Politics

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

Sunday

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

Is Keir Starmer a closet Tory?

Cindy Yu (CY): Slashing winter fuel allowance, keeping the two-child benefit cap, cutting foreign aid, cutting the civil service, axing NHS bureaucracy and slashing welfare spending. Rod, are we actually living under a conservative government? Rod Liddle (RL): No, because the Conservative government didn’t do any of that, because they didn’t have the appetite for it or the bravery. I’ve actually, in the last month, considered rejoining the Labour Party. It’s a blue Labour Party, it reflects pretty much everything I ever wanted from the Labour Party. There are a few problems. I think Rachel Reeves is a problem. But other than that, I think Labour is doing things which

Chas Newkey-Burden

Am I the only one who misses lockdown?

Five years ago tonight, Boris Johnson told us we were going into lockdown. In the run-up to the anniversary of that historic moment, lots of people have shuddered as they remembered the boredom, frustration and horror of that strange time when we were only allowed to leave the house once a day. Me? I’ve been looking back at it all rather wistfully. I’m hopelessly, romantically nostalgic for lockdown. I remember it fondly as a time when the sun shone nearly every day, we didn’t need to go anywhere we didn’t want to, we all cared and talked about the same thing and, just like the old days, everyone watched the

Theodore Dalrymple

Would Richard III have claimed PIP?

Looking at the list breaking down the reasons for which people are granted Personal Independence Payments (PIPSs), up to £180 a week to help them with their daily living and mobility, one cannot help but be reminded of the London Bills of Mortality of the seventeenth century, when some people died ‘frighted’, or of ‘grief’, or ‘lethargy.’ Descanting on his own deformity does nothing to reduce Richard’s unease Of course, our nosology – our classification of disease – is far more scientific than it was nearly four hundred years ago, except perhaps in one important respect: that of psychological difficulties. This is important because such difficulties are responsible for by

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

The Zoom call that confirmed my fears about Just Stop Oil

Just Stop Oil are their own worst enemies. I support their aims and I do my best to minimise my carbon footprint. I haven’t flown since 1993, I don’t own a car and I have eleven solar panels on my roof, but I’m losing patience with the movement. Meeting the JSO activists who disrupted a West End play only confirmed my suspicions that the movement has gone off the rails. Weir and Walsh evidently care about the planet, yet they seem to lack ordinary human sympathy Most people think the protestors who sabotaged Sigourney Weaver’s performance as Prospero at London’s Drury Lane theatre in January are a nuisance. Not JSO. Earlier

Saturday

Nigel Jones

Oleg Gordievsky: the double agent Russia never stopped hunting

The death of Oleg Gordievsky at the age of 86 comes at a moment when relations between his native Russia and his adopted country Britain are just as fraught as they were in his heyday as the West’s most important double agent at the height of the Cold War. Gordievsky’s life story reads like the plot of a John Le Carre spy thriller, and it has indeed been written up as such by the doyen of espionage chroniclers Ben Macintyre. Gordievsky was born into the ranks of the Soviet secret state apparat. Like Vladimir Putin, his father was a member of the NKVD, the name the feared Soviet secret police

Michael Simmons Michael Simmons

The Spectator reflects on Covid five years on

Five years ago this weekend, the nation was plunged into what was expected to be a three-week lockdown. Weeks turned into months and years, lives were upended, and society was reshaped. But with the Covid inquiry rumbling on and the threat of a new pandemic ever present, it is worth reflecting on what happened.  That’s what we did for today’s special episode of Spectator TV. We wanted to look back on the conversations our contributors were having at the time, so this morning’s show starts with an episode from during the pandemic, hosted by Cindy Yu. She interviews two University of Oxford bioethics professors, Julian Savulescu and Dominic Wilkinson, about why – at

Joanna Cherry

The SNP has a woman problem

John Swinney said this week the SNP doesn’t have a problem with women. I disagree. Of course, some of the unsung founders of the party were women. Some of the party’s strongest and most famous politicians have been women – from Winnie Ewing, Margo MacDonald and Nicola Sturgeon. Yet under the leadership of Nicola Sturgeon, the rights of women in Scotland became conditional on their acceptance of gender identity theory. While the legislation which sought to enshrine this notion in law was struck down by a Scottish court – which agreed with the Westminster government and feminist campaigners that the bill impinged on the rights of women under the Equality

