Politics

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

Sunday

Steerpike Steerpike

What is wrong with Kamala Harris?

The concerns about Joe Biden’s age and cognitive faculties are well established. And if Biden has to step down, we all know what comes next: his vice-president Kamala Harris will become Commander-in-Chief. But is Harris all there herself? Some clips from this week of her trying to excite children about science suggest the answer is no. Yikes. What is going on there? Is Kamala Harris, er, high? Harris was speaking to the children as part of her role as Chair of the National Space Council. She certainly sounds spaced. The full video is even more jarring to watch: A charitable explanation might be that she is trying too hard to sound

Henry Hill

Will the National Insurance hike weaken the Union?

Given the enormous power that Conservative leaders wield within the party, it is not surprising that the party should come to take on the character of its leaders. In the case of Boris Johnson, it is his protean quality that seems to have rubbed off. Where a previous leader might have had a policy agenda or ideology, today’s Tories have cheery slogans which can mean almost anything. Thus in the course of half a dozen recent Tory conference events one will have heard at least that many different definitions of ‘levelling up’, while the big corporate lobbies and third sector groups insist that whatever they normally talk about is absolutely essential

Saturday

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

A global corporation tax is a terrible mistake

International cooperation is alive and well – at least when it comes to raising taxes. One hundred and thirty six countries have now signed up to a global minimum corporation tax of 15 per cent, proposed by G7 countries in June and pushed heavily by the UK Treasury. This is another step forward for what is thought to be the biggest overhaul to the international tax system in a century. The installation of a corporate tax floor is part of a comprehensive effort to reform how multinational companies are taxed: that is, to more precisely target where profits are being made (instead of where products are being created). ​​Firms with

Steerpike Steerpike

Hartlepool MP’s parting gift for taxpayers

The name of Mike Hill doesn’t count for much in Labour circles these days. The former MP for Hartlepool was forced to quit the Commons in March after breaching Parliament’s sexual misconduct policy, triggering a by-election which saw the Tories take the seat for the first time since 1959.  Then four months later he was reported to be facing a possible criminal inquiry after an employment tribunal ruled that he repeatedly sexually assaulted and harassed a parliamentary staff member before victimising her when she refused his advances. Now there’s one final sting in the tail for Hill’s long-suffering constituents. A bill for £6,000 for ‘bought-in services’ from Hudgell Solicitors has just been published by IPSA, which regulates MPs expense

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

A matter of Truss: the unlikely rise of Lizmania

If Boris Johnson were to vanish tomorrow, who should replace him? The American pollster Frank Luntz asked this of about 200 people at The Spectator’s live podcast last week, and the answer was Liz Truss. This took me by surprise – I’d have said Rishi Sunak – but there’s no doubting the Lizmania that was in the air in Manchester.  The new Foreign Secretary was pulling in the crowds, flirting with the right-wing think tanks (it’s time for her to be ‘reinfected with sound ideas’ she told them) posing for selfies and – later, in the nightclubs – dancing with her army of admirers. Her events were the ones with the

Friday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Tories will pay a price for Boris’s housing strategy

One of the themes of Conservative conference was that the government has dropped plans for a radical reform of the planning system, which was designed to get more houses built in the south east. Both Boris Johnson and the new party chairman Oliver Dowden were keen to stress this point. But, I say in the Times today, this is a mistake. The Tories are the party of the property-owning democracy, and live and die by this The Tories have been spooked by the Chesham and Amersham by-election where the Liberal Democrats ran hard against planning reform and took the seat on a 25 per cent swing from the Tories. Boris Johnson

Matthew Lynn

Matthew Lynn, Tanya Gold, James Innes-Smith

13 min listen

On this week’s episode, we’ll hear Matthew Lynn’s thoughts on how the gas shortages could lead to a very cold winter. (00:51) Then, Tanya Gold with a critical take on critics. (04:41) And finally, James Innes-Smith bigs up the bungalow. (08:58) Presented by Sam Holmes

Steerpike Steerpike

MPs let down by Parliament’s dodgy lifts

Whether it’s reports of fire, asbestos, falling stonework, creaking sewers or dodgy electrics, the dilapidated state of the Palace of Westminster is all too well known. After years of dither and delay, work has belatedly begun on a Restoration and Renewal programme to bring Parliament into the twentieth century – and thereafter (hopefully) into the twenty-first. Among the projects currently being undertaken is an overhaul of the notoriously unreliable parliamentary lifts. Slow, creaky and installed well before existing safety legislation, the elevators are being replaced as part of a two phase strategy which will see £5.05 million spent on refurbishing 11 lifts identified as a priority by the end of 2022 and then

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Will the housing U-turn hurt the Tories?

12 min listen

The former housing secretary, Robert Jenrick delivered a warning to his former colleagues in government yesterday that a failure to build new homes will cost the Conservatives down the line. Cindy Yu is joined by James Forsyth and Katy Balls to discuss this, as well as the update to Covid holiday restrictions and the sad passing of James Brokenshire.

