Politics Archives

Saturday

26 Oct 2024

How cozy is Tim Walz with China?

The term ‘old friend of the Chinese people’ has a sentimental, almost innocent ring, but the Chinese Communist party (CCP) regards it as a job description. It is a label used to describe foreigners looked on favourably by the CCP, but it also carries obligations. ‘Old friends’ are expected to be sympathetic and further the interests of the party. ‘China will never forget their old friends,’ said President Xi Jinping when he met Henry Kissinger, the most famous holder of that title for his supposed pragmatism toward Beijing, last year. Perhaps the most notorious ‘old friend’ was Edgar Snow, the American journalist, who was given privileged access to Mao Zedong

Katy Balls

Does Keir Starmer know what a working person is?

First, Keir Starmer struggled to define what a woman is. Now, he’s having difficulty explaining what counts as a working person. Ahead of next week’s Budget, the Prime Minister has been accused of tying himself in knots over who will be expected to carry the burden in the Budget. During the general election campaign, both Starmer and his chancellor Rachel Reeves regularly said the tax burden on ‘working people’ was too high. In the manifesto, the party pledged to protect ‘working people’ from paying more. Now ahead of a tax-raising Budget (Reeves is expected to try to raise £35 billion through tax), Starmer is under pressure to explain who exactly

Friday

25 Oct 2024

Damian Reilly

Will this end the ridiculous charade of males in women’s sports?

I’ve long liked to think that if I was a really big girl I would transition to compete in the men’s boxing heavyweight championship. Why not, ladies? Tyson Fury earns about £100 million every time he laces up his gloves. Why not get a slice of that pie? After all, for an extremely weird decade or so we’ve been enjoined to believe there are no physical advantages, at least not in terms of strength, speed or stamina, to being born male over female. It’s the foundational myth upon which all sorts of madness – hulking great former blokes taking on women at sports including rugby, swimming, cycling and football –

Freddy Gray

I can handle Trump, Farage tells Labour

Nigel Farage was on gregarious and ebullient form at our Americano US election event in Westminster last night. He confidently assured the audience that Donald Trump is going to win. He repeatedly mocked the British Conservative and Labour parties. And he offered his services as a sort of unofficial transatlantic point man for the ‘special relationship’. Having claimed in Politico yesterday that he was 90 per cent sure that Trump would take back the White House, Farage upped the ante for The Spectator audience. ‘I tell you what, folks,’ he said, ‘be in no doubt on 5 November, Donald Trump is going to win. And thank God for that.’ Farage called

Damian Thompson

Sale of the century: why is the Kirk selling off hundreds of churches so cheaply?

27 min listen

In this week’s Spectator, William Finlater reveals that some of the Church of Scotland’s most precious architectural heritage is being flogged off quickly, cheaply and discreetly. Most western denominations are being forced to close churches, but the fire sale of hundreds of Scottish churches is unprecedented in British history. In this episode of Holy Smoke, Damian talks to William about the Kirk’s apparently panicky reaction to losing half its members since 2000, and asks new Spectator editor Michael Gove – once a Church of Scotland Sunday School teacher – why his former denomination is staring into the abyss. Produced by Oscar Edmondson and Patrick Gibbons.

Steerpike

Will the Tories suspend Alan Duncan?

Oh dear. Sir Alan Duncan is at it again. Back in April the former Tory minister was investigated by the Tory party after claiming the Conservative Friends of Israel group was ‘doing the bidding’ of the Israeli prime minister. Amid accusations of antisemitism, he called for Lord Polak, CFI’s former head, to be ‘removed from the Lords because he is exercising the interest of another country not that of the Parliament in which he sits.’ It prompted a stinging response from the Board of Deputies who said his ‘disgraceful’ words ‘effectively accuse two Conservative peers, one of whom is Jewish, of dual loyalties.’ Having survived that furore, it seems Duncan

James Heale

Labour’s ‘working people’ muddle

11 min listen

Who exactly are ‘working people’? The Labour party’s use of this phrase during the election raised questions over who they will really be levying taxes upon. With less than a week to go until the Budget, Labour in government is now again struggling to give a clear definition of what they mean. James Heale talks to Katy Balls and Kate Andrews. Produced by Cindy Yu.

