Politics

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

Friday

31 Oct 2025

Why Christians should celebrate Halloween

Hallowe’en is nearly over for another year. Thank goodness, you might say. Each October, many Brits scratch their heads about when this festival became such a big thing. I am as guilty as the next person in doing so: only last weekend I reflected, with a combination of curiosity and weariness, that ‘when I was young’, October 31 was simply not as hotly anticipated a date in the calendar. The blame for Hallowe’en inflation is often directed at the Americans. But it’s not fair to blame our US cousins. Hallowe’en is something of an ancient Christian tradition. Strip away crass commercialisation and that was what Hallowe’en and the days which

Steerpike

Will the Tories leave Westminster?

On Sunday, it is one year since Kemi Badenoch was elected Tory leader. The anniversary is expected to pass with little in the way of fanfare – though her supporters were cheered by a strong performance at PMQs on Wednesday. One bright spot of her reign has been a healthy return on the donations’ front. Fundraisers have been quick to tout the Tories’ record in this area, compared to both Labour and Reform UK. The Budget next month should only help party efforts… Still, will all that be enough to keep the party in their swanky Westminster base? Conservative Campaign Headquarters (CCHQ) has been run out of Matthew Parker Street

Steerpike

Tory kitchen sink approach sees success in Hendon

It turns out Kemi Badenoch’s kitchen sink approach in the recent Barnet by-election paid off. The result of the Hendon ward council by-election came in early this morning, with the poll held after former Tory councillor Joshua Conway lost his seat over a job change making him ineligible to stay on. But as Mr S wrote on Tuesday, the Conservative campaign was rather unusual – in the fact that a number of rather senior politicians took the trouble to canvass for their candidate. It’s not all that common for a party leader, a shadow justice secretary and the party’s chairman to take much interest in a council poll – but

Laurie Wastell

The deluded liberalism of Michael Heseltine

Michael Heseltine is making a bid to become the fresh new face of Remoanerism. Earlier this month ‘Hezza’ wowed the wets at Tory conference with a speech to the effect that Reform are ‘equivalents to the fascists in the 30s’ for the crime of wanting to reduce immigration. This week, having acquired a taste for the spotlight, he has spoken to the Times from his Northamptonshire stately home, setting out his stall in even greater and more tedious detail. Aged 92 and still a Tory peer, he hopes that his ‘final contribution’ to public life ‘may be to try to stop Nigel Farage’ – not out of any personal vanity,

Oscar Edmondson

Andrew (Mountbatten Windsor) saves the Chancellor

15 min listen

Happy All Hallows’ Eve, everyone – and there is something spooky going on with Rachel Reeves and a property in Dulwich. Yesterday she was leading the news after admitting to renting out her family home following the move into No. 11 without getting the required licence from Southwark Council. There are a number of mitigating circumstances – not least the fact that the lettings agent said they would obtain the licence – but the Prime Minister has been forced to put out a statement. He backs her, for now, but will he come to regret that? Listen for a rare defence of Rachel Reeves on this podcast from our economics

Steerpike

Reeves under fire after changing letting story

Can Labour get anything right? If it’s not freebie fiascos, or tax affair slip-ups, it’s Chancellor Rachel Reeves coming under fire over her illegal letting palaver. On Wednesday, the Daily Mail revealed that Reeves had been letting out her family home without a licence. Defending herself, the Chancellor claimed she and her husband were not aware that they were required to secure a selective rental licence. Yet unearthed emails appear to contradict this story… Email exchanges released by No. 10 on Thursday night showed that conversations between Reeves’s husband and the couple’s letting agent about the need for a licence were had. The discovery of the cache of emails led

Madeline Grant

The assisted suicide bill’s backers are abysmal

In the midst of all the slip ups, the corruption and the lies, you might have forgotten the most consequential piece of legislation this government is forcing through Parliament. The assisted suicide bill has passed from the bony, blundering hands of the Grim Leadreaper and into the doughy, smothering mitts of Lord Falconer as it makes its way through the House of Lords. Unsurprisingly, given the legislation makes back of a fag packet shopping lists look like Magna Carta, their lordships have been giving it a kicking in committee. In some ways it’s a difficult subject to sketch; the stakes are unbelievably high for the poor, the sick, the disabled. Then

The Spectator

Americano Live: Is America Great Again?

