Politics

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

Saturday

Julie Burchill Julie Burchill

Who killed comedy?

Wading into the Sadiq Khan #HaveAWord brouhaha, Laurence Fox had a pop at Khan’s ally Romesh Ranganathan thus: ‘You are not a “comedian” #Maaate’. The dig came after Ranganathan teamed up with the London mayor in his campaign urging men to challenge their mates on their behaviour towards women. Fox had a point; when is a droll not a droll, but principally a state-sanctioned lapdog with a few lame gags on the side? Far too often in recent times. One of the most striking things about our modern culture is the lack of creativity, even amongst those who work in the actual creative industries. Writers are now routinely sensitivity-read, censored

The Spectator

The political battle for net zero is only just beginning

This may come to be remembered as the year where the global warming debate became serious. Until now, there has been a shrill quality to the discussion with emotive language used in place of reason. Yes, there’s a serious problem facing the planet – but to what extent would the proposed solutions address this problem? What are the trade offs involved? How does decarbonisation rub up against other obligations, like alleviating cost-of-living pressures and protecting the elderly from the cold? Deadlines that once seemed far away – like the 2030 ban on new petrol cars – are now getting rather close and focusing minds. The public certainly are concerned about

Friday

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: David Lammy slapped down over Ulez

Labour frontbencher David Lammy was today confronted by a furious voter on his LBC show about the Ulez extension. It’s been causing a row over the past week, since the Tories unexpectedly held onto Uxbridge and South Ruislip in last week’s by-election. The caller said: To be honest with you, I’ve had my wife in tears on the phone now. This has done us. It’s finished. We have £150 to £200 a month to spare. Some months, on a good month. That’s now going to go on a tax. I really weren’t gonna vote anymore because obviously the Tories and how much they lie… I was actually going to give

Natasha Feroze

Sadiq’s Ulez expansion gets the green light

9 min listen

The High Court has ruled that Sadiq Khan can expand the Ultra Low Emission Zone, after five Tory councils challenged the proposed policy. Will Keir Starmer be happy that a Labour mayor has won the day? Natasha Feroze speaks to Katy Balls and Kate Andrews.

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

The US economy is bouncing back – unlike Europe’s

Every country that imposed a lockdown during the pandemic accepted that there would be an economic price to pay. But governments hoped that, on this measure, their own nation would fare better than others. The objective here was simple: don’t be the ugliest country of the bunch. Now, with some distance between those lockdowns and life today, we’re returning to a more established form of economic competition. Rather than focusing on whose economy looks particularly bad, the emphasis has returned to who is looking good. And on this metric, the United States is putting Europe – and Britain – to shame. The US government reports that its economy grew by

Svitlana Morenets Svitlana Morenets

Why was a Ukrainian fencer punished for not shaking a Russian’s hand?

Must politics stay separate from sport? Ukrainian fencer Olha Kharlan has been disqualified from the World Fencing Championships in Milan after declining to shake hands with her Russian opponent having won the match yesterday. As it concluded, both athletes removed their masks and Anna Smirnova (who competed under a neutral flag) extended her hand. Kharlan responded by presenting her sword as if suggesting they touch sabres instead. Smirnova did not react.  Kharlan left the stage. Smirnova stood there for almost an hour, waiting for a handshake. Afterwards, Smirnova filed a complaint for lack of ‘show of respect’. The Ukrainian fencer was disqualified from the competition and suspended for 60 days from all

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Tories should never have taken their Ulez challenge to court

Expanding London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone (Ulez) may be a bad policy, a regressive tax which will impact on people of modest means while leaving the not-very-much-less-polluting cars of the wealthy untouched. But that doesn’t mean the High Court is wrong to reject the case brought by Conservative councils against the scheme. On the contrary, anyone who values democracy should be pleased that Ulez has been thrown back into the political arena, where it belongs. It is alarming the way that so many matters of public policy now end up being dragged through the courts under the judicial review process. How we impose motorist taxes, whether we build rail lines, runways

