Labour's first year (in review) with Tim Shipman & Quentin Letts
In the magazine this week, Tim Shipman writes the cover piece to mark the occasion of Labour's first year in government. He takes readers through three chapters: from Sue Gray (freebies scandal and winter fuel cut) to Morgan McSweeney (a degree of professionalisation and dealing with the Donald) to the point at which 'things fall apart' (assisted dying, the welfare vote and Reeves's tears).
On the podcast, Tim is joined by The Spectator's James Heale as well as sketchwriter and long-time Westminster mischief-maker Quentin Letts to go through the events and personalities that have contributed to the dysfunction.
Listen for: Tim's run-in with Lord Hermer at the US Ambassador's bash; why Jeremy Corbyn's mooted political party could cause a chasm in the Labour party to rival the one tearing the Conservatives apart; who the targets for the chop might be, should there be a reshuffle; how young members of the Labour party are beginning their charm offensive on Angela Rayner; and why politicians have failed to grasp the banal fundamentals that make a great political performer.
Produced by Oscar Edmondson.
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The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Lord Woodley's intervention on IPP will only get prisoners' hopes up
Tonight, more than 2,500 people will spend yet another night in prison serving the long-abolished IPP sentence – the sentence of Imprisonment for Public Protection. Some of these people have been in prison for 20 years. On Friday, as Labour peer Lord Tony Woodley's private member's bill to resentence IPP prisoners reached committee stage in the House of Lords, peers urged prisons minister James Timpson to take decisive action to end the injustice of Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) jail terms. Everyone familiar with the IPP sentence has a shared understanding of the ravages of this sentence. We are committed to ending its impacts on people in prison, as well as the merry-go-round of recall to prison for people on IPP licences in the community. And yet, there is no agreed route to making this happen. The IPP sentence was established in 2005 by the last Labour government. It required an individual to serve a specified term, at which time they would need to apply to and be released by the Parole Board. Despite expectations that it would be used sparingly, it was used to imprison 8,711 people, including hundreds of children, who received an equivalent 'Detention for Public Protection' (DPP) sentence. Because the Parole Board release test is very high – intended for those who have committed the most serious offences – it has proved difficult for people serving the sentence to secure release. The sentence was abolished by the coalition government in 2013, though not retrospectively. There are just over 1,000 people who have never been released, of whom over 700 are more than a decade over their tariff. I recently met a young man in a Midlands prison who had received a two-year DPP as a 15-year-old. He has now spent more than half his life in prison. He was released a couple of years ago, only to be recalled to custody earlier in the year for being late to probation appointments, which clashed with his employment. Again behind bars, he felt he 'can never escape the torture of the sentence.' In 2022, the Justice Select Committee recommended a resentencing exercise, but with a vast majority of IPP prisoners significantly over tariff, most would need to be released immediately and without a licence. The government at the time rejected this solution on the grounds of public protection, as has the current government. It is worth remembering that the IPP sentence is not for a specific offence. These people were just given an indeterminate sentence, while other people who committed similar offences were given determinate sentences and released years ago. People released on an IPP sentence also don't have a huge propensity to violence or crime; more people on IPP sentences have died by suicide in the community than have gone on to commit serious further offences. While a recent change to licence termination greatly helped those people serving IPP sentences in the community, it did nothing to accelerate the release of people who have never been released. In this context, late last year, the Howard League formed an expert working group, led by former Lord Chief Justice, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, and charged with finding a way to release those people serving an IPP or DPP sentence while meeting the government's legitimate concern for public protection. The group reported last week with six key recommendations that would finally give all IPP prisoners a certain release date within two years via a change to the Parole Board release test, providing a runway to release for everyone serving an IPP sentence, while including safeguards for public protection. Other recommendations include providing greater support to IPP prisoners on release and reducing unnecessary recall of people to prison. The government is clear that it will not resentence people on the IPP. But it cannot do nothing. The status quo, which is the delivery of the last government's 'Action Plan,' does not end the sentence and just feeds despair. While the prison service is doing its best, it is unreasonable to expect staff to deliver change for the IPP population in the context of a prison overcrowding crisis. History shows that governments invariably find it difficult to remedy state wrongs, but people on the sentence and their families don't have time to wait for a Mr Bates vs The Post Office - style TV series. The IPP sentence is a state wrong which the government has a responsibility to right. The fact that thousands of people remain in prison under the IPP sentence brings shame upon our legal system. The government needs to act urgently.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
