Politics

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

Thursday

Annabel Denham

Optimism alone won’t raise Britain’s birth rate

Few things could make Nigel Farage squirm, but a question from Jordan Peterson at this week’s Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) conference seems to have done the trick. During a fireside talk, the Canadian psychologist asked the Reform leader whether long-term, monogamous, heterosexual, child-centred marriages were the foundation stone of a civilised society. After conceding that, having been divorced twice, he might not be the best advocate for stable unions, Farage, a father of four, responded that ‘we need higher birth rates’ and emphasised the importance of our ‘Judeo-Christian’ culture. ‘Of course we need higher birth rates,’ Farage said. ‘But we’re not going to get higher birth rates in this country

James Hanson

Can Britain defend itself and have a welfare state?

No one can say we weren’t warned. As early as 1971 America was warning that it could reduce its defence commitment to Europe, when the Democratic Senator Mike Mansfield proposed halving the number of US troops stationed on the continent. The Senate defeated that particular resolution, but the sentiment never went away. In 2016, Barack Obama lambasted European countries as ‘free-riders’ complacently sheltering under America’s security umbrella and throughout his first term Donald Trump was crystal clear that other Nato members needed to drastically increase their defence budgets. So when JD Vance put the message in blunter terms at the Munich Security Conference last week, no one should have been

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Trump’s Ukraine posturing is odious and immoral

As happens with every issue, the world is now neatly polarised about Mr Trump. There are those who refer to him as a Nazi, a dictator, a fascist, a rapist and could not possibly discern anything beneficial about his regime even if he announced he was both joining Hamas and transitioning. And then there are those who believe his every action is wonderful and those who disagree are cucks, snowflakes, lefty scum. I have been slightly closer to the latter category. But Trump’s posturing over Ukraine – no matter how much you may have agreed with the substance of J. D. Vance’s marvellous speech – is odious, immoral and based

Steerpike Steerpike

Reform UK officially democratises

Parliament may be in recess – but for Reform UK the work does not stop. This morning Mr S noticed a bit of transfer activity on the party’s Companies House page. Both Nigel Farage and Richard Tice were no longer listed as ‘persons with significant control’; in their place was Reform 2025 Ltd, as of yesterday. And today, the party claims it has now officially democratised, with the new constitution coming into effect. In a statement, Chairman Zia Yusuf said: As promised, Nigel Farage has handed over ownership of Reform UK to its members. Reform UK is now a non-profit, with no shareholders, limited by guarantee. We are assembling the governing

Sergey Radchenko

Donald Trump’s shameful betrayal of Ukraine

The American President has pioneered a new form of diplomacy: betrayal by tweet. The mean-spirited, autocrat-indulging Donald J. Trump has in a Truth Social post called President Volodymyr Zelensky a ‘dictator’, falsely accused him of scamming America out of billions dollars of military aid, and demanded that he ‘better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left.’ By ‘moving fast,’ the US President presumably means Zelensky’s immediate agreement to the recently leaked plan that would hand the United States a $500 billion stake in Ukraine’s rare earth minerals. Zelensky has so far refused to accept a plan that would amount to a colonial sacking of Ukraine,

Terry Barnes

Meet Clive Palmer – Australia’s answer to Donald Trump

Imagine Screaming Lord Sutch with hundreds of millions of pounds to spend. That probably best sums up the flamboyant Australian mining billionaire and serial election candidate, Clive Palmer. Palmer is best known internationally as the entrepreneur who promised to build the ‘Titanic II’– a full-scale replica of the original Titanic. That project was launched ten years ago and work still hasn’t begun on the supposed ship, although Palmer has promised to secure a shipyard this year. When it comes to his electoral efforts, it’s a similar story. Having fallen out with the National party, the junior partner in Australia’s conservative coalition, in 2013 Palmer founded the Palmer United party, which is

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Why did Starmer rush the ennoblement of Poppy Gustafsson?