Jawad Iqbal

Iran’s morality police can’t save the mullahs forever

Iran’s so-called morality police, loathed and feared in equal measure, are back patrolling the streets of the country. They temporarily disappeared from view in the wake of the widespread public protests over the death last September of Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman. She was arrested and beaten, and subsequently died in police custody. Her crime? Not wearing the hijab ‘properly’. She had a few strands of hair showing, enough to be deemed a violation of the strict dress code for women. She paid for this with her life.  Iran’s leaders were rattled by the furious public reaction to her death. Thousands marched in protest, demanding rights and protections for

John Ferry John Ferry

Why is Scotland’s civil service promoting SNP propaganda?

The SNP Scottish government has rolled out its latest paper on independence, this time focused on citizenship. Like others in the series (this is the fifth paper on secession in twelve months) it offers nothing new, goes big on fantasising about a future that won’t happen, and is completely removed from the day-to-day needs of Scots. The paper works off the assumption that an independent Scotland will be a member of the European Union. Yet it ignores the obvious economic and potential political impediments to this happening, at least in any reasonable timeframe. The appropriateness of civil service resources being used in this way is questionable at best It also

Steerpike Steerpike

Has Gina Miller also fallen victim to ‘debanking’?

It might come as some small comfort to Nigel Farage to discover that it’s not just those on his side of the Brexit debate who have fallen victim to potential ‘debanking’. The former Brexit leader may now have an unlikely ally in Gina Miller, the anti-Brexit campaigner and his arch enemy during the referendum years. Miller has revealed that she too will have a bank account closed in September without any explanation. Earlier this month, Monzo bank sent her an email announcing that they will be shutting the account for her ‘True and Fair’ party but that ‘unfortunately we can’t tell you why’. According to the BBC, Monzo’s email said:

Katy Balls Katy Balls

The Lucy Frazer Edition

29 min listen

Lucy Frazer is the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. Prior to this role in government, Lucy held several ministerial positions from the Department Transport to the Ministry of Justice. On the podcast, Lucy tells Katy about her background working as a barrister which paved the way for a political career; her vision for how the Conservatives could still win the next election; and how she will choose the next chairman of the BBC.  Produced by Natasha Feroze. 

Thursday

Lucy Dunn

Humza Yousaf looks to the EU and Ireland for citizenship inspiration

Burgundy passports, dual citizenship and rejoining the EU were a few of the items at the top of Humza Yousaf’s fifth independence paper, published earlier today. The First Minister’s latest independence document in the ‘Building a New Scotland’ series outlines the Scottish government’s proposals for citizenship in an ‘open, inclusive’ and independent Scotland.  Holding a finger up to the UK government over post-Brexit changes, Yousaf’s paper describes how Scottish passports would be a ‘right’ available to Scottish citizens from day one of independence. In imitation of the old-style EU passports these would be burgundy in colour, not blue, and would follow EU regulations – despite the fact an independent Scotland

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Why is the UK so indulgent of Scottish separatism?

Scottish nationalists can sometimes be heard to say the United Kingdom is not a normal country. As evidence, they point to the unelected head of state, absence of a codified constitution and what they see as the dominance of one nation over other, smaller nations within the state. This analysis only underscores the very cultural overlap the SNP tries to downplay — for in their splendid ignorance of the political character of much of the democratic world they echo uncannily those London and university town progressives who delude themselves that the UK’s immigration debate is an insular outlier in an open and tolerant Europe.  It is not normal, in sum,

Lara Prendergast Lara Prendergast

Bankrolled: Labour’s new paymasters

36 min listen

In this week’s cover story, The Spectator’s political editor Katy Balls writes about Labour’s new paymasters – Keir Starmer’s party now receives more money from private donors than it does from trade unions. What do the new donors want, and what does Starmer want from them? Katy joins Will and Lara alongside the writer and Labour supporter Paul Mason. (01:00) Next up, Webb Keane, from the University of Michigan, and Scott Shapiro, from Yale, write in the magazine this week about the dawn of the godbots – you can now chat online to an artificial intelligence that pretends it’s god. Might people soon start outsourcing their ethics to a chatbot? We’re

