Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Wednesday

Gavin Mortimer

France’s centrists look petty after their charity football boycott

There should be a charity football match this evening in Paris between a team of MPs and an XI made up of former footballers, such as World Cup winner Christian Karembeu and the ex-Arsenal star Robert Pires. All proceeds – estimated to be around €35,000 (£32,000) – will go to a charity that protects children from online abuse. But on Tuesday evening several left-wing MPs withdrew because they couldn’t bring themselves to play in a team that, for the first time since the side was formed in 2014, contained some players from Marine Le Pen’s National Rally.

Robin Ashenden

Do Russia’s conscripts deserve our sympathy?

Russia’s new crop of conscripts are a desperate, dejected bunch. A photograph showing an Orthodox priest blessing these men as they headed off to fight from the settlement of Bataysk in the Rostov region summed up their hopelessness. The names of such little known Russian localities must – to an English reader – all merge into one. They are simply over there, in Russia, where the suffering it has inflicted on a neighbouring country has finally come back to haunt it. https://twitter.com/phildstewart/status/1574444354026061825?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw But I know where Bataysk is very well. It is a dull suburb of Rostov-on-Don, a city where I lived for four years – a kind of nothing village of one-storey villas, inhabited by Rostov commuters.

Isabel Hardman

What Starmer still lacks

Keir Starmer has spent the hours since his successful conference speech lapping up the praise from party members, frontbench colleagues and business. He had the air of a man who had hit his stride when he appeared in the broadcast studios this morning, ridiculing questions about whether he was a bit boring by saying ‘if I came on and said I’ve done a bungee jump, you wouldn’t say “oh great, now we’ve got the prime minister we need”.’ You could hear his eye-roll as he said ‘bungee jump’ into the Today programme microphone.

James Forsyth

Will cyberwar be next?

Neither the Danes nor Nato have made a direct attribution for yesterday’s pipeline damage. But the fingers are pointing at Russia. The thinking goes that Putin was trying to trigger panic in the energy markets by showing that there’ll be no rapid resumption of gas supplies to Europe and by demonstrating how vulnerable this energy infrastructure is. The UK would struggle to get through this winter without energy rationing if, for example, the interconnectors and gas pipeline from Norway were disrupted Now, given that Russia has turned off Nord Stream 1 for maintenance, the damage to the pipeline will have little immediate impact. But if it is the beginning of a covert sabotage campaign against European energy infrastructure then that is a very different matter.

John Oxley

Is it time to kill the Conservative party?

Dominic Cummings’s response to the plight of the Conservative party is typically bellicose. He calls for it to be driven into the earth, the furrows planted with salt, and banished for eternity like some latter day Carthage. He sees no sense in reviving or reforming it, only blood-eagling it. It is a strong take, and perhaps unexpected from someone who was at the heart of a Conservative government just a few years ago. Cummings is not, of course, a Conservative. He has never professed to be one, nor seemingly been a member of the party at any point. His relationship with it was always a temporary alliance driven by his own views of what to deliver for the country. Brexit was part, but not all of this, a necessary precondition to unleash the state in a new direction.

Wolfgang Münchau

Britain’s economic crisis is a warning to the world

A falling exchange rate and rising bond yields are the typical characteristics of a financial crisis in an emerging market. Those who never forgave the UK for its decision to leave the EU like to remind us of this fact right now. But an emerging market crisis doesn't even begin to capture what is going on. This is a macro financial crisis story; EU membership is not the issue here. The UK had its independent macro policies when it was still in the EU. What is happening in the UK, and worldwide, is the realisation that fiscal and monetary policies have run out of our control. You can't have 4-5 per cent core inflation, 2 per cent interest rates, and an expansionary fiscal policy at the same time.

Steerpike

Labour conference 2022 in pictures

As day four of Labour conference begins here in Brighton, Mr S has been touring the conference centre and World Transformed festival to see how Keir Starmer's party is preparing for government. A quick tour reveals that there's far less cranks now attending the official shindig, with far less Hawaiian shirts, Corbyn merchandise and Socialist Worker newspapers than last year's Brighton bash. Still, whether it's Beijing Barry Gardiner on the decks at Dawn Butler's Jamaica night, Wes Streeting on the mike at the Mirror's karaoke night or Mark Drakeford snapping pics on a Massey Ferguson,  all sorts of exotic creatures have been spotted among the clubs, pubs, fringes and forums of Brighton. Below is Steerpike's guide for all those unlucky enough not to have got a ticket...

