Politics

Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.

Friday

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Labour mayor turns on Starmer

Oh dear. It has been a pretty grim night for Sir Keir Starmer’s party. Loyalists have been out spinning desperately, with Science Secretary Peter Kyle given the thankless task of defending the indefensible on the overnight shows. One ray of sunshine which the party is citing is the North Tyneside mayoralty, where Ros Jones narrowly held off Reform’s challenge by barely 400 votes. So it must be a shame for No. 10 then that Jones’ first act as a newly re-elected mayor was to turn her guns on her own party leader. Speaking to the BBC, she declared that ‘national government needs to look and see what people are saying.’

Nick Tyrone Nick Tyrone

Reform’s rise seems unstoppable

The Reform party has won the Runcorn and Helsby by-election. It was announced this morning that they had captured the seat by a mere four votes, the closest result in British by-election history. Labour asked for a full recount – after which, it turned out that the Reform party had actually won the by-election by six votes (still making it the closest by-election result in British history). This is a huge result in British politics. Reform has proven that electorally, they are for real. The polls aren’t wrong or soft – people will turn out and vote for them. Nigel Farage’s party is a genuine, massive threat to the British

Eliot Wilson

Mike Waltz’s fall from grace will change little

Oh what a circus, oh what a show. It began on Thursday morning, with stories circulating that the US national security advisor, Michael Waltz, was about to be dropped. This seemed to be confirmed when President Trump spoke at an event for the National Day of Prayer, and reeled off praise for his top team, including Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth and John Ratcliffe, the director of the CIA – but made no mention of Waltz. Waltz’s departure had long been thought likely. While the most vainglorious and locker room chat-like braggadocio in the Signalgate scandal earlier this year had come from Hegseth and Vice President J.D. Vance, Waltz had

Ian Williams Ian Williams

Ian Williams, Philip Patrick, Guy Stagg, Ysenda Maxtone Graham, Mark Mason and Catriona Olding

37 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Ian Williams looks at Chinese influence in the UK (1:39); Philip Patrick interviews Japan’s last ninja (9:35); Guy Stagg reviews Damian Le Bas and explores the myths behind the city of Atlantis (18:23); Ysenda Maxtone Graham reviews an exhibition on school dinners at the Food Museum in Stowmarket (23:38); Mark Mason provides his notes on quizzes, ahead of the Spectator’s garden quiz (28:00); and, swapping Provence to visit family in America, Catriona Olding takes us on a trip up the east coast (31:27).  Produced and presented by Patrick Gibbons.

Damian Thompson Damian Thompson

Conclave: who is likely to succeed Francis?

41 min listen

The papal conclave is due to begin on Wednesday 7 May to elect a successor to Pope Francis. As host Damian Thompson says, Rome – and the entire Church – is in a state of ‘fevered excitement’. While this is to be expected, most commentators agree that this conclave will be one of the most consequential elections for centuries. At stake are both the future direction of the Church and Francis’s legacy – will his work be amended, continued or even rejected? The Pillar’s Luke Coppen joins Damian to try to make sense of the noise, gossip and political intrigue. They discuss the favourites to emerge as the new Pope,

James Heale James Heale

Reform seizes Runcorn in teal tsunami

Less than 10 per cent of council seats have declared thus far. But there already looks to be a clear early winner from these local elections: Nigel Farage. His party triumphed in the Runcorn and Helsby by-election this morning after a long night of drama. Only four votes separated Labour and Reform in the initial count. Just after 6 a.m, the final result came in: Reform on 12,645 votes and Labour on 12,639, a margin of just six. That is the closest by-election result since 1892 and is a testament to the effort that both parties invested. Between 350 to 400 Labour and Reform campaigners were out door-knocking yesterday, resulting

Thursday

Michael Evans

Waltz set to take the blame for Signalgate

Mike Waltz, the national security adviser, is set to lose his job over what came to be called Signalgate. He was the one who set up the ‘Houthi PC small group’ and either he or a member of his staff in error invited Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of the Atlantic magazine, to participate. Goldberg blew the whistle after the raids had taken place. Others in the group included Pete Hegseth, the defence secretary, who obliged with all the operational data such as airstrike timings and particular aircraft to be involved, Vice President JD Vance, Marco Rubio, secretary of state, John Ratcliffe, CIA director, and Tulsi Gabbard, director of national intelligence.  Waltz

