Politics

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

Friday

Robin Ashenden

Kemi Badenoch’s early troubles are no reason to despair

A consensus seems to be forming, with unreasonable speed, that Kemi Badenoch isn’t exactly smashing it at Prime Minister’s Questions. Much of the harsher criticism comes from expected quarters – ‘Tory Gloom as Gaffe-Prone Kemi Badenoch Endures Another Miserable PMQs’ says a headline in the Huffington Post, while John Crace snarks in the Guardian that ‘Kemi Badenoch is turning out to be the gift that keeps on giving… to the Labour party.’  On the James O’Brien show there was a ‘more-in-pity-than-contempt’ snigger-fest between the host and political editor Natasha Clark: ‘Are we flirting with the possibility that she actually did better last week?’ the host chortled gleefully. Such pundits, of

Thursday

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

I have no time for Radio Four’s dross

I switched the radio on in my car today and it went straight to the BBC World at One on Radio Four. I thought I’d tuned it to Radio Three but instead of a mellifluous tune I got Sarah Montague. I was on the bit of the A66 in Middlesbrough where it merges with the northbound A19 and it is a tricky interchange, with narrow lanes and huge growling lorries. I am mentioning all this as a means of explaining why I didn’t change channels straight away. I wanted to make sure I was on the Tees Viaduct and not headed to Teesport, you see. I needed to concentrate. That’s

William Moore William Moore

Elon’s America, Welby’s legacy & celebrating Beaujolais Day

45 min listen

This week: welcome to Planet Elon. We knew that he would likely be a big part of Donald Trump’s second term, so it was unsurprising when this week Elon Musk was named – alongside entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy – as a co-leader of the new US Department of Government Efficiency, which will look at federal government waste. When Musk took over Twitter, he fired swathes of employees whose work was actively harming the company, so he’s in a perfect position to turn his sights on the bloated federal government. It is, writes Douglas Murray, a once-in-a-generation opportunity to strip a whole layer of rot from the body politic. But can he

James Heale James Heale

Will Reeves’s pensions shake-up really boost growth?

13 min listen

The Chancellor is giving her first Mansion House address tonight, and she will be majoring on pensions, suggesting that public sector pension funds need to be expanded. But is this the road to growth? James Heale talks to Katy Balls and Kate Andrews. Produced by Cindy Yu.

Ike Ijeh

What has Labour got against beautiful buildings?

Is an anti-beauty coalition building in the heart of government? Back in August, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) controversially deleted “beauty” as a strategic priority in a National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) update, effectively removing it as a specific, statutory requirement for new houses. Labour’s Achilles’ heel has often been a default to centralised utilitarianism Next, Housing Secretary Angela Rayner dismissed the word “beautiful” as “subjective” and broadly meaningless. Now, we learn that the Office for Place – the government body created to ensure design quality in new housing – has been scrapped. In a move that will likely alarm anyone wary of civil servants appointing

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Will Elon Musk Make America Great Again?

28 min listen

As Donald Trump selects his new cabinet, Elon Musk has been chosen to head up the new efficiency department. Douglas Murray, Spectator columnist, joins Americano host Freddy Gray to discuss. How will their relationship shape Trump’s presidency? What will Musk’s ownership of X, formerly Twitter, mean for free speech? And will their newfound friendship last the stretch of Donald Trump’s second term?

Steerpike Steerpike

Parliament shells out £900k on cobblestones

Whether it’s falling masonry or rats, staff in the Houses of Parliament have to put up with a lot in their workplace. Since 2020 they have to endure the daily delight of navigating New Palace Yard in various states of repair. Parly bosses boast that this is to ‘deliver better and more inclusive accessibility, enhanced security, improved vehicular access as well as optimising and preserving the heritage of this historical part of the Palace of Westminster.’ Fair enough – but are they really getting bang for their buck? Mr S has done some digging to try to unearth the cost of four years of work. Commons staff weren’t too keen

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Resignations alone won’t fix the Church of England

