Politics

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

Wednesday

21 Sep 2022

Will Truss’s plans to spend big work?

Big spending announcements tend to come alongside big press conferences. During the pandemic years, furlough announcements, extensions and business support were delivered in front of a podium, with rough figures usually attached to each policy. It was the same for the energy crisis, at the start. But as the costs of the support schemes rose, we started to lose transparency. The £9 billion announcement in February came with a headline figure and a rough breakdown of where the money would come from. The £15 billion announcement in May came with a headline figure, but much of the funding stream was glossed over, assumed to be borrowed. These multi-billion pound support

Katy Balls

What’s behind Putin’s mobilisation?

15 min listen

Vladimir Putin warned the West that, if pushed, Russia would use a nuclear weapon. How seriously should we take his threat? And reports emerged overnight that Liz Truss will cut stamp duty to increase demand for housing. But will that help more people get onto the housing ladder? Katy Balls speaks to James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman. Produced by Max Jeffery.

Brendan O’Neill

Something extraordinary is happening in Iran

The images coming out of Iran are remarkable. Women are ripping off their hijabs and burning them in public. They’re dancing in the streets and shaking their freed hair as onlookers whoop and cheer. These are stunning acts of defiance in a theocratic state in which women are expected to mildly, meekly accept their status as covered-up second-class citizens. Of course these heart-stirring protests are a response to something unimaginably awful: the death of Mahsa Amini. Mahsa, a beautiful 22-year-old Kurdish woman from the city of Saqqez in Iranian Kurdistan, was arrested by the morality police in Tehran last week for failing to wear her hijab in the ‘appropriate’ way.

William Atkinson

Oxford’s Oriental name change is a mistake

Oxford’s Faculty of Oriental Studies has had a name change: it will now be known as the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies. University bigwigs opted to drop the word ‘oriental’ over fears that it might be too outdated and potentially offensive. This is a small-minded attack on a great and important subject. It’s also a distraction from the university’s real problems. The word’s presence in the faculty’s name hasn’t stopped Oxford from accepting more students from China, India, and the rest of what we once knew as the ‘Orient’ than ever previously – just as Cecil Rhodes’ statue hasn’t prevented the university from having more black students than ever before. So if

Bob Seely MP

How should the West respond to Putin’s nuclear threats?

Can this really be happening? Sadly, the answer is yes. President Putin has just reiterated his threat to use nuclear weapons and announced that Russian-controlled Ukrainian territory will become part of the Russian Federation. Is nuclear weapon use likely or certain? No, not by any means, and we should speak with a sense of proportion and care. Putin wants us to be frightened. But we also need to stop burying our heads in the sand, as we have done with Russia for too long. To minimise the chances of nuclear use – tactical or strategic – we must assume that the threat is real and that at some point, probably

Steerpike

Watch: Kay Burley’s ‘gotcha’ backfires

After a brief hiatus during the course of the country’s morning period, it appears that the British broadcasters are back to doing what they know best: namely, trying to catch out politicians. Mr S wonders though if some of them may need a bit better material. This week the new Secretary of State for Digital, Michelle Donelan appeared on the broadcast round where she was grilled by Sky’s Kay Burley. In the interview, clearly thinking she was onto a winner, Burley quizzed Donelan about her brief 36-hour period as education secretary before she resigned over the Chris Pincher scandal, which entitled her to a severance payout of just under £17,000.

Stephen L. Miller

Joe Biden’s words don’t matter anymore

Do the president’s words matter or not? This should be a very simple question, yet as we’ve seen with Joe Biden, on the rare occasion he gives an interview to someone other than the White House Easter Bunny, nothing is ever so simple. Every Biden sit-down seems to raise more questions than answers. On Sunday, when Biden talked to Scott Pelley from 60 Minutes, it was his first interview in months with someone other than Jay Leno or Jimmy Kimmel. Biden has done fewer interviews than any modern president, and this week it wasn’t hard to see why. When the president was overseas attending the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II,

Toby Young

Why has PayPal cancelled the Free Speech Union?

