Politics

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

Monday

Andrew Tettenborn

The EU is hoping to catch Liz Truss on the backfoot over Brexit

A vital part of gamesmanship, according to the British author Stephen Potter, is to disconcert your opponent before they have joined the game. True to form, gamesmanship has already begun in earnest on one matter likely to be high up in Liz Truss’s pending in-tray: the Northern Ireland Protocol negotiations. It comes both from the EU and from Irish nationalists. The Protocol is that part of the EU withdrawal arrangement aimed at preserving the integrity of the EU single market, despite the existence of open borders between the UK and Ulster and Ulster and the Republic. It provides two things: limits on state aid to Ulster enterprises, and administrative checks on

Sunday

James Kirkup James Kirkup

The key difference between Liz Truss and Boris Johnson

‘It’s fair to give wealthiest more money back – Truss’. That’s the headline on a BBC News story following Liz Truss’ interview with Laura Kuenssberg today, where she was asked about the merits of cutting National Insurance. Don’t worry if you missed the headline though. You’ll get plenty more chances to see it when Labour MPs repeat it over and over again, offering it as proof that the Tories are the party of the rich, a tag that Conservative leaders have sought to drop for the last two decades. So striking is the prospect of a would-be Tory leader clearly defending a policy that benefits the rich more than the poor,

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

A referendum act won’t thwart the Scottish nationalists

As someone who has been banging the drum for Westminster to legislate to secure the Union, it might seem churlish to gripe when legislation is proposed. In my defence, I am Scottish: churlishness is my birthright and griping my national pastime. So allow me to explain my grievances with the referendum act, which the Sunday Times says Liz Truss will introduce to ‘wreck the campaign for Scottish independence’. For one thing, I’m a traditionalist in these matters. I prefer the wrecking of the campaign for Scottish independence to be left to the experts: campaigners for Scottish independence. For another, passing a referendum act plays into the nationalist narrative that another referendum,

Steerpike Steerpike

Laura Kuenssberg’s new show falls apart on the launch pad

Well, that was…interesting. The BBC’s flagship political interview show, hosted first by Sir David Frost then by Andrew Marr, relaunched this morning under Laura Kuenssberg. On paper, she had it all sorted: she secured an interview with leadership frontrunner Liz Truss after she had pulled out of one with Nick Robinson just days before. It was a decent interview, as you’d expect from a former BBC political editor. It felt like the first interview of her premiership. If there was a winner, it’s Joe Lycett, who walked away with plenty of material for his next show But it ended to the whooping of applause from a comedian, Joe Lycett, a

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round-up: Sturgeon warns Truss could be a ‘disaster’

Liz Truss: ‘I will act immediately’ on energy bills The Sunday interview shows have returned just in time for the conclusion of the Conservative leadership contest. This morning, both candidates for the top job appeared on a revamped BBC programme opposite Laura Kuenssberg. With the last votes cast on Friday, the expectation is that Liz Truss will be taking over the reins from Boris Johnson. Kuenssberg asked Truss for her response to one of the country’s most pressing concerns: the enormous rise in energy bills: Truss: ‘I support exploring fracking’ Going into more detail, Truss said that she would be looking into expanding the UK’s domestic energy supply in a variety

Julie Burchill Julie Burchill

The police are having an identity crisis

What are the police for? The answer used to be obvious – to solve crimes and catch criminals. But now, I’d seriously have to think about it; going on the evidence of recent years, I’d probably conclude that they’re being paid to have a laugh, signal virtue and, of course, dance. Plod’s attempts at ‘getting down’ at the Notting Hill Carnival are legendarily embarrassing; last month, Lincolnshire police proudly shared a video of them doing the Macarena at Pride on the force’s official Twitter account. When people look back for an image to sum up the disintegration of our society, one of our own ‘Nero fiddling while Rome burns’ moments

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Liz Truss hints at her radical plans for government

What help will Liz Truss provide households and businesses with the coming cost-of-living crisis? That’s the question the frontrunner of the Tory leadership was pressed on as the Foreign Secretary appeared on the BBC’s inaugural Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg show. After ducking out of a planned interview earlier this week with Nick Robinson, Truss once again refused to get into specifics as to what her offer to the public will be if she – as expected – is announced as the winner of the Tory leadership contest on Monday. She did, however, give a timeline for action should she enter 10 Downing Street. Truss said she would act within one

J. Meirion Thomas

Is it time to defund the humanities?

Much of the cost of running our universities and other centres of higher education is borne by government, meaning the taxpayer. Therefore, to reciprocate, one of the main responsibilities of these institutions should be to produce graduates who meet the needs of society. This is not to suggest that we should exclude the ‘follow your dreams’ brigade from higher education. But funding, facilities and priority should be given to subjects that will contribute more to our national prosperity and societal requirements. These subjects would include engineering, computer science, mathematics, chemistry, physics and other sciences intended to improve our skill deficiencies, our industrial productivity and to encourage more entrepreneurs. To improve

Robert Tombs & Graham Gudgin

Only an ‘un-conservative’ measure can solve the energy crisis

The UK economy has so far held up reasonably well in the face of the rise in energy prices. But the latest data suggest a weakening has begun and the economy faces an enormous potential further shock. For households, the latest price cap announcement means a rise in energy bills of around 80 per cent to £3,549 per year — a bill totalling £99 billion. This is equivalent to a rise in the standard rate of income tax of nine pence in the pound. And this is by no means the full extent of the shock, with projections that the price cap might rise much further, to around £6,000 per

