Politics

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

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

How Enoch Powell helped make the NHS

Who are the giants of the NHS? Just off Central Lobby in Parliament is a bronze bust of Aneurin Bevan, the man who set up the health service in 1948. I have a rose named after him growing in my garden. When Britain marks the 75th anniversary of the health service today, Bevan’s name will be everywhere as the man who gave this country taxpayer-funded, state-organised, universal healthcare.  The name you’re less likely to hear is Enoch Powell. Few even know that this Conservative politician was minister for health. Few know much more than one line of one speech, which he knew would ‘go up like a rocket’, and which

Tuesday

Iain Macwhirter

What does Mhairi Black’s departure mean for the SNP?

Nicola Sturgeon says she is ‘gutted’ at the decision by the SNP Westminster group’s deputy leader, Mhairi Black, to stand down before the next general election. The MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire South told the News Agents podcast that the House of Commons is a ‘toxic workplace’ that has taken a toll on her ‘body and mind’. She also says she is ‘just tired’ and wants to spend more time with her partner Katie, whom she married in 2022. Black joins a raft of SNP MPs, including the former Westminster leader Ian Blackford, who have decided to abandon Westminster politics in recent months. Also in the departure lounge are MPs

Steerpike Steerpike

Police to probe Bernard Jenkin bash

Scotland Yard has opened an investigation into allegations lockdown rules were breached at a party attended by Tory MP Bernard Jenkin in parliament. The announcement from the Met comes more than a fortnight after allegations emerged about the senior MP’s attendance at the gathering held in December 2020, to mark the birthday of his wife Anne. Socialising indoors in London was banned at the time. Jenkin sits on the privileges committee that delivered a withering verdict on Boris Johnson’s partygate conduct. A Metropolitan Police spokeswoman tonight said: ‘Following assessment of material relating to a gathering in Parliament, the Met is opening an investigation into potential breaches of the Regulations at an

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Sajid Javid’s medicine won’t save the NHS

Does the NHS need a royal commission? Sajid Javid, the former health secretary, thinks so. ‘It is abundantly clear the status quo cannot continue,’ he writes in the Times. He argues that ‘a dispassionate and honest assessment is required’ from an ‘institution that is above the political fray’. Javid suggests that a royal commission that is ‘set up correctly’ could perform this function. Royal commissions sound august but don’t have a great track record of really helping governments make difficult decisions. They have become a byword in Westminster for kicking something not so much into the long grass as into a thick forest of delay. The Labour government set up

Steerpike Steerpike

Five of the worst Mhairi Black moments

Another one bites the dust. Mhairi Black today becomes the sixth SNP MP to announce she is standing down at the next election. It’s a rather big deal given Black is the Westminster group’s deputy leader. She famously pushed Labour’s Douglas Alexander out of his seat at only 20 years of age, with her entry to parliament symbolising the party’s landslide victory in 2015.  Black follows in the footsteps of former Westminster group leader Ian Blackford, onetime party treasurer Douglas Chapman, Peter Grant, Angela Crawley and Stewart Hosie in quitting the Commons. Currently Mr S calculates that 13 per cent of the SNP group will not be standing as MPs

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Sunak faces a grilling over his key targets

Does Rishi Sunak think he’s going to hit his key targets? The Prime Minister had to answer this question repeatedly today after being asked by members of the powerful Liaison Committee. His basic answer was that he was still very committed to the targets – but couldn’t say that he definitely would meet them. A particularly difficult set of questions came from Home Affairs Select Committee chair Diana Johnson, who grilled him on the details of how his Rwanda deportation policy would stop the boats, as Sunak has promised. The Prime Minister was very keen instead to talk about the agreement the government had struck with Albania, but said he

