Fraser Nelson is a Times columnist and a former editor of The Spectator.
From our UK edition
47 min listen
The Spectator’s Fraser Nelson, Katy Balls and Kate Andrews are joined by special guest Frank Luntz for a live recording of Coffee House Shots from Tory party conference. It was at this event two years ago that Frank first declared Liz Truss to be the next Tory leader. Who might succeed Rishi Sunak? And is a Labour 2024 victory certain?
From our UK edition
A new Rishi Sunak is being launched at Tory conference and one I saw first hand being interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg in Manchester this morning. This version is more feisty, ignores attempted interruptions and is, in general, spoiling for a fight. The Prime Minister is trying to ditch his timeshare-salesman image and is seeking to become a slayer of dragons but without (so far) any actual dragons. He’s not doing much, but his enemies react so wildly as to exaggerate what he’s actually doing. I was critical of Sunak’s five pledges and still regard them as nonsense. But in this week’s Spectator our leading article is far more positive because we have been arguing, for years, for a sense-check to be applied to HS2 and net zero. Today’s Sunday Telegraph is just as supportive.
From our UK edition
10 min listen
Tax levels in the UK are at their highest since records began 70 years ago and are unlikely to come down, or so says the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) in their report today. How has the tax burden increased over the four years of this parliament? What's driving up taxes? Also on the podcast, there are reports today that Rishi Sunak will stop councils imposing 20 mph zones, is Rishi on the side of motorists? Katy Balls speaks to James Heale and Fraser Nelson. Keep up to date with The Spectator's data hub: https://data.spectator.co.uk/ Produced by Max Jeffery and Oscar Edmondson.
From our UK edition
The Spectator’s financial accounts are released today. We normally don’t make a fuss about them but these are unusual times, with plenty of interest in us as a company – since we are now, of course, up for sale. So for those interested, I’ll say a bit about our story so far. When I became editor in 2009, the industry was just starting a descent that would see magazine sales fall by more than two thirds over the decade. But subscriptions to The Spectator doubled – and so has our income. We surpassed £20 million in revenue last year, with UK profits of £4.8 million (up from £4.4 million the year before) on revenue of £18.4 million. We’ve been investing in our US expansion recently with its revenue up 35 per cent to £727,000.
From our UK edition
12 min listen
The UK's largest untapped oil and gas field has been given the green light in a move that has been criticised by Labour, although Keir Starmer has said he will honour the Tories' approval of the controversial Rosebank site should Labour enter government next year. Has the language changed around net zero? Also on the podcast, new polling suggests that Sadiq Khan holds only a slender lead ahead of Susan Hall in the London mayoral race, should he be worried? Max Jeffery speaks to James Heale and Fraser Nelson. Produced by Max Jeffery and Oscar Edmondson.
From our UK edition
Next time there’s a pandemic, the advice of Dr Jenny Harries will be crucial. She runs the UK Health Security Agency, set up during Covid to replace the much-maligned Public Health England. In her interview with the Telegraph there seemed to be a penny-dropping moment where she suggested that Britain may be more like Sweden next time: What we saw with Omicron and later waves of the pandemic, and even now, is that people are good at watching the data and they will take action themselves. You can see it in footfall going down. People actually start to manage their own socialisation, and the [viral] waves flatten off and come down. She missed a crucial point here: it wasn’t just after Omicron.
From our UK edition
13 min listen
Rishi Sunak is on his tour of hard truths, saying the unsayable on areas of policy where he believes his predecessors didn't want to be honest with the public. First we had the net zero pivot – scaling back the government's environmental commitments – and over the weekend there has been speculation that HS2 could be the next victim of tough talking Rishi Sunak. What's the latest? Is Rishi gifting Starmer an easy ride by clearing the weeds on this controversial project? Katy Balls speaks to Fraser Nelson and Isabel Hardman. Produced by Oscar Edmondson.
From our UK edition
11 min listen
Rishi Sunak is being attacked by Conservative and Labour politicians for choosing to delay some of Britain’s climate commitments. But is his new approach to policy really a welcome one? Katy Balls speaks to Fraser Nelson and Rupert Darwall, a senior fellow at RealClearFoundation.
From our UK edition
13 min listen
Rishi Sunak is set to give a speech this week outlining changes to the government’s environmental policies. The plans to phase out new petrol and diesel cars, and gas boilers, will likely be delayed. What does the Prime Minister stand to gain? James Heale speaks to Fraser Nelson and Katy Balls.
From our UK edition
14 min listen
Liz Truss took the stage this morning for her first major intervention on the economy since leaving No. 10. Her speech at the Institute for Government comes almost a year to the day since her mini-Budget saw the markets panic and her premiership come to an abrupt end not long after. What did she have to say? Katy Balls speaks to Fraser Nelson, Kate Andrews and James Heale. Produced by Oscar Edmondson.
