Politics

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

Friday

5 Apr 2024

Will the Tories remove the whip from Will Wragg?

Who else was caught up in the sexting honeytrap? That’s the question Westminster is asking today. It follows last night’s revelation that William Wragg, vice chair of the 1922 committee, was the source responsible for passing on MPs’ phone numbers to a man he met on the gay dating app Grindr. This man then used the numbers to target at least a dozen others. Among them are believed to be three MPs including a serving minister, four political staffers, a former Tory MP and two political journalists. They were sent unsolicited flirtatious texts from senders calling themselves ‘Charlie’ or ‘Abi’ in a suspected spear-phishing attack. Two of the MPs are reported to

John Keiger

The plot to stop Marine Le Pen could backfire badly

At first, French elites haughtily dismissed the Rassemblement National (RN) and its voters. Then they were in denial about its rise. Now they are scrambling to block its path to victory in 2027 by all manner of subterfuge. Marine Le Pen, the leader of the RN and front-runner in the 2027 presidential election, will go on trial this October, with other RN party members, for the misuse of European parliamentary funds. Whereas members of Macron’s coalition were recently found guilty of similar misdemeanours, in the case of Le Pen the stakes are particularly high: a likely guilty verdict will see her declared ineligible for political office and thus eliminated from

Iain Macwhirter

Scotland’s Hate Crime Act may have done us all a favour

Scotland’s Hate Crime Act (HCA) has, by common agreement, been an unmitigated disaster. Less than a week old, there are already calls for it to be repealed – like the equally misconceived but more awfully named Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Act 2012. The police are now clearly hesitant of arresting anyone for hate crime The police have been swamped with thousands of complaints, many vexatious, all of which they are pledged to investigate. JK Rowling has blown the doors off with her ‘arrest me’ tweets, but the First Minister, Humza Yousaf, attracted more hate crime complaints in the first two days than she did. SNP Ministers like Siobhan Brown have been ridiculed for misrepresenting their own

Andrew Tettenborn

Civil servants can’t down tools if they don’t like Israel

Britain in the nineteenth century pioneered the idea of the professional, impartial civil service independent of politics. In the twenty-first, that same civil service is unfortunately pioneering the notion of a body increasingly independent of the state that employs it, and apt at times to follow its own remarkably political agenda without much control from anyone. Following your conscience is a good deal less impressive when you are doing it on someone else’s dime British companies export a good deal of military equipment to Israel. To do so, they require export licences from the Department for Business and Trade (DBT). Yesterday, it emerged that a group of civil servants in

Alexander Horne

Should the UK impose an arms embargo on Israel?

Yesterday, a letter from 600 legal experts, including four former Supreme Court judges, was published, arguing that the UK government should impose an arms embargo on Israel, impose sanctions on individuals and entities who had ‘made statements inciting genocide against Palestinians’, and suspend negotiations on a new bilateral trade agreement with Israel. It also demanded the UK review its current trade agreement with Israel and consider the imposition of sanctions more generally. Some might think, justifiably, that the lawyers’ letter is both one-sided and rather overstated The signatories believe an International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling in January, imposing what are known as ‘provisional measures’, meant that there was a ‘plausible risk

Limor Simhony Philpott

Will Netanyahu take Biden’s ceasefire ultimatum seriously?

When Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that he had a ‘good’ talk with American president Joe Biden on Thursday, he was hiding a bombshell. It soon emerged that Biden’s words to Netanyahu were harsh and uncompromising. Biden demanded that Israel addresse the humanitarian situation in Gaza immediately, that it takes concrete steps to protect civilians and aid workers and that it reaches a ceasefire deal with Hamas. This was an ultimatum. Biden threatened to reassess American policy towards the war in Gaza if Netanyahu does not comply immediately. In other words, he refused to guarantee that the strong support he has given Israel since the war started in October

Steerpike

Sturgeon accused of being a part timer in Holyrood

It’s been a year since Peter Murrell, the husband of former first minister Nicola Sturgeon, was arrested in connection with the police probe into SNP finances. Murrell was subsequently released pending further investigation, before the same fate met Sturgeon last summer. But while the SNP hasn’t caught a break since then, it seems Sturgeon has been enjoying a few too many. The former FM now sits as a backbencher in Holyrood, after her unexpected resignation last February. And it seems Sturgeon has rather enjoyed relinquishing her power. Labelled a ‘part-time MSP’ by the Scottish Conservatives, it transpires that in the last year, Sturgeon has made just four contributions at Holyrood

