Politics

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

Friday

Chas Newkey-Burden

Soap operas have lost the plot

Soap bombshells are nothing new, but the land of light TV entertainment was rocked by some real-life drama this week: ITV announced that Coronation Street and Emmerdale will be cutting back on episodes permanently next year. It was also revealed that viewing figures for EastEnders have plummeted from 30 million at its 1980s peak, to just four million. As one of those lost viewers, I’m not surprised. The storylines are becoming ever more unrealistic, undermining the realism that is supposed to be at the heart of the genre I gave up watching soaps decades ago because the challenges of real-life adulthood made me less keen to soak up the fictional woes of others. But there was

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Sturgeon passes SNP election vetting

To Scotland, where the SNP is hard at work vetting its candidates for the 2026 Holyrood poll. But in typical Nat fashion, the rather non-transparent process has prompted questions about how thorough the whole thing really is – after it emerged via party insiders that both Nicola Sturgeon and Colin Beattie of Operation Branchform fame have been allowed to run as election candidates. How very interesting. The SNP’s former Dear Leader has so far refused to say whether she will indeed stand for reelection in 2026 while Beattie, the party’s ex-treasurer, is thought likely to do so. The pair were arrested in 2023 over the police probe into the SNP’s

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Katy Balls, Alexander Raubo, Damian Thompson, Daisy Dunn and Mark Mason

27 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Katy Balls analyses the threat Reform pose to the Conservatives (1:20); Alexander Raubo talks us through the MAGA social scene and the art collective Remilia (6:42); Damian Thompson reviews Vatican Spies: from the Second World War to Pope Francis, by Yvonnick Denoel (12:27); Daisy Dunns reviews the new podcast Intoxicating History from Henry Jeffreys and Tom Parker Bowles, as well as BBC Radio 4’s Moving Pictures (17:50); and, Mark Mason provides his notes on obituaries (22:46).  Produced and presented by Patrick Gibbons. 

Raymond Wacks

Trump’s sanctions will hit the ICC hard

Donald Trump’s decision to impose sanctions against the International Criminal Court (ICC) could sound the death knell of this important judicial body. The US president condemned the Court’s ‘illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel.’ Trump’s response came after the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu last November over alleged war crimes in Gaza, as well as a warrant for a Hamas commander. As a supporter of the ICC, I regret that its credibility has – at a stroke – been grievously diminished by this exercise of prejudice The ICC, despite its obvious bias in this case, performs a crucial role as the legitimate forum in

Kay Burley

From the archives: the Kay Burley Edition

20 min listen

Kay Burley announced her retirement from Sky News this week, after 36 years, having presented more than a million minutes of live television news – more than any other presenter in the world. To mark the occasion, here’s a special edition of Women With Balls – from the archives – when Kay Burley joined Katy Balls in 2019 to talk about how she ‘knocked the rough edges’ off her accent, her love of Jane Fonda, and why the BBC couldn’t afford her these days.

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Ed Miliband’s growth U-turn

Another day, another Labour U-turn. Now it’s Ed Miliband in the spotlight, after the Energy Secretary appeared to row back on his Heathrow runway stance this morning. Speaking on the Beeb’s Radio 4 Today programme, Miliband has now insisted that the new development would not come at the expense of his precious net zero targets – despite failing to show his support in person for Rachel Reeves’ growth plans last week. How curious. The eco-zealot was first grilled on London mayor Sadiq Khan’s opposition to the plans. Rather than back his environment conscious colleague, Miliband was adamant that ‘what I am saying is that I am part of a government

Jonathan Sacerdoti

Can Hamas ever be defeated?

