Politics

Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.

Tuesday

James Heale James Heale

Why Reeves's smorgasbord Budget won't fix Britain

14 min listen

James Nation, managing director at Forefront Advisers, and Michael Simmons join James Heale to analyse what we know, one day ahead of the Budget. James – a former Treasury official and adviser to Rishi Sunak – takes us inside Number 11, explains the importance of every sentence and defends the Budget as a fiscal event. Plus, Michael takes us through the measures we know so far – but is the chaotic process we’ve seen so far just symptomatic of ‘broken Britain’? Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

Matthew Lynn

Reeves's Budget is dead on arrival

The Budget speech has no doubt been finalised. The red box has been dusted off. And the pie charts are ready to be released. Assuming Chancellor Rachel Reeves doesn’t call in sick tomorrow, the Treasury, along with the rest of us, will be waiting to see how tomorrow’s Budget is received. But do we really need to wait? With the pound falling, the economy stagnant, and house prices sliding, the truth is that this Budget is dead on arrival. After all the leaks and spin we have endured over the past few months, it may seem as if there have already been ten Budgets. A dozen or more major tax

Steerpike Steerpike

Starmer apologises over banned TikTok dance

Of all the things the public might think Prime Minister Keir Starmer should apologise for, a TikTok dance is probably not top of the list. Yet that is exactly what the Labour leader has expressed regret over, after a visit to a primary school on Monday. The PM found himself being dressed down by the headmistress of Welland Academy in Peterborough, after he engaged in a banned social media dance that has caused both parents and teachers no end of irritation. Not like Starmer to be unhelpful, eh? Sir Keir visited the school with his Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson in tow to promote the government’s expansion of free school meals.

James Heale James Heale

Rachel Reeves is running out of excuses

The Chancellor addressed her backbench troops last night, ahead of Wednesday’s Budget. Rachel Reeves’ remarks sought to impress upon her colleagues the importance of unity amid a likely onslaught of criticism. ‘Politics is a team sport,’ she said. ‘We have to stick together if we’re going to deliver the change, and get the second term that we want.’ She stressed that her Budget is a ‘package’, which will contain both good and bad choices. ‘It’s not a pick and mix – you can’t say you like the cola bottles but you don’t like the fruit salads. It comes together as a whole.’ That can be read as a warning to

Joanna Williams

Trigger warnings are out of control at the University of Essex

You don’t need a PhD to see that censorship thrives in universities. In the past few weeks alone, a professor has been banned from the University of Manchester and described as a ‘potential risk to colleagues’ for having allegedly used ‘the n-word’ in a disciplinary meeting; a sociology lecturer at Abertay University has been subjected to a smear campaign for inviting a speaker critical of Scotland’s rape laws; and pro-Palestinian student activists at City, University of London have called for the dismissal of a Jewish professor because he completed compulsory military service in Israel during the 1980s. Professors at this august institution have placed trigger warnings on essays discussing free speech

Steerpike Steerpike

Two peers suspended over lobbying

To the House of Lords, where it transpires that two peers are to be suspended after they were deemed to have breached lobbying rules. Undercover footage recorded by the Guardian caught Lord Dannatt and Lord Evans of Watford offering parliamentary services to clients who were hoping to lobby the government. The House of Lords’ standards watchdog launched separate investigations into the two men – and now Richard Dannatt faces a four-month suspension while David Evans will be suspended for five months, once the House of Lords approves the commissioner’s sanctions. Oh dear… Lord Dannatt was found to have offered a potential client private meetings with ministers – and was secretly

Jimmy Nicholls

Does Rachel Reeves really get more online abuse than most?