Gavin Mortimer

France’s schools are succumbing to the Islamist threat

A 13-year-old Muslim girl was beaten unconscious outside her school gates in Montpellier in southern France on Tuesday. Her mother says she was attacked because of her religion but on this occasion most of the mainstream media has baulked at reporting the story. That’s because Samara was a Muslim who didn’t follow her religion the way many of her classmates did. ‘My daughter dresses in European style,’ said her mother, Hassiba. ‘They called her a kafir’ (unbeliever). The truth is that the Republic is as scared as its teachers Samara was also called names because she refused to wear her hair under a headscarf. She was proud of her hair.

Margaret Mitchell

Botswana’s President: elephant hunting isn’t cruel, it’s necessary

Last month, Botswana’s Minister for Environment and Tourism Dumezweni Mthimkhulu threatened to send 10,000 elephants to Hyde Park. This week, Botswana’s President Mokgweetsi Eric Keabetswe Masisi went a step further and suggested sending 20,000 elephants to Germany. These are strange and not entirely plausible threats, yet they reflect the frustration that Botswanan politicians feel over western governments lecturing them about animal rights. The United Kingdom and Germany are both in the process of passing laws to block the importing of hunting trophies. The point Masisi and his government want to make is that, unlike westerners, the people of Botswana live in increasingly close proximity to the world’s largest population of

Alexander Larman

Netflix’s Scoop is a reminder of the Prince Andrew problem

If the royals weren’t going through enough problems at the moment, another one is about to be added in the form of Netflix’s Scoop. It contains a scene that will perhaps be the most-discussed of the year, in the form of Prince Andrew being naked. Granted, he is only shown from behind – and Rufus Sewell, the actor who plays Andrew, is in good shape (perhaps more so than the actual duke) – but it is still a jaw-dropping moment. Perhaps blessedly, Andrew’s nudity comes in a bathtub vignette, as the Duke disconsolately watches the disastrous Newsnight interview that he so fatefully conducted with Emily Maitlis in 2019, rather than

Steerpike

Top ten moments of the SNP police probe

One whole year has passed since the infamous forensic tent was set up outside former first minister Nicola Sturgeon’s Glasgow home. On the same day, her husband and former chief executive of the party, Peter Murrell, was arrested in connection with the police probe into the ‘missing’ £600,000 of donations the party received for its IndyRef2 campaign. The police investigation, Operation Branchform, has been ongoing for three years and The Spectator has documented every twist and turn. Peter Murrell, former SNP CEO, is arrested A year ago today, the former chief executive of the SNP and Sturgeon’s husband, was arrested at 7.45am and taken into police custody. Murrell was questioned

Thursday

4 Apr 2024

Steerpike

Honeytrap scandal: William Wragg admits leaking MPs’ phone numbers

Oh dear. There has tonight been a fresh development in the Westminster honeytrap sexting scandal. William Wragg, the vice chairman of the 1922 committee, has admitted to the Times that he was the source responsible for leaking MPs’ phone numbers to a man he met on the gay dating app Grindr. Wragg, the chairman of the Public Administration Committee, said he provided the details after sending intimate pictures of himself to the user. Wragg said he was ‘scared that the man ‘had compromising things on me’. And now, thanks to him, they have compromising things on others… Those colleagues – which included several unnamed MPs, parliamentary staffers and a political journalist –

Steerpike

Listen: David Cameron refuses to answer Gaza questions

After the tragic news of the deaths of three British aid workers, killed in an Israeli strike in Gaza, both the public and politicians are demanding answers. And so at the end of his interview on the BBC’s Ukrainecast, Lord Cameron was asked about the situation in the Middle East. Before his interviewer had finished asking her question, however, the Foreign Secretary cut her off: ‘This is Ukrainecast. I’m not- I’m doing that later.’ When pressed again on whether he had time for any questions on the Israel-Gaza conflict, Cameron told her: ‘We don’t really… I’ve got to do a pool later.’ Trying one last time, his interviewer asked: ‘Will

