Politics

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

Tuesday

Marcus Ray

Britain cannot leave the South Pacific to Xi Jinping

Samoa is a land of sunburnt shorelines and majestic waterfalls. It is a Pacific paradise that, in a perfect world, should be left unsullied by the geopolitical machinations of larger states. But despite its small population and remote location, it is playing host – alongside other island nations scattered across the South Pacific – to an intensifying tussle for power and influence. China has entered the fray with force, forging strong ties with local governments. Britain ought to view its ascension in the region with concern. It must now return to a corner of the world it has long neglected and do more to support its regional allies. The Commonwealth

Steerpike Steerpike

The Plot: Nadine backs Jenrick

With just over a week left until the Tory leadership race concludes, the endorsements are rolling in. While a selection of new backers have rowed in behind Kemi Badenoch in recent days, Robert Jenrick’s campaign has not been devoid of last minute supporters. His former boss Suella Braverman has today announced she will be supporting her former immigration minister – and she’s not the only ex-cabinet secretary throwing her weight behind Team Rob. In big news this morning, one-time culture secretary Nadine Dorries has revealed she will be backing Jenrick. Taking to the august pages of the Daily Mail, Dorries has left readers reeling with her announcement that she will

Matthew Lynn

Has Rachel Reeves lost control of spending?

Some thought Rachel Reeves’s experience at the Bank of England meant she ‘knew how to run the economy’. She would keep an iron grip on budgets and demand value for money. The reliability of her management of the Treasury would unlock a wave of support from global finance. Ahead of the election, Reeves, along with fanboys such as the former Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, boasted endlessly about her financial and economic expertise. But only four months into her time in No. 11, there are already alarming signs she has lost control of spending.  The public sector borrowing figures published today were far worse than expected. The government borrowed

Ross Clark Ross Clark

The UK’s debts are horrifyingly large

There is a big danger in today’s government borrowing figures for September being a little less bad than was expected by many observers. It will lead to claims that the Chancellor has enjoyed a ‘windfall’ prior to next week’s Budget, therefore lessening the need for spending cuts. No, there is no windfall. Until recent years, the idea that the government would have to borrow £16.6 billion in a single month would have been received with horror. True, September is not generally a great month for government finances, and the level of borrowing in the year to September – at £79.6 billion – is only around half the size of the

Danny Shaw

Labour should be wary of scrapping short prison sentences

What is the point of a short prison sentence? David Gauke will no doubt think carefully about that question now that he’s been confirmed as the chair of the long-awaited Sentencing Review. Launched by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), it aims to provide ideas for a new framework of sentencing across England and Wales that ministers hope will help keep the prison population in check and drive up the use of alternatives to prison.  Replacing short prison terms with community sentences is one idea that Gauke has favoured in the past and it’s gaining currency again. But it’s not straightforward, as I’ll explain. Even a short prison sentence has its

Steerpike Steerpike

Badenoch beats Jenrick in Mumsnet ratings

The Tory leadership contest will wrap up in less than two weeks and members have been busy casting their votes over the last few days. While there is frustration across the party about the lack of membership polling data available, Mr S is rather intrigued by what attentive users on Mumsnet think of Robert Jenrick and Kemi Badenoch. And it appears of the two finalists there is a clear winner… A new site survey has revealed that Badenoch is nearly twice as popular as her rival, with almost a fifth of Mumsnet users rowing in behind the shadow housing secretary – while just over one in ten of the site’s regulars

Philip Patrick Philip Patrick

Newcastle, Saudi Arabia and desperate decline of English football

Is a major scandal over the sale of Newcastle United to a consortium led by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund about to engulf the club? And perhaps cause embarrassment to some high-profile politicians too? Leaked WhatsApps sent by Amanda Staveley (the businesswoman who helped negotiate the deal) made the front page of the Daily Telegraph yesterday. They suggest that assurances given during the takeover that Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman was not personally managing the deal were not quite accurate. Mohammed Bin Salman will probably have no direct role in the running of the club Staveley’s WhatsApps reveal that a delicate stage of the negotiations the Crown Prince was ‘losing patience’. Does that mean that the Gulf potentate was really calling the

