Kemi Badenoch fails geography test
Geography isn't Kemi Badenoch's strong suit it seems. Speaking at the Welsh Conservative conference in Llangollen on Friday, she said it was 'wonderful to meet so many MSPs'. Of course they were sitting a couple of hundred miles away in Holyrood. At least last year when Badenoch introduced Ben Houchen as the newly re-elected Conservative mayor for 'Tyne Tees' (rather than Tees Valley) she was only 45 miles off the mark. 'Why is nobody listening to the Tories?', a Labour source quipped to the Huffington Post after the gaffe. 'Answers on a postcard … although I suspect Badenoch would send her answers to the wrong address.'
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New European
34 minutes ago
- New European
The chancellor has the worst job in government
Rachel Reeves is undoubtedly doing the job at a difficult time. Fourteen years of Conservative government left both the public finances and public services in a parlous state. Fixing the former requires a tight grip of the purse strings, while fixing the latter necessarily means loosening them. To make things worse, the disastrously brief reign of Liz Truss showed the perils of testing whether markets would tolerate a chancellor taking a chance with the public finances – and the markets resoundingly said 'no'. It is a wonder that anyone wants to be chancellor – and have no doubt, hundreds of MPs would chop off several fingers, perhaps even their own, for a chance at the job – because it is surely the worst job in government. You are near the apex of political power in the UK, and your job is to say 'no' to all of your colleagues and then explain to the public why they can't have nice things. That leaves the chancellor walking a dangerously narrow path, trying to find enough money to deliver the improvements her government has promised the public, without allowing the public finances to tip into a fresh crisis. Thanks to changing the fiscal rules, next week she will announce some £100bn in new investment over the next five years – new roads, rail, infrastructure of all sorts, as well as new defence spending. But this is likely to be overshadowed by reports of fresh rounds of austerity in key spending departments in their day-to-day finances. Labour is fighting mightily to make sure no-one uses the 'austerity' word, but this will surely be in vain. Spending cuts by any other name land just as uneasily with Labour MPs who feel this was the opposite of what they came into politics to do. No-one should suggest Rachel Reeves has an easy job, nor that she's been doing nothing – but a week out from revealing her spending plans, she has certainly made it easier for those who can't see any sense in what she is doing. Speaking on Wednesday, Reeves recommitted herself to her fiscal rules, to not raising VAT, income tax or national insurance, and to promising that the major tax hikes of her first budget are a 'one off' – and by implication, she committed herself to budget cuts across the next few years, too. This is certain to cause despair in policymaking circles, as well as on her own benches. Reeves's plans barely meet her rules, to the point that even just six months after her first budget she had to scrabble to find billions more in cuts or extra spending to meet the updated forecasts. Even in normal times, Reeves could expect to have to do the same twice a year for the rest of parliament, but these are not normal times. For one, the US president attempts to upend the rules of world trade several times a month. Despite all this abnormality, Reeves is trying to govern like a peacetime chancellor during a period of steady growth. More than that, if politics is the art of the possible, Reeves seems determined to ensure the range of what is 'possible' is narrow: in the first year of a government with a landslide majority, she has ruled out any kind of major tax reforms. Council tax doesn't work, isn't fair, and hasn't been reassessed since 1991, but Labour won't touch it. National insurance is unfair and benefits rich pensioners at the expense of poor working age adults, but it won't be touched. The interaction of the income tax and benefit systems is a complicated mess, and again will be left unreformed. Social care has been punted until the next parliament. Labour will never have an opportunity like this to fix some of the big challenges facing the British state, and Reeves and Starmer are making a deliberate decision to duck every hard decision. That leaves them tinkering around the margins, trying to make the sums add up, without changing anything fundamental. That is a choice they are free to make, of course, but it is the exact same choice as was made by their predecessors in government, and is likely to turn out just as badly. There is a truism in Westminster that Labour has no shortage of policies, but no overarching vision. With her approach to the Treasury, Reeves is ensuring that no vision can emerge, either – ministers will have to dream small, and hope they can do better than the last government with good intentions, and a little more capital spending. If there is such a thing as Reevesism, it is putting your head down, trying to make no mistakes, and hoping something comes along to make things better. There are surely worse philosophies, but it is not the stuff of which history is made. Unless Reeves is very lucky, it will not be enough to keep her in the Treasury for five years, either.
