Politics

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

Thursday

Matthew Lynn

Trump’s tariffs are just bizarre

They would restore manufacturing, force trade barriers to be taken down, and allow new industries to be created. There have been various different explanations for why President Trump’s new tariff regime made sense. And yet when they were finally revealed yesterday one point was clear. There was no logic. The tariffs were just weird. The big reveal turned out to be a board that flapped around in the wind outside the White House. Donald Trump marked Liberation Day by holding up a placard with a list of countries – each one with a number next to it. The White House has worked out the tariffs it estimates American goods face in

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Can Trump defend his tariff calculations?

When President Trump held up an easel in the White House Rose Garden illustrating each country’s ‘tariffs charged to the USA’ and the new ‘U.S.A. discounted reciprocal tariffs’, there appeared to be some small print underneath the first column, barely readable. Then printed copies started to circulate the garden. Underneath the column showing each country’s ‘tariffs charged’, it read: ‘including currency manipulation and trade barriers’.  It was clear that the figures published by the Trump Administration were their interpretation of tariff calculations. It was also immediately clear that some countries were going to dispute the figures. But exactly what had been calculated was not immediately obvious. The picture is still hazy

Ian O’Doherty

The growing controversy over Ireland’s neutrality

As the war of words between Donald Trump and the EU continues to escalate, European countries have become increasingly concerned about their military reliance on the United States. As a result, the need to increase defence spending has become a major issue. Germany has abandoned its ‘debt lock’ as it seeks to raise more funds for its military, while Macron has repeatedly spoken of the need to gain more ‘strategic autonomy’ away from America. Now the debate has even spread to Ireland, the country on the furthest western edge of the EU. Traditionally, Ireland has prided itself on its neutrality or ‘military non-alignment’, while also enjoying a long-standing record of

Martin Vander Weyer Martin Vander Weyer

Britain needs a Rearmament Isa

The City’s self-styled ‘cheerleader in chief’, Lord Mayor Alastair King, on a recent visit to Beijing and Shanghai found leading Chinese banks keen to expand in London. What with Chinese diplomats also keen to establish a fortress-embassy at Royal Mint Court on the City’s eastern edge, that may ring alarm bells with those who regard Xi Jinping’s neo-Maoist regime as anything but friendly. But as King also observes, ‘the tectonic plates are shifting’. All geopolitical relationships are up for review – though what follows is my own analysis, not the Lord Mayor’s. A previous British visitor to Shanghai, chancellor George Osborne in 2015, declared an urge to be ‘China’s best

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

How the French right can still win

Dixmont, Yonne It has been a terrible year for the Le Pen family. Jean-Marie died in the first week of January. He was the patriarch who in 1972 co-founded the National Front and grew it into a formidable political machine before handing over to his daughter. Marine took command in 2011 and, through a strategy of ‘de-demonisation’, transformed the rebranded National Rally into the biggest single party in the National Assembly with 125 seats. She has reached the second round of the last two presidential elections, but it won’t be third time lucky for Marine Le Pen. On Monday, a judge disqualified her from politics for five years for misusing

Michael Gove

Labour needs a sense of social justice

Clement Attlee, in the words of Winston Churchill, was a modest man with much to be modest about. Labour’s postwar premier has been invoked as a role model by Keir Starmer recently, in the context of Attlee’s support for Nato and robustness on defence. Starmer’s allies also argue that, like Attlee, he is an unshowy middle-England moderate who prefers quiet efficiency to ideological flamboyance. His biographer, the always perceptive Tom Baldwin, has declared: ‘There is no such thing as Starmerism.’ Nor, we are told, will there ever be. Which is exactly how, why and where this government is going wrong. A Tory government benefits from a sense of purpose; a

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Robert Jenrick is the talk of the Tory party