Steerpike Steerpike

Met Police urged to oppose China’s ‘super-embassy’

For years now, Mr S has been covering the long-running farce that is China’s proposed new ‘super-embassy’. Back in 2018, Beijing bought the site of the old Royal Mint, declaring their intention to turn the Tower Hamlets location into the country’s largest diplomatic mission in Europe. But for the past seven years, various planning concerns have held up the development. For one thing, there’s the fact that that Tower Hamlets is almost 40 per cent Muslim: Beijing does not exactly have a good record on Uighur Muslims, given its appalling crackdown in Xinjiang. Then, there’s national security concerns: Senators on the US Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)

Eliot Wilson

How many peacekeepers can Europe send to Ukraine?

We may look back to find Sir Keir Starmer partly defined by the phrase ‘coalition of the willing’. It is hard to fault the prime minister’s energy in rallying nations to implement a peace settlement in Ukraine, but there are issues to unpick. Who makes up the coalition? What is its role in Ukraine? What forces and capabilities will it need to fulfil that role, and where will it get them? The answers to these questions are both vague and subject to change, so let us see what we can establish. Only two months ago, President Zelensky told the World Economic Forum that enforcing a peace settlement would require a

Stephen Pollard

Bridget Phillipson has a lot to learn from Donald Trump

Over the past few months, I’ve wished that almost anyone was education secretary instead of Bridget Phillipson, who seems to be on a one-woman mission to destroy thirty years of school reforms. I’ll be honest, though: by ‘anyone’, I didn’t mean Donald Trump. But this week, President Trump showed how much better he would be in the job than Phillipson, signing an executive order instructing her US counterpart, Linda McMahon, to begin dismantling the US Department of Education. If only Keir Starmer had arrived in Downing Street last July and ordered Phillipson to set about the process of doing herself out of a job. Instead, she is proving with every passing

Toby Young Toby Young

Were we right to lock down? Michael Gove vs Toby Young

31 min listen

On 23 March 2020, then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the unprecedented decision to put the UK into lockdown. To mark the 5th anniversary of that announcement this weekend, we have brought together our editor Michael Gove – then a cabinet minister under Boris – and our associate editor Toby Young – an ardent critic of the decision – to answer the question, was the government right to lockdown? Was the decision a necessary and reasonable health measure based on the available evidence at the time, or a significant and avoidable violation of civil liberties by a government that was meant to champion liberal freedoms? You decide. Produced and presented by

Philip Patrick Philip Patrick

Does Japan want its own nuclear weapons?

Japan is planning to strengthen its ‘counterstrike capabilities’ by deploying long-range missiles on the southern island of Kyushu. The missiles have a range of 621 miles, meaning they could hit targets within North Korea and China. The move comes amidst rising tensions in the region and in an atmosphere of increased uncertainty in Japan about American security guarantees. The weapons, upgraded versions of the GSDF (Ground Self Defense Force – Japan’s army) Type 12 land-to-ship guided missiles, will be stored at bases with existing military garrisons and will be able to defend the strategically vital Okinawa island chain. Placing the missiles on Okinawa itself, which reaches to within 68 miles

Patrick West

London is not as bad as people say

Complaints that ‘London isn’t what it used to be’ or ‘London is a hell-hole these days’ are hardly original or new, but reports keep giving succour to this perception. The news that the capital has recorded its highest-ever level of mobile theft will only confirm what nostalgics and those who regularly watch TV already know: that our once-great capital is overcrowded, overpriced, crime-ridden and barely English anymore. While this stereotype is founded on much truth, I think some redress is in order, not least an infusion of nuance. By way of putting perspective on matters, here’s my story. London has unquestionably changed. But this shift has not been wholly for