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
Starmer's new bus scheme puts him on the path of failed prime ministers
Northern transport schemes have become something of a panic button for prime ministers worried about falling popularity in the polls. With Sir Keir Starmer less popular than Sir Ed Davey, his Liberal Democrat counterpart, the Labour leader sent his Chancellor out to bat for him with Wednesday's announcement. Yet close watchers of politics might feel that some of the sums unveiled by Rachel Reeves, as part of what she described as 'the biggest ever investment by a British government in transport links in our city regions and the surrounding towns', are suspiciously similar to previous pledges. Those include £978 million for transport projects in the Tees Valley region, a sum previously announced in 2023 by the Tories and then placed under review by Labour after last year's general election. A similar situation holds true for the Liverpool city region, which was awarded £1.581 billion in 2023 under the city region sustainable transport settlement, after Wednesday's £1.581 billion award under Labour's newly unveiled transport for city regions funding settlements. Gareth Davies, the shadow treasury minister, said: 'Rachel Reeves is scrambling to salvage her failing economic plan after the Prime Minister has made U-turn after U-turn, punching holes in her credibility. 'She needed to do better than copying and pasting announcements made by the previous Conservative government. The country is not falling for their lies any more. Britain deserves better.' Here are some of the times in the recent past when prime ministers have reached for northern transport funding announcements to shore up their sagging popularity. Gordon Brown's 2009 light-rail systems Mr Brown, who succeeded Sir Tony Blair as prime minister, said he would improve public transport in Sunderland if his party won the 2010 general election. His manifesto that year also promised 'upgrades to Tyne and Wear light-rail systems' and electronic ticketing to promote 'cheap and easy' public transport across the country. It wasn't the first time Mr Brown had fallen back on promises of boosting transport spending outside London and the South East. The previous December, he opened the HS1 railway line in Kent while promising that it would become 'a blueprint for the future of high-speed rail travel in the United Kingdom'. He added, referring to the then not-yet-started project, that HS2 was going to 'make the case for a national high-speed rail network across this country'. Not long after Sir Tony handed over the premiership to Mr Brown, an act followed by a slump in the opinion polls and strong rumours of a 2008 snap election, the new prime minister was forced to deny that transport spending was skewed towards London and the South East. 'The Government has doubled expenditure on transport. It continues to move forward with its road programme, but also its rail and infrastructure programme,' Mr Brown said that year. 'And I don't think it's true to say that transport spending has been skewed to one particular area. In every part of the country, we are expanding transport according to the needs of these different areas. 'The important thing to recognise about transport is that we are investing in every part of the country.' Cameron on northern roads and railways In October 2010, the Tory-Lib Dem government announced deep public spending cuts as part of George Osborne's austerity programme, with the transport budget set for cuts of around 15 per cent. Mr Osborne spearheaded the Northern Powerhouse Rail project, a slogan that promised a lateral high-speed railway line across northern England, alongside plans for HS2 to move off the drawing board and into reality. As the 2015 general election loomed, however, David Cameron – now Baron Cameron of Chipping Norton – started adopting the familiar refrain of North-centric transport announcements in an attempt to woo voters. 'I think it is important that to reassure people in the next parliament we're going to spend three times more on other transport schemes, road and rail schemes, as we'll spend on HS2,' he told ITV News in 2014, ahead of the following year's general election. A year later, the prime minister was back out on the stump, promising in a YouTube video addressed to voters in Accrington, Lancashire: 'Today I'm here in the North West talking about how we're going to invest in our universities, in our science base, how we're going to build the roads and railways and infrastructure that we need for our future so we get a balanced recovery right across our country.' The promise may have worked: in 2015 the Conservatives secured a clear majority, meaning they could govern without their erstwhile Lib Dem coalition partners. A year after that, Mr Cameron dramatically stepped down after losing the 2016 EU membership referendum. Theresa May's 'transforming cities' Mr Cameron's 2016 successor was Theresa May, who felt the heat of unpopularity as early as two years into her premiership. As part of a policy intended to ' help spread growth beyond London ', a total of ten city regions around the country – including Greater Manchester, Cambridge, Peterborough, Plymouth, Southampton and Sheffield, among others – were handed a total of £1.7 billion between them for transport projects. 'Our great cities and their suburbs are home to millions of people and world-beating businesses,' Mrs May said at the time. Faced with growing calls for a general election in 2019, she went on to reassure Midlands political and business leaders that the Tories were backing the full length of HS2's northern leg. She said in a letter to the Midlands Connect trade association: 'I would like to take this opportunity to assure you that the Government remains committed to delivering the whole of HS2 Phase 2, and will continue to work closely with you to ensure that the project meets your aspirations for growth and regeneration.' Boris Johnson promises lots to Leeds… After Mrs May stepped down in 2019, Boris Johnson won the 2019 Conservative Party leadership election – and called a general election in the same year. Having been mayor of London, the one-time Telegraph correspondent was already firmly linked in the public imagination with transport projects – but that did not stop him from reaching for the familiar northern transport announcements when the polls were down. Mr Johnson said in an early 2020 speech: 'I want to be the prime minister who does with Northern Powerhouse Rail what we did for Crossrail in London, and today I am going to deliver on my commitment to that vision with a pledge to fund the Leeds to Manchester route.' That route has, so far, not materialised. … and Liz Truss repeats his pledges During her 45 days in office, Liz Truss had little time to say much. Yet in the run-up to her abortive prime ministerial term, she renewed the Conservatives' pledge to build Northern Powerhouse Rail. 'Leeds is still the largest city in Europe without its own metro network and I would work to fix that. And I will get Northern Powerhouse Rail built,' she told a Tory leadership hustings in July 2022. She did not, in fact, get the train project onto the tracks during her two months in No 10. Rishi Sunak and HS2 Rishi Sunak took a much bolder stance than his predecessors, being best remembered in transport circles for cancelling the northern leg of HS2 and freezing National Highways' smart motorways rollout. Yet by 2024, paving the ground for that year's general election, the Tory leader was keen to position himself as a generous benefactor for northern transport projects. ' Through reallocating HS2 funding, we're not only investing billions of pounds directly back into our smaller cities, towns and rural areas across the North and Midlands, but we are also empowering their local leaders to invest in the transport projects that matter most to their communities – this is levelling up in action,' he said in a statement that February. His government's 2023 announcement that HS2 Phase 2 funding was being redirected into various northern transport projects formed the basis of Wednesday's announcement by Rachel Reeves. Keen observers of politics watching Ms Reeves's speech could be forgiven for believing they had become trapped in the film Groundhog Day. But the refrain is so familiar from prime ministers in political hot water that it has become a predictable staple of these types of set-piece speech.
