Politics

Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.

Tuesday

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Kemi comes out against Sunak’s smoking ban

When Rishi Sunak first unveiled his plans for a smoke-free generation, Downing Street was clear it would be a free vote. Such are the divisions in the Tory party over the issue and the question of personal liberty that there were never any plans to whip the vote. As expected, Sunak’s policy to make it illegal for people born in or after 2009 to buy tobacco has attracted many internal Tory critics. Former Prime Minister Liz Truss has been leading the charge today in the chamber, criticising Sunak for being a nanny state figure. However, given Sunak and Truss agree on very little these days, her critique was expected. More

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

What Liz Truss got right

It’s easy to laugh at Liz Truss bringing out a book, much harder to ask whether there are points she makes that Westminster can actually learn from. The former prime minister obviously has a self-awareness problem which leads her to blame her failures on anyone and everyone who happened to be around at the time. That makes it much easier to dismiss the whole thing. But there are arguments – particularly within the final chapter – that we haven’t just heard from Truss, or indeed just from Conservatives. Even previous Labour leaders have complained about the resistance from the civil service to reforms.  Speaking of previous prime ministers, one of

Laurie Wastell

The outrageous shutdown of NatCon Brussels

Brussels A familiar refrain at any National Conservatism conference is that leftist elites are censorious, authoritarian and intolerant of free speech. Today, it seemed like this was proven correct, after the Brussels police were ordered to shut down the conference in an outrageous assault on freedom of speech. It has been a surreal day so far, but that shouldn’t distract from the fact that this is an outrageous, authoritarian assault on democratic freedom by the Brussels authorities When the conference started at the Claridge hotel this morning, it was already on its third venue, after two others were forced to cancel at the behest of Brussels’s socialist mayor, Philippe Close. The conference

James Heale James Heale

How many MPs will reject Sunak’s smoking ban?

14 min listen

It’s not just Britain that has a growth problem. Today’s release of the IMF’s April 2024 World Economic Outlook report argues that the global economy is following the lacklustre trend. Within this bleak picture, how does the UK look compared to its counterparts? Also on the podcast, MPs are set to vote this evening on the government’s generational smoking ban. Is Rishi Sunak a ‘finger wagging control freak’ as Liz Truss claims? How many could rebel?  James Heale speaks Katy Balls and Kate Andrews.  Produced by Patrick Gibbons and Oscar Edmondson. 

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Labour MPs mock NatCon shutdown

It’s a sad day for lovers of personal freedom. Not only is Prime Minister Rishi Sunak pressing on with his smoking ban — the second reading of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill is taking place today — but now the Belgian authorities are attempting to shut down the National Conservatism conference in Brussels. Nigel Farage and Suella Braverman are among the attendees while a number of speakers, including MEP Patricia Chagnon and Eric Zemmour, have been denied access to the event. So much for freedom of speech… It’s all a big joke to Labour MPs, though, who giggled their way through a fiery speech by shadow health secretary Wes Streeting

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Britain needs more than tinkering to get growth going

It’s not just Britain that has a growth problem. Today’s release of the IMF’s April 2024 World Economic Outlook report argues that the global economy is following the lacklustre trend. Global growth is expected to sit at 3.1 per cent by 2029: ‘at its lowest in decades’. Global growth is forecast to move at the same pace this year as it did last year, growing at 3.2 per cent in 2024 and 2025. This year’s forecast is a small, 0.1 percentage point uplift from the IMF’s January prediction, yet the forecaster warns that higher interest rates, weak productivity, and ongoing international insecurity will all continue to combine to suppress growth. Within this

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Truss on Sunak’s smoking ban

It’s going to be a long day for Rishi Sunak. It’s the second reading of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill and the Prime Minister is expecting to see a number of his own politicians vote against his smoking ban this evening. Opponents of the bill include Sir Simon Clarke and Sir John Hayes while Penny Mordaunt and Kemi Badenoch are understood to be considering voting against Sunak’s proposal. And now former PM and passionate libertarian Liz Truss has made her intervention in the Chamber. Blasting the government for trying to make the decisions of adults for them with its ‘virtue-signalling piece of legislation’, Truss voiced her concerns that the smoking