Patrick O’Flynn Patrick O'Flynn

Nigel Farage has won the row with Rupert Lowe

The Reform schism, which the party’s many establishment detractors hoped would prevent it securing a breakthrough at the local elections, is nearly played out. A leak to the BBC of private WhatsApp messages from Nigel Farage about Rupert Lowe, apparently designed to put Farage in a bad light, has in my view done just the opposite. In the messages, which certainly increase suspicions that Lowe was suspended from Reform in part due to a newspaper interview in which he was critical of his party leader, Farage is nonetheless shown to have had one overriding factor in mind: giving his party’s candidates the best platform for winning council seats on 1

Friday

David Shipley

Tommy Robinson doesn’t know how lucky he is

Tommy Robinson has lost his attempt to force the prison service to move him out of segregation. Robinson’s lawyers said he is being held in ‘inhuman’ and ‘degrading’ conditions at HMP Woodhill in Milton Keynes. But the High Court ruled that Robinson, also known as Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, was being kept away from other prisoners for his own safety. Robinson is actually rather lucky: in many ways, his treatment behind bars is far better than the typical inmate receives Robinson’s supporters have reacted with predictable fury. Are they right to be angry? Is Robinson the victim of a justice system determined to crush his will, which is treating him far more

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Does Kemi have a plan?

12 min listen

It’s been Kemi-takes-action week for the Conservatives, with the leader of the opposition trying to prove that she can – in fact – do policy. She launched a series of policy reviews, which will be delivered in a steady stream between now and conference, with a headline statement on Net Zero, declaring that Britain’s 2050 emissions target was ‘impossible’. That went down well with the party, and many thought her announcement felt genuinely proactive rather than reactive. After months of being criticised for not doing enough, is she finally shifting the dial? Will it be enough to avoid a local elections wipeout? Katy Balls speaks to James Heale and Paul Goodman. Produced by

Owen Matthews

The EU’s ‘re-arming’ plan is unserious

Hark ye now, O despots of the world and enemies of freedom: as the American beacon of democracy fades, Europe stands ready and willing to take its place as the arsenal of democracy. ‘We have agreed on a strategy for fully re-arming and re-equipping Europe,’ tweeted French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday. ‘We will fully restore our independence in the coming five years.’ Take that, Trump and Putin! Europe is stepping up to defend Ukraine and defend itself. To that end, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week announced a ReArm Europe plan that could see up to €800 billion poured into the defence sector over the next four

Henry Jeffreys

Henry Jeffreys, Marcus Walker, Angus Colwell, Nicolas Farrell and Rory Sutherland

29 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Henry Jeffreys looks at the potential impact of Trump’s tariffs on British drinkers (1:31); on the 400th anniversary of Charles I’s accession to the throne, Marcus Walker explains what modern Britain could learn from the cavalier monarch (7:10); Angus Colwell provides his notes on beef dripping (13:55); Nicolas Farrell reveals he refused to accept the local equivalent of an Oscar (16:40); and, Rory Sutherland makes the case for linking VAT to happiness… with 0% going to pubs, Indian restaurants and cheddar cheese (24:08).  Produced and presented by Patrick Gibbons.

Steerpike Steerpike

BBC issues support email to LGBT staff over Trump

The BBC’s legions of staff seem to be struggling to cope with, um, the news. The corporation has issued an emotional support notice for colleagues affected by events across the water, after the election of US President Donald Trump – with the Beeb gushing that its ‘commitment to diversity, inclusion and belonging remains unwavering’. How sweet.  The statement, issued by the BBC Pride Board, sympathised with staff members ‘particularly those in the LGBTQ+ community’ who may have ‘concerns’ about goings-on stateside. The note went on:  We know the Corporation firmly believes in creating an environment where everyone feels safe, valued and respected, no matter where they are based. If you

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Keir Starmer is a gift to Scottish nationalism

Southside Central is the kind of ward Scottish Labour needs to be winning. It’s in Glasgow, home to significant pockets of deprivation within the Gorbals and Govanhill, and has a substantial population of Scots of Pakistani heritage. If there is a path to a Labour government after the 2026 Holyrood elections, it runs through communities like Southside Central. But Anas Sarwar’s party has been rejected by the voters of this ward in favour of the SNP’s Mhairi Hunter. North East is another ward Labour ought to be winning. Once again, it’s Glasgow, home to high levels of social-rented housing, and contains Easterhouse, whose multiple deprivations and addiction problems famously shocked