Politics

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

Wednesday

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: MP accused of calling Stockton North a ‘s***hole’

When Labour MP Alex Cunningham asked Rishi Sunak why child poverty was at 34 per cent in his Stockton North constituency, he received an unexpected reply. During the exchange in the Commons, an MP was caught on microphone apparently suggesting the reason was that Stockton North is, er, a ‘shithole’. The comment was picked up on parliament’s live video feed but mystery surrounds who made the remark. Foreign Secretary James Cleverly denied that he was to blame. Asked whether he made the comment, his spokesman said: ‘He did not, and would not. He’s disappointed they would accuse him of doing so.’ Other Tories are suggesting that the actual remark was

Katy Balls Katy Balls

The Tories are cutting it fine with their Autumn Statement

Just a year ago, Jeremy Hunt played Scrooge at the despatch box. In an attempt to regain market credibility following Liz Truss’s mini-Budget, Rishi Sunak’s new government announced £30 billion of spending cuts (largely pencilled in for after the election) and £25 billion of tax rises. It was a far cry from the summer leadership contest, when Truss and Sunak promised to lower the tax burden. Sunak’s argument has always been that he would cut tax – but only once some order had been restored to the public finances. Sunak’s reticence has been unpopular with his own side. Boris Johnson attacked him for lacking a ‘grand economic strategy for growth’. With

The Spectator

Britain’s welfare system is out of control

To grasp the scale of Britain’s welfare crisis, consider some of the changes announced by the government this week. There will be tighter restrictions on sickness benefit and people with mobility issues will have to work from home. It’s a big and controversial reform. But the result? The number of Britons claiming sickness benefits – 2.8 million – will still keep rising to 3.4 million by the end of the decade. Reversing this trend, it seems, is a political impossibility. The worst aspect is that Mel Stride, the Work and Pensions Secretary, is probably going as fast as the system can manage. His reforms will likely be met with a

Richard Dobbs

Why is the public sector so unproductive?

The government has achieved its promise to halve inflation from last December’s level, borrowing has come in at little under the predictions made in March’s budget, and the Chancellor has felt able to lower taxes. But one thing isn’t going well: productivity. Little-noticed figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) this week show that output per worker has fallen by 0.1 per cent over the past 12 months and output per hour is down by 0.3 per cent. While productivity in the private sector has risen by around 30 per cent since 1997, in the public sector it has hardly risen at all The problem is especially acute in

Karl Williams

Why we should all welcome Hunt’s tax break for businesses

Rishi Sunak has made ‘long-term decisions’ the leitmotif of his government. Today’s Autumn Statement announcement on permanent full expensing – which will allow businesses to write off capital investment costs against corporation tax immediately and in full – shows his Chancellor is singing from the same hymn sheet. While it might sound dry, this tax reform is a vital step towards fixing one of the key structural weaknesses in the British economy: lacklustre business investment. Hunt’s announcement today will help boost productivity, economic growth and wages. In due course, full expensing should make us all – businesses, workers and consumers – better off. The current version of full expensing, introduced

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Hunt’s Autumn Statement was surprisingly upbeat

Jeremy Hunt has just finished the most upbeat economic statement we’ve heard in a good while – certainly since the one from Kwasi Kwarteng that plunged the UK into economic turmoil. Today, the Chancellor was keen to impress upon MPs that the swathe of tax cuts he was announcing could only happen because of the repair job he and Rishi Sunak had carried out following the Truss premiership. There was a lot of self-congratulation: Hunt told the House of Commons that this was an ‘autumn statement for a country that has turned a corner, an autumn statement for growth’. The Tories want voters, somehow, to start thinking that they are

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

The Covid Inquiry has unmasked the flaws in trusting ‘the science’