Will there be more resignations following the departure of Justin Welby as Archbishop of Canterbury? The Church is, as on everything else, split on the issue, with some bishops saying that there needs to be wider accountability, and the Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell saying that no more resignations are necessary. Given part of the criticism of the Makin report that triggered Welby’s departure was that he did not ensure that others performed their responsibilities around trying to stop Smyth, it would be odd for there not to be some wider ramifications.  The report repeatedly refers to Church officers knowing of the abuse that Smyth was still perpetrating, but not

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Haka protest disrupts New Zealand’s parliament

To New Zealand, where parliamentary proceedings have become rather, er, heated during discussions on the Treaty Principles Bill. During a debate about the relationship between Māori and the crown tabled by the libertarian Act party – in which the minority coalition partner is seeking to remove principles from the treaty of Waitangi that protect Māori rights – parliament was suspended after Te Pāti Māori MP Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke led a haka in opposition to the bill. It’s certainly one way to protest… Here's a better angle that shows the @Maori_Party performing the haka right up in David Seymour's face. He looks shit scared. https://t.co/VM0Qx76P34 pic.twitter.com/JdBe6B5GlR — Nick (@StrayDogNZ) November 14, 2024 But anger

Steerpike Steerpike

Clifton Suspension Bridge quits Musk’s Twitter

First they came for the Guardian, and then they came for the Clifton Suspension Bridge. In a move that will surely come as a blow to tech billionaire Elon Musk’s global social media platform, the Clifton Suspension Bridge and Museum has announced that it too will boycott the online messaging site over a ‘rise in appropriate content’. Announcing the move on, er, Twitter, the organisation lamented: X (formerly known as Twitter) has been a wonderful place to engage with our audience over the past 15 years. But the changes made to the platform in recent times have caused us to reconsider our use of it. With the rise in inappropriate

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Will Rachel Reeves’ pension shake-up really boost growth?

As Chancellor Rachel Reeves prepares to deliver her first Mansion House speech in the City of London tonight, one word is set to be emphasised: growth. ‘Last month’s Budget fixed the foundations to restore economic stability and put our public services on a firmer footing,’ she will tell her audience of bankers and City workers. ‘Now we’re going for growth.’ Her sights are set on pensions. The Chancellor is expected to announce what is being billed as the ‘biggest set of reforms to the pensions market in decades,’ with the Treasury estimating these changes could unlock up to £80 billion in additional investment for Britain. Not everyone is convinced about

Steerpike Steerpike

Will Justin Welby lose his Lords seat?

The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby this week announced he will resign from the top job after the pressure piled on from Church of England bishops. The move follows the publication of the Makin Review’s report on the Church’s handling of ‘serial child abuser’ John Smyth – which suggested Welby did not deal with complaints well enough at the time. But the Archbishop’s resignation isn’t quite enough for everyone. Now politicians and pundits alike are calling for Welby to lose his seat in the House of Lords. Richard Tice has blasted the Archbishop over the matter, with the Reform MP slamming Welby’s position on GB News. ‘I think his position is

Ross Clark Ross Clark

My radical proposal for the civil service 

I’ve got a better idea for the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union, which is demanding civil servants be allowed to work just four days a week for no loss of pay, claiming that a shorter working week is ‘essential for a happy and healthy life’. Why not put civil servants on a zero-day week? That would surely be even happier and healthier for them. It would certainly be happier and healthier for taxpayers. Virtually no private business would have allowed employee numbers to get so out of control It would be little wonder if the civil service can do in four days the work it used to do in

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

How will the ‘deep state’ swallow Tulsi Gabbard and Matt Gaetz?

