Politics

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

The SNP’s useless land revolution

Few would argue that Scotland’s present pattern of land tenure is ideal. Around half of private land is owned by fewer than 500 individuals, corporates or pension funds. The vast estates date from two centuries ago when landlords, often clan chiefs, expelled the Scottish peasantry from their villages in the interests of ‘improvement’ – mainly to create sheep walks, deer-hunting estates or, latterly, forestry. Had we had a French Revolution, landed estates might have been broken up. But we didn’t, and they weren’t. The idea that a group of pen-pushers in Edinburgh is going to create a new generation of small private landholdings is fanciful As a result, the Scottish

Jonathan Sacerdoti

The looming threat to Israel

In the aftermath of war, a new front opens. Not in the ruins of Gaza’s cities, but in the corridors of diplomacy, where maps are redrawn with words and allegiances. Israel now finds itself encircled not by tanks but by treaties, resolutions, and incentives: a web of international manoeuvres that promises ‘stability’ while redefining the terms of its own strategic freedom. At the centre of this recalibration is the United States, whose post-conflict blueprint projects a pacified region steered by pragmatism, compromise, and multilateral oversight. But beneath the rhetoric of reconstruction lies a more perilous logic: one that treats deterrence as destabilising, ambiguity as maturity, and the survival instincts of

Michael Day

Is is too soon to say the truth about Dick Cheney?

Long before Donald Trump arrived on the political scene to warp all international diplomacy and finance around him, there were US administrations creating greater calamities. George W Bush’s first government, from 2001 to 2005, was one of them. Dubya wasn’t a sleazy grifter or a weapons grade narcissist. But on his watch the United States did, with its war on Iraq, bring chaos to the Middle East and spark an explosion of Islamic terrorism for which we’re still paying the price. Cheney was a man devoid of empathy, who used US superpower to slay hundreds of thousands of people and smash things Of course, the Iraq invasion wasn’t his idea.

Michael Gove

Q&A: Boris, Cameron or May? Plus, our most left-wing beliefs revealed

35 min listen

To submit your urgent questions to Michael and Maddie, go to: spectator.co.uk/quiteright This week on the first ever Quite right! Q&A: What’s your most left-wing belief? Michael & Maddie confess their guilty liberal secrets on the Elgin Marbles, prison reform and private equity – or ‘the unacceptable face of capitalism’. Also this week: who would you trust to save your life on a desert island – Boris Johnson, Theresa May or David Cameron? And finally, a literary turn: from John Donne to Thomas Hardy, Michael and Maddie share their favourite poems, and make the case for learning verse by heart. Produced by Oscar Edmondson.

Yesterday

6 Nov 2025

Oscar Edmondson

Why energy is the new political battleground

12 min listen

With three weeks until the Budget, the main political parties have been setting out their economic thinking. Each faces the same bind: anaemic growth, fiscal constraints and uncomfortable exposure to the bond markets. The upshot is that there is less ‘clear blue water’ on the economy between Labour, the Conservatives and Reform. This has left a space for energy to emerge as the policy area in which to differentiate the parties in this new era of five-party politics. The Westminster energy consensus is over – Net Zero is not as popular as it once was – and the parties are setting out their stalls. Could energy win the next election?

Ian Acheson

The real reason prisoners keep being accidentally released

You’d need a heart of stone not to feel sympathy for Alex Davies-Jones. Labour’s minister for victims was on human sandbag duty for the Justice Secretary David Lammy this morning – tasked with explaining to the media why there had been another two accidental releases of convicted prisoners. The fact these blunders came only days after an another illegal migrant sex offender was released instead of deported was difficult enough to defend. But her response – which amounted to some waffle about sending in ‘tech experts’ – might make Lammy reconsider deploying junior ministers who seem to know even less about our chaotic penal system than he does. If David

Eliot Wilson

Is the British Army right to invest in new battle tanks?

It is a distinct career advantage in Sir Keir Starmer’s government for ambitious ministers to be able to shut unpalatable truths out of their minds and maintain a tone of blind, unwavering optimism. Luke Pollard, the minister for defence readiness and industry, showed those qualities this week on a visit to the General Dynamics UK factory in Merthyr Tydfil. Pollard was in south Wales to announce the achievement of ‘initial operating capability’ for the Ajax armoured fighting vehicle, one of the British Army’s three principal platforms for the forthcoming decades. ‘Ajax has proved itself in the field to be the most advanced medium-weight armoured fighting vehicle on the planet,’ Pollard

Lisa Haseldine

Is Germany ready for military service?