Christopher Snowdon

What’s the point of banning Elf bars?

Part of me wishes that disposable vapes had never been invented. Until they arrived, it seemed like the battle for tobacco harm reduction in Britain had been won. The kind of people who want to ban everything wanted to ban e-cigarettes, but most people could see that they were a relatively harmless substitute for cigarettes and were helping to drive down smoking rates. Then along came the Elf bars and Geek bars and the mood began to sour. Whether it was because of the price or the colours or because it was simply a fad, they became somewhat popular with teenagers, just as Juul had become popular with high school

Katy Balls

Could there be a Tory leadership upset?

The end is finally in sight. In a week’s time, the winner of the Conservative leadership contest will be announced. Within the Tory party, most MPs are braced for a Kemi Badenoch victory. Could the result be closer than currently expected? On Thursday night, there were rumours that the final ConservativeHome survey of members would make for uncomfortable reading for Badenoch – with Jenrick in a close second. The results have now been published and the survey finds that Badenoch maintains a comfortable lead. The contest has taken on the typical dynamics of a frontrunner and an insurgent On the question of ‘who should be the next leader of the

Ross Clark

The real problem with Rachel Reeves’s Budget fiddle

Remember Gordon Brown’s ‘golden rule’ – that over the course of the economic cycle the only net borrowing he would allow was to fund investment? As for current spending, he told us, he would pay down debt in the good times so that he could borrow in the bad. It sounded reassuring, until Brown started to fiddle with the figures in every conceivable way. He shunted debt off the public balance sheet via private finance initiatives. Is anyone confident that Reeves really will invest her extra £20 billion a year in such a way that it will earn the taxpayer a return? He kept stretching out his idea of the

Steerpike

Farage blasts ambassador picks for Trump 2.0

It’s the question all of Westminster is asking. If Donald Trump wins, who will be our next man in Washington? One person definitely not in the running is Nigel Farage, longtime friend and ally of the Republican president. At The Spectator’s Americano event last night, the Clacton MP told host Freddy Gray that he definitely will not become the new British ambassador, saying: Clearly I’ve decided to get back into elected politics, so I’m off the table. But I repeat the point that if this government needs any help with relationships with Trump 47, I will do all that I can. Will David Lammy take up such an offer? Don’t

David Shipley

It’s obvious why crime is up in Britain

Yesterday, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) published its annual report on crime in England and Wales. This combines data on crimes reported to the police and the Crime Survey for England and Wales to produce the best estimate of how much crime is being committed. It makes for grim reading. While overall crime is up 10 per cent, some offences have soared. Robbery is up from an estimated 60,000 incidents last year to an estimated 139,000 this year, although the ONS say they prefer to use the police reported figures for robbery which show a rise of 6 per cent, from 77,106 to 81,931. Meanwhile, violence with injury is estimated to

Katy Balls

The Daisy Cooper Edition

35 min listen

Daisy Cooper has been a stalwart of the Liberal Democrats for over a decade. From councillor to MP, she has served as the deputy leader of the party since 2020. First elected to parliament in 2019, she came to prominence when she represented the party in two of the general election debates earlier this year. On the podcast, Daisy talks to Katy Balls about her ambition to be a conductor, how she created her first job, and whether she’d like to be leader one day. As the Liberal Democrats are now the largest third party in Parliament for 100 years – with 72 MPs – Daisy tells Katy what it’s

Thursday

24 Oct 2024

Kate Andrews

Reeves’s Budget needs to win over the market

Rachel Reeves confirmed on her trip to Washington DC that she will be changing the government’s self-imposed fiscal rules, allowing the Chancellor to borrow up to £50 billion more for infrastructure investment in Britain. The change – which will take into account the government’s assets – will further loosen what are already quite loose rules created by Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt, which aimed to get debt falling as a percentage of GDP by the end of a five-year rolling period. It’s no surprise then that international markets are a little nervous. While plans to change the fiscal rule have been floated for over a month now – giving investors

Jamie Franklin

Who does Justin Welby speak for?

