Politics Archives

Tuesday

19 Mar 2024

Steve Harley was no one-hit wonder

Celebrity deaths range from the ‘tragically young’ (Amy Winehouse) to the ‘I thought they’d gone years ago’ (Peregrine Worsthorne) and the monumental (Michael Jackson). But there’s another type: a more low-key one that knocks you a bit, as much as the death of a stranger can. Steve Harley, whose death was announced this weekend by his family, was one of those. Everyone knows Harley and his Cockney Rebel band’s ‘Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me)’. But Harley was no one-hit wonder: dig a little deeper than that 1975 song and it’s clear to see what a brilliant and underappreciated musician he was. Vanishingly few endure in the pop music sphere. Steve Harley blazed through the decades, with five remarkable albums. He had a strange

James Kirkup

A pension crisis is brewing

Ten years ago, George Osborne blew up the British private pension system. Because pensions are boring and complicated and move slowly, a lot of people didn’t really notice. But the shrapnel from the blast continues to ricochet today and is starting to hit. Chancellor Osborne’s Budget on 19 March 2014 contained the surprise announcement of ‘pension freedoms’. Previously, people retiring with a Defined Contribution pension (a pot of money and very different to a Defined Benefit pension that is an entitlement to a certain income) effectively had to take their pension savings and use them to buy an annuity, a financial product delivering an income for life. Under the Osborne reforms, once

Monday

18 Mar 2024

Isabel Hardman

Has Labour spied an opportunity in the Tory National Insurance pledge?

A curious attack from Labour in the Commons this afternoon: shadow work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall used her slot at the regular departmental questions to ask how a policy that the government doesn’t yet have would work. She referred to the statements made by the Chancellor and the Prime Minister about their ambition over the long term to scrap National Insurance as a ‘double taxation’, pointing out: Labour obviously thinks that talk of abolishing national insurance is a way into the pensioner vote ‘Your NICs record helps determine your entitlement to the state pension. So if that’s scrapped, how will people know what pension they will get?’ Work and

Stephen Daisley

Israel’s ‘allies’ should reckon with reality

Everyone wants an end to the fighting in Gaza. The United States backs ‘an immediate and sustained ceasefire’. The European Commission urges ‘an agreement on a ceasefire rapidly’. The Brits demand ‘an immediate pause in fighting, then progress towards a sustainable ceasefire’. So eager is the Biden regime for a cessation in hostilities that the most senior Democrat in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, was sent out last week to advocate the removal of Israel’s democratically elected prime minister. The urgency is understandable. The Gaza death toll is, according to Hamas, just under 32,000. An NGO says starvation is ‘imminent’ in the northern parts of the enclave. Israel has launched a

Elliot Keck

Revealed: the extent of Sadiq Khan’s splurge of taxpayers’ cash

Londoners don’t agree on much, but on one subject many of the capital’s residents are united: Amy Lamé, the mayor’s ‘night czar’, is a colossal waste of money. Whether you’re on the left or right, a cyclist or motorist, religious or not, it’s hard to defend her £120,000-a-year salary for ‘ensuring London thrives as a 24 hour city’. But Lamé isn’t the only beneficiary of the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan’s largesse: more than 1,100 staff working for various public sector organisations in the capital, including City Hall, Transport for London (TfL) and the Metropolitan Police, were paid more than £100,000 last year. Khan certainly thinks these fat cats are worth

Steerpike

Night czar is ‘good value for money’ insists Sadiq Khan

Back to one of Sadiq Khan’s worst mistakes in office: Amy Lamé. The underwhelming ‘night czar’ is in the news again after Khan tried to persuade Londoners that the £120,000-a-year Lamé is worth the money. Speaking to Times Radio this morning, the London mayor was quizzed about the city’s failing nighttime economy. ‘New York is the city that never sleeps,’ said the presenter. ‘London is the city that likes to go to bed early with a cup of Horlicks.’ Scrabbling for a retort, Khan had barely found one before he was hit with the next zinger: ‘Why are you paying a DJ 120 grand to be a night czar? That’s

Kate Andrews

Sunak says the economy is doing better. Is he right?

