A Week in Politics #9

Kemi Badenoch (Image: Holyrood) 

Here's another weekly round-up with unfortunately more jeers than cheers. 

Cheers for Sagal Abdi-Wali on winning the Holborn and St Pancras by-election, especially for the dignity and resolve with which she rose above the blatant racism directed at her. Refusing to be deterred by online abuse, she used her victory speech to champion belonging, opportunity and the strength of a diverse community. Having arrived in Britain as a child refugee, she now represents the place that gave her family a home. Nobody should have to withstand racist intimidation to serve their community; her response deserves admiration and the abuse deserves unequivocal condemnation.

Cheers to Oliver Mather for bringing some much-needed silliness to political debate, with his satirical website asking whether your dog is far right, featured in the Observer this week. Inspired by comments about black labradors and political nostalgia, it invents political profiles for unsuspecting pets. As Liberal Democrats, we should naturally insist on every dog’s freedom to develop its own opinions, provided it respects the rights of others and stops eating the Focus leaflets. Finally, a political classification system where “barking” is an entirely reasonable assessment.

Cheers to Gateshead’s Liberal Democrat councillors for securing support for their Clean Tyne motion following plastic and sewage spills. Protecting rivers requires persistent local pressure as well as national reform, so getting the council behind this kind of action is a welcome step. The test now is whether that commitment produces cleaner water and proper accountability. 

Cheers to Navi Pillay on receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, recognising a lifetime devoted to human rights and international justice. The former UN human rights chief and international judge has helped uphold the principle that those responsible for atrocities should face accountability. At a time when powerful governments increasingly seek to intimidate international institutions, this recognition carries particular weight. Lasting peace depends on justice and political power must never confer immunity from the law.

Cheers to Pope Leo and others speaking against capital punishment, with the Pope marking Saturday’s World Day Against the Death Penalty by reaffirming the dignity of every human being and the possibility of protecting society without executions. Opposition to state killing should extend across political and religious boundaries, especially when politicians are proposing to put it on display. 

Jeers to water companies over late sewage warnings, with analysis reported this week by Surfers Against Sewage identifying more than 50,000 discharges reported late in the first half of 2026. Swimmers and other river users need timely information to protect themselves. Industry explanations about transmission difficulties deserve scrutiny, but the public should not bear the consequences of unreliable reporting. Cleaner waterways and accurate warnings are basic expectations and regulators must insist on both.

Jeers to the continuing scandal of hospital corridor care, with figures highlighted by the Liberal Democrats on Thursday showing more than 470,000 instances since May of patients being treated in corridors. Behind that number are people enduring illness without the privacy, dignity and facilities they deserve, and staff trying to care for them in unacceptable conditions. Ministers must address the pressures throughout the system, including social care and discharge delays. Nobody should become accustomed to this as an ordinary feature of the NHS.

Jeers to Kemi Badenoch’s proposed assault on overseas aid, after charities warned this week that cutting the annual budget from £9 billion to £1 billion would severely damage Britain’s ability to honour commitments and respond to crises. Supporting vaccination, disaster relief and the world’s poorest communities is both a moral responsibility and an investment in shared security. Presenting those commitments as disposable spending is a disgraceful retreat from international responsibility. Britain should help prevent suffering, rather than withdraw when cooperation is most needed.

Jeers also to Kemi Badenoch’s supposedly rejuvenated policy programme, Kemistry. Recognising that the Conservatives need to offer more than a tribute act to Reform is welcome, but her recent announcements hardly amount to a convincing recovery plan. They combine childcare help for those earning over £100,000, inheritance-tax concessions and abolition of the high-value homes surcharge with sweeping cuts to welfare and government spending. The party claims £71 billion in annual savings, but announcing an enormous number is easier than demonstrating that the services and support people depend on can withstand it. 

Jeers for the Conservatives’ reckless environmental retreat, including plans to abolish Natural England and the Environment Agency, repeal net-zero building rules and withdraw from the Aarhus Convention’s protections for environmental challenges. Pollution, inefficient homes and environmental damage impose costs on households and communities; weakening safeguards does not make those costs disappear. To compound matters, Carbon Brief found that the party’s policy document appears to have doubled a cited estimate of net-zero costs through a spreadsheet error. Before promising to rescue Britain through superior economic competence, perhaps they could start by checking the sums.

Jeers to the Trump administration for its new sanctions against the International Criminal Court, announced on the same day that one of its former judges received the Nobel Peace Prize. Seeking to cripple an institution because its investigations challenge powerful states is an attack on international accountability. Britain and its partners should defend the court’s independence and ability to function. Allegations of grave crimes require credible legal scrutiny, whoever is accused and however influential their allies may be.

More jeers to Donald Trump for his petulant reaction to missing out on the Nobel Peace Prize, denouncing the decision as a stain on Norway and dismissing laureate Navi Pillay as a “mystery person”. His unfamiliarity with a distinguished human-rights campaigner says rather more about him than about her. A president aspiring to recognition for peacemaking might begin by showing respect for international justice and accepting that an independent committee owes him nothing. Threatening to remember Norway’s supposed offence is a particularly unconvincing audition for a peace prize.

Even more jeers to Donald Trump for demanding that Ukraine replace Volodymyr Zelensky, while blaming the Ukrainian president for American diesel prices after striking an energy deal with Putin. Ukraine is defending itself against Russia’s invasion; its leadership is for Ukrainians to determine, not an American president irritated by the cost of fuel. The prospect of additional energy revenues helping to finance Russia’s war makes this intervention especially disgraceful. 

Jeers to Pete Hegseth’s frankly disgraceful plan to livestream the execution of Nidal Hasan. Broadcasting an execution for an audience is inhuman, morally bankrupt and utterly repulsive. The horror of Hasan’s crimes cannot justify this grotesque proposal and the victims’ suffering must never become a pretext for political theatre. It debases the government proposing it and invites viewers to participate in that degradation. It should be abandoned immediately and condemned without equivocation.

Jeers to Reform councillor Jaymey McIvor for his extraordinary defence of the party on Newsnight, presenting its own internal investigation into donation allegations as reassurance that no laws had been broken. His fellow panellists were understandably unimpressed by the proposition that Reform investigating Reform should settle questions about Reform. The party disputes wrongdoing, and an internal report is entitled to consideration, but independent scrutiny must determine whether rules were breached. “We’ve checked ourselves and we’re satisfied” is a splendid punchline and a thoroughly inadequate standard of public accountability.

Tears for the victims of this week’s devastating Russian attacks on Ukraine, including those killed when Thursday’s strike in Kramatorsk tore through two buses. Reuters reported that the death toll from Russian strikes over two days had exceeded seventy, following Wednesday’s attacks, including a deadly strike on a residential building in Pryluky. These are shattered families and communities, not merely another update from a distant war.

Tears for those mourning on the third anniversary of the 7 October attacks, and for the Palestinians grieving the destruction and loss that followed in Gaza. This week’s anniversary should renew our determination to oppose antisemitism, anti-Palestinian hatred and the dehumanisation that makes civilian suffering easier to excuse. Compassion cannot depend on nationality. Remembrance must be accompanied by sustained demands for civilian protection, humanitarian access, accountability and a future in which Israelis and Palestinians can live in security and freedom.