Politics Archives

Tuesday

7 February 2023

Putin’s real threat comes from Russia’s ‘turbo-patriots’

Does Vladimir Putin face a challenge, not from cuddly, West-looking liberals, but from even sharper-toothed nationalists? Certainly this is suddenly the message coming from loyalists. Oleg Matveychev, a parliamentarian and spin doctor, who also has a widely-read blog, has made waves by claiming in an online video that ‘2023 will be very dangerous,’ because of the threat of so-called ‘turbo-patriots.’ Discounting the liberals (who ‘have all run away’), he warned that the turbo-patriots had become ‘the only danger to our state.’ A kleptocratic elite is seeing Putin as bad for business His scenario was that after some new reversals in the war, a combination of disgruntled nationalism, anger at corruption and ‘a light dose of leftism’ could trigger some rising.

Gareth Roberts

Britain is the sick man of Europe – again

Liz Truss’s recent written confession is remarkable for its childlike air. It reminded me of my buck-passing wheedling whenever I was caught doing something naughty aged about eleven; ‘No, I didn’t know what I was doing – but neither did the Treasury, yeah what about the Treasury, eh, mum?’ I can remember when the British disease, being the ‘sick man of Europe’, etc, was a national obsession but mostly of the right and the reactionary. Think of the low-status laughs to be had from Basil Fawlty bemoaning ‘more strikes!’ or Alan Partridge tutting and muttering ‘This country …’ But in the 2020s doominess seems to be the default for everyone, all sides of the political spectrum.

Daniel Thorpe

Where are the rescuers? Turkey’s earthquake death toll rises above 4,000

Turkey is reeling after a massive 7.8 magnitude earthquake killed more than 2,900 people and left hundreds more injured. More than 1,400 people in northern Syria are also believed to have been killed. The quake, which struck near the city of Gaziantep in southeast Turkey in the early hours of Monday morning, was felt as far away as Lebanon and Jordan, on the far side of the Mediterranean. Another quake of 7.6 magnitude struck the nearby Kahramanmaraş region a few hours later at 13.27 local time (10.27 GMT), according to the Turkish Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency (AFAD). The images and video emerging from Turkey, showing flattened buildings and piles of rubble, are devastating.

Monday

6 February 2023

James Heale

What Liz Truss gets right (and wrong)

After three months of silence, Liz Truss has spoken out – first in a 4,000-word article for the Telegraph and now in a 50-minute-long interview with the Spectator. Truss, the shortest-serving Prime Minister in British political history, feels enough time has now elapsed to give her account of her 49-day premiership, the collapse of which was caused by a combination of the financial and political markets. As the co-author of a book on her long rise and rapid fall, I was intrigued to hear Truss speak for the first time publicly about where it all went wrong. Both the interview and article make clear that Truss’s time in No. 10 has not fundamentally altered her or her political beliefs. Truss’s faith in free markets still burns bright; tax cuts remain the cure to our ails.

Fraser Nelson

The Liz Truss interview: ‘I didn’t get everything right’

18 min listen

Today Liz Truss has broken her silence, giving her first broadcast interview since leaving No.10 to SpectatorTV. Was she denied a ‘realistic chance’ at success? Fraser Nelson speaks to Katy Balls and Kate Andrews. Produced by Oscar Edmondson. You can watch the full interview now on SpectatorTV: https://www.youtube.

Isabel Hardman

Are the sharks circling around Sunak over Rwanda?

Rishi Sunak has been blessed with interventions from two out of the three former prime ministers who are serving in the Commons today. Only one will be welcome: Boris Johnson made an unusually helpful contribution from the backbenches this afternoon at Home Office Questions when he asked about the Rwanda deportation policy. He said: Isn’t it obvious from today’s exchanges that many of those who oppose the UK-Rwanda migration and economic development partnership have no idea about Rwanda, have probably never been there, and are wholly wrong to condescend and to disparage Rwanda in the way that they do. And above all they have not the ghost of an idea about how to solve the problem of cross-Channel gangs putting people at risk.

