Politics

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

Saturday

28 Sep 2024

Ali Kefford

Is a Russian threat floating off the English coast?

It is a little unsettling that the merchant ship MV Ruby is anchored off Margate, carrying 20,000 tonnes of Russian ammonium nitrate. This is seven times the amount of ammonium nitrate that caused the Beirut explosion in 2020, which killed 218 people and injured 6,000. While ammonium nitrate is usually sold as plant fertiliser, it can also be used in explosives. Some worry that there is a bomb a third of the size of the one detonated over Hiroshima within striking distance of London. Since leaving the White Sea port of Kandalaksha in July, the 23,760-tonne MV Ruby has exhibited unusual behaviour. Sailing under a Maltese flag, she was grounded during a storm, damaging

Ross Clark

Boris Johnson has just proven he was unfit to be prime minister

For the past five years, I have been in something of a conflict: was Boris Johnson an unconventional but essentially wise prime minister whose ability to see the big picture was more important than his weakness on detail, and whose gift for spreading optimism outweighed his disorganisation? Or was he, as his many detractors have argued, simply not up to the job of leading the country? Fortunately, Johnson has now answered the question himself. Yes, he was stark-ravingly unsuited to being prime minister. A couple of weeks after Johnson had considered invading the Netherlands, the government was forced to change policy and limit the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine True,

Limor Simhony Philpott

Nasrallah is dead and Hezbollah is broken

Israel has said that it killed Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut yesterday. Information that Nasrallah was at Hezbollah’s main headquarters in Beirut arrived while Israel’s Prime Minister was addressing the UN in New York, and a decision was made to target the man who has been terrorising Israelis for more than three decades. He was a gifted politician and leader, under whose leadership Hezbollah turned from a minor terrorist group into a large, heavily armed powerhouse Nasrallah, 64, was born in a village in southern Lebanon and was a deeply devout Shiite Muslim. He was one of the founders of Hezbollah and became leader of the terror organisation when

Steerpike

Watch: BBC is forced to fact check itself

Amid a wave of BBC cutbacks, the Corporation has made much of its new ‘Verify’ service. Bosses have trumpeted its fact-checkers – staff, supposedly, with ‘forensic investigative skills’ – as a solution to the slew of misinformation in the age of social media. So it was somewhat sub-optimal then that the BBC was forced to fact check itself on Thursday night in an episode of the flagship show Question Time. At one point in the evening, Zia Yusuf, the Reform party chairman, attacked the number of asylum seekers arriving into Britain after it emerged that the Foreign Office has spent more than £4 billion on support for refugees and asylum seekers.

Fraser Nelson

Is Labour’s 2030 clean power target achievable? Live at Labour conference

30 min listen

Decarbonising power by 2030 is one of the flagship policies for Keir Starmer’s government. Whether this is achievable and how we go about the green transition will impact ten of thousands of jobs and everybody’s energy bills. So just how do they plan on reaching this ambitious target? Gary Smith, general secretary of the GMB, argues that there is a fundamental dishonesty about the route to net zero, with communities being hollowed out and the working class left behind. All of this has resulted in fertile ground for the far right. The Spectator’s editor Fraser Nelson sat down with Gary Smith at Labour conference last week, to give an alternative take

Rachel Johnson

Rachel Johnson, James Heale, Paul Wood, Rowan Pelling and Graeme Thomson

34 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Rachel Johnson reads her diary for the week (1:19); James Heale analyses the true value of Labour peer Lord Alli (6:58); Paul Wood questions if Israel is trying to drag America into a war with Iran (11:59); Rowan Pelling reviews Want: Sexual Fantasies, collated by Gillian Anderson (19:47); and Graeme Thomson explores the ethics of the posthumous publication of new music (28:00). Produced and presented by Patrick Gibbons.

Lisa Haseldine

How does the SPD solve a problem like Olaf Scholz?

Olaf Scholz can’t catch a break. The German chancellor started the week on a high after his SPD party won the state elections in Brandenburg by the skin of their teeth. But any illusion that Scholz had won a reprieve from criticism has been brutally crushed. Just one in five Germans think Scholz should run for chancellor again at next year’s election, according to a poll published this week. Worse, Germans have a clear idea of who they’d like to replace him with: defence minister Boris Pistorius. Two thirds of Germans want Scholz to renounce his candidacy for chancellor and allow Pistorius to step into his shoes, according to a

Rupert Shortt

Why don’t more people care about Christian persecution?

