Steerpike

Four Chancellors, three Prime Ministers, two monarchs and one mini-Budget: it's fair to say 2022 was a crazy year in politics and for the Tories in particular. And at least one Conservative MP has admitted publicly what many of his colleagues are saying privately about their party's prospects at the next election. Jerome Mayhew, the Tory MP for Broadland, told Radio Norfolk last week that: I think we deserve a bit of a kicking as a result of what we've done as a party this year. We haven't covered ourselves in glory in Westminster, you're right, we're on our third Prime Minister in twelve months. No political party is going to come out of that smelling of roses. But we've got to pick ourselves up, which we've done, and we've got Rishi Sunak now as Prime Minister.

Much was made of Amy Lamé's appointment as London's first 'night czar' back in November 2016. The then newly elected Mayor Sadiq Khan trumpeted that she would be a 'much-needed ambassador for the city after dark... a fantastic hire who will give a big boost to our city’s flourishing nightlife' with a 'proven track-record of helping save venues'. But fast forward six years and such rhetoric seems somewhat hollow now. Estimates vary as to how many London venues have closed in recent years. One count claims 58 venues shut during the pandemic – or 25 per cent of the capital's nightclubs. Khan's own City Hall points to data which suggests that the number of venues operating as nightclubs in the capital dropped by 22 per cent between 2019 and 2021, the fewest since the mid-nineties.

What, if anything, will survive of Liz Truss's legacy? Last week it was her childcare review that was dropped by ministers. And now, the Foreign Office (FCDO) has reversed her decision to end the department's funding for the the Great Britain China Centre (GBBC), an executive public body established to support UK-China relations. Just seven months ago, Mr S broke the news that the FCDO, then run by Truss, was ending its grant-in-aid funding in response to cuts in the development budget. A spokesman told Steerpike in June 2022 that 'due to the current fiscal climate, including reductions to Official Development Assistance, we have made the decision to end FCDO grant-in-aid funding to the GBCC.

It's a tough gig politics. One minute you're leader of HM Loyal Opposition, the next you're an independent backbencher likely to lose your seat come polling day. For Jeremy Corbyn, the witless, whip-less Member for Islington North, it's been a tough few years. He lost the election in December 2019, lost the Labour leadership in April 2020 and then lost the party whip in October 2020 after claiming that antisemitism in the party had been overstated for political reasons. Luckily for Corbyn though, one group has come to his aid in these tough times. After having the whip withdrawn, backers of the ex-leader set up a company to fund his defence in legal battles connected with the antisemitism furore.

Away from the gun-toting, field-romping antics of the dilettante Duke of Sussex, normal politics carries on as usual. And this weekend will see the first in-person Jewish Labour conference since 2018. Much has changed since then, when the party's antisemitism crisis was at its height. Chair Mike Katz reflected in Jewish News how, back then, the group was 'marginalised and ostracised by the Labour establishment under Jeremy Corbyn' but that 'the difference in our experience under Labour leader Keir Starmer is like night and day... he has acted to demonstrate zero tolerance of antisemitism.' Indeed, Sir Keir has been vocal on the issue, apologising to the Jewish Chronicle for the harm caused to Jews while he was a member of Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet.

How many people in Britain are transgender?  Until today, there hasn’t been an official answer to that question. New census data give us a number: there are 262,000 people living in England and Wales in March 2021 who ‘identified with a gender different from their sex registered at birth’, in the words of the Office for National Statistics. Making some broad assumptions for Scotland and Northern Ireland, we might therefore guess that the trans population of the UK is around 300,000. Which raises some slightly awkward questions for people and organisations who have been keen to suggest that the trans population is much bigger. Organisations like Stonewall, for example.