Politics

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

Thursday

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

UK interest rates held, plus could Musk fund Reform?

10 min listen

The Bank of England has voted to hold interest rates at 4.75%. The Spectator’s economics editor Kate Andrews joins Katy Balls and Freddy Gray to discuss the decision and what this means for the economy.  Also on the podcast they discuss how a potential donation from Elon Musk to Reform UK has rattled politicians across the political spectrum. Could Labour seek to reform political donation rules to limit donations from foreign owned companies? And is this a sensible move, or could those in favour of changing the rules face a charge of hypocrisy? Produced by Patrick Gibbons and Oscar Edmondson.

Steerpike Steerpike

Salmond aided police in SNP finance probe

To Scotland, where the focus is back on Operation Branchform. It now transpires that the late former first minister Alex Salmond met and spoke with police in the probe into the SNP’s funds and finances – which saw three senior nationalists arrested and Nicola Sturgeon’s husband Peter Murrell charged with embezzlement. How interesting… It has today been revealed that Salmond assisted officers in their fraud investigation, with reports suggesting the Alba party leader secretly met Branchform detectives more than a year ago. The long-running probe began in 2021 over a ‘missing’ sum of £600,000 fundraised for a second independence referendum, with Murrell arrested alongside the party treasurer and the SNP’s

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Fixing Britain’s sewers will be fantastically expensive

It isn’t going to help with the cost of living, but Ofwat’s decision to allow water companies to raise bills by an average of £157 (36 per cent) over the next five years is absolutely necessary. Yes, some companies like Thames Water have loaded themselves up with debt to pay their owners handsome dividends – and may yet go bust as a result. But looking overall at the UK water industry we have been underinvesting for decades. If we want to reliable water supply, and a wastewater treatment system which does not involve the routine dumping of sewage into rivers and the sea, we are going to have to pay

Zoe Strimpel

Women would be wise to avoid the streets of Lambeth at night

Being a woman walking on the street at night, especially on your own, is still scary. No matter that we live in an age of progressiveness and equal rights, of post #MeToo vigilance: the threat of violence by men against women under cover of darkness remains elemental and real. Lights on a quiet street are essential to mitigating this, and that includes in the middle of the night, when women are likely to need such illumination most; when, possibly after a party, they are more vulnerable; drunk, tired, or just very much alone. It’s when there is least likely to be anyone around to hear you scream. With no police presence

Ian Acheson Ian Acheson

How front-line police were failed in the summer riots

The police establishment has delivered its initial verdict on this summer’s rioting, following the massacre of children at Southport. Andy Cooke, His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary and a former chief constable for Merseyside, yesterday published the first part of a report ordered by the Home Secretary to examine the policing response and make recommendations. The review very clearly states that forces underestimated the power and potency of ‘extreme nationalist sentiment’ and that this was a significant aggravating factor in the rioting that disfigured communities across the country. Is this a justifiable focus? Many of the places and forces where the worst of the violence happened feel abandoned In the aftermath of

Daniel Rey

Biden’s Cuba policy has been a disaster for the Democrats

Ten years ago this week, Barack Obama announced the historic US rapprochement with Cuba. Alongside Obama during years of secret negotiations was Joe Biden – then Vice President, and a trusted advisor on foreign affairs. But while Obama’s policies reduced Cubans’ reliance on the communist state, President Biden’s actions have done the opposite: spurring extreme hardship and a huge wave of migration to the US. Time and time again Cuba has had an outsized influence on US elections After four years of Donald Trump’s hardline stance, Biden entered the White House in 2021 with a pledge to ‘reverse the failed Trump policies that inflicted harm on Cubans and their families’. But

Cristina Odone

Sara Sharif’s murder shouldn’t lead to a home-school crackdown

Hard cases make bad laws. There can be no harder case than that of Sara Sharif, whose torture and eventual murder by her father and stepmother moved the presiding judge to tears – and horrified us all. But this tragedy should not launch a witch hunt. The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, fast-tracked by the Department for Education and unveiled on Tuesday, risks turning all home-schooling parents into suspects and their children into victims.  Home schooling should be seen as part of the education ecosystem Home schooling is a symptom of schools failing families. That failure can be administrative, such as a dearth of school places in your local area;

