Politics Archives

Sunday

7 Jan 2024

The Post Office scandal was too boring for politicians to fix

The government is now ‘under pressure’ over the Post Office Horizon IT scandal. The pressure comes in the form of a petition calling for Paula Vennells, the former chief executive of the Post Office, to lose her CBE. It has garnered more than 920,000 signatures as of this evening. Then there’s the push from a number of MPs for the compensation process for the victims to be sped up, and for those responsible in the Post Office and Fujitsu to be identified and held to account. The Sunday papers carry reports that Justice Secretary Alex Chalk is examining ways of exonerate those who were wrongly convicted of stealing from the

Steerpike

Peter Bone’s partner selected to fight his seat

A trifecta of by-elections are looming for the Tories, with campaigns expected to shortly be underway in Kingswood and Blackpool South. But before that there’s the Wellingborough contest, held to replace Peter Bone. The outgoing MP continues to protest his innocence but his pleas have thus far been to no avail. His constituents in Northamptonshire voted him out of his seat in a recall petition last month, following his six-week suspension from the Commons. That came after an inquiry found he had subjected a staff member to bullying and sexual misconduct. Parliament’s Independent Expert Panel ruled that Bone had engaged in ‘a wilful pattern of bullying’ which included ‘an unwanted

Fraser Nelson

Fact check: Sunak’s ‘tax cut’ claims

Rishi Sunak seems to have a New Year’s resolution: to claim that taxes are falling and say it so often that people start to believe him rather than their own lying payslip. He says that the last Budget was the biggest tax-cutting event since the 1980s, etc. He tells today’s Sunday Telegraph that more welfare reform will allow him to cut taxes even more. I was on the panel after he spoke on Laura Kuenssberg’s BBC1 show and said was stretching the truth a bit too much. For every £1 cut by his National Insurance tax reductions (which have now come into effect) he is raising £4 by stealth taxes.

Joe Bedell-Brill

Does the Prime Minister believe in the Rwanda scheme?

Does Rishi Sunak believe in Rwanda? An election year has begun, with Rishi Sunak still struggling in the polls and continuing to face great challenges home and abroad. His first appearance of the year on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg didn’t get off to an easy start. Kuenssberg surprised him with leaked documents she said implied he had had major doubts about the efficacy of the Rwanda returns deal, when acting as Chancellor in 2022. Sunak said he hadn’t seen the documents, but brushed off the accusations, claiming it was his job as Chancellor to ask tough questions about any proposal. He told Kuenssberg that his actions on getting returns deals

Mark Galeotti

Russia’s egg shortage is panicking Putin

The fall of the house of the Romanovs in 1917 may have been a long time coming, but arguably it was finally triggered by bread prices. It would be ironic if another Russian autocrat fell to food, which may help explain why the Kremlin has been moving so decisively to address Russia’s egg crisis, after prices rose by over 40 percent last year. On Friday, the Investigatory Committee – loosely analogous to an FBI on steroids – ordered an enquiry into potential price fixing, following on the heels of Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov’s decision to launch his own probe. Rather more directly, the much-feared Federal Security Service (FSB) has been

Patrick O’Flynn

Keir Starmer says it best when he says nothing at all

There is a modern country music standard called ‘When You Say Nothing At All’. The song, taken to the top of the UK pop charts by the Irish singer Ronan Keating a quarter of a century ago, is a treatise on the power of non-verbal communication. The central ‘hook’ line involves someone telling their lover: ‘You say it best when you say nothing at all.’ That sentiment came to mind in an altogether less romantic context on Thursday, as I was listening to radio news reports of Keir Starmer’s opening salvos in this crucial year in politics while on a long drive. After a couple of weeks of blessed Christmas

Katja Hoyer

Why German farmers are rebelling

He wanted to get away from it all. The splendid solitude of the tiny North Sea island of Hooge was a momentary refuge from the waves of political tumult buffeting his country. But when Germany’s vice chancellor Robert Habeck returned from his holiday on Thursday, a group of furious farmers prevented his ferry from docking on the mainland. Germany’s 2024 began as 2023 ended: with public confidence in the government at a low ebb. The anger of farmers is currently the most visible expression of Germany’s disillusionment with the ruling coalition. Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s administration has manoeuvred itself into a corner from which there is no easy way out. Its problems escalated when a landmark

Philip Patrick

Is Japan finally embracing immigration?