Monday

Steerpike Steerpike

Khan takes a pop at Kuenssberg over election tweet

To City Hall, where tonight Sadiq Khan welcomed journalists from across the city to a Diageo-sponsored drinks reception. The London mayor took to the podium to laud the efforts of his diligent and dutiful staffers, taking time to praise his comms team for their relentless work trying to defend his decision-making. Yet about certain journalists, the Labour mayor wasn’t quite as gushing… In his self-congratulatory speech, Khan was quick to call out the commentariat for their pre-election predictions in May. Hitting out at those who suggested his Tory opponent Susan Hall could have won the contest — making a rather specific dig at one BBC broadcaster — the London mayor

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Do we really need more ‘national conversations’?

Other than being fired out of a cannon to raise funds for the NHS, what could Wes Streeting possibly learn from a ‘national conversation’ about the NHS that he hasn’t already picked up from his time studying his own brief? At the launch event for that consultation, the Health Secretary explained that public buy-in was essential for the big reforms necessary to save the health service. He said: ‘I suppose you could say, well, you should just come in and impose your view of change,’ he said. ‘I’d just say to people, be careful what you wish for. The last time a new health secretary came in after a general

Danny Shaw

The problem at the heart of the Chris Kaba case

There are few moments more serious than when the state takes the life of a citizen, when a police officer kills someone in the line of duty. Such an event demands an independent and rigorous investigation in which the officer accounts for his or her actions. The family and friends of the person who has died deserve nothing less. But the prosecution of Martyn Blake, the firearms officer accused, and now cleared, of murdering Chris Kaba in September 2022 has raised uncomfortable questions about that process. There was something about the trial that didn’t feel right.  Sergeant Blake shot and killed Kaba through the windscreen of the Audi he had

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Should the US get rid of the Electoral College?

30 min listen

To discuss whether the Electoral College is out of date and in need of reform, Freddy Gray is join by Michael Kazin – a professor of history at Georgetown University and emeritus coeditor of Dissent. His most recent book, What It Took to Win: A History of the Democratic Party, has just been released in paperback. Join Freddy Gray a special live recording of Americano on Thursday 24 October. You can buy tickets at www.spectator.co.uk/electionspecial. 

David Shipley

Too many people are being recalled to prison

One of the new government’s first decisions was to announce that most prisoners would be released 40 per cent of the way through their sentence, not half-way through as had been the case before. In July the expectation was that around 5,500 inmates would be released early. In fact 1,700 were released in September, and around 1,100 are expected to be released this week. This, combined with the 600 extra prisoners after August’s riots, and the ongoing growth in the prison population, means we will soon run out of space again. What’s the point in releasing people 40 per cent of the way through their sentence, if they’re likely to

Steerpike Steerpike

New SNP chief under scrutiny over controversial comments

The SNP has fired through multiple leaders in recent months, and it now looks to be doing the same with CEOs. After former Daily Record editor Murray Foote announced his resignation last week, the Nats have appointed a new interim chief executive – who has already managed to cause quite a stir… Carol Beattie was formerly the CEO of Stirling Council until she stepped down earlier this year, releasing a rather scathing resignation letter in the process. As reported by the Scottish Daily Mail, Beattie blasted party decisions after lamenting the council authority had suffered ‘more than a decade of cuts to its budget’, which is decided by the, er,

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Why Wes Streeting’s ‘prevention’ agenda is sinister

Who could possibly object to Wes Streeting’s plan to turn the NHS ‘from hospital to neighbourhood’ and from ‘sickness to prevention’? Of course, it is much better to prevent an illness than to wait until you develop it and then have it treated. But I feel a sense of alarm at the Health Secretary’s plans to distribute smartwatch-style devices to monitor our health in real time. Patients will be given them to monitor blood pressure, glucose levels and other metrics, supposedly in order to keep them out of hospital. But it shouldn’t be hard to see where this will all too easily lead. At first, the smartwatches will be just

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Does Streeting’s NHS plan amount to anything?