In politics, as in life, it helps to get your excuses in early. That presumably is why, ahead of tomorrow’s Budget, Keir Starmer has mounted a vanguard action in defence of his chancellor Rachel Reeves. ‘I’m acutely aware that women get much more abuse and criticism than men do and I think it’s about time we acknowledge that,’ he told broadcasters over the weekend. Starmer was responding to earlier complaints from Reeves that she is the victim of patronising  – and, even worse, male – armchair critics. ‘I’m sick of people mansplaining how to be chancellor to me,’ she told the Times, adding in a grumble about those nefarious ‘boys

Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

Nigeria's mass school abduction is its worst yet – but the West doesn't seem to care

The kidnapping of over 300 students and teachers from a Catholic school by armed men in the Papiri area of central Nigeria is one of the worst mass abductions the country has ever witnessed. The horrifying incident on Friday is far from isolated: more than 2,500 students have been taken in at least 70 raids on schools in the last decade. The St Mary’s School attack came in the same week that gunmen killed a teacher and abducted 25 students from a girls’ secondary school in Nigeria’s Kebbi State. More than 2,500 students have been taken in at least 70 raids on schools in the last decade While no one

Lawrence Goldman

David Olusoga's Empire exposes the BBC's history problem

While the BBC’s mis-editing of Donald Trump’s words has dominated the headlines, less attention has been paid to another example of the corporation’s bias: its coverage of history. The BBC’s latest blockbuster history series, Empire, fronted by David Olusoga, shows the extent of the problem. This slanted and biased version of history is nothing new No one watching these three programmes, which were broadcast this month, could be in any doubt that a negative view of British history pervades everything. The series is not a balanced history of the empire, but rather a collection of some of its most controversial and violent episodes. When Olusoga himself isn’t telling us what

Monday

William Atkinson

William Atkinson, Andreas Roth, Philip Womack, Mary Wakefield & Muriel Zagha

35 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: William Atkinson reveals his teenage brush with a micropenis; Andreas Roth bemoans the dumbing down of German education; Philip Womack wonders how the hyphen turned political; Mary Wakefield questions the latest AI horror story – digitising dead relatives; and, Muriel Zagha celebrates Powell & Pressburger’s I Know Where I’m Going! Produced and presented by Patrick Gibbons.

Nigel Jones

Comparing Reform to the Nazis is no joke

It is a well known axiom of politics that once you compare your opponents to Hitler’s Nazis you have well and truly lost the argument. But that golden rule seems to have been lost on Tory party chairman Kevin Hollinrake who has rightly come under heavy fire for comparing Reform UK to the Nazis. Hollinrake’s gaffe is a measure of just how worried the Tories are about the rise of Reform Hollinrake posted two images on X showing a black and gold Reform logo promoting the populist party on a football shirt next to a picture of the Nazis’ golden party badge – a special award instituted by Hitler on

Jacob Heilbrunn

Elon Musk's Doge was a damp squib

Doge has been Doge’d. Elon Musk’s once fearsome US Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) has been shut down eight months before its contract officially ends in July 2026. What was supposed to be an organisation that exploded traditional ways of running the federal government has turned into a damp squib. Doge was established by President Trump on the first day of his second term in office. Headed by Tesla chief Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy (who resigned early on to run for governor of Ohio), it struck the kind of fear into government bureaucrats that a visit from the Red Guards might instill during Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Musk’s minions rampaged

Steerpike Steerpike

Trump team warned over London's Chinese super-embassy

So much for a simple Chinese takeaway. In his never-ending search for growth, Sir Keir Starmer has finally alighted on the obvious answer: cosying up to the liberal-minded democrats of Tiananmen Square. The Prime Minister is expected to fly to Beijing in the new year, once the long-awaited Chinese super-embassy in Tower Hamlets secures planning approval next month. No wonder 2025 is the year of the snake, eh? But there now seems to be a spanner in the works, ahead of the mooted approval on 10 December. For a group of American politicians are up in arms about the possible threat to global financial security. Steerpike has been shown a

