Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Monday

Sam Leith

Why was this old man fined £250 for spitting out a leaf?

‘I celebrate myself, and sing myself,’ wrote Walt Whitman in his rhapsodic celebration of freedom, Leaves of Grass. ‘And what I assume you shall assume,/ For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.// I loafe and invite my soul,/ I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.’ Dog walkers have complained of being asked to provide evidence of having poo-bags about their person A century and a half later Roy Marsh, 86, was leaning and loafing at his ease by a boating lake in Skegness when he, too, interacted with a spear of grass. This spear of grass was blown into the poor fellow’s mouth by a gust of wind. Mr Marsh did what everyone would do in the circumstances, which is

Terry Barnes

Bondi Beach and the heroism of Ahmed al Ahmed

As the appalling story of Sunday’s anti-Jewish mass shooting at Sydney’s Bondi Beach continue to unfold, and 16 people are now dead, there have been few glimmers of light in the darkness. Ahmed’s cousin, Mustafa, said Ahmed saw an opportunity to tackle the shooter The men identified as the shooters are a father and son, Sajid Akram, 50, and Naveed Akram, 24. The father was shot and killed by police last night, and the son was overpowered and taken into custody. The New South Wales police commissioner says little is yet known about the pair, but Sajid Akram was a licensed gun owner, with six guns in his possession. Old

Druin Burch

Why are world leaders shocked by the Bondi Beach attack?

Micheál Martin, Ireland’s Taoiseach, said he is shocked by the anti-Semitic slaughter on Sydney’s Bondi Beach. Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, is shocked too. So is Christopher Luxon, the prime minister of New Zealand. Yet there is really nothing shocking about the Australian attack. Insanity, as the saying goes, is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Australia’s ABC News is reporting this morning that one of the Bondi Beach gunmen was previously investigated over his ties to a Islamic State (IS) terrorism cell. An Isis flag was also reportedly found in the car of the gunmen. Islamic terrorist

Stephen Daisley

Why was this innocent doctor ever investigated for her 'anti-trans' posts?

This one has everything: drag queens, swastikas, X and freedom of speech. Dr Anne Woodhouse is a clinical psychologist in Inverness who has just been cleared of misconduct charges by her regulatory body, the Health and Care Professions Tribunal Service (HCPTS). The accusation was that Dr Woodhouse’s ‘fitness to practise is impaired by reason of misconduct’ because of two posts and three ‘likes’ from an X account she co-owned. Woodhouse denied all charges against her. Dr Anne Woodhouse is a clinical psychologist in Inverness who has just been cleared of misconduct charges by her regulatory body Post one: ‘The majority of trans women are the result of men’s sexual fetishes,

Patrick West

What Zack Polanski gets wrong about immigration

One of the most common arguments made by those with a liberal approach to immigration and asylum, and one you will hear repeated at length on Question Time, is that people who come to these shores ‘are human beings, just like us.’ This mantra epitomises a certain kind of bland, shallow humanism, one which seems to think that platitudes and nobility of heart will suffice when it comes to important and consequential matters. The problem with Polanski is that he is doubly blind. He’s not only an air-headed humanist but a third-rate Marxist Zack Polanski is the embodiment of this simple-minded worldview, one which owes as much to Lennon as

Sunday

Joe Bedell-Brill

Sunday shows round-up: terror in Australia

As Trevor Phillips began his Sky News show this morning, news broke of a mass shooting at Bondi beach in Sydney, where over a thousand people had gathered to celebrate Hanukkah. New South Wales Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon said at least 11 had been killed, with 29 injured. State premier Chris Minns said the attack was ‘designed to target Sydney’s Jewish community.’ One of the suspected gunmen is dead, another is in a critical condition. Police are investigating if a possible third gunman was involved. Lanyon said the violence was not ‘our way of life’ and called for calm in the community. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said an ‘act

Mark Galeotti

How Russia’s National Guard may stymie the latest Ukraine plan

One of the crucial obstacles to a Ukraine peace deal appears to be Vladimir Putin’s demand for the remaining fifth of Donetsk region not in Russian hands. Kyiv not only resents the idea of surrendering hard-defended land, it also fears this could be use it as a springboard for future attacks deeper into Ukraine. One potential workaround under debate is apparently allowing Moscow to claim it, but also making it a demilitarised zone (DMZ) to ensure Russian troops stay out. But it’s not so cut and dried. The notion of a DMZ may seem like an elegant way to square the circle of Putin’s demands and Ukraine’s concerns, but it’s

