Politics

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

Monday

Andrew Tettenborn

Will Nadhim Zahawi win his fight against ‘the Blob’?

Nadhim Zahawi’s recent reminder to schools to keep their teaching politically neutral seems like common sense. The Education Secretary pointed to existing laws to show that while uncritical promotion of BLM ideology or climate activism to children wasn’t acceptable, controversial matters could still be taught with proper balance. But there were still predictable howls of protest from the usual quarters.  Hope not Hate accused the government of obsessing about ‘culture wars’. Amnesty International complained of a sinister chilling effect on classroom speech on current affairs and children’s loss of ‘safe spaces’. The NEU, Britain’s largest teaching union, said issuing warnings about class discussion of climate change, racism, poverty and the legacy of empire could decrease students’ engagement.

Steerpike Steerpike

Sadiq lets the mask slip

Sadiq Khan had a jolly old time this weekend. First, the £152,000-a-year mayor got to watch Liverpool beat Norwich for free at Anfield on Saturday. And then, hours later, he received another complimentary ticket to watch the boxing at the Manchester Arena, where his friend and namesake Amir Khan was battered by northerner Kell Brook.  But while all eyes were on the ring, Mr S couldn’t help but notice in the excitement that the London mayor had removed his face mask to watch the fight, despite being in a crowd of some 20,000 roaring boxing fans. Ticket-sellers had previously told those applying that ‘face masks must be worn throughout the performance’ – a

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Will Boris Johnson’s big week be undone by partygate?

When Boris Johnson gave an interview on Sunday to the BBC’s Sophie Raworth, he was not keen to talk about partygate – refusing to do so 17 times – but he did want to make hay with his plan to end all legally-binding Covid restrictions in the coming days. At the end of the interview, the Prime Minister said that while the pandemic was not over, it was time for the nation to ‘get back to work’. Johnson is far more keen to talk tough on Ukraine than address his domestic problems As MPs return to Westminster after a week’s break, Johnson and his team hope to rally MPs behind them

Steerpike Steerpike

Restaurant pranksters target Boris and Carrie

It’s been a tough time for Boris and Carrie recently, so what better else than a night on the town? The Prime Minister has grown used to living off a diet of humble pie, so why not make a change and try some fine cuisine instead? For one of Steerpike’s spies spotted on Thursday that the guest book of the much-loved India Club in Covent Garden had a new and intriguing message. The restaurant itself has a rich political history, boasting Lady Mountbatten and Prime Minister Nehru among its founding members some 50 years ago. But now, dotted amongst the various bits of feedback in its records is a heart-adorned missive from one Carrie Johnson. It

Sunday

Steerpike Steerpike

Parents plot counter-strike at top girls’ schools

Picket lines, striking teachers egged on by a left-wing trade union, and children missing out on their education. No, not a chapter from a history of the Winter of Discontent, but rather scenes playing out on the streets of Britain in February 2022. It seems that the bad old days of the inner-city comprehensives in the 1970s are back but with a catch: now they’re playing out at some of the most elite girls’ schools in the country. For Mr S hears that all is not well among the hard-pressed parents of children at the fee-paying Girls’ Day School Trust (GDST), a network of 23 independent schools in England and

Matthew Taylor

Sunday shows round-up: Ukraine could see ‘biggest war in Europe since 1945’

The Prime Minister has been attending the annual Munich Security Conference, where the prospective Russian invasion of Ukraine is very much at the top of the agenda. The BBC’s Sophie Raworth caught up with Boris Johnson yesterday, following a speech he made warning of the disaster that war would bring. Johnson said in the interview that he believed that Vladimir Putin was ready to orchestrate such a crisis at any moment: ‘It is important that people should feel confident again’ Tomorrow, the government is expected to announce its plans to remove all Covid restrictions for England. Raworth asked if this would erode the government’s ability to act decisively if complications

Steerpike Steerpike

Lutfur Rahman expected to launch mayoral bid

Readers with long memories might recall the shambles of Tower Hamlets’ election night in 2014, when the count took more than five days to complete. The man who was re-elected as mayor that day was Lutfur Rahman who, the following year, earned the dubious distinction of being Britain’s first directly elected mayor to be removed after being found guilty of electoral fraud. Rahman was slapped with a five-year ban on standing for elected office after the Election Court reported him to be ‘personally guilty’ of ‘corrupt or illegal practices or both.’ Now though, Rahman’s ban is completed, and his former office is up for grabs in May. And, having first reported that the

Sam Ashworth-Hayes Sam Ashworth-Hayes

Britain is trapped in a Boomerocracy

‘If young Americans knew what was good for them’ the historian Niall Ferguson once remarked, ‘they would all be in the Tea party’. In his first Reith Lecture, Ferguson argued that austerity would be a boon for the young; public debt merely allowed ‘the current generation of voters to live at the expense of those as yet too young to vote or as yet unborn.’ It is certainly true that successive generations in Britain have run up an almighty tab while assuming the next group along will be able to foot the bill. The problem Ferguson neglected to account for was which voters would end up delivering a pro-austerity government into

Saturday

Steerpike Steerpike

Foreign Office squirms on ‘genocide amendment’

‘The job of the Ministry of Agriculture is to look after farmers. The job of the Foreign Office is to look after foreigners.’ Or so jibed Norman Tebbit about Whitehall’s grandest department. In recent months Mr S has covered the antics of the Foreign Office (FCDO) with a cynical eye, as ministers and mandarins have done everything in their power not to offend President Xi Jinping and his lackeys in Beijing. Whether it’s foot-dragging on a boycott of the Winter Olympics or quietly trying to reopen trade talks with China, there’s every sign that in the corridors of power, the spirit of the ‘golden era’ never truly ended. Take poor Amanda

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Is Joe Biden all that bad?