While Judaism is proportionately the most persecuted global faith, Christianity is by far the most oppressed numerically. One in seven Christians worldwide – around 300 million people – are under threat, including one in five in Africa. Yet we hear all too little about this rising tide of ‘Christianophobia’. Christians are still widely assumed to be disproportionately white, western or privileged – and thus somehow less vulnerable to oppression Christians are even at risk in the West. Over 850 churches and Christian cemeteries were attacked across France in 2021. A Catholic priest, Father Olivier Maire, died tragically in the same year. He was fatally bludgeoned by Emmanuel Abayisenga, on bail awaiting trial

Benedict Rogers

The bravery of Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement must not be forgotten

Ten years ago this week, a sea of yellow umbrellas filled the streets of Hong Kong in what at the time was the largest mass campaign for democracy in the city. In what became known as the ‘Umbrella Movement’, the people of Hong Kong courageously showed the world their desire for freedom – and their determination to fight for it. For 79 days, crowds occupied major streets in the centre of Hong Kong, demanding genuine multi-party democracy. The protests were preceded by demands by civil rights groups in an unofficial referendum for universal suffrage in elections for the city’s chief executive (effectively, the mayor) – a right promised in Hong

Catriona Stewart

Why is Scotland still tying itself in knots over gender?

Of all the self-inflicted harm to have felled politicians and undermined governments, was there ever a more curious case than that of self-ID and the SNP? In so bullishly battling the cause of Gender Recognition Reform (GRR), that would have allowed for trans-identifying people to self-declare their new gender, the SNP suffered the largest backbench rebellion of the Scottish parliament’s 25-year tenure, saw a minister defect to Alex Salmond’s Alba party, and lost two first ministers in rapid succession. And after all such calamity, the SNP’s GRR Act was merely blocked by Westminster using a Section 35 order, a dead man’s switch designed to prevent Holyrood’s lawmakers

Mark Hollingsworth

Putin’s frightening fascination with the occult

Wearing a long white scarf, military khaki pants and holding a drum and stick, Vladimir Putin smiles as he watches a shaman – a combination of a psychic and spiritual healer – play an acoustic guitar for a traditional ritual. It is 2007 and the Russian president, his close friend Sergei Shoigu, now head of Russia’s national security council, and the shaman are sitting by a fire in Tuva, a remote area of Siberia on the border with Mongolia. Known as ‘a place of power’ where shamanic traditions are strong, this region is home to Shoigu, a native Siberian Asiatic, who in his former role as defence minister played a

Friday

27 Sep 2024

Stephen Daisley

Israel goes for Hezbollah’s leadership

Israel has carried out a daring air strike against Hezbollah’s headquarters. The Islamist terror group’s underground command centre, located below civilian buildings in Dahieh, Beirut, was hit by what Israeli media are describing as ‘tens of tons of explosives’ on Friday night. There are unconfirmed reports that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was the target of the strike. Reuters is quoting a Hezbollah source saying Nasrallah is alive, but if he has been eliminated it would represent a seismic change in the Middle East. Nasrallah has led Hezbollah – ‘the Party of Allah’ – for more than three decades and has tightened the organisation’s stranglehold over Lebanon while waging war on

Eliot Wilson

Why couldn’t Labour save Harland and Wolff?

As expected, Harland and Wolff, the legendary Belfast shipyard which built the Titanic, has formally entered administration. This comes as a surprise to no-one: last year, the firm lost £43 million, on top of a £70 million loss in 2022, and it had become reliant on a high-interest loan from US investment managers Riverstone. Harland and Wolff’s management had hoped to restructure its borrowing with a loan guarantee from the government, and had spent months negotiating with UK Export Finance, which deals with export credit guarantees. In July, however, the newly appointed business and trade secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, told the House of Commons that he would not offer such a guarantee, nor any emergency liquidity

George Magnus

Beijing is seriously concerned about the Chinese economy

China’s leaders and economic policymakers – who have been optimistic and confident about the economy for years – are clearly spooked. Just two weeks ago, Chinese state media was happily insisting that the country was experiencing ‘stable economic growth’. China requires a major rethink when it comes to the economy, something which may be politically impossible for a Leninist government Yet in the last week, Beijing has announced and is expected to approve over £319 billion in new fiscal measures – the biggest monetary policy stimulus since the pandemic. The move is a clear acknowledgement that China has a weak economy with an array of systemic economic and social problems. In another

Steerpike

Whatever happened to the ‘Office of Deputy PM’?

