Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Monday

James Snell

Saudi Arabia must not bring Syria’s Assad in from the cold

Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister has said the quiet part out loud when it comes to his country’s attitude towards Syria. Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud told the Munich Security Conference that the ‘maximalist goals’ of the past in confronting Assad’s regime were no longer tenable: [We are] going to have to go through a dialogue with the government in Damascus at some point, in a way that achieves at least the most important of the objectives especially as regards the humanitarian angle, the return of refugees, etc.

Freddy Gray

Joe Biden’s long history in Ukraine

It was only a matter of time before Joe Biden made a ‘surprise’ visit to Kiev. In the year since Russia’s attack on Ukraine, the choreographed walkabout with Volodymyr Zelensky has become the must-do photo-op for western global leaders. It’s the 21st century equivalent of an audience with the Pope – a symbolic news happening which shocks no one.  That’s not to say it’s not important. It signals, yet again, that America – the most powerful military and financial player on planet earth – is firmly behind Zelensky and his efforts to repel the Russian invasion.

Matthew Lynn

How bitcoin bounced back after FTX

One of the major exchanges has gone spectacularly bust. Billions of investor’s money has been lost. There have been allegations of widespread fraud, and one of the biggest corporate trials in modern history is set to dominate the business pages over the rest of the year. The collapse of the FTX, and the arrest of its high-profile founder Sam Bankman-Fried, was meant to finish off bitcoin and the rest of the cryptocurrencies. And yet, this year digital money is staging a dramatic revival – and making fools of its critics all over again.  When FTX went down, there was no shortage of people telling us, with ill-disguised glee, that bitcoin was finished.

Ross Clark

Sadiq Khan’s free school meals plan is fatally flawed

Sadiq Khan said told Radio 4 listeners this morning that, while he was grateful for the free school meals he received as a child at his primary school in Tooting, he felt stigmatised by having to queue up and eat separately from children whose parents were paying for their meals. If that is what his school was really doing then it is a pretty horrible way to treat children – and create class divisions where they don’t need to exist. Sorting out payments for school lunches can, of course be handled away from children’s noses, so none of them know who is eating for free. But does Khan’s childhood embarrassment really justify what he wants to do now: offer free school meals to every primary school pupil in London?

John Sturgis

Nicola Bulley and the debacle of Lancashire police’s investigation

The storm that has engulfed Lancashire Police – after the force revealed that missing mum Nicola Bulley had 'issues with alcohol' – has been a long time brewing.  Since February 29 2012 to be precise. The Leveson Inquiry into press wrongdoing was in full flow when, on that leap year day 11 years ago, the Met Police made a public admission: they had indeed loaned an old police horse to Rebekah Brooks. This was perfectly normal, they argued. The horse needed somewhere to live and the News UK chief paid for its upkeep. But the episode came to symbolise what the press’s many critics had long insisted was a too-cosy relationship between police and media. Panicked by this accusation, senior police officers tore up the rule book.

Stephen Daisley

Humza Yousaf looks like Nicola Sturgeon 2.0

Humza Yousaf, the frontrunner to succeed Nicola Sturgeon, formally entered the race this morning. The venue was humble: Clydebank Town Hall. The town once took pride of place in the British shipbuilding industry, but was hit hard by the closure of the yards. Although it has benefited from regeneration in recent decades, deprivation remains a stubborn feature of life there. Clydebank was also home to the Singer sewing machine factory, where Yousaf’s grandfather worked when he brought his family to the UK from Pakistan in the 1960s.  The venue may have been humble but the staging was slick.

Katy Balls

Is there a campaign to stop Forbes?

14 min listen

Scotland's finance secretary, Kate Forbes has formally declared her campaign to be leader of the SNP. Currently the bookies' favourite – what direction would she take the party in? Also on the podcast, will there be more news on the Northern Ireland protocol this week?

Steerpike

Is Robertson quitting with a pop at Forbes?