It’s finally crunch time for Boris Pistorius’s plan to reintroduce military service in Germany. Following a delay of several months thanks to the country’s snap federal election campaign at the start of the year, the defence minister’s new ‘Modernisation of Military Service’ draft law is currently being debated in Berlin. Under Pistorius’s proposals, all 18-year-olds will be asked to complete a questionnaire that will gauge their willingness and ability to carry out military service. For men, the quiz will be compulsory; for ‘other genders’ – including women – it will be optional. Those who declare themselves willing to serve will be invited for a formal assessment for recruitment into the

Michael Simmons

The Bank of England blames Rachel Reeves for pushing up prices

The Bank of England has held interest rates at four per cent. The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) voted five to four in favour of maintaining the rate. There had been some speculation that the Bank might consider a cut to pre-empt some of the harshest measures expected in this month’s Budget, but the rate-setting committee chose to align with market expectations, which had widely anticipated a hold. Alongside the rates announcement, the MPC released their quarterly Monetary Policy Report which set the blame for inflation squarely at the Chancellor’s door. ‘Unusually large increases in administered price, such as Vehicle Excise Duty, and sewerage charges, are currently estimated to account for

Joanna Marchong

Does Farage know the difference between populism and a plan?

Gathered beneath the marble columns of the old Banking Hall in the City of London, Nigel Farage did what he does best. He assembled journalists, lobbyists, wonks and a few business representatives for another hour of gesticulations and clarifications. But this time was slightly different; here, there was talk of sensible reform alongside the usual messaging. Talk of ‘common-sense economics’, nods to tax, promises to put ‘Britain first’. Plenty of sound rhetoric, yes. But precious little sound policy. Reform shouldn’t be a party of loud statements, here-today-gone-tomorrow policies and U-turns We left with a similar sense of deja vu: bold themes, grim but correct forecasts about Britain’s economic decay and little

Andrew Tettenborn

Who cares if the Huntingdon train hero is an immigrant?

When a maniac ran amok on a train near Huntingdon on Saturday, train steward Samir Zitouni put his life on the line. Zitouni bravely blocked the attacker from stabbing a girl, leaving him with a gash on his head and neck. The railway worker remains critically unwell in hospital. His family say they are ‘immensely proud of Sam and his courage’. They’re right to be: Zitouni saved numerous lives. Whether or not Zitouni is an immigrant isn’t clear – and nor does it matter But as Zitouni, who has worked for LNER for more than 20 years, recovers in hospital following the brutal attack, he is being used by some

Stephen Daisley

Zohran Mamdani will not be a radical mayor

Zohran Mamdani’s election as mayor of New York City has prompted triumphalism in his supporters and despondency among his detractors. Depending on your political proclivities, the Big Apple is about to become one of two things: a revolutionary utopia where New Yorkers City-Bike from their socialised studio apartments to their worker-owned creativity pods, stopping off in Times Square to catch the latest proceedings of the People’s Tribunal on Landlordism and Transphobia, or an Islamo-Marxist caliphate in which Wall Street is nationalised, the Statue of Liberty draped in a burqa and the NYPD merged with Hezbollah. At risk of spoiling everyone’s fun, I’d like to offer a prediction: Mamdani will not

Ross Clark

The taxman is coming for your electric car

Sooner or later it is going to dawn on the drivers of electric cars that they have been benefitting from a huge introductory free offer. As EVs become more commonplace, that offer is going to come to an end, and the economics of running these cars is going to look very different. Not even the government’s green zealotry, it seems, is going to stop the Chancellor imposing a new charge of three pence per mile on electric cars – presumably charged via an annual read of the car’s odometer when it has its MOT (although it is less clear how the government will collect the money in a vehicle’s first

Lara Brown

Labour has surrendered to the quangocracy

After 16 months of this Labour government, it’s easy to catalogue the litany of bad decisions made by ministers. The disastrous budget that caused an uptick in unemployment. The tax imposed on family farms passed down through generations. Or the Education Secretary’s latest attempts to sabotage decades of successful policy. Yet often overlooked, are the pains that Labour have gone to in the last year to ensure they aren’t making decisions at all. One aide famously said of the Prime Minister: ‘Keir’s not driving the train. He thinks he’s driving the train, but we’ve sat him at the front of the DLR.’ Not content with simply offloading the business of

Lara Prendergast

Trump’s gilded age, the ‘hell’ of polyamory & is Polanski Britain’s Mamdani?

31 min listen

A year on from his presidential election victory, what lessons can Britain learn from Trump II? Tim Shipman writes this week’s cover piece from Washington D.C., considering where Keir Starmer can ‘go big’ like President Trump. Both leaders face crunch elections next year, but who has momentum behind them? There is also the question of who will replace Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the United States. Can Starmer find a candidate who can get the Americans on side? Host Lara Prendergast is joined by The Spectator’s political editor Tim Shipman, features editor Will Moore and commissioning editor Mary Wakefield. As well as the cover, they discuss Mary’s piece urging us

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Train stabbing attack, Mamdani takes New York and the Andrew formerly known as prince

Home The King ‘initiated a formal process to remove the Style, Titles and Honours of Prince Andrew’, who is now known as Mr Andrew Mountbatten Windsor; his lease on Royal Lodge, Windsor, was relinquished and he made a private arrangement with the King to live on the Sandringham estate. His former wife, Sarah Ferguson, will find her own accommodation. Their daughters remain Princess Eugenie and Princess Beatrice. Richard Gott, who resigned as literary editor of the Guardian in 1994 after The Spectator accused him of having been in the pay of the KGB, died aged 87. Gopichand Hinduja, the head of Britain’s richest family, died aged 85. Eleven people were

