Fraser Nelson is a Times columnist and a former editor of The Spectator.
10 min listen
Given that Boris Johnson escaped the latest and final set of party fines from the police yesterday, does this mean partygate is over? Sue Gray’s report is still yet to be published, where she intends to name and shame those in her report. Could this take some of the pressure off the Prime Minister? Also
Things are heating up in the battle over Northern Ireland. After his trip to Belfast yesterday, the Prime Minister is releasing a ‘take back control’ Bill that will unilaterally change the terms of the Northern Ireland Protocol. It’s part bluff, part serious – and could very well reopen Brexit wars. Liz Truss’s statement this afternoon
15 min listen
Finland this week has expressed its wish to join Nato and Sweden is expected to follow suit. But with an America more focused on China, an ever aggressive Russia and Turkey with a membership veto card what does the future of this organisation look like? Cindy Yu talks with Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth
12 min listen
Jacob Rees-Mogg has said that the government plans to axe 91,000 posts within three years from the civil service. The argument for it is that the reduced tax burden will help the public deal with the ever-growing cost of living crisis. But will this have the desired effect and will it be anywhere near enough?
15 min listen
Today Boris Johnson pledged his support to protect Sweden and Finland in a mutual defence pact. As non Nato members, the deal is intended to protect these two countries from unexpected attacks. Will Putin see this as provocative? And how might this deal clash with Macron’s view of a European defence bloc? ‘I think we
Boris Johnson has travelled to Stockholm to sign a mutual defence pact with Sweden to tide the country over until it enters Nato. He’ll then travel to Finland to agree similar terms. This is quite significant for a few reasons. To the Prime Minister, the ‘global Britain’ post-Brexit strategy means signing global new trade and defence relationships: with European and global partners. In
I’ve so far found it hard to get outraged about Keir Starmer’s curry with staffers after a campaigning event in April last year. For the boss to buy in a curry for his local activists during the visit is a decent and human thing to do. I’d not condemn anyone for it. But this is politically tricky for Starmer
20 min listen
A big congratulations to Linda Nelson who has just become a British citizen. Fraser details the long and taxing journey it took for his wife to reach this point in his Telegraph column this week and asks why as an immigrant nation do we make becoming British so challenging for new arrivals? On the podcast,
This week, a US economy that had been expected to grow in the first quarter of the year was recorded as having shrunk 0.4 per cent – a stunning fall, raising awkward questions about what might come next. This morning, it emerged that the Eurozone grew by just 0.2 per cent over the same period,
In this week’s magazine I look at the threats posed by the so-called Online Safety Bill now making its way through the House of Commons. It gives sweeping censorship powers by creating a new category of speech that must be censored: ‘legal but harmful’. The government will ask social media companies to do the censoring – and
25 min listen
In this week’s episode: Is Elon Musk heading for a clash with the British Government over free speech? Elon Musk is buying Twitter. But might the Tesla CEO be in for a battle he wasn’t expecting with the UK government? Spectator Editor Fraser Nelson writes about this potential clash in this week’s issue and he
After three centuries of failing to assert power over the printed press, the House of Commons is finding the digital world easier to conquer. The Online Safety Bill now going through parliament will give ministers the power to decide what can and can’t be said online by banning what they regard as ‘harmful’. The word
30 min listen
The UK’s vaccine programme was hailed by the government as a success story for Global Britain. It became an example of how Britain could speed up regulation, reduce bureaucracy and become a worldwide home for tech and innovation in life sciences. The government recently published a Life Sciences Vision, but how much vision was there?
18 min listen
At the beginning of the year, letters from Conservative MPs looked to be reaching the 54 threshold needed to trigger a no-confidence vote in Boris Johnson. Most would think a fixed penalty notice from the Met would bring us at least back to those levels. And though there have been some full-throated calls of support
It’s Earth Day today, the anniversary of the 1970 event that kick-started the modern environmentalist movement. in her recent column, my colleague Mary Wakefield wrote how a ‘dark green’ orthodoxy of negativity is being taught in schools with kids being given an unduly gloomy view of the world. But that’s perhaps inevitable when the “act or die” message
9 min listen
Boris Johnson has met his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi to discuss defence, energy and trade ties. Will he be able to secure a trade deal with India?Meanwhile back at home, Boris Johnson faces an investigation by the Commons Committee of Privileges over claims he misled Parliament on partygate. All to be discussed as Katy Balls
11 min listen
Tomorrow there will be a vote in the Commons where Labour is pushing for an investigation into whether Boris Johnson is in contempt of Parliament over his comments on partygate. Which way will the Tory MPs vote? ‘Tory MPs are sick to the back teeth of partygate now‘ – James Forsyth. All to be discussed
This time last year, Netflix was fêted as the future of television. Its subscriptions grew by 30 per cent over 2020 as people bought in entertainment during lockdown. Netflix always warned that its growth would slow afterwards and the market seemed to accept that. But its shares have halved since their mid-November peak after a radical
15 min listen
Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak have been told that they are going to be fixed penalty notices by the Metropolitan Police over parties held in Downing Street. The Chancellor has already had a tough week – might he now resign? Could Tory MPs push the Prime Minister out of No. 10? Isabel Hardman speaks to
The obvious and perhaps only way out of this mess for Rishi Sunak was for his wife to pay double taxation: that is to say, to be taxed in India for any income on her 0.9 per cent stake in Infosys, the $100 billion company set up by her dad, and then taxed in the
