Politics

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

Friday

19 Jan 2024

Agreeing to power-sharing now could ruin the DUP

Once upon a time, a young unionist politician marched out of a talks process. Recalling the incident later, he said: ‘I asked myself the question, could I walk out of here and go down to my constituency, the people of Lisburn, look them in the eye and say this is a good deal. I could not do that in all conscience.’ That politician was Sir Jeffrey Donaldson speaking about Good Friday 1998, unable to support his then Ulster Unionist party leader David Trimble as he prepared to sign the Belfast Agreement. Donaldson then devoted his energies to championing the irascible anti-Agreement wing of unionism, monstering Trimble and chipping away at the

Steerpike

The curious case of Nicola Sturgeon’s missing WhatsApps

The saga of the Scottish Government’s WhatsApps continues to rumble on. The SNP regime has never been slow in condemning the Tories for a lack of transparency in the ongoing UK Covid Inquiry. So it was to Steerpike’s amusement then that Humza Yousaf and his Scottish government have been facing considerable criticism in recent months for not handing their key messages over to that same probe. Talk about being hoist by your own petard… This morning, attention at the Covid Inquiry turned to the flailing First Minister’s predecessor. Attendees this morning heard that Nicola Sturgeon ‘retained no messages whatsoever’ from the pandemic, which, er, explains her constant refusal to confirm which messages

Jim Lawley

How Catalan separatists are taking control of immigration

In Spain’s general election last July, the right-wing Partido Popular and the even more right-wing Vox won 170 seats, just short of the 176 they needed to form a government. The support of an MP from Navarre and another from the Canary Islands took them to 172 but that only added to the frustrating sense of ‘so near and yet so far’. 60 per cent of Catalans say there is too much immigration Then Pedro Sánchez, the incumbent left-wing prime minister, stepped in, cobbled together an alliance with six other parties and, with 179 votes, was duly re-elected. Promising that he would lead a stable, transparent and, above all, ‘progressive’ administration,

Kate Andrews

Jeremy Hunt has difficult decisions ahead of him on tax cuts

The Tory party’s plan to further cut taxes in the Spring Budget is not exactly a secret. Still, Jeremy Hunt’s suggestion at Davos that they are indeed coming has sparked imaginations – while his party continues to debate internally where these tax cuts should land. Speaking on a panel at the World Economic Forum’s conference in Davos, Switzerland, the Chancellor gave his biggest indication yet about his priorities for the upcoming fiscal statement. ‘We note that the economies growing faster than us in North America and Asia tend to have lower taxes,’ he said. ‘I believe fundamentally that low-tax economies are more dynamic, more competitive and generate more money for

Svitlana Morenets

Who is persecuting Ukraine’s journalists?

Investigative journalism has often been deadly for the careers of corrupt politicians in Ukraine, with stories leading to resignations and even imprisonment. Now, under the conditions of martial law (including the closure of public data services) and limited opportunities for society to control the actions of the authorities, Ukrainian journalists became the main watchdogs over the government. This week they found out they were being watched, too. Bihus.info, an investigative team exposing corruption among Ukrainian officials, came under attack. A questionable media outlet named People’s Truth released a video showing some Bihus employees (camera operators and social media managers) allegedly ordering and taking drugs at a New Year’s party. The

Gavin Mortimer

Is Emmanuel Macron secretly hoping for a Trump victory?

The great and the good of this world met in Davos this week to tell each other how wonderful they are. But amid all the bonhomie and back-slapping there loomed the spectre of You-Know-Who. Donald Trump’s landslide victory in the Iowa caucuses was his first significant step towards a second term in the White House. His first was bad enough for the Davos set, but the possibility that Trump and his Deplorables might triumph in November is too much for many to bear. Macron believes he’s the top dog among the 27 EU leaders Last week, Christine Lagarde, head of the European Central Bank, described Trump as ‘clearly a threat’

Katy Balls

The Theo Clarke Edition

28 min listen

Theo Clarke is Conservative MP for Stafford. She is the Prime Minister’s Trade Envoy to Kenya and sits on the International Development Select Committee. Before being elected she set up and sold her business and then went on to be Chief Executive of an international development charity backed by Bill Gates. Theo got involved in politics after the election expenses scandal and stood in Bristol East in 2015 and 2017. She currently Chairs the All Party Parliamentary Group on Birth Trauma and recently launched a national inquiry into this issue.

