Politics

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

Thursday

23 Mar 2023

Nicola Sturgeon’s successor should be careful what they wish for

We are almost there: on Monday, the SNP will appoint its new leader after five weeks of what will surely be remembered as the most controversial and consequential change of leadership in the short history of devolution. Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation in February came as a surprise even to her closest allies. They knew the First Minister was closer to the end of her tenure than the start; it seemed likely she would find a way to avoid standing in the 2026 Scottish parliament election. But even those closest to her did not believe that, six weeks after she boldly told Laura Kuenssberg that ‘there’s plenty in the tank at the

John Keiger

Could the markets force Macron to back down on pension reforms?

Is Emmanuel Macron reaching his Liz Truss moment when financial markets finally determine his future? On 20 March Moody’s ratings agency strode into France’s explosive pensions reform turmoil. While keeping France’s rating at Aa2 ‘stable’ it nevertheless warned that President Macron’s constitutional sleight of hand denying the National Assembly a vote on the bill risked undermining future macro-economic reforms for the four remaining years of his mandate. Two days later, citing political tension and social unrest, Fitch Ratings warned that the government’s ability to reduce high public debt will be constrained. Uncertainty surrounding the debt trajectory is reflected in the negative outlook on France’s ‘AA’ rating. Fitch warned that an increase

Alexander Horne

Why Boris Johnson might escape a partygate punishment

After several months of anticipation, two contentious legal submissions from Lord Pannick KC and a bumper 52-page witness statement, Boris Johnson finally made his appearance before the Privileges Committee yesterday. Regular select committee watchers might have been surprised to see the panel of seven MPs conduct a forensic examination of Mr Johnson, sticking doggedly to their task, asking detailed questions and marshalling the facts at their disposal with some skill. Harriet Harman proved an adept Chair, keeping the committee on track and precluding too much lengthy meandering by the witness. Johnson was provoked to tetchiness, and even anger. But he could not be goaded into any explosive revelations. This public

Ross Clark

Why is Sadiq Khan giving the police Ulez camera footage?

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan was quick out of the blocks to join the condemnation of the Metropolitan Police following the publication of Louise Casey’s report. He even slapped down Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley for daring to question Casey’s assertion that the Met was ‘institutionally misogynistic, racist and homophobic’. So does that mean that Khan will now revisit his decision to share with the Met data from hundreds of cameras set up to police his Ultra Low Emissions Zone (Ulez)? Alas, it seems not. If we are going to use mass surveillance in this way, ought it not to be part of the public debate? The Data Protection Impact

Isabel Hardman

Starmer wants to steal crime from the Tories

It’s tempting to see Keir Starmer as a political wind-up merchant given the number of times he likes to quote people who annoy his own activists. Recently he adopted the ‘take back control’ slogan and today he approvingly quoted Margaret Thatcher. Hell, the man has even praised Tony Blair. Labour sees an opportunity in the rising salience of crime among voters The Thatcher quote today was in a speech about crime. The Labour leader told his audience in Stoke that: ‘The rule of law is the foundation for everything. Margaret Thatcher called it the “first duty of government” – and she was right.’ He later accused the Tories of having

Kate Andrews

Will the interest rate hike be enough to tame inflation?

There was no easy option for the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) this week. Raising interest rates, even by a small amount, could add to financial instability following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and takeover of Credit Suisse over the past few weeks. But holding the base rate at 4 per cent might lead to accusations of ignoring double-digit inflation, which rose on the year in February for the first time since the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) peaked last October. Today, the MPC opted for the latter – voting 7-2 in favour of raising the base rate by 0.25 percentage points, from 4 per cent to 4.25

Kevin Toolis

The decline and fall of the DUP

Along with death and taxes, life has only one other certainty: the DUP will never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. Fresh from insulting Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer in the annual St Patrick’s Day Washington jamboree as a man who needs to ‘read a history book’, the DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson has now antagonised Downing Street, the EU, the Irish Government, of course, and President Joe Biden by his rejection of the Windsor Framework. Quite an achievement. The ugly Irish DUP cousins have ruined Biden’s parade with their stone wall refusal to go along with the show In the American polity, Ireland, and St Patrick’s Day, is a positive