32 min listen

Freddy Gray talks to Dr Julie Norman, lecturer and co-director of the Centre on US politics at University College London, about the case for the defence of the Biden presidency so far.

Steerpike Steerpike

Jeremy Corbyn sides with Russia (again)

Jeremy Corbyn may no longer be Labour leader but he’s still parroting the Kremlin’s lines. It seems like just yesterday the former Leader of the Opposition was accused of siding with Moscow over the Skripal poisonings, having suggested that Novichok samples from the Salisbury attack should be handed over to Russia. Undeterred by the opprobrium he received in 2018, the Islington North MP is one of the usual suspects arguing that the current crisis in Ukraine is the result of – shock, horror! – those dastardly democracies in the West. For Corbyn is part of the gang of hard-left MPs who have signed up to a ludicrously one-sided ‘open letter’ by the ironically-named

Sam Ashworth-Hayes Sam Ashworth-Hayes

What is so enraging about a group of white men?

Pity the poor 41 Club. The last time an image of a group of men eating dinner caused this much trouble, the art world was collectively trying to work out whether any of Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece was left beneath the latest restoration. For those not inducted to social media’s delights, the Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen posted a photo of his dinner with his local branch of the organisation in a very standard piece of constituency engagement. By 7.30 this morning, that photo had been viewed some 5 million times, the count driven up by a torrent of vitriol. Readers might ask exactly what it was about the photo that

Sam Holmes

Katy Balls, Julie Bindel and Douglas Murray

22 min listen

On this week’s episode, we’ll hear from Katy Balls on Labour’s strategy – would Starmer actually prefer Boris Johnson to stay in place? (00:51) Next, Julie Bindel on the rise of lesbian divorce (06:12) And finally, Douglas Murray on the hellish new trend of having to bring your ‘whole self’ to work. (14:00) Produced and presented by Sam Holmes Subscribe to The Spectator today and get a £20 Amazon gift voucher.

Patrick O’Flynn Patrick O'Flynn

Is Rishi Sunak any good at politics?

Is Rishi Sunak any good at politics? In recent days Labour sources have been putting it about that they no longer fear the prospect of the Chancellor stepping up to take over from Boris Johnson if he is forced out by partygate. According to one briefing to the left-wing New Statesman, Keir Starmer’s team has concluded that ‘Little Rishi’ is ‘crap at politics’ after observing his response to the cost-of-living crisis and now thinks that Liz Truss may prove a more formidable successor to Johnson in electoral terms at least. With politics being surpassed only by espionage as a theatre for the use of misinformation and double-bluffs, it may be

Friday

Steerpike Steerpike

Axed Tory whip probed by watchdog

Cheer up Boris: at least there’s one MP having a worse time than you. It’s not been a great February so far for Craig Whittaker. The Tory MP for Calder Valley was just about the only member of the government to lose his job as a Whip last week in Boris Johnson’s mini-reshuffle. The Prime Minister has so many enemies at the moment that he’s reluctant to banish anyone to the backbenches but after nearly five years of loyal service, Whittaker departed as part of an overhaul of the Whips’ Office which saw Chris Heaton-Harris become chief and Chris Pincher named his deputy. In a statement, Whittaker told local press that he was leaving for ‘personal reasons’

Steerpike Steerpike

Former MPs make off with Commons kit

Parliament is notoriously strapped for cash, so why are thousands of pounds being spent on unreturned IT equipment? Mr S has done some digging and Commons bosses have now written off a decent sum on outstanding kit loaned to MPs who either stood down or lost their seat at the 2019 general election. Items which cost the taxpayer more than £5,400 have been written off with iPads, laptops, monitors and a desktop among the equipment which Parliament has failed to retrieve from former members. And that’s not all, for Freedom of Information requests seen by Steerpike show which MPs have grabbed which kit. For instance, Roger Godsiff – the former Labour MP for Birmingham

James Kirkup James Kirkup

State schools and the rise of posh apprenticeships

Recently, a friend forwarded me a letter he’d received from his children’s school, an independent secondary in London, to mark National Apprenticeships Week. The letter set out to parents everything the school was doing to provide children with information, options and contacts to explore apprenticeships, either in combination with or as an alternative to a university degree. The school isn’t household-name famous, but it’s still prestigious, exclusive and, yes, expensive: a year’s fees cost something close to the national average full-time salary. My guess would be that the vast majority of the parents who can cover such fees are themselves university graduates: a degree tends to be a minimum requirement

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Should Boris scrap free Covid tests?

11 min listen

Next week is the end of recess and Boris Johnson is expected to scrap universal access to free Covid tests. What will be the reaction to this? ‘You do have to wonder if tests are the best use of taxpayer’s money given the pressure on the NHS‘ – Fraser Nelson Also on the podcast, the Met Office has told millions to stay at home as Storm Eunice battles across the UK. Could this be another sign of the times? Cindy Yu is joined by Fraser Nelson and Katy Balls

Steerpike Steerpike

The New York Times takes aim at J.K. Rowling

It looks like the New York Times is at it again. In recent years, America’s least-reliable news source has developed a strange view of Britain — or at least since the Brexit vote in 2016. In the NYT’s world, the UK is a desolate place, where locals huddle round bin fires on the streets of London, gnawing on legs of mutton and cavorting in swamps during the summer, ever fearful of the despot Prime Minister, Boris Johnson. Just last month the paper’s international edition ran a front-page comment piece claiming the country would ‘sleepwalk into tyranny’ thanks to our ‘ever more spiteful nationalism.’  Now though it seems the Brit-bashing has a