Yesterday morning, I asked why President-elect Donald Trump seemed to be pausing before announcing Marco Rubio as Secretary of State. By the evening, we appeared to have an answer. He wanted to combine that news, which distressed the anti-elitists in the MAGAsphere and reassured Republicans in Washington, with his announcement that Tulsi Gabbard would be his Director of Intelligence, which has delighted the anti-elitists and horrified Washington. With one hand the good Donald giveth, with the other he taketh away. How will Gabbard cope in a cabinet now stuffed with hardline pro-Israel hawks who despise her? Gabbard’s appointment should please those who don’t like futile wars and deep-state deceptions. There had been

Nicholas Farrell

How Musk, Meloni and Trump are set to define European politics

Few have noticed yet but Giorgia Meloni looks set to become Donald Trump’s key point of contact in Europe – above all thanks to her close friendship with Elon Musk. The relationship between Trump and Meloni, via Musk, could become very special indeed. In particular, it may prove crucial for what happens in Ukraine. They may not be in love with each other but Musk and Meloni are in love with each other’s ideas The tech tycoon backed Trump’s election campaign with an estimated £100 million, plus his vital vocal support on X. He’s now become a top consigliere to the President-elect and has been appointed as the head of a Department of Government

Angus Colwell

‘Trump trauma’ might be dead

In the Spectator offices, my colleague Mary Wakefield and I often end up talking about young people while we’re making tea. She thinks I’m a bit too cocky about civilisation. Apparently when she starts telling me something weird that she’s seen my generation doing, my eyes start darting madly, looking for a way out. She probably looks at me and thinks I’d open the gates to the barbarians to avoid the horror of an earnest opinion. The re-election of Donald Trump has us feeling different ways too. Mary has written this week about the phenomenon of ‘Trump trauma’. There’s some pretty wild examples in there, all of which are deserving of our

Nadine Dorries

Nigel told me he’s the new Boris

Last week I arrived in London from the Cotswolds just in time to witness the collective meltdown from everyone around me as it was announced that Donald Trump was the President-elect. I was delighted. Who are we to complain? The American people knew exactly what they were doing. I had been booked on to ITV’s This Morning where we were to discuss Kamala Harris’s resignation speech, a story so feeble it wouldn’t last until the 6 p.m. news. The tone in the studio was ‘poor Kamala’. I was having none of it. She fully deserved to lose. She had no coherent policies on immigration or the economy and banged on

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Will the assisted dying bill pass the Commons?

In the months before the general election, the Labour party had an internal debate about starting a ‘national conversation’ on assisted dying. Keir Starmer had promised Esther Rantzen, the veteran broadcaster with terminal cancer, that if elected he would hold a vote on it. Wes Streeting, in the health brief, argued that it might be the time to start a wider debate with the country on the thorny issue. However, he faced pushback from those in the shadow cabinet mindful of the fact there could be an election within months. Talking about death wasn’t exactly the feel-good change factor they were aiming for. ‘We didn’t want to become the death

James Heale James Heale

Labour’s war with Elon Musk

How do you solve a problem like Elon? That is the dilemma facing Keir Starmer. Musk seems particularly exercised about the state of the UK and is quick to criticise the man he calls ‘two-tier Keir’. Using his platform X, he has weighed in on just about all the worst Labour news, from over-taxing farmers to mass-releasing prisoners while locking up others for speaking freely about the Southport riots. ‘Don’t expect him to be invited in for a fireside chat any time soon,’ says a minister. Now, following Donald Trump’s re-election, another story could bring Starmer’s inner circle into a direct confrontation with Musk, plunging the PM’s top aide into

Wednesday

Steerpike Steerpike

Foreign Office flogs off £1bn of buildings

It was Norman Tebbit who joked that the Ministry of Agriculture looked after farmers while ‘the job of the Foreign Office is to look after foreigners.’ So Mr S has done some digging and it turns out that the men and women who run FCDO have ensured HM’s government are making a pretty penny or two. Let’s hope it’s not a case of ‘selling the family silver’, to borrow Harold Macmillan’s words… A Freedom of Information request by The Spectator says that the FCDO has sold off more than £1.1 billion of embassy buildings since 2010. Among them include the surroundings of the Bangkok estate, the Yervan embassy, the partial