Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.
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Freddy Gray speaks to classicist, military historian and author Victor Davis Hanson. In an end of year review, they talk about antisemitism in the US today, the battle between right and left since 2016, and a potential future Trump presidency.
Congratulations to the SNP, which has today given new meaning to the phrase ‘slow and steady wins the race’. Members of hapless Humza’s government have announced today that they will complete dualling of Scotland’s ‘most dangerous road’ by 2035 – a decade later than first planned and a rate of construction that works out at, er, four miles a year. A perfect analogy of Scotland’s progress under the SNP… So far there have been 121 deaths on the treacherous road since 2009, two years after Alex Salmond promised to fix the death trap. Transport Secretary Mairi McAllan assured the Scottish Parliament today that the upgrade would be finished within the original
They say that April is the cruellest month but for Jolyon Maugham it seems to be December instead. Four years ago, the kimono-wearing, baseball-bat wielding KC infamously beat a fox to death, incurring much mockery and the opprobrium of the RSPCA for his boastful tweets about the slaying. And now the Babe Ruth of the bar has slipped up again for his online antics. In his never-ending quest to signal his virtue, Maugham ended up risking contempt of court with his posts about the case of transgender schoolgirl Brianna Ghey, who was killed ten months ago in a Warrington park. The subsequent trial concluded today, with two sixteen-year-olds convicted of
Covid provided a revelation of the vulnerabilities of the global supply chain, but now war in Yemen has provided another. Attacks on shipping by Iranian-backed Houthis has reminded the world of how much trade is reliant on free passage through the Bab-al-Mandeb Strait, an 18-mile wide waterway at the southern entrance to the Red Sea. If shipping cannot get through that then it struggles to get through the Suez Canal. In the past month, 15 ships have been attacked in the strait with missiles and drones, and now shipping lines have had enough. They are instead routing their container vessels an extra 3,000 miles around the Cape of Good Hope. That
Well that was a surprise. At just 3.9 per cent, down from 4.7 per cent, the latest inflation figure published today came as a shock for many. The figures are far lower than the consensus forecasts, and even low enough to allow the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to meet his forecast to halve the rate by the end of the year. But should we really be surprised that inflation has fallen so rapidly? Monetarists – who noticed that the money supply has been contracting since the start of the year – won’t be taken aback by the inflation figures. They said all along that the flow of money is the
Does kicking a popular candidate off the electoral ballot protect democracy? Or is that in fact deeply anti-democratic? These are the questions that many Americans are pondering today after Colorado’s Supreme Court voted four to three to block Donald Trump from running in its state in the election next year, citing the insurrection clause in the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution. The ruling is a clear attempt to establish that Trump, by ‘inciting an insurrection’ on January 6, is persona non grata in American elections The court’s decision refers only to Colorado’s primary on March 5. But, if upheld, the ruling would almost certainly apply to the presidential election
This morning’s inflation figures are good news. The fall in the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) to 3.9 per cent, from 4.7 per cent, not only exceeded market expectations by a healthy margin, but in November prices actually fell by 0.2 per cent. Given that averages earnings are rising by 7.3 per cent it is hard to sustain the idea that we are still in a cost of living crisis – even though there will inevitably be some people who don’t feel they are getting better off. Prices are falling in almost every sector, with only the cost of communications rising slightly, from 8.0 per cent to 8.1 per cent. The
Marine Le Pen celebrated what she called ‘an ideological victory’ on Tuesday evening after Emmanuel Macron’s government finally had its controversial immigration Bill approved. It was a day of jubilation also for the centre-right Republicans, who had formed the bulk of the negotiating team that forced the government to toughen parts of the Bill to make it more acceptable to them. If Le Pen is the winner from the events of the last week, the media have no doubt who is the big loser: Emmanuel Macron The Bill was initially thrown out of parliament last week after the left and the right came together in an unprecedented show of
Much of the speculation in the build-up to the Scottish budget yesterday focused on the possibility of the introduction of yet another new income tax band for the well off. And So it came to pass. Speaking at Holyrood yesterday afternoon, Deputy First Minister and Finance Secretary Shona Robison announced a new ‘advanced rate’ of 45 per cent for those earning between £75,000 and £125,140, meaning they will pay more tax than they currently do. Meanwhile, Scotland’s top rate of tax, levied against those earning more than £125,000, will also rise next year, by 1 per cent, to 48 per cent. The ‘starter’ and ‘basic’ rate bands (note, not the
Merry Christmas, Rishi Sunak. With parliament rising for recess, some in No. 10 might have been hoping to put their feet up, now that the PM’s Liaison Committee grilling is out of the way. But tonight an unwelcome gift has been dropped at Sunak’s feet: his party will shortly be facing a by-election in the Northamptonshire seat of Wellingborough. The reason? Another Tory MP accused of behaving badly. Back in October, Peter Bone was suspended from the Commons for six weeks for committing ‘many varied acts of bullying and one act of sexual misconduct’ against a member of his staff way back in 2012 and 2013. The suspension of more
Today’s Scottish government budget was tax-rise heavy – to the dismay of both individual earners and businesses — in the name of public service support. But while finance secretary Shona Robison spoke of her government’s ‘values’ of equality, opportunity and community, as well as the importance of its ‘social contract with the people of Scotland’, she failed to acknowledge the state her country’s public services are in. Robison mentioned the NHS over ten times throughout her speech, using it to justify the contents of today’s budget. But Scotland’s health service is struggling more than ever; some hospitals are so congested that it is becoming the norm for dozens of patients
We’re looking for a new producer to join The Spectator‘s broadcast team. You would be one of four on the broadcast team and one of only 30 journalists working here at The Spectator, producing a suite of podcasts ranging from British and US politics to lifestyle, religion and literature. The team is also behind Spectator TV, our YouTube channel which has grown by more than 140,000 subscribers this year alone, regularly featuring fantastic guests like Douglas Murray and Julie Bindel. Our shows are still growing, and we are always looking for fresh ideas and ways to do things better. You should be someone who knows current affairs well enough to
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Rishi Sunak appeared in front of the Liaison Committee this afternoon. In an interview with The Spectator last week, the PM said that he was enjoying the job. So why did he seem so agitated at the grilling today? Max Jeffery speaks to Isabel Hardman and James Heale.