I thought one of the benefits of being cancelled – I lost five positions in quick succession at the beginning of 2018 – is that it immunises you from being cancelled again. After all, what more dirt could be thrown at me? The offence archaeologists did such a thorough job four years ago, sifting through everything I’d said or written dating back to 1987, that there was nothing left to dig up. But it turns out that was naive. Last week I got cancelled again. The instrument of my downfall was PayPal, the technology company that supports online money transfers and operates as a payment processor for online businesses, auction

Ross Clark

Slashing stamp duty would be a wise move

The ‘rabbit out of the hat’ in Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini budget this Friday is likely to be a cut in stamp duty on property purchases. If so, it will be a popular and wise decision. Not only might it help generate extra activity in a housing market which looks like flagging as interest rates bite – or maybe mitigate a decline in activity – it should help to promote labour mobility by making it easier for job-seekers to move around the country to look for work or further their careers. Moreover, depending on at what level it is set, a stamp duty cut might well generate extra revenue, too. Never

Mark Galeotti

Even Putin knows he is losing

Vladimir Putin’s latest escalation over Ukraine not only demonstrates that even he doesn’t think he’s winning the war but what happens when a leader knows he has to do ‘something’ but doesn’t quite know what. Momentum was, after all, no longer on his side. He seems to have hoped that over a hard winter, either Ukraine would lose the will to fight or the West would succumb to ‘Ukraine fatigue’. However, Ukraine’s impressive counter-offensive in the north-east not only confirmed Kyiv’s continued and even growing will and ability to fight but also galvanised Western support. Meanwhile, the West is not alone in feeling the pain. Putin went to Samarkand for

Lisa Haseldine

How seriously should we take Putin’s nuclear threat?

Vladimir Putin has announced the partial mobilisation of the Russian armed forces. In a pre-recorded address delayed from last night, the Russian president declared that all reservists would be called up for service in Ukraine. Nuclear war, he stressed, was not off the table. In tones bordering on the hysterical, Putin declared that Nato leaders had been discussing the possibility and acceptability of using nuclear weapons against Russia: ‘I want to remind those who allow themselves to make such statements about Russia, we too have various means of destruction at our disposal that are more varied and modern than those owned by Nato countries. If Russia’s territorial integrity is threatened,

Steerpike

Zarah Sultana’s nationalisation plans derailed

It’s not been an easy time for Zarah Sultana, the Labour party firebrand cum TikTok influencer. Not only was the MP reduced to tears last year after the departure of her sainted Jeremy Corbyn, but she now faces a desperate struggle to hold on to her Coventry seat as well, which she won by a tiny 401 votes in 2019. So spare a thought for Sultana, who was due to speak at an ‘Enough is Enough’ campaign in Leeds last night – alongside that intellectual titan of the Labour party, Richard Burgon – but found herself instead on a delayed train outside London for three hours. Now Steerpike can sympathise

Svitlana Morenets

Putin calls up 300,000 reservists

While most attention has focused on Vladimir Putin’s repetition of nuclear threats in his speech this morning, the takeaway in Ukraine is different: conscription has begun. This is deeply controversial in Russia given the war’s high mortality rate, but after the rout in the Kharkiv region Putin is running out of options. After his speech, given at 9 a.m. Moscow time, Russia’s minister of defence Sergei Shoigu announced that 300,000 reservists will be called up. ‘We are now at war not just with Ukraine but with the collective West too’, he said. Putin had referred to this in his speech. ‘The decree on partial mobilisation has been signed. Mobilisation activities

James Kirkup

Does Britain care more about pubs than schools?