Is Britain’s economy ‘turning a corner’? Rishi Sunak thinks so, but convincing his fellow MPs and the public is going to be difficult. At the ‘SME Connect’ conference in Warwickshire this morning, the Prime Minister spoke about the ‘tough couple of years’ the country has been through, insisting the UK economy is now heading ‘in the right direction.’ Perhaps there is more to come in the way of tax cuts On several metrics, Sunak is right. January’s growth figures, coming in at 0.2 per cent, suggest the UK is likely to consign its technical recession to the end of last year. Forecasters expect April will return the inflation rate back to the

Katy Balls

Will Penny Mordaunt be the next prime minister?

14 min listen

Over the weekend, speculation about a plot to oust Rishi Sunak and replace him with Penny Mordaunt circulated the papers. It came after one of the worst weeks of the Prime Minister’s premiership and the looming May elections. This morning, key Cabinet ministers including Kemi Badenoch and Ben Wallace have come out in support of ‘sticking to the plan’. Can Rishi Sunak keep the party calm ahead of a gruelling month? And what’s the strategy behind opting for an autumn election? Cindy Yu speaks to Katy Balls and Fraser Nelson.

Andrew McQuillan

The DUP can’t blame Reform for dividing unionists

While Michelle O’Neill and Emma Pengelly, the First and Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, were in Washington last week for their annual St Patrick’s Day pat on the head from the Biden administration, a more subversive gathering was taking place in Kells, a small village in Country Antrim. Traditional Unionist Voice, the party fronted by Jim Allister, was holding its annual conference. For most observers this would fail to register, but the announcement that the TUV has entered into a pact with Reform UK – including running agreed candidates at the general election in Northern Ireland – brought it wider attention. The blame will rest squarely with the DUP

Theo Hobson

How Justin Welby should have responded to Gove’s extremism crackdown

When the government raises big questions about our national values, one has a choice: to see it as an opportunity to say something constructive, to deepen the debate. Or one could respond like a cynical intern at the Guardian, saying, in effect: how dare they try to sound all high and mighty? Where’s some holes we can pick? The Church of England is unfortunately inclined to the latter course, with the archbishops issuing a statement raising concerns that Muslims might be targeted by a redefinition of extremism. What Michael Gove announced was hardly earth-shattering What the communities secretary Michael Gove announced was hardly earth-shattering. He gave a new but not

Gavin Mortimer

The EU is divided in its bid to stop the boats

There was good and bad news for the European Union last week: the number of migrants arriving in Europe on the Central Mediterranean route in the first two months of 2024 dropped 70 per cent compared to the same period the previous year, the latest figures revealed. The bad news was that they were up 117 per cent on the eastern Mediterranean route. The really bad news was that they were up 541 per cent on the West African route as Malians, Senegalese and Mauritanians arrived in large numbers on Spanish territory. The nationalities crossing the Eastern Mediterranean in the greatest number are Afghans, Syrians and Egyptians. The figures will

Charlotte Henry

The Nova festival documentary revives the horror of 7 October

‘Yes… But…’. It is a phrase that Jews in Britain and around the world have become accustomed to hearing since the 7 October Hamas terror attacks on Israel and the subsequent war. It is a twisted attempt to contextualise atrocities, to justify the unjustifiable. When you hear, as I have, the stories of those who survived the massacre at the Nova music festival, though, or whose family members are still being held hostage, when you see the footage from that event, you realise there is no ‘but’. In the documentary Supernova: The Music Festival Massacre, a number of survivors of that day’s horrors tell their story. They include Gali Amar

Steerpike

Watch: Tories should keep Hester donation, says Badenoch

The Tory donor racism row has entered its second week, much to the dismay of politicians on all sides of the chamber. Both the Conservatives and Labour have had to face uncomfortable questions on Frank Hester’s remarks about Diane Abbott in the last week. After the Tories were criticised for taking too long to condemn the comments as ‘racist’, transport secretary Mark Harper defended his party on Sunday, telling the BBC that the Prime Minister had wanted to check the veracity of the remarks first. And the Labour party was blasted by Abbott herself last week, writing in an op-ed about her experience of ‘abusive’ officials in her former party