The Gaza discourse has been Vylanised – but that diversionary strategy just doesn't work any more
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The calls for the band members' arrest were quickly picked up, and before long the Conservatives were suggesting that the BBC should be prosecuted as well. On Monday, the story splashed in the Sun, the Daily Mail, the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Express. In fact, Robinson-Foster hadn't chanted 'Death to Israelis', but 'Death to the IDF', a sharply different proposition, and one focused on the military machine attacking Gaza, the Israeli Defense Forces, rather than Israeli civilians. Nonetheless, the Mail on Sunday's headline elision stuck. In much of the coverage, the idea that the chant was inherently antisemitic wasn't even a question. The assertion was barely explained in any of the front page stories; the BBC and even Glastonbury's Emily Eavis went along with it too. 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In truth, though, a lot of people might have been uncertain. The IDF as metonym for any Jew is not a typical trope in the extremist's lexicon, and the circumstances of the Israeli military's assault on Gaza are the obvious, and urgent, locus of the chant's intended force. Nonetheless, Avon and Somerset police have now opened a criminal investigation. There are, to be sure, cogent objections to raise. Robinson-Foster described a record label boss as a 'Zionist', and while he noted that the executive 'would speak very strongly about his support for Israel', it is reasonable to accuse him of playing into a familiar antisemitic trope, particularly about the music industry. Meanwhile, some Jewish people already alert to a rise in racist hostility towards them may well have felt alarmed by the sight of a crowd chanting against the Israeli army. Sensible people will come to a range of conclusions about those points – but there has been no space for that discussion, because the IDF apparently represents Jewish people everywhere, and everything else gets lost in the shuffle. The death toll in Gaza now stands at more than 57,000, according to figures from the Gaza ministry of health; a robust independent survey recently put the count at almost 84,000. Israeli ministers and officials have given weight to allegations that a genocide is under way with assertions that starving two million Palestinians to death might be 'justified and moral' and descriptions of a forced 'deportation plan'. The amount of aid going into the territory remains a fraction of what is needed. At least 400 Palestinians have been killed recently in incidents involving the IDF while approaching food distribution centres; Haaretz reported that soldiers were ordered to fire on them deliberately, a claim denied by Israel as 'vicious lies'. Meanwhile, in the UK, the only adjacent story deemed worthy of front page attention is the conduct of an obscure punk-rap group from Ipswich. On 17 June, at least 59 Palestinians were killed after the IDF fired on a crowd waiting for flour trucks near Khan Younis. The next day's Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, Sun and Daily Express featured no coverage of that story at all. Perhaps they would have done if the BBC had broadcast it live. It would be understandable, then, to conclude that the obsession with Bob Vylan – and Kneecap, and Palestine Action – matters mainly for its diversionary force. But there is something more at work here. It isn't just that people are angry that the catastrophe in Gaza isn't being given due attention: it is that their encounters with observable reality are being flatly denied. The choice framed by these stories is between being an anti-racist, or even an anti-terrorist, and being horrified by the slaughter of thousands of brown civilians in a military siege. For anyone who routinely sees videos of the aftermath of Israeli violence against civilians in their social media feeds, this is enough to make you feel crazy. Across the UK and the US, there is increasing evidence that people who object to what we might call the Vylanising of the Gaza discourse are finding their voice. In the general election last year, Labour lost five seats to pro-Gaza candidates, and forfeited about a third of its vote in some Muslim majority areas. In New York, Zohran Mamdani won an underdog victory in the Democratic mayoral primary despite attempts to caricature him as an advocate of 'jihad'. Some 55% of the British public opposes Israel's military campaign in Gaza, and 45% view Israel's actions as genocidal; less than half of Americans are now more sympathetic to Israel than to Palestinians, and almost 60% of Democrats are now more supportive of Palestinians. Among people under 40, those numbers only go up. Those people have been told that Gaza protests are hate marches; they can see it's not true. They have been told that US campus protesters are largely motivated by antisemitism; they can see it's not true. They have been told that Palestine Action is a terrorist organisation because it spray painted military aircraft; they can see it's not true. They have been repeatedly told, by Benjamin Netanyahu, that opposition to Israel's war is antisemitic; they can see it's not true. They have been told that the British government finds Israel's actions 'intolerable'; they can see it's not true. Now they are being told that opposing the IDF is antisemitic, that the Glastonbury crowd is more virulent than the one at Nuremberg, and that direct action is a form of terrorism. They can see all that's not true, either, and however far their view is from the front pages, they know that they are far from alone. Archie Bland is the editor of the Guardian's First Edition newsletter Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
Powys County Times
an hour ago
- Powys County Times
Bus improvements 'at expense of Powys council tax rise'
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