Politics Archives

Sunday

29 Oct 2023

Evacuate Gaza, but don’t call for a ceasefire

In every round of fighting between Israelis and Palestinians in the last 20 years, I have always wanted an immediate ceasefire. The way I see it, we Israelis were unwilling to pay the price it would cost to remove the Hamas regime and the dangers of Hamas had seemed manageable. Conflicts such as Operations Cast Lead (2008 to 2009), Pillar of Defence (2009), and Black Belt (2019) to name a few), seem like a futile cycle of blood-letting with immense human costs. This was the mainstream view of Israeli liberals. But now, like almost the entirety of the Israeli left, I believe that in our current situation an immediate ceasefire

Katy Balls

How long will Jeremy Hunt remain as chancellor?

As Jeremy Hunt prepares for next month’s autumn statement, the question being asked among Tory MPs isn’t so much what will be in it (the view is the Spring Budget is the place for significant tax cuts) and instead how long Hunt will remain in post for. In the past few weeks there have been reports that Hunt could be moved in the reshuffle Sunak is planning before the end of the year. Senior Tories are agitating for a change in No. 11. ‘Jeremy [Hunt] was more front-footed when he was health secretary,’ says a former cabinet member. ‘The election will be about the cost of living. We need a

Joe Bedell-Brill

Sunday shows round-up: Israel’s ground invasion begins

‘Where do we want to be when we die?’ The Israeli ground invasion has reportedly begun, as Israel repeated its order for civilians to head to the south of Gaza. Colonel Era Goren said Israel are planning to ‘increase dramatically the amount of assistance’ coming in from Egypt. But many people in Gaza cannot move from their locations further north. Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran spoke to Victoria Derbyshire of three generations of her family who have been sheltering in a church since an IDF bomb hit their house. There are frail people who cannot travel down roads which have also been bombed. Moran said the conversation has changed in

Isabel Hardman

Can Starmer take the heat off the Labour ceasefire row?

Keir Starmer is under increasing pressure from Labour frontbenchers to change tack and back calls for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict. There are now more than a dozen such MPs who have defied the party line to call for one, along with Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan and Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham. This morning, shadow science, innovation and technology secretary Peter Kyle appeared to introduce a new line into the debate, saying it was ‘dancing on the head of a pin’ to differentiate between a ceasefire and a humanitarian pause. Starmer has backed the latter. Starmer cannot keep releasing statements on Twitter: it

Nick Cohen

Why the far left ignores the crimes of Hamas

It’s not often that Brits can say that the US is behind the UK. But in understanding the dynamic between the successors to the old socialist left and radical Islam, US thinkers have years of catching up to do. It is not as if American commentators are wrong or uninteresting, it is just that, unlike their counterparts in Europe, they have not begun to come to terms with the Islamisation of the worst strains of left-wing politics, and the wider consequences for the progressive cause. Moderates in the US were pushed into taking a stand after the glorification of murder at a demonstration organised by the New York chapter of the

Mark Galeotti

Are Ukraine’s sabotage tricks going too far?

There has never been any doubt that Ukraine was the focus of an intelligence war as much as a physical one. But the extent of Western assistance, as well as growing concern at some Ukrainian tactics, is only now becoming clear. On Monday, the Washington Post ran a lengthy examination of the level of CIA assistance for the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) and military intelligence (HUR) that bore all the hallmarks of being facilitated by the US government. It acknowledged that since the annexation of Crimea in 2014, the Americans has invested ‘tens of millions’ of dollars in training and technical assistance for their Ukrainian counterparts, even building new headquarters

Patrick O’Flynn

Sunak has united conservatives but not how he hoped

Why are the Conservatives doing quite so badly? Smashed in two by-elections, dropping further in the polls, last days of the Roman Empire on the backbenches, morale and purpose visibly ebbing away. Partly it must be because Rishi Sunak has been unveiled as a nerd rather than an authoritative national leader. Banging on about gobbledegook AI plans, ideas for reforming A-levels a decade down the line and the removal of the right to smoke via a too-clever-by-half moving age limit. Beware of geeks bearing grifts, as someone almost said. Why not sit on your hands and let the Tory party take a pasting? But I suggest there is a more