Gus Carter

The Starmer supremacy

40 min listen

On the podcast this week: what could achieving a large majority at the next election mean for Labour; how much should parents worry about picky eating; and why are humans fascinated with the apocalypse? First up: The Starmer supremacy. If the polls are correct, Labour could be on to a record landslide at the next general election. Any political leader would relish such a win. But can achieving such a large majority present internal problems of its own? Labour MP Harriet Harman joins The Spectator’s political editor Katy Balls to discuss. (1:32) Then: Lara and Gus discuss some of their favourite pieces from the magazine, from Charles Moore’s column to

Cindy Yu

Should Britain end arms sales to Israel?

13 min listen

The row over arms sales to Israel continues today, as over 600 high profile figures in the legal profession, including former Supreme Court Justice Jonathan Sumption, sign a petition arguing they believe Israel has breached international law, and more Conservative politicians say, on the record, that they believe the UK must respond with an arms sale ban. Cindy Yu talks to James Heale and Isabel Hardman about where this row could go next. Produced by Megan McElroy and Cindy Yu.

Ross Clark

Scrapping Ofsted would suit teachers – but be terrible for children

There is one thing that seems to have gone missing from the campaign by the National Education Union (NEU) to abolish Ofsted: children. They hardly get a mention. What we do learn, from the press release announcing the NEU’s latest motion to get rid of the government’s schools’ inspection regime, is that the teaching profession ‘can be trusted to do their jobs effectively without a punitive, high-stakes system to keep them in line’. Further, Ofsted’s regime causes ‘teachers and other school staff sleepless nights, anxiety, and an urge to leave the profession’. The teaching profession, we’re told, ‘can be trusted to do their jobs effectively’ In other words, NEU members

Steerpike

Full list: Tories calling to end arms sales to Israel

The tragic news of the deaths of three British aid workers in Gaza, killed in an Israeli strike, has sobered the nation this week. It sparked a strongly-worded letter from Rishi Sunak to Israel’s Prime Minister on Tuesday evening, in which Sunak said he was ‘appalled’ by the killing of aid workers and the ‘intolerable’ situation in the Middle East. The PM also told Benjamin Netanyahu that ‘Israel’s rightful aim of defeating Hamas would not be achieved by allowing a humanitarian catastrophe’. Now, Conservative peers and MPs are publicly calling for the UK to halt arms sales to Israel. The list includes Tory peer Sir Nicholas Soames, the grandson of

Patrick O’Flynn

Rishi Sunak’s empty human rights threat

Is there anyone in Britain who believes that Rishi Sunak will take us out of the European Convention on Human Rights? If there is then that person may also still think they got an absolute bargain when they paid a man in a pub £10,000 in cash to take ownership of Tower Bridge. For the Prime Minister to airily imply that he is ready to take the UK out of the ECHR and the jurisdiction of its supervisory court in Strasbourg amounts to a new low point in his parlous handling of the small boats crisis. The embarrassing truth is that a flailing, failing PM is fixated on just getting

Steerpike

Watch: Ex-Tory minister turns on Tom Tugendhat

The Tories are battling bad press almost every day now, what with rumours of rebellions and leadership challenges on top of a number of unflattering polls. The party might have hoped, then, that if former Conservative MPs wanted to raise party-specific concerns they would do so in private — rather than adding publicly to the party’s woes. Not so. Today, former government minister Sir Alan Duncan gave a fiery media performance to LBC when he came out gunning for certain Tory bigwigs — and even called for security minister Tom Tugendhat to be sacked. And now, in a further development only hours after his outburst, Duncan has been placed under

Terry Barnes

Australia’s activist governor-general spells trouble for the royals

While the King and the Princess of Wales both battle cancer, the business of monarchy goes on. In the realms of the Commonwealth that includes ensuring the Crown is represented in each respective constitutional government. In Australia, though, the choice of candidate for governor-general is far from reassuring news for the monarchy. Samantha ‘Sam’ Mostyn, an activist and lawyer, was named by Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese as the country’s 28th governor-general. ‘Ms Mostyn is known for her exceptional service to the Australian community. She is a businesswoman and community leader with a long history in executive and governance roles across diverse sectors’, said Albanese. There’s no question that Mostyn is a