From our UK edition
A year ago, Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng had just announced that they would hold a mini-Budget. It turned out to be the tax-cutting Budget that people like me had long been arguing for. So why wasn’t I more supportive at time, and since? I look at this in my Daily Telegraph column and it takes us to a debate we have quite often at The Spectator’s offices: where Truss got it right and where she didn’t. During the Tory leadership campaign my sympathies were more with Truss and her tax-cutting growth message. James Forsyth was leaning a bit more towards Sunak and Kate Andrews was asking why Truss’s numbers didn’t add up. Kate and I debated the Truss legacy on a podcast and we’ve been rekindling that debate in the office in recent days.
From our UK edition
12 min listen
The government is reportedly looking into whether it should cut the second phase of HS2. But with so much money having already been pumped into the project, should they just see it through to the end? Katy Balls speaks to Fraser Nelson and Kate Andrews.
From our UK edition
14 min listen
Keir Starmer today unveiled Labour’s plan to stop illegal migration. Trying to deport migrants to Rwanda is a waste of money, he said – the millions would be better spent on a ‘new security agreement’ with Europe. But what does that mean? Max Jeffery speaks to Fraser Nelson and Katy Balls.
From our UK edition
Ever since Alastair Campbell’s declaration that ‘we don’t do God’, no prime minister – and almost no politician – has discussed their faith. David Cameron said his Christianity came in and out ‘like MagicFM in the Chilterns’, a line he borrowed from Boris Johnson who self-defined as ‘a kind of very, very bad Christian’. But Rishi Sunak is different. He’s a practising Hindu who has a shrine in No. 10 for family worship and works with a Ganesh idol on his desk. This being Britain, no one cares: a distinguishing point about our country. Sunak gets flak for being a Winchester old boy, a Brexiteer and an ex-banker, but no one is suggesting any tension between his faith and his office.
From our UK edition
11 min listen
Rishi Sunak has landed in Delhi ahead of the G20 summit this weekend. He will be hoping to smooth the way for a new free trade deal with India. What does a good result look like for the prime minister? Will the new deal result in increased immigration? Katy Balls speaks to Fraser Nelson and James Heale. Produced by Cindy Yu and Oscar Edmondson.
From our UK edition
There's a bit too much schadenfreude from Tories over the effective bankruptcy of Birmingham Council. Its ‘Section 114 notice’ is an admission that the council (Europe’s largest) is unable to meet a £760 million equal pay lawsuit - so spending on all but essential services in Britain’s second city will stop. A Labour-run council has gone pop: a point that several Tory councillors have made. But like the school concrete fiasco, this might be the first sign of a deeper malaise – with more bankruptcies to come. Birmingham is home to the largest – and perhaps worst-run – council in Europe. Part of the mess it has found itself in is liability for not paying women equal bonuses to those received by men between 2006 and 2012.
From our UK edition
The two best things about Labour – the two reasons for thinking that Keir Starmer may be a reforming prime minister – were Wes Streeting at health and Jon Ashworth at welfare. Both have been prepared to acknowledge the need for reform that the Labour grassroots would find difficult. Streeting, it seems, has survived. But it’s alarming to see Ashworth become one of the reshuffle casualties, replaced by former leadership hopeful Liz Kendall. Welfare reform is the toughest job in politics, and means taking huge risks with a system that governs (or misgoverns) the lives of millions. Not reforming it means you end up with the disability allowance workload rising by 1,000 a day (which it’s projected to do every day for the next four years).
From our UK edition
26 min listen
Theresa May's new book, Abuse of Power, will not be a gossip-fuelled account of her time in No. 10. Instead, it'll be an account of how powerful people make mistakes, and how institutions corrupt. What's the point of the book, and has the former Prime Minister landed on a real, punishing problem in British politics? Kate Andrews speaks to Fraser Nelson and Gavin Barwell, Theresa May's former chief of staff.
From our UK edition
Every three months, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) updates the full UK welfare picture. It’s a big task and there’s a six-month lag — but the resulting picture is the biggest scandal in politics. It shows that now, with a worker shortage crisis so acute that immigration has been running at a million a year, 5.4 million are being kept on out-of-work benefits (as categorised by the DWP) This figure includes those on sickness benefit who are excluded from the official unemployment figure. It's a huge waste of money but, far worse, a waste of human potential. Tens of thousands are, once again, being written off. The progress of the Iain Duncan Smith era was washed away by lockdown and things are back to where they were.
From our UK edition
12 min listen
Rishi Sunak may have shelved his plan for a big reshuffle but we have had some cabinet changes today. Grant Shapps has taken his fifth cabinet position in one year, replacing Ben Wallace as Defence Secretary, and Sunak loyalist Claire Coutinho will take over as Energy Secretary. What does Coutinho’s appointment reveal? James Heale speaks to Fraser Nelson and Katy Balls. Produced by Oscar Edmondson.