Ben Goldsmith

Pablo Escobar's hippos are saving Colombia's wetlands

In Colombia’s enormous Magdalena River basin, an ecological anomaly has triggered an extraordinary debate among ecologists. Ought some invasive species – in this case hippos – be tolerated, or even welcomed, for the ecological role they play as proxies for prehistoric keystone species lost thousands of years ago? In the early 1980s, infamous trafficker and kingpin Pablo Escobar smuggled four hippopotami – one male, three females – from an American zoo to his private menagerie at Hacienda Nápoles. Years later, on 2 December 1993, Escobar was shot dead by members of the Colombian national police’s search bloc in a shootout in Medellín. After his death, Escobar’s collection of exotic animals

Niko Vorobyov

The long, awful shadow of the siege of Sarajevo

They call them the roses of Sarajevo: scars ripping through the concrete and painted red, marking where an artillery round claimed a life during the longest siege of modern history – a full three-and-a-half years, longer than even the siege of Leningrad.  From May 1992 until December 1995, an average of 329 shells struck the Bosnian capital each day, while snipers took aim at passers-by from vantage points on the mountains surrounding the city. More than 11,000 lives were lost in the siege, including 1,600 children, a memorial to whom now stands in a park. A closer look reveals some of the lost etched into the memorial are simply listed

Saturday

Patrick West

Gen Z can't cope with the real world

Everyone recognises that teenagers today are unduly anxious. Many people attribute this to a rise in smartphone use. Some even blame an education system that places too much pressure on young people. Yet the acute dysfunction of adolescents and young adults these days could have a more simple, and more serious, explanation: they don’t spend enough time outdoors mixing with other human beings. The more you shy away from human contact, the more shy you become of humanity A study commissioned by an online school, Minerva Virtual Academy, to explore the emotional, social and physical factors that make school attendance so troubling for some today, has found that half of

Alexander Larman

How candid is King Charles being about his cancer treatment?

The news that King Charles’s cancer treatment will be moving into a new phase as of next year is undeniably welcome, both for him on a personal level and for those who have been anxiously wishing him well since his diagnosis in January 2024. He offered the nation an update on his situation last night in a televised message, broadcast on Channel 4 as part of its ‘Stand Up To Cancer’ special programming, and appeared to speak candidly about what he called ‘my cancer journey’. In best public service broadcasting fashion, Charles said: ‘Your life – or the life of someone you love – may depend upon it.’ During his

Jacob Heilbrunn

Why does Trump care about Europe's 'civilisational erasure'?

In Ukraine, as elsewhere in Europe, Donald Trump’s new national security strategy is being met with a mixture of incredulity and incomprehension. ‘What does it actually mean?’ a general who advises Volodymyr Zelenskyy asked me on Tuesday as we met in the presidential administration building in downtown Kyiv. It’s not an easy question to answer. Is it a blueprint for surrendering to the Kremlin? Or a negligible document that, for all the hoopla surrounding it, President Trump has most likely never read? The document was apparently drafted by Michael Anton, who was until recently head of the US State Department’s policy planning staff. He seems to have tailored it to torment America’s European

Brendan O’Neill

Primal Scream's Nazi Star of David stunt is unforgivable

It’s hard, in 2025, to call out anti-Semitism. You’ll find yourself besieged by digital armies of apologists for bigotry. ‘It’s just criticism of Israel!’, they’ll wail if you express alarm about someone calling the Jewish State a ‘Nazi entity’ or protesters carrying a Jew effigy complete with horns and bloodstained mouth. It’s all the rage these days to see racism everywhere. But anti-Semitism? You spot that at your peril. How many of those sweaty music fans clocked the horror of what was happening on stage? Yet surely no one will defend what Primal Scream did at the Roundhouse in Camden on Monday? Surely even those craven excuse-makers for Jew-baiting, the

Druin Burch

How terror triumphed at the Christmas market

Mulled wine and Heckler & Koch assault rifles don’t belong together, except in Christmas films like Die Hard. Festive visitors to Christmas markets in Berlin, London or Strasbourg this year will notice the pairing all the same. Concrete blocks surround fairy lights, and the scent of cloves and cinnamon wafts over armed police carrying submachine guns. Concrete blocks surround fairy lights, and the scent of cloves and cinnamon wafts over armed police carrying submachine guns Since an Islamist drove a lorry into the Breitscheidplatz market in Berlin in December 2016, killing twelve and injuring dozens, we deck the halls with blast protection. There are still tacky wooden chalets selling sausages, but

Harry Mount

What happened to the Oxford interview?