Steerpike Steerpike

Khan changes his tune on fact-checking

There’s 16 days to go until the London elections and Labour is comfortably in the lead. But is Sadiq Khan now feeling the heat? Perusing Twitter/X this morning, Mr S could not help but notice a new account has sprung up, under the name of ‘London Tory Fact Check’. Its bio reads simply ‘Exposing London Tory lies all day, every day’ and its cover image bears the name of London Labour’s regional director. Such tactics are usually considered part and parcel of normal political life. But Khan has form for being holier-than-thou on such matters. Back in 2020, he publicly attacked the Conservatives for spreading ‘fake news masquerading as “facts”‘

Steerpike Steerpike

Brussels police move to shut down Farage at NatCon

Happy NatCon day, one and all. Yes, it’s that time of year again, when some of Europe’s most vocal right-wing exponents get together in a room for the annual National Conservatism conference. Last year’s shindig was in Westminster and spawned numerous headlines about Miriam Cates and Lee Anderson. This time though it’s being held in Brussels: home of well-paid Eurocrats and overzealous officials. Where better to make a stand for conservatism? Among those flying the flag for Britain is keynote speaker Suella Braverman and longtime MEP Nigel Farage. But the former Ukip leader encountered some difficulty this morning after arriving on stage at the Claridge venue in the Belgian capital.

Alexander Larman

When will Prince Harry admit defeat in his ‘frankly hopeless’ legal case?

Many of us believe that Prince Harry and his recent actions could fairly be described as ‘frankly hopeless’. Now, a High Court judge can be added to their number. Mr Justice Lane has dismissed Harry’s appeal against an earlier judgement that he was not entitled to automatic police protection when he moved abroad. The latest court documents, released yesterday, do not make happy reading for the Duke of Sussex. The legacy of Spare is never far away The judge has ordered Harry to pay 90 per cent of the government’s costs in the court case (well over £500,000, apparently) and has delivered a stinging rebuke to the Duke and his

Steerpike Steerpike

SNP ditches public trust question from national survey

If you don’t want to know the answer, don’t ask the question. That seems to be the mantra by which the SNP is currently abiding. Careful analysis of the many, many years of the ferry fiasco to the recent confusion over former health secretary Michael Matheson’s iPad bill has shown that important queries haven’t always been voiced when they should have been. And now, the latest example of question avoidance relates to a rather sensitive matter for the Scottish government: public trust.  It transpires that SNP ministers have quietly scrapped a question on this very issue from the Scottish Household Survey. The poll asks the public to rate their trust

James Heale James Heale

How many MPs will reject Sunak’s smoking ban?

A fag-end measure for a fag-end government? That’s how Labour are keen to present Rishi Sunak’s plans to stop young people born after 2008 from ever being legally allowed to smoke. The Commons will tonight debate the second reading of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill, with Tory MPs being granted a rare free vote. With dozens of Conservatives expected to vote against the legislation, Wes Streeting and others are keen to depict themselves as riding to Sunak’s rescue by lending him Labour votes. ‘Rishi Sunak might be weak but Labour will not allow the Liz Truss wing of the Conservative Party to choke off the Smoking Bill today’, the Shadow

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

When will the Rwanda ping-pong end?

MPs once again rejected all the changes made by peers to the Safety of Rwanda Bill last night, with the ping-pong continuing this afternoon. There were six votes yesterday on amendments the Lords wanted to keep in the bill, and a pointed weariness from Home Office minister Michael Tomlinson at the start of the debate. He said: ‘Here we are back again debating the same issues and amendments we have already rejected. We are not quite at the point yet of completing each other’s sentences, but we are almost there.’ Rishi Sunak will be able to blame no-one but himself if there is no change in the number of crossings