In Westminster, politics is often a zero-sum game. There is a winner and a loser. But this week, two politicians from opposing sides found themselves being praised for the same thing: the Sentencing Council climbdown. After a long standoff with the government, the independent body stalled plans to bring in new rules on sentencing criminals from ethnic minorities, which were widely criticised as ‘two-tier justice’. The plans were first revealed by Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, after he spotted advice given to magistrates and judges which would have meant certain minorities could receive preferential treatment on sentencing compared to white men. Jenrick went on the attack, warning that the

Wednesday

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Trump has bet the house on tariffs

‘My fellow Americans, this is Liberation Day’, Donald Trump told the audience that had gathered in the Rose Garden for his official signing of his executive order to put import levies on goods imported to the United States from around the world. There was no hesitation, there were no caveats: only utter enthusiasm from both the President and almost his whole cabinet, who cheered Trump on as he declared 2 April ‘the day America’s destiny was reclaimed’. Vice President J.D. Vance, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Homeland Security Kirsti Noem and House Speaker Mike Johnson were just some of the attendees, who all

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Trump’s tariffs are a real Brexit win

So, Britain has got its trade deal with the US – of sorts. Donald Trump has awarded Britain no exemption from his tariffs. Even so, he has left Britain off lightly, by imposing tariffs of 10 per cent on imports from Britain to the US – the lowest he imposed on any country, along with Brazil. The EU, by contrast, has been imposed with a tariff of 20 per cent. Finally, then, we have a tangible benefit of Brexit that no one can ignore. Were we still members of the EU, our exporters would be hit much harder than they are being. Given that the US is our single biggest

Michael Simmons Michael Simmons

Trump prepares to take his tariff war global

In just a few hours, Donald Trump is set to take his tariff war global. At 9 p.m. UK time (4 p.m. in Washington), the American President will unveil a sweeping set of trade tariffs, on what he’s dubbed ‘Liberation Day’. What exactly Trump plans to announce remains unclear, but reports suggest everything from global reciprocal tariffs to the enforcement of the 25 per cent duties originally aimed at Mexico and Canada could be on the table. As Katy Balls noted in today’s Lunchtime Espresso, any hopes in Whitehall of securing a UK exemption have all but evaporated. The focus has now shifted from lobbying to damage control, as the economic

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Robert Jenrick is a real conservative

Robert Jenrick’s victory over the Sentencing Council — James Heale is correct to call it that — is, more importantly, a victory for the new style of Toryism the shadow justice secretary is beginning to articulate. There’s no dressing it up: what the Sentencing Council proposed was the introduction of race-based differential treatment to England’s criminal justice system. Its new guidelines, suspended pending government legislation to render this aspect of them unlawful, state that a pre-sentence report (PSR) ‘will normally be considered necessary’ where a convict comes ‘from an ethnic minority, cultural minority, and/or faith minority community’. PSRs can lead to a less severe or non-custodial sentence, though this is

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Will Trump’s tariffs unravel the neoliberal global order?

33 min listen

Freddy is joined by James Fishback – writer, investor and chief executive of investment firm Azoria – on ‘Liberation Day’, when Donald Trump is set to announce a raft of new tariffs (at 9 p.m. UK time). They discuss the impact of Trump’s tariffs on the market, whether this marks the upending of the neoliberal economic world order, or if Donald Trump is just a tough negotiator.

Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

I am deeply impressed by Ayoub Khan

Kemi Badenoch is doing all right at PMQs. The Tory leader is effective in the build-up but her finishing is weak. The point of the inquisition is make the interviewee tremble with fear. Here’s how she ended each of today’s question to Sir Keir Starmer: ‘What’s his advice to business owners laying off staff?’ ‘Why should voters trust Labour again?’ ‘Does he regret promising a council tax freeze?’ ‘Will he break his fiscal rules or raise taxes?’ ‘Does he disagree with the Bank of England?’ ‘Is the motor industry being protected?’ Hardly killer points. Sir Keir swatted them aside without effort. The Prime Minister counter-attacked with a booby-trap that Kemi

