Politics

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

Tuesday

18 Feb 2025

How Europe’s consensus on Ukraine broke down

14 min listen

The future of Ukraine is being decided in a meeting between US and Russian diplomats in Saudi Arabia today. So far, we understand that America will insist that Ukraine is recognised as a sovereign nation, but NATO membership remains off the table. Meanwhile, European leaders have been cut out of the conversations. In response, they held their own summit yesterday, but it didn’t seem like they were all singing from the same hymn sheet. While the UK is pushing for higher defence spending and is willing to commit troops, other European nations seem more dovish, especially Germany and Italy. This is reflected in opinion polls as well. What’s going on?

Alexander Larman

Does anyone buy Meghan’s sweet tooth?

Strange though this might seem to long-term Spectator readers, I am beginning to warm to Meghan Markle. Not because she has done something worth celebrating, or indeed anything that has shown her to be anything other than self-obsessed, hypocritical and a poseur, but because she is showing an indomitable strength of character that means that, whenever bitter and twisted journalists (guilty as charged) write something derogatory about her, she comes forward with some new act of hubris or attention-seeking that reduces us all to speechless disbelief. I have, like many of you, been looking forward to the much-delayed launch of America Riviera Orchard, Meghan’s previously announced lifestyle brand. Not because

Richard Ekins

The Lady Chief Justice has no right to condemn Starmer

The Lady Chief Justice, Baroness Carr, has told reporters that she is “deeply troubled” by a recent exchange between the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition during Prime Minister’s Questions – and that she has written to the Lord Chancellor to complain. This is an extraordinary, and extraordinarily ill-advised, intervention in the political process, which the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition should firmly rebuff. There is no evidence that occasional ministerial criticism of judgments imperils judicial independence The parliamentary exchange to which Baroness Carr took exception concerned a recent decision of the Upper Tribunal allowing a Palestinian family in Gaza, who had a relative living in

Steerpike

Scottish Labour U-turns on trans stance

Well, well, well. Gender is back on the agenda in Holyrood again after the ongoing Sandie Peggie v NHS Fife case sparked outrage across the country. Scottish politicians held off on declaring their support for the female nurse, who took her health board and transgender doctor Dr Beth Upton to a tribunal over harassment allegations, until the weekend when Scottish Tory and SNP MSPs began to tweet that they ‘stand with Sandie Peggie’. Scottish Labour, however, remained rather quiet on the issue. That is, until now… Speaking to the Holyrood Sources podcast today, Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar and his party’s deputy leader Jackie Baillie have finally pledged their support

Katja Hoyer

Can Germany rise to the challenge of protecting Europe?

When European leaders discussed their response to US-Russian negotiations about ending the war in Ukraine, the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz felt ‘a little irritated’. France and Britain suggested sending European troops to secure a peace deal. Days away from an election likely to boot him out of power, Scholz found this an ‘inappropriate debate at the wrong time’. It will likely fall to his successor to shoulder Germany’s fair share of responsibility for European security. US and Russian officials have today held the first of peace talks in Saudi Arabia, forcing European countries to determine their role as a matter of urgency. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said ‘European nations

Steerpike

Top judge blasts Starmer over migrant case

Dear oh dear. Sir Keir Starmer hasn’t caught a break since his party took power last July – and this week is no exception. Now the UK’s most senior judge has taken a pop at the Labour leader over ‘unacceptable’ criticism of an immigration judge who allowed Gazan refugees entry to the UK. Even the lawyers are turning on the former DPP! The remarks of the Lady Chief Justice Baroness Sue Carr followed a rather heated exchange at PMQs last Wednesday. Both Starmer and the Tory party leader Kemi Badenoch blasted the judge’s move to allow a Palestinian family to come to Britain via the Ukrainian refugee programme. Sir Keir

Yuan Yi Zhu

There is still no rationale for our Chagos surrender

The government’s iron determination to surrender the Chagos Islands to Mauritius is puzzling. Why are ministers so keen to hand over territory that has been British since 1814, which is home to a critical UK-US military base, to a country thousands of miles away? And why does Britain need to pay Mauritius a reported £9 billion for the privilege of giving up its own territory? Initially, the government stuck to making vague noises about international law. The deal with Mauritius was necessary, parliament and the public were told, because the International Court of Justice (ICJ) had said that the UK had to hand over the islands, never mind that the

