Politics

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

Monday

Lisa Haseldine Lisa Haseldine

Will Zelensky’s dash to see Trump pay off?

Volodymyr Zelensky is in Washington today to debrief with Donald Trump following the US President’s meeting with Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday. The purpose of today’s meeting at the White House will be to discuss the parameters of a potential peace deal in Ukraine. The last time Zelensky came to Washington was in February, when Trump and his vice president J.D. Vance berated the war-time leader for not being sufficiently ‘grateful’ for America’s support in the conflict with Russia. Once again, there is every possibility today’s summit will turn out as tense as it did six months ago.  Zelensky and his allies have a tall task ahead of them

Joanna Williams

Why women trust Farage more than Starmer

Labour’s attack dogs have Nigel Farage firmly in their sights. A vote for Reform will leave women and girls at risk from all manner of online nasties, is their latest salvo. Apparently, only Labour can offer us women the protection we need. Well, as one such woman, I would far sooner have a pint with Farage than be looked after by Starmer. When it comes to protecting women and girls in real life, the Labour government does not have a leg to stand on First came technology secretary Peter Kyle, who, at the end of July, accused the Reform leader of ‘wilful disregard for the safety of children online’ after

Steerpike Steerpike

Sally Rooney to use BBC royalties to support Palestine Action

The UK government’s proscription of campaign group Palestine Action saw over more than 500 protestors arrested this month – the greatest number of arrests made by the Met Police on a single day – after they took signs supporting the group to Parliament Square. The arrests prompted expressions of unease from politicians, commentators and, now, authors. Irish writer Sally Rooney expressed her support for the activists in the Irish Times this weekend and vowed to use BBC cash to help fund Palestine Action. Rooney wrote that she felt she had to make her support public after the mass arrests of Palestine Action supporters on 9 August, and asserted: ‘If this

James Heale James Heale

How do we get more working class people into politics?

17 min listen

Tom Gordon, Liberal Democrat MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough, joins James Heale to discuss his campaign to improve working class representation in politics. Tom, newly elected in 2024, explains how getting his mum involved in local politics in West Yorkshire led him to think about the structural issues that exist preventing more people from getting involved in politics. Plus, with both the Liberal Democrats and Reform UK challenging the traditional Labour and Conservative duopoly, what lessons can both parties learn from each other? Produced by Patrick Gibbons and Oscar Edmondson. Photo credit: House of Commons.

Steerpike Steerpike

BBC admits Huw Edwards hasn’t returned six-figure sum

Now the beleaguered BBC is facing fury from its own staff – after it emerged that Huw Edwards has not paid back the £200,000 doled out to him after being arrested in November 2023 for possessing indecent images of children. Last summer the former TV star pleaded guilty to three counts of making indecent images of children at Westminster magistrates’ court. But it quickly transpired that not only had Edwards, one of the Beeb’s highest paid stars, received a £40,000 pay rise in the 12 months between March 2023-April 2024, he was paid a further £200,000 after his arrest – with BBC boss Tim Davies confirming last year that the corporation had been

Matthew Lynn

How long before Rachel Reeves introduces a ‘FTSE tax’?

As figures out today show the salaries at the top of business soaring, there are plenty of good reasons for the chief executives of the FTSE 100 to be paid a lot more – at least if you look at it dispassionately. These companies are catching up with global salaries. They need to attract talent from around the world. And they need to stop businesses from moving to New York. The trouble is, we also have a Labour government that is searching for more tax revenue and backbenchers and party activists determined that the ‘rich’ should pay more. Against that backdrop, paying yourself a couple of million more does not

Mark Galeotti Mark Galeotti

Why Putin wants Donetsk

Will Ukraine’s fate depend on Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, Druzhkivka and Kostiantynivka? These may not be household names, but they are the four key ‘fortress cities’ in the remaining portions of Donetsk region that Vladimir Putin is reportedly demanding as the price for peace. Although the details are still unclear, it seems that the framework for a peace deal agreed in outline between Putin and Trump would see the Russians agreeing to freeze the current front line. They could maybe even hand back some small sections of the Sumy and Kharkiv regions they have conquered in return for Kyiv surrendering the much larger portion of Donetsk region it still holds. Territorial

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Labour will regret its attack on nature

Environmentalists always feared that Brexit would lead to a weakening of environmental protections, but who would have guessed that it would be a Labour government which would take a bulldozer to legislation acquired through the EU Habitats Directive? Rachel Reeves is reported to be contemplating a second planning bill which would make it far harder for conservationists to hold up infrastructure projects. Reeves has already paved the way – if that is not an unfortunate expression in this context – by saying last month that she cared more about young families getting on the housing ladder than ‘protecting some snails’. The ability to use judicial reviews to block projects will

Ian Acheson Ian Acheson

How to solve Britain’s shoplifting epidemic

Fifteen years ago, at the tail end of Blairism, I was running things for the Home Office in Southwest England. We had well-funded schemes across the region to tackle ‘prolific and other priority offenders’ (PPOs) who were torturing communities with crime. It seems almost quaint in the present context to recall the enthusiasm and effectiveness of the five local constabularies on my patch to prosecute the ‘catch and convict’ strand of the strategy. Rates of reoffending plummeted. The aim was straightforward: make life impossible for those engaged in criminal impunity. Those determined criminals who committed disproportionate levels of burglaries and shoplifting were harried from the moment they left their front

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Has France got what it takes to stand up to the Islamists?

