Politics Archives

Thursday

22 Dec 2022

How can the West help Russians to defeat Putinism?

Watching Tchaikovsky’s ballet The Nutcracker is a Christmas tradition for many. But this year, people are being urged to stay away: Ukraine’s culture minister Oleksandr Tkachenko published an open letter earlier this month asking the West to boycott Tchaikovsky and wider Russian culture until the war in Ukraine is over. ‘This war,’ he said, ‘is a civilisational battle over culture and history’. He’s right: since February, the Russian state is doing its best to annihilate Ukrainian culture in every possible way: banning and seeking to destroy the Ukrainian language, artists, authors and music. But how far should we go in response? Is a crackdown against Russian culture a wise idea, or does it play into Putin’s hands? The Kremlin

Steerpike

Lords give Tom Watson a frosty reception

Sir Keir Starmer has tried to make great play recently of his reforming credentials, pledging earlier this month to abolish the House of Lords. So it was some irony then that Starmer’s own nominee Tom Watson entered that very chamber yesterday as perhaps one of the most controversial new life peers created in recent years. Watson used his maiden speech in the Upper House to apologise to the widow of the late Lord Brittan, whose home was raided by police after claims that he was involved in the confected Westminster paedophile controversy – a cause which Watson eagerly promoted. However, while such an apology is no doubt appreciated by some, others

Melanie McDonagh

Should it be a crime to pray outside an abortion clinic?

When MPs backed the enforcement of ‘buffer zones’ around abortion clinics, there were warnings that the measure might backfire. Two months on from that vote, those consequences are now clear for all to see. The director of an anti-abortion group is facing prosecution after praying in front of an abortion clinic in Birmingham. Isabel Vaughan-Spruce of UK March for Life is accused of breaching a public space protection order – but she insists she was only exercising her freedom of religion ‘inside the privacy of my own mind’. Vaughan-Spruce is not accused of harassing anyone. The 45-year-old simply said a prayer inside an exclusion zone. It’s come to something, hasn’t

Cindy Yu

Was Zelensky’s visit to the US a success?

8 min listen

On this special podcast, Cindy Yu speaks to Svitlana Morenets, author of The Spectator’s Ukraine in Focus newsletter. Whilst Zelensky’s visit to the US yesterday was his first trip outside Ukraine since the start of the invasion, Svitlana has recently arrived home for the first time since the war began to spend Christmas with her family. They discuss whether Zelensky struck the right tone, how decisive US Patriot missiles could be and why this Christmas in Ukraine will be different. Produced by Cindy Yu and Oscar Edmondson.

Lucy Dunn

Wes Streeting’s NHS vision doesn’t go far enough

The NHS is facing an existential crisis, the shadow health secretary Wes Streeting said last week. The health service needs to ‘reform or die’. Cue the backlash. How do we keep medical students in the UK without inadvertently funding doctors for other countries? Sam Tarry, the recently-deselected Labour MP, expressed ‘dismay’ over his colleague’s comments on the health service, while Diane Abbott has warned her Twitter followers that Streeting is ‘trying to push for a privatised/insurance-based NHS’. After his remarks, the shadow health secretary admitted that he was now out of favour with several of his Labour party colleagues, but said he had received ‘some kind words from unexpected sources’

Steerpike

Watch: Zelensky receives standing ovation in Congress

Standing ovations in Congress these days aren’t what they used to be: the annual State of the Union is little more than an applause-fest peppered. But there was a rare exception last night in the House of Representatives when congressmen on both sides of the aisle joined together to welcome Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to Washington DC on his first overseas visit since Russia’s invasion in February. Sporting his trademark khaki sweater, Zelensky told Congress and the American people that Ukraine is ‘alive and kicking’ and ‘will never surrender’. He pledged there would be ‘no compromises’ in trying to bring an end to the war and that aid to Ukraine is

Ross Clark

Britain’s worrying industrial decline

Economic growth is the third quarter was known to be depressed, but the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has this morning upped its estimate of the retreat in GDP for the third quarter, from a fall of 0.2 per cent to a drop of 0.3 per cent. That need not be too alarming in itself – September was always going to be a difficult month owing to the period of mourning for the Queen and the extra bank holiday for her funeral. The ONS has already reported its first estimate that growth in October rebounded by 0.5 per cent. But it is the detail which is more concerning. While the

Wednesday

21 Dec 2022

Katja Hoyer

How does the EU solve a problem like Qatar?

