Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Saturday

Steerpike

Rishi raids ITV (again)

The revolving door in No/ 10 seems to turn even faster these days, given the news that Downing Street will shortly be greeting its fourth director of communications in eight months. Amber de Botton will be next to sip from what has become widely regarded as a poisoned chalice, following the departure of Adam Jones, Guto Harri and Jack Doyle since February. Let's hope she gets more time in the role. She at least comes with plenty of experience. De Botton is well-regarded among the lobby – judging from the Twitter reaction to her appointment – and will bring senior broadcast knowledge to the team, working closely with long standing Sunak aide Nerissa Chesterfield. This is not the first time de Botton has been connected with a No.

John Ferry

Nicola Sturgeon’s euro muddle

The First Minister could not have been clearer. Asked about the possibility of Scotland joining the euro, she said Scotland 'would not qualify'. 'I don't think it is the right option for Scotland,' she added. The question was put to her earlier this month at a press conference where she presented her new paper on the economic case for Scotland exiting the UK. It was a significant statement, because new entrants to the European Union must commit to adopting the euro. 'All EU member states, except Denmark, are required to adopt the euro and join the euro area,' says the European Commission.  Unsurprisingly, senior officials in Brussels were not impressed.

Christopher Snowdon

It’s time to stop turning the clocks back

British households could save £400 a year if we left the clocks alone this weekend instead of putting them back an hour, according to Professor Aoife Foley, an energy expert at Queen’s University Belfast. The logic is simple. We use a lot more electricity in the evening than in the morning. That is why daylight savings time was introduced in Europe and North America during the First World War. Some countries later abandoned it only to bring it back during the Second World War and during the energy crisis of the 1970s. Every time the reason was the same: it saves precious energy. As Britain and Europe grapple with an energy crisis going into winter, it is surprising that so few people have suggested the easy fix of year-round British Summer Time (BST).

Brendan O’Neill

What’s wrong with being an apocalypse denier?

This week, on BBC radio, I made a confession: I am a denier. Not a climate-change denier – an apocalypse denier. I thought it was a clever point – to distinguish between my acceptance that climate change is happening and my scepticism that it will imminently bring about the fiery destruction of Earth. Apparently not. You should have heard the intakes of breath. Apparently even apocalypse denialism is unacceptable in polite society now. It was on Nicky Campbell’s show on 5 Live. I was up against a spokesperson for Just Stop Oil and the question was whether that movement’s art-splattering and road-blocking antics are justifiable. I made my point – that Just Stop Oil strikes me as an out-of-touch movement that is mad to agitate for less energy production during an energy crisis.

Robin Ashenden

Putin’s war is tearing Russian families apart

Renata is a young paediatrician from St Petersburg who, since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, keeps crying at work. Her colleagues are baffled: why is she sobbing over Ukrainian deaths when she doesn’t have relatives there? She’s surrounded, she says, by ‘complete incomprehension’ from her fellow-doctors, ‘and I’m quietly going insane.’ Her mother Vinera, a school headteacher, advocates the war, believes the West has its eye on Russia’s ‘inexhaustible wealth’ and that it envies Russia’s people for their ‘spiritual’ values. Renata no longer goes home to visit Vinera: ‘I find her disgusting, she’s a hypocrite, I’m disgusted by her views.’ Galya is a violinist from Samara, locked in a failing marriage to Vladimir, a former state investigator.

Patrick O’Flynn

Can Rishi really rescue the Tories?

There is a sweet spot for party leaders in which two key conditions are fulfilled. First, the leader’s party is ahead in the polls. Secondly, the leader is more popular than the party. At the end of his first week in office, Rishi Sunak can at least be content that the latter of these conditions has been met. Ultimately though it will be the former that determines the result of the next general election. On this score there is a huge amount of lost ground still to claw back, with the Conservatives trailing Labour by an average of more than 20 points.

Friday

Stephen Daisley

Sunak should acknowledge Jerusalem as Israel’s capital

When Liz Truss’s premiership came to an abrupt end, it appeared to spell doom for a historic policy shift raised in her leadership campaign. In a break from a widely held but diplomatically fruitless consensus, Truss stood on a platform of reviewing the location of the British embassy in Israel.  That legation is still based in Tel Aviv despite Israel proclaiming Jerusalem its capital in December 1949 and placing its parliament, government and Supreme Court there. Successive UK governments have deemed Jerusalem a ‘corpus separatum’ and withheld recognition, noting only Israel’s ‘de facto’ authority over the western portions. This is despite Israel exercising all the functions of a sovereign in Jerusalem.

