Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Thursday

James Kirchick

Did the Cold War ever end?

Vladimir Putin turned seventy on October 7, but Garry Kasparov was not in the mood for a celebration. The Russian dissident, author and chess grandmaster had been invited to address the community of Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, where, seventy-six years ago, Winston Churchill famously announced the descent of an 'iron curtain' across the European continent. Seldom has a phrase so vividly captured a geopolitical phenomenon as Churchill’s clarion call about the looming threat posed by the Soviet Union. As Russia once again threatens European peace, it fell upon the shoulders of an exiled Russian democrat to issue a dire warning about the fate of what used to be called 'the free world'.

Ian Williams

The death of Jiang ‘the toad’ – and memories of a more open China

It is a measure of the dark places Xi Jinping is taking China politically and economically that the rule of Jiang Zemin, who died on Wednesday aged 96, is being looked back upon with some nostalgia. During Jiang’s later years, ‘toad worship culture’ (a play on his supposed amphibious features) became popular on social media as an oblique way of criticising Xi’s rule and praising China’s relative openness under Jiang.  Stability was always Jiang’s top priority. He didn’t hesitate to crack down against any perceived threat to the CCP Jiang was plucked from relative obscurity to head the Chinese communist party in 1989, soon after the Tiananmen Square massacre, and was president of China from 1993 to 2003.

Wednesday

Steerpike

Pests overrun the House of Commons

Who'd want to work in parliament eh? The roof is leaking and the toilets don't work, the floor is damaged and the masonry is collapse. Now, Mr S brings news of yet more bad tidings afflicting the House of Commons. It seems the place is stuffed full of vermin – talk about a perfect state-of-the nation parable. Westminster City Council's most recent health inspection – conducted just last month – scored parliament just two out of a possible five on the National Food Hygiene Rating Scheme to show how well food businesses are complying with food law. The subsequent report, obtained under Freedom of Information laws, makes for grim reading.

Ross Clark

Why is the US economy doing better than ours?

The US entered recession earlier than the UK and Europe, and suffered its inflation surge earlier too, so it was always likely that its economy would recover earlier. But is the US emerging from recession while Europe and the UK are still plunging into theirs? That’s what today’s data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis suggests. Real US GDP grew in the third quarter of the year by 0.3 per cent, making for an annualised rate of 2.9 per cent. The figure was negative for the first two quarters of 2022, shrinking by an annualised rate of 0.6 per cent in the second quarter. By contrast, the UK economy shrank by 0.2 per cent in the third quarter (quarter on quarter), and is up 2.4 per cent over the past year. Eurozone GDP rose by 0.8 per cent in the third quarter and is up 2.

Katy Balls

How effective is Labour’s class war?

13 min listen

In today's Prime Minister's Questions, Keir Starmer went in on Rishi Sunak's privileged background. Starmer detailed the various facilities available at Winchester College, where Sunak was educated, from an art gallery to a shooting range. Is this an effective line of attack, or do voters simply not care? Katy Balls talks to James Forsyth and Fraser Nelson. Produced by Cindy Yu.

Lloyd Evans

Rishi gives more to everyone!

It was all about education at PMQs. Sir Keir Starmer mounted a targeted attack on Winchester College whose old boys include Rishi Sunak. The Labour leader had researched the institution that he claims to despise with the fascination of a stalker.  Winchester College has a rowing club, he gushed. It has an art collection too, he marvelled. It even has a rifle-range, he panted. And the fees, he salivated, the fees come to £40,000 per year. While evidently admiring the school, he also embraces a policy of scrapping it. Why? Personal anguish. By destroying Winchester he can deal with the deep and obsessive adoration that causes him so much torment. But he framed his private turmoil as a public good.

