Politics

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

Friday

Alan Dershowitz

The Ghislaine Maxwell I know

My wife and I were introduced to Ghislaine Maxwell by Sir Evelyn and Lady Lynne de Rothschild, and we subsequently met her on several occasions — generally in the presence of prominent people such as Bill and Hillary Clinton, Nobel Prize-winning scientists, presidents of universities, and prominent academic and business people. We never saw her do anything inappropriate. We knew her only as Jeffrey Epstein’s thirty-something girlfriend. Now she stands accused of serious crimes allegedly committed a quarter of a century ago. Like every other arrested person, she must be presumed innocent. Many in the public however, will presume her guilty because of the portrayal of her in the Netflix

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The looming Tory trade debate

Post-Brexit, the UK needs to find allies on trade liberalisation. One obvious place to look is the Trans-Pacific Trade Partnership. The UK is keen to join this group of 11 countries, as Liz Truss reiterated at a Policy Exchange event this afternoon. The Singaporean trade minister emphasised how keen he would be to see the UK join, and how this would send a message about the role that the UK wishes to play in the world post-Brexit.  Interestingly, he also warned that the government needs to prepare domestic businesses for the change this would bring to prevent any anti-trade backlash. In her remarks, Truss implicitly accepted that there isn’t going

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Will Super Saturday prove a washout?

12 min listen

One day to go until ‘Super Saturday’, when pubs and restaurants in England (except Leicester) will reopen. But polls show that only a small minority of Brits will go back to the pubs. Katy Balls talks to James Forsyth and Fraser Nelson about what this would mean for post-pandemic recovery.

Alastair Stewart

Boris’s TV briefings could end the lobby pantomime

The daily coronavirus briefings from Downing Street were wildly popular by one measure, drawing in millions of viewers, but were they any use? Like them or loathe them, it seems that we will be seeing plenty more of them. Boris Johnson has decided that, from October, the ‘briefings sessions’ should be televised. Journalists and former spin doctors from all sides have been hailing this as a move which will mean more transparency. But we can also expect to see many of the ridiculous stunts that plagued the coronavirus briefings. Political correspondents often asked the same questions, most seeking a ‘gotcha’ moment in relation to something that should have been done sooner,

Steerpike Steerpike

George Osborne lands another job

When George Osborne stepped down as editor of the Evening Standard, it was unlikely the former chancellor was going to fall on hard times. Not only did Osborne have another eight jobs to fall back on, he was handed a plum position by the Standard as its new editor-in-chief. But now, less than a month on from handing over the editorship to David Cameron’s sister-in-law, Osborne has bounced back with a new appointment. Mr S hears the happy news that George Gideon Oliver Osborne has just been appointed as a director of the family business Osborne and Little Limited. Congratulations, George.

Nick Tyrone Nick Tyrone

What Peter Mandelson still doesn’t understand about Brexit

On Tuesday evening at 11 pm, the chance for the UK to extend the Brexit transition with the EU expired. Britain and the EU must come to some sort of deal before the end of 2020 or what amounts to a no-deal Brexit will happen. What is interesting about this is how much a no-deal situation is still being underplayed by many in the government and other parts of the Westminster bubble. What is even more fascinating is the position of several key remainers on this point. Lord Mandelson of Foy and Hartlepool has been doing media interviews this week, all as part of putting out his stall to become the

Katy Balls Katy Balls

The Chloe Smith Edition

27 min listen

Chloe Smith is the Conservative MP for Norwich North and minister at the Cabinet Office. She entered parliament at the age of 27 and rose through the ranks quickly. In 2012, she was interviewed by Jeremy Paxman in what has been described as a ‘car crash interview’ when she was sent out to defend then-Chancellor George Osborne’s U-turn on fuel duty. On the podcast, she talks to Katy about what it was like to do that interview and the aftermath, why she proposed to her husband, and what it was like to receive a fake anthrax package.

Thursday

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Mission Impossible: can Boris Johnson rewire the British government?

39 min listen

The Prime Minister is trying to reform the civil service. He’s not the first to try – so will he succeed? (00:50) The stakes for success are high, as his opponent is no longer Jeremy Corbyn, but the more impressive Keir Starmer. How have Starmer’s first almost 100 days gone? (15:45) And last, how widespread is loneliness? (29:45) With the Spectator’s political editor James Forsyth; Jill Rutter from UK In a Changing Europe; our deputy political editor Katy Balls; former C4 Economics Editor Paul Mason; author Leaf Arbuthnot; and Andy Nazer from the Campaign to End Loneliness. Presented by Cindy Yu.

Katy Balls Katy Balls

The fight the government cannot afford to lose

As Boris Johnson attempts to move attention back to his pre-coronavirus election agenda, one of the biggest blockers that remains is the failure to get all pupils back to school. Having revised down a previous ambition to get all primary school children in the classroom before the summer holidays, Education Secretary Gavin Williamson held a press conference on Thursday to explain how – with ‘concrete determination’ – he would get everyone back in September. Under new government guidelines, groups of children will be separated by their class or year into ‘bubbles’ thereby minimising contacts between them. Within each bubble there will be normal interaction but different bubbles will avoid contact

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

How schools will look after the pandemic

14 min listen

The government has set out its guidelines for how schools will look come September. Attendance will be compulsory, and even Labour is on board. Cindy Yu talks to James Forsyth and Katy Balls about the new world of schooling. Also on the podcast: why the Frost-Barnier meeting broke up a day early and Scotland’s lockdown easing.

