Labour party

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters: A cautionary lesson for England’s schools

Lessons to learn Sir: Your leading article ‘Requires improvement’ (7 September) rightly raised concerns that a curriculum review in England might reverse the excellent progress in schools following the Gove reforms. Fortunately, there are two very good examples of what happens when you replace rigour and the acquisition of knowledge with left-wing dogma and woolly thinking. The introduction of the Curriculum for Excellence in Scotland has led to a dramatic fall in standards in Scottish education and a resultant collapse in its Pisa [Programme for International Student Assessment] ranking. Last year Wales recorded its lowest-ever Pisa ranking. Its new national curriculum is closely based on the Scottish model, so it

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Is Gordon Brown back?

Last week, there was a surprise visitor to the Treasury: Gordon Brown. The former prime minister and chancellor secretly returned to his old digs for the first time since he left office 14 years ago. According to onlookers, Brown visited his old office as he caught up with the new chancellor – and his friend – Rachel Reeves. To Brownites, news of this meeting has been received with glee. Is their main man back in the fold? The conversation between Brown and Reeves is part of a pattern for this government: New Labour old-timers returning to share their wisdom with first-time ministers. In the Department of Health, Wes Streeting has

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: State pension to rise, prisoners released early and a new owner for The Spectator

Home The government won by 348 to 228 a Commons vote on limiting the winter fuel allowance for pensioners to those who qualified by poverty: 52 Labour MPs didn’t vote, one voted with the opposition; five MPs suspended from the Labour party also voted with the opposition. Three million people who began receiving the ‘new’ state pension after 2016 will be given £460 a year more from April 2025, in line with wage growth of 4 per cent. A bill was published to exclude the 92 hereditary peers from the House of Lords. Mel Stride was knocked out of the contest for the leadership of the Conservative party; Robert Jenrick, with

Saturday

Fraser Nelson

Coffee House Shots live: the Starmer supremacy

47 min listen

Join Fraser Nelson, Katy Balls and Kate Andrews, along with special guest Jonathan Ashworth, for a live edition of Coffee House Shots recorded earlier this week. They dissect the first few weeks of the new Labour government and look ahead to the policies autumn, and the budget, might bring. Having surprisingly lost his seat at the election, how blunt will Ashworth be? The team also answer a range of audience questions, including: how big of a welfare crisis is the government facing? Would – and should – they reform the NHS? And could the challenge Reform UK poses to traditional parties continue to grow?  Produced by Patrick Gibbons and Megan McElroy. 

Friday

Fraser Nelson

Does Rachel Reeves need an ‘escape route’ on winter fuel?

14 min listen

Fraser Nelson and Katy Balls join James Heale to look ahead to a crucial week for Labour. On Tuesday, Parliament will hold a binding vote on the changes to winter fuel allowance – how are Labour expected to deal with this? Former shadow chancellor Ed Balls, and husband of the current home secretary Yvette Cooper, has argued that Labour need an ‘escape route’ from the policy. What can we read from this intervention? And how influenced are the government by the spectres of George Osborne and Liz Truss? Also on the podcast, Fraser talks about both the problems facing Germany, and the surprisingly successful measure that Sweden has introduced, to

Damian Thompson Damian Thompson

Losing faith: will Labour’s VAT policy hit religious schools hardest?

25 min listen

In this week’s copy of The Spectator, Dan Hitchens argues that a lesser reported aspect of Labour’s decision to impose VAT on private schools is who it could hit hardest: faith schools. Hundreds of independent religious schools charge modest, means-tested fees. Could a hike in costs make these schools unviable? And, with uncertainty about how ideological a decision this is, does the government even care? Dan joins Damian on the podcast to discuss.  Raisel Freedman from the Partnerships for Jewish Schools also joins later, to discuss how the measure could threaten Jewish independent schools, when they provide a haven for students from a climate of rising antisemitism. Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

