Politics Archives

Monday

1 August 2022

Piers Morgan sanctioned by Russia

It's time for another round of crackpot Russian sanctions. Still smarting from the latest package of western measures, Moscow has retaliated by hitting us where it hurts: banning our best and brightest from visiting Vlad's kleptocratic empire. In April it was Nadine Dorries and Grant Shapps: this month it's Huw Edwards and Robert Peston. Bemused hacks on the 39-name list include the Telegraph's James Crisp who expressed his surprise but remarked 'It's always nice to have been read.' Still, at least the Russians got some villains right. Piers Morgan — or, as the Russians call him, Piers Stefan Pughe-Morgan — comes in 38th on the list, presumably for all his angry tweets and TV rants against Putin and his cabal.

Kate Andrews

The real difference between Sunak and Truss’s tax policies

The Tory leadership race is becoming a test of patience. Today Rishi Sunak has laid out his plan to slash tax: not in a matter of days or weeks, as Liz Truss has pledged to do, but by the end of the next parliament. He’s promised to reduce the base rate of income tax by 20 per cent, by taking 1p off income tax in 2024 (as already pledged) and an additional 3p over the next parliament. As Fraser Nelson notes on Coffee House, the timing of this announcement is working against him: it’s easily characterised as a u-turn on tax cuts, when in truth the former Chancellor is far more interested in reducing the tax burden than perhaps his time in the Treasury conveyed. Team Sunak was always planning to hold back his bigger policy announcements for later in the campaign.

Harry Miller

The police crackdown on social media has gone too far

Last week, I spent a night in a police cell. My ‘crime’? To intervene after I witnessed an ex-soldier being arrested over a social media post. Is what someone posts on Facebook – even if it is a distasteful image of a transgender pride flag in the shape of a swastika – really a matter for the police? I don’t think so – and in this instance, the law appears to be on my side. Yet Hampshire Police saw things differently. ‘Someone has been caused anxiety based on your social media post. And that is why you’re being arrested,’ a PC told the ex-army veteran as he stood outside his home in handcuffs, surrounded by officers.

Patrick West

The BBC’s gender equality project has come unstuck

The BBC's 50:50 project is designed to empower women. One of its targets is to ensure that half of the contributors are female. But while this aim might have been questionable from the outset – is this really something the BBC should be focusing on? – its mission has been undermined: the BBC has admitted it does 'not monitor whether a contributor's gender differs from their sex registers at birth'. In effect, trans women, who were born as male, will be counted as women. 'The BBC has now 'disappeared' women as a sex class and instead monitors 'gender identity',' fumed one senior BBC insider, one of many Corporation staff who have protested about the change.

Stephen Daisley

Truss’s promising stance on Scottish independence

Much to the chagrin of colleagues, friends and ex-friends, I’ve spent the past few years raising the alarm about how Scottish devolution is gradually eroding the Union. I’ve noted how the devolution settlement was devised as a fiefdom by arrogant New Labour architects who, unable to imagine anyone else coming to power, failed to include sufficient checks and balances. I’ve catalogued how the SNP has seized on this flaw to transform the Scottish Government into a permanent, taxpayer-funded campaign against the UK state. I’ve remonstrated about Westminster’s failure to notice the problem and its unwillingness to do something about it.

Max Jeffery

Has Keir Starmer lost control over strikes?

12 min listen

This morning, Lisa Nandy defied party orders by joining a picket line in Wigan to support striking BT and Openreach staff. This comes after last week, Keir Starmer sacked Sam Tarry MP, who went on an unauthorised media round at an RMT picket line. Similarly, Labour’s biggest union, Unite, threatened to pull all funding from the party over the Labour leader's refusal to back strike action. Is Keir Starmer losing control over his party?Also on the podcast, what's the latest on the Liz Truss vs Rishi Sunak leadership contest?Max Jeffery is joined by Isabel Hardman and James Forsyth. Produced by Natasha Feroze.