Hereditary peers are for the chop, but life peers still have their uses. Last October the process of ennoblement allowed Keir Starmer to appoint a minister of state for investment in rapid preparation for his investment summit of that month. Finding no-one on the green benches who took his fancy, he turned to Poppy Gustafsson, a chartered accountant who went on to co-found the cyber security firm Darktrace, for which she served as chief financial officer followed by chief executive until it was sold to a private equity firm last year. In order to take up her government post she was hastily installed in the Lords as Baroness Gustafsson of

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

The Nigerian drug mafia is heading for Britain

It’s an established fact that most of Britain’s drug trade is controlled by Albanians. There is some competition from Turks and Pakistanis but Albanians dominate the industry with their ‘business-like’ methods. They may soon have another partner in crime. Nigerian gangs are increasingly making their presence felt in Europe: this week they were among 27 people arrested in coordinated police raids in Italy, Spain and Albania. According to Italy’s Carabinieri, the arrests encompassed two drug trafficking gangs, one of which was a Nigerian operation in which they used their young compatriots seeking a new life in Europe to traffic marijuana across the continent. Their base was the bus terminal near

Owen Matthews

The Trump-Zelensky train wreck will cost Ukraine dearly

Where did it all go wrong between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky? Just a week ago, Zelensky was speaking of his ‘respect’ and ‘friendship’ for Trump and of his hope that the new US administration would ‘stand by Ukraine … to make a just and lasting peace’. Yet in the course of just 24 hours, the Trump-Zelensky relationship spiralled into a nose-dive before definitively crashing and burning with a devastatingly vicious post by the US President on his Truth Social media platform. In an incoherent and error-filled statement, Trump blasted Zelensky as ‘a dictator without elections’, a ‘modestly successful comedian’ who had ‘talked the United States of America into spending

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Does Trump want to strike an Arctic oil deal with Putin?

The decision by Donald Trump to hold peace talks with Russia on ending the Ukraine war – without Ukraine actually being present – is starting to look even more disgraceful. It transpires that the war was not the only item on the agenda in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday. A significant part of the day’s business seems to have been discussing oil deals in the Arctic. According to Kirill Dmitriev, who heads the Russian Direct Investment Fund, the Russian and US delegations took the opportunity to talk about reviving joint exploratory operations such as that between Rosneft and Exxon Mobil, which was called off in 2018 following the imposition of sanctions

Chas Newkey-Burden

A crackdown on lying in politics could backfire

How do you know a politician is lying? Their lips are moving. We’ve all heard the joke. Even in these horribly divided times, there’s one belief that still unites the fractured British public: politicians can’t be trusted. So a plan hatched in Wales last summer to make lying in politics a criminal offence has proved popular, but not among the Welsh parliament’s standards committee, which warned against the idea this week. “Our view is that the risks and the unintended consequences currently outweigh the benefits,” the committee said. Its report suggested that, given the “considerable existing strain on the justice system”, it would be wrong to put more pressure on

Michael Simmons Michael Simmons

Is Britain funding organisations that wish us harm?

Frivolous state funding isn’t only going to chancers, the plain lucky and the devious, but also to those who would see Britain – and the West – come to harm. Just over a year ago, the National Secular Society (NSS) compiled a dossier for the Charity Commission which called for 44 charities that had ‘fuelled anti-Semitism and division’ and shown support for ‘Hamas and other anti-western actors’ to be investigated. In every case these organisations have kept their charitable status. The charities in the dossier have the stated purpose of ‘the advancement of religion for the public benefit’. In the NSS’s view, this is being used as cover for political

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

J.D. Vance didn’t go far enough on Europe

In January last year the European Union revealed that it had dreamed up a ‘secret plan’ to sabotage the economy of one of its member states. Brussels was growing impatient with the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who had shown the temerity to dissent from EU orthodoxy on a number of issues. In this particular case it was Orban’s continued use of the veto to block a £50 billion aid package to Ukraine that had angered the bureaucrats and liberal politicians. According to the Financial Times, the EU’s strategy in response would involve targeting Hungary’s economy, weakening its currency and reducing investor confidence. Some £20 billion of funding for Hungary

