Newslinks for Sunday 29th September 2024

Netanyahu declares the assassination of Nasrallah a “historic turning point”

“Benjamin Netanyahu hailed the assassination of Hezbollah’s leader as a “historic turning point” that would transform the balance of power in the Middle East. Israel’s prime minister said Hassan Nasrallah was “not a terrorist, he was the terrorist” in a statement on Saturday night. While warning of difficult days ahead, Mr Netanyahu said the killing was a necessary step towards Israel’s goal of returning citizens to their homes in the north and “changing the balance of power in the region for years to come”. It came after Joe Biden called Nasrallah’s assassination “justice” for his many victims, while Iran confirmed one of its top generals died alongside the Hezbollah leader.” – Sunday Telegraph

• Iran warns Hezbollah leader’s death ‘will not go unavenged’ – BBC
• Iranian general killed alongside Hezbollah chief – Sunday Telegraph
• Israel is winning its war on terror – Leader, Sunday Telegraph
• Ground war may be a step too far – Leader, Sunday Times
• Israel has exposed the lie at the heart of Starmer and Biden’s foreign policy – John Bolton, Sunday Telegraph
• We can’t afford to doubt the West’s moral legitimacy. It is the steel we need to face down enemies of liberty – Matthew Syed, Sunday Times
• Israel has proved it has the most impressive military in the world – Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, Sunday Telegraph
• Lessons from Iraq – David Petraeus and Andrew Roberts, Sunday Times

Duffield resigns as a Labour MP and denounces Starmer for freebies…

“Rosie Duffield has resigned as a Labour MP, blaming Sir Keir Starmer’s “cruel and unnecessary” policies and the freebies row that is engulfing him and his party. Duffield, 53, has become the fastest MP to jump ship after a general election in modern political history. She is writing to the prime minister today informing him of her decision to resign the whip “with immediate effect”. In her excoriating resignation letter, Duffield condemned Starmer for accepting gifts worth more than £100,000, including clothing, glasses and accommodation paid for by Lord Alli, the Labour peer.” – Sunday Times

• Duffield has penned the best denunciation of Starmer you’ll ever read – Tim Stanley, Sunday Telegraph
• Lord Alli criticised ‘entitled’ MPs helping themselves to freebies in wake of expenses scandal – Sunday Telegraph
• A dagger through the heart of Starmer – Sunday Express
• Lord Alli let Team Starmer use another luxury property – Sunday Times

…as the Labour Leader hits a new low in his poll ratings

“Keir Starmer’s personal ratings dropped further during his first Labour conference as prime minister, according to the latest Opinium poll for the Observer. While party leaders hope for a conference bounce as a result of wall-to-wall media coverage, Starmer suffered the reverse effect, as his ratings plunged to their lowest ever level, and well below those of Rishi Sunak…Even before the Labour gathering in Liverpool – originally billed as a chance to celebrate its return to power after 14 years – Starmer’s ratings had collapsed 45 points since July to -26 by last weekend (with 24% approving of the job he was doing, against 50% who disapproved). Conference week, however, saw a further drop of four points to -30, by far the lowest he has ever recorded.” – The Observer

Johnson: I’m not sure the lockdown was effective

“It was only later that I started to look at the curves of the pandemic around the world – the double hump that seemed to rise and fall irrespective of the approaches taken by governments. There were always two waves, whether you were in China, where lockdowns were ruthlessly enforced, or in Sweden, where they took a more voluntary approach. Looking back, I wonder if King Cnut was right all along when he stationed his throne on the shore of the Thames and asked his courtiers to watch as he vainly ordered the tide to withdraw. Maybe there are limits to human agency; maybe it isn’t possible for government action to repel the waves of a highly contagious disease, any more than it is possible to repel the tide of the Thames.” – Boris Johnson, Mail on Sunday. Extract from his memoirs Unleashed.

