Politics

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

Thursday

Lara Prendergast Lara Prendergast

Downfall: how Nigel Farage became the left’s greatest weapon

44 min listen

This week: Downfall. Our cover piece examines Nigel Farage’s role in the UK general election. Spectator editor Fraser Nelson argues that Farage has become the left’s greatest weapon, but why? How has becoming leader of Reform UK impacted the campaign and could this lead to a fundamental realignment of British politics? Fraser joined the podcast to talk through his theory, with former UKIP MEP Patrick O’Flynn (02:10). Next: Spectator writer Svitlana Morenets has returned to Ukraine to report on the war, which is now well into its third year. How are Ukrainians coping and what is daily life like? Svitlana joined the podcast from Kyiv with Ukrainian author Andrey Kurkov (21:53). And finally: has

Michael Evans

Sending US contractors to Ukraine could provoke Moscow

Call it ‘slippery slope’ or ‘mission creep’, America’s strategy for helping Ukraine defend itself against the Russian invasion has adapted and expanded many times in the last 28 months. However, there was a golden rule laid down by President Biden almost on the first day of Russia’s aggression against its neighbour. There would be no ‘boots on the ground’, he said. No US troops would be deployed to fight the Russians. Civil contractors have played a significant role in the field in every US war in modern times. But the US is not at war in Ukraine That Biden doctrine has not changed. And yet now there is serious consideration

Professor Gordon Wishart

Politicians aren’t discussing Britain’s woeful cancer survival rates

Last week, amid a flurry of election policies and debates, a striking report found that cancer survival in England currently lags up to 25 years behind European countries like Sweden, Norway and Denmark. From bowel cancer to breast diagnoses, England is firmly lagging behind our Scandinavian neighbours. What’s to blame? Why aren’t major parties discussing how this decline could be reversed in their manifestos? The revelation by Macmillan Cancer Support is the legacy of many years of underfunding, resulting in delays to diagnosis and treatment. England has less scanners, beds, cancer specialists & nurses per head of population than comparable countries. An NHS spokesperson quite rightly pointed out that more

Nigel Jones

Why the Bolivia coup failed

Latin America has long been the traditional home of the military coup – or ‘golpe’ in Spanish – so the sight yesterday of soldiers rushing the presidential palace in La Paz, capital of Bolivia, and ramming its doors open with an armoured vehicle, may not have seemed surprising. The abortive coup attempt was aimed at toppling Bolivia’s left-wing president, Luis Arce After hours of confusion, the leader of the coup, General Juan Jose Zuniga, was led away under arrest, with his attempt to ‘restructure democracy’ having clearly failed. Earlier, crowds had taken to the streets in response to presidential appeals to defend democracy and oppose the coup. The abortive coup

Mark Galeotti Mark Galeotti

Why the plot to kill Putin would be a mistake

Is the assassination of Vladimir Putin the answer to ending the war in Ukraine? A collection of émigré Russians who have declared themselves the ‘Congress of People’s Deputies’ and a Russian parliament in opposition have called for the West not only to support them in a campaign to overthrow Vladimir Putin, but actively to play a role. This would be a serious mistake. At a recent gathering in Warsaw, these émigrés, all of whom at some point or another had previously been elected as parliamentarians in Russia, agreed their ‘victory plan,’ a seven-point programme, due to be presented during Nato’s forthcoming Washington summit. Their fundamental view is that the war

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

The pointlessness of the junior doctors’ strike

Junior doctors are back out on strike in England today, walking out this morning for five days. The timing of this particular strike is highly political, given medics will return to work just before polling day – but it is also highly pointless: something NHS leaders have been quick to highlight. The election campaign is the one period when no politician can resolve the dispute over doctors’ pay. Rishi Sunak is not going to change his mind and award the doctors the 35 per cent raise they have been demanding, but neither could he if he wanted to because of the election purdah rules. Labour, on the other hand, aren’t

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

The shooting of Nahel Merzouk still haunts France

One year ago today, a 17-year-old called Nahel Merzouk was fatally shot by a policeman as he sped away from a vehicle checkpoint in western Paris. What followed shocked France. Days of rioting, looting and burning across the country. Not just in the inner cities but in provincial towns such as Montargis in central France, where a mob vandalised the town hall and pillaged scores of shops. ‘I still have people who almost a year later don’t want to come back to the centre because of the riots,’ said one shopkeeper this week. ‘They’ve been apprehensive ever since, traumatised, even though we’re a fairly quiet town.’ For millions of French

Arieh Kovler

Why Israel’s ultra-Orthodox don’t want to serve

In the middle of a war, Israel’s government is wobbling. Not because of the policy failures that led to the country’s worst disaster ever when Hamas invaded on October 7, 2023; not because of the slow progress of the war, its high human cost or its failure to recover the hostages; not even because of the looming threat of a major escalation in northern Israel and Lebanon. No, the threat to the stability of Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition comes from within, after the Supreme Court ruled that the government must start drafting Haredi (ultra-Orthodox Jewish) men into the Israel Defence Forces. In 1948, as the newly-formed State of Israel fought for

Julie Burchill Julie Burchill

The trouble with David Tennant

Most people have a soft spot for the first ‘X’ film they legitimately saw as an alleged ‘adult’; mine was Magic, the 1978 film by Richard Attenborough, starring Anthony Hopkins as a mild-mannered ventriloquist who becomes possessed by the spirit of his verbally vicious dummy, leading to awful consequences when a steaming hot and sex-starved Ann-Margret happens by. The creepy plot of Magic came to mind when I saw a clip of the actor David Tennant’s astonishing outburst of spite directed at the Tory MP Kemi Badenoch while he was picking up a prize at something called ‘the British LGBT Awards’: What Tennant said was mind-bogglingly stupid ‘If I’m honest, I’m

Daniel Rey

Biden’s health is a worry for Republicans and Democrats in tonight’s debate

Tonight, Donald Trump and Joe Biden face each other in the first of two presidential debates. With about ten per cent of the electorate undecided, the debate – the first between a current and a former president – could change the momentum of the race. Both candidates want to debate. Trump thinks he can trounce the rival he has often dubbed ‘Sleepy Joe’. Biden, a doddery octogenarian, urgently needs to persuade voters he is not too frail for office.   Tonight’s debate helps cement the choice as Biden or Trump Debating against a much more dynamic candidate might seem like a risk for Biden. But in fact, it’s a good

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Will the French Blob thwart Marine Le Pen?