Sasha Lensky

Beer and loathing: Why Russians loved and hated Gorbachev

A paradox about Mikhail Gorbachev for my generation of Russians – I was seven years old when he became general secretary in 1985 – is that he will be remembered as both liberal and killjoy, an uneasy combination that left him at times making enemies in all directions. The first is easy enough to understand. Gorbachev’s glasnost – a determination that political life (indeed, personal life) should become more open and transparent – was partly just canny politics. Any reasonable politician requires people to speak candidly to him and needs a feedback loop to govern effectively (indeed, it’s arguably Putin’s lack of one that led him into this war). The

William Nattrass William Nattrass

Why Poland wants Germany to pay war reparations

Poland commemorated the 83rd anniversary of its invasion by Nazi Germany this week. To mark the occasion the leader of the country’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, Jarosław Kaczyński, announced that Poland was once again seeking reparations for the invasion from Germany. Speaking from the Royal Castle in Warsaw, Kaczyński unveiled a report which put the damages inflicted on Poland by the Nazis at over $1.3 trillion. He did not specify the period over which Germany is expected to pay, only saying the path to obtaining reparations ‘will take a long time and will not be easy.’ The legal procedure is also unclear – a spokesperson said it is

James Sean Dickson

Will Liz Truss’s Tory party practice what it preaches?

The Tory party is very good at pointing out — and profiting from — how the Labour party often values ideology over power, making the choice to eschew government for comfort zone politics. Liz Truss herself, who, bar some catastrophe, will be announced as the new Tory leader tomorrow, once made this point rather bluntly at a party conference fringe event. Back in 2018, Truss described then Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, possibly the very definition of an ideological leftwinger, as a ‘nut job’ and ‘socialist crazed individual’. Her point was similar to that of Tony Blair, who identified the rogue pattern in his own party and challenged it: ‘Power without principle is barren, but principle without

Max Jeffery Max Jeffery

Will Chad become Africa’s next warzone?

If you went to Doha this summer, you may have seen some militiamen from Chad. Perhaps at breakfast. For the last few months, 300 downtrodden tribesman, disaffected politicians, and madmen with guns have been staying in the city’s Sheraton Grand hotel, negotiating peace with the Chadian government. Three weeks ago they signed a ceasefire and now, having supposedly agreed not to kill each other, they are back in Chad’s capital, N’Djamena, trying to organise elections. If they can’t, Africa will become home to the world’s largest warzone. Mahamat Déby leads Chad’s junta and asked for the talks after his father, a dictator of 30 years, was killed by one of

Andrew Lilico

Vaccines disguised the errors of our lockdown policy

Liz Truss’s statement that she would never authorise another lockdown and The Spectator’s interview with Rishi Sunak have triggered a new debate about whether the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021 were justified. The most widely discussed positions are that lockdown occurred too late or that there should never have been any lockdowns at all, alongside the view that what happened was about right. But there is another position here – in many ways perhaps the most obvious position – that rarely gets an airing. When lockdown was first introduced, Boris Johnson said the point was to ‘squash the sombrero’ of cases, so that the peak number of hospitalisations each week

Nicholas Trickett

The case for energy nationalisation

We are living through an energy crisis unlike anything since the oil shocks of 1973 and 1979. The average household energy bill is set to reach over £3,500 a year. Businesses are already going bankrupt as they face ruinous costs. And inflation, driven in part by high energy prices, is expected to hit 10 per cent with the threat of more drastic price increases in the new year. In these circumstances, it is surprising that no leading politician has yet made the case for nationalisation of our energy sector – even though new polling shows half of Tory voters believe energy should be brought back into public ownership. Some have

Saturday

Steven Barrett

The problem with parliament’s partygate inquiry

Boris Johnson has recently employed the services of the lawyer Lord Pannick, who has given his legal opinion on a House of Commons investigation into Boris Johnson’s partygate comments. The advice has been published here by the government. It seems to have cost £129,000, which is not expensive, believe it or not, by market rates for someone as eminent as Lord Pannick. To recap – parliament is proposing to put Boris on trial for the offence of misleading the House. The wrong complained of is when Boris told the House that ‘no Covid rules were broken’ and that the ‘guidance was followed and the rules were followed at all times.’

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Why it’s still worth asking questions on lockdown

Rishi Sunak’s interview in last week’s magazine has inspired a lot of comment. Two this week: Lee Cain, ex-No. 10 spin chief, in The Spectator and Robert Shrimsley in the Financial Times, warns about the promotion of betrayal ‘lockdown fables’ promoted by ‘mythmakers’ and ‘lockdown sceptics trying to rewrite history’. He and I discussed this on Twitter yesterday. I’m a big admirer of Shrimsley and think he deserves a more considered response than whatever can be squeezed into 280 characters. Cain: ‘Opponents still say lockdown was a mistake. What do these critics think would have happened to transmission rates – rising exponentially – if we had failed to lockdown? What

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Macron is blaming Putin for his own net zero folly

France is at war again, or as good as, according to Emmanuel Manuel’s recent rhetoric. This time the enemy is Russia, which at least is a more tangible adversary than Covid, on which the French president declared ‘war’ in March 2020. Most of the Republic believed him and submitted to one of the most draconian lockdowns in Europe. The state of health emergency imposed by Macron ended only at the start of last month, by which time millions of French understood that it had been a phoney war on a virus that wasn’t half as deadly as their president had had them believe. Barely a fortnight after the health emergency

Keiron Pim

Keiron Pim, Miranda Morrison and Cosmo Landesman

24 min listen

This week on Spectator Out Loud: Keiron Pim discusses what young Ukrainians can learn from the works of Joseph Roth (01:00), Miranda Morrison reflects on her decision to quit her job as a teacher (11:26), and Cosmo Landesman asks whether successful writers can be friends with less successful ones (19:39). Produced and presented by Oscar Edmondson.