Katy Balls is The Spectator’s political editor.
70 min listen
Welcome to this festive episode of the Edition podcast, where we will be taking you through the pages of The Spectator’s special Christmas triple issue. Up first: What a year in politics it has been. 2023 has seen scandals, sackings, arrests and the return of some familiar faces. It’s easy to forget that at the
This Christmas, Rishi Sunak will be reading Tackle!, Jilly Cooper’s new bonkbuster. Cooper sent the Prime Minister a signed copy after she discovered – through The Spectator – that he is a fan. Tackle! is about an equestrian-turned-football manager who inspires a ragtag team to unexpected victory. ‘If you want to score, you’ve got to
13 min listen
The Tories are reeling from a week of painful infighting over Rwanda. Who are the ‘five families’ of Conservative dissenters? James Heale speaks to Katy Balls and Kate Andrews.
7 min listen
The government has won this evening’s vote on the ‘safety of Rwanda’ bill comfortably at 313 votes to 269 against. This means Rishi Sunak has managed to pass his bill at second reading after a day of negotiations with the various Tory tribes. Not a single Tory MP voted against the bill but 38 conservative
The government has won Tuesday’s vote on the ‘Safety of Rwanda’ Bill comfortably at 313 votes to 269 against. This means Rishi Sunak has managed to pass his Bill at second reading after a day of negotiations with the various Tory tribes. Not a single Tory MP voted against the Bill. Thirty-eight conservative MPs abstained
13 min listen
Rishi Sunak faces the first major test of his premiership today over the second reading of the Rwanda bill. How could the day play out? And what will happen if the Prime Minister loses the vote? Natasha Feroze speaks to Katy Balls and James Heale.
Rishi Sunak faces the most important vote of his premiership this evening when his ‘Safety of Rwanda’ bill has its second reading in the Commons. The bill seeks to finally get migrant flights off the ground by declaring Rwanda to be ‘safe’. If passed, the legislation will also mean that some international laws will have
It’s back to Brexit in parliament this week as Rishi Sunak puts his plan B to salvage the government’s flagship Rwanda scheme to a vote in the Commons. The Safety of Rwanda Bill – which declares that Rwanda is a safe place to send illegal migrants and states that international laws including the Human Rights
13 min listen
Nick Robinson asked Suella Braverman on the Today programme this week whether the Tories had a death wish. She said no. But why is the party, when it’s doing so badly in the polls, fighting among itself? James Heale speaks to Katy Balls ands Craig Oliver, former director of communications in No. 10.
10 min listen
Rishi Sunak is stuck in a migration quagmire and will be spending the weekend drumming up support from MPs ahead of the vote on his amended Rwanda bill on Tuesday. He will be hoping for a Christmas miracle in the form of support from both One Nation MPs and those on the right of the
34 min listen
Jacqui Smith was born in Malvern, where she joined the Labour party aged 16. After graduating from Oxford, Jacqui moved to London and worked briefly as a parliamentary researcher but trained to be a teacher and became head of economics. The temptation to electoral politics eventually pulled her back. Having failed the first time, Jacqui
17 min listen
Kate Andrews speaks to James Heale and Katy Balls about Robert Jenrick’s resignation last night and whether this is another sign of Tory party implosion.
Where does the Tory party sit after Robert Jenrick’s resignation over the Prime Minister’s Rwanda policy? Jenrick’s decision to quit yesterday meant Rishi Sunak’s attempts to sell his Rwanda plan fell into disarray within an hour of the policy being revealed. No further resignations have followed yet, but the bigger problem for Sunak is what
Rishi Sunak used his appearance before the 1922 committee this evening to tell MPs – once again – that the choice facing them was ‘unite or die’. He argued that the only choice facing the Tory party was to get behind his Rwanda ‘Plan B’ or to lose to Labour. Alas that message appears to
Rishi Sunak made an impromptu appearance at the 1922 committee tonight as he sought to sell his ‘Plan B’ on Rwanda to restive Tory MPs. This evening the government published the Bill – which asserts that ministers have the power to ignore judgments from Strasbourg but stops short at ‘disapplying’ the ECHR. This means it
Few Labour politicians have anything nice to say about Margaret Thatcher, so when Keir Starmer wrote an op-ed over the weekend praising her for bringing ‘meaningful change’ he was looking for a reaction. The left of the party obliged, calling her legacy destructive and chastising Starmer. Even some former Blairites stepped in to say the
14 min listen
As James Cleverly meets leaders in Rwanda to sign a new asylum treaty, the government has laid out a series of plans to bring down legal migration. Some Tories on the right would like the measures to go further, but are these policies too little too late? James Heale speaks to Katy Balls and Spectator writer, Patrick
11 min listen
This weekend Keir Starmer’s team took the opportunity to discuss Margaret Thatcher in an op-ed for the Sunday Telegraph. Whilst Starmer also praised other former prime ministers – such as Tony Blair and Clement Attlee – his admission that ‘Margaret Thatcher sought to drag Britain out of its stupor by setting loose our natural entrepreneurialism’, has
Rishi Sunak has had a bad start to the week, with the latest ConservativeHome cabinet league table placing him at the very bottom at minus 25.4, just below his Chancellor Jeremy Hunt. Now, the Prime Minister is hoping to move his government onto firmer ground with a package of measures aimed at reducing legal migration.
This week: Katy Balls on what the Elgin Marbles row is really about (00:56); Lionel Shriver on feckless politicians when it comes to immigration (06:43) and Marcus Walker on his rage against multi-faith prayer rooms (15:37).
