Politics

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

Sunday

Ralph Outhwaite

How Islamic State makes money

As if the French hadn’t enough on their plates, with turbulent elections and an underwhelming Euros performance, they’ve now had to contend with the prospect of terrorism blighting the Olympic Games. At least one major terror plot has been foiled by the French authorities, and pro-Islamic State channels are issuing threats to stadiums and fans. The main concern comes from the Afghanistan-based ‘Islamic State of the Khorasan Region’ (IS-K), and for good reason too. Back in March 2023, US Army General Michael Kurilla warned Congress that IS-K could launch an attack against European targets with ‘little to no warning’. A year later, the group took responsibility for the attack on the Crocus City Hall

Saturday

Coffee House

Police clashes and violence spread across Britain

It has been a weekend of riots. They began on Friday night in Sunderland, and were repeated in Bristol, Stoke, Hull, Belfast, Leeds, Manchester, Blackpool and Liverpool on Saturday. People threw bricks and bottles at the police, who put up their shields and wielded batons in response. In Hull, a Greggs and a Specsavers were smashed up and a Shoezone was set on fire. Some cities, such as London, saw protests that did not escalate. The Sunday Telegraph says that courts could be open for 24 hours a day in order to dampen the chaos. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said that ‘criminal violence and disorder has no place on Britain’s

Jonathan Spyer

What will Iran do next?

Following the killings of Hezbollah’s Fuad Shukr and Hamas’s Ismail Haniyeh, Israel and the Middle East are poised and waiting for the next move. The two killings represent a significant humiliation for the Iran-led regional axis, which until this point had been projecting a sense of achievement and satisfaction.  Is Israel prepared to up the ante to the point of regional war? The October 7 massacres and the subsequent war may not have come at the express order or at the precise time wanted by the regime in Tehran. But events have proceeded largely in a way satisfactory to it. Israel appeared to be isolating itself diplomatically, unable to deliver a deathblow

Patrick O’Flynn Patrick O'Flynn

Keir Starmer’s riot crisis

Just a month into the Labour ascendancy and its first major political crisis has already taken shape. It is not the looming tax-raising Budget Rachel Reeves is preparing in contravention of assurances made during the election campaign about her party’s plans being fully funded. It is instead something much more visceral and basic: a breakdown in law and order. On the first BBC Question Time programme after the election, Andrew Marr gave his thoughts on what the new Starmer administration would mean. ‘For the first time in many of our lives, actually Britain looks like a little haven of peace and stability,’ he declared.  He was referring to parliamentary stability

Lara Prendergast Lara Prendergast

James Heale, Lara Prendergast, Patrick Marnham, Laura Gascoigne and Michael Simmons

32 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: James Heale interviews Woody Johnson, the former American Ambassador to the UK, about a possible second Trump term (1:19); Lara Prendergast reflects on the issue of smartphones for children and what lessons we could learn from Keir Starmer’s approach to privacy (6:35); reviewing Patrick Bishop’s book ‘Paris ’44: The Shame and the Glory’, Patrick Marnham argues the liberation of Paris was hard won (12:37); Laura Gascoigne examines Ukraine’s avant garde movement in light of the Russian invasion (20:34); and, Michael Simmons provides his notes on venn diagrams (28:33).  Presented by Patrick Gibbons.  

Ian Acheson Ian Acheson

The ‘community cohesion’ concept explains confusing police tactics

Merseyside police were very keen to rule out the Southport attack as ‘terrorism-related’. This was despite subsequent remarks from the Home Office that counter-terrorism police were still assisting the investigation. That muddled explanation will fall on deaf ears. Whether this turns out to be an act encompassed within the dry legalistic definition of terrorism, the dead are still dead. Why are the police in the firing line this weekend? Why have they not been more forthcoming originally on details? Could a quicker reaction have dampened the riots we have seen over the past few days? One reason that the police strategy looks so baffling could be Merseyside’s concern that nebulous