At the beginning of the SNP leadership race, the two favoured candidates to succeed Nicola Sturgeon were Kate Forbes and Angus Robertson. Today the former has declared while the latter has declined to stand. But has Robertson decided to forego the race with a not-so subtle pop at his rival? Mr S couldn’t help but notice that in his letter declining to stand, Robertson wrote that: As the father of two very young children the time is not right for me and my family to take on such a huge commitment. I look forward to working with the next SNP leader and First Minister to deliver progressive policies and economic success for Scotland, and help secure Scottish independence within the European Union. In essence, he is not standing because he cares too much about his family.

Mark Galeotti

Macron is right about the danger of Russia after Putin

France's President Macron has raised hackles time and again with his interventions on Russia's aggression against Ukraine. For all his grandstanding bombast though, he has often raised the policy dilemmas that the West really ought to be discussing. Most recently, he warned, while returning from the Munich Security Conference, that active efforts to topple Vladimir Putin would be a mistake, because someone more dangerous would succeed him. Discussions about Russia's future after Putin – and the advisability of outright seeking to unseat him – are in many ways a touchstone about attitudes towards Russia.

Patrick O’Flynn

Tory MPs are holding Rishi Sunak hostage over Brexit

The Tory Left wants Rishi Sunak to take a leaf out of Theresa May’s book by unilaterally giving up British leverage in a dispute with Brussels. Where May boxed in her country and her successor by accepting the UK must do nothing in pursuit of Brexit that would lead the EU to think it needed to impose a 'hard border' on the island of Ireland, the issue now is the passage of the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill which is currently paused in the House of Lords. The Bill, which would give the Government legal power to walk away from onerous aspects of the Protocol, has undoubtedly helped concentrate minds at the European Commission as regards the need for that instrument to be made more flexible.

James Heale

Kate Forbes announces bid for SNP leader

After much speculation, Kate Forbes has today become the third candidate to officially enter the race to replace Nicola Sturgeon. The Finance Secretary is currently on maternity leave until the beginning of April but has just released a slick video, setting out her stall to be First Minister. There's no mention of any specific policy but there's plenty of familiar buzzwords for the party faithful: talk of 'self-definition', 'unleashing' Scotland's potential and comparisons to wealthy Scandinavian countries. As for her own credentials, Forbes cites her record running the finance ministry and says she is 'bold, brave and energised, fresh-faced and ready for new challenges'.

James Heale

Angus Robertson rules himself out of race to replace Sturgeon

This morning Angus Robertson has announced he will not be standing in the SNP leadership contest. He was the bookies’ favourite to replace Nicola Sturgeon as the most experienced contender in the field. He spent ten years as the party’s leader at Westminster, prior to becoming Cabinet Secretary for the Constitution in 2021. But in a a statement Robertson says that: As the father of two very young children the time is not right for me and my family to take on such a huge commitment. I look forward to working with the next SNP leader and First Minister to deliver progressive policies and economic success for Scotland, and help secure Scottish independence within the European Union. Robertson's decision will come as a boost to Kate Forbes, the other front-runner.

Katy Balls

Sunak is taking a gamble on the Protocol

Westminster is back to the Brexit wars this week. Once again, a Conservative leader is trying to finalise a deal with Brussels while facing warnings from their own side that it could prove a compromise too far. On Friday, there was much fanfare that a new deal on the Northern Ireland Protocol could be imminent. Rishi Sunak flew to Northern Ireland to meet with the DUP – where talks proved amicable. Then the Prime Minister met European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on the fringes of the Munich security conference. However, since then a string of Tory MPs have spoken publicly to raise their concerns and Sunak has been warned that up to 100 of his own MPs could rebel against any deal that is struck.

Owen Matthews

China is playing the long game over peace in Ukraine

At the Munich Security Conference over the weekend, China’s foreign minister Wang Yi announced that his country was currently in consultations with ‘our friends in Europe’ over the framework of a peace proposal for Ukraine. It is to be laid out in full by President Xi Jinping on the first anniversary of Vladimir Putin’s invasion – 24 February. Beijing’s peace initiative would, said Wang, underscore the ‘need to uphold the principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity and the UN Charter’ but at the same time ‘respect [the] legitimate security interests of Russia’. On the face of it, it appears that Beijing is not saying anything new.