Politics is about priorities: what do we consider to be important? I worry that Britain doesn’t attach enough importance to children and their education. As the first lockdown eased in the summer of 2020, I was unhappy that pubs reopened before schools. I thought that said something about our priorities as a nation An interview by Liz Truss in New York gives me no reason to change that gloomy view. During the interview, atop the Empire State Building, the PM was naturally keen to talk up the benefits of the energy price support package to be set out on Friday. That package, she was keen to say, will cover not

Tuesday

20 Sep 2022

Mark Galeotti

How Russia’s ‘shock jocks’ covered the Queen’s funeral

Modern Russia is a propaganda state, but not in the same way as the Soviet Union. The Kremlin has squeezed out any independent media, but all the same, the coverage of the Queen’s funeral demonstrated how this is a post-modern propaganda state, in which competing ‘narrative entrepreneurs’ try to make their mark and please the boss. As I have written before, the official line on the Queen’s death was strikingly respectful, taking its lead from Vladimir Putin’s own message of condolences. There were some spiteful and critical comments, primarily on social media, but even these were then shouted down in what seems to have been a genuine public outcry. Although

Angus Colwell

What’s behind Putin’s no-show?

Has Vladimir Putin carried out a cynical stunt, or ducked out of a seismic decision? That’s the debate among Kremlinologists tonight, as the Russian President failed to show up for a planned 8 p.m. address to the Russian people. Faced with catastrophic losses of territory in north-east Ukraine, a weaker Putin has been considering his options. One that has been suggested is fully mobilising the population to fight, and introducing martial law, which the State Duma (parliament) proposed today. Men aged between 18 and 65 would be banned from leaving the country. Today also saw the announcement of referendums on Russian annexation for the Luhansk and Donetsk regions of Ukraine, as

Katy Balls

Truss gets ready to be unpopular

Liz Truss is ready to be unpopular. Or at least that is what the new Prime Minister is keen to suggest. On a media round from New York – where she is attending her first international summit since entering No. 10 – she told the BBC’s Chris Mason: If that means taking difficult decisions which are going to help Britain become more competitive, help Britain become more attractive, help more investment flow into our country, yes, I’m absolutely prepared to make those decisions. ‘Yes, yes I am’, was how she answered Beth Rigby’s question about whether she was prepared to be unpopular. Is this significant? Well, it points to two things. First,

Robert Peston

Truss’s energy bailout is eye-watering

The government will announce tomorrow that it will cover the costs of more than £1 in every £3 of gas consumed by businesses and households over the next six months. There has been no subsidy of a market price on this scale in British history. Estimates of the final bill for taxpayers range from £100 billion to £200 billion, or more than the annual cost of running the NHS – if the scheme for households lasts for two years, as promised, and the separate one for all businesses runs for six months, to be followed by a less ambitious business scheme for another 18 months. This is a subsidy of more

Lisa Haseldine

Luhansk and Donetsk to hold ‘referendums’ on joining Russia

Authorities in the Russian-occupied Luhansk and Donetsk regions of Ukraine have announced that both would hold referendums on formally joining the Russian Federation this coming weekend. Although the breakaway states of the Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republic (LPR and DPR respectively) have been controlled by Putin-loyal separatists, they have technically remained semi-autonomous. Similar announcements about a referendum have been made in the recently-invaded regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Russia, of course, has welcomed the decision – the Chairman of the State Duma Vycheslav Volodin declared its readiness to provide Luhansk and Donetsk with total support. Putin is due to give an address to the nation on the subject this evening. In the

Kate Andrews

How far will Truss’s ‘growth plan’ go?

It was only a few weeks ago that Liz Truss was talking about holding an ‘emergency’ fiscal event towards the end of September, mainly to address rising energy bills and how the government would support people through the winter. This targeted approach helped to justify the speed at which her new government would announce some major policy, and even more importantly was used to justify not commissioning analysis from the Office for Budget Responsibility to go alongside it. Energy bills were too time sensitive for the government to wait for the OBR to run all the numbers and produce forecasts, Team Truss’s argument went. The independent assessment of her plans (which must