Steerpike Steerpike

Corbyn cleared by sleaze watchdog

Two years ago life seemed so sweet for Jeremy Corbyn. The magic Grandpa was the leader of a Labour party that was just three points behind in the polls, heading into a snap election which his devoted cheerleaders thought would sweep him into power.  Now though, all that has changed. Stripped of his party whip, embarrassed by his brother Piers, facing loss in his Islington safe seat and eclipsed in the affections of his party’s left-wing, Jezza must be wondering if it was all worth it. Still, Mr S can bring news of one ray of light for the septuagenarian socialist. Corbyn was cleared yesterday by Parliament’s sleaze watchdog following allegations he did not properly

Amber Athey

Anti-vaxxers and dodgy Democrats: Donald Trump interviewed

The Spectator’s Washington editor interviewed Donald Trump this week. The full article will appear shortly, but here is an excerpt of their conversation: On the FBI going after parents who protest against critical race theory Amber Athey: I’d love to get your reaction to Attorney General Merrick Garland mobilising the FBI against parents who oppose CRT at local school board meetings. Donald Trump: Well, I’m very surprised that he’d do it. The local boards have gone out of their way to really take over the school system and to do things that a lot of the parents disagree with — I would say almost all of the parents disagree with.

Andrew Tettenborn

Poland’s top court has finally called the EU’s bluff

For many years, the EU has posed as a kind of overbearing imperial leviathan, which insists its law has to prevail over that of the states that make it up. Now its bluff appears to have finally been called: the Polish constitutional court in Warsaw ruled yesterday that some EU laws are in conflict with the country’s constitution. Understandably, Brussels is not happy. But what can it do about it? The background to all this is a spat between Brussels and Warsaw about whether Poland’s machinery for appointing judges to its own courts is EU-compliant. Brussels says it is not, because under it judicial impartiality cannot be guaranteed. This, it says, is contrary to EU

Katy Balls Katy Balls

The Dehenna Davison Edition

31 min listen

Dehenna Davison is the MP for Bishop Auckland, and a rising star in Boris Johnson’s 2019 ‘red wall’ intake. On this episode, recorded just after Conservative party conference, Dehenna tells Katy about what it was like to lose her father to a pub brawl so young, getting her work marked in Latin by Jacob Rees-Mogg and her plans to go to a Taylor Swift concert with the Foreign Secretary Liz Truss.

Thursday

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Is Boris back in business?

10 min listen

Although Boris won over the audience during his conference speech, the opinion polls might say otherwise. Starmer’s voice of reason could be starting to resonate with the public as the cost of living continues to rise. Underlying tensions with businesses are also still bubbling. Are they really to blame for labour shortages? And what now is the biggest threat facing the Tories?  Cindy Yu speaks to Katy Balls and James Forsyth.

Steerpike Steerpike

Vote: who is top dog in Westminster?

‘If you want a friend’ growled Michael Douglas in Wall Street ‘get a dog.’ Gordon Gekko’s words about the fierce world of finance could just as well apply to the dog-eat-dog world of Westminster, where young pups and old hounds scrap to be top dog. And it seems quite a few MPs have followed the example of the fictitious banker, judging by the number of entries to this month’s Westminster Dog of the Year competition. The much-loved award is hosted by the Kennel Club and Dogs Trust and aims to highlight the ‘unique role dogs play in society’ and provide MPs with the opportunity to raise canine-related issues. It will be the

Ross Clark Ross Clark

It’s no wonder young people have ‘eco-anxiety’

Is it any wonder that children and young adults are going down with ‘eco-anxiety’ , as claimed in an opinion piece in the BMJ this week? One of the pieces of evidence it cites is a survey published in 2020, which claimed that 57 per cent of child psychiatrists had dealt with patients who were feeling anxious about climate change. It would be easy to dismiss this as another case of the ‘snowflake generation’ lacking the toughness of their forebears. But even if it is true that earlier generations of children, such as those brought up during the second world war, seemed to cope much better with the genuine threat

Lara Prendergast Lara Prendergast

Power grab: who’s hoarding all the gas?

38 min listen

In this week’s episode: with the energy crisis picking up pace who are set to be the winners and losers in this cold war for gas? Domestically we are seeing queues for petrol, rising gas prices all in the face of the Government’s net-zero agenda. And internationally things are looking just as turbulent, with China buying up as much fuel as possible, America becoming more isolationist when it comes to its energy supply, and Russia feeling more powerful in its place thanks to its Nord Stream 2 pipeline. These are the issues that Seb Kennedy, the founding editor of Energy Flux, addresses in his cover piece this week for The Spectator.

Steerpike Steerpike

Home Office in drug crackdown hypocrisy

Since being appointed to the post of Home Secretary, Priti Patel has made her distaste for drugs clear. During the past two years the Witham MP has accompanied police on house raids, deported foreign dealers, declared war on ‘county lines’ gangs and threatened ‘tough action’ on laughing gas.  There have been repeated departmental briefings to newspapers about crackdowns on ‘middle class drug-users,’ with Patel herself telling broadcasters that ‘there’s no such thing as dabbling in drugs, these are serious offences’ – a statement which presumably caused some discomfort among certain ministerial colleagues. Her rapturously received address to the Tory faithful on Tuesday highlighted the Home Office’s anti-drugs crusade once again. Patel railed against narcotics for being ‘responsible for the