Politics Archives

Wednesday

30 November 2022

The SNP doesn’t have a serious plan for independence

The next UK general election will be a referendum on independence for Scotland. This is according to First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, after the ‘disappointing’ Supreme Court ruling last week found that her administration did not in fact have the power to unilaterally rewrite the UK’s constitution. Will the people of Scotland really accept that the ballot box outcome in 2024 will represent a ‘de facto’ referendum that could lead to them being removed from the UK? With no legal or historic precedent for such an undertaking, the arbitrariness of the proposition would be comical if it were not so serious. But perhaps equally comical is the idea that Sturgeon's team is developing a serious plan for implementing economic independence.

Tuesday

29 November 2022

Kate Andrews

Andrew Bailey’s fighting talk

Andrew Bailey this afternoon showed that those who start fights don’t necessarily finish them. Speaking as the only witness at the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee today, the Governor of the Bank of England landed some rather extraordinary accusations against Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng, suggesting that he was not informed of the details in September’s mini-Budget and that he ‘does not think it was settled’ even the day before it was announced.

Theo Hobson

It’s nonsense to say we are no longer a ‘Christian country’

According to the census, British Christianity is having a disastrous century. In the 2001 census, a clear majority of people in England and Wales – 72 per cent – described themselves as ‘Christian’. In 2011, this figure fell to 59 per cent. And now, it’s another drop: a 13 percentage point drop to 46 per cent. These figures suggest that a Christian country has imploded within the space of two decades. Will the figure continue to fall at this rate? Will Christianity disappear from this land within 40 years? Probably not. What the census shows is that ‘cultural Christianity’ has dramatically fallen. For of course this is all that the census can tell us about. It does not delve any further than asking about people’s religious allegiance.

Isabel Hardman

Does Sunak see China as a threat?

12 min listen

Rishi Sunak has signalled the end of the 'golden era' of relations between Britain and China, warning of Xi Jinping's creeping authoritarianism. In his first foreign policy set piece, was it enough to get the China hawks onside? Also on the podcast, James Forsyth and Katy Balls look at the latest amendments to the Online Harms Bill.

Mark Nayler

Has the Indyref ruling complicated Catalonian separatism?

Last week’s Supreme Court ruling on Scottish independence will offer scant encouragement to separatists in Catalonia. The crux of the judgment – that Holyrood’s devolved powers do not stretch as far as being able to hold an independence referendum without consent from Westminster – also highlights the problem for Catalan secessionists, who have yet to secure Madrid’s approval for a vote on divorcing Spain. Nicola Sturgeon has said she will respect the judgment. Similar prohibitions, though, haven’t stopped Catalonia’s separatists, who are in many ways more rebellious than their Scottish counterparts. In 2017, Spain’s Constitutional Court ruled that an independence referendum planned by Catalonia’s then-president, Carles Puigdemont, would be illegal.

Steerpike

Suella Braverman’s unlikely reading material

Since her (first) appointment to the Home Office, Suella Braverman has been at pains to point out that she is no fan of the left. The Fareham MP spent her final day in office under Liz Truss railing against the 'Guardian-reading, tofu-eating wokerati' in parliament, shortly before departing and returning less than a week later under Rishi Sunak. For their part, the Guardian have returned the love, running a string of critical stories of the Home Secretary since her return. But is there now a thawing in relations between the newspaper and the minister? For just weeks after decrying the Graun in the House, Braverman's department signed a £30,000, one-year contract for the press and private office's hard copy newspaper requirements, which of course included daily delivery of...

Andrew Tettenborn

The Tories should defend free speech, not neglect it

The government’s Online Safety Bill is coming to look more and more like some ghastly juridical juggernaut: a vessel grimly unstoppable, even if no-one quite knows where it is heading or where they want it to go. The latest changes to the Bill, announced this week, look very much like an attempt to make the best of a bad job. They leave untouched the provisions of the legislation aimed at safeguarding the young, but slightly relax it as regards others. The aim is the awkward one of placating three disparate constituencies: child protection activists, those desperate to be seen to be doing their bit to bridle Big Tech, and those who value free speech online. And they are a mixed bag. The good news first.