In the early 1990s, an underground organisation was launched called the Barbie Liberation Movement (BLM). Its mission statement was a ‘commitment to challenging malign systems’, by which it meant the patriarchy. The BLM was inspired by a talking Barbie doll, launched in 1992, who had 270 platitudes, one of which was ‘math class is tough’. Outraged feminist groups forced Mattel Inc, the makers of Barbie, to remove what they described as a sexist slur. Now, though, may be the hour for the Barbie Liberation Movement to reform and once more fight the patriarchy. This time, however, the patriarchy is different. It no longer consists of ageing white men with their

Jonathan Sacerdoti

Hamas is using Israel’s protests as a weapon of war

Israel is caught in a tragic paradox: the finest qualities that define its national character – its compassion, solidarity, and moral responsibility – are exploited by adversaries who recognise in these virtues not strength, but vulnerability. As over half a million Israelis joined a nationwide strike yesterday, demanding a ceasefire and the return of hostages from Gaza, it was impossible not to be moved by the depth of feeling, the urgency of the appeals, and the sheer moral weight of the demand. Yet what moves one side to tears hardens the heart of the other, moving them to ruthless calculation. The protests are genuine, justified, and born of unbearable grief, but

Eliot Wilson

Starmer’s coalition of the willing has been saved from itself

It is commonplace to accuse politicians of being out of touch. There is often some truth in the charge, and our elected representatives take it on the chin. One of the least likely politicians to face this charge has always been John Healey: the defence secretary has been one of the most sensible and pragmatic ministers in Sir Keir Starmer’s cabinet – not a high bar, admittedly. And yet there are signs that he has succumbed to the Ministry of Defence’s corrosive habit of dealing with the world as it wants it to be, not as it is. Our armed forces are in no position to deploy significant numbers of

Sunday

Max Hastings

Was the Treaty of Versailles really to blame for the rise of the Nazis?

The 1919 Versailles peace conference that followed the end of the first world war became the most famous, or notorious, diplomatic negotiation in history. Much influenced by John Maynard Keynes, an impassioned sympathiser for the German predicament, it was branded for the rest of the twentieth century as a failure, the injustice of which bore heavy responsibility for the rise of Hitler. Scholarly historical opinion about Versailles has moved MacMillan’s way, since the publication of Peacemakers Then, in 2001, along came Canadian historian Margaret MacMillan, comparatively unknown outside the academic world, and her book Peacemakers. This was not only a commanding narrative of what took place in Paris during the

John Foreman

Mounting Russian deaths will not deter Putin

In June, a grim milestone passed. The Ministry of Defence said that one million Russians had been killed or wounded in Ukraine. The Guardian reported that fatalities alone are ‘five times higher than the combined death toll from all Soviet and Russian wars’ after 1945. Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, stated that Russia had already lost ‘100,000 soldiers – dead – not injured’ this year. Yet the unmentionable odour of death offends the Russian night. In Moscow, the milestone passed without official remark. The soaring butcher’s bill has not, as some naively still hope, been matched by large-scale public unrest. Although, like the Soviet war in Afghanistan, Putin’s war in Ukraine

Saturday

Joanna Cherry

The many blind spots in Nicola Sturgeon’s memoir

Throughout her memoir, Nicola Sturgeon emphasises her achievement in becoming the first female first minister of Scotland. While that achievement should not be underestimated, I’m sure I’m not the only woman who wishes she made a better job of it.   In her political afterlife, as in her political life, she evades real scrutiny It’s not just her determined blind spot on the implications of self-identification for women’s rights which emerges from this memoir, but also the fact that her much trumpeted support for women, including those under attack in the public forum, seems not to extend to those who dare to disagree with her.   There is widespread recognition

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Did Putin get the upper hand in Alaska?

Donald Trump hasn’t left his meeting with Vladimir Putin in Alaska with a deal to end the war in Ukraine. He told reporters that ‘great progress’ was made but ‘we didn’t get there’. To discuss who really got the upper hand, Freddy Gray is joined by Spectator associate editor and Russia correspondent Owen Matthews.

James Heale James Heale

Tories split on Ricky Jones’ verdict

The decision to clear Ricky Jones of encouraging violent disorder has not gone down well with many senior politicians. Footage of the suspended Labour councillor went viral last August after he suggested that far-right protesters should have their throats slit. Jones, 58, drew his finger across his throat and called demonstrators ‘disgusting Nazi fascists’. On Friday, jurors found him not guilty after just half an hour of deliberations. Many were quick to contrast it to the Lucy Connolly case, whereby the wife of a Tory politician was jailed for 31 months during the Southport riots after writing ‘set fire to all the… hotels [housing asylum seekers]… for all I care’.

Jimmy Nicholls

What’s wrong with charging a fat tax?

At a time when quarterly economic growth in the UK is flatlining at 0.3 per cent, it’s good to learn that not every industry in Britain is in mortal peril. While their customers have seen better days, coffin makers report that the average casket width has grown from 18-20 inches to a girthy 20-24 inches. As a 15.8 per cent increase, it’s the definition of an upsell and the kind of growth that only countries that have fired their chief statistician can hope to achieve. You’d think it would be a boom time for the National Association of Funeral Directors, who, given their trade, must rarely be in the mood

Antony Beevor

Is the world safer than in 1945?

11 min listen

80 years ago this week Japan surrendered to the allies, ushering in the end of the Second World War. To mark the anniversary of VJ day, historians Sir Antony Beevor and Peter Frankopan join James Heale to discuss its significance. As collective memory of the war fades, are we in danger of forgetting its lessons? And, with rising state-on-state violence and geopolitical flashpoints, is the world really safer today than in 1945? Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

Friday

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

How dangerous is Washington, D.C.?

US President Donald Trump claims Washington, D.C. has been “overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals”. There are lots of stories about crime, including one very bizarre incident involving a sandwich. Just how unsafe is D.C.? Freddy Gray is joined by US managing editor Matt McDonald and Isaac Schorr, staff writer at Mediaite, who has written a piece on his experience in Washington for Spectator World.