Poor old Angela Rayner. It seems she is not too happy about reports that she is being ‘frozen out’ of decision-making in the new government, amid claims that she is the victim of a media ‘briefing war.’ Various reports have appeared suggesting that she has lost control of Labour’s employee rights’ package to the Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds and planning reform to the Chancellor Rachel Reeves. Use of the grace-and-favour residence of Dorneywood has also been given to Reeves, unlike in the days of John Prescott. Bad luck improving your croquet skills Ange. It’s a far cry from, er, March when allies of Rayner were busy briefing about ‘plans to

Steerpike

Watch: JSO protestors attack more Van Gogh paintings

It didn’t take long for the eco-zealots to strike again. Just minutes after Just Stop Oil activists Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland were jailed for throwing Heinz tomato soup over Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, a trio of JSO protestors have again targeted the artist’s work at the National Gallery. How very tiresome… The climate protest group tweeted out a video of the group’s latest stunt, urging Brits to ‘support people in resistance’. The clip of the art attack, which was recorded this afternoon, shows passers-by remonstrating with the JSO activists. Shouting at a room of livid art enthusiasts, the protestors raged: ‘There are people in prison for demanding an end to

Ross Clark

Why did it take Baroness Warsi so long to quit the Tory party?

There will be little surprise that Baroness Warsi has resigned the Conservative whip; the greater wonder is that she didn’t do so years ago. In her leaving, she complains ‘how far right my party has moved’, but then she has been making complaints about the Tories for years. Warsi has never been slow to accuse the Conservatives of Islamophobia. In June 2020, for example, following the murder of three men in Reading by an Islamist extremist – an asylum-seeker from Libya – it was the then Conservative government which caught her ire. Describing the murders as a ‘lone wolf’ attack, she said: ‘How can the government seek the support of a community

Oscar Edmondson

Inside Starmer’s dinner with Donald Trump

16 min listen

The political equivalent of the Rumble in the Jungle happened last night when Starmer sat down for a two-hour dinner with Donald Trump, following the Prime Minister’s speech at the UN General Assembly. Details of what Trump and Starmer talked about are scant: the official read-out merely says they discussed the ‘longstanding friendship’ between Britain and America. Is this good politics from the prime minsiter? Elsewhere, the Tory party conference kicks off in Birmingham this weekend and with it the beauty contest for the next Conservative leader. What should listeners expect? Oscar Edmondson speaks to James Heale and Kate Andrews. Produced by Oscar Edmondson.

Steerpike

Labour climate envoy sports Extinction Rebellion badge

When it rains for Sir Keir Starmer, it pours. Labour isn’t yet in the clear over the freebie fiasco that dampened the party’s conference this week and now another uncomfortable revelation has emerged. It transpires that Labour has chosen a new climate envoy with links to a hedge fund that donated millions to the party. The new appointee also appears to have had previous ties with, er, Extinction Rebellion. Rachel Kyte has been made the new UK special representative for climate, filling a role that was awarded a six-figure salary of £130,000 when it was last taken. The climate envoy is, it turns out, on the advisory board of the

James Heale

Will ‘flatgate’ damage Keir Starmer?

Labour conference has been and gone and still Lord Alli remains in the headlines. The latest claims regarding the multimillionaire peer surround his £18 million penthouse flat in Covent Garden which Keir Starmer used repeatedly during his time as Leader of the Opposition. Two periods in particular are being scrutinised by the press. First, the use of Alli’s flat by Starmer during the later stages of Covid. Second, his decision this spring to move his family there to allow his son to revise for his GCSEs. While the criticism of Lord Alli initially centred on claims of wealthy donors and ‘cash for access’, the story has now moved on to