Steerpike

Jamie Wallis joins the Women and Equalities select committee

It takes all types to make a parliament. The House of Commons is a veritable menagerie full of rich and exotic creatures – and few embody that better than Dr Jamie Wallis. Within mere weeks of his election in 2019, Wallis was forced to deny reports that he had been a co-owner of a 'sugar daddy' dating website. Less than two years on, Wallis again hit the headlines in late 2021 after crashing his car in the early hours of the morning. He was eventually fined £2,500 and disqualified from driving for six months after being found guilty of failing to stop and report an accident; the District Judge Tan Ikram sniffed that he 'didn't find the defendant credible.

Steerpike

Steve Baker’s political Odyssey continues

What a year it's been for Steve Baker. In the space of 12 months he's gone from Covid rebel ringleader to anti-Boris assassin; the ERG backbencher turned ministerial consensus-seeker. Along the way he's raised a few eyebrows with some of his statements: defending 'taking the knee' at Tory party conference and apologising to Ireland and EU for the behaviour of him and his colleagues during the Brexit wars. So Mr S was intrigued to see the Northern Ireland minister posing for pictures with the Muslim Council of Britain last week. The government has a long-standing ministerial boycott in place with this group, dating back to 2009.

Freddy Gray

Is Kanye West really out to derail Trump?

American conservatives like to say that the way to stop Donald Trump in 2024 is to hit him from the right. Compared with his own political movement, they argue, Trump has always been something of a squish when it comes to issues such as Covid vaccines, gay marriage, criminal justice, or border control. He never did build that wall – not properly, anyway. Any candidate wanting to take down the father of Trumpism should therefore keep pointing out that Daddy had four years in the White House and never lived up to the hype. Take note, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

Andrew McQuillan

Is Whitehall inadvertently funding Sturgeon’s push for separatism?

Is Whitehall at last baring its teeth in response to the Scottish government and SNP’s separatism push? A look into how the Scottish civil service conducts itself is long overdue.  Scotland Secretary Alister Jack confirmed earlier this week that senior civil servants in the Cabinet Office are examining whether their Edinburgh counterparts should be allowed to keep working on plans for independence following last week’s Supreme Court ruling. Unless Whitehall intervenes or the Scottish government junks its plans, around £1.5 million worth of taxpayer money will reportedly continue to be spent each year on the team of 25 civil servants tasked with providing a revised prospectus for separation.

Isabel Hardman

PMQs: Starmer’s prickly questions over Sunak’s wealth

A Labour leader opening Prime Minister’s Questions with a description of the luxurious private schooling that the Conservative Prime Minister enjoyed doesn’t sound particularly informative – or indeed relevant – to many voters. Keir Starmer’s opening question this afternoon was this: ‘Winchester College has a rowing club, a rifle club and an extensive art collection. They charge more than £45,000 a year in fees. Why did [Sunak] hand them nearly £6 million of taxpayers’ money this year in what his Levelling Up Secretary calls “egregious state support”?

Alex Massie

Is Nicola Sturgeon now guilty of ‘transphobia’?

Yesterday Nicola Sturgeon spoke at an event celebrating 30 years of the charity Zero Tolerance and its long running – and essential – commitment to ending violence against women. In a revealing sign of the times in Scotland today, organisers emailed those attending the event to warn them certain subjects should be ignored. As they put it: ‘We wish to create a safe and supported environment for our guests and ask you to support us in this aim by refraining from discussions of the definition of a woman and single sex spaces in relation to the gender recognition act.’ The intellectual poverty displayed here is embarrassing Well, good luck with that.

James Forsyth

Why Tories are taking early retirement

Conservative party strategists face nervous days ahead as they wait to see how many Tory MPs will announce they are standing down at the next election. The last two general elections – 2017 and 2019 – were called unexpectedly in the middle of parliament, meaning MPs had next to no time to decide whether or not they were going to stand. This time, with no real prospect of a snap election before 2024, a dozen Tory MPs have already said they won’t fight the next general election. It would be a surprise if more didn’t join them in the coming days, although the mass departures that were predicted a few weeks ago have not yet come to pass ahead of Monday’s deadline.