Can the EU afford to snub Qatar? The corruption scandal engulfing the European Parliament centres around allegations that the Gulf state gave bribes in exchange for influence and favour at the European Parliament. But if the EU cleans up this problem by distancing itself from Qatar, it might have a serious, potentially even larger, dilemma on its hands. The war in Ukraine, sky-high inflation, the energy crisis and internal divisions have already shaken the very foundations of the EU. With four suspects, including Eva Kaili, a vice president of the European Parliament, now being held on charges of corruption and money laundering, what has been dubbed ‘Qatargate’ may push the

Steerpike

Tories clash over planning applications

Ding, ding, ding! In the blue corner, it’s Joy Morrissey, government whip and the Tory member for Beaconsfield. And, er, in the other blue corner, it’s Simon Clarke, fellow Conservative MP and representative for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland. The cause of today’s metaphorical bout? Planning and the thorny issue of where to build much-needed new homes. Conservative MPs have often faced accusations of talking a good game on such issues, only to then turn around and block developments when they occur in or around their own local patch. Recent examples could include Maria Miller and Theresa Villiers, both of whom backed an amendment this month to scrap housing targets

Andrew Tettenborn

Is Eric Zemmour’s court defeat something to celebrate?

Éric Zemmour is an old-style reactionary France-first politician, a little in the mould of the interwar Charles Maurras. Though unceremoniously blindsided by Marine Le Pen in the 2022 Présidentielles, he should not be written off yet. But this week Zemmour suffered a setback: the European Court of Human Rights rejected his appeal over a conviction for ‘inciting discrimination and religious hatred’ for comments targeting French Muslims. Zemmour’s opponents are celebrating – but the verdict suggests the Strasbourg court can be selective in the rights it chooses to back, and those it doesn’t. The row stems from a TV interview Zemmour gave back in September 2016, in which Zemmour was promoting

Cindy Yu

Ambulance strikes: who will blink first?

10 min listen

Today tens of thousands of ambulance workers are on strike over a pay dispute. The government is calling on people to stay safe, avoid doing anything dangerous and only call 999 if essential. With patient safety at risk, where is public opinion? Also on the podcast, after the high court ruled the government’s controversial Rwanda policy to be legal, is the judgement a complete win for the government? Cindy Yu speaks to Katy Balls and James Heale. Produced by Cindy Yu and Oscar Edmondson.

Steerpike

Is it time to jail Jeremy Clarkson?

Where would we be without Jeremy Clarkson? The motor-mouth petrol-head is the unlikely saviour of Twitter addicts this Christmas, giving ever-online politicos the change to proclaim their utter disgust at his now-removed Sun column about Meghan Markle. Clarkson has now apologised for saying how he’d like to see the Duchess of Sussex being paraded through the streets and compared her to serial killer Rose West. Even Clarkson’s daughter denounced him. It’s not an analogy that first came to mind for Steerpike, but it’s a free country – isn’t it? Unfortunately we saw something else in the reaction to Clarkson: a desire to jail him, or at very least invent a

Hannah Tomes

Steve Barclay’s ambulance blame game isn’t working

Thousands of ambulance staff across England and Wales have walked out today in a dispute largely concerning pay rises. Members of the Unison, Unite and GMB unions will not be responding to emergency callouts unless they’re of the highest ‘category one’ calls, which cover immediately life-threatening conditions such as cardiac arrest. In most areas, ambulance staff will still attend ‘category two’ calls for strokes, heart attacks and ailments of that ilk, but they will be decided on a case-by-case basis. Health Secretary Steve Barclay wrote, in an article for the Daily Telegraph this morning, that ‘ambulance unions have taken a conscious choice to inflict harm on patients’. But in a

