Politics

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

Wednesday

20 Nov 2024

Angela Rayner has lost her edge

It was deputies’ day at PMQs. Sir Keir Starmer is busy flying around the world yet again. This time he’s trying to charm the unlucky leaders of the G20. Angela Rayner took his place at PMQs opposite Alex Burghart for the Tories. His opener was terse and effective. ‘What is the government doing to bring down inflation?’ Rayner was prepared. She reminded him that he was the ‘growth minister’ under Liz Truss when inflation soared to 11 per cent. Fair point. Burghart quoted the Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecast that Rachel Reeve’s smash-and-grab budget will lift inflation to three per cent. Rayner drawled out an identical reply and suggested that

James Heale

Is Rachel Reeves running out of luck?

11 min listen

An unexpected rise in inflation today takes the rate to higher than the Bank of England’s target, and adds to Rachel Reeves’s worries. James Heale talks to Katy Balls and The Spectator’s data editor Michael Simmons about the latest figures, and they also discuss the shadow minister Alex Burghart’s performance at Prime Minister’s Questions. Produced by Cindy Yu.

Isabel Hardman

Badenoch’s substitute fails to land on Rayner at PMQs

Angela Rayner was so keen to get out of the traps with her criticism of the last Conservative government at today’s deputy prime minister’s questions that she almost forgot to welcome her new sparring partner. Alex Burghart is not yet a household name: in fact, he isn’t even Rayner’s direct counterpart, as Kemi Badenoch hasn’t yet named a deputy. He had a reasonable session, and even made a stab at doing something no-one else has yet managed, which is to define ‘Starmerism’. Rayner enjoyed herself, as ever, while Rachel Reeves, sitting next to her on the government benches, had the most uncomfortable session. Perhaps Burghart’s attack might have been more

Matthew Lynn

The EU is heading for fresh financial doom

If it came from Nigel Farage no one would be very surprised. Or from one of the band of German professors who launched the far-right AfD party. But the latest warning of a fresh crisis in the eurozone comes from a far more unexpected source: the European Central Bank (ECB). In its financial stability review published today, the ECB warns that the single currency could soon be plunged into a replay of the trauma of 2011 and 2012. Unfortunately, it is almost certainly right. The review, published twice a year, is intended to warn the markets of impending risks to the system. Today’s update explores a familiar cocktail of risks,

Philip Patrick

Jeremy Clarkson’s time has come

It’s a reasonable bet that if Jeremy Clarkson stood for prime minister tomorrow, he’d win by a country mile. Some might even crown him the next sovereign. At the farmers’ protest in Westminster yesterday, Clarkson dominated the coverage, overshadowing even the other luminaries in attendance. Like Trump, Clarkson has name recognition, independence, and a flair for media Several high-profile Conservatives were present, including Kemi Badenoch, Priti Patel, and Robert Jenrick, alongside Nigel Farage in bespoke country-gent attire and Richard Tice from Reform. Yet they were all eclipsed by a shambling, frail figure in a moth-eaten pea coat, faded jeans, and a beanie hat: Jeremy Clarkson. Clarkson, looking every inch as

Ross Clark

The truth about ‘workshy’ Britain

Is ‘workshy Britain’ a mirage caused by dodgy statistics? That is what the left-leaning think tank the Resolution Foundation is claiming in a report published this morning. The Office for National Statistics (ONS), it says, has missed 930,000 people who are actually in work. The missing numbers, it asserts, are enough to raise Britain’s employment rate from 75 percent to 76 percent, with a corresponding fall in the combined total of people classified as unemployed or economically inactive. Until the 1990s, the concept on unemployment in Britain was pretty straightforward: it was the total number of people who were claiming unemployment benefit. Since then, however, the unemployment total has instead

Steerpike

Why is the BBC staying silent on Reeves’s CV claims?