Japan has long been known for its steadfast refusal to submit to the allure of large-scale immigration, as a country that puts social cohesion and societal harmony well ahead of any desire for diversity. Notoriously as hard to get into as Switzerland or Monaco for would be migrants, and even refugees, the ‘yokoso’ (welcome) sign that greets you at Narita Airport is clearly provisional and time limited. But is all that changing? There are signs of a major shift in policy, from an active dissuasion of foreigners to stay (Japan once paid laid-off Brazilian auto workers to go back home for good after the financial crash) to the door being

Sasha Lensky

Why hasn’t Russia collapsed?

Following Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and the calamitous, early missteps of the Russian army, many Western experts fairly crowed over the possibility of Russia disintegrating. ‘It’s high time to prepare for Russia’s collapse,’ ran a typical headline on the Foreign Policy website, while a survey of 167 foreign-policy experts by the Atlantic Council think tank last January found that 40 per cent of them expected Russia to break up internally within ten years due to ‘revolution, civil war, political disintegration’ and so on. Meanwhile, an article from the Hudson Institute was more prescriptive, issuing a list of points to consider when ‘Preparing for the Final Collapse

Jawad Iqbal

The dark side of Bangladesh’s Sheikh Hasina

Politics in Bangladesh is very much a one-woman show, starring prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who has ruled the country for the last 15 years. When voters go to the polls in elections today, they face little choice but to re-elect her and the ruling Awami League party. The main opposition – the Bangladesh Nationalist party (BNP) – is boycotting the vote, citing government interference. Many leading opposition figures are under house arrest, behind bars or in exile. An array of independent candidates and a few smaller opposition parties standing for election is meant to convey the impression of an electoral contest of sorts but this shouldn’t fool anyone. Hasina’s long and

Saturday

6 Jan 2024

James Heale

How will Sunak and Starmer run their election campaigns?

15 min listen

Rishi Sunak has all but confirmed that this year’s general election will take place in autumn. How will the Prime Minister, and Keir Starmer, run their campaigns? James Heale speaks to Fraser Nelson and Katie Perrior, former director of communications for Theresa May, and now a director at iNHouse Communications.

Svitlana Morenets

Svitlana Morenets, James Heale and Theo Hobson

17 min listen

This week: Svitlana Morenets explains why Ukrainians can’t trust Putin’s hollow promises (00:57), James Heale reads his politics column on Rishi’s January blues (05:42), and Theo Hobson describes the joys of middle-aged football (10:54). Produced and presented by Oscar Edmondson.

John Lloyd

George Floyd was no martyr

To write that George Floyd died is to take a position. The received belief is that he was murdered – a murder bigger, in its consequences, than any other crime for decades. Unlike the relatively muted protests against the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the streets of the world hosted men and women passionate in their denunciation of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, whose detention in May 2020 of Floyd by, apparently, kneeling on his neck for around ten minutes, had killed him. Chauvin became a synecdoche for the perceived repressions of the state – any state, from South Africa to Germany, no matter how strongly committed to democratic governance and civil rights. In Melbourne, in

Mark Hollingsworth

Russia is still very much a security threat inside the UK

At 1.30 p.m. on 7 September 1978, Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian dissident and BBC journalist, approached a bus stop at the south end of Waterloo bridge. As he gazed absent-mindedly across the Thames, office workers jostled him as they streamed past. Suddenly he felt a sharp pain on the back of his right thigh. Turning quickly, he saw a man stoop to pick up an umbrella. ‘I am sorry’, the man mumbled in a gruff foreign accent. Seconds later, a taxi pulled up, the man jumped inside and disappeared. The pain was excruciating, and Markov was taken to St James’ hospital, Balham. As he lay in bed, the Soviet bloc defector mentioned

Jawad Iqbal

Who cares about the FA Cup?