Ross Clark Ross Clark

The UN’s climate alarmism has gone too far

UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres has declared that ‘the era of global warming has ended, the era of global boiling has arrived’. As if that were not enough, Guterres declared that ‘the air is unbreathable, the heat is unbearable’. Something is raging out of control but it isn’t the temperature: last week’s famous ‘heat domes’ have subsided, with only a few patches of southern Europe over 30ºC this afternoon. It is hyperbole over the climate. What does Guterres – who appeared to be breathing normally as he delivered his speech – hope to achieve by using language that tries to make out that life on Earth is no longer sustainable? We

Matthew Lynn

Why the CEO of Coutts had to go

In the end, the only real surprise was that it took so long. The chief executive of NatWest, Dame Alison Rose, had already been forced to step down after it became clear she had leaked confidential information about Nigel Farage’s personal financial affairs to the BBC. The board has been under sustained pressure all week. And now the man at the very heart of the scandal, Peter Flavel, the CEO of Coutts, has stepped down as well. If the bank is to have any future there is a lot of repair work to be done – and Flavel was hardly the man to lead that That was surely the right

Steerpike Steerpike

SNP civil war spreads to Holyrood

Troublemaking isn’t confined these days to the SNP’s Westminster group. It seems that nationalists north of the border have got the bug for insurrection too. Fergus Ewing, SNP MSP for Inverness and Nairn, has revealed that there is a ‘toxic atmosphere amongst the SNP group in Holyrood’ and that he doesn’t think the Nats stand a chance of winning another indyref just now thanks to the party’s ‘extremist’ policies. The son of late nationalist legend Winnie Ewing told the Holyrood Sources podcast that things are not all hunky dory in Edinburgh:  The atmosphere in Holyrood is not particularly happy now within the SNP group. There’s many people in the cabinet and the leadership that

Steerpike Steerpike

Farage claims another scalp as Coutts boss quits

Two down, one to go. Following the humiliating midnight departure of NatWest chief Alison Rose, Peter Flavel is the next banking boss to fall on his sword. Flavel, the chief executive of Coutts since 2016, this lunchtime announced his immediate departure from the luxury bank as it grapples with the fall out of the Nigel Farage scandal. Flavel said: In the handling of Mr Farage’s case we have fallen below the bank’s high standards of personal service. As CEO of Coutts it is right that I bear ultimate responsibility for this, which is why I am stepping down. Mohammad Kamal Syed, the head of Coutts’ asset management team, will step

Terry Barnes

John Howard is right about British colonialism in Australia

Almost sixteen years after he lost office and his own parliamentary seat, former Australian Liberal prime minister John Howard is still an influential political figure. Idolised by the right and demonised by the left, when Howard speaks, Australians still take notice. When Howard spoke to the Australian newspaper to mark his 84th birthday this week, he told home truths as he sees them, in his trademark plain language style. The focus of Howard’s interview was the Australian Labor government’s drive to change the nation’s constitution to give Aborigines a race-based ‘Voice to parliament’. It is becoming clear that the Voice referendum will be lost or won only narrowly This would

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Mitch McConnell freezes at podium

Congress could never be accused of working well at the best of times. But yesterday Mitch McConnell, the Senate Minority Leader, appeared to be the literal embodiment of political gridlock when he froze mid-sentence during a news conference. The 81-year-old abruptly stopped speaking during the weekly Republican leadership media session before being led away by colleagues. The longtime Kentucky Senator fell silent and stared straight ahead for about 20 seconds, as colleagues nervously enquired as to his health. ‘You OK, Mitch?’ asked Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, an ex-orthopaedic surgeon. ‘Anything else you want to say or should I escort you back to your office?’ he added. After sitting down