Steerpike Steerpike

Coutinho: Net zero is perverse

Today saw The Spectator’s Energy Summit in full swing, with a variety of panels, debates and discussions about issues from wind power to energy storage and even a review of the Paris Agreement. Naturally Coffee House Shots enjoyed an energy focus too, with shadow energy secretary and Conservative MP Claire Coutinho in conversation with political editor Tim Shipman. And she was pulling no punches… On the subject of net zero, Coutinho fumed: ‘I think net zero is now perverse.’ She explained: What’s happening is that the UK is reducing its domestic emissions by importing more from abroad. So actually, overall, what you’re doing is importing from countries which are much

Tim Shipman

Britain's expensive energy problem – with Claire Coutinho

16 min listen

Britain has an energy problem – while we produce some of the cleanest in the world, it’s also the most expensive, and that’s the case for almost every avenue of energy. On the day the Spectator hosts its Energy Summit in Westminster, a report commissioned by the Prime Minister has found that the UK is the most expensive place to produce nuclear energy. This is important for so many avenues of government – from future proofing for climate change, to reducing the burden households are facing through the cost-of-living crisis. Claire Coutinho, shadow secretary of state for energy, and political editor Tim Shipman join economics editor Michael Simmons to talk

Steerpike Steerpike

Zack Polanski's fantasy economics

Oh dear. Green leader Zack Polanski may have enticed thousands more voters to join his party with his eco-populist rhetoric, but his grasp of economics leaves a lot to be desired. The party leader appeared on the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg show on Sunday to discuss what the Greens would like to see in the Budget – and explain why the environmentalists are in favour of more borrowing. Only, er, Polanski’s point seemed more rooted in fantasy than the real world… The Beeb’s veteran interviewer pointed out that debt in the UK is at the highest level it has been for years. ‘The financial markets are very sensitive to the decisions

Steerpike Steerpike

Tory chair links Reform badge to the Nazis

Ding ding ding! The gloves are coming off as tensions rise between the Conservatives and Reform UK. Tory party chairman Kevin Hollinrake has come under fire from Nigel Farage’s group after he linked the Reform UK logo to, er, a Nazi party badge. So much for being civil, chaps! The controversial intervention came after Farage posted an image of a black and gold Reform badge, accompanied by the caption ‘coming soon’, in a bid to promote the ‘collector’s edition’ party football shirt on Twitter. In response, Hollinrake tweeted back a picture of a ‘Golden Party Badge’, awarded to the first 100,000 members to join Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party. Perhaps having

Mark Galeotti Mark Galeotti

Russia is willing to keep on fighting in Ukraine

At a time when Western commentators are tying themselves in knots trying to parse the ongoing Ukraine peace discussions, the Russian media is suddenly strikingly united in its coverage. There is a common misperception that, like their Soviet forebears, the Russian press simply reproduces some standard party line, day in, day out. In fact, there is often surprising pluralism, with different newspapers having their own interests and angles. However, the Kremlin does impose its will when it comes to especially important or sensitive matters, with editors receiving tyomniki, informal but authoritative guidance from the presidential administration on lines to take and topics to avoid. When the press is speaking in

Sam Dumitriu

Environmental regulations are killing nuclear power

There is no greener form of power than nuclear power. It emits less carbon and uses less space per megawatt than any other form of power. Yet rules designed to protect nature have made it far more expensive than it needs to be and put it at a competitive disadvantage when competing against dirtier and more land-hungry forms of power. This is the reason why Hinkley Point C, when finished, will be the most expensive nuclear power plant ever built on Earth.  So, what’s that got to do with the price of fish? A lot, actually. The Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce, a group appointed by the PM to figure out how

Danny Shaw

How Shabana Mahmood can fix the police

By the standards Shabana Mahmood has set for herself, the speech she made to police leaders at their annual conference in Westminster last week was not the most gripping. The Home Secretary’s delivery was stilted, awkward even, as she stuck closely to the script on the lectern in front of her. She left the stage as soon as she had finished without taking any questions. But there were two sections in Mahmood’s 20-minute address that stood out, sparking speculation that a once-in-a-generation overhaul of policing is on the way. She told the chief constables and police and crime commissioners (PCCs) assembled at the QE II Centre that she would be