Nick Cohen

The City still runs on nepotism

When Liz Truss says she wants to give tax cuts to the wealthiest, she thinks she is making a moral argument. The rich deserve to keep their money because they are the best and brightest among us. They have succeeded on their own merit and not because of their class, sex or ethnicity. This, she believes, is a Thatcherite view of society. But the crisis that her government has imposed on Britain is as much due to her misreading of modern history as of her economic illiteracy. Her support for the City rests on a misunderstanding of how Thatcherism transformed the top of British society, as a new and devastating study shows. ‘Highly Discriminating: Why the City Isn’t Fair and Diversity Doesn’t Work’ by Louise Ashley leads a herd of sacred cows to the slaughter.

Tuesday

Kate Andrews

Will Liz Truss take on the IMF?

Tonight the International Monetary Fund has weighed in on the UK’s mini-Budget, offering a direct rebuke of Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng’s tax cuts. ‘We are closely monitoring recent economic developments in the UK and are engaged with the authorities,’ its spokesperson said, in reference to the fluctuating pound and rising borrowing costs. ‘Given elevated inflation pressures in many countries, including the UK, we do not recommend large and untargeted fiscal packages at this juncture' – suggesting some concern that the measures could be inflationary.

Jacob Heilbrunn

Did Russia sabotage its own pipelines?

It almost seems worthy of the opening scene in a Bond film. Vital Russian gas pipelines running beneath the Baltic Sea close to Denmark and Sweden are the victims of sabotage. The two countries have warned of leaks from both Nord Stream 1 and 2 after seismologists suggested there had been underwater explosions. No one wants to claim credit for the deed – yet. Who is the Blofeld behind this dastardly scheme? Former Polish foreign minister Radek Sikorski, no fan of Russia, sardonically declared on Twitter, ‘Thank you, USA’. That set the conspiracy theorists off. As has a video resurfacing of Joe Biden in February promising America would put an end to Nord Stream 2.  Who is the Blofeld behind this dastardly scheme?

Ross Clark

The problem with nationalising energy

Is nationalisation the vote-winner which Keir Starmer believes it to be? We will find out in due course, but my hunch is that the British public as a whole care a lot less about who owns the train carriages they ride in and the power stations which generate their electricity than Labour MPs do.  No one who remembers British Rail will be under any illusions that public ownership is a panacea What they care about rather more, surely, is whether their trains arrive on time and whether their lights stay on. No one who remembers British Rail will be under any illusions that public ownership is a panacea for a functioning railway, and neither will anyone who remembers the three-day week be fooled into thinking a public-owned power industry guarantees keeping the lights on.

Toby Young

PayPal backs down

At 5.30 p.m. this evening, PayPal notified me that it has restored all three of the accounts it cancelled a couple of weeks ago – the accounts for the Daily Sceptic, the Free Speech Union and my personal account. In all three cases, the email read as follows: We have continued to review the information provided in connection with your account and we take seriously the input from our customers and stakeholders. Based on these ongoing reviews, we have made the decision to reinstate your account. You should now be able to use your account in the normal way. We sincerely appreciate your business and offer our apologies for any inconvenience this disruption in service may have caused. Forgive me if I don’t jump for joy Forgive me if I don’t jump for joy.

John Ferry

Trussonomics shows that Scottish independence doesn’t add up

As the pound fell to a record low on Monday on the back of Kwasi Kwarteng's 'mini-budget', the pings on SNP MPs and MSPs private WhatsApp groups must have ballooned in line with Gilt yields. There were many aspects to consider: the challenge of responding to the 45 per cent rate of income tax being scrapped and cuts to stamp duty, and how this new tax competition will impact Scotland's budget; the impact on cost-of-living challenges; international concerns that the volatility induced in financial markets could destabilise the global economy. All too predictably, the messaging from senior SNPers focused on this being yet another reason for Scotland to exit the UK.