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Victor Davis Hanson on DEI, counter revolutions and why Trump is a ‘tragic hero’

49 min listen

Victor Davis Hanson joins Spectator TV to talk about the first 101 days of Donald Trump’s second presidency, describing it as a bold counterrevolution against decades of cultural, political, and economic drift. He discusses Trump’s sweeping agenda—from closing the border and challenging DEI initiatives to confronting foreign policy orthodoxy and trade imbalances—framing it as a populist backlash against elite institutions and progressive ideologies. Hanson highlights the deepening divide between America’s coastal elites and its working class, and argues that Trump’s unorthodox style and aggressive reforms are reshaping the political landscape in ways not seen in modern American history

Kate Hoey

Britain’s smoking ban will inflict havoc on Ireland

As Westminster and Dublin compete with performative new tobacco bans, smokers on the island of Ireland will be forced to dodge between jurisdictions and shifting laws just to buy a pack of cigarettes. Starting in February 2028, adults under the age of 21 in the Republic of Ireland will be barred from buying tobacco at home but will still be able to nip across the border to stock up in Northern Ireland. But once the UK’s generational smoking ban begins, the farcical cross-border relay will reverse, with 22-year-olds banned from buying tobacco in Belfast still free to do so in Dublin. As the years go by, the legal absurdity only

Stephen Pollard

Ignore everything the Tories and Reform say about the local elections

Never let it be said that The Spectator doesn’t provide invaluable time saving services. I’m here to help save hours of your life tomorrow, when the results of today’s local elections – 1,641 seats across 14 county councils, five regional and one city mayoralties as well as the Runcorn and Helsby by-election – will emerge. Here’s my election hack: ignore everything said by all of the parties contesting the elections. Literally everything, because all of it is meaningless. It’s clear that you can fit almost any claim to any result – and the parties will do just that More specifically, after four decades of watching and analysing elections, it’s clear that

Steerpike Steerpike

Reeves probed over late theatre ticket declarations

Dear oh dear. Rachel Reeves has found herself in yet another spot of bother, as it transpires that the Chancellor is under investigation for a late declaration of theatre tickets. The Labour politician is being probed by Westminster’s standards watchdog for belatedly declaring two sets of gifted tickets from the National Theatre after the freebies from last year were only registered last month. How very interesting… Reeves was given free tickets to a December showing of Ballet Shoes last year, worth £276, as well as freebies worth £266 to Nye – about the founder of the NHS – in March 2024. Yet despite MP guidance stating that politicians must declare

Gawain Towler

Make election counts great again!

In the grand tapestry of British history, few threads are as vibrant as our electoral traditions. Alas, in recent years, a creeping beige has infiltrated this once colourful corner of public life, dulling the spectacle and distancing the people from the very heart of democratic life. Nowhere is this more evident than in the local elections, where councils, under the flimsy guise of penny-pinching, have taken to postponing the count until the day after the vote, robbing us of a vital tradition. Democracy is not a backroom deal or a spreadsheet tally, it’s a public act, a shared spectacle that demands to be seen, felt and lived Cast your mind

Ed Shackle

Are Reform still the rebels?

‘Reform are going to freshen things up’. Howard looks up from the candy crush-style game he is playing on his mobile. He, despite being a lifelong Tory, will be voting for Nigel Farage’s party today in the Greater Lincolnshire Mayoral election. We’re visiting areas of the mayoralty with the most Tory and Labour voters, places where people steadfastly voted Conservative while the party was being decimated in other parts of the country last summer. These are the voters that Reform are now focusing on. None of our conversations are pre-arranged, as we want to get as close to people in their natural environments as possible. A team goes door to

