Politics

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

Friday

John Ferry John Ferry

The flaw in the SNP’s plan to strengthen Scottish shipbuilding

The Scottish government under John Swinney and his deputy Kate Forbes could be on the verge of missing an opportunity to strengthen UK/Scottish shipbuilding while possibly failing islanders and the working communities of Glasgow’s Clyde area. This is according to the former head of Scotland’s nationalised shipyard, David Tydeman, who has decided to speak out. Tydeman was unceremoniously sacked from his job as chief executive of Ferguson Marine in March. As covered here earlier this week, Tydeman had finally managed to overcome the production and design issues that had held up the two highly controversial ferries the yard has spent years and hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayer’s money trying

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Is the Labour lead as big as it seems?

13 min listen

Both major party leaders are hitting the road today and campaigning in Scotland, which will be a major battleground in the coming election. Labour looks comfortably in the lead, but is that number accurate to what’s happening on the ground? Cindy Yu and Katy Balls talk to Focaldata’s James Kanagasooriam about their latest analysis. Produced by Cindy Yu.

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Why is UK retail doing badly?

This morning’s retail sales figures are not what Rishi Sunak will have hoped for as he pitches his case for re-election on economic recovery. They are yet more indication that Britain has fallen out of love with shopping. Sales volumes were 2.3 per cent down in April compared with the previous month, while the March figure was revised downwards from zero to minus 0.2 percent. Some of this might be connected with the timing of Easter: the holiday weekend straddled March and April, so people will have done their food shopping, Easter egg purchases, filled their car with petrol, and everything else, in March rather than April, but the bigger

Steerpike Steerpike

Corbyn to stand as an independent MP

Amidst the election drama it would be easy to forget about one rather eccentric politician. Today Jeremy Corbyn has announced today that he will stand as an independent candidate for the seat of Islington North — after significant speculation about whether he would be welcomed back into the Labour fold. After holding the seat for 40 years, Corbyn says he will not defend views held by either the Tories or his former party Labour — including the two-child benefit cap and rent controls. Blocked from standing again for Labour, and suspended for remarks he made after the equalities watchdog report into antisemitism in the part, Jezza will be expelled for

Nick Boles

Why it’s time to vote Labour

Most people don’t belong to a political tribe. They vote pragmatically. When an election comes round, they ask themselves how well the party in power has performed in government and try to decide whether it looks likely to improve their living standards in the future. In next month’s general election, millions of pragmatic middle-of-the-road voters, who have supported the Conservatives in every election since 2010, will be wondering whether the party deserves their support yet again in 2024. The current team at the top of the Labour party are serious people of integrity and ability. For nearly 20 years I was a member of the Conservative tribe. A councillor for

Eliot Wilson

Can Rishi Sunak get Britain to like him again?

When Rishi Sunak stood in the rain in Downing Street to announce a general election on 4 July, he made a speech which was unusually personal. Looking back on his steep rise to power – five years ago he was not even a cabinet minister – he spoke of the challenges the country has faced and how they have affected him. Seeing how people responded to the pandemic, he said: ‘I have never been prouder to be British’. The Prime Minister knows this is a weak point for him The Prime Minister knows moments like this are a weak point for him. He comes across as a colourless technocrat, a man

Ed West Ed West

How bad will a Labour government be?

I’m old enough to remember the sense of optimism, hope and promise felt when Tony Blair was elected back in 1997; not by me, obviously, but I could at least appreciate that other people felt that ‘things can only get better’. Whether you think they did or not, Blair transformed the country in his own image, just as his predecessor Margaret Thatcher had done during her similarly long reign. No one could say the same of the recent 14 years of Tory-led governments, a period that has been marked by a continual drift away from conservatism both within civil society and in many ways driven by the administration itself. Labour is

Thursday

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Why is Biden so unpopular?

23 min listen

New York Post writer Miranda Devine joins Freddy Gray to discuss Joe Biden’s unpopularity. Why are Americans increasingly not supporting him? And how have Biden family scandals and rumours affected trust in the President? In a week that Biden gave a commencement speech, they also discuss the recent controversy over NFL kicker Harrison Butker’s speech. What insight does the reaction to the speech tell us about America today? Produced by Natasha Feroze and Patrick Gibbons.

Steerpike Steerpike

Ex-SNP chief’s charge sheet submitted to Crown Office

It’s a day that ends in ‘y’, which means more chaos for the beleaguered SNP. Now it transpires that Scotland’s Crown Office has finally received Peter Murrell’s charge sheet – after he was charged with embezzlement from the SNP over a month ago. The husband of former SNP leader and first minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon was taken into police custody for the second time on 18 April as part of the police probe into SNP finances. Shortly after the police force announced that it had charged the former SNP chief, it emerged that Murrell had also resigned his party membership. His wife, Nicola Sturgeon, and the SNP’s former treasurer Colin Beattie were

James Heale James Heale

Why has the election been called now?

