Politics

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

Prison bureaucracy is making inmates’ lives needlessly hard

Everyone knows that Britain’s jails are filthy, failing and dangerous. But there’s another less obvious problem with our prisons: those locked up can find it impossible to get anything done. In prison, your ability to achieve the most basic of tasks done is almost entirely dependent on others. This means that if a prisoner needs to see a doctor, apply for a job, join a training or education program, or even get more loo roll, they need to contact someone who will solve the problem for them. When most prisoners are locked in their cells for 22 hours a day, this can prove very difficult. No one wins when prisoners’

Freddy Gray

What Team Trump’s group chat error really revealed

Jeffrey Goldberg’s story in the Atlantic is so mind-blowing it’s hard to know what to say in response. It defies belief that Donald Trump’s National Security Adviser, Mike Waltz, appears to have accidentally added a top journalist to a Signal messaging group with senior government officials – including the Vice President, Secretary of State, Defence Secretary and the Director of National Intelligence – to discuss top-secret military action. It boggles the brain that the people running the most powerful country on the planet, the Principals Committee of US national security no less, use childish emojis to discuss a bombing campaign which they helped co-ordinate in order to kill 53 people.

Toby Young

Adolescence demonises white working-class boys

This is an extract from today’s episode of Spectator TV, with Toby Young and James Walton, which you can find at the bottom of this page: I wasn’t all that overbowled by the series. I think one of the reasons it’s met with such a chorus of approval, particularly in the mainstream media, is because it’s just repeating back to the liberal metropolitan elite what they already think about the causes of knife crime and the dangers that influencers like Andrew Tate pose to women and girls. We’re in this sort of incredible loop. There might be a less polite term for it, but let’s call it a loop in

James Heale

Can Britain dodge Trump’s tariffs?

14 min listen

Reports in the papers today say that the British government is considering scrapping its digital services tax – largely levied at American tech companies – in return for an exemption to Trump’s tariffs that come into effect on April 2. Would this be an effective – or desirable – move on the British part? James Heale speaks to Katy Balls and Kate Andrews. Produced by Oscar Edmondson and Cindy Yu.

Who will stand up for Jews today?

Awoken by sirens wailing over large parts of central Israel last weekend, I pulled on whatever clothes I could find beside my bed and shuffled down to the bomb shelter in the basement. The missiles, launched from Yemen by the Iranian-backed Houthis, didn’t distinguish between ideologies or identities. More or less every Israeli in the strike zone – left-wing or right-wing, religious or secular, Jew, Arab, Christian, Muslim, or other – did the same. Those without safe-rooms of their own rely on communal shelters, often meeting their neighbours dressed in pyjamas or wrapped in bath towels. Those who get caught away from home rush into the nearest building to be ushered

South Korea is more polarised than ever

This past week, eagle-eyed observers of South Korean politics – not to mention the South Korean public – were supposed to have been put out of their respective miseries. The fate of the embattled South Korean President, Yoon Suk Yeol, would be made known, and South Korea could regroup and plan its next steps at a time of regional and global instability. Instead, we are still waiting for the country’s constitutional court to decide the President’s destiny. Swiftness has certainly not been a priority for the eight judges. As protests in support of and against Yoon continue to line the streets of Seoul, one thing can be said with certainty:

When will Britain crack down on the Al Quds hate march?

There are moments in the life of a democracy when ambiguity becomes complicity. On Sunday, in the heart of London, such a moment unfolded with eerie precision and devastating clarity. During the annual Quds Day rally – an event imported from the revolutionary streets of Tehran – demonstrators hoisted images of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran. In a city that prides itself on liberty, tolerance, and pluralism, the figurehead of a regime known for repression, hostage diplomacy, antisemitism, and extraterritorial assassination plots was paraded as an icon of defiance. One might ask, defiance of what? Of Zionism? Of oppression? No. Of Britain itself:

Steerpike

Scots feel safer as part of UK in blow to SNP

It’s a day ending in ‘y’ which means there’s more bad news for the Scottish Nats. Now new polling for unionist group Scotland in Union shows that most Scots feel safer as part of the United Kingdom. The Survation survey revealed that most of Scotland’s population believe they are more secure – and have more influence – as part of the UK, with the country’s people also in favour of retaining the nuclear deterrent. For the anti-Trident, secessionist Nats, it’s quite the blow… Today’s poll found half of participants believed Scotland is more secure as part of the UK, while almost six in ten respondents felt that the country should

What Lord Frost gets wrong about the Tories’ future

It hardly feels like a serious discussion of the Conservative party’s future until Lord Frost has indicated where the leadership is going wrong. As Steerpike reported this weekend, the architect of the Brexit withdrawal agreement and former Scotch whisky salesman delivered a speech at the annual Margaret Thatcher Freedom Festival, and had some advice on the future relationship between the Conservatives and Reform UK. It is perplexing to understand how Lord Frost has become some kind of sage of conservative thought Frost argued that the door should be left open to some kind of electoral pact or agreement between the two parties closer to the next general election in 2028

Trump can hit Putin where it hurts – if he wants to

Donald Trump’s efforts to negotiate a quick end to the war in Ukraine have run into trouble. As US negotiators meet with Russian and Ukrainian counterparts in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to explore possibilities for a comprehensive ceasefire, the Russian side is clearly going through the motions. Vladimir Putin’s call last week with Trump showed that he sees no need to stop fighting when he is winning. He believes that he can weaken Ukraine’s will to fight and encourage Trump to help him impose on Kyiv a Russian-designed peace settlement. So far, he has not sensed any determination on the part of the Trump administration to persuade him otherwise. Russia’s main

Are climate scientists qualified to judge net zero?