James Heale James Heale

Michael Gove on how to spin a bad election

12 min listen

Voters have gone to the polls today for a historic set of local elections. The polling indicates a rough night for the two main parties and a good showing for Reform, the Lib Dems and the Greens. So be prepared for a lot of election-night spin from both Labour and the Tories. To talk through the various ways in which politicians can claim victory in the face of defeat, James Heale is joined by our editor, Michael Gove – no stranger to the media round himself. They discuss the best candidates to face up to the media from both the Tories and Labour, as well as some of the greatest

Steerpike Steerpike

FA bans trans players from women’s football

Well, well, well. The ramifications of the Supreme Court’s ruling on single-sex spaces are beginning to be seen. It transpires that transwomen are to be banned from playing women’s football in both England and Scotland. The judgment from the highest court in the land that backed the biological definition of a woman put pressure on the Football Association to clarify its position and step in line with other national bodies that allow only those born female to take part in women’s competitions. The decision by England’s Football Association follows the move in Scotland, which saw the Scottish FA update its guidance to stop those born as males from taking part

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Has Keir Starmer watched Groomed: A National Scandal yet?

I look forward to Keir Starmer hosting a special summit on the Channel 4 documentary, Groomed. And to hearing him gush about it every time a reporter puts a mic anywhere near his mouth. And to seeing his proposals for showing it to teens in schools across the land in order that we might prise open their innocent eyes to the dangers of so-called grooming gangs. These girls were sacrificed at the altar of preserving the ideology of multiculturalism After all, he did all that for Adolescence, a Netflix drama about a made-up crime against a fictional working-class girl. So surely he’ll do it for a documentary that lays out

Mark Galeotti Mark Galeotti

Trump’s Ukraine minerals deal is pure extortion

So the on-again-off-again US-Ukrainian resources deal has been signed. It is perhaps appropriate that it was done without fanfare, marked by emailed press release. While its terms are rather better than originally mooted, it still shows not that ‘the Trump administration is committed to a peace process centred on a free, sovereign, and prosperous Ukraine’ as US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent put it, but to neo-colonial exploitation. For all that, Kyiv has some reason to be satisfied by what it considers less of an economic deal and more a necessary piece of performative submission to keep Donald Trump engaged with their cause. Put at its simplest, Ukraine’s natural resources –

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Norway is laughing at Miliband’s net zero folly

Here’s a pub quiz question: which European country has no net zero target? I don’t mean which country is not bothering too much about conforming with its net zero target, because that is most of them, but which one doesn’t even have such a target in the first place? The surprising answer is Norway, which has a target of reducing its carbon emissions by 90 to 95 per cent on 1990 levels by 2050 but has made no commitment so far to go all the way. We are importing ever-increasing amounts of electricity via subsea cables, from Norway included It is surprising because, in many respects, the Scandinavian country is

Lisa Haseldine Lisa Haseldine

The US mineral deal will give Ukraine fresh hope

Overnight, Ukraine and the US finally signed a deal on Ukraine’s mineral reserves. The agreement, signed two months later than planned, sees the two countries set up what they have called the ‘United States-Ukraine Reconstructions Investment Fund’, the aim of which will be to attract ‘global investment’ into Ukraine following the end of the war with Russia. Until the last minute, it was unclear whether Ukraine would indeed sign on the dotted line, with sounds coming from Washington late last night that chances of the agreement being locked in over the coming day standing at ‘little better than 50-50’.  While details of the fund have yet to be revealed, it

John Keiger John Keiger

Does Britain really need to share ‘geopolitical values’ with Europe?

Sir Keir Starmer will sign a new strategic partnership with Brussels at a summit on 19 May. The draft preamble apparently states that the UK and the EU are committed to similar ‘geopolitical values’. This is all part of Labour’s ‘reset’ with Europe intended to return Britain to the EU’s orbit in everything from phytosanitary and food safety alignment to defence and security. That Britain and the EU share geopolitical values is no scoop. Such utterances are the ‘motherhood and apple pie’ of all summits. Where allies so often disagree is less on objectives than priorities. Aligning Britain’s defence and security with the EU will mean bowing to the EU’s