Archbishop Justin Welby’s appearance on The Rest is Politics has caused quite a stir in Anglican circles. For the most part, the Archbishop came across well and gave some very insightful answers when questioned, for example, about original sin and peace-making in war-torn nations. But these good things are inevitably going to be overshadowed by Welby’s answer to Alistair Campbell’s question about gay sex. Campbell asked Welby whether he had a ‘better answer’ to the one he gave Campbell in 2017, on whether gay sex is a sin. Welby essentially refused to reply, saying he didn’t have a good answer. In this most recent interview, however, he says that he has thought

Lara Prendergast

Cambridge in crisis, Trump’s wicked humour & the beauty of AI ceramics

53 min listen

This week: Decline and Fall – how our greatest universities are betraying students.Our greatest universities are betraying students, writes David Butterfield, who has just resigned from teaching Classics at Cambridge after 21 years. What went wrong? First, class lists of exam results became private, under alleged grounds of ‘data protection’, which snuffed out much of the competitive spirit of the university. Now even the fate of examinations hangs in the balance. Grade inflation is rampant, and it is now unheard of for students to be sent down for insufficient academic performance. For students, the risks have never been lower. ‘The pace of change over the past decade has been astonishing,

James Heale

How many Tories will defect to Reform?

11 min listen

After Nigel Farage’s overture to Tory councillors to ‘defect’, one already has. Farage has also been on manoeuvres, piling on the criticism against Labour for its volunteers campaigning for the Democrats in the US. James Heale talks to Katy Balls and Freddy Gray about the latest. Tickets are still available to join Freddy Gray and Nigel Farage on Thursday 24 October for their analysis on the US election. Get your tickets here. Produced by Cindy Yu.

Steerpike

Osborne takes a pop at Jenrick’s ECHR plan

With just over a week until the victor of the Tory leadership race is announced, the contest is ramping up and endorsements are rolling in. Now the former Chancellor under David Cameron has offered his thoughts on who the next leader of the Conservative party should be on his Political Currency podcast today. Announcing his decision to podcast regulars, the ex-Evening Standard editor told listeners that he was throwing his weight behind Kemi Badenoch. ‘I’ve ticked the box, and I’m about to post it after this podcast.’ Going on, the Remainer blasted Robert Jenrick’s policy plan, lamenting: I started the campaign thinking that Robert Jenrick was going to win. But

Jawad Iqbal

Starmer can’t afford to lose the argument on slavery reparations

The Commonwealth – whose 56 nations are meeting in the Pacific island nation of Samoa – looks set to defy Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer by putting slavery reparations on the agenda. The leaders of some Caribbean countries insist it is ‘only a matter of time’ until Britain bows to demands of handing over billions of pounds in compensation. Reports suggest they are pushing for a clear agreement on plans for reparatory justice and want to publish this in the all-important final communique of the summit. Such a move would lay bare the growing divisions at the gathering. It would also amount to a damaging public setback for Starmer, who

Steerpike

Sir Keir rated worse than predecessors at same point as PM

When it rains for Sir Keir, it pours. It now transpires that the Labour leader has achieved a worse rating as Prime Minister than all of his recent predecessors – bar Liz Truss, who didn’t manage to last quite as long in the top job. It seems for Keir Starmer, things can only get, er, worse… New polling by YouGov collected between 19-21 October from over 1,600 adults shows that little more than a quarter of Brits believe the current PM is doing well in post, while almost two-thirds of the population think Starmer is performing badly. It’s in stark contrast to the ratings of the last Labour prime minister