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

The coronavirus scandal no one is talking about

For months, mental health charities and Labour politicians have been telling the government truths that were so self-evident to anyone with experience of mental health they shouldn’t need telling. People with learning disabilities and autism faced exceptional risks to health and life from Covid-19. They were likely to die because now, as always, they are the last patients the NHS thinks about when the screws tighten. And so it has proved. I could quote dozens of warnings, but let one stand for them all. On 5 May, Labour’s shadow secretary for social care, Liz Kendall, urged Department of Health and Social Care minister Helen Whately to publish data on deaths

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Will Boris’s Whitehall shake-up really work?

There is a paradox at the heart of Boris Johnson’s political project, I say in the magazine this week. He is frank, brutal even, about the failings of government but he is pinning his hopes on government so solve this country’s economic problems. This means that his future is dependent on his ability to make government work better. The departure of Sir Mark Sedwill as cabinet secretary and national security adviser presages Johnson’s effort to change Whitehall. There will be limits to this revolution: Sedwill’s replacement will be a current or former permanent secretary; the first civil service commissioner Ian Watmore insisted on that. But this bar on bringing in an

Steerpike Steerpike

Anatomy of a fake news story: the tale of the ‘idiot’ Brexit voters

It was a tale too good not to share: one man’s encounter with a Brexit-voting couple who had just realised their mistake in wanting Britain to leave the EU. ‘Just had conversation with a British couple who have a holiday home near us,’ wrote RS Archer on Twitter. ‘They voted for Brexit and have made no arrangements whatsoever for what happens on Jan 1. They have now discovered the reality of their situation. The blame apparently is with “Brussels”.’ Archer went on to reveal how the couple were in tears after realising they might have to sell up their holiday home if Brexit meant they lost their right to reside

Steven Fielding

The Labour left are purging themselves

Ever since Keir Starmer was elected leader in April a phoney peace has prevailed in the Labour party. While it looked inevitable to most outsiders, the ease with which Starmer beat Rebecca Long-Bailey – the continuity Corbynite candidate in all but name – took many on the left by surprise. Their disorientation only increased as Starmer swiftly removed key Corbyn loyalists from the Shadow Cabinet and Labour headquarters while establishing a majority on the party’s governing National Executive Committee. Most have consequently spent the last few months in a dazed shock. Starmer’s surprise sacking of Long-Bailey from his front bench last week has seemingly kicked the left back into life.

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Keir Starmer’s quiet revolution

For the first time in 13 years, the public, when polled, think a Labour leader would make the best prime minister. To be fair, Sir Keir Starmer has been helped in this regard by the Conservatives, who haven’t done wonders for their reputation as the party of competence in recent weeks. But the opposition leader has had a decent start. Yes, Starmer is right when he says his party has a ‘mountain to climb’ to win power following Jeremy Corbyn’s historic defeat, but the Tories are on their fourth term and no party has ever won five times in a row. When Iain Duncan Smith was elected leader of the

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Mission impossible: Boris’s attempt to rewire the British government

It’s never a good sign when a government relaunches itself. Look what happened at the end of Theresa May’s time in power — there was a relaunch almost every other week, each one with diminishing effect. But although it has been over-hyped, Boris Johnson’s attempt to start again isn’t a mere re-branding exercise. It is not just about rehashing policy proposals but about trying to tackle the dysfunction at the heart of the state. The PM is attempting to do something past leaders have thought to be an impossible job: to rewire the whole system. Johnson has time on his side — four years to get things back on track

Wednesday

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Boris doesn’t understand the Union

Boris Johnson’s statement that ‘there is no such thing as a border between England and Scotland’ is born of ignorance and neglect. In a legal sense, there is and always has been a jurisdictional boundary separating the two nations. It is what has made a separate legal system possible and the divergent laws and regulations that come with it. It is why homosexuality was still a criminal offence in Scotland until 1981, 14 years after decriminalisation in England and Wales, and why Gretna Green became an improbable destination for eloping English teenagers. The Prime Minister may have been speaking rhetorically — he does that a lot — and rejecting the

Sam Leith Sam Leith

Andrew Adonis: how Ernest Bevin was Labour’s Churchill

43 min listen

In this week’s books podcast I’m joined by Alan Johnson and Andrew Adonis to talk about the latter’s new biography of a neglected great of British political history: Ernest Bevin: Labour’s Churchill. He was, in Andrew’s estimation, the man who did most to save Europe from Stalin. So why has Bevin been so forgotten? In what way was he Churchillian? What would he have made of the current state of the Labour party? And will we ever see his like again?

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Should the government go further on Hong Kong?

17 min listen

China’s new national security law has been passed in Hong Kong, and from this morning it has been implemented as handfuls of protestors have already been arrested under its new wide-ranging powers. Dominic Raab has pledged to speed up the process to offer British residency for Hong Kong’s BNO passport holders and their dependents. Cindy Yu talks to James Forsyth and Katy Balls about whether or not the government should go even further. Also on the podcast: the local lockdown in Leicester and Keir Starmer’s new strategy.

Alasdair Palmer

Theresa May is right to be angry – the civil service is now at risk

Theresa May is back, and this time she’s angry. Not about Brexit or the Ulster Unionists, but about the politicisation of the civil service. This is not a matter that arouses ire in many people or even many politicians – but it should, because it is the main reason why Britain is governed better than Uzbekistan. In Britain, we take for granted relatively uncorrupt and effective government, based on at least some degree of rational decision-making. Historically, this has been extremely rare, and even today, in many countries, it does not exist. But as economists often point out, it is – along with the rule of law, which is an