Politics Archives

Friday

8 Mar 2024

Steerpike

Listen: Minister struggles to defend Donelan’s libel costs

As the dust begins to settle on Jeremy Hunt’s Budget plans, there’s one Tory MP who won’t be quite as keen to see the papers move on. Science Secretary Michelle Donelan is coming under increasing scrutiny after it emerged that not only had she got her facts wrong and lost a libel case — she’s making the taxpayer pick up the tab. While Penny Mordaunt rode to Donelan’s defence in the Commons yesterday, Gareth Davies MP struggled to sell the government line. The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury stumbled his way through an interview with LBC’s Nick Ferrari this morning, apparently deciding that the best way to answer his questions

Gavin Mortimer

Macron’s war-mongering talk is unnerving Europe

Relations between German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron have always been strained but they’re now positively hostile. Media on both sides of the Rhine have laid bare the differences that exist between the two men. Der Spiegel calls it a ‘battle of egos’, while Bild recently ran an article headlined ‘The Dangerous Ice Age’. Analysing the reason for the glacial relationship that exists between Macron and Scholz, Bild highlighted their different natures: Scholz was ‘stiff, often hesitant, but in the end mostly true to his word’, and a leader who had more faith in the Americans and the British than his EU partners. Macron, on the

Christopher Bedford

Biden’s angry State of the Union address

President Joe Biden compared himself to presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln, and his Republican opponents to Hitler, Nazis and the Confederacy during Thursday night’s State of the Union – and that was just in the first ninety seconds. Before two minutes had gone by, he’d lumped the Grand Old Party in with Russian president Vladimir Putin for good measure. Having cracked a decent joke and demagogued his opponents, the President was off to the races. By the third minute, he’d reached his next most important goal: more money for war in Ukraine. By minute four, he’d mentioned former president Donald Trump, though not by name. His ‘predecessor’, as he

Steerpike

Theresa May to quit parliament at the election

Another one bites the dust. Theresa May has today become the 60th Tory MP to announce she is standing down at the next election – and easily the most high-profile. The Maidenhead backbencher, who served as prime minister from 2016 to 2019, generously gave the scoop to her local newspaper. In a statement, she told the Maidenhead Advertiser that since returning to the backbenches she has championed: Causes close to my heart including most recently launching a Global Commission on Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking. These causes have been taking an increasing amount of my time. Because of this, after much careful thought and consideration, I have realised that, looking ahead, I

Meghan Murphy

Justin Trudeau, am I guilty of pre-crime?

Tim Berners-Lee, the man who invented the internet, intended it to be a place for everyone. But now the web is being used to undermine democracy and free speech. It has become a tool for the powerful to suppress dissent. ‘That feeling of individual control, that empowerment, is something we’ve lost,’ Berners-Lee told Vanity Fair in 2018. Today, not only do corporations like Google and Meta dictate what we see online, but, in places like Canada, the government is quickly making itself the gatekeeper. Last year, prime minister Justin Trudeau presented his Online Streaming Act as a means to purportedly support the development of online Canadian content. In fact, the

Thursday

7 Mar 2024

James Heale

Peers back vote on foreign state press ownership

Rishi Sunak has tonight been urged to support an amendment in the House of Lords which would give parliament a veto on foreign states owning UK media outlets. Tina Stowell, a former Leader of the House, has written to the Prime Minister today ahead of her amendment to the Digital Markets Bill being debated next Wednesday by fellow peers. It comes two days after a letter in support of Stowell’s amendment, organised by Robert Jenrick, was signed by more than 100 Tory MPs. The spur of this amendment is the proposed takeover of the Telegraph and Spectator titles by the UAE-owned RedBird IMI. Yet in her letter to Sunak, Stowell stresses that this

Svitlana Morenets

Zelensky’s sacked army chief posted to London

When Ukrainian war hero Valery Zaluzhny was fired as the head of the military a month ago, all talk was on what his new role would be. The logical option seemed to keep the general among Ukraine’s military command, where he could share his valuable experience of fighting the war with Russia. But instead, he is being sent to London as Ukraine’s ambassador to Great Britain. According to president Zelensky, Zaluzhny requested the posting himself. It was rumoured at the time that, when Zaluzhny was fired, he was given two options: become Zelensky’s adviser or head to London. At the time, sources suggested Zaluzhny turned down both offers. Now, he has accepted