Rachel Reeves remains in the spotlight after weeks of scrutiny over her rather curious CV claims. Mr S documented the full timeline of events on Tuesday and it is really quite something – with the Chancellor’s former role at Halifax Bank of Scotland first coming under scrutiny before attention was drawn to previous assertions she’d made about how long she spent at the Bank of England. The whole matter has caused such a stir that shadow paymaster general Richard Holden has now written to Reeves with a warning that ‘the allegations that your CV might not be accurate…would raise significant concerns about your ability to be honest with the British

Michael Simmons

Inflation surge hits Britain’s ailing economy

Inflation rose to 2.3 per cent in the year to October, up from 1.7 per cent in September – its lowest level since the early weeks of the first lockdown in 2021. This surge above the Bank of England’s 2 per cent target was higher than economists and markets had expected. Worryingly, core inflation (which excludes more volatile goods like food and energy) has also increased slightly to 3.3 per cent – up from 3.2 per cent in September. The largest contributors to the rise in inflation were from the effects electricity and gas prices are having on household costs. The Office for National Statistics’ Chief Economist Grant Fiztner blamed

James Snell

Could Ukraine go nuclear?

Should Ukraine have nuclear weapons? This is a question that was raised, a little insincerely, by President Zelensky recently as he discussed Nato membership and its alternatives. If Ukraine was not in Nato, Zelensky mused, the only alternative would be to look for protection of another kind: nuclear arms. A recent story in the Times said that Ukraine could make a ‘rudimentary’ nuclear bomb ‘within months’ if Donald Trump withdrew Ukraine’s military assistance. Russia has not used its nuclear weapons, but they have been the major reason no western power has directly intervened on Ukraine’s side. Ukraine had its own nuclear arsenal after the fall of the Soviet Union left it

Tuesday

19 Nov 2024

Brendan O’Neill

The farmers’ revolt makes me proud to be British

My first thought upon seeing today’s revolt of the farmers was just how gloriously normal it looked. For more than a year London has been besieged by wild-eyed plummy leftists and fuming Gen X’ers screaming blue murder about the Jewish State. Now, for sweet relief, we get men and women in waxed jackets and sensible winter headwear taking to the streets, not to rage against a faraway land but to defend their own land from the grubby taxing of the Labour government. Now that’s proper protesting. It made me want a warm beer. A malady has infected the influential classes – we might call it farmerphobia What happened today was

Lloyd Evans

Why the farmers’ protest probably won’t work

Cold drizzle falling on tweed. That was the abiding image of today’s protest in Westminster which filled Whitehall with tens of thousands of indignant farmers. Just two tractors were admitted. One was parked outside Downing Street and the other stood by the women’s war memorial. Groups of farmers clambered onto the metal flanks and took snaps of themselves. Many held home-made placards denouncing ‘farmer harmer’ Starmer and ‘Rachel Thieves’, the chancellor. Some of the more paranoid demonstrators saw Labour as a historic threat to the working class. Everyone seemed obdurately upbeat despite the freezing rain ‘First the miners, then the farmers, next it’s you.’ The simplest signs appealed to common

Steerpike

Watch: Clarkson blasts BBC in farmers’ protest interview

Thousands of farmers descended on Westminster this morning to protest the Labour government’s new inheritance tax plans. As protesters brandished placards and called for the Chancellor to row back on her proposals, some rather famous faces were seen in the crowds – with former Top Gear presenter and now Clarkson’s Farm host Jeremy Clarkson amongst those spotted. The BBC was quick to grab the TV icon for an interview on the issue – but the broadcaster may have got a little more than it bargained for… Refusing to play ball with the Beeb, Clarkson was fast to blast Victoria Derbyshire over her line of questioning. When the Newsnight host quizzed

Michael Gove

Farmers won’t be quick to forgive Labour

12 min listen

Thousands of farmers descended on Westminster today to protest the inheritance tax changes proposed in Labour’s Budget. Amidst a sea of tweed and wellington boots, speeches and support came from the likes of Kemi Badenoch, Ed Davey, Nigel Farage and Jeremy Clarkson. To what extent is this just a fringe issue that the government will be able to brush off? Or has the issue exposed a rural blind spot for Labour? And how lasting could the damage be? Katy Balls and Spectator editor Michael Gove discuss with James Heale. But first, William Moore has been out and about getting the views of farmers directly from the protest… Produced by Patrick