Lisa Haseldine

Could Russia shut its borders?

In Putin’s Russia, fortunes can change rapidly. A week on from the partial mobilisation of the army, Russians are gripped by the fear that the closure of the country’s borders is next. Those who are not willing to risk death in Ukraine are looking for a way out. In the six days since 21 September, when Putin announced his plan in a pre-recorded television address, protests have sprung up in at least 43 towns across the country; the human rights organisation OVD News has said that more than 2,300 people have been arrested for taking part. According to the official terms of the Kremlin’s partial mobilisation, those with military experience aged between 18 and 35 are being called up first (those holding higher military ranks can be summoned up to the age of 65).

James Heale

Is Starmer ready for No.10?

10 min listen

Keir Stamer took centre stage for his speech at the Labour party conference today. Unlike last year, there were several standing ovations and loud cheers from the audience. Was his speech one to remember in Labour's history? And has he secured his position as the man to lead Labour back into government?James Heale speaks to Katy Ball and Isabel Hardman.Produced by Natasha Feroze.

Coffee House

Read: Keir Starmer’s full speech to 2022 Labour conference

Thank you, conference. It’s great to be here in Liverpool. After all the changes we’ve made, all the hard work we’ve put in, finally we are seeing the results we want. Yes, conference, we can say it at last: Arsenal are top of the league. But before I begin, I want to address something important. This is our first conference in Liverpool since 2018. And that means it’s our first conference since this city’s call for Justice for the 96 became Justice for the 97. For too long this city has been let down. So, when Labour wins the next election, one of my first acts as Prime Minister will be to put the Hillsborough Law on the statute book. I know how much this matters. I’ve spent a lifetime helping those who have been failed by the system.

Isabel Hardman

Keir Starmer’s cautious conference speech

Keir Starmer’s big speech to his party’s conference was about the practical things Labour could do to fix Britain. He was introduced by the leader of Southampton Council, who talked repeatedly about what happens when Labour gets into power. She said that Starmer ‘knew what Labour had to do to win again… now he is setting out what Britain needs to do to win again.’ Starmer’s big announcement to show how Labour will help Britain win again was a practical one: a Labour government will set up Great British Energy, a publicly-owned energy company which will ‘take advantage of the opportunities in clean British power’.

Freddy Gray

Has conservatism been misunderstood?

27 min listen

This week Freddy is joined by political theorist Yoram Hazony. They discuss Yoram's new book Conservatism: A Rediscovery, the origins of American conservatism and whether the family unit will be the defining feature of the modern conservative movement.

Steerpike

Rupa Huq suspended after race row overshadows Starmer’s speech

Oh dear. Things couldn’t have been going better for Labour leader Keir Starmer. The left has been routed, the Tories are divided, the pound is plunging and the markets are panicking. But in true Labour style, his MPs are always on hand to pull defeat from the jaws of victory. Speaking at a British Future event, Labour MP Rupa Huq – who has now had the whip suspended – made a rather unpleasant swipe at new Tory Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng. Huq, one of the hard-of-thinking drones in the Starmer Army, checked whether the Chatham House rule applied before telling attendees that Kwarteng was only ‘superficially’ black: ‘Superficially he is a black man… if you hear him on the Today Programme, you wouldn’t know he is black.

Nicholas Farrell

Giorgia Meloni can’t afford to fight the EU

Ravenna, Italy The victory of Giorgia Meloni in Italy with a huge majority of seats in parliament has prompted the expected political indignation. It’s not just the international press, either. Yesterday, for instance, my 17-year-old son Francesco Winston told me that at his school – we live near Ravenna in the Red Romagna, a hotbed of ex-communists – all his companions were in mourning. Why, I asked? ‘They say she's going to abolish abortion,’ he explained. Why do they believe that? I asked. ‘They're badly informed,’ he replied. Bravo figlio mio, bravo! Meloni would not abort an unborn child herself – she told me when I interviewed her in Rome last month – but nor would she impose her view on any other woman.