Three cheers for the British Museum, which has just announced a new £50 million sponsorship deal with the oil giant BP. The news is a surprise because oil and gas companies are increasingly treated as lepers by the culture sector. The Royal Opera House, the National Portrait Gallery, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Tate are just some of the elite organisations that have shamelessly abandoned longstanding funding relationships with BP following pressure from environmental campaigners. The British Museum deserves credit for standing its ground when few others have dared. The museum says the ten-year deal, believed to be the biggest in its history, will help to kickstart its £1 billion master plan to refurbish and redisplay
Perhaps the Scottish government thinks it’s a good time to put out the rubbish. With the news agenda dominated by the Scottish Budget and with the Christmas recess imminent, First Minister Humza Yousaf has reportedly decided to abandon his appeal against the UK government’s Section 35 order on the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill. The bill, intended to make it easier for trans people to obtain gender recognition certifications, was attacked by ‘gender critical’ feminists, including former SNP leadership contender Kate Forbes. Westminster put the brakes on the legislation – a decision which sparked an SNP backlash. But now, if reports in the Herald are accurate, it seems Yousaf has finally seen sense. If
If Rishi Sunak still doesn’t recognise the description of himself as ‘tetchy’, then he could do worse than to watch back his performance before the liaison committee this afternoon. The Prime Minister was not in a good mood when the questions started, though he did seem to relax a little as the 90-minute session wore on. The opening exchanges were testing – they covered the UK’s response to the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza – and Sunak was rather testy with some of his answers. Some of the later questions from a few of the Labour and SNP MPs on the committee weren’t very much to do with their briefs
It’s a Christmas tradition as old as the nativity itself: the annual lobby drinks party. Each year, the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition host rival shindigs to entertain Westminster’s press pack with their best quips and warmest wine. First, it was Sir Keir Starmer’s turn to roast the lobby, having neatly skewered Andy Burnham at the same event last year. He joked that some of the hacks in the room ‘were lucky enough to be the only people this government has actually managed to fly to Rwanda’ and jibed that he had designed a policy to ‘really hit [journalists] where it hurts – putting VAT on private
Remember ‘localism’ – when David Cameron was going to return powers to local people when it came to things like planning? If that is how the Conservatives’ 14 years in power began, they seem to be ending with the opposite: with Michael Gove threatening to seize the planning reins from Sadiq Khan and get more houses built. ‘If you cannot do what is need to deliver the homes that London needs, I will,’ he wrote in a sniffy letter to London mayor Sadiq Khan ahead of his speech on planning this morning. He has set up an investigation to see whether Khan’s London Plan is holding up housebuilding. If you
The government has finally published its transgender guidance for schools. Teachers have been waiting a long time. We were promised we would have this document ‘for the summer term’. Well, it has arrived just in time for Christmas. But was it worth waiting for? On the surface, this long awaited document looks like it will please nobody, upset everyone and leave schools still unclear about what they should do when parents get on the phone and explain that their son John is now their daughter Janet. It’s all well and good to advise that schools do not have a duty to let children change their gender identity but, when it
The government’s guidance for schools on transgender pupils was finally published this morning – prompting an immediate backlash which demonstrated why it had been delayed so many times. For years, with increasing numbers of pupils questioning their gender, ministers have grappled with the thorny issue of whether children ought to be allowed to ‘socially transition’. This involves them choosing their preferred pronouns, names and type of uniform while at school. Liz Truss was among those arguing that the draft guidance ‘does not go far enough’ The guidance from the Department for Education today clarifies that teachers in England ‘do not have to and should not’ accept all requests for ‘social