Ross Clark

Britain’s banks never cared about net zero

Several weeks ago, just in advance of Donald Trump’s second presidency, there was a mass withdrawal of US financial institutions from Mark Carney’s Net Zero Banking Alliance – which committed members to adopt policies of reducing lending to fossil fuel companies and to take other measures aimed at reducing carbon emissions. Are UK banks now preparing the ground to do the same? The senior executives of Barclays and NatWest have decided that they would rather that their annual bonuses were not based on climate targets. Both have removed sustainability metrics from the formulas used to determine the size of their bonuses. Although both banks will still use climate targets in

David Cohen

New Zealand’s cringeworthy new tourism slogan

‘Everyone must go!’ New Zealand’s new tourism declares, but so far almost everyone seems to be cringing. The prime minister of New Zealand, Christopher Luxon, this week unveiled the latest tagline aimed first at holidaymakers from Australia but also those living further afield. Critics say the wording of the latest marketing campaign sounds like something from a Boxing Day sale, or even a cry of desperation from the back of a typically long toilet queue on one of the country’s frequently crowded hiking trails. Fewer outsiders are being enticed by New Zealand’s lanscapes than was the case before Covid Luxon, who in a past corporate life was the chief executive

Freddy Gray

Vance criticises Britain: is this a new era for free speech?

15 min listen

The fallout continues from US vice-president J.D. Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference. Criticising Europe over what he sees as the retreat of free speech, he singled out the case of Adam Smith-Connor in the UK as something that worries him about the direction that Britain is heading in. Smith-Connor was arrested in 2022 and prosecuted for breaching an abortion buffer-zone in Bournemouth. Freddy Gray speaks to Paul Coleman at the ARC conference in London. Paul is executive director of ADF International, a faith-based legal advocacy organisation that has been advocating for Smith-Connor. What is the truth behind abortion buffer-zones? Is this part of a wider ‘censorship industrial complex’?

Coffee House

‘Net zero is a complete and utter disaster’: Nigel Farage and Jordan Peterson in conversation

This is an edited transcript of a conversation between Jordan Peterson and Nigel Farage at the 2025 Arc Conference. Jordan Peterson: At the Arc conference yesterday, Scott Tinker outlined a vision of the future, and it’s not a net zero vision, I can tell you that. It’s a vision where we cooperate to do everything we possibly can to drive energy prices down as low as they can possibly be, using everything at our disposal. Nuclear, coal, gas, oil, solar, wind, whatever can compete. Because the most effective way of enriching the absolutely poor and serving long-term environmental needs is to make people wealthy so they can afford to care

Steerpike

Meghan relaunches lifestyle brand after trademark trouble

11 months ago, the Duchess of Sussex promised big things with the launch of her new lifestyle brand. Last March eagle-eyed social media users quickly spotted a new Instagram account called ‘American Riviera Orchard’ with the biography reading: ‘By Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex.’ Yet fast forward to the beginning of 2025 and, er, nothing much had happened with it. Instead it appeared like Meghan had turned her back on the project completely to focus on her new Netflix lifestyle show, ‘With Love, Meghan’. Well, it turns out that is half right… The Queen of Privacy has, it transpires, binned off American Riviera Orchard – and relaunched her brand until

Steerpike

Reeves in fresh mistaken identity row

Another day, another Rachel Reeves-related drama. The Chancellor is facing fresh claims that she has exaggerated her CV – with the Labour politician now accused of falsely claiming to have academic work published in one of the world’s leading economics journals. It raises yet another question mark over the Reeves’ work record, after the Chancellor had to make multiple edits to dates and job titles on her LinkedIn. You couldn’t make it up – or maybe you could… The Chancellor’s Who’s Who entry states that Reeves has contributed to the Journal of Political Economy, one of the top 5 economics journals globally. Yet it transpires that Reeves actually had a