Steerpike

The New York Times does it again

Let me tell you a story, dear reader. It is about a land – a quasi-dictatorial kingdom no less – where locals huddle round bin fires on the streets of the great metropolis, gnawing on legs of mutton and cavorting in swamps. Once there was good government, but a plebiscite some years ago brought with it autocracy, plague and a nation 'falling apart at the seams.' Which land could this be? Why it can only be our dear old United Kingdom, as seen through the eyes of the average New York Times subscriber. For years now Mr S has been chronicling the Brit-bashing excesses of America's least reliable news source.

Fraser Nelson

The Online Safety Bill is still a censor’s charter

One of Rishi Sunak’s pledges was to remove the ‘legal, but harmful’ censorship clause that Boris Johnson was poised to bring in via the Online Safety Bill. A few weeks ago it was said that he had done so and I wrote a piece congratulating him. I may have spoken too soon. The Bill as published would actually introduce (rather than abolish) censorship of the written word – ending a centuries-old British tradition of liberty. The censorship mechanism is intended for under-18s – an improvement on the original, draconian plan. But it still raises problems that I doubt have been properly discussed in Whitehall given the bias amongst officials desperate to get this Bill through.

Katy Balls

Is Sunak tough enough on China?

When it comes to policy, the area where the least is known about Rishi Sunak's views is foreign affairs. As chancellor, the bulk of his time was spent focussing on the domestic front. During the (first) Tory leadership contest over the summer, Liz Truss's campaign accused Sunak of being soft on Russia and China. Last night, Sunak began setting out his vision for the UK's relationship with China at the Lord Mayor's banquet, in his first major speech on foreign policy since entering 10 Downing Street. Sunak defined his approach in part through the differences between himself and his predecessors. In a move away from the Osborne/Cameron era, he said the 'so-called golden era' of diplomacy was over.

James Snell

China’s protests and the dark lesson of Hong Kong

It is easy to imagine that a dam might be bursting in China. There have been spontaneous street protests across the country against the country’s zero Covid policy, unconfirmed videos in Shanghai show crowds calling for president Xi Jinping to resign, and political content is slipping though China’s draconian social media censorship. Earlier in the pandemic, Chinese residents in Covid-stricken cities were trapped in their apartment buildings while, in one memorable dystopian moment, a horde of drones deployed by the local communist party told them to ‘control your soul’s desire for freedom’. Now, after a fire in a residential block in Urumqi killed ten people, it seems as though people have suddenly had enough.

Steerpike

Logjams and leaks plaguing parliament

It was Enoch Powell who once called the whips’ office 'the sewers of parliament'. But it seems that – much like the aforementioned disciplinarians – the sewers themselves aren't up to much these days. For word reaches Mr S of a problem with the parliamentary plumbing system that are driving MPs around the (U) bend. The majority of toilets in the old Palace of Westminster were marked as being 'out of order' yesterday because, when flushed, the cubicles overflowed, spewing up whatever contents an unfortunate peer, MP or researcher had tried to dispose. Signs and ropes appeared, to ward off others from trying to enter. And that's not the only issue facing the poor parliamentarians of SW1. The building is plagued with leaks – and that's not merely a metaphor.

Mark Galeotti

Is Putin really to blame for this Belarusian minister’s sudden death?

Saturday’s news of the sudden death of Belarusian foreign minister Vladimir Makei, as well as the rather terse nature of the official notice, has raised the inevitable storm of instant speculation, revolving around notional Russian plots. In the process it has illustrated both some of the shortcomings of ‘instant punditry’ and the continuing significance of Alexander Lukashenko, dubbed ‘Europe’s last dictator’ (before Putin challenged for the title). Lukashenko has been in power since 1994, and the whole system is built around him The 64-year-old Makei had been in office since 2012, and apparently died of a heart attack shortly after an official visit to Armenia and two days before he was meant to meet his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov.