13 min listen

This morning, Health Secretary Wes Streeting launched the ‘biggest consultation in NHS history’ in a bid to get public input into how to save the UK’s flailing health service. The British public and clinicians are being asked to share their experiences and ideas to help ‘fix our NHS’. After years of discussion and reviews, how likely is it that Labour delivers the urgent reform that the NHS needs?  Elsewhere, there have been more signs of what might be in the budget at the end of the month. Who might the big winners and losers be? James Heale discusses with Katy Balls and Isabel Hardman.  Join Freddy Gray a special live

Eliot Wilson

Why do Britain and Germany need their own defence pact?

It is a standard feature of modern politics that government announcements are preceded by announcements of announcements. The ground must always be prepared. Accordingly, the media has been briefed that this week the United Kingdom and Germany will sign a defence cooperation agreement, part of the government’s stated desire to strengthen its relationship on security with the European Union. We should not expect a revolution so much as an eager scattering of glitter on what is actually relatively humdrum. John Healey, the defence secretary, visited Berlin in July and agreed a joint declaration on defence with his German counterpart Boris Pistorius. While it was breathlessly billed as ‘the first step

Alexander Larman

Keir Starmer’s concerning decision to ditch Shakespeare’s portrait

Politicians are said to campaign in poetry and govern in prose. In the case of Keir Starmer, he campaigned in the most uninspiring, plodding prose imaginable, and has now chosen to govern in what might politely be compared to a child’s first attempt at poetry. It is all word-vomit and incomprehensible mumbo-jumbo.  The country needed a leader who could make a passionate and convincing case for the importance of literature. What we got instead was an Arsenal obsessive Still, this befits the character of a man who, according to reports, has overseen a steady exodus of portraits of key British figures from the walls of No. 10. First came down

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Donald Trump is bringing the joy at just the right moment

Donald Trump is many things. Most of all, he is the quintessential American entrepreneur. He sees the upside in everything. Even at the age of 78, he still has the energy to undertake every opportunity to advance himself and his interests.  When, for instance, he noticed a few weeks ago that Kamala Harris had claimed somewhat dubiously to have worked in McDonald’s, he didn’t just gripe that the media accepted her assertion without checking for evidence (though he did do that). He decided that, as a promotional stunt, he would do something he suspected Harris had never actually done: work a shift in McDonald’s. In doing so, he knew he

Steerpike Steerpike

Revealed: Brits blast failing NHS over diversity hires and gender ideology

It’s not looking like a good week for Sir Keir Starmer’s lot and it’s only Monday. This morning, Health Secretary Wes Streeting launched the ‘biggest consultation in NHS history’ in a bid to get public input into how to save the UK’s flailing health service. Posting on Twitter today, the Health Secretary wrote that ‘all patients, staff and partners’ can now ‘share your views and experiences’ to help the Labour government shape its ten year plan. While it all sounds rather optimistic, Mr S has spotted that the answers to the questionnaire are being made public – and they are not quite as, er, positive as Streeting may have been

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: King Charles heckled by Australian protestor

To Australia’s Parliament House, where King Charles gave his landmark address today. But it wasn’t all plain sailing for the British monarch who, just before he came to the end of his keynote speech, was rather rudely interrupted by a protestor. The heckler — an indigenous senator — began to approach the stage, shouting at His Majesty: ‘You are not my King!’  Going on, senator Lidia Thorpe – dressed in a rather interesting coat made of, um, possums – raged at the monarch: You committed genocide against our people. Give us our land back. Give us what you stole from us – our bones, our skulls, our babies, our people…