Katy Balls and Fraser Nelson

Liz Truss: The interview

What went wrong for Liz Truss? In her first interview since leaving 10 Downing Street she talks to Spectator TV (watch it here), going through her leadership election, her 49-day premiership and her plans for the future. She says her plans to scrap Rishi Sunak’s corporation tax rise failed because the OBR rejected her analysis that ‘raising taxes is counter-productive’ and is ‘not actually going to lead to reducing debt’. The OBR, she says, should face greater scrutiny about the assumptions in its models given how much sway she believes they now hold over UK economic policy.

Katy Balls and Fraser Nelson

Liz Truss: The interview

51 min listen

What went wrong for Liz Truss? In her first interview since leaving 10 Downing Street, she talks to Spectator TV about her leadership election, her 49-day premiership and her plans for the future. Truss admits to some mistakes, says her premiership was probably doomed after she fired her chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng, and says Whitehall orthodoxy stopped her from doing what she wanted.

Alexander Larman

Prince Harry will regret invading his privacy with his ‘Spare’ sex scene

What a pity that memoirs don’t qualify for the Bad Sex in Literature prize. If they did, the description of how Prince Harry lost his virginity in Spare would surely qualify. That sordid tale has already passed into the annals of the least sexy writing about sex imaginable, with an older woman treating the young prince like ‘a young stallion’, before parting by 'smack(ing) (Harry's) rump and sen(ding) (him) off to graze'. The description of who the anonymous woman is duly sparked a media frenzy. There were rumours it was Liz Hurley, promptly denied. The woman's identity became nearly as discussed as the Duke’s latest outburst against his family.

Andrew Tettenborn

Rishi Sunak is right to challenge Europe’s human rights treaty

Rishi Sunak senses, rightly, that tough talk on the Channel migrant issue will go down well in both middle England and the Red Wall. One can see why. No small country with overstressed social provision should tolerate an annual influx of irregular migrants sufficient to populate a medium-sized town landing openly on its beaches. That they are from countries where they are in no appreciable danger, can mouth the word ‘asylum’ and then either disappear or use every intricacy of the law to stymie attempts to deport them feels intolerable to many. Last week Rishi floated an idea to stop this. It would subject those who arrived irregularly on our shores to automatic detention and deportation, and prevent them claiming asylum at all until they were out of the country.

James Snell

Syria might never recover from the devastation of this earthquake

Natural disaster always worst affects those who have already lost so much. And so it is in Turkey and Syria, where a double earthquake has killed more than 1,900 people. Across both countries, there are widespread scenes of destruction: apartment blocks reduced to rubble; gas supplies cut off in the middle of a freezing winter; survivors left to try and pluck their relatives from the rubble. Much of Syria’s population is displaced and living in refugee camps whose temporary buildings are hardly structurally sound. A million Syrians, forced to flee their homes, are living in poor accommodation across Turkey. In Syria itself, the country is still in ruins after a decade of civil war.

Isabel Hardman

Ending the strikes won’t be enough to fix the NHS

The biggest round of NHS strikes is taking place this week, and there isn't much hope of a resolution. This is despite, as Kate Andrews explores, a widespread acceptance that the strikes are detrimental to patient safety. There is also widespread public sympathy for striking healthcare workers, which surely suggests that a deal should come sooner rather than later to stop the government losing out even more politically. So what's going on? That's a question some Tory MPs are also asking, wondering why there isn't any prospect of a deal given the Royal College of Nursing in particular seems to be keen to stop striking. 'There's an appetite for a deal,' complains one backbencher. 'Not sure why that hasn't happened yet but assume it's the Treasury.

Sam Leith

Liz Truss, Brexit and the petulant anger at reality

The time it takes to mount a political comeback gets shorter and shorter, doesn’t it? The last prime minister but one barely got his toes in the sand on his first holiday after leaving the post before he was flying home with thoughts of mounting a return to high office. Now his successor, too, is campaigning to get on track to get her old job back. The first wallop of Liz Truss’s one-two punch was a long article for the Sunday Telegraph explaining why the mini-Budget that so spectacularly sunk her premiership was, in fact, absolutely the right thing to do; punch number two will be an interview with Spectator TV that goes up this very afternoon. I’m interested, as I expect we all are, to see how she develops there the arguments that her piece for the Telegraph set out.

Kate Andrews

How much longer will NHS strikes be allowed to risk patient safety?