Thursday

The Spectator

Letters: Lucy Letby and the statistics myth

Pensioners at risk Sir: Douglas Murray wonders what would have happened if a Conservative chancellor had announced the removal of the winter fuel payment (‘Labour’s age of miracles’, 31 August) and speculates about the reaction. No such speculation is needed: the Conservative manifesto of 2017 stated that it would means test this benefit, as Labour is now doing. The Labour party’s reaction was to publish research stating that up to 4,000 pensioners’ lives would be at risk and add that ‘pensioners in our country will struggle to heat their homes’ (the then shadow chancellor John McDonnell, as widely quoted in the press). No journalist has yet put this to the government.

James Heale James Heale

The ‘British Muslim patriot’ on a mission to get Farage into No. 10

Few people had heard of Zia Yusuf before he spoke at Reform’s final campaign rally in Birmingham. But after a stirring speech to 4,000 supporters, he became one of the election’s overnight stars. ‘This boy’s got real talent,’ admitted Nigel Farage afterwards. He is now emerging as one of the more intriguing figures in the landscape of the right: a self-described ‘British Muslim patriot’, a 37-year-old multimillionaire, who says his mission in politics is to take Farage to No. 10. Farage is clearly Yusuf’s political lodestar: his name features dozens of times in our hour-long exchange When we meet at The Spectator office (his £100,000 Range Rover parked outside), Yusuf

Toby Young Toby Young

Labour’s backwards steps on free speech

Free speech advocates like me need to stop talking about the meagre gains we made under the last government because the present one seems to be listening carefully, taking notes, then gleefully reversing each one. First it torpedoed the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act. Then it threatened to put the ‘legal but harmful’ stuff back into the Online Safety Act. Now, Yvette Cooper has said trying to get the police to record fewer ‘non-crime hate incidents’ (NCHIs) was a dreadful mistake. A non-crime hate incident was recorded against a man for whistling the Bob the Builder tune To grasp just how potty this is, you need to understand what

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

Grenfell report: why did it take so long?

16 min listen

Seven years after the tragedy, the inquiry into the Grenfell fire has published its report. What did we learn from it and who bears responsibility? And, with thousands of buildings still believed to contain flammable cladding, what should happen next? With such important lessons to be learnt, why do British inquiries take so long? Also on the podcast, a look at the first PMQs following summer recess and the Tory leadership election. James Heale speaks to Isabel Hardman and Liam Halligan, Telegraph columnist and author of Home Truths. Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

Tuesday

Katy Balls

Is the UK still a ‘staunch ally’ of Israel?

16 min listen

The fallout continues from the UK’s decision to suspend some arms sale licenses to Israel. Defence Secretary John Healey insists the UK remains a ‘staunch ally’ of Israel, yet the decision has been criticised by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as ‘shameful’. What has the domestic reaction been to the government’s decision, and who is it designed to please?  Patrick Gibbons speaks to Katy Balls and Michael Stephens, associate fellow at RUSI.  Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

Saturday

Katy Balls

Which Conservative leader could be a problem for Keir Starmer?

14 min listen

The Tory leadership contest is still rumbling on, and we’re lucky enough to still have weeks to go! In this Saturday episode, we assess which of the candidates would create the biggest problem for Keir Starmer. Who would be most frustrating at the dispatch box, and whose politics would be the most difficult for him? Who might be a slightly easier opponent? Megan McElroy speaks to Katy Balls and John McTernan, political strategist and former political secretary to Tony Blair. 

Friday

Katy Balls

Why has Starmer taken down a portrait of Thatcher?

14 min listen

Keir Starmer’s biographer Tom Baldwin has revealed that the PM has removed a portrait of Margaret Thatcher from No 10. The portrait was originally commissioned by Gordon Brown. Why has he bothered to get rid of it? Elsewhere, the government has more plans for health, and select committees have some surprising new candidates. Megan McElroy speaks to Isabel Hardman and Katy Balls.