The National Rally presented its manifesto to the French people on Monday ahead of Sunday’s first round of voting in the parliamentary election. ‘I have made my priorities very clear: purchasing power, restoring security and controlling immigration,’ was how the party’s president, Jordan Bardella, summarised the manifesto. ‘I want to embody unity, to bring people together, and I aspire to be the Prime Minister of the French who did not vote for the National Rally.’ The manifesto has been eviscerated by Bardella’s political and media opponents. ‘An economic shipwreck’, was the headline in the left-wing Liberation. Underneath was a tribune signed by ‘The Appalled Economists’, a collective of French thinkers and

Katy Balls Katy Balls

What’s the worst that can happen for the Tories?

When Rishi Sunak stunned his cabinet colleagues by calling a snap election, they feared the worst. Fast forward a month and what they originally saw as the worst-case scenario now looks like quite a good result. At the time, losing the election but retaining 200 MPs seemed plausible. While the polls vary, the consistent theme now is that the Conservatives are on course for their worst defeat in history – and could end up with as few as 50 MPs. The campaign has been dominated by gaffes, from Sunak’s rain-drenched election announcement to the D-Day debacle. And this week, most damaging of all, the gambling scandal. Five Tory figures (two

Charles Moore Charles Moore

The problem with flexible working

Lots and lots and lots of fuss about betting on the general election. Less attention is paid to the biggest bet of all – Rishi Sunak’s frightening flutter in opting for 4 July. At Tuesday lunchtime, I was held up crossing the Mall by the procession for the state visit of the Emperor of Japan. I fumed a bit, but the modest crowd’s modest interest was soothing. How success is taken for granted. The recovery of Japan from disgrace, hunger and ruin was a miracle, the triumph of western, especially American, nation-building – such a miracle that everyone has forgotten it. When I was a boy, Hirohito, the wartime emperor,

The Spectator

The ideas-free election

On the face of it, 2024 is a great year for democracy. Britain is one of 50 countries to hold elections, with a record two billion people globally expected to have cast a vote by Christmas. This is partly down to the growing number of democratic countries, particularly in the past three decades. Last year the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index judged two more to have made the grade, bringing the tally to 74. Alongside that, there is greater participation and wider suffrage. No one has worked out how to win elections while telling the public to expect less from government In Britain the past five weeks cannot be said

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

How Nigel Farage became the left’s greatest weapon

Nigel Farage is about to turn British politics upside-down for a third time. His Ukip insurgency forced the Tories to offer the 2016 referendum on the EU and changed history. When his Brexit party pushed Tories into fifth place in our last-ever European parliament elections in 2019, his victory established him as the most effective Tory-slaying machine ever deployed in political battle. If Keir Starmer or Ed Davey could have had one wish before the election, it would have been for Farage to return and attack the Tories, so they could sit back to watch the right eat itself. ‘Farage has become our patron saint,’ says one Lib Dem strategist So

Max Jeffery Max Jeffery

Can independent candidates pose a threat to Labour?

Nigel Farage says that Britain is ready for a ‘revolt’, and he’s not the only candidate in this election committed to an uprising. The biggest threat to Keir Starmer is coming not from the Tories or the Lib Dems… but from left-wing insurgents. In Bristol Central, Thangam Debbonaire, the shadow culture secretary, could lose to the Greens. In Ashton-under-Lyne, Angela Rayner’s seat, George Galloway’s Workers party is trying to cause trouble. In the last election, Rayner had the lowest vote share of any Labour candidate there since 1931, but was still re-elected with a majority of more than 4,000. Galloway wants this apathetic town to finally unseat Labour’s deputy leader. Spend

Wednesday

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Sunak vs Starmer round two – who won?

16 min listen

Isabel Hardman and Katy Balls speak to Patrick Gibbons following the second, and final, debate between Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak. With a week to go until the general election, who came out on top and did we learn anything? 

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

The problem with Starmer calling Sunak a ‘liar’

Is Rishi Sunak a ‘liar’? That was the powerful and rather incredible word used by Keir Starmer multiple times in Wednesday night’s debate – with Starmer interrupting the prime minister’s closing statement, no less – after Sunak used the Tory calculation that Labour would raise the average tax bill by £2,000.  ‘Lies, liar’ Starmer pressed. It sounded like something being picked up on a hot mic off stage. But it was the Labour leader, who was visibly furious at the start of his closing statement. ‘That was a lie, and he’s been told not to repeat that lie, and he’s just done it,’ was how Starmer’s remarks started, before he went

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Has ‘gamblegate’ become ridiculous?

18 min listen

We are now two weeks into the political betting saga. Since our last episode, Keir Starmer has suspended a Labour candidate who bet on himself losing. How damaging is ‘gamblegate’ – and has it gone too far?  Cindy Yu speaks to Katy Balls and Stephen Bush, columnist and associate editor at the Financial Times.