Patients in Devon are not supposed to call their local GPs to check on their appointments. Residents in Gloucestershire have been encouraged to avoid ringing 999 unless the situation is life-threatening. Once again, people are being asked to stay away from the health service – not because of a pandemic this time, but because today marks the largest workers' strike in the NHS’s history. Royal College of Nursing union members are walking out in over a third of NHS England Trusts, with over 10,000 GMB and Unite ambulance workers joining them. As we’ve learned from this ongoing series of strikes, they don’t tend to create mass queues outside hospitals or photos of overrun surgeries. People tend to listen – and stay away.

Steerpike

Poll: public want a ‘modest’ coronation

Strikes. Inflation. Political instability. It's been a pretty miserable few months in Britain – but some in government are hoping that the coronation in May changes all that. The bunting will be out and the flags on display, to celebrate our septuagenarian monarch (finally) getting his hands on the Imperial State Crown. But with the royals involved in the odd rumpus or two, which members of King Charles' family will be there in attendance? There's much speculation about whether the dilettante Duke and Duchess of Sussex will take time out of their busy media schedules to mark the happy day. And while many royalists are angry at the couple's near constant attacks on the House of Windsor, the public are still hoping that the pair both attend.

Patrick O’Flynn

Rishi Sunak’s ‘second Brexit’ could save the Tories

There have been two major reactions to reports that Rishi Sunak is ready to take Britain out of the European Convention on Human Rights if that’s what it takes to solve the small boats issue in the Channel. The first, common among denizens of the Westminster village, is surprise that an outwardly conventional product of the system would even contemplate such a radical move. The second, prevalent among disenchanted former Tory voters on social media, is a diamond-hard cynicism that tells them they are being conned again and he will never do it.

Claire Fox

Should it be illegal to ‘influence’ a woman seeking an abortion?

Law-making is a funny old business. My move from commentator to legislator has brought with it some poacher-turned-gamekeeper quandaries. While all laws emanate from political choices, unlike my usual stomping ground of activist speeches or polemical articles, there is a danger that legal mis-speaking might end up criminalising people. I feel the need to ask a series of questions every time a Bill arrives at the House of Lords. Creating new laws increasingly seems to be a substitute for political leadership, so a key question must be: is this Bill really necessary? Is it proportionate? In an unelected part of parliament, is it anti-democratic over-reach to oppose illiberal legislation?

Sunday

5 February 2023

Steerpike

Tories gear up for selection battles

The Tory grassroots are revolting – and they clearly aren’t happy either. This weekend has seen two selection battles engulf different Conservatives associations. Local Tories are currently picking their prospective parliamentary candidates, ahead of the expected general election next year. For incumbent MPs, reselection is normally a formality: the sitting member is proposed and re-adopted by the party activists who live in their constituency. Unfortunately, this doesn’t appear to have been the case for several sitting Conservatives. First, there was an unfortunate bun-fight for the new Penrith and Solway constituency.

Matthew Lynn

Trussonomics is slowly winning the argument

It was self-indulgent, whinging. Dull in places while completely batty in others. All the usual insults will be hurled at former prime minister Liz Truss for her essay defending her short time in Downing Street, published today. Perhaps it would be better for her to retire gracefully from public life and let some ambitious young revisionist historian in the 2060s make the case that she was treated unfairly. Except she still has one key card to play. Events are gradually showing that she was right along: Trussonomics, or whatever it will be called next, is gradually winning the intellectual argument. Her argument has something else going for it: a ring of truth There won’t be many people in the Conservative Party welcoming Truss’s return, and certainly not in the government.

Joe Bedell-Brill

Sunday shows round-up: Truss thwarted by ‘powerful economic establishment’

Liz Truss - Thwarted by a ‘powerful economic establishment, and a lack of political support’ After Liz Truss claimed in a Telegraph essay that the ‘economic establishment’, and flaws in the Conservative Party’s preparations, had prevented her from enacting her policies, Laura Kuenssberg pressed Business Secretary Grant Shapps on whether he agreed with any of Truss’ claims: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAnhc3a5KWA Liz Kendall - Liz Truss is back with ‘no apology and no humility’ Former Conservative party chair Jake Berry told Kuenssberg that he still agreed in principle with Liz Truss’ policies, even if they weren’t delivered in the correct way.