Sasha Lensky

Can Europe match Russia’s remarkable rise in weapons production?

‘You need to understand that if Europe is under attack we will never come to help you and to support you,’ Donald Trump reportedly told top European officials while he was U.S. president. In the present situation, with a war not seen on this scale since 1945 being fought in geographical (if not yet political) Europe, it’s now imperative for the region to review its reliance on the White House, its assumed ally and source of support since the end of WW2. This time round, it may well have to fall back on its own reserves and stamina – but does it have enough of either? As Mircea Geoanã, Nato deputy

John Jenkins

Missiles alone won’t solve the problem of the Houthis

Eventually then, enough was enough. After months of Houthi drone and missile attacks on Israel and vessels in the Red Sea, the US and the UK launched retaliatory strikes in Yemen last week. But how did we get here? The Houthis have been a nuisance for at least 30 years, when they emerged as a clan-based opposition movement in the northernmost governorate of Yemen. They had a number of grievances: endemic poverty, government hostility and Saudi-funded attempts to spread Salafism in their Zaidi Shia stronghold. The last Zaidi ruler had been deposed in 1962. The subsequent civil war set the stage for more or less continuous domestic turmoil ever since.

Thursday

18 Jan 2024

Kate Andrews

Javier Milei dismantles the Davos groupthink

Each year the World Economic Forum’s conference in Davos, Switzerland draws the attention of conspiracy theorists. In truth, nothing is happening in the ski town that doesn’t happen every other day of the year: it’s the world’s most senior politicians and biggest business leaders working together to implement their vision for the future. The only difference is that for one week in Switzerland, this is on full display for everyone to see. It’s not the funny business happening behind the scenes that should cause alarm, but what we can see so blatantly in front of our eyes: the calls for higher taxes, the support for a bigger state, the insistence

William Moore

How Britain sobered up

36 min listen

This week: The Spectator’s cover story looks at how Britain is sobering up, forgoing alcohol in favour of alcohol free alternatives. In his piece, Henry Jeffreys – author of Empire of Booze – attacks the vice of sobriety and argues that the abstinence of young Britons will have a detrimental impact on the drinks industry and British culture. He joins the podcast alongside Camilla Tominey, associate editor of the Telegraph and a teetotaler. (01:27) Also this week: could Mongolia be the next geopolitical flashpoint? The Spectator’s Wild Life columnist Aidan Hartley writes in the magazine about Mongolia’s fate, as the country tries to juggle a historic relationship with China and Russia, with desires for a stronger

Steerpike

Starmer flip-flops on his CPS record

He’s at it again. Like those unscrupulous bosses he professes to despise, Sir Keir Starmer enjoys taking the credit when things go right – but is rather less keen to take the blame when things go wrong. A prime example of this was offered today in an interview today with ITV, when he was asked about Rishi Sunak’s PMQs jibe about his legal record and his tenure as Director of Public Prosecutions from 2008 to 2013. Sir Keir replied that: If they want to attack me for decisions when I was Director of Public Prosecutions… we had 7,000 staff, we made nearly a million decisions a year. Will there be

Steerpike

Sergei Lavrov: War has had a ‘positive impact on life in Russia’

Just when you thought Putin’s regime couldn’t sink any lower, it somehow manages to. Like something out of George Orwell’s 1984, the Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov declared that, actually, the Kremlin’s bloody war in Ukraine had had a ‘positive impact on life inside [Russia]’. Speaking at a foreign ministry press conference, Lavrov said this was because Putin’s ‘special military operation’ had united the country and ‘enabled it to be cleansed of all those who felt no sense of belonging to Russian history or culture’ after thousands moved abroad in opposition to the war. It hardly needs saying that the nearly 20,000 Russians detained for protesting against the war, and the

Cindy Yu

Is the ERG a spent force?