• My last meeting with the Queen and her inspirational words of wisdom – Boris Johnson, Mail on Sunday
• ‘My mistake was apologising’: Boris Johnson bites back on partygate – Sunday Times
• Former prime minister’s claims about wanting to seize Covid vaccines being held in the EU ‘may have been a joke’ – The Observer

Conservative leadership 1) Badenoch: Not all cultures are equal

“There is a feeling amongst politicians from all parties that talking about immigration in terms of culture as opposed to economics is controversial. The fear of being labelled xenophobic or “culture warriors” leads many to say “People don’t mind immigration as long as it is legal and those who come here work hard and stay out of trouble”. This is a very low bar for deciding who comes into our country…A migrant can arrive with their possessions and their skills but can’t bring a new home, hospital bed or school place. What they can bring is their culture. Culture is more than cuisine or clothes. It’s also customs which may be at odds with British values. We cannot be naïve and assume immigrants will automatically abandon ancestral ethnichostilities at the border, or that all cultures are equally valid. They are not. I am struck for example, by the number of recent immigrants to the UK who hate Israel. That sentiment has no place here.” Kemi Badenoch, Sunday Telegraph

• New Conservative leader must end old obsessions to succeed – Leader, Sunday Times
• Tories can rebuild only with giants, not pygmies – Anthony Seldon, Sunday Times
• Serious, determined unity can pull Tories from swamp of defeat – Leader, Mail on Sunday
• Tories need to pick a new leader NOW and unite to hold Starmer to account – The Sun on Sunday

>Today: ToryDiary: Jenrick starts to close the gap with Badenoch in our pre-conference leadership survey

Conservative leadership 2) Tugendhat: This contest is about trust

“This contest is about more than choosing a new national leader, or a new policy agenda. It’s about restoring that lost trust, about gaining that permission to be heard again. It’s about remembering what we, as Conservatives, stand for. From Churchill to Thatcher, our greatest leaders have understood that leadership is not about managing decline. It’s about confronting challenges head-on and offering a vision that inspires people to believe in their country once more. The Conservative Party has always stood for something greater than itself. It is the party that has consistently fought to preserve the values that make this country extraordinary – freedom, opportunity, and responsibility. It led the fight against the forces of totalitarianism in the 20th century, and it should be leading the fight today against the forces of decline and division in our own country.” – Tom Tugendhat, Sunday Telegraph

• Tory hopeful promising a ‘Conservative revolution’ in health, housebuilding and how families are taxed. But he insists some decisions are for parents alone – Interview with Tom Tugendhat, Sunday Times

Conservative leadership 3) Jenrick: I’ll cut tax and red tape for small business

“We need to free British workers from the reams of bureaucracy that get in the way. There is no reason for small businesses or sole traders to be saddled with the same regulation as big corporations with huge back-office teams. We need a tax system that rewards risk-takers, not punishes them. We should take advantage of our Brexit freedoms and change the VAT thresholds so that small businesses can keep and invest more of the money they make. We should increase the thresholds to £100,000, as recommended by the Federation of Small Businesses, which would allow tens of thousands of businesses to have an additional untaxed turnover of £10,000. That would allow them to hire more staff and invest in equipment that boosts our productivity.” – Robert Jenrick, The Sun on Sunday

• Jenrick to give ‘rebel’ speech outside Tory conference – Sunday Telegraph

Conservative leadership 4) Ministers say Cleverly is the candidate they fear

“Ministers say James Cleverly is the candidate they do not want as the next Tory leader. ‘He’s the most likely to appeal to moderate voters,’ suggested one, while senior Government sources dismissed Kemi Badenoch as a threat to Labour, saying she is ‘too divisive’. Both are running to succeed Rishi Sunak, alongside Robert Jenrick and Tom Tugendhat. The candidates will set out their stall to party members at the annual conference, which starts today. Mr Jenrick is the bookmakers’ favourite after topping a poll of Tory MPs, although allies of Ms Badenoch say she is the most popular with members, who will have the final say once the contest is whittled down to two.” – Mail on Sunday

• Cleverly is the one that can take the fight to Starmer – Andrew Stephenson, Sunday Express

Conservative leadership 5) Ashcroft: Don’t be gulled by Labour’s rocky start. The Conservatives have a huge task

“There is plenty of discussion in the Tory party about how to rebuild, and especially on how to ‘unite the Right’. True, it will be hard for the Tories to win a majority if Reform continues to entice their former supporters, but it is important not to misunderstand that task. As in 2015 and 2019, the Conservatives win majorities when they attract previous Labour and Lib Dem voters and others who have never considered themselves part of the Right. We found switchers to Labour frustrated about the failure to tackle small-boat crossings, while just as many of those going to Reform were exasperated at NHS waiting times. Whichever direction they had scattered, former Tories told us that at its best the party stood for stable government and common sense, and were there for people who work and save and try to do the right thing.” – Lord Ashcroft, Mail on Sunday Findings from his latest book: Losing It: The Conservative Party And The 2024 General Election.