The Courier
an hour ago
- The Courier
Businessman who plastered racist grooming gang posters around Fife claims it was a 'senior moment'
A radicalised racist who spent a fortnight sticking posters portraying vile lies about Pakistani 'grooming gangs' around Fife has been hit with a 'substantial' fine. Grandad Ian McLauchlan was caught on CCTV sticking up slur-laden posters around Leven, Methil and Kirkcaldy. The businessman and landlord, 72, claimed his conduct was a 'senior moment' but had previously told police it was a cover-up involving teachers and social workers. Fifers were left shocked earlier this year by McLauchlan's flyposting, which exhibited his far-right views. McLauchlan's posters claimed the Labour party had instructed police to do nothing about sexual abuse and heroin dealing and that local businesses were 'verified pedo shops', instructing readers to graffiti their premises. At the foot of his poster, McLauchlan ordered readers to view Stirling-based historian Neil Oliver's video on grooming gangs on the GB News YouTube channel. At Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court, a sentencing sheriff was provided with a three-page account of McLauchlan's campaign and photos of the posters. The agreed narrative of the offending revealed the first of his bigoted bills to be noticed was on a bus shelter on Overton Road in Kirkcaldy, near St Andrews High School. A dog walker spotted the soaking flier at 10am on January 30 and removed it before contacting police. At 11am on February 3, police attended Sainsbury's in Leven for an unrelated matter. Staff handed over an identical A4 poster a customer had found pinned to a trolley bay in the car park. The following morning, another witness found one of McLauchlan's posters on a bus stop at Groban, Leven. Police removed it and carried out a search of the wider area. They seized another poster from the bus stop on the corner of Scoonie Road and Haughgate Street. McLauchlan's flyposting was discovered again on February 12. A woman using the ATM at the Co-op on Methilhaven Road, Methil, noticed a poster on the Salvation Army clothing bank there. Having seen identical posters circulating on social media, she alerted police. On February 17, McLauchlan was finally rumbled by a man walking to work on Welleseley Road, Methil, who found a poster on a bus stop and alerted police. Officers were able to review CCTV there and saw McLauchlan's white Ford Fiesta van park up two days earlier. He was caught on camera putting up posters. Police traced him the next day and found a bag of identical posters on his van's front seat. Further evidence was recovered from his home in Bayview Crescent, Methil. McLauchlan told officers he 'knew this' from politicians who he could cite for court and 'they all knew'. He repeated business owners from ethnic groups were grooming young girls, that police did not do anything and this was known by teachers and social workers. McLauchlan told officers it was 'all a big cover up.' McLauchlan's solicitor Kerr Sneddon explained McLauchlan's only other – non-analogous – conviction was 15 years ago. 'It's particularly unfortunate this 72-year-old is in court for the second time in his life. 'This all seems to have started when a young lady locally had given him a leaflet about her own abuse – that was in 2024. 'I think what he's done is then researched all the things that we hear about and certain members of society – some of which are well-founded, it must be said. 'Of course, we know when you go onto the internet, if you research a certain topic it creates an algorithm. 'It creates more and more and more. I think that is what has happened to Mr McLauchlan.' 'With no disrespect to him, it may be I think some degree of age has kicked in,' Mr Sneddon continued. 'He very much accepts the reasonable person would consider these types of poster would stir up problems – quite significant problems.' Mr Sneddon added: 'He describes it as a stupid, senior moment and something he deeply regrets. 'He is still a very hard-working man, he works full time Monday to Friday and has his own business… and a separate business renting out properties.' At a hearing last month, McLauchlan pled guilty to displaying posters which contained racist and offensive material and sentencing was deferred for reports. He admitted that on various occasions between January 30 and February 15 this year, he communicated material a reasonable person would consider to be threatening, abusive or insulting. He admitted this breached the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021. McLauchlan spent a night in the cells following his arrest. Sheriff Allan Findlay ordered McLauchlan to pay a fine of £2,000 and a £75 victim surcharge. The sheriff labelled the offending 'in one view misguided, in another view very serious.' He added: 'The potential that this conduct could have in stirring up racial unrest will be marked by a substantial fine.' At the time, Inspector Matt Spencer said: 'We understand the distressing impact these incidents have on our communities. 'Police Scotland takes reports of hate crime very seriously and our officers are committed to ensuring this will not be tolerated.'