No matter how many times it is vanquished or decisively discredited, ‘Palestinianism’ persists as an ideology unwilling to die. Rooted in Muslim Arab nationalism, it remains fundamentally opposed to the very existence of Israel – a Jewish, liberal, and free state. Hamas, one of its most notorious champions, has in recent weeks orchestrated a carefully staged spectacle as it releases Israeli hostages from Gaza. Masked gunmen stood triumphantly, their performance captured in high resolution by cameras that had somehow survived the supposed genocide. The message was clear: this was a moment of victory, a display of strength. Never mind that Hamas had suffered catastrophic losses – its military infrastructure shattered,

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Macron needs to find his inner Trump

If a week is a long time in politics then eight years is an eternity. Just ask Donald Trump and Emmanuel Macron. Back in 2017 the two newly-elected presidents met for the first time in Brussels. They shook hands for the cameras, and kept shaking for several seconds, a game of machismo that tickled the commentariat. ‘That’s how you ensure you are respected,’ declared Macron. ‘You have to show you won’t make small concessions.’ The French president believed he was the future. Little did he know he would be the last of the progressive poster boys. The Guardian reported in 2017 how in Brussels Macron ‘pointedly swerved past Trump to embrace German chancellor

Thursday

Oscar Edmondson

Have the Tories thought through their immigration policy?

12 min listen

The Bank of England has cut interest rates for the third time since the inflation crisis, taking the base rate to 4.5 per cent. The Monetary Policy Committee voted by seven to two to further reduce rates by 0.25 percentage points – a move that was widely expected by markets, but had been put into doubt after government borrowing costs surged in January and President Donald Trump announced his plans for substantial tariffs last week. Why have the Bank of England decided to cut rates? Also today, Kemi Badenoch has announced some policy! Ahead of the Labour government’s Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill being debated in Parliament next week,

Michael Gove

Labour’s Irish insurgent, Germany’s ‘firewall’ falls & finding joy in obituaries

48 min listen

As a man with the instincts of an insurgent, Morgan McSweeney, Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, has found Labour’s first six months in office a frustrating time, writes The Spectator’s editor Michael Gove. ‘Many of his insights – those that made Labour electable – appeared to have been overlooked by the very ministers he propelled into power.’ McSweeney is trying to wrench the government away from complacent incumbency: there is a new emphasis on growth, a tougher line on borders, an impatience with establishment excuses for inertia. Will McSweeney win his battle? And what does this mean for figures in Starmer’s government, like Richard Hermer and Ed Miliband? Michael joined the

Michael Simmons Michael Simmons

Reform tops Spectator poll tracker

Nigel Farage’s Reform party are now out in front at the top of The Spectator data hub’s poll tracker. The latest update to our poll of polls puts Reform one point above Labour – on average – at 25 per cent of the vote with the Tories in third place at 22 per cent.  A flurry of polls in the last couple of weeks show continued decline in support for the Tories with nearly all of the benefits going to Reform. Meanwhile, support has continued to slip away from the Labour party. The result: Reform on top.  The poll that tipped them over the top came from FindOutNow who surveyed some 2,487

David Shipley

Why wasn’t the Southport killer stopped?

Now that the Southport killer Axel Rudakubana has been sentenced for his horrific crimes, we can try to understand how he was free to kill, and what can be done to stop crimes like this in the future. Between 2019 and 2021, this young man was referred three times to Prevent, the counter-extremism programme. On each occasion they took no further action. Yesterday the government released a redacted version of the ‘learning review’ conducted by Prevent, carried out in the wake of Rudakubana’s attack. It’s a limited piece of work, and far from the full public inquiry we need. The reviewer wasn’t able to interview anyone involved, so limited their

Sam Bidwell

Badenoch is leading her party in the right direction on migration

Since becoming Conservative leader in November, Kemi Badenoch has taken a restrained approach to saying what she’d do if she wins the next election. Given the slapdash ‘policy by press release’ approach of recent Conservative governments, it’s easy to see why Badenoch has been keen to avoid making careless policy announcements. But four years of silence won’t convince frustrated voters to turn back to the Tories. Announcing policy as Leader of the Opposition is a bit like planning to open a restaurant: you don’t need to reveal the whole menu, but you do need to let people know what cuisine you’ll be serving. The Conservatives have an opportunity to prove

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Watch: Tory MP blasts ‘secretive’ assisted dying process

