Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.
28 min listen
Freddy Gray speaks to podcast host and commentator Candace Owens about her story investigating whether Emmanuel Macron’s wife Brigitte is a man, why she remains firm on her views about Gaza, and how Trump is doing in his presidency.
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On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Max Jeffery reports from court as the Spectator and Douglas Murray win the defamation cause brought against them by Mohammed Hijab; Cosmo Landesman defends those who stay silent over political issues; Henry Blofeld celebrates what has been a wonderful year for test cricket; David Honigmann reflects on the powder keg that was 1980s New York, as he reviews Jonathan Mahler’s The Gods of New York; and, following the Oasis reunion, Rachel Johnson reflects on her run ins with the Gallagher brothers. Produced and presented by Patrick Gibbons.
‘Spain is and will be forever the land of Christian people’. These are not, as you might think, the words of a marauding conquistador, but of a spokesperson for Spain’s right wing Vox party. They were posted on X this week, in response to a ban on Muslim religious celebrations in the southeastern town of Jumilla. It is the first prohibition of its kind in Spain. It was proposed by Jumilla’s Conservative administration and passed with Vox’s (surprising) abstention. It bans the use of municipal facilities such as sports halls for ‘religious, cultural or social activities alien to our identity unless organised by the local authority’. This senseless legislation means
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Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has given a wide-ranging interview to the BBC’s Amol Rajan in which she touched upon her Nigerian upbringing, her feeling of identity and she even revealed she called out a peer for cheating at school. But perhaps her most interesting comments came when she revealed how she lost her belief in God. The Reverend Fergus Butler-Gallie, author of Twelve Churches, and Tim Shipman join Oscar Edmondson to discuss Kemi’s comments. Is it credible to call yourself a ‘cultural Christian’? And, with both an atheist Prime Minister and agnostic Leader of the Opposition, is the decline of religion in politics inevitable? Plus: with the news that Germany
If you hadn’t heard of Rushanara Ali until her resignation yesterday, then good for you. If you still hadn’t until now, even better. With her departure British politics is robbed of one of its most promising minnows. With Ali’s departure, British politics is robbed of one of its most promising minnows The former homelessness minister is an absolute standard-issue Starmerite apparatchik. PPE at Oxford, followed by a stint as a Parliamentary researcher, then a fruitful career milking the ‘human rights’ cow for all it was worth. She’d already quietly resigned from her building safety brief when it turned out she had been in receipt of sponsored trips courtesy of Saint-Gobain,
First came the Starmer-Macron handshake, sealing the UK-France migrant treaty. Following that was a series of Home Office stories about crackdowns on illegal working and smuggler gang adverts, filling the sleepy summer news pages. Then, the 21-page treaty itself was unveiled. And, finally, on Thursday morning Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, sombrely declared that the first migrants had been detained pending their return to France, with pixelated video footage of them supplied to broadcasters just in time for the evening TV bulletins. In terms of media handling, press coverage and communications, the one-in, one-out migrant deal with France has been impressively choreographed, with a drumbeat of related announcements, statements and
Data published yesterday has piled yet more pressure on the government to change its asylum policy. Analysis by the Telegraph has shown that 211 people living in asylum seeker hotels have been charged with crimes since the beginning of the year. This includes eight who have been charged with 12 sex offences against children, 32 sexual offences against adults and 109 violent offences. A 24-year-old who was charged with ‘attempting to engage in sexual communication with a child’ failed to appear at his trial on 20 June. Yet again, the regime seems to believe that lying is preferable to keeping its people safe The reported data relates to just 50 of
As the issue of immigration continues to assert itself as one of the top concerns facing the country, Brits are increasingly concerned about small boats crossings in the English Channel. So much so that some people have started seeing migrant crossing where there, er, aren’t any at all. Take for example ex-Reform MP Rupert Lowe, who this week raised the alarm about potential illegal immigrants being spotted off Great Yarmouth. The politician was quick to post a photo from the Norfolk coast to social media to rage that: Dinghies coming into Great Yarmouth, RIGHT NOW. Authorities alerted and I am urgently chasing. If these are illegal migrants, I will be
Will yesterday’s cut in interest rates bring relief to the government in its economic problems, offering a breather to people who feel that their living standards are declining? That is unlikely for two reasons. Firstly, people buying homes with mortgages – the most obvious beneficiaries of a cut in interest rates – are more likely nowadays to be on fixed rates. Few will benefit from an immediate cut to the Bank of England base rate; in fact, there are still many homebuyers who are coming off five-year fixed rates they took out at the height of Covid, when interest rates were still at near-zero. They will experience a shock, regardless of
When I joined the House of Commons Clerk’s Department 20 years ago, there was a helpful list of formerly common phrases which were no longer to be used. Among them was ‘Spanish practices’, that arch description often applied to irregular or restrictive workplace arrangements, which I suspect had hardly been spotted in the wild for a decade or more. It was an impermissible slur, of course, dating from the days of the first Elizabeth, but it came back to my mind yesterday. A contretemps with the notoriously intemperate and thin-skinned Trump might seem an attractive distraction The Financial Times picked up an announcement in the Madrid daily El País that