• Conservatives cannot win with their heads in the sand – Jesse Norman, Sunday Telegraph
• Tories must make the case for the freedoms we have almost forgotten – Janet Daley, Sunday Telegraph
• Core Tory values? They’re the last thing the next Tory leader will need – Dan Hodges, Mail on Sunday

Conservative leadership 6) Party Chairman call to reach out to all with Conservative values

“The new Conservative leader must make sure the party focuses on its traditional base rather than just chasing voters who defected to the likes of Reform, its chair has said before the Tories’ first conference since their crushing election defeat. Richard Fuller, the North Bedfordshire MP, who has served as interim chair since the election, will announce details of a review of the loss at the gathering in Birmingham, as well as structural changes to start modernising the party…Fuller is ideally placed to understand the anguish of ousted Tory MPs, having lost his original seat of Bedford to Labour in 2017. He returned in the other constituency two years later. Asked why he thinks so many traditional Tories lost faith, he said: “They were deeply disappointed in the behaviour and outcomes of the last five years by the parliamentary party. They felt that we were not united, that too often we didn’t have our eye on the ball of serving the national interest.” While a number of them “looked for anyone to register their protest”, whether the Lib Dems, Labour or Reform, a lot simply stayed at home and didn’t vote, he argued.” – The Observer

Government proposes decriminalises non-payment of the TV Licence fee

“Ministers are preparing to decriminalise non-payment of the BBC TV licence fee amid concern at the cost to the state of prosecution and claims that the offence unfairly penalises women. Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, and Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, are understood to agree that failure to pay the licence should no longer be a criminal offence. They are concerned that women are being “disproportionately” targeted. A change to the way that non-payment is enforced will be part of the negotiations between the government and the BBC in the forthcoming charter renewal discussions, which begin in January.” – Sunday Times

Other political news

• Sweets may be slapped with cigarette-style warnings to beat child obesity in Labour crackdown – The Sun on Sunday
• Has Tory-hating Carol Vorderman been hit by Labour’s war on second homes? – Mail on Sunday
• NHS hearing units misdiagnosed thousands of children and ‘did nothing’ – Sunday Times
• Labour set to water down Tory ‘green’ tax on packaging – Sunday Times
• EU deal allowing Channel migrants to be sent back to France ‘not on the table’ – Sunday Telegraph

Hannan: Conservatives must resist opportunism

“Opportunism can be habit-forming. Suppose Labour goes ahead with its plans to build more houses on the uglier parts of the green belt, which accounts for a disproportionate share of the diminished number of Tory MPs and councillors. Will their leader be strong enough to make a principled case for the housebuilding that, deep down, we all know to be necessary? In recent years, voters have preferred sweet illusions to bitter truths. The lockdown exaggerated that tendency. No politician dared point out that paying people to stay at home would mean higher taxes and prices. But there comes a point when illusions run out. Ireland reached it in 2010. At the rate Labour is going, Britain will reach it in 2026. By then, the Tories will need to have established themselves in the public mind as responsible. Are they up to it?” – Daniel Hannan, Sunday Telegraph

Colvile: Reeves’ retreat on non-doms may be too late

“Rachel Reeves has reportedly agreed to water down her plans to mitigate the most disastrous effects. It may, however, already be too late. Visa officers in Monaco and Abu Dhabi have apparently been working overtime over the summer, processing those fleeing the UK. Because it’s not just the non-doms. As Andy Haldane, formerly of the Bank of England, has said, business confidence has been “heading south” over the past few weeks. It turns out that telling people that you’re going to impose blood-curdling tax rises on “those with the broadest shoulders”, and then leaving them for three months to imagine what those rises might be, has what you might call a chilling effect.” – Robert Colvile, Sunday Times

News in brief

• How the Tories can bounce back – Patrick O’Flynn, The Spectator
• Labour’s puritanism should surprise no one – Harry Phibbs, CapX
• Starmer is a technocrat without a plan – Pratinav Anil, Unherd
• The Church of England should not be putting ideology before history – Marcia Mallow, The Critic

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