Sam Ashworth-Hayes

Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover isn’t so bad

It’s finally happened. After months of legal wrangling, Twitter has fallen. All hail King Elon; the 'bird is freed'. The executives running the show have been defenestrated, including CEO Parag Agrawal and head of safety Vijaya Gadda. Around the virtual watering hole, skittish packs of activists watch nervously as the ground shakes; Donald Trump, the biggest of the Twitter big beasts is set to make his return. And isn’t the wailing glorious? Well yes, but. Basing your politics around things your opponents dislike is a trap that it’s easy to fall into. Conservatism is not a negative image of progressivism, but an alternative philosophical perspective with its own positive vision of what the world should look like.

Steerpike

Farage gets his fortune (and freedom)

He's had his money worries in the past, but life seems to be pretty sweet for Nigel Farage right now. Less than eighteen months after announcing his retirement from frontline politics – claiming there was 'no money' in it – Farage's fortunes seem to be on the up. Newly published accounts for his company, Thorn In The Side Ltd, show he increased his total net assets by almost half a million pounds in a year, rising by more than £480,000 from just over £666,000 up until May 2021 to more than £1.1 million until May 2022. Now installed as the face of GB News, the former Ukip leader has developed a lucrative sideline in Cameo gigs.

Ross Clark

Sunak is right to stay away from COP27

Rishi Sunak deserves one of those ‘climate champion’ badges they hand out at primary schools. Why? Because he is not going to fly to the COP27 summit in Egypt – thereby saving 1.65 tonnes of carbon emissions, according to the World Land Trust’s carbon calculator. So what if Ed Miliband thinks it is a failure of leadership? There is no point in any UK Prime Minister travelling to any more of these summits when the world’s largest carbon emitters have made it perfectly plain that they have no intention of copying Britain’s example. They will not be putting themselves under legal commitment to eliminate net carbon emissions by 2050 or any other hard date. Xi Jinping, whose country is responsible for a third of the world’s emissions, won’t be going.

Lisa Haseldine

Putin’s house of mirrors

If there is one thing we have learnt since Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in February, it is that very little he says bears any relation to the truth. For nearly a year, the Russian President has been constructing his own house of mirrors: his rhetoric gives no indication of what is fact or fiction, bluff or candour, hard truth or hot air. Each speech he gives further distorts the reality he presents. Yesterday, Putin spoke at an event held by the Moscow-based think tank Valdai Discussion Club. The theme of his speech was ‘A post-hegemonic world: Justice and security for everyone’. Whose hegemony does this refer to? That of the West – or ‘our opponents’ as Putin ‘carefully’ called them with a smirk. Who is providing ‘justice and security for everyone’?

Kate Andrews

Are Sunak and Hunt planning a windfall tax grab?

When Rishi Sunak entered No. 10 on Tuesday, he paid lip service to the aims of his predecessor. Liz Truss ‘was not wrong to want to improve growth in this country’, he said outside Downing Street. But ‘mistakes were made’ which is why he was installed as Prime Minister: to fix the economic fiasco that has overwhelmed Britain over these past few weeks. This morning’s news about looming growth forecasts brings both statements to the fore. Just over a week ago, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt thought he had to find upwards of £30 billion worth of spending cuts and tax hikes to fill the black hole in the public finances. But Treasury officials have told the BBC that Sunak and Hunt together may be looking for something closer to £50 billion to get the public finances back in order.

Yuri Felshtinsky

Will Putin use Belarus to attack Ukraine?

For the past month, Russian soldiers have been gathering in Belarus. Thousands of conscripts are assembling. Meanwhile, in Ukraine, Russia's war effort goes from bad to worse: Kyiv's forces are continuing to advance in Kherson. Does Putin think the build-up of forces in Belarus can help him turn the tide in his war? So far, Belarus’s involvement has been largely passive. The country's dictator Aleksandr Lukashenko is allowing Russia to pelt Ukraine with missiles from behind its borders. Minsk also provided crucial safe passage to troops attacking the country from the north in February. But, for the most part, it has done its best to try and stay out of the war while attempting to avoid angering Putin. Now there are signs that things might be changing.