Thursday

Katy Balls

How far will Starmer’s smoking ban go?

19 min listen

Keir Starmer has confirmed that the government is looking at plans to revive Sunak’s smoking ban legislation. They may go even further – reports suggest they will seek to extend the current indoor ban for hospitality venues, to outdoor places such as pub gardens. What’s the rationale behind this, and where could it lead? How popular is the measure with the public? And, following Starmer’s speech on Tuesday about the economic problems the nation faces, is this another thing for business to worry about? Patrick Gibbons speaks to Katy Balls and Kate Andrews.

Douglas Murray

Labour’s age of miracles

I am not yet eligible for the winter fuel allowance. Nor am I especially in favour of it, regarding it as one of those times when the government bribes the public with the public’s own money and expects gratitude for doing so. Like anyone who pays taxes, I rather resent a government of any stripe using my earnings to make themselves look good. I’d go so far as to say it irks me. Still, I have watched Labour’s abolition of the scheme with something like awe. I know pensioners who appreciate the couple of hundred quid that the government lobs their way each winter. But last month the Chancellor of

The Spectator

Is this Rachel Reeves’s idea of a programme for growth?

It is certainly true that the Labour party has been more than a little devious over the tax rises that are to come. After an election campaign in which it insisted it had no plans – and no need – to increase taxes beyond a few measures such as extending VAT on school fees, mysterious holes started appearing in the public finances as soon as the party achieved office. So acute, apparently, is the lack of funds that Sir Keir Starmer felt the need to warn us this week that October’s Budget will be ‘painful’. It is an old trick, which David Cameron and George Osborne also tried to pull

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

The death of free speech in Britain

In Michel Houellebecq’s satirical novel Soumission, the French elite submits to Islamic rule rather than accept a National Front government. Nine years after its publication, submission seems more imminent on this side of the English Channel. My American friends are surprised to learn there’s no equivalent to the First Amendment in Britain. They have forgotten a free press was one of the things their ancestors rebelled to establish in the US. Free speech is a much more recent thing in the UK. If it was born in the 1960s, it seems to be dying in the 2020s. If free speech in the UK was born in the 1960s, it seems

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Sir Keir’s tax warning, Russian air attacks and another prisons crisis

Home Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, speaking in the garden of 10 Downing Street, warned that the Budget in October is ‘going to be painful’, and that ‘things will get worse before they get better’. ‘I didn’t want to means-test the winter fuel payment, but it was a choice we had to make,’ he said. ‘A garden and a building that were once used for lockdown parties are now back in your service.’ Meanwhile, it was discovered, a pass to Downing Street had been given to Lord Alli, the Labour peer and party fundraiser, who gave £10,000 to the Beckenham and Penge constituency party; the seat was won by

Wednesday

Katy Balls

What’s behind Starmer’s ‘reset’ with Europe?

16 min listen

Keir Starmer has been in Germany today visiting Chancellor Olaf Scholz, before heading to Paris to meet President Macron. This is part of his plan to ‘reset’ relations with Europe – but how close does he want to get to the EU? And, given Brexit wounds are still raw, what’s achievable?  James Heale is joined by Katy Balls and Sophia Gaston, head of the foreign policy unit at Policy Exchange to discuss. Produced by Megan McElroy and Patrick Gibbons. 

Tuesday

Fraser Nelson

Just how ‘painful’ will Starmer’s October Budget be?

15 min listen

Winter is coming. That’s the message from Keir Starmer’s set-piece speech this morning from the No. 10 rose garden. After a tricky few weeks for the new Prime Minister on cronyism claims and anxiety about cuts to the winter fuel allowance, Starmer and his team attempted seize the agenda with a speech looking ahead to the months to come. However, anyone hoping for optimism will be disappointed, with Starmer warning things can only get worse. How bad can they be? James Heale speaks to Katy Balls and Fraser Nelson.