Steerpike

Watch: Mandelson urges PM to end ‘feud’ with Musk

Well, well, well. Picking a fight with Elon Musk is hardly the wisest decision Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour lot have made so far, especially given the new job the Twitter CEO has been awarded by Donald Trump. With Musk set to become co-leader of the president-elect’s Department of Government Efficiency, the UK Prime Minister might want to start figuring out how to repair relations with the US tech billionaire – and now even some on his own side are urging Starmer to make amends… Speaking on Times Radio’s How to win an election podcast today, Peter Mandelson has today urged the PM to ‘engage’ with Musk – ‘rapidly, directly, personally’.

Steerpike

Full timeline: Rachel Reeves’s CV claims

Dear oh dear. Rachel Reeves has ended up in something of a pickle over her employment history, with the Chancellor under fire over whether she has been straight with the public about her economist background. Certainly after that Budget, Mr S is hardly surprised eyebrows are being raised… Pressure has been piling on Reeves for weeks, with questions arising around exactly how long she worked at various institutions, exactly what she worked as and whether she has been playing fast and loose with the truth of the matter. As the curious case of the Labour MP’s CV rumbles on, Steerpike has pulled together a list of exactly which of her

James Heale

Farmers won’t be quick to forgive Labour

Thousands of farmers descended on Westminster today to protest the government’s plans to raise inheritance tax. Hundreds of men, women and children in flat caps, tweed jackets and Wellington boots poured into Whitehall at lunchtime for a rally outside Downing Street. A series of speeches by the likes of Kemi Badenoch and Ed Davey culminated in an appearance by Top Gear star Jeremy Clarkson, before the farmers headed en masse to Parliament Square. The cause of their anger was the change in Rachel Reeves’ budget which means that from April 2026, inherited agricultural assets worth more than £1 million will be liable to pay the tax at 20 per cent. The National

Cindy Yu

Hong Kong’s death by a thousand cuts

Overnight, dozens of influential figures in Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement were sentenced to lengthy terms under the fiercest application of the city’s National Security Law so far. That these former legislators, activists, and legal academics have only been sentenced three years after their detention is typical of how the Chinese Communist party operates in Hong Kong, described by one academic to me as ‘death by a thousand cuts’. China hopes that, with incremental moves over time, its yoking of the city will be met with minimal international backlash. That calculation looks to have been proven right. The activists were accused of being involved in an unauthorised democratic primary in 2020,

Patrick O’Flynn

When will Starmer see sense on small boats?

Labour’s approach to tackling the small boats crisis is based around a dichotomy so overly simplistic that it should not fool even an averagely intelligent child. Keir Starmer set it out in an article for the Sun newspaper in July: the people in the boats are innocent victims, the people arranging for the boats to be there for them to get into at the appointed hour are evil and must be hunted down. Starmer pledged to ‘smash the vile criminal gangs that profit from illegal immigration’. ‘Every week vulnerable people are overloaded onto boats on the coast of France. Infants, children, pregnant mothers – the smugglers do not care. They’re

Laurie Wastell

Don’t blame the police for our sinister free speech laws

The shocking police doorstepping of Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson last week has rightly sparked grave concern about the parlous state of freedom of speech in Britain. Sir Keir Starmer has now joined the leader of the opposition Kemi Badenoch in arguing that police should be concentrating on the physical crime increasingly blighting our towns rather than things that are said online. ‘Police the streets, not the tweets’, has become a popular refrain overnight. But why are the police trawling the internet for wrongthink in the first place? So far any discussion of this has been focused on non-crime hate incidents (NCHIs). Badenoch has called for the laws around NCHIs to be reviewed. Shadow home secretary Chris

Cristina Odone

Has Labour given up on solving the social care crisis already?

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