James Forsyth

Why Starmer didn’t sack Lisa Nandy for joining a picket line

Lisa Nandy’s appearance on a picket line is very different from Sam Tarry’s. There were no media interviews and this is a dispute involving a Labour-affiliated union and a private company. This is not a public sector strike; taking a position on it does not have implications for the public finances. But given Keir Starmer’s position on picket lines – Labour MPs shouldn’t appear on them – Nandy’s decision to attend clearly carries with it its own message. This incident is not going to turn into anything more serious, as neither side appear to be escalating matters. But with more and more industrial action likely over the coming months as workers protest at below inflation pay rises, this issue is going to keep dogging Labour.

Isabel Hardman

Sunak is running out of time

This could be the biggest week of the Tory leadership campaign: postal ballots will start arriving on members' doormats in the coming days and the chances are that most will fill them in and send them back pretty sharpish. Both candidates to be Prime Minister are consequently extremely busy: Rishi Sunak has been making tax cut promises (of the 'not yet 'variety: more on that from Fraser here) this morning, while Liz Truss has been talking about help for farmers suffering post-Brexit labour shortages. They're both in the south west of England today ahead of the latest hustings in Exeter tonight, with visits to members and in Truss's case, a trip to a farm planned. It still looks as though Sunak is trying to copy Truss Sunak obviously has much more work to do.

Sam Leith

Should Apple snoop on your iPhone?

Should Apple use software to scan the photo library of every individual iPhone in search of images of child abuse? GCHQ thinks so. So does the National Cyber Security Centre. (Well, you might say: they would, wouldn’t they?) And so does professor Hany Farid, inventor of a technology called PhotoDNA, which is already used across the web to scan for illegal images. He told the Internet Watch Foundation that, though Apple paused proposals to roll out this software last year thanks to 'pushback from a relatively small number of privacy groups', 'I contend that the vast majority of people would have said, ‘sure, this seems perfectly reasonable’'. At issue, it should be said, is not the idea of checking for such images altogether.

Steerpike

The National’s Anglo-bashing hypocrisy

Given the Scottish political establishment’s misty-eyed myth-making about Scottish nationalism — it’s civic! Joyous! Inclusive! — Mr Steerpike admires the commitment of the grassroots to saying the quiet part out loud. The National has published a missive on its letters page this morning that calls for the English to be banned from owning land in an independent Scotland. The correspondent, replying to an article about transparency in land ownership, writes: Foreign nationals should be banned from buying large areas of the Scottish lands and countryside. We must be about the only country in Europe where this is allowed. I would seriously consider adding buyers from England to this list in an independent Scotland.

Nick Cohen

The historian who inspires Liz Truss

Admirers of one of America’s great modern historians sat up and paid attention when Liz Truss told the Times in December that she read ‘anything’ by Rick Perlstein. In May, we nodded along with the interviewer from the Atlantic magazine who ‘saw a copy of Perlstein’s The Invisible Bridge on her shelf and thought it was ‘exactly the sort of book I would have expected her to read’. For those who have never encountered his work, The Invisible Bridge is one part of Perlstein’s four-volume history of the United States from 1960 until 1980.

Steerpike

Does Britain lack the minerals for green fight?

Amid all her remarks about tax cuts, freedom and, er, Don Revie, some of Liz Truss's comments were overlooked on Thursday evening. Speaking at the LBC hustings, the Foreign Secretary was asked by Nick Ferrari as to what she had learned from her four years at Shell. Truss paused and then replied: What I learned was how important the security of our energy is, and how we shouldn't take it for granted, and I think that it's very important in the future that we never again become dependent on regimes that we can't trust. That is what's happened with Russia, less so for the UK than other European countries, but we need to learn that lesson from China as well.

Fraser Nelson

The trouble with Sunak’s new tax promise

Rishi Sunak should have started his campaign offering a 4p cut to the basic rate of income tax instead of going with a Cameronesque finger-wagging 'stability before tax cuts' message. His pledge to cut the rate to 16p, unveiled last night, now looks like a panicked U-turn when it is in fact consistent with his long-standing view of politics: that Britain is in danger of turning into a high-tax, high-spend European style social democracy because Tories keep forcing through extra spending without thinking how they’d pay for it. As chancellor, he sought to stand athwart such process by putting up taxes and hoping the pain would force his party to think twice about the extra spending they all wanted. After spending restraint, he'd argue, taxes would fall.