Patrick O’Flynn

Penny Mordaunt isn’t the answer

During her last Tory conference speech, Penny Mordaunt told her audience: ‘If you remember nothing else from what I have said today remember this – stand up and fight.’ This serial Conservative leadership candidate got her way on that at least, for it was the only point from her address that stuck in anyone’s mind. Mainly that was because she used the phrase, or near-variants, almost 20 times, including in a disastrously over-extended closing crescendo that ran as follows: ‘Stand up and fight. Because when you stand up and fight, the person beside you stands up and fights. And when our party stands up and fights, the nation stands up

Katy Balls

Sunak tries to put a stop to the plots

Rishi Sunak goes into the week hoping it will be better than the one that came before. Last week, the Prime Minister suffered one of his worst weeks since entering 10 Downing Street with Lee Anderson defecting to Reform, a racism row over a donor, and MPs on the right discussing whether they ought to oust Sunak and crown his former leadership rival Penny Mordaunt as his successor. It means that – once again – journalists are close to using the word ‘febrile’ when it comes to the mood in the Tory party. The weekend has been largely made up of briefings and counter briefings about the Prime Minister. Penny Mordaunt’s

Lisa Haseldine

Putin crowns himself president of Russia again

As expected, following a three day ‘vote’, Vladimir Putin has once again crowned himself president of Russia. As of 9 a.m. Moscow time, according to the central electoral commission, 99.7 per cent of ballot papers had been counted with Putin claiming 87 per cent of the vote – higher than he’s managed in any other previous election. That didn’t stop Putin calling a press conference on Sunday evening – when supposedly just 40 per cent or so of the vote had been counted – to declare himself the victor. As his gloating press conference showed, Putin considers the democratic charade of the past three days to have been a success

Steerpike

SNP splits emerge over election message

Another day, another SNP spat. Humza Yousaf spent the weekend trying to drum up support amongst his core voters for his nationalist party, which is predicted to lose almost half of its Westminster seats to Labour in the general election. The main problem with the First Minister’s message, however, was that it seemed to focus on the wrong target. ‘In this election, we have the chance to finally make Scotland Tory-free, for the first time in almost a quarter of a century,’ Yousaf roared at his audience. ‘Most seats across Scotland are a straight fight between the SNP and the Tories. Let the message from our party be heard loud

Sunday

17 Mar 2024

Tatyana Kekic

Meet the Russians in Serbia who voted against Putin

Today, Russians in Serbia are heading to the polls to cast their vote and protest against what many see as a sham presidential election. A polling station in the capital Belgrade opened this morning at 8am, but many decided to turn up at ‘Noon against Putin’, a protest called by the late Russian opposition politician Alexey Navalny. Tens of thousands of Russians have settled in Serbia since the start of the war in Ukraine. Like millions of other Russian exiles around the world, they are eligible to vote in this weekend’s polls—which are almost certain to hand Vladimir Putin another six years in power. With no credible opponent and only

Elisabeth Braw

We need to talk about war

‘Don’t mention the war!’ Remember that? Today, war seems nearly all that European leaders want to talk about. The prospect of conflict with Russia is real, and a confrontation seems increasingly likely. That’s why Europe’s political leaders are beginning to discuss, in frank and sometimes alarming tones, the ways their countries should prepare to fight. Estonia’s prime minister, Poland’s head of national security and the Danish defence minister all say Russia could have the soldiers and equipment to launch an attack in three years. Emmanuel Macron last week met his German and Polish counterparts in Berlin to discuss Europe’s military support for Ukraine, after refusing to rule out – again

Freddy Gray

Will America ban TikTok?

20 min listen

Freddy Gray speaks to Matt McDonald, Spectator World’s managing editor about the campaign to ban TikTok; who from the Republican party supports the bill and what influence the Israel lobby has.