Politics

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

Thursday

Peter Apps

‘Build baby build’ is not a housing strategy

There are too many middling politicians in this country who look at Donald Trump with envy. I might not like his politics, they think, but isn’t he such a great communicator? Don’t you see how good he is at speaking to normal people? What could we learn from this? The answer, of course, is nothing. History tells us that governments can ask for huge increases in the volume and speed of house building, or a proper focus on quality and safety, not both. Trump succeeds at being Trump because he is nothing like most politicians. He has built a character over decades of TV series, pro-wrestling cameos and a flashy,

Alexander Kolyandr

Putin is mortgaging Russia’s future to pay for Ukraine

We will wage the war in Ukraine for longer and make you pay more for it. That was the message the Kremlin sent its subjects following the Russian government’s presentation of next year’s budget and the accompanying economic outlook. The