James Heale

Energy is the new political battleground

With three weeks until the Budget, the main political parties have been setting out their economic thinking. Each faces the same bind: anaemic growth, fiscal constraints and uncomfortable exposure to the bond markets. The upshot is that there is less ‘clear blue water’ on the economy between Labour, the Conservatives and Reform. Even Sir Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, irritated some colleagues by appearing to suggest he would raise income tax if he were in Rachel Reeves’s shoes at his party’s conference. ‘It’s a good job no one is listening to us,’ jokes a fellow frontbencher. If the economy is less of a dividing line in British politics, what might

Charles Moore

The rudeness of Reform

Critics see Rachel Reeves as betraying her election manifesto tax promises; but she may well be trying ‘The Lady’s Not for Turning’ gambit. Her speech from Downing Street delivered before the markets opened on Tuesday, resembled – in content, if not in style – Margaret Thatcher’s 1980 party conference speech. In both cases, the incoming government had failed to get public spending and borrowing under control. (Indeed, government borrowing costs then were 6 per cent of GDP, compared with a mere 5.1 per cent today.) Also in both cases, the government sought simultaneously to go against earlier promises not to raise taxes, yet to do so in the name of

Andrew Gimson

Is Zack Polanski our Zohran Mamdani?

Like Zohran Mamdani in New York, Zack Polanski offers the thrill of cost-free rebellion. Mamdani leapt to prominence at the end of June by unexpectedly winning the Democratic party nomination in the New York mayoral race, and doing so as an avowed socialist who claims that by taxing the rich he will relieve ‘the despair in working-class Americans’ lives’. Polanski has made waves since the start of September as the new leader of the Green party of England and Wales, using a rhetoric calculated to appeal to left-wing activists, while proclaiming himself the champion of plumbers and hairdressers. He has conjured up an alliance between utopian socialists like himself and

Tim Shipman

Gilded age: the lessons from Trump’s second term

Washington, D.C. When John Swinney, the SNP leader, and Peter Mandelson visited Donald Trump in the Oval Office a few months ago, the President showed them three different models for his planned renovation of the East Wing of the White House, which he has demolished to build a new ballroom. ‘If you’re going to do it,’ Scotland’s First Minister suggested, ‘you might as well go big.’ This Wednesday marked one year since Trump’s election victory, and going big captures the essence of his second term – bold and controversial moves, which have impressed even British politicians who thought him reckless in his first term. When Trump visited Chequers on his

Wednesday

5 Nov 2025

Tim Shipman

The most bizarre PMQs ever

15 min listen

In a crowded field, today’s could have been the most bizarre PMQs ever. From David Lammy pronouncing ‘I am the Justice Secretary’ as if it were an affirmation to be chanted in the bathroom mirror, to the wild hair on display on both benches, it surely takes the mantle of parliament at its most ridiculous – and that’s not to mention the story that another convict has escaped from prison. Has David Lammy got a grip on mistaken prison release? And – more importantly – does he have the support of his colleagues? James Heale speaks to Tim Shipman and Isabel Hardman. Produced by Oscar Edmondson.

Madeline Grant

Calamity Lammy had no answers on the wandering Algerian

One of the things we ought to consider more in judging politicians is whether they add to the gaiety of the nations. Does Kemi Badenoch? Alas no. Does Ed Davey? He thinks he does but doesn’t. Does Sir Keir Starmer add to the gaiety of nations? Actually, probably best not to answer that. Labour’s front bench are a uniquely humourless lot; generally the cabinet look like the finalists of a lemon-sucking competition. One exception, who brings a sort of high-grade bumbling to everything he does, is David Lammy. Whether it is his infamous Mastermind appearance or the time he said he couldn’t see any police whilst standing in front of a policeman,

Matthew Lynn

The Bank of England won’t risk bailing Rachel Reeves out

After yet another dreadful week, the Chancellor Rachel Reeves must be praying the Bank of England helps her out by cutting interest rates tomorrow. It would reduce the huge amount of interest the government has to pay, it would put more money in people’s pockets, and it might even stimulate growth. The trouble is, the Bank’s governor, Andrew Bailey, can’t afford to bail Reeves out of the hole she has dug for herself. If the Bank does, it will be risking its independence. Even the City’s experts have no clear idea what the Bank will decide on interest rates this week. The markets have priced in a one in three

Douglas Murray

New York is not the city that Mamdani pretends it is

There is an unhappy history of left-wing Britons getting involved in US elections. Back in 2004, the Guardian organised a letter-writing campaign, urging voters in the swing state of Ohio not to re-elect George W. Bush. The good people of Ohio didn’t take kindly to a bunch of Islingtonians telling them how to vote, and although the Guardian’s campaign probably can’t be given all the credit, the voters of Ohio duly went to the polls and swung firmly behind Bush. One wishes that Sadiq Khan’s intervention in this week’s New York mayoral election might have had a similar result. Interviewed shortly before Zohran Mamdani was elected, the mayor of London praised the Democratic