Benedict Rogers

The free world has abandoned Hong Kong

Forty years ago today, British prime minister Margaret Thatcher and China’s Premier Zhao Ziyang signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration, an international treaty designed to pave the way for the handover of Hong Kong to China on 1 July 1997. Meeting in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, leaders of the Chinese Communist party (CCP) regime promised to respect a ‘high degree of autonomy’ for Hong Kong and uphold the territory’s way of life, including its basic freedoms and the rule of law for at least fifty years from the time of the handover.  They lied – or at least, they broke their promises. Forty years on, that treaty –

Wednesday

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Is Kemi Badenoch too nice to be Tory leader?

Kemi Badenoch got tough with Sir Keir Starmer at PMQs. Not tough enough, but at least she led on a decent issue: old folks in distress. She mentioned the Waspi women and then she changed tack, to wrong foot Sir Kier, and threw him a short but specific question. How many new applications for pension credit have been received since the winter fuel allowance was cut in the budget?  Kemi was better today but she lacks bite Sir Keir didn’t know. So he evoked the black hole to get him out of trouble. ‘We had to put the finances back in order,’ he cried. Kemi gave Sir Keir the information

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

The real reason people don’t want Elon Musk funding Reform

The meeting between Nigel Farage, the property developer Nick Candy and Elon Musk has prompted an all-too-predictable fit among media commentators.  Are we proud, democracy-loving Britons just going to stand by and watch as American billionaires and the radical right buy out our politics? Are we going to let hedge-funders and the real-estate tycoons gut British institutions for gain, privatise our beloved NHS, and finally execute the great neoliberal scheme to enrich the very few at the expense of the very many?  It’s almost as if, by posting a picture of himself, his new money-man Candy and the world’s richest man, Farage was trying to annoy his opponents. Heaven forbid.

Steerpike Steerpike

Labour splits over WASPI compensation

Christmas may be just around the corner, but not everyone is in festive spirits quite yet. The mood has certainly soured among the WASPI women campaigning for government compensation over changes to the state pension age. On Tuesday, Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall announced that no payouts would be forthcoming, with costs of up to £10.5 billion not deemed ‘fair or appropriate’ by the Labour lot. Now, Kendall is not only facing backlash from pension activists but from within her own party too. The now-Secretary of State has been on quite the journey over the issue, as Mr S revealed yesterday, blogging on her own website as recently as

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Rising inflation will make Rachel Reeves’s job harder

12 min listen

New figures have shown that, for the year to November, inflation rose by 2.6%. While unsurprising, how much will this impact the Chancellor’s plans going into the new year? Katy Balls speaks to Kate Andrews and Isabel Hardman about the impact on Labour, especially given their October budget. Also on the podcast: do the WASPI women deserve compensation? The team discuss Liz Kendall’s announcement that Labour will not recompense women who faced pension changes; they also discuss the last PMQs of 2024. Produced by Patrick Gibbons and Oscar Edmondson.

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Kemi Badenoch failed to pin down Starmer at PMQs – again

Kemi Badenoch has become fixated on accusing Keir Starmer of not telling the truth at Prime Minister’s Questions, to the extent that she is neglecting to push him on individual issues. The Tory leader merely used the winter fuel payment, the impact of national insurance hikes on charities and hospices, and Brexit as devices for her grand theme of the Prime Minister not answering the question and not telling the truth. It would have been better to hammer away at one topic to make Starmer uncomfortable, rather than allowing him to do the thing that Badenoch was complaining about: dodging the issue. The Leader of the Opposition started off by