Steerpike

‘You’re fired’ – watch Trump’s prebuttal to Biden’s State of the Union speech

In a few hours, Joe Biden will deliver what could be his final State of the Union address as President. And the man who hopes to make that happen in November was quick to get his side of the story in first, releasing a ‘prebuttal’ before Biden even appeared in the Senate. Donald Trump blasted the man he calls ‘crooked Joe’ in a three-minute clip, slamming Biden’s immigration and economic policies and casting the upcoming speech as a ‘sad excuse.’ He told supporters: Joe Biden is on the run from his record and lying like crazy to try to escape accountability for the horrific devastation he and his party have created – all the while they continue the very policies

William Moore

Trump II: Back with a Vengeance

47 min listen

On the podcast: what would Trump’s second term look like? Vengeance is a lifelong theme of Donald Trump’s, writes Freddy Gray in this week’s cover story – and this year’s presidential election could provide his most delectable payback of all. Meanwhile, Kate Andrews writes that Nikki Haley’s campaign is over – and with it went the hopes of the Never Trump movement. Where did it all go wrong? They both join the podcast to discuss what to expect from Trump’s second coming. (03:11) Then: Will and Gus take us through some of their favourite pieces from the magazine, including Michael Hann’s Pop review and Cosmo Landesman’s City Life column. (16:38) Next: Flora Watkins writes

Lucy Dunn

Are Scottish Tories causing trouble for Rishi Sunak?

10 min listen

Lucy Dunn speaks to James Heale and Katy Balls about the slightly muted reaction to the budget. Labour has compared the announcements to Liz Truss’s unfunded tax cuts and Scottish Tories have criticised the chancellor’s decision to extend the windfall tax on the profits of North Sea oil. But is this really the pre-election budget?

David Shipley

The catalogue of errors that left Joshua Jacques free to kill

The horror of the crimes of Joshua Jacques, who murdered his girlfriend and three members of her family in south London while high on drugs, is made all the worse because Jacques should never have been free to kill. The 29-year-old, who was jailed for life last week for the brutal murder of his partner Samantha Drummonds, her mother Tanysha, her grandmother Dolet, and her grandmother’s partner, Denton, in April 2022, had a string of convictions, including for drug offences and robbery. At the time of the murders, Jacques had been out of prison for less than six months. He was considered high risk, yet nothing was done to stop

Steerpike

Penny Mordaunt comes to Michelle Donelan’s defence

It looks like more bad press is headed Michelle Donelan’s way. The Science and Tech Secretary had to issue a humiliating apology on Tuesday and retract false accusations she made about an academic after not checking her facts properly. It also transpires that Donelan received legal advice about tweeting her letter of complaint before she made it public, though the government won’t say what exactly that advice was. But to make matters worse, Donelan is letting the taxpayer pick up the tab. She agreed to pay the damages, but it soon emerged that the Science, Innovation and Technology department would cover the costs — a sum of £15,000. Cue predictable outrage. And

Kate Andrews

Could Jeremy Hunt actually abolish National Insurance?

Could Jeremy Hunt really abolish employee National Insurance (NI)? His additional 2p cut announced in yesterday’s Budget seems to be the start of what the Tories might offer up in their election manifesto. Hunt has now suggested the end goal would be to merge income tax with employee NI, helping to simplify the tax code. The point was further made by Rishi Sunak at the Centre for Policy Studies’ 50th anniversary dinner last night: that it should be the Conservative party’s ‘plan, long term, to end that unfairness’ of taxing income twice. But is this in any way possible? To abolish employee NI comes with a price tag of roughly

Steerpike

Papers deliver verdict on ‘fiscal drag queen’s’ Budget

Jeremy Hunt is facing a day of reckoning after announcing the Budget on Wednesday. The Chancellor framed his statement as a tax-cutting package, but has faced considerable blowback for taxing by stealth. He was even dubbed the ‘fiscal drag queen’ on the Radio 4’s Today programme – watch out Ru Paul. This was no election-winning Budget There’s been a mixed response in today’s papers. The Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph both lead on the issue of national insurance and its possible demise: the Telegraph reports that Hunt confirmed last night that abolishing NI was ‘our ambition long term’, while the Mail quotes Treasury minister Bim Afolami: ‘We want to eliminate that double tax on work.’ It comes after Hunt repeated

Brendan O’Neill

Who could object to a Muslim war memorial?