Rupert Darwall

Unlike 1997, Labour has failed to finish off the Tories

Although Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour government has been in office less than a month, similarities between this year’s election and Tony Blair’s 1997 victory end with the size of Starmer’s House of Commons majority – just 13 seats shy of Blair’s in 1997. Just four days into Blair’s government, Gordon Brown stunned the country with his announcement that he was going to make the Bank of England independent. Two of Brown’s four Conservative predecessors as Chancellor, Nigel Lawson and Norman Lamont, had used their resignation speeches to advocate Bank independence. The other two, John Major and Kenneth Clarke, had been strongly opposed. Brown came into the Treasury with a fully

Robin Ashenden

Kemi Badenoch’s time has come

The Tories are about to choose a leader once more, and this time cannot allow themselves any self-indulgence. In 2022, they sidelined Kemi Badenoch – far and away the most popular candidate with the party-membership – in favour of a choice between Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak. Tory MPs resembled a football manager ‘fielding the reserves’. The resulting electoral meltdown this summer seemed inevitable. Badenoch clearly doesn’t shrink from a fight Much has been made of Badenoch’s rather inspiring backstory: the birth in Wimbledon to middle-class parents (father a GP, mother a university professor), the childhood under a grim left-wing dictatorship in Nigeria, and her teenage move to the UK

Duncan Gardham

Anjem Choudary’s attention-seeking became his downfall

Anjem Choudary thrived on the oxygen of publicity and in the end could not stand being starved of it. He could have retired quietly after serving a five-year sentence for encouraging support for Isis, but as soon as his licence conditions expired, he was courting controversy again. He put out press releases on WhatsApp and Telegram (largely ignored by the media), collected bans from online platforms, and began preaching over the internet to a group of five members of the Islamic Thinkers’ Society in New York. He did not know that two of them were undercover officers from the US. Much of what he said would not have been illegal in the

Friday

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Why are stocks suffering?

Today’s stock market plunge is interesting for two main reasons. First, for those of us who have never traded on the Japanese stock exchange, comes the revelation that the colours used to denote changes in stock prices are the inverse of those used on western markets: red means a share has gone up, green means it has gone down. The same, apparently, is true in China. Fortunately, for the sake of foreign drivers neither country inverts the colour of its traffic lights, although ‘go’ in Japan is denoted by something closer to blue than green… Second, UK markets seem to have been dragged down in sympathy with others even though

Lucy Dunn

Is Robert Jenrick emerging as a leadership frontrunner?

Robert Jenrick chose a swelteringly hot day in sunny Newark to stage his official leadership campaign launch. ‘I’m in politics for you,’ he told the packed-out room, filled with a mixed crowd of young families and veteran Tory supporters. ‘We can persuade young people to join the Conservatives again,’ the 42-year-old insisted. ‘We must be better. We can be better.’ It was in this optimistic vein that Jenrick’s speech continued. In a rosy summary of the Conservatives’ time in government, the former government minister first pointed to his party’s achievements: school reforms, keeping Corbyn out, swooping to the side of Ukraine and – despite being a Remainer himself – Brexit.

Oscar Edmondson

Is Starmer’s response to the riots enough?

24 min listen

Police are bracing themselves for more violent disorder this weekend. This is in the aftermath of the tragic stabbings in Southport and unrest in London, Hartlepool and Southport. Keir Starmer made a statement yesterday condemning the protests and the involvement of far right actors for stoking up the violence and spreading disinformation online. Is there a double standard in government’s response to these latest protests? Oscar Edmondson speaks to Brendan O’Neill and John Woodcock, who advised government on political violence & disruption.  Produced by Cindy Yu and Oscar Edmondson.

Nigel Jones

The trouble with ‘spy swaps’

Yesterday’s exchange of prisoners at Ankara airport in Turkey will have been personally ordered by President Putin. He is a veteran of the Cheka, the Soviet secret police agency, and no doubt aware of the role that swapping agents with the West has played in the troubled history of superpower rivalry. Putin knows that Russian spies look after their own – especially as the Chekists concerned are killers with blood on their hands. Vadim Krasikov, the hitman freed yesterday, was jailed in Germany in 2019 for murdering an exiled Chechen in a Berlin park. Vladimir Putin is as tenacious in exacting revenge on traitors to Russia as he is in

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Could Robert Jenrick overtake Kemi Badenoch?