Back to the assisted dying bill, which has been at the centre of controversy since it came into being. As Mr S noted this week, its committee stage was rather odd – with one Australian MP witness even using the evidence session to argue that ‘voluntary assisted dying is a form of suicide prevention’. Er, right… Now Conservative MP Jesse Norman has taken to the Commons to blast the bill’s ‘rushed and secretive’ process and lack of impact assessments. Attacking the committee stage, Norman fumed that ‘a host of important questions [were left] completely untouched’ from the impact of euthanasia on the medics involved to the relationship between doctors and

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Donald Trump is liberating the US from the transgender madness

I thought Donald Trump was a woman-hater? The Guardian told us he’s a ‘far-right misogynist’ whose return to the White House would strike ‘visceral horror’ into the hearts of women everywhere. He’s the ‘misogynist in chief’, said CNN. Perhaps someone could explain, then, why he just signed an executive order in favour of women’s rights while surrounded by a joyous throng of beaming girls? The order is searingly feminist. It’s a manifesto against misogyny The scenes in the White House yesterday were extraordinary. Trump signed an order titled ‘Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports’. It commands every educational institution and athletic association that receives federal funding to keep blokes, however

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Why the Bank of England is cutting interest rates

The Bank of England has cut interest rates for the third time since the inflation crisis, taking the base rate to 4.5 per cent. The Monetary Policy Committee voted by seven to two to further reduce rates by 0.25 percentage points – a move that was widely expected by markets, but had been put into doubt after government borrowing costs surged in January and President Donald Trump announced his plans for substantial tariffs last week. Even so, the MPC pushed ahead – interestingly with no one on the committee voting to hold rates at 4.75 per cent (two members voted instead for a 0.5 percentage point cut). It’s clear from the

Ian Acheson Ian Acheson

Cracking down on Facebook won’t stop teenagers being radicalised

I’ve yet to meet an oncologist, thank God. But if I did turn up to be told I had cancer I wouldn’t expect him to start treating me with a chainsaw. That was my thought this morning when I read that our national counter-terrorism chief had described the effect of exposing kids to violent content online as carcinogenic. Matt Jukes, Asistant Commissioner for Specialist Operations for the Met Police, suggested that a ban on social media for the under 16s was a way to address the scourge of adolescent maniacs mobilised by online extremism who turn hateful thought into lethal action. Human frailty is harder to police than Big Tech Jukes

Sophia Gaston

Britain shouldn’t wait for America to ban TikTok

TikTok’s success provides a striking example of Western complacency towards its own survival. After a decade shaped by the disruptive influence of American social media behemoths such as X and Facebook, our governments have permitted the stratospheric growth of a China-owned platform with an even greater capacity for malign influence. With Beijing’s intentions for global economic and military dominance growing clearer by the day, the deteriorating geopolitical landscape has laid bare just how wilfully naive the West has been towards adversaries playing a sophisticated long game.  The TikTok algorithm is singularly predisposed to support the rapid spread of misinformation Each day that passes without regulation, TikTok becomes more embedded as an

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Sorry Nigel, but Rayner is right to delay local elections

I am sure that Nigel Farage would love the opportunity to embarrass Labour and the Tories as much as he can in May’s local elections. But sorry, Angela Rayner is right – for once – to delay local elections for a year in some areas so that local government can be reorganised and many councils abolished. No, it is not ‘cowardice’, as the Reform leader described it yesterday, adding, ‘I thought only dictators cancelled elections.’ It is simply a case of trying to save money and free the taxpayer from having to prop up a multiplicity of unnecessary councils. In any case, most of the councils where elections have been

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Ed Miliband rapped for his rudeness

Oh dear. It seems that the new Labour government is rapidly developing a reputation for rudeness. Whether it’s Bridget Phillipson’s charm offensive backfiring or Angela Rayner enraging Grenfell survivors, few in the cabinet appear to be winning friends across the spectrum. And now Mr S brings news of another instance involving one of Keir Starmer’s best known ministers. Over at Energy Security, Ed Miliband is doing little to advance the cause of cross-party relations. So bad has the ex-Labour leader got at responding to letters by opposition colleagues that he has now been called out for his rudeness in public. In a debate on forthcoming Commons Business last week, Joy