There is something therapeutic and healing in watching Professor Chris Whitty give evidence to the independent public inquiry into the Covid pandemic – the sense of calm emanating from the man, his occasionally Panglossian self-satisfaction, his refusal to become anything more than barely ruffled even when his interlocuters gently venture forth the suggestion: ‘Overreaction?’ The impression one gets, or perhaps is supposed to get, is of a very clever, terribly rational man in a world full of thicko scumbags. This lack of debate was exacerbated in the country at large by that curse of our age, political polarisation I watch a little daytime TV at the moment as part of

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: tax cuts, hostage releases and highly rated horses

Home Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, said, ‘We can now move on to the next phase of our economic plan and turn our attention to cutting taxes,’ having seen a reduction in inflation. Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, followed suit in the Autumn Statement, cutting personal taxes. The government was to make changes to long-term benefits. The minimum wage, known officially as the National Living Wage, currently £10.42 an hour for those over the age of 23, will rise to £11.44 an hour for those over 21 from next April. The government also drew attention to £8.3 billion allocated to mending potholes, money purportedly saved from the curtailment

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

PMQs: Starmer asks Sunak about his missing NHS pledge

Keir Starmer decided to fill the space at today’s pre-Autumn Statement Prime Minister’s Questions with a focus on a missing pledge from Rishi Sunak. He pointed out that the five new pledges the Prime Minister announced this week missed one on the NHS, and asked why. Sunak replied that ‘just weeks after’ he became prime minister, he ‘injected record funding’ into social care and unveiled the first ever long-term workforce plan in the NHS’s 75 year history. He didn’t explain why a pledge on the health service was missing, instead preferring to skip to the ones he had met on the economy.  Starmer told the chamber that the reason Sunak

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Labour tease Sunak over Musk meeting

PMQs on the day of the Autumn Statement is a bit like a firework-free Bonfire Night. But a moment of humour was offered today by a ritual bit of Musk-mocking over Rishi Sunak’s one-to-one with the Twitter CEO at Bletchley Park. Labour’s Daniel Zeichner popped up at this afternoon’s session to hurl this zinger at our self-regarding ‘tech-bro’ PM: A few weeks ago, the world cringed at the Prime Minister’s fawning welcome for Elon Musk, and this week advertisers are fleeing Musk’s platform after his latest vile outburst. So what exactly did the Prime Minister think he might learn from an unelected, super rich individual who has taken over a

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Hunt mocks Rachel Reeves’s copy and pasting

Jeremy Hunt isn’t exactly known for his sparkling wit, but he did manage a decent gag during his Autumn Statement this afternoon – at the expense of Labour shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves. Readers may remember that Reeves was recently found to have plagiarised several sentences in her new book from Wikipedia and other online articles. (Reeves later bizarrely defended herself by saying, ‘if I’m guilty of copying and pasting some facts about some amazing women and turning it into a book that gets read then I’m really proud of that.’) After pointing out that his opposite number on the Labour benches had failed to mention inflation during her conference speech, Hunt

James Heale James Heale

Jeremy Hunt’s Autumn Statement announcements in full

There were few surprises when Jeremy Hunt presented his second Autumn Statement to the House of Commons this afternoon: National Insurance has been cut and the state pension and benefits will rise. The Chancellor is hoping that these measures will woo voters ahead of next year’s election. But while Hunt tried to paint an image of the economy being back on track, there were some nasty surprises in the updated forecasts released by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). Although growth has been revised up this year to 0.6 per cent, it has been downgraded for the following three years, rising to 2 per cent in 2027. Inflation is meanwhile

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Have we seen the last of Mitt Romney?

Freddy Gray talks to McKay Coppins, author of the New York Times bestselling book ‘Romney: A Reckoning’. Romney has announced he will not seek reelection in 2024. What next for the ‘never-Trumper’, could he support the creation of a new centrist party? And how does he feel about the significant losses in his career?