12 min listen

After much back and forth, the Rwanda Bill passed last night with only 11 votes against while other critics, such as Lee Anderson who resigned his party role, abstained. Rishi Sunak can celebrate a small victory as it appears that the Brexit ‘Spartans’ of yesteryear are something of a spent force today. Cindy Yu talks to Katy Balls and Fraser Nelson. Produced by Cindy Yu.

Steerpike

Now even Humza distances himself from the SNP

You know your brand is struggling when even the boss wants to ditch it. For it seems that hapless Humza Yousaf has ‘done a Ratner’ today by distancing himself from the increasingly-toxic SNP brand. With his party set to lose half their seats to Labour, the flailing First Minister has decided that now is the right time to freely confess that he has ‘never really been comfortable’ with the Scottish National Party’s name. In an interview with the BBC’s Nick Robinson on his Political Thinking podcast, Yousaf admitted that he did not like the connotations of the word ‘nationalist’, suggesting that the ‘national’ in the SNP’s name could be ‘misinterpreted’. Gosh,

Katy Balls

Sunak goes on the offensive over Rwanda

Who is to blame if no flights with asylum seekers leave the UK for Rwanda ahead of the election? In a Downing Street press conference this morning, Rishi Sunak tried to suggest the answer would be the House of Lords or Labour rather than his government. In a bid to capitalise on the ‘Safety of Rwanda’ bill passing at third reading in the Commons last night, Sunak urged peers not to ‘frustrate the will of the people’ when the legislation now passes to the Lords: ‘There is now only one question. Will the opposition in the appointed House of Lords try and frustrate the will of the people as expressed

Jawad Iqbal

The clash between Iran and Pakistan is spiralling out of control

Pakistan’s retaliatory military strike on suspected militant bases in Iran – in response to Iranian attacks in Pakistani territory – can only escalate tensions between the two countries. It will also ring alarm bells elsewhere across an increasingly jittery Middle East but also further afield in India and China. The Chinese have friendly relations with both Pakistan and Iran. India, meanwhile, is always on high alert whenever Pakistan’s military forces flex their muscles. All in all, there is a real danger that more and more countries will be sucked into the volatile and unpredictable vortex of the Middle East conflict. The Pakistani military action follows Iran’s attacks on the Jaish ul-Adl, a

Freddy Gray

How the Democrats went from hope to fear

‘We have nothing to fear but fear itself,’ said Franklin D. Roosevelt, famously. The Democrats of 2024 have a rather different message for the world: Be Very Afraid! ‘I’m scared as heck,’ said vice president, Kamala Harris, yesterday, as she discussed the ‘crazies’ who might put Donald Trump back in the Oval Office. Not for the first time, Harris was echoing the sentiments of Michelle Obama, the former First Lady: ‘I am terrified,’ Michelle told a podcast last week. ‘We cannot take this democracy for granted.’ We’re a long way from 2008, when Michelle’s husband won the White House by appealing to the opposite emotion. ‘We choose hope over fear,’

Alexander Horne

Will the Lords block Rishi’s Rwanda Bill?

Rishi Sunak will have been delighted last night to see his Rwanda Bill pass in the Commons, by 320 votes to 276. An expected Conservative rebellion was quelled, with only 11 Conservative MPs voting against the measure and no amendments accepted. The vote exposed the posturing of the Conservative rebels. Fifty nine Conservative MPs were prepared to back an amendment tabled by Robert Jenrick, the former immigration minister, which would have meant that ‘interim measures’ made by the European Court of Human Rights would automatically be treated as not binding on the UK. But, when it came to the crunch, the vast majority of Conservative MPs could not bring themselves to

Steerpike

Lee Anderson: Laughing Labour MPs stopped me voting against Rwanda Bill

Tory MP Lee Anderson’s name was a curious omission from the list of rebels who voted against Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda Bill. Anderson’s absence was surprising given that this week he resigned as deputy chair of the Conservative party over the legislation to ‘stop the boats’. ‘I don’t think I could carry on in my role when I fundamentally disagree with the bill. I can’t be in a position to vote for something I don’t believe in,’ Anderson said on Tuesday. But last night, having walked into the ‘No’ lobby to vote against the Bill, the Red Wall MP changed his mind – and decided to abstain. Why? Because, he said,