Steerpike

Now even Saint Jacinda snubs Meghan

Are the wokest couple in all the West losing their star power? The first-half of the Sussexes’ new ‘explosive’ documentary attracted less than a million viewers in the 332-million strong USA, with one critic remarking ‘If I were Netflix, I’d want my money back.’ Meghan’s planned animated series Pearl has already been binned. And now even the right-on Jacinda Ardern has distanced herself from the runaway royals and their latest paean to progressivism. The New Zealand premier issued a statement last night, couched in diplomatic niceties, insisting that her involvement in an upcoming Netflix documentary series was not connected to the couple. Ardern is among seven ‘extraordinary leaders’ being interviewed

Stephen Daisley

What Sturgeon’s Gender Recognition Act could mean for England

One of the fundamental flaws in the Scottish devolution settlement set up by Labour and radically expanded by the Tories is the ability for policy divergence in Scotland to impact on the rest of the UK. The Gender Recognition Reform Bill, on the cusp of being passed by the Scottish parliament, might prove an object lesson. The Bill overhauls the process by which a person obtains a gender recognition certificate (GRC). This is the document which recognises an applicant’s gender identity in place of their biological sex. For example, a male who identifies as female and acquires a GRC becomes female in the eyes of the law. The Bill being

Theo Hobson

Meghan Markle and the uncomfortable truth about Britain

I’m not defending Harry and Meghan. But I think they deserve some credit, for they have put the British character under the spotlight as never before in our times. Of course, it’s mainly Meghan who has done this. Through being boldly herself, she has raised the question of who we are. How are we different from the Californian culture she belongs to, which is the dominant form of western culture? In some ways it’s obvious – we have a monarchy for a start. But she has exposed a lot of the underlying stuff that makes us different. And she forces us to ask: can we affirm this stuff? Can we

Tuesday

20 Dec 2022

Gray Sergeant

Why is India covering up clashes with China in the Himalayas?

For more than 20 years the West ignored China’s militarisation of the South China Sea. Until, that is, it was too late. Now, after being artificially expanded and built out with sand, the islands of this crucial maritime space are dotted with Chinese missile systems and runways. The region’s smaller nations, who also lay claim to sections of this sea, can only protest in vain. Will the Free World learn from the mistakes of history? Beijing is now trying to redraw the map across the Himalayas, most recently in Arunachal Pradesh, a territory in North-eastern India that China claims as ‘South Tibet’. Last week, Chinese and Indian troops clashed in the

James Heale

Five things we learnt from Sunak’s liaison committee grilling

‘Nothing has changed’ – the words of Theresa May could have been tattooed on Rishi Sunak’s forehead this afternoon. Appearing before the liaison committee for the first time, the new Prime Minister sought to convey an impression of authority. He deliberately tried to downplay issues of potential conflict like a second independence referendum and rigidly stuck to the government line on strikes and spending restraint. Sunak made much of his inexperience – dropping in several references to only having held the premiership for seven weeks – and ducking a question from Joanna Cherry on leaving the European Convention on Human Rights by saying he ‘wasn’t in government’ at the time

Lucy Jackson

Why should my student paper report on an anti-trans documentary?

Journalists and editors make decisions every day about what stories to report and what to skip. That’s not just because there isn’t enough time, or enough staff, to report on everything. They also prioritise what they, or their publication, believe is most important, or interesting, to their readers. This is especially true for publications with a specific audience, like Edinburgh University’s Student newspaper, where I am editor. My decision not to report on Adult Human Female, a documentary due to be shown at my university by campaigners and academics who might call themselves ‘gender critical’, sparked something of a backlash. I was labelled a fascist, an enemy of free speech, ‘the

Fraser Nelson

How Britain (narrowly) avoided lockdown last Christmas

Exactly a year ago today, the cabinet met to decide whether or not to lock down to tackle Omicron. At the time, published Sage documents had outlined a range of 600 to 6,000 daily deaths unless more action was taken. Recalling the anniversary, I had an interesting exchange with Graham Medley, who chaired the SPI-M modelling committee that fed into Sage. ‘We obviously made sure that the people we were talking to did understand,’ he told me. That raises the prospect that a subset of people may have been briefed that Sage was discarding real-world South African data on the mildness of Omicron – so its ‘scenarios’ could bear no