yousaf's own record in politics deserves some scrutiny. So how has the Scottish health secretary fared in his current role? This morning, Audit Scotland released a damning report that laid bare the full extent of Humza Yousaf's health service crisis. It urged the Scottish government to be 'fully transparent' about 'what progress is or is not being achieved', and revealed that the health service is still nowhere close to meeting NHS Recovery Plan targets.

Tim Stanley

The Union has no substance

It’s always useful to be told what we’re allowed to think. The news from the Kate Forbes leadership campaign is that you can’t make it in politics unless you swallow sex changes and celebrate same-sex marriage. Fascinating. Especially since the former is actually very controversial – hence the backlash against the SNP’s gender ID reform – and the latter has only been the law since 2014. Even more interesting is that Forbes’ insistence that she wouldn’t try to reverse equal marriage isn’t enough. She is being pilloried not for her politics – which, in the sense of wishing to separate faith from existing legislation, is quite liberal – but for her incorrect values. No, it is not enough to tolerate equal marriage.

Wednesday

22 February 2023

Freddy Gray

Fox News’s ‘silent ban’ on Donald Trump

It’s by now well-established that Fox News, the American media behemoth, is no longer on the Trump Train. Trumpworld’s union with Foxworld was never altogether easy and, ever since that fateful election in November 2020, it has fallen apart. Trumpists despise Fox for, as many see it, helping Joe Biden steal the election. And the top brass at Fox News have sought to distance themselves from the Trump movement and what they regard as its increasingly toxic politics. Rupert Murdoch has had enough of the Orange One, by all accounts. What hasn’t been made entirely clear is the extent of the break-up. One senior Fox figure has let slip, however, that Donald Trump is effectively ‘banned’ from appearing on Fox News at present.

James Heale

Will there be resignations over Northern Ireland?

10 min listen

Rishi Sunak continues to try to get his MPs onside when it comes to the government's deal with the EU on the Northern Ireland Protocol. Some Eurosceptics have warned that the Prime Minister could see resignations from his government if this is handled badly, with some touting Home Secretary Suella Braverman's name. What's the latest? James Heale talks to Fraser Nelson and Isabel Hardman. Produced by Oscar Edmondson and Cindy Yu.