Sunday

31 July 2022

Mary Wakefield

Remembering Gore Vidal

Fourteen years ago, my then boss, Matt d’Ancona sent me off to interview Gore Vidal. I’ll always be grateful to him for the opportunity. D’Ancona could have gone to meet the great man himself, but he knew I was a fan so he let me go. Is there anything hopeful in American politics then? I asked Vidal towards the end of our enjoyable but pretty dispiriting evening in Claridge's. I recorded his response as follows: ‘No,’ says Vidal.Anything good about the American people? ‘Not really.’How do you see the future of America panning out? ‘It panned out already, it’s sinking.’ Can anything be done to save it? ‘I don’t give a f***,’ says Vidal and orders another whisky and soda.

Steerpike

Will Nadine be censored under her own law?

Steerpike's favourite cabinet minister is at it again. In her vindictive rage to try to avenge Boris Johnson, Nadine Dorries has turned the full force of her rage against Rishi Sunak. She's accused him of leading a 'ruthless coup' against the Prime Minister, being the 'chatty rat' behind the lockdown leak, of 'not working hard', practicing 'dark arts' and, er, wearing an expensive pair of shoes. Now, the Culture Secretary has even taken to retweeting memes of Sunak mocked up as Brutus, brandishing a knife behind Johnson as Britain's Caesar. The image predictably sparked a backlash, with fellow Tory MP Simon Hoare sharing a post which said that 'no MP should be retweeting a post like this... two MPs in recent times have been murdered by extremists.

Sam Olsen

Will China blockade Taiwan?

Xi Jinping has made it very clear over the years that he is determined for China to reunite with Taiwan. He has staked his legacy and his legitimacy on it. The problem for Beijing is that the polls in Taiwan continually show that only one per cent of the population is in favour of reunification now. If Xi wants Taiwan then he will almost certainly have to take it by force. Although some western commentators argue that Russia’s travails in Ukraine have made an invasion less likely, there is no evidence to support a change in policy in Beijing. Even though Taiwan’s military is undertrained and equipped with tanks and planes from a half-century ago, three-quarters of its citizens say they are prepared to fight to keep the island free from mainland rule.

Saturday

30 July 2022

David Johnston

The social mobility case against grammar schools

Plenty of Conservative party members won't like this article. I apologise in advance for that: I know grammar schools are popular with the membership and my view won't be. But bringing them back would be a serious misstep for education policy. They are a distraction from what we should be doing, they serve the wealthy not the poor – and they don't work. Throughout my near two decades working on social mobility I would periodically hear the call for grammar schools to return. In evidence, I'd be told about the boys who went to one and went on to university while their classmates who didn't went down the pit, into a manual job or similar. This view is sincerely held.

David Davis

Does Nadine Dorries understand her Online Safety Bill?

‘Read the Bill’. That was the response I got from Nadine Dorries, the Secretary for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, when I warned of the danger her beloved Online Safety Bill poses to free speech. Dorries, a firm supporter of Liz Truss’s bid for the Tory leadership, indicated on Thursday that Truss backs the Bill in its unamended state. Numerous civil liberties organisations have campaigned against elements of the Bill from day one. And yet Dorries argues that the Bill will make free speech more secure, because somehow, she sees something they do not. Granted, the Bill does not impose outright, sweeping bans on speech.

Sam Leith

Sam Leith, Kate Andrews & Toby Young

17 min listen

On this week's episode: Sam Leith looks at what TikTok and tech have done to our memories (0:34). Kate Andrews is in two minds about Trussonomics (06:50) and Toby Young tells us about a holiday to Iceland with teenage sons (12.34). Presented and produced by Natasha Feroze.

Steerpike

Poll: Tory voters prefer Truss over Sunak

The Tory leadership races is a tale of two approaches: Liz Truss appears to be campaigning to win the party membership, but Rishi Sunak is is campaigning to win a general election. And its’ Truss’s approach that appears to be working, given YouGov’s survey of the Tory grassroots which shows her leading by 20 points. And now Mr S has more bad news for team Sunak: it’s not just the Tory membership turning against him but 2019 Tory voters too. For, according to a poll done by The Spectator by Redfield and Wilton, those who backed Boris Johnson at the last election now think Liz Truss is more likely to both stand up to China and grow the economy more than her rival.