Steerpike Steerpike

Arron Banks battles Bristol Council for ‘Banksy’ slogan

It’s all kicking off in Bristol. On Friday, Reform UK announced that the multimillionaire Arron Banks was going to be their candidate for the mayoralty of the West of England. But the self-proclaimed ‘bad boy of Brexit’ faces opposition from overzealous apparatchiks on Bristol City Council. Officials from the Green-run authority have told Banks that he is not permitted to use his favoured slogan of ‘Banksy for Bristol’ on party literature – despite it, er, literally being a linguistic play on his name. Now, Reform UK has written to the council to demand that this be overturned. In a letter, seen by The Spectator, the party complains that: Any such

Ed West Ed West

What really scares people about Adolescence

Two books I read in my teens made me want to be a writer. One, Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch, appeared when I was in the third year of secondary school and delivered a style of memoir so warm, so funny and affable that I wanted nothing more than to do the same. The other was Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, a very tattered tenth-hand copy borrowed from a friend (and never given back, sorry). I was mesmerised. It was probable that I would have headed down the path to Grub Street anyway, but if you want to blame anyone for my contribution to the discourse, then Harper Lee must shoulder a small part.

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Starmer and Badenoch played a childish blame game at PMQs

Keir Starmer had a special point to make at the very outset of Prime Minister’s Questions about the threat of tariffs from the US. He told the Commons that ‘a trade war is in nobody’s interest and the country deserves, and we will take, a calm, pragmatic approach’. He added that the government ‘will rule nothing out’.  He is, though, largely in automated response mode at PMQs these days. This is the case not just when replying to Kemi Badenoch’s questions with the same answers he gives every week, but also when taking questions from his own side. Labour backbenchers were in loyalty mode today, asking some grotesquely sycophantic questions

Steerpike Steerpike

Patrick Harvie’s top five lowlights

Patrick Harvie has today announced – and not a moment too soon – that he will step down as co-leader of the Scottish Greens this summer. It will end his tenure as Holyrood’s longest-serving party chief after he clung onto the top job for almost 17 years. To mark the occasion, Mr S has compiled a list of Harvie’s worst moments to date… Harvie’s net-zero hypocrisy The Scottish Green co-leader has always been quick to take a pop at the Tories – even when he risked looking rather hypocritical himself. Raging that former Conservative prime minister Rishi Sunak had a ‘damn nerve’ to claim that delays to climate targets would

Sophia Falkner

Labour and the Tories are both to blame for two-tier justice

If ever there were a week for me to commit a crime, this was it. The Sentencing Council – which advises judges on how long convicted criminals should be locked up for – was poised to implement guidance that would mean that, as an ethnic minority, I stood a better chance of avoiding prison than a white male. But at the last minute, they capitulated. Fortunately, as a woman, I still stand a good chance of avoiding being locked up if I end up in trouble. Rhetoric from both parties against two-tier justice – where criminals are treated differently because of who they are – has been strong. The Lord

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Should Starmer impose retaliatory tariffs? Plus local elections lookahead

14 min listen

It’s World Tariff Day – or Liberation Day, depending on what you prefer to call it – but we won’t know for certain what levies Donald Trump will impose on the world until around 9 p.m. this evening. Sources are speculating that Trump still isn’t 100 per cent sure himself. But as the UK awaits its fate, what is the polling saying: should Starmer stand up to Trump? Also on the podcast, it’s just under a month until the local elections, and we have seen big launch events from Reform UK and the Liberal Democrats. These are the parties expecting to do well – potentially winning upwards of 400 council

Damian Thompson Damian Thompson

Justin Welby has cemented his reputation – for having a tin ear

This is an excerpt from the latest episode of the Holy Smoke podcast with Damian Thompson, which you can find at the bottom of this page: The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, is back in the news following his interview this week with the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg. The interview – his first since he resigned last November – was clearly Welby’s attempt to draw a line under the abuse scandal that cost him his job.  The 2024 Makin report concluded that the Church of England missed many opportunities to investigate the late John Smyth, one of the most prolific abusers associated with the Anglican Church. However, the biggest headline