James Heale James Heale

Why the SNP can’t lose

What does a party get after nearly two decades in office, collapsing public services, an internal civil war and a £2 million police investigation? Re-election, again – perhaps with an even bigger majority. Last spring, under the hapless Humza Yousaf, the SNP’s grip on power in Scotland finally appeared to be loosening. But eight months on, the nationalists have managed a remarkable turnaround. The party now has a 15-point poll lead and it looks as though John Swinney will remain in Bute House at next year’s Holyrood elections. ‘The caretaker manager has got the job permanently,’ says one rival. The party’s change in fortunes owes less to Swinney’s skill as an

Michael Gove

Get real: the harsh lessons of our new world disorder

Sir Roger Scruton may not be the Prime Minister’s favourite author. Apparently Keir Starmer prefers Victoria Hislop. But as he prepares to travel to Washington next week, the PM could scarcely spend his time more wisely than burying his nose in The Uses of Pessimism – and the Dangers of False Hope, one of Scruton’s most powerful works. ‘Hope untempered by the evidence of history is a dangerous asset,’ says Scruton. ‘And one that threatens not only those who embrace it, but all those within range of their illusions.’ That is the correct, pessimistic, cast of mind with which to approach not just the war in Ukraine, and America’s ongoing

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: US and Russia talk, Chiltern Firehouse burns and Duchess of Sussex rebrands

Home Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, said that, to guarantee the security of Ukraine, he was ‘ready and willing’ to put ‘our own troops on the ground if necessary. I do not say that lightly’. Parliament would be allowed a vote on such a deployment, the government said. Earlier, Sir Keir took an unannounced telephone call from President Donald Trump of America about their forthcoming meeting. Afterwards, Mr Trump said: ‘We have a lot of good things going on. But he asked to come and see me and I just accepted his asking.’ The Chiltern Firehouse hotel in Marylebone burnt down. The Lady Chief Justice, Baroness Carr of Walton-on-the-Hill,

Wednesday

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Scotland’s public sector is growing out of control

There is a perception that Scotland is a socialist basket case where a mammoth public sector is showered with English money, and I’m here to tell you that this perception is racist, offensive and… not entirely without foundation. The latest Scottish budget analysis from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) examines public sector pay north of the border and concludes that the burgeoning bill poses a ‘fiscal challenge’ to Scottish government finances. State employees now account for 22 per cent of the entire workforce, compared to 17 per cent in England, with an annual pay bill of £27 billion. Salaries for public sector workers, whose number has increased 11 per

Konstantin Kisin

The tide is turning

Konstantin Kisin delivered these remarks – which also appear on his Substack – at the ARC conference in London Ladies and gentlemen, it is great to be back at ARC. If we haven’t met, my name is Konstantin. I was born in Soviet Russia and moved here when I was a teenager. I love this country and I say so publicly, which is how you know I still haven’t integrated into British culture.  Last time we were here, I opened my speech with this quote from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. ‘The strength or weakness of a society depends more on the level of its spiritual life than on its level of industrialisation.

John Oxley

The elderly don’t need more political representation

Young people feel economically adrift. Homeownership has become increasingly unaffordable, and rents have escalated exorbitantly. Younger workers have borne the brunt of wage stagnation, with real pay largely frozen for the last decade and a half. Politicians, however, think the way to fix this rift is to focus more on the feelings of the ageing. The Women and Equalities Select Committee has waded in on the side of the greying. A new report has proposed a Commissioner for Older People and the establishment of a cross-government minister to champion the rights of the old. This has been announced with a broadside against ageism, with a particular objection to portrayals of

Oscar Edmondson

Why Rachel Reeves is safe, for now

14 min listen

Foreign affairs are inescapable this week, with the readout from the meeting yesterday between Russian and American diplomats in Saudi Arabia. We understand that Trump told Putin that Ukraine will be part of the next round of peace talks. However, Trump’s shock-and-awe foreign policy continues to deliver significantly more shock than awe, especially after he seemingly blamed Ukraine for starting the war. What is he thinking? Could there be more to Trump’s foreign policy than he is letting on?  Back in the UK, pressure is mounting on Rachel Reeves as more inaccuracies in her CV come to light, and inflation rises to 3 per cent. There have been murmurs that