This week, there’s a strange absence in Oxford. For years, in December, you’d suddenly see a strange invasion of the streets of the university town. White-faced, terrified 17-and 18-year-olds, preparing for their university interviews. Colleges, tea rooms and restaurants were haunted by these poor, clever souls, mumbling equations and gerundives to themselves. Well, no more. If candidates clam up on screen, it’s much harder to respond to even the kindest don, hundreds of miles away The teenage geniuses are still applying to Oxford – but from the comfort of their bedrooms at home. In-person interview was temporarily halted, quite understandably, in 2020 because of Covid. But Covid came and went.

Eliot Wilson

Can Britain afford Aukus?

‘Full steam ahead’: That was the verdict on the Aukus alliance from Defence Secretary John Healey after the United States concluded its review of the alliance this week. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth delivered the good news to Healey and Richard Marles, Australia’s Minister for Defence, in Washington this week. But there’s a catch: with no mention of increased defence spending in last month’s Budget, does the UK really have the money to fund the grand plans Aukus commits it to? This renewed commitment to Aukus by America is good news and could not have been taken for granted. When the Pentagon announced in June that it was undertaking

James Heale

Christmas I: James Heale, Gyles Brandreth, Avi Loeb, Melanie McDonagh, Mary Wakefield, Richard Bratby & Rupert Hawksley

45 min listen

On this week’s special Christmas edition of Spectator Out Loud – part one: James Heale wonders if Keir Starmer will really have a happy new year; Gyles Brandreth discusses Her Majesty The Queen’s love of reading, and reveals which books Her Majesty has personally recommended to give this Christmas; Avi Loeb explains why a comet could be a spaceship; Melanie McDonagh compares Protestant and Catholic ghosts; Mary Wakefield explains what England’s old folk songs can teach us; Richard Bratby says there is joy to be found in composers’ graves; and, Rupert Hawksley provides his notes on washing up. Produced and presented by Patrick Gibbons.

Lucy Dunn

Will Scotland switch course in 2026? with Gordon McKee

18 min listen

The Spectator heads into Christmas a little bit less Scottish as we bid farewell to our political correspondent Lucy Dunn. Before Lucy leaves for STV, she joins Coffee House Shots – with fellow Scots Michael Simmons and Labour MP Gordon McKee – for one final episode reflecting on the state of Scottish politics. They discuss whether the SNP has stabilised Scottish politics this year, make predictions for what could happen at the 2026 Holyrood elections and ponder whether the Scottish influence in Westminster has grown stronger under Starmer. Plus, from Reform to the SNP – how new is the threat of populism in Scotland? Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

Friday

Tim Shipman

The 12 things that mattered in politics in 2025

We are in the pre-Christmas dog days and politics has, finally, slowed down a bit. Reflecting on 2025, here are my top 12 key moments which tell us the most about where we are in politics and how things might pan out in 2026. Keir Starmer had a decent start to the year, while Nigel Farage ‘won’ from May to September. The final quarter saw the emergence of Kemi Badenoch and Zack Polanski: Starmer produces letter from the King inviting Donald Trump on his second state visit, 27 February This might have been the high point of the Prime Minister’s year. He and then foreign secretary David Lammy worked out

Tim Shipman

‘Growth is not Labour’s priority, it’s hilarious’

13 min listen

The British economy is shrinking. Figures just released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that GDP fell by 0.1 per cent in the three months to October. The contraction came after growth of 0.1 per cent in the three months to September. On a monthly basis, the economy shrank by 0.1 per cent in both September and October after remaining flat in August. Is growth really Labour’s priority? And what impact is all this doom and gloom having inside the party? Lucy Dunn speaks to James Heale and Tim Shipman. Produced by Oscar Edmondson.