The third round of the FA Cup, underway this weekend, is one of the highlights of the football calendar – or so we are meant to think. Premier League and Championship clubs finally enter the fray, prompting breathless talk of part-time bricklayers and plumbers getting to test their skills against elite footballers paid millions. The tantalising prospect is held up of an elite manager – think Pep Guardiola of Manchester City – patrolling the touchline at some tiny lower league ground. This is all part and parcel of the endless hyperbole and romanticism surrounding this oldest of cup competitions, often accompanied by seemingly endless drooling over previous acts of ‘giant-killing’ in

Friday

5 Jan 2024

Steerpike

Chris Skidmore’s hissy-fit by-election

A new year brings with it fresh headaches for Rishi Sunak. Chris Skidmore, a former energy minister, has announced he will stand down as an MP in protest at plans to issue more oil and gas licences. Parliament is expected to vote on Monday on the government’s flagship bill to guarantee annual licensing rounds in the North Sea. Tory strategists had hoped that the legislation would exploit Labour divisions on green issues. But it seems to have prompted the opposite effect, with Skidmore taking the very rare step of not just resigning the party whip but quitting his seat in protest – triggering a contest in his soon-to-be-abolished Kingswood seat.

Stephen Daisley

The Reform party is just another Thatcherite redux

What exactly does the Reform party stand for? Helpfully, its leader Richard Tice gave a press conference on Wednesday at which he sketched out some of his party’s principles and policies. The millionaire businessman described the Tories and Labour as ‘two sides of the same socialist coin’, citing in evidence ‘record high taxes’, ‘record high wasteful government spending’, ‘record nanny state regulations’, and ‘mass, uncontrolled immigration on a scale this country has never seen before’. Sir Keir Starmer, or ‘Starmergeddon’ as he branded the leader of the opposition, was no better than Rishi Sunak. By contrast, Reform had the solutions to the problems bedevilling the country. These solutions were familiar fare. Tax

Oscar Edmondson

Why aren’t the Lib Dems doing better?

16 min listen

The Liberal Democrats began their 2024 campaigning this week by unveiling a huge poster branding them as ‘Ed Davey’s Tory Removal Service’, but they will have to be more than just the ‘none of the above party’ if they hope to make a difference come the election. What do the Lib Dems stand for? And can they turn by-election success into election success? Oscar Edmondson speaks to James Heale and Nick Tyrone, author of the This Week in Brexitland substack. Produced by Oscar Edmondson. The Spectator is hiring! We are looking for a new producer to join our broadcast team working across our suite of podcasts – including this one – as

Joanna Williams

Justice has been served for Rosie Duffield

The year has got off to a good start for Rosie Duffield. Back in November, the MP for Canterbury became the focus of an investigation by the Labour Party’s National Executive Committee (NEC), following allegations of anti-Semitism and transphobia. Now she has been, in her words, ‘completely exonerated’. Duffield’s mistake, such as it was, had been to like a tweet by comedy writer Graham Linehan – who was himself responding to comedian-turned-parliamentary-wannabe, Eddie Izzard. Izzard has spent the past few years living in ‘girl mode’ and being referred to as ‘she’ or ‘her’. Izzard had told an interviewer: ‘If I’d been in Nazi Germany, I would have been murdered for saying that I was

Theo Hobson

When will Rory Stewart’s time come?

Can a dose of moral earnestness revive Tory fortunes? This is the question raised by Rory Stewart’s recent memoir, Politics on the Edge: A Memoir From Within, which sits on top of the bestseller charts more than three months after it came out. Another question the book raises is this: is Stewart’s brand of moral earnestness the right one? His politics is rich in old-world honour, like that of a John Buchan hero. The reader half expects him to uncover a plot to sell Britain to China, and then be chased by soulless technocrats through moonlit moorland. On one level, it didn’t work: when he stood for the leadership against