Watch Freddy Gray, The Spectator’s deputy editor and host of the Americano podcast, and special guests Ann Coulter and Peter Hitchens go head-to-head on the highs and lows of Trump’s first year back in the White House, via livestream. Has Trump 2.0 lived up to its promise – or fallen short of the ‘Golden Age’? Is he reinvigorating American democracy – or suffocating it? Has he choked capitalism through his Liberation Day tariffs – or preserved free markets in a new, less globalised era? Join us and hear from our panel.

Jonathan Sacerdoti

Hamas’s return is revealing Gaza’s true colours

Remember that weird little Covid ritual of 2020, when every Thursday at 8pm people stepped out onto their doorsteps and applauded? Banging saucepans, clapping their hands, they lit up the miserable skies with cheers for the National Health Service. It was mawkish, and orchestrated to the point of theatre. But its aim was to express a kind of collective gratitude for those who had become the most visibly important figures in the national story. Nurses and doctors were held in the highest esteem. They were ‘society’s best’. That’s why all those people applauded. Crowds of Palestinian Arabs whooped and whistled, and filmed on their smartphones. They called out ‘Allahu Akbar’

Eliot Wilson

Why is the army’s top brass waging war on private members’ clubs?

The British Army – at its smallest size since we lost our American colonies in the 1770s – is facing the most challenging period in its history. More soldiers are leaving than joining. Why are they walking away? A sternly-worded letter from the Deputy Chief of the General Staff (DCGS), Lieutenant General David Eastman, rebuking colonels for their dealings with private members’ clubs, shows one reason why many are fed up with the Army. Eastman is concerned that the Army’s intended status as a ‘modern, inclusive, and forward-thinking organisation’ might be undermined Eastman is concerned that the Army’s intended status as a ‘modern, inclusive, and forward-thinking organisation’ may be undermined

Andrew Tettenborn

Human rights scepticism is now mainstream

When Nigel Farage introduced a bill in the House of Commons requiring the UK to leave the ECHR (European Convention on Human Rights) this week, it was clear that something has changed in British politics. It wasn’t the absence of deluded heckling from Labour MPs or Lib Dem leader Ed Davey, both of which were fixtures of the debate. And, no: the Reform leader’s bill didn’t get anywhere. No-one expected it to, but that was not the point. Such bills are not generally taken as serious legislative proposals; they are more ballons d’essai to gauge reaction. And reading between the lines, the reaction to this one is both informative, and also encouraging

Harry Halem

The luck of the Irish is finally running out

For the past twenty years, Ireland has been Europe’s improbable overachiever. A small island nation on the fringe of Europe managed to turn EU membership, American corporate investment and allegedly shrewd strategic diplomacy into an economic success story. While the Celtic Tiger whimpered following the 2008 crash, it leapt back into action with remarkable agility, creating a low-tax, free-market economy. Dublin became the unlikely bridge for American tech and pharmaceutical giants to meet the European market, a centre of financial services and an agile diplomatic operator. As the US counts costs, not cousins, Ireland’s mix of moral posturing and strategic freeloading will wear ever thinner Throughout the Biden years, Ireland

Luke Coppen

Luke Coppen, Mary Wakefield, Daniel McCarthy, Michael Simmons & Hugh Thomson

35 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Luke Coppen looks at a new musical subgenre of Roman Catholic black metal; Mary Wakefield celebrates cartoonist Michael Heath as he turns 90 – meaning he has drawn for the Spectator for 75 years; looking to Venezuela, Daniel McCarthy warns Trump about the perils of regime change; Michael Simmons bemoans how Britain is beholden to bad data; and, Hugh Thomson looks at celebrity terrorists as he reviews Jason Burke’s The Revolutionists. Produced and presented by Patrick Gibbons.