In a decision of historic weight, the Israeli government has formally approved a plan to expand its military operation and establish full control over the Gaza Strip. This has come despite the opposition of Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir, who raised pointed warnings during a meeting that began at 6:00 pm Israeli time last night and stretched late into the night. Tensions between Zamir and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu surfaced throughout the protracted session, with several ministers directly challenging the chief of staff over his stance. Eventually, the Political-Security Cabinet voted by an ‘overwhelming’ majority to endorse Netanyahu’s proposal to defeat Hamas through a combination of military occupation, strategic disarmament,
Kate Forbes’s announcement on Monday that she would be standing down as an MSP next year caught most people – her political allies, former backers, current colleagues – by surprise. She decided to make her intentions clear a few days prior to her attendance at the Edinburgh Fringe festival, where she was set to be interviewed by the Herald newspaper. But the timing of the Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch MSP’s exit news also coincided, incidentally, with Storm Floris hitting the UK. ‘At about 11 a.m., just after making the news, the power went off completely,’ she confessed to Thursday’s audience. The Wi-Fi broke, a mobile phone mast went down, and
Britain is in a terrible state (you may have noticed). We have a busted economy, a broken social contract and also what are euphemistically known as ‘community tensions’. But Reform is riding to our rescue. Apparently. Now if I’m drowning I’ll grab gladly at any piece of passing driftwood, however unpromisingly flimsy. But I’m afraid I just can’t successfully lie to myself – and I’ve tried – about Reform. There is something cheap and cheerful about Reform, an erratic, homespun quality that would seem amiably slipshod in a comfortingly British way – if only conditions weren’t so dire What is the essence of Reform? If you were going to assemble a
A relatively quiet recess has been enlivened by a government resignation. Rushanara Ali quit as Homelessness Minister after accusations of hypocrisy by the i newspaper over how she handled rent increases on a house she owns in east London. Ali ended her tenants’ fixed term contract to sell up but then re-listed the house for rent at a higher price within six months, which is something she is currently trying to outlaw under the Renters’ Rights Bill. She had already lost part of her brief after attending an event linked to the parent company of a firm criticised by the Grenfell inquiry. The Labour MP’s resignation came in an exchange of
The problem of evil has stumped some of the greatest thinkers in the history of human philosophy and theology. It was, however, a cinch for Kemi Badenoch. In an interview designed to make the sometimes aloof Leader of the Opposition seem more relatable, Mrs Badenoch described how the case of Josef Fritzl made her ‘reject God’. She referred to the loss of faith as being ‘like a candle being blown out’ when she realised that while her prayers – for, inter alia, longer hair and good exam grades – appeared to have been answered, the prayers of the imprisoned Elisabeth Fritzl were not. The dominance of an elite which essentially believes
There’s no rest, they say, for the wicked. Nobody, however, ever deigns to inform us what amount of downtime will be allocated to the incompetent. If the presence of Rachel Reeves in Wales this afternoon is anything to go by, they don’t get a great deal of rest either. In the midst of the summer holidays, our Playmobil-haired Chancellor had donned her hardhat and inflicted herself on Wales. As she stomped around Port Talbot it was hard to know where the plastic ended and the human began. Nothing Reeves says bears even the tiniest semblance to reality On the back of an interest rate cut, the Chancellor was proudly trumpeting
It wouldn’t be recess without a sleaze scandal, eh? Now Sir Keir Starmer’s wife is in the limelight, after it transpired that she has accepted yet another set of freebies. Victoria Starmer accepted free tickets to Royal Ascot worth hundreds – almost exactly a year on from when Lady Starmer and the Prime Minister were embroiled in a freebie fiasco row over free clothing and hospitality. Dear oh dear… Sir Keir’s register of interests revealed that Lady Starmer nabbed £650 worth of tickets for her and two family members to attend Royal Ascot, as reported by the Express. The Prime Minister himself wasn’t lucky enough to benefit from the gifts
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Some excitement on Threadneedle Street today after the Bank of England cut interest rates to 4 per cent. The Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) has just voted five to four – after a revote – for what is the third cut this year. This takes interest rates back down to levels not seen since the beginning of 2023. Concerns about an increasingly slack labour market seem to have driven the MPC’s decision. This sounds like good news – and Starmer will welcome it as such – but the Bank’s apparent comfort with loosening policy in this context is baffling says Michael Simmons. Its own forecasts show inflation climbing back to
The Bank of England has cut interest rates to 4 per cent. Threadneedle Street’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) has just voted five to four, after a revote, for what is the third cut this year. This takes interest rates back down to levels not seen since the beginning of 2023. Concerns about an increasingly slack labour market seem to have driven the MPC’s decision. A second vote was required – the first since 1998 – because initially four members of the committee voted for a 0.25 per cent cut but one member voted for a larger cut of 0.5 per cent. Markets expect the rate to be cut once more to 3.75 per
Major listed companies have already switched from London to New York. The non-doms are all fleeing for Milan and Dubai. And now it turns out that company directors are quitting Britain in record numbers. The exodus of entrepreneurs is accelerating all the time. And yet, so far the Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer have remained completely silent on the issue. Surely, sooner or later they will have to say something? An analysis by the Financial Times this week found that almost 3,700 company directors have left Britain over the last few months, almost double the number before the Budget. Given the time lags involved in filing