I don’t understand right-wingers who spend most of their time on the internet. Often they’re found tut-tutting over what they view as the haughty refusal of Muslims to integrate into British society. And yet when it is proposed that we build a monument to the Muslims who fought with us in two world wars – surely the ultimate act of integration into a nation’s values – they spit out their tea in fury. They’re hopping mad when Muslims don’t integrate, and ticked off when they do. What gives? Some keyboard warriors see it differently This is the news that the government will give £1 million towards a memorial for Muslim

Steerpike

Cummings takes his revenge on Sunak

If Jeremy Hunt didn’t have enough on his hands with post-Budget tensions rising within his own party, he’s now got the wrath of Dominic Cummings to contend with. Not long after the Chancellor announced the Spring budget, Cummings took to Twitter to issue some timely reminders… If [Boris Johnson] had stuck to the deal…you’d be about to watch Vote Leave massacring NPC-Starmer in an uncompetitive election with [the] UK on a totally different trajectory…instead of farce old Tories disintegrating everything they touch and breaking every promise from 2019 while pissing about with trivia like today. Ouch. Signing off with a sting, Cummings added the hashtags ‘#TheStartupParty’ and ‘#DilynsWar’ — in

Owen Matthews

Putin may seem confident – but Russia’s future is bleak

How old will you be when Vladimir Putin’s next presidential term ends in 2030? Which of today’s world leaders will still be in office? By that time Putin will have been in power for 29 years, and just under half the population of the Earth at that time will have been born during his reign. On current form, Putin is set to see in at least two more US presidents – or more, if he chooses to stay in power until 2036. Putin has made a fetish of defending a Russian national sovereignty that no one had attempted to destroy When Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine in 2022 many

Rod Liddle

Who fact checks the BBC’s fact-checkers?

Idon’t suppose it will surprise many Jewish people that BBC Verify – as staffed by people with ‘forensic investigative skills’ – used a rabid pro-Palestinian with links to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps when adjudicating on an alleged Israeli attack against a Palestinian aid convoy in Gaza. Verify – a new unit which is, of course, pristine and even-handed – turned to a ‘journalist’ called Mahmoud Awadeyah for an unbiased description of exactly what happened to the convoy, unbothered by the fact that this is a man who danced a jig of joy when Israelis were killed in a rocket attack and warned them that there was more of the

Katy Balls

No. 10 is in no rush to call an election

Ahead of the Budget, Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt met MPs for drinks in the Prime Minister’s parliamentary office to try to temper expectations. The Chancellor informed those present that, while he is a low-tax Conservative, he is not a magician. Yes, lots of MPs want him to slash taxes to revive the Tories’ standing in the polls, but he can’t escape reality. In other words, spending is too great and has to be paid for. No Tory can ignore that basic fact. As one government figure puts it: ‘Calling an election during a recession? Genius’ This is why the Budget he announced on Wednesday fell short of some of

Wednesday

6 Mar 2024

James Heale

Hunt’s Budget sparks mixed reaction among Tory MPs

Labour are keen to depict the Budget as a flop Having completed his speech to the House, Jeremy Hunt spent the afternoon doing the usual post-Budget rituals. Alongside a round of interviews, the Chancellor gave his traditional speech to the 1922 committee of Tory MPs. Normally, these appearances are accompanied by a round of cheers, applause and desk-banging of near-Pyongyang levels. Today the desk-banging lasted a mere three seconds in what some took to be a sign of the lack of enthusiasm which his Budget inspired. Turnout was low too: estimates put the attendance among MPs as between two to three dozen. ‘I never understand why we do these things