Cindy Yu

Echoes of 1989: where the protests go next

40 min listen

Comparisons with 1989’s Tiananmen Square protests are too often evoked when it comes to talking about civil disobedience in China. Even so, this weekend’s protests have been historic. It’s the first time since the zero Covid policy started that people across the country have simultaneously marched against the government, their fury catalysed by the deaths of ten people in a locked down high rise building in Xinjiang. Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan, Xi’An, Urumqi, Nanjing (my home city) have all seen protests over the weekend. Most of them attack the zero Covid policy, but some have called out ‘Down with Xi Jinping’.After two days of protests, these cities, especially Shanghai, now see heavy police presence, with the authorities searching phones of any seeming troublemakers.

Ross Clark

The black hole in Jeremy Hunt’s energy windfall tax

Jeremy Hunt has supposedly just closed a black hole in the government’s finances. But is another black hole opening up before his eyes? One of the more popular announcements in the autumn statement on 17 November was a rise in the windfall tax applied to oil and gas companies from 25 per cent to 35 per cent. It was popular because it didn’t affect ordinary people directly and because it feeds into the narrative of greedy oil companies making fat profits while households struggle with their energy bill. By 2028, how much, if any, profits are being made by oil companies is anyone’s guess The 35 per cent windfall tax comes on top of corporation tax, which oil and gas companies already pay at a higher rate than other businesses.

Nigel Jones

How revolutions begin, and how they can end

Across China, the world’s most populous nation and its second largest economy, scenes unprecedented since the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989 are unfolding. In city after city crowds of young people are taking to the streets, holding up blank placards in eloquent protest against state censorship, and demanding to be treated ‘as citizens not slaves’. The trigger for these displays of popular dissent are the Communist regime’s draconian lockdowns designed to snuff out spreading Covid infections in the country where the virus originated. But, as is often the way with such popular protests, the original cause of the protests is widening into demands for freedoms which we in the West take for granted but which those taking part in the demonstrations have never known.

Monday

28 November 2022

Steerpike

Showdown looms over China’s new ‘super-embassy’

All eyes tonight will be on Rishi Sunak when he addresses the annual Lord Mayor's Banquet. The Prime Minister is expected to give his first major speech on foreign policy in which he will pledge to treat Britain’s adversaries in Beijing and Moscow with ‘robust pragmatism.’ Such talk is likely to be read in the Westminster village as a signal that Sunak will likely prioritise economic benefits when it comes to relations with countries such as China. So it’s fitting then that a perfect symbol of such co-operation is found just a mile away from London's Guildhall in the borough of Tower Hamlets. Here, on the site of the nation’s old Royal Mint, there are plans to build the world’s largest Chinese embassy, sitting opposite the Tower of London.

Ian Williams

Is Xi Jinping in trouble?

The Chinese people seem to have run out of patience with their country’s draconian Covid policies. After almost three years of brutal lockdowns, mass testing and sweeping quarantine, all facilitated by claustrophobic surveillance, they appear to have snapped. The protests that swept China at the weekend are the biggest challenge to Xi Jinping since he took power in 2012, and try as he might he cannot shift the blame. Zero Covid is his policy. Dissenting voices pointing to the economic and social cost have been silenced, and ‘defeating’ the virus and demonstrating the superiority of the Chinese Communist party over the floundering West is part of the cult of Xi.

Steerpike

Wanted: a chief of staff for Starmer

Things are looking up for the Labour party. They’re twenty points ahead in the polls, the Tories are squabbling over planning reform and just last week Keir Starmer won Politician of the Year at the annual Spectator Parliamentarian Awards. Still – as anyone within the Leader’s Office will tell you – they’re keen to avoid even in the merest hint of complacency. It was in that spirit that Sir Keir overhauled his top team last month, axing his chief of staff, Sam White, and claiming that Labour is now on an election footing. He told (surviving) party staff on a call that ‘We are turning the page to the final act of opposition: driving the Labour party into government.

Steerpike

BBC snap up GB News alumnus

Is the BBC trying to mend its ways? Word reaches Mr S that John McAndrew – the former head honcho of GB News – is returning to Broadcasting House as the Corporation's new Director of News Programmes. The TV veteran boasts more than a quarter of a century of experience in news and current affairs broadcasting, holding senior roles across a smorgasbord of stations including the Beeb, Sky, ITN and NBC. McAndrew was also the first Editorial Director and Director of Programming at GB News, but left after less than a month following the suspension of presenter Guto Harri for taking the knee live-on air.