Michael Simmons Michael Simmons

Worklessness hits eight-year high

Britain already has the worst post-pandemic workforce recovery in Europe. New figures out today show the problem is getting even worse. The number of those ‘economically inactive’ (not in work or looking for it) rose by a remarkable 150,000 in the last three months to 9.4 million – equivalent to the adult population of Portsmouth and some 850,000 since the first lockdown. Taken as a share of the working-age population, it’s now at an eight-year high – and significantly worse than it was during Covid or its aftermath. What’s driving the worklessness? The biggest single factor is long-term sickness, also at an all-time high. Is this just economic long-Covid, the

Terry Barnes

The Sydney church terror attack is a wake-up call for Australians

Sydney has been rocked by another stabbing rampage – just days after six people were murdered in a knife attack in the city’s Bondi Junction. A bishop of the Assyrian Orthodox Church, Mar Mari Emmanuel, was knifed at the altar during the incident yesterday afternoon in the working-class suburb of Wakeley. Several other parishioners were also injured as they sought to disarm the attacker. Police have arrested a teenager and are treating it as a terrorist attack. The horror was broadcast on the livestream of the Assyrian Christ The Good Shepherd Church, meaning that thousands of followers witnessed the attack. News of the stabbings spread fast among the local Assyrian

Gareth Roberts Gareth Roberts

Why can’t Stonewall’s ex-boss come clean about its trans obsession?

The few days since the publication of the Cass report – the probe into ‘gender identity’ services for young people – have been a revelation. The report, compiled by Dr Hilary Cass, has at long last, and so publicly it couldn’t be ignored, blown some of the gilt off the trans gingerbread, confirming that medical interventions on minors weren’t backed up by solid research. This has woken up some of the great and the good, who have finally realised that parroting phrases like ‘trans women are women’ might not have been such a wise idea. It must be galling for Rutherford, the foremost science communicator, to have missed such a big medical scandal One of those who used those

Matthew Lynn

If Apple loses against China so will the West

It has been a long time since the West dominated shipbuilding, or steel making. We are already aware that we are losing ground in consumer goods, as well as in finance and transport. Add it all up, and we no longer expect the US, Europe or its allies to control the global market in most major industries. Still, even as other industries lost ground there was one thing most economists and industrial experts would have felt sure we could rely on: Apple. Whatever else happened, nothing would knock its world-beating iPhone – without question the world’s most profitable product – off its well-secured perch. But hold on. Apple’s market share is now

Monday

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Lloyd Russell-Moyle called out over his behaviour in gender debate

Lloyd Russell-Moyle, Labour MP for Brighton Kemptown, received a rather humiliating dressing down in the Commons today. His ticking off followed the Health Secretary’s statement on Dr Hilary Cass’s report into gender services. During his intervention, a holier-than-thou Russell-Moyle welcomed the report for moving the discussion on but claimed that his reading of the review found fault with people being ‘particularly nasty and vicious on all sides’. The Labour MP spoke of how he had faced abuse himself over the trans issue, and posters with ‘rude words’ had been put outside his house. What Mr S can’t quite comprehend is that this MP — who appeared to be lecturing the

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

You can’t blame Trump for dozing off

Is it Dozy Don now? Social media is already pulsating over reports that Donald Trump appears to have fallen asleep on the first day of his criminal trial. ‘His head keeps dropping down and his mouth goes slack’, says the New York Times’s Maggie Haberman. Oh boy. ‘72 hours until all hell breaks loose!’ declared Mr Trump in a fundraising email sent out on Friday. ‘Rabid Democrats are poised to make millions while I’m stuck defending myself in court.’ But it turns out that hell is fairly soporific. You can’t blame poor old Trump. How is any 77-year-old man expected to sit through such a boring trial, even if it

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Starmer: Israel should show ‘strength and courage’ to de-escalate

Rishi Sunak wants this weekend’s attempt by Iran to attack Israel to mark a de-escalation in the region. He told MPs this afternoon that he would be speaking to Benjamin Netanyahu later today and that he would be discussing how to prevent further escalation, saying: ‘All sides must show restraint.’ This was not a surprise, given Lord Cameron’s language this morning about the need for Israel to ‘take the win’.  Instead, what was more striking was that MPs did not, as had been suggested by some, spend that much time in this statement complaining about British involvement in foiling the attack. Sunak suggested once again that this was an extension