Politics

(The Political Line newsletter is India’s political landscape explained every week by Varghese K. George, senior editor at The Hindu . You can subscribe here to get the newsletter in your inbox every Friday.) In a swift, stealth political operation, the Gandhi siblings, Rahul and Priyanka, unseated Amarinder Singh in Punjab overnight, but the succession battle that followed exposed lack of planning or strategy. At the end of a chaotic jostling, Charanjit Channi became the Chief Minister. He happens to be a Dalit, and his selection is now being cited as an act of exceptional political calculus. At least six points that are notable about the entire Punjab episode need elaboration. Congress MP Rahul Gandhi greets new Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi after the latter took the oath of office at Raj Bhawan in Chandigarh on September 20, 2021. | Photo Credit: PTI Rahul Gandhi is being bold. He is no longer bound by the compulsion to defer to the old …

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BBC’s Political Editor Nick Robinson is leaving the role he has had for the last 10 years. Robinson will now present BBC Radio 4’s Today programme and he is "delighted". The presenter and journalist replaces Jim Naughtie as part of the core presenting team on BBC Radio 4’s agenda-setting flagship news and current affairs programme, joining John Humphrys, Sarah Montague, Mishal Husain and Justin Webb. He will also report and present across television and radio for BBC News and Current Affairs. Tony Hall, Director-General of the BBC, says: “The BBC has been fortunate to have in Nick Robinson the most authoritative and engaging political editor at work in Westminster over the past decade. He has been tireless and inquisitive, acute and open-minded. He has deciphered the coded world of politics with intelligence, clarity and wit. I am delighted he will bring that exceptional mixture of journalistic rigour, sound judgment and great character to the Today programme.” …

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MPs, activists and trade union figures gather in Brighton from today as Keir Starmer prepares for his first in-person Labour conference since being elected leader. As ever, the event will be a battleground between the party's different factions over what the party does next. But it will also be packed with barnstorming speeches from shadow ministers, rallies and lively political debate. Before the conference gets underway, Starmer faces a battle to get a string of controversial rule changes past trade union leaders and the party's ruling National Executive Committee. He hopes to stamp his authority on the party by changing leadership rules, cutting the number of conference motions and raising the threshold by which MPs can face a deselection threat, but his proposals face fierce opposition. If he does get a package of reforms to a vote on the conference floor one of the days of conference, it sets the stage for a major clash between Starmer's and the party's Left. Here are …

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The 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) contained in H.R. 4350 passed the U.S. House with Republican support Thursday. On September 23, 2021, Breitbart News reported that the 2022 NDAA contains a provision authorizing military courts to issue orders restraining military personnel from “possessing, receiving, or otherwise accessing a firearm.” The provision for prohibiting gun possession is contained in Section 529 of the NDAA. That section is titled, “Authority Of Military Judges And Military Magistrates To Issue Military Court Protective Orders.” The specific provision gives military courts the authority to prohibit gun possession via protective orders in two ways: 1. By giving the subject of the order an “opportunity to be heard on the order.” 2. By issuing the order ex parte. An electromagnet is used to pick up some of approximately 3,500 confiscated guns to be melted down at Gerdau Steel Mill on July 19, 2018 in Rancho Cucamonga, California. The weapons …

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Bernie Sanders urged Keir Starmer to follow Joe Biden's example of embracing the left of his party. The US Senator spoke to former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell via video link at The World Transformed festival, on the fringe of Labour Party Conference in Brighton. Mr McDonnell asked Senator Sanders, a prominent socialist on the left of the Democratic Party, how he'd managed to build a relationship with a "centrist leader" and convince the President to adopt a "radical programme". "I want to let you into a secret," Mr McDonnell said. "We have a centrist leader as well, but we're having problems in ensuring that we have a working relationship from the left with that relationship." Senator Sanders, who campaigned against President Biden for the Democratic Presidential Nomination, said Mr Biden had embraced the passionate youth movement the left had energised in the US. "You're quite right," Senator Sanders said. Former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell …

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The world of 2005 feels a long way away. We had president George W Bush and prime minister Tony Blair; Prince Charles married Camilla Parker Bowles. Bombs in London and a hurricane battering New Orleans. Lance Armstrong winning the Tour de France yet again, despite those rumours; London winning the right to host the Olympic Games in 2012. And in Germany, a political earthquake. A politician called Angela Merkel, largely unheralded outside her own country, took over as chancellor from Gerhard Schroder, and became the first woman to hold the role. The most powerful woman in Germany became the most powerful woman in Europe and, before long, the most powerful woman in the world. But now, after nearly 16 years in the job, Germany is voting for her successor. For the first time in Germany's post-war history, an incumbent chancellor isn't running for re-election. That has created a curious blend of uncertainty and caution - how, after all, do you campaign in a post-Merkel world? …

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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) reaped a whirlwind of criticism this past week when she attempted to explain her “present” vote for a bill that would allot funds to Israel’s Iron Dome defense system. Following the vote, which passed the House 420-9, AOC characterized herself as a victim in a lengthy letter in which she confessed to crying over the “complete lack of regard I often feel our party has to its most vulnerable and endangered members.” Yes, I wept. I wept at the complete lack of care for the human beings that are impacted by these decisions, I wept at an institution choosing a path of maximum volatility and minimum consideration for its own political convenience. And I wept at the complete lack of regard I often feel our party has to its most vulnerable and endangered members and communities – because the death threats and dangerous vitriol we’d inevitably receive by rushing such a sensitive, charged, and under-considered vote weren’t worth delaying it for …

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Poll pundits are keeping a keen eye on which way the Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) may tilt in the upcoming Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh. In an interview with The Hindu , Rakesh Tikait, national spokesperson of the BKU, categorically stated that the BKU would remain apolitical and that he had no political ambitions. “We are farmers and are not into politics. Those who will work for their interests, farmers will elect them on their own,” he said. There are indications that the U.P. government would increase the State Advisory Price (SAP) of sugarcane soon. Mr. Tikait said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would “try to distract farmers before the polls”. “The party promised the rate of ₹370 [per quintal] before the 2017 polls. Even if they increase the SAP after four years, the party has a lot to answer. Considering inflation, farmers would not settle for less than ₹425 [per quintal],” he said. Refusing to take credit for mounting the farmers’ movement in western Uttar Pradesh, …

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Keir Starmer needs to start talking about Englishness to kickstart a Labour revival among traditional supporters, a party grandee warns tonight. The Labour leader, who heads to Brighton this weekend for the party’s autumn conference, should carve out policies designed to appeal to proud English people, according to former Communities Secretary John Denham. The 68-year-old is director of the English Labour Network, which was set up in 2017 to “bring together party activists at every level to make Labour’s case for England to English voters”. He believes the party’s route back to power lies in trumpeting English identity in the same way the Welsh and Scots are proud of their heritage. John Denham is director of the English Labour Network ( Image: Adam Gerrard / Daily Mirror) “When I talk about the English I think about ‘we’ and ‘us’,” said Mr Denham. “Some people in the Labour Party talk about the English as ‘they’ and ‘them’. “Until people …

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WASHINGTON — With President Biden’s approval ratings falling below 50 percent after the most trying stretch of his young administration, pushing through his ambitious legislative agenda has taken on a new urgency for Democratic lawmakers. Recognizing that a president’s popularity is the best indicator for how his party will fare in the midterm elections, Democrats are confronting a stark prospect: If Mr. Biden doesn’t succeed in the halls of Congress this fall, it could doom his party’s majorities at the polls next fall. Not that such a do-or-die dilemma is itself sufficient to stop Democrats’ intraparty squabbling, which the president on Friday termed a “stalemate.” Divisions between moderates and liberals over the substance, the price tag and even the legislative timing of Mr. Biden’s twin priorities, a bipartisan public works bill and broader social welfare legislation, could still undermine the proposals. But it is increasingly clear to Democratic officials that beyond …

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