Sunday

Steerpike

Watch: Osborne claims Boris wants to oust Rishi

It seems that Boris Johnson's interventions in the Sunday papers haven’t gone down too well with some members of his party. Tory grandee George Osborne appeared on the Andrew Neil Show on Channel 4 today to issue a scathing rejoinder to his longtime rival. The former chancellor questioned the sincerity of Johnson's commitment to Northern Ireland by pointing out that Rishi Sunak merely inherited the 'mess' of the contentious Protocol. He also noted how Johnson has acquired, er, something of a reputation for disloyalty, having agitated against multiple Prime Ministers before for personal gain: I think Rishi Sunak should be applauded for trying to solve this mess from the past that he's inherited.

Stephen Daisley

Why the Tories fear Kate Forbes

Whenever a governing party changes leader midway through a parliament, it’s interesting to note what the main opposition makes of the contest. Specifically, which candidate they would be more comfortable to see win — and which they dread the most.  So, as the SNP begins choosing Nicola Sturgeon’s replacement as party leader and first minister, I’ve been asking Scottish Tories what they think so far. Whomever the Scottish Nationalists pick will be staring down Douglas Ross every week at First Minister’s Questions, while the Scottish Tory leader will have to update his strategy and rhetoric for a post-Sturgeon era.  So far there are two declared candidates.

Katy Balls

Boris Johnson fires a warning shot to Sunak

Rishi Sunak is once again facing an unhelpful intervention from one of his predecessors. As the Prime Minister attempts to finalise a deal on the Northern Ireland Protocol – spending the past few days meeting both with the DUP and the president of the European Commission – Boris Johnson has issued a warning. A source close to Johnson told the Sunday Telegraph that ditching the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill in favour of a new Brexit deal would be a ‘great mistake’. Speaking this morning on the BBC, government minister Penny Mordaunt sought to downplay the comment – describing it as ‘not an entirely unhelpful intervention’.

Stuart Waiton

Scottish schools have become places of indoctrination

Nicola Sturgeon may be on her way out – but after 16 years of SNP rule, Scottish schools are still places of indoctrination. This may sound like a hyperbolic thing to say, but that’s the only conclusion you can draw when you look at what Scottish educators and the Scottish government are saying themselves.   Take the General Teaching Council for Scotland’s Standard for Headship, which sets out the professional framework for what a headteacher, teachers and schools should be all about.    You would expect such a document to be all about imparting knowledge and aspiring to teach every child as much as possible.

Iain Macwhirter

The SNP-Green coalition is unlikely to last the week

Scottish nationalists are shell-shocked after their leader did a bunk on Wednesday. And with good reason. Nicola Sturgeon left the SNP leaderless, directionless, failing on almost every policy front – from the NHS to bottle recycling – and with a legislative time bomb in the Gender Recognition Reform Bill, which is due to go off just as their new leader is installed at the end of March. It will probably destroy the Scottish coalition well before then. Indeed, the 18-month-old union with the Scottish Greens, another of Sturgeon’s personal initiatives, is unlikely to last the week.  Attempts by pro-GRR Bill loyalists to keep the finance secretary, Kate Forbes, out of the leadership race by demonising her as a bigot on social media, have failed.

Ian Williams

China is trying to strangle the world’s solar panel industry 

China is moving to consolidate and exploit its position as world leader in solar power technologies, by restricting the export of key components. The move could deliver a severe blow to the European and American solar industries and is a stark warning about the dangers of over-dependence on Beijing for critical technologies of the future. It also illustrates the impact of China’s industrial-scale cyber theft.  Beijing is reportedly looking to add raw materials and other vital items used in the manufacture of solar panels to a list of items that could be restricted in order to ‘help safeguard national security’ and require special permission for export.