Charles Moore

It is harder to run a dictatorship than a democracy

Things are currently so bad in the western democracies that we tend to ignore how much worse they are in what one could politely call ‘non-democracies’. China’s policy of developing Covid in a lab, and then covering up its leak, seemed to work at the time. Western scientists, some corrupted by their links with China, helped persuade many that Beijing had the best policy for infection control. But it is increasingly clear that Chinese people themselves do not believe this and are rebelling. In Russia, Putin’s policy of war has isolated his country, humiliated his armed forces and bound his democratic enemies more closely even than did anti-Soviet feeling in the Cold War. In Iran, more than 300 people have been killed in riots against the oppression of women.

Cindy Yu

Why I’m grieving for China

I’ve always loved the Chinese national anthem. I used to think I was the loudest Communist Youth League pioneer as my class belted it out, dressed in our little red neckerchiefs, during our school’s weekly flag-raising ceremony. ‘The March of the Volunteers’ was composed in the 1930s during the Japanese invasion of Manchuria; it starts with ‘Stand up, those who refuse to be slaves’ and only gets more rousing. I could see, even at a young age in the early 2000s, that China wouldn’t be facing those days again – it was getting wealthier and more powerful. Standing in a Nanjing schoolyard, I was proud of China’s return to greatness. During those years of reform, it felt like people could achieve anything they wanted.

Matt Ridley

The Tories’ wind power delusion

A very strange parliamentary rebellion has been taking place with Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and dozens of other Tory MPs demanding an end to the ban on onshore wind farms. Wind power is cheap and getting cheaper, they argue. And surely, if we’re engaged in an energy war with Russia, we need all the power we can get? It’s an argument that is wrong several times over. There is no ban on wind farms – it is actually a bog-standard planning requirement that they be confined to areas designated for that purpose and with community support. Nor do they offer a cheap solution: the costs are high and rising.

Jonathan Miller

Macron’s trip to Washington is pure theatre

President Macron has landed in Washington with his fleet of jets to spend the next few days in procession across the capital with an enormous entourage in attendance. ‘It is unclear to many of us why Macron gets Biden’s first state visit,’ says my man in the Washington punditry. ‘Also unclear why Mme and I were not invited to the dinner,’ he adds.

Steerpike

JK Rowling mocks Sturgeon over heckling

It's really not Nicola Sturgeon's week. Fresh from being slapped down by the Supreme Court over her Indyref2 bid, the First Minister suffered the indignity of being heckled last night. Speaking at a Zero Tolerance charity event on tackling male violence against women, Sturgeon could only stand in awkward silence as an unidentified woman took her government to task over its controversial 'self-ID' gender reform plans. The heckler told Sturgeon: “You are allowing paedophiles, sex offenders and rapists to self-ID in Scotland and put women at risk. Women campaigning for women’s rights are not against trans people. Shame on you for letting down vulnerable women in Scotland, not allowed to have their own spaces away from any male.

Frank Young

Parents need to do more to stop their kids watching porn

Nothing scares politicians more than telling parents how to do their job, which is a shame because a bit more finger wagging might be just what we need. The Online Safety Bill returns to parliament this week to be debated by MPs once again – with the legislation aiming to stop kids looking at porn online.  Getting tough on Big Tech is easier than asking more of parents MPs have already spent around 40 hours debating this Bill, in previous forms. In this time only eight MPs have suggested that parents might just have some responsibility in stopping their children accessing porn online. Fifty MPs have so far opined on the merits of switching off the internet for teens but barely one in six mentioned in parliament that parents might have a role to play.

Jack Smith

Are the Tories in the throes of an existential crisis?

The UK government has had a fractious couple of weeks. First it was the Swiss EU deal rumours, then housing, then a panicked response to high immigration figures. The latest problem to crop up is a rebellion over onshore wind, which has effectively been banned in the UK since 2012. What each of these disparate issues have in common is that they fall within the scope of what is increasingly the most important political debate in the UK. This is the extent to which the government should prioritise economic growth, and, implicitly, who the country is run for.  Onshore wind and immigration are perhaps the clearest examples of this. The restrictions on wind turbine development, which currently make new developments effectively impossible, defy logic.