15 min listen

Less than 24 hours after Rishi Sunak’s surprise election announcement, we look ahead to the parties’ campaigns. What has been the fall out? How have Labour responded to the shock news? And why didn’t Rishi have an umbrella? James Heale is joined by Isabel Hardman and former Labour adviser John McTernan to discuss.  Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

William Moore William Moore

The deluge: Rishi Sunak’s election gamble

53 min listen

It’s a bumper edition of The Edition this week. After Rishi Sunak called a surprise – and perhaps misguided – snap election just a couple of hours after our press deadline, we had to frantically come up with a new digital cover. To take us through a breathless day in Westminster and the fallout of Rishi’s botched announcement, The Spectator’s political editor Katy Balls joins the podcast. (01:35) Next: Our print magazine leads on the electric car bust. Ross Clark runs through all the issues facing electric cars today – from China flooding the market with discounted EVs to Rishi Sunak dropping the unrealistic target of banning new petrol car sales by

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Sunak’s Welsh football blunder

It’s the beginning of a general election campaign, which can only mean one thing: politicians pretending to care about football to connect with the punters.  Rishi Sunak kicked things off, with his first campaign stop at a brewery in Wales this afternoon – a brave choice of venue for a politician many voters think really couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery after his rain-soaked election announcement yesterday.  Keen to pal it up with the assembled Welsh brewers, and no doubt mindful that his election campaign was going to overlap with this year’s Euros, Sunak asked the group if they were looking forward to ‘all the football’.  The prime minister presumably hadn’t

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Why Le Pen is happy to cut ties with the AfD

This evening French television broadcasts a live debate between prime minister Gabriel Attal and Jordan Bardella. The president of the National Rally is on course for a spectacular victory in the European elections on 9 June, but Emmanuel Macron hopes that his Boy Wonder might be able to close the gap tonight with a strong performance. One of Attal’s few lines of attack will be Russia When Macron nominated Attal his PM in January, he was dubbed the ‘anti-Bardella’ choice. His predecessor, the eye-wateringly dull Elisabeth Borne, had by her age and Socialist bent, enabled the 28-year-old Bardella to cultivate an image of the coming man, appealing to the youth

James Heale James Heale

Reform’s election launch overshadowed by Farage

It’s been a big morning on the right of British politics. First, net migration figures were published showing 685,000 people arrived in the 12 months between 2022 and 2023. Rishi Sunak then admitted that no flights to Rwanda will take off before polling day on 4 July. This was followed shortly after by Nigel Farage ruling himself out as a candidate in the snap election. Reform UK leader Richard Tice then took to his feet to launch his party’s election campaign. Tice’s party will likely still hurt the Tories There was little that was new on policy or messaging as Tice, Reform deputy leader Ben Habib and ex-Tory cabinet minister

Steerpike Steerpike

SNP’s Matheson handed suspension and salary cut over iPad scandal

Uh oh. In non-election news north of the border, the Scottish government’s former health secretary Michael Matheson has been handed both a suspension and salary ban after his rather humiliating £11,000 iPad scandal was exposed. As Mr S has written previously, Matheson has been in the doghouse for months after it was revealed he lied about his roaming bill and tried to make the taxpayer cover his costs. And now, it seems, he is finally getting his comeuppance… Holyrood’s standards committee has today called for Matheson to be suspended for 27 days and the cross-party group also wants to see the backbencher’s salary withdrawn for 54 days — a fine that

Iain Macwhirter

This election couldn’t come at a worse time for the SNP

The last time John Swinney was leader of the SNP, 20 years ago, the party went on to return only six MPs in the next general election. Labour returned 41 north of the border. Swinney had resigned the year before, but this was his electoral legacy.  The party has had a traumatic year since the precipitate departure of Nicola Sturgeon Could history be about to repeat itself now he is leader once again? The most recent YouGov poll, conducted after Swinney became leader and First Minister, suggests that Labour has a ten point lead over the SNP in Scotland. If that were maintained on polling day, the nationalists would be reduced from 43 MPs

Steerpike Steerpike

Simon Case’s worst moments at the Covid Inquiry

Amidst all the election drama and hurried campaign launches, it would be easy to forget the public inquiries taking place at present. But fear not, Mr S has gathered together the most notable parts of today’s Covid Inquiry, where Cabinet Secretary Dr Simon Case is making a rather delayed appearance after he was unable to attend last year due to illness. Let’s take a look at what he has said so far… Bad language Today’s hearing had barely started before Case was forced to apologise for the use of some rather, um, robust language highlighted in message exchanges where he had insulted both Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak, amongst other

Patrick O’Flynn Patrick O'Flynn

Rishi’s Rwanda row back shows he is hopeless at politics

Rwanda removals policy, for so long an anticipated cornerstone of the Tory re-election effort, has today officially become an ‘over the rainbow’ idea wide open to mockery from opposition parties. Not only will the deterrent impact on small boat crossings of the ‘regular drumbeat’ of flights that the Prime Minister promised us not have had time to be measured by polling day, but there won’t actually have been any flights whatsoever. Sunak originally promised flights would be happening by the end of spring Rishi Sunak, who originally promised flights would be happening by the end of spring, confirmed in a series of interviews that the plan actually getting implemented now

Ian O’Doherty

Ireland is rewarding Hamas for 7 October

For once, the Irish government has actually done something it promised. The problem is that it’s precisely the wrong thing, at precisely the wrong time. On Wednesday, Ireland, along with Norway and Spain, committed to recognising a Palestinian state. Ireland will formally ratify this on 28 May. It’s a bizarre and utterly counterproductive move which has the very real potential to plunge the region into even more carnage, but one which many Irish politicians from all parties have been demanding for the last few months. This is a reward for committing the single greatest crime against Jews since the dark days of the Holocaust It’s easy to see why Taoiseach

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Sunak hints at why he opted for a snap summer election

There is no good answer to the question of why Rishi Sunak called the general election for 4 July, other than that it comes at a time when things are marginally better than they were and before things could get a lot worse. There is, by the way, no good answer to the question of when would be a good time for the Conservatives to hold the election because they are 21 points behind in the polls and largely hate one another and the responsibility of government.  Sunak wants to make it about his record This morning, Sunak insisted on his broadcast rounds that the answer to ‘why now?’ was