13 min listen

Kemi Badenoch is the favourite in the Tory leadership race at the moment, which is partly why she’s been subject to a fair amount of scrutiny and some mud-slinging this week. But could Robert Jenrick actually overtake her as the frontrunner on the right of the Conservative party? Cindy Yu talks to Katy Balls and Isabel Hardman. Produced by Cindy Yu.

Eliot Wilson

Is Farage already sick of being an MP?

Nigel Farage was elected as MP for Clacton by a solid margin of 8,405. Four other Reform UK candidates were returned, and the party won 4.1 million votes. This surely was the beginning of a great change, the breaking of the mould of right-wing electoral politics. Farage spoke excitedly of creating a ‘bridgehead in parliament’ and said his party was ‘coming for Labour’ while it let the Conservatives ‘tear themselves apart’. Yet four weeks after the election, has the House of Commons proved disappointing for its new boy? There has been plenty of news for Farage to attach himself to. The Just Stop Oil protests at Heathrow enraged him, leading

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: ITV snubs Truss at races

To West Sussex, where spectators are enjoying the sun at the Goodwood Racecourse. But it hasn’t necessarily been the most pleasant experience for everyone – least of all a former prime minister who seems unable to reap the benefits of her short-lived stint in office… ITV was quizzing excited race-goers about the day and the interviewer stopped next to one gentleman to inquire about his pre-race thoughts on the stallions of the day. After a rather quick Q&A the presenter bid his farewells before moving onto the next interviewee – which wasn’t the woman in white also in frame, much to her disappointment. Former PM Liz Truss – in the

Steerpike Steerpike

Scottish Tory leadership race ramps up 

Back to Scotland, where the third official candidate in the Scottish Tory leadership contest has been announced. Meghan Gallacher, the current deputy of the party, has entered the race following weeks of speculation about whether she would stand. Calling for a party ‘reset’, Gallacher insists she wants to build a ‘modern, centre right party’ focusing on the right to buy a home and support for pensioners and parents.‘Scotland knows what we stand against,’ she declared in a Twitter video posted this morning, ‘but do they know what we stand for?’ Ouch. Douglas Ross’s second-in-command joins ex-Olympian Brian Whittle and justice spokesperson Russell Findlay in the race to become the next

Ian Acheson Ian Acheson

Of course whole-life prisoners should be banned from marrying

Is there any point in rehabilitating prisoners sentenced to ‘whole life’ tariffs, who will die in custody? Today’s announcement banning such prisoners from a fundamental human right – to get married – would suggest the state thinks there isn’t. This act, contained in an innocuous statutory instrument is a rare example of retribution in action. We don’t hear much about revenge in our criminal justice discourse these days – that, after all, is the less pretty descriptor for one of the three main aims of imprisonment. Society takes revenge for harm done on the part of the individual because crime is a societal hurt. This is the reason why such trials are

Owen Matthews

Could the Russia prisoner swap help bring peace to Ukraine?

I can well understand that joy and relief experienced by the supporters and families of the hostages released yesterday by Vladimir Putin. For I myself owe my life to a Cold War spy swap.  In October 1969, the British government exchanged Peter and Helen Kroger, two senior Soviet career spies nabbed for running a very real espionage ring, for Gerald Brooke, a British student who had served five years in a Russian jail for ‘anti-Soviet agitation’. The exchange was so unequal that Brezhnev’s Politburo agreed to throw in three Soviet citizens who wanted to marry Britons in as a makeweight. One was my mother, Lyudmila Bibikova. Releasing Navalny would have

John Keiger John Keiger

Macron’s lavish spending is jeopardising French finances

In the last years of Louis XVI’s reign, French finances were in a parlous state. State debt had ballooned, its servicing became exorbitant, and France’s creditworthiness sunk. The need to raise taxes after years of profligacy forced the monarch to summon the Estates General – the first time since 1614 – to obtain their approval. A series of scandals linked to the monarchy fuelled popular anger. All ushered in the July 1789 Revolution.  Against a background of French debt at 112 per cent of GDP, a budget deficit of 5.5 per cent and the EU taking out special measures against France for persistently ignoring the EU stability pact, this week