Matthew Lynn

Don’t be deceived by Jeremy Hunt’s tax ‘giveaways’

When Jeremy Hunt takes to his feet in the Commons this afternoon to deliver his Autumn Statement, he’ll be trying to woo voters with some tax ‘giveaways’: VAT thresholds might be raised to help small businesses and the basic rate of National Insurance could be reduced for the rest of us. But hold on. Before the Chancellor gives anything back, both he and the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak need to do something far more important: they should apologise for all the tax rises the Tories have imposed. We don’t know the final figure yet, but it turns out that the Chancellor has around £13 billion to £15 billion of ‘headroom’,

Limor Simhony Philpott

Why Hamas has agreed to a ceasefire deal

Following days of speculation, the Israeli cabinet last night approved a deal with Hamas for the release of 50 Israeli hostages – 30 children and 20 women. Currently there are some 236 people, including soldiers and civilians, held in Gaza. In exchange for the gradual release of hostages, Israel has agreed to four days of ceasefire and a release of 150 Palestinian prisoners. Israel will also allow fuel into Gaza and an increase in humanitarian aid. Everything Hamas does is a calculated attempt to survive so it can continue its terrorist acts Not all of the hostages from October 7th are being held by Hamas. Reports suggested that some were

Lisa Haseldine Lisa Haseldine

Is Russia trying to flood Finland with migrants?

Against the background of the war in Ukraine, a diplomatic row is brewing between Russia and Finland. Last week, Finland announced that it would imminently be closing four of its eight border crossings into Russia, promptly doing so on 18 November. The reason? An unexpected increase in the number of illegal migrants coming over the border from Russia in recent weeks. Finnish minister of internal affairs Marie Rantanen put the blame for this squarely on Russia. ‘The activities of the Russian authorities have changed in such a way,’ she said, ‘that it has become possible to get from Russia to Finland, despite the lack of necessary documents.’ At midnight on Saturday,

John Connolly John Connolly

Israel and Hamas strike hostage deal: what we know so far

After weeks of negotiations, a hostage deal has been struck between Israel and Hamas. Under the terms of the deal, Hamas will release 50 of the women and children it kidnapped on 7th October in exchange for a four-day ceasefire. In return, Israel will release 150 Palestinians from its prisons. Substantial amounts of humanitarian aid, which will include medical supplies and fuel, will also be sent by Israel into the Gaza strip. The ceasefire has been structured so that it can potentially continue after the first four days are over. Israel has said that for every additional ten hostages Hamas releases, the truce will be extended by 24 hours. It

Angus Colwell

‘I was astounded’: Gary Marcus on the Sam Altman saga

This morning, OpenAI – the firm behind ChatGPT – rehired its chief executive, Sam Altman, after it fired him on Friday. Altman is the most prominent ambassador for the world of artificial intelligence, and was set to join Microsoft after leaving the company. After his sacking, more than 95 per cent of OpenAI’s employees demanded that the board leave and reinstate him. Many staff were threatening to quit the lab, and Microsoft had agreed to match their pay. Today, OpenAI caved and welcomed him back. What’s going on here? Did a firm that was set up to make AI ‘for the benefit of humanity’, whose whole idea was to not

Tuesday

Andrew Liddle

Scottish Labour’s ceasefire dilemma

Matters of war and peace are not devolved, but they have nevertheless become the most powerful weapon in the SNP’s armoury as it seeks to fight back against a resurgent Scottish Labour party. Of course, given the nationalists’ record of misjudgement and appeasement in foreign policy, it is perhaps little surprise to see its motion to the Scottish parliament on Tuesday supporting an immediate, condition-free ceasefire. By supporting an immediate ceasefire, the SNP has put Scottish Labour – bullish after its victory in the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election – and particularly its leader, in a difficult spot. There is no doubt the motion is also good domestic politics for the

Michael Simmons Michael Simmons

Did Covid expose a ‘failure of imagination’?

11 min listen

This week it is the scientists’ turn to appear before the Covid Inquiry with Sir Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer and Sir Patrick Vallance. James Heale speaks to Fraser Nelson and The Spectator’s data editor, Michael Simmons to discuss the findings this week.