Katy Balls

The Alicia Kearns Edition

35 min listen

Alicia Kearns is the Conservative MP for Rutland and Melton, and the first female chair of the foreign affairs select committee. Alicia built a reputation as a foreign policy powerhouse working in communications and counter-terrorism for the civil service. After leaving, some time was spent in the private sector before Alicia decided to become an MP. In 2019 she was elected in the Conservative safe seat, Rutland and Melton where she now lives with her family.  On the podcast, Alicia talks about why she left the civil service and the time she ‘came out’ as a Conservative. She also shares her love for her Rutland and Melton, describing her constituents as ‘her people’.

Gavin Mortimer

Why shouldn’t Macron meet Meloni?

One in four Italians who voted at last month's election backed Giorgia Meloni’s conservative Brothers of Italy party – that is 7,302,517 men and women. Second in the general election was the centre-left Democratic party with 5,356,180 votes with 19 per cent. In other words, Meloni’s victory was resounding. Coming as it did after the brief premiership of the unelected Mario Draghi one might even call it a victory for democracy. Yet the western reaction to Italy electing its first female prime minister was overwhelmingly cold and aloof.

Thursday

Steerpike

Trevor Noah’s bizarre Sunak skit backfires

Fire up the engine, the clickbait machine has gone into overdrive. Mr S doesn't spend much of his time watching America's Daily Show for obvious reasons: life is short and sermons are best delivered on a Sunday. Yet, stumbling across Monday's episode of the late-night satirical programme, Steerpike couldn't help but reflect on the sheer crassness of its host Trevor Noah: a man who has done for comedy what Harold Shipman did for palliative care. As predictable as he is tedious, Noah, inevitably, seized on the imagined 'backlash' which has – supposedly – greeted Rishi Sunak's appointment to the premiership.

Stephen Daisley

In defence of Ash Regan’s gender bravery

Ash Regan’s decision to resign as Nicola Sturgeon’s community safety minister will not have been taken lightly. The Scottish parliament has today passed stage one of the Gender Recognition Reform Bill, legislation championed by Sturgeon which will make it easier to access a gender recognition certificate, remove medical experts from the process and lower the applicable age to 16. Regan told Sturgeon in her resignation letter that ‘my conscience will not allow me to vote with the government’.  Regan was one of a handful of SNP politicians who signed an open letter in 2019 warning ministers: ‘Changing the definition of male and female is a matter of profound significance. It is not something we should rush.

Nigel Jones

The Tory wars haven’t gone away

Rishi Sunak told the Tories to ‘unite or die’ as he took office this week. Some of his party colleagues appear to be pursuing the latter option. It hasn’t taken long for Conservative MPs to resume the civil war that has brought the party to its current parlous and deeply divided state. First came an open clash in the Commons chamber between Jacob Rees-Mogg and fellow Tory Richard Graham, the MP for Gloucester. Not waiting for his inevitable sacking as business secretary, Rees-Mogg had only just finished penning his handwritten resignation letter on Tuesday when he accused Graham of never having accepted Brexit. Graham angrily denied the charge as ‘utterly untrue’ and Rees-Mogg courteously withdrew.

Wednesday

James Heale

Will anyone buy my Liz Truss book?

‘If you’re having a bad day at work,’ read the Twitter meme, ‘at least you’re not Harry Cole or James Heale.’ The inglorious collapse of Liz Truss’s government put paid to many plans, but none more so than the biography of the lady herself, which Harry and I have been writing for the past ten weeks. Having started the project as her biographers, we ended it as her political obituarists, furiously rewriting copy as it became clear that our intended cliff-hanger could only have one ending. Our deadline was 29 October. Harry (who is the political editor of the Sun) and I signed the deal for Out of the Blue: The Astonishing Rise of Liz Truss on 20 August, so we had less than two months to throw ourselves into the madcap world of Truss.

Katy Balls

Will the Tory truce hold?

During the summer leadership race between Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss, Sunak’s team were braced for a bloodbath if he won. It would have required a major polling error and gone down as one of the biggest political upsets in recent years. ‘If we win, we win by 1 per cent,’ was how one close ally of Sunak put it at the time. If this had played out, it would have come as a nasty surprise to many in the Tory party. With wounds still raw from Boris Johnson’s departure, the deposed former PM’s loyalists would have quickly gone on the offensive – accusing Sunak of being a traitor for resigning in Johnson’s dying days. Supporters of Truss, meanwhile, would have claimed the tiny win meant that he didn’t have a mandate for his fiscal plan and pushed instead for immediate tax cuts.