Steerpike

Tory MP: Boris’s hearing like OJ Simpson’s trial

Whether it was No. 10 parties or Chris Pincher’s misconduct claims, Tory MPs grew used to having defend Boris Johnson in various scrapes and scandals in office. Now though he’s gone but even six months on, some Conservatives seem unable (or unwilling) to kick the habit. A case in point is provided by Scott Benton, one of the more enthusiastic members of the 2019 intake. He has been a consistent supporter of Boris Johnson throughout his, er, challenges and has clearly taken umbrage at the Privileges Committee’s ongoing investigation into whether the ex-premier lied to the House. So angered was Benton by yesterday’s evidence session that he took to that

Steerpike

Starmer squirms over foreign criminals

‘Too clever by half’ was the verdict of many pundits when it was revealed that Sir Keir had been tapping up Sue Gray as his chief of staff. And it seems that the Labour leader is at it again, holding a big press conference today to talk about his ‘mission’ to tackle crime – less than 24 days after Boris Johnson’s evidence session in an all-too-obvious contrast. Unfortunately, while Sir Keir likes to talk tough on crime, his record is anything but. Straight after delivering his speech, the Labour leader refused to apologise for signing a letter in 2020 calling for 50 dangerous offenders not to be deported on a flight to

William Moore

Ghost children: the pupils who never came back after lockdown

33 min listen

This week: In her cover piece for The Spectator, Harriet Sergeant asks what’s happened pupil absence which has increased since the pandemic. She is joined by The Spectator’s data editor Michael Simmons to account for the staggering number of children who were failed by the government’s Covid response (01:08). Also this week: Owen Matthews, The Spectator’s Russia correspondent, looks at the opposition candidate who could usurp President Erdogan in Turkey. He joins the podcast alongside Turkish journalist Ece Temelkuran to discuss whether it really could be the end of Erdogan’s two decade long hold over Turkish politics (14:48). And finally: Kara Kennedy, staff writer at Spectator World, writes this week about her upbringing in the Welsh

Christopher Snowdon

Jonathan Portes – my part in his downfall

In 2018, the Equality and Human Rights Commission commissioned and promoted a report which predicted that an extra 1.5 million children would be plunged into (relative) child poverty by 2021/22 if the government implemented Universal Credit. The proportion of children living in (relative) poverty would, it said, rise from 29 per cent to the unprecedented figure of 41.3 per cent. Portes’ prediction was a totem for all economic forecasting, most of which is little better than guesswork and should not be taken seriously If you think such prognostication is beyond the remit of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, I can only concur. The report was written by Howard Reed

Matthew Lynn

Rishi Sunak was wrong to publish his tax returns

He has plenty of money. He earns a substantial amount from his investments. And he gets a City firm to prepare his returns rather than doing them himself at close to midnight after a couple of fines from HMRC like the rest of us. In truth, there were not a lot of surprises when the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak published his tax returns on Wednesday. We didn’t learn anything we didn’t already know. And yet, even if they didn’t provide any ammunition for his opponents to attack him with, it was still a mistake to publish them – because it puts us on a dangerously slippery slope. There weren’t any

Charles Lipson

Ron DeSantis is coming for Trump

Donald Trump faces legal jeopardy about payments to porn star Stormy Daniels, but his Republican opponents face political jeopardy about how to handle the issue. Ron DeSantis’s powerful response shows why he’s such a formidable candidate and why Trump fears him. Most Republicans have opted for the easy answer to the hush-money story: criticise Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg for pushing a politically driven agenda. That agenda centres on snagging the former president on a minor, long-forgotten misdemeanour and converting it into a larger, more serious crime. Bragg apparently hopes to use a novel legal theory to upgrade the minor charge to a felony. Since the case would be tried

Philip Patrick

Should the SNP leadership contest be stopped?