Steerpike Steerpike

Starmer makes the most of No. 10’s gift shop

Jetting off on one of his (many) trips abroad last month, Keir Starmer was snapped on his plane sipping from an intriguing choice of mug. The Labour leader seems to favour a specially produced cup emblazoned with the number ’10’ – just in case he, er, forgets that he is actually the Prime Minister, again. The item in question was specially produced by the No. 10 gift shop, though sadly purchases are only available to Downing Street staff. Spoilsports! Limited-edition £17 mugs are just one of the 19 items currently being sold at the power centre of British politics. The costliest items are the top-of-the-line hooded sweatshirts on offer for

Steerpike Steerpike

Top Tory tries to woo Elon Musk

The talk in Westminster is how much Elon Musk is going to give to Reform. But might the Tories might be a better bet for the Tesla billionaire? On this morning’s media round, Andrew Griffith – the Shadow Business Secretary – made his pitch to the X owner, praising him as an ‘accomplished’ businessman and insisting that his party is best placed to take the fight to Labour. Griffith told Kay Burley on Sky that the Tories were the ‘only’ force able to take on ‘the woke mind virus’, saying: What I would say to Elon is: he’s been campaigning a lot about freedom of speech. He talks a lot

Steerpike Steerpike

Reform sack Scots organiser over terror links

Nigel Farage’s party has been having a rather good time of it lately, after winning its first five seats in the July election and continuing to gather support across the country. But north of the border, Reform has found itself in a spot of bother after its party organiser in Scotland was found to have links to terrorists. Good heavens… A probe by the Daily Record has revealed that Craig Campbell’s late father was an Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) commander who was jailed after the bombing of Catholic pubs in Glasgow. Campbell’s cousin Jason was also handed a lengthy jail sentence after he was found guilty of murdering 16-year-old Celtic

Michael Taube

Why hasn’t Justin Trudeau resigned yet?

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been walking on a political tightrope for years. His balance is unsteady. The threads of the rope are fraying. Yet, somehow, Trudeau keeps managing to stay upright.  Trudeau should have prorogued parliament or resigned years ago It’s not due to skill or political savvy. That Trudeau has survived so far is mainly down to sheer dumb luck. His minority Liberal governments have survived solely because of mathematical logistics of seat tallies rather than any popular legislation he has passed. He’s faced Conservative opposition leaders who have imploded. He’s been propped up by the New Democratic party, Canada’s socialist alternative, which has supported Trudeau’s party

Matthew Lynn

Labour is staring down the barrel of an inflation crisis

With job vacancies falling, and with GDP contracting, the Chancellor Rachel Reeves might have assumed that her final week before Christmas could not get any worse. Unfortunately, she will have been disappointed. We learned today that inflation is now rising sharply again, with the Office For National Statistics reporting that the rate has risen to 2.6 per cent – the highest level for eight months. The real problem, however, is this. It is going to get a lot worse over the next few months – and the Chancellor will only have herself to blame. In response to today’s inflation data, Reeves tried to maintain that the figures were ‘broadly in

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Is the Chagos deal dead in the water?

Is the Chagos Islands deal dead? Ever since Keir Starmer and his foreign secretary David Lammy announced plans to hand the remote archipelago to Mauritius, the UK government has been accused of risking national security. The proposed agreement would end 200 years of British rule and impact the US air base on the island of Diego Garcia. While the deal would allow the base to continue for ‘99 years’, there are worries this is a long term strategic error and that Mauritius, a trade ally of China, could allow Beijing to spy on the airfield. It is looking very difficult for Starmer to push through the deal before Donald Trump

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Rising inflation will make Rachel Reeves’s job harder

It was already unlikely the Bank of England (BoE) was going to cut interest rates this week. Having pledged a slow and steady approach to rate cuts, the decision to cut the base rate by 0.25 per cent last month made it much more likely that the Bank would hold rates at their meeting in December. But any small hope that the BoE would push forward with another small cut has been reduced even further this morning, as the Office for National Statistics reveals that inflation rose by 2.6 per cent in the year to November. While markets were expecting this outcome, the rise is higher than what Threadneedle Street