Rishi Sunak must sack Nadhim Zahawi to retain any credibility

8 days ago New Statesman

The Culture Edit Our weekly culture newsletter – from books and art to pop culture and memes – sent every Friday. In late 2020, the Sunday Times reports, the former Goldman Sachs banker helped to arrange an £800,000 loan guarantee for the cash-strapped prime minister from Sam Blyth, a wealthy Canadian. Less than three months have passed since Rishi Sunak entered No 10 promising a government of “integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level”. There’s not a lot Sunak can do about Sharp’s appointment two years on, but the Zahawi story is not going away. The Prime Minister must know the truth.
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The planet and our economy need strong UK leadership at Cop27

Photo by TOLGA AKMEN/POOL/AFP via Getty ImagesDowning Street has announced that the new Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, won’t travel to the Cop27 climate conference. Sunak’s cabinet reshuffle has left out key climate voices, including Graham Stuart, formerly the climate minister, and Alok Sharma, the Cop26 president. During its presidency of Cop26, held in Glasgow, the UK demonstrated strong climate leadership as it emerged from the pandemic. On a global problem like this, international diplomacy is a necessary requirement to ensure the safety and security of the UK and the world. Revivifying nature can also reduce emissions if delivered in a holistic, thought-through way that interlinks and integrates with other climate and nature action.

3 months ago New Statesman

Elon Musk bought Twitter so he can remain absurdly rich

Third on the list, having lost $58.6bn this year, is Elon Musk. No one got richer during the pandemic than Musk, whose wealth ballooned from $30bn at the start of 2020 to more than $330bn in November 2021. Free money – in the form of cheap debt and US stimulus cheques – paid for legions of retail investors to bid Tesla and Musk to ever higher valuations. Twitter may have fewer users than Facebook but Musk is right to say that it has an outsized influence. Being Elon Musk, there’s every chance he’ll just sell Twitter immediately, or get bored of it after six months.

3 months ago New Statesman

Rishi Sunak has every right to block Scotland’s gender bill

The hysteria that has greeted the decision by Rishi Sunak to block Scotland’s new gender recognition law is as deafening as it is predictable. The Culture Edit Our weekly culture newsletter – from books and art to pop culture and memes – sent every Friday. Weekly Highlights A weekly round-up of some of the best articles featured in the most recent issue of the New Statesman, sent each Saturday. Why can’t we Scots make our own gender law? Therefore, the law is the law, and Sturgeon and her supporters will just have to wear it.

15 days ago New Statesman

Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer have capitulated to the Brexit zealots

The Daily Mail’s front page proclaimed: “Don’t betray us on Brexit”, while the Daily Express splashed on a story headlined “Fury at ‘Absurd Idea’ to go soft on Brexit”. I know that Brexit can deliver, and is already delivering enormous benefits and opportunities for the country,” he insisted the day after the story appeared. The Culture Edit Our weekly culture newsletter – from books and art to pop culture and memes – sent every Friday. Where are all those vaunted “Brexit freedoms” and “Brexit benefits”? The Tories face probable defeat at the next election in any case, so Sunak should take a gamble.

2 months ago New Statesman

Rishi Sunak cannot save the housing market

But hang on a minute – isn’t the name Rishi Sunak familiar? It looks as if a major correction will still happen, and one of the people most at fault is Rishi Sunak. A week earlier, the Moneyfacts website reported that the average rate for a two-year fixed rate mortgage had reached 6.53 per cent. The sensible thing would be to target help to the new buyers he duped into a needlessly overheated market. Mistakes have been made, and Rishi Sunak has been one of the people making them.

3 months ago New Statesman

Could Benjamin Netanyahu be Israel’s next prime minister – again?

Ahead of a fifth election in less than four years, polling indicates that after a year as leader of the opposition, the former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu could very well be headed back to the premiership. Israel’s president will give the mandate to do so to whichever party looks most likely to succeed. With potential seats in the double digits, the Zionist Party is in poll position – third place – to leverage a very powerful role for itself in a Netanyahu government. The Zionist party is on the extreme right. The prospect of the Zionist Party being senior partners in government has spooked even the Jewish diaspora.

3 months ago New Statesman

The genius of Jennifer Coolidge

Jennifer Coolidge clutches her Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress aloft. I had these giant ideas, and then you get older…”For a long time, the name “Jennifer Coolidge” was followed by the phrase “AKA Stifler’s mom”. Subscribe to Morning Call View all newsletters The quick and essential guide to domestic and global politics from the New Statesman's politics team. Sign up here Select and enter your email address Morning Call Quick and essential guide to domestic and global politics from the New Statesman's politics team. The Culture Edit Our weekly culture newsletter – from books and art to pop culture and memes – sent every Friday.

20 days ago New Statesman

Most Brits say it’s fine for Rishi Sunak to use private healthcare

Photo by Leon Neal - WPA Pool/Getty ImagesAfter refusing three times to say whether he uses private healthcare, Rishi Sunak admitted to having had “independent healthcare in the past” at Prime Minister’s Questions on 11 January. Yet exclusive new polling for the New Statesman by Redfield & Wilton Strategies reveals that the majority of Brits (54 per cent) believe it is acceptable for the Prime Minister to use private healthcare instead of the NHS. Third, more and more people in the UK are resorting to private healthcare, as they collide with record NHS waiting lists. The Culture Edit Our weekly culture newsletter – from books and art to pop culture and memes – sent every Friday. Starmer rises above it, for the majority of voters who don’t care about Sunak using private healthcare, but turns a blind eye to pot-shots from non-shadow cabinet MPs for the third who do.

19 days ago New Statesman

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