Yesterday saw the final televised debate between the three contenders for leader of the SNP and First Minister of Scotland. Voting will end and the winner will be declared on 27 March. Or will it? Those sick of this increasingly tawdry contest should prepare themselves: it may have a way to go yet. There are calls for the contest to be halted, restarted or at least reset. And if that doesn’t happen, there is a risk that the winner will not be recognised by certain sectors of the party. There is a talk of a legal challenge from pro-independence blog Wings Over Scotland (which is mulling crowdfunding such a move).

Wednesday

22 Mar 2023

Katy Balls

The trial of Boris Johnson

20 min listen

Boris Johnson sat through a grueling four-hour hearing into whether the former Prime Minister deliberately misled parliament. Katy Balls and Fraser Nelson take a look at the key moments of the meeting; and whether Rishi Sunak should be worried about the Brexit vote rebels.

Ross Clark

The Fed’s rate rise shows it is confident about the banks

So, things really are different this time. The US Federal Reserve has decided to raise its Federal Funds Rate (its main interest rate) by a quarter-point, to 4.75 per cent – 5 per cent, in spite of a banking crisis that has seen two large banks fail in the past fortnight. For the past two decades, this sort of thing didn’t happen. Under the unwritten laws of the ‘Greenspan put’, the Fed could be relied upon to provide some form of stimulus at the first sign of financial trouble. It began with the collapse of the hedge fund Long Term Capital Management in 1998, when the Fed put together a

James Heale

Five things we learned from Boris’s Privileges Committee grilling

Boris Johnson has just finished a mammoth three hour evidence session in front of the Privileges Committee inquiry into whether he misled the House about Covid guidance being broken in No. 10. It was a combative affair at times with Johnson displaying flashes of anger and irritation – understandable given it was twice as long as the Liaison Committee grillings he was used to as PM. If this were a boxing match, it would appear to be decided on a points decision, with neither side being able to land a killer blow: Johnson looked on the ropes at times but the committee were unable to conclusively prove that the ex-premier

Isabel Hardman

It’s easy to become numb to the madness of Boris Johnson

What was Boris Johnson up to at the Privileges Committee? The former prime minister has just finished more than three hours of evidence on whether he deliberately misled the Commons over partygate. In his opening statement, he said ‘hand on heart, I did not lie to the House’. One of his repeated insistences was that he was just doing the ‘right thing’ when he was thanking staff who were leaving, despite MPs on the committee also repeatedly insisting that the guidance at the time clearly did not allow this. He also appeared to lose his cool at times. ‘People who say that we are partying in lockdown simply do not know

Steerpike

Rishi publishes his six-figure tax bill

It’s a good day to bury bad news. After months of stalling, No. 10 have chosen today of all days to publish Rishi Sunak’s long-awaited tax bill – slap bang in the middle of Boris Johnson’s evidence session at the Privileges Committee. The records show he paid more than £1million in UK tax over the previous three financial years. Cha ching! Sunak first made the pledge to publish these returns during his initial unsuccessful campaign to be Tory leader last summer. He is one of the richest MPs in the current parliament, with Labour showing little reticence in using Sunak’s wealth as a political attack line. And today’s disclosures will

Lloyd Evans

PMQs proved that we have too many politicians

PMQs drove up a cul-de-sac today. Sir Keir’s team of researchers have discovered a crime blackspot where ten houses have been burgled in the last 18 months, but only one of these offences has ended up in court. This delighted Sir Keir as it gave him a chance to remind the world that he once worked as a prosecutor. Even better, the benighted cul-de-sac happens to be in Yorkshire where Rishi Sunak’s constituency is located. Crime dominated the session because Sir Keir brought up Baroness Casey’s end-of-term report on the London police force. The cops have fluffed it, according to the baroness, and their ranks are now overflowing with sexists,