Alexander Larman

It’s all over for Andrew Mountbatten Windsor

It’s all over for Prince Andrew or, as he is now known, Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. The former Duke of York, ex-trade envoy and, for all we know, Grand Pooh-Bah of Kazakhstan, has been stripped of every one of his titles. Andrew has also been ejected from his Windsor mansion by his brother, the King. Mr Andrew Windsor, as we can now, finally, call him, has been served the punishment that his arrogant, selfish actions have merited all along In a terse, angry statement, Buckingham Palace that said that: ‘His Majesty has today initiated a formal process to remove the style, titles and honours of Prince Andrew. Prince Andrew will now

Thursday

30 Oct 2025

Stephen Daisley

Police Scotland has lost its way

One of the most fascinating cases of institutional self-harm in modern Britain is policing. Not just the oft-criticised Met (though it is spectacularly adept at inflicting needless wounds on itself) but police forces up and down the country. The two-tier policing of crimes against ethnic minorities is a particularly pungent example, but there is also the plainly divergent approaches to managing large-scale protests which might feasibly pose threats to public order. Then there’s the treatment of Susan Smith, the Scottish feminist. She is one of the For Women Scotland campaigners who got the Supreme Court to say in black and white that, for the purposes of the Equality Act, a woman is a biological

Gavin Mortimer

Brigitte Macron has lost France’s sympathy

Ten people have been on trial this week in Paris, accused of transphobic cyberbullying against Brigitte Macron. France’s first lady, the wife of Emmanuel Macron, pressed charges after a claim that she was in fact a man went global. Some of those in the dock have apologised for spreading the allegations online but others have said that it’s just a bit of harmless fun and that in a free country one should be able to say what one likes. This argument was dismissed by Brigitte Macron’s lawyer, Jean Ennochi, who said: ‘They all talk to you about freedom of expression, defamation, they completely deny cyberbullying [and] mob harassment.’ Prosecutors have

Oscar Edmondson

What happened at the Parliamentarian of the Year Awards?

17 min listen

There are a few sore heads at 22 Old Queen Street this morning because it was The Spectator’s Parliamentarian of the Year Awards last night. From Lucy Powell’s jibe at Morgan McSweeney (and Tim Shipman, for that matter) to Robert Jenrick’s jokes falling flat, it was an eventful evening of good-natured hazing, naval-gazing and – of course – recognising the best and worst of Westminster. Who came out on top? Oscar Edmondson debriefs with Tim Shipman, Michael Simmons and Natasha Feroze. Produced by Oscar Edmondson and Megan McElroy.

Lara Prendergast

Embracing the occult, going underground & lost languages

34 min listen

Big Tech is under the spell of the occult, according to Damian Thompson. Artificial intelligence is now so incredible that even educated westerners are falling back on the occult, and Silicon Valley billionaires are becoming obsessed with heaven and hell. An embrace of the occult is not just happening in California but across the world – with ‘WitchTok’, a new trend of middle-class women embracing witchcraft. Is this spooky or just sad? And to what extent are they just following in the tradition of the Victorian charlatan? Host Lara Prendergast is joined by the Spectator’s associate editor – and host of the Holy Smoke podcast – Damian Thompson, alongside writers

Ian Williams

Trump and Xi’s South Korean meeting changed little

Donald Trump says his meeting with Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the APEC summit in South Korea today was ‘amazing’ and that, on a scale of one to 10, it merited a 12. Which means that on a scale for scepticism, it probably deserves a 13. Its biggest achievement appears to have been to at least put the trade war between the world’s two biggest economies on hold, though stock markets, excitable all week as the summit approached, opened flat this morning. Fundamental issues remain unchanged, the momentum towards economic separation will continue, possibly accelerating during the breathing space provided by an extended truce that is unlikely to last.

Ross Clark

Is Reeves plotting to short-change the self-employed?

It seems pretty certain now that having flirted with just about every tax rise under the sun, Rachel Reeves is going to increase income tax in her Budget on 26 November. That much became clear when Keir Starmer declined to take Kemi Badenoch’s invitation to rule out a rise in income tax rates at Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday. Previously when asked the question, he had always suggested that the government would stick to its promise not to raise the main rates of income tax, National Insurance or VAT. Reeves will no doubt blame Brexit (as she already has done), the Tories (ditto) and Donald Trump for her fiscal black hole