Lisa Haseldine Lisa Haseldine

Drone strikes Russian military base near Moscow

Just as Moscow was beginning to recover from the shock of Evgeniy Prigozhin’s march on the capital, the city has, once again, been targeted by drones.  In the early hours of this morning, according to the Russian ministry of defence, five drones were intercepted before they reached the capital. Eyewitnesses reported seeing two of the drones flying in the direction of Moscow at a low altitude of approximately 200 metres. They came within touching distance of the city, getting as far as the New Moscow suburb to the south west. According to Russia, four of the drones were shot down. Footage circulating on Russian social media allegedly filmed at the time the

Jake Wallis Simons Jake Wallis Simons

Don’t condemn Israel for defending itself

Car-rammings, shootings, stabbings and bombings targeting innocent men, women and children are a constant fear for Israelis. This morning, seven people were wounded in a ramming attack in Tel Aviv. Only a fortnight ago, four Israelis were gunned down by Hamas murderers. Last year, there were 5,000 such attacks. In 2023, more than 28 Israelis have so far been killed. How would we in Britain react to such events? The IRA years show all too clearly that, in the wake of a terror threat, the security forces fight back. Israel is adopting a similar approach – but is being roundly, and unfairly, condemned for doing so. On Monday night, Israeli

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Rishi’s Tory rating turns negative

As the average mortgage rate for a five-year fixed deal rises to 6 per cent, Rishi Sunak can find little relief in his personal approval ratings. ConservativeHome has published its monthly cabinet league table in which the Prime Minister’s support among Tory members has hit its lowest level since he entered 10 Downing Street. Sunak at least has plenty of company in the red – he is one of a record nine cabinet ministers to find themselves with sub-zero approval ratings. These ministers include his deputy Oliver Dowden, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, Levelling Up secretary Michael Gove and Therese Coffey. Sunak is now on -2.7, compared to a positive rating of

James Heale James Heale

Rishi Sunak’s Tory approval ratings turn negative

12 min listen

Rishi Sunak’s personal approval rating among Tory members has turned negative for the first time in his premiership. Why is the Prime Minister becoming more unpopular in his party? Should he be worried about internal dissent?  James Heale speaks to Katy Balls and Kate Andrews. Produced by Max Jeffery.

Christopher Snowdon

The CMA is wrong to go after high supermarket fuel prices

Picture two village shops. If both shopkeepers are doing nicely out of selling the same product at a high price, they may decide to keep their prices the same even when the wholesale price falls. This is known as tacit collusion. Both retailers have an incentive to co-operate with each other at the consumers’ expense. But each shopkeeper also has an incentive to lower the price to make more sales and more profit. If another shop opens, this temptation will grow stronger. If a dozen shops open, it is almost certain that one of them will start a price war. Unless, that is, they form a cartel – which would

Steerpike Steerpike

Secessionists seethe over the ‘Scottish coronation’ 

King Charles III is all set for his ‘Scottish coronation’ in Edinburgh tomorrow. Yet despite the royal fervour north of the border, Mr S hears that the nationalists are still not satisfied. Alex Salmond of the pro-independence Alba party and Green co-leaders, Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater, have all snubbed the royal invitation. Quelle surprise. ‘This ceremony is entirely wrong-headed and neither fish nor fowl,’ raged Salmond, after revealing he has declined the monarch’s invitation to what he called the ‘artificial and second rate ceremony’. According to Salmond, ‘Charles is being poorly advised by a group of courtiers who have a great love of pomp and no understanding of circumstance.’

Hardeep Singh

When will the world wake up to the persecution of Nigerian Christians?

More Christians are killed in Nigeria for their faith than anywhere else in the world. Of the 5,621 people murdered worldwide in 2022 for their belief in Christ, almost nine in ten died in Nigeria, according to the charity Open Doors. On average, this equates to 14 Christians killed every single day last year in Nigeria. Many more Christians are being kidnapped, and there is little sign of this terrible violence ending any time soon. Such horrifying figures are hard for us in the West to comprehend; we take freedom of religion – a protected right enshrined in law – for granted. But despite the unending and seemingly escalating cycle

Monday

Kristina Murkett

Is this really the best Labour can offer teachers?

Bridget Phillipson was appointed Labour’s shadow education secretary in November 2021. After 18 months in the role, she has now finally unveiled Labour’s ambitious new idea to help tackle the teacher retention and recruitment crisis: use the tax raid on private school fees to fund a £2,400 welcome bonus to every teacher who has completed their two years of training. This is a classic case of copying someone’s homework, except – no surprises – it wasn’t very good the first time round. The Conservatives have already increased the starting salaries of newly-qualified teachers to £30,000. Teaching unions have already overwhelmingly voted to reject a one-off payment. The government has already tried giving bonuses to maths teachers,

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

The NHS isn’t underfunded

We’re going to hear a lot about the NHS this week: mostly tributes and praise – and even a few prayers – all in recognition of its 75th anniversary on Wednesday. The loudest criticism you’re likely to hear will be about underfunding – which is not the fault of NHS officials, really, but rather the fault of politicians who set the health service’s budget. The NHS is only falling short on patient outcomes, the logic goes, because it’s being denied resources in the first place. Is it really? New data published by the OECD this afternoon pops some of those birthday balloons. It reveals that the NHS actually remains one of the best-funded

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The ‘New Conservatives’ are useful for Braverman

How unhelpful are the New Conservatives to their party in government? They insist that they’re fully supportive of Rishi Sunak, but today’s 12-point plan to cut net migration isn’t exactly a love letter to the Prime Minister. Someone who does seem rather less annoyed by the new caucus is Suella Braverman, who as luck would have it was taking Home Office Questions in the House of Commons this afternoon. One of the members of the new caucus, James Daly, had a question about ‘what steps she is taking to reduce net migration’, and the Home Secretary replied: Net migration is too high, and this government are determined to bring it

Steerpike Steerpike

Parliamentary police officer purged every six months

These days, the reputation of the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection (PaDP) Unit is at a low ebb, following the scandals over its former members David Carrick and Wayne Couzens. A review of the wider force found it was institutionally racist, misogynist and homophobic, with the PaDP singled out for particular condemnation. In March of this year, Politico reported that the unit’s officers had received 439 complaints in 2020, 2021 and 2022, including a total of 264 by members of the public. Now, Mr S has done his own digging and it transpires that every six months an officer on the parliamentary unit is being removed from duty due to allegations of criminal

Tom Slater Tom Slater

Virginia Woolf doesn’t need a trigger warning

Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf? Americans, apparently. Or at least that’s the conclusion Vintage US seems to have drawn. The publishing house has slapped a new edition of Woolf’s 1927 novel, To the Lighthouse, with a trigger warning, alerting US readers to its potentially upsetting content. (Vintage UK hasn’t followed suit.) The warning, reported in the Daily Telegraph, doesn’t mention anything specific, probably because you’d have to strain yourself to find anything particularly offensive about this philosophical, semi-autobiographical novel about a well-to-do family’s holidays on the Isle of Skye. Instead, it just warns hypothetical, easily offended readers about how old – and thus potentially terrifying – the novel is: ‘This

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Joe Biden is not OK

25 min listen

Freddy Gray speaks to Spectator columnist, Douglas Murray who wrote in the magazine this week about Joe Biden’s endless gaffes and the incompetence which Douglas argues has spilled into the rest of the party. Produced by Natasha Feroze. 

Steerpike Steerpike

Bank of England: ‘any gender’ can be pregnant

Talk about getting your priorities right. As ministers battle to get inflation down from the double digit highs of earlier this year, it seems not all at the Bank of England are preoccupied with this struggle. For it has today been revealed that staff at Britain’s central bank – whose main job is to keep inflation at just two per cent – have been spending their time drawing up new, right-on pregnancy guidelines. The main takeaway? People of any gender identity can become pregnant, apparently. In its submission last year to Stonewall (who else?), the Bank of England boasted about how its new ‘family leave’ policy, introduced in June 2021,