Jeremy Seal

Turkey has plenty to celebrate on its centenary

It’s difficult to imagine the Middle East having reason to celebrate. It happens, however, that today is the centenary of modern Turkey, an occasion which president Erdogan, in an uncharacteristically emollient mood, recently described as a ‘big embrace of 85 million people’. If Turkey’s authorities mean to mark the occasion with rallies, fireworks and festivities, it could be said they have good reason. For while war, sectarianism and displacement continue to stalk so much of what once comprised the Ottoman Empire – not only in Palestine and the Holy Land, but in Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon, not to mention much of north Africa and the Arabian Peninsula – the Ottomans’

Lara Brown

Activist curators are spoiling Britain’s museums

History, we’re told, is written by the victors. But nowadays, it seems it’s museum curators who really have the final word. Across the UK, our much-loved national institutions have been led astray by a minority of campaigners, with no regard for the wishes of the public at large. It has become almost impossible to visit a museum in Britain today without coming across a sign or installation condemning several centuries of scholarship in favour of an activist’s manifesto. Curators of various galleries and exhibits impose modern cultural and ethical values on every time period, denigrating those that don’t meet their standards. On the long march through our institutions, it becomes clear

Saturday

28 Oct 2023

Stephen Daisley

Could Ash Regan’s defection be the beginning of the end for Humza Yousaf?

Eight months ago, Ash Regan was a contender for the leadership of the SNP, alongside Kate Forbes and eventual winner Humza Yousaf. Today she quit the party, defected to Alex Salmond’s rival Alba, and becomes that outfit’s first ever MSP. In a statement posted on X, formerly Twitter, Regan said it had ‘become increasingly clear that the SNP has lost its focus on independence, the very foundation of its existence’. She added that she ‘could not, in good conscience, continue to be part of a party that has drifted from its path and its commitment to achieving independence as a matter of urgency’. Regan won Edinburgh East under the SNP

Steerpike

Ash Regan defects to Salmond’s Alba party

Another one bites the dust. In the latest blow to afflict the hapless Humza Yousaf, his onetime leadership rival Ash Regan has spectacularly defected to Alex Salmond’s Alba party at their annual conference. The Spectator pondered back in February whether Ash Regan was Alex Salmond in disguise. And now she appears to be his heir apparent… Salmond’s speech set the stage perfectly for Regan, a onetime SNP minister. Reminding his members that ‘there are many fine nationalists and many fellow Scots’ within the SNP, he told his party that ‘recruits from the SNP’ were needed if Alba wants to see success. Returning back to the podium after a standing ovation,

Steerpike

Green leader takes aim at Sunak — again

Is this the Scottish Green conference — or just an anti-Tory one? In his opening speech, co-leader Patrick Harvie laboured the point that he, er, just doesn’t like Prime Minister Rishi Sunak very much. Making some colourful accusations, Harvie didn’t hold back… Starting with his favourite fixation, the Scottish government minister seethed: ‘Heat pumps have become the new hate symbol of choice for the extreme far right! The climate change deniers on the far right!’ ‘Here in the UK, a Prime Minister desperately clutching anything he thinks might give his party a chance of clinging to power has once again chosen to copy the extremism of the far right!’ he

Peter Oborne

Peter Oborne, Kate Andrews and Jonathan Maitland

18 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud, Peter Oborne reads his letter from Jerusalem (00:55), Kate Andrews talks about why Rishi Sunak has made her take up smoking (07:20), and Jonathan Maitland explains his growing obsession with Martin Bashir (12:15). Presented by Cindy Yu. Produced by Cindy Yu and Natasha Feroze.

Fraser Nelson

Can Conservatism fix its pathway of decline?

20 min listen

As the government faces a general election defeat, is there a home for traditionally conservative thinkers? An international branch of new right Conservatives will join together on Monday for the Alliance of Responsible Citizenships (ARC) designed to share ideas and debate policy. But why won’t many call themselves ‘Conservatives’? And can ARC bring anything to the future of the party?

Jawad Iqbal

Will Muslim voters really desert Labour?

It was always a question of when, not if, the Labour party would start tearing itself apart over the Israel-Hamas war. The only surprise is the scale and speed with which the veneer of party unity has crumbled. It has revealed deep and vitriolic divisions between the Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer over his support for Israel, and the pro-Palestinian views of some of his Muslim MPs and others in the wider party. Starmer knows he has a big problem. But he doesn’t necessarily know what to do about it or indeed how best to keep a lid on it. The internal party rift shows no signs of healing any

Limor Simhony Philpott

What Palestinian ‘solidarity’ marchers in the West don’t understand about Hamas

The atrocities committed by Hamas on 7 October have been revealed in their terrible savagery. There are accounts of dead babies, their bodies riddled with bullets, entire families burnt alive in their homes, women and girls raped and killed. Bodies tortured and mutilated beyond recognition. Israelis thought that the world would finally recognise Hamas for what it truly is; an Islamist terror organisation seeking to destroy Israel. It did not. Since the war started, there has been an explosion of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hatred. Although Western leaders and large proportions of the public were shocked by Hamas’s atrocities and expressed support for Israel, the streets of London, Paris, Toronto and

Stephen Daisley

How Britain failed Israel

That the United Kingdom’s central institutions are rotten, crumbling, captured and perhaps beyond recovery is not news, but the Gaza intifada has crystallised the scale of institutional debasement. The brutalisation and murder of 1,400 Jews by Palestinian terrorists, and the open celebration of those actions by Jew-haters in this country, ought to have been met swiftly and resolutely. We do not do that sort of thing here. Instead, this demonic behaviour has granted us the most intimate and bracing glimpse at the decay inside the British state since the aftermath of 9/11. At a time when statesmanship is called for, we are forced to choose between Rishi Sunak, a waste

David Abulafia

Why are Cambridge University’s librarians judging ‘problematic’ books?

Librarians across Cambridge University are on the look out. Their target, among the ten million-odd volumes in the main library and in the independently-run libraries of the colleges, is ‘problematic’ books. ‘We would like to hear from colleagues across Cambridge about any books you have had flagged to you as problematic,’ a memo sent to colleges by the University Library read. But surely what is most damaging is to bandy around words such as ‘harmful’ and ‘problematic’ without even defining them. It goes without saying that a great library will contain books that some, occasionally nearly all, readers will find disturbing. It would be absurd to put together a library on modern

Friday

27 Oct 2023

Stephen Daisley

Why Israel is set to invade Gaza

If reports this evening are correct, Israel is stepping up its ground operations in Gaza. The Jerusalem Post quotes IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari saying: ‘In the last few hours, we have severely increased our attacks in Gaza.’ For two weeks, a threatened ground invasion has failed to materialise. The Israeli press attributes the delay to diplomatic efforts with Washington and the need to assess the IDF’s capability for fighting on two fronts should Hezbollah decide to invade or shell from the north. Israelis, particularly though not exclusively on the political right, have been urging Benjamin Netanyahu to get a move on. ‘Tnu tzahal lenatze’ach’ runs the old Second Intifada era

Iain Macwhirter

The mystery of the Covid Inquiry’s missing WhatsApps

It will no doubt be referred to in Whitehall circles in future as the ‘Jason Leitch protocol’. Scotland’s clinical director appears to have escaped scrutiny by the UK Covid Inquiry. It was revealed last night that his WhatsApp messages sent during the pandemic were deleted at the end of each day. The Scottish government have this afternoon denied this, saying that it was not correct to say that Professor Leitch deletes his Whatsapp messages and that guidance had been followed. But this does not change the fact that by the time the ‘do not destroy’ notice was issued by the Inquiry, Leitch’s messages were already gone. First Minister Humza Yousaf