Gavin Mortimer

Europe has much to learn from Georgia Meloni

Giorgia Meloni was nearly an hour late for Monday’s European crisis summit at the Elysee Palace in Paris. According to the French press, Italy’s prime minister made her appearance ‘in the middle of the meeting, 50 minutes later than the agreed time’. Perhaps her Maserati got caught in the Paris traffic, or perhaps Meloni made her late entrance intentionally; a way of underlining to her host, Emmanuel Macron, and the other European leaders present, that she alone has a warm relationship with Donald Trump. Meloni visited Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club for what both parties called an ‘informal meeting’ at the start of the year. The then President-elect described the Italian as

Ido Vock

Will Austria’s asylum seeker surveillance plan backfire?

Austria’s interior minister has announced plans for mass surveillance of Syrian and Afghan asylum seekers in response to a terrorist attack. The incident, which took place on Saturday, saw a Syrian allegedly stab one person to death and injure five others in Villach. According to police, the man –whose rampage was cut short by another Syrian man who intervened – was a legal resident in Austria and not known to authorities. Gerhard Karner, known for his hard line on security, said ‘mass checks without cause’ of ‘asylum seekers with Syrian and Afghan backgrounds’ were needed to ensure public safety. He said that because the alleged attacker was unknown to authorities, there

Steerpike

Poll: Reform voters least likely to return to Tories

It’s more than three months now since Kemi Badenoch took over as Tory leader. She has set out her vision in various speeches, with yesterday’s Arc address being the most recent example. So, how is she doing? Well, it’s a bit of a mixed bag, according to a poll of 2,000 voters for The Spectator by More in Common. Her approval rating sits at -19, some 22 points above Keir Starmer, but below Nigel Farage. Asked to describe the Tory leader in a single word, the nation’s favourite adjective is ‘unknown’, followed by ‘useless’ – although ‘strong’ and ‘leader’ are also high on the list. If Andrew Bonar Law was

Mark Galeotti

Is Trump’s hostile takeover of Ukraine a trap?

That Donald Trump’s vision of the presidency is less statesman and more CEO of USA Inc. is evident in the terms of the deal he tried to foist on Ukraine last week. As talks begin between the US and Russia in Saudi Arabia, a leak reveals that Trump wanted Kyiv to sign away much of its mineral resources to Washington. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has rejected this piece of blatant economic colonialism, but the Ukrainians expect further such demands to come. This is the essence of Trump’s brave new world The draft frames this as the establishment of a joint investment fund such that ‘hostile parties to the conflict do

Michael Simmons

Strong pay growth will alarm the Bank of England

Britain’s workers have experienced strong pay increases for the third month in a row. Figures on the jobs market, just released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), reveal that pay rose 6 per cent in the final three months of 2024 – the fastest pace of pay growth in over a year. Strip out inflation, and the average worker saw a 2.5 per cent pay increase – the highest real terms pay rise for three years. While more money in pockets is obviously good news for the workforce, these figures will be ringing alarm bells at the Bank of England. The Bank’s interest rate setters see pay increases as

David Shipley

The truth about Britain’s overcrowded prisons

Former justice secretary David Gauke’s Independent Sentencing Review (ISR), running since October, was not due to report until the spring. However, following the latest published prison population statistics, which showed there are only just over 1,000 spaces left in men’s prisons and soaring numbers for serious further offences, an interim report has been published. It makes for revolutionary reading. As Gauke says, he is confronting ‘the consequences of decades of haphazard policy making and underinvestment in the criminal justice system – bringing it to the brink of collapse.’ Our justice system catches and jails fewer people, yet the prison population continues to soar. Why? The report is brutal, tearing into

Gareth Roberts

Why the Germans don’t do it better

Germany, not so very long ago, was the example of how to do it. Shiningly spotless and effortlessly efficient – the country where they’d got it right. Today, with its economy doom-spiralling and levels of internal unquiet that look likely to see the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) do very well in this Sunday’s federal election, alles is not looking quite so klar. We must resist the temptation to take any pleasure in German misfortunes. I’m sure they don’t ever smirk at our very similar troubles, and surely don’t even have a word for such a thing. Germany is being bossed about – and frankly ignored – by the US and

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