Kemi Badenoch’s announcement that the Conservatives are no longer committed to the net zero target in 2050 represents a massive breach in fifteen years of bipartisan consensus. It was greeted with predictable hostility by other parties, but also by pro-net zero forces within the Conservative party too. The Conservative Environment Network commented: ‘Abandon the science and voters will start to doubt the Conservative Party’s seriousness on the clean energy transition’. Is the power of the demand to ‘follow the science’ losing its effect after Covid, lockdowns and the growing realisation that net zero is likely to be hugely expensive? The very idea of ‘following the science’ is meaningless Of all

Ross Clark

Is Rachel Reeves brave enough to slash the civil service?

Chancellor Rachel Reeves is seeking to trim £2 billion from the government’s £13 billion administration budget, with up to 50,000 jobs being cut in her Spring Statement. The Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the government was ‘looking across the board’ for savings. But do Reeves and Starmer really have the courage, and the political capital, to carry out such a purge? On paper, Labour’s task looks straightforward enough. Civil service numbers over the past 15 years have performed a bungee jump. Between 2010 and 2016, the coalition, followed by David Cameron’s majority Conservative government, succeeded in trimming civil service numbers from 492,000 to 384,000. Then they began to climb again,

Will Labour back ECHR withdrawal?

Amidst the U-turns, if there is one thing on which Labour has remained almost rock-solid until now, it is human rights and the UK’s continued participation in the ECHR (European Convention on Human Rights). But even here things are changing. ECHRexit, like Brexit once did, looks increasingly respectable On Saturday, a group of Red Wall Labour members, led by Hartlepool MP Jonathan Brash, broke ranks and publicly called for the government to do something to stop ECHR being used to stymie the removal of criminals and other undesirables from the UK. They said that ‘huge numbers’ of others in Labour supported them. Even if that is an exaggeration, this is still very

Steerpike

Rayner’s request for safari tour on work trip rejected

It’s a hard time to be in Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour government, what with poor poll ratings and dismal economic forecasts to contend with. Perhaps that’s why Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner felt she deserved a free safari tour during a work trip to Ethiopia earlier this year. But it transpires her hopes were rather quickly dashed after civil servants told her that, no, the day out would not be possible on an official visit. Awkward… As reported by the Times, two government sources revealed to the newspaper that Starmer’s second-in-command had hoped to tie in a bit of recreational sightseeing – as part of February’s east Africa visit to

The Bank of England should stop worrying about inflation

As the government makes growth its top priority, one critical lever risks being overlooked: monetary policy. Ministers are busy wrestling with fiscal constraints and the pressures of a sluggish economy, but too much focus remains on spending pledges and supply-side fixes, and too little on the frameworks that shape demand and investment. Ahead of this week’s Spring Statement, they must ask a harder question: is the Bank of England’s inflation-targeting regime now holding back Britain’s recovery? The Bank of England remains bound to its rigid 2 per cent inflation target As I argue in my new Institute of Economic Affairs paper, Rethinking Monetary Policy, inflation targeting is no longer fit for

Sam Leith

Why is Keir Starmer pretending he ‘likes and respects’ Donald Trump?

Anyone who relishes the humiliation of Sir Keir Starmer – and I know that in this respect, if only this one, many Spectator readers will make common cause with the supporters of Jeremy Corbyn – was presented with a delicacy this weekend. Here was a humiliation so exquisite, so public and so unrecoverable-from, that you could use it instead of Vermouth to flavour a martini. The British Prime Minister told the New York Times, with every semblance of earnestness, that he ‘likes and respects’ Donald Trump – and saw that interview blazoned internationally. ‘On a person-to-person basis, I think we have a good relationship,’ Starmer said ‘On a person-to-person basis,

James Heale

Carney calls Canada election for 28 April

At long last, we have a date. In just over a month’s time, Canadians will head to the polls to decide whether to end a decade of Liberal rule. Having succeeded Justin Trudeau as party leader on 9 March, Mark Carney has, predictably, opted not to play it long. By calling the election now, Carney conveniently does not have to face a hostile parliament – a showdown complicated by the fact that he does not actually have a seat in the House of Commons. Parliament had been due to return on Monday after being prorogued for two months. Instead, five weeks of campaigning now looms. Carney’s strategy is obvious. He

Steerpike

Lord Frost floats a 2028 Reform pact

To Buckingham, for a blast of soundness at the annual Margaret Thatcher conference. Star of the show was David Frost, the guest speaker at last night’s dinner. And the Tory peer has certainly been brushing up on his political bon mots, judging by his lines to the 200 attendees. Frost compared the ‘amateurish farrago’ of Labour’s early days in office to his own attempts at ‘assembling Ikea furniture. I sort of get everything out of the box, chuck away the instructions, try and put it all together, and then when it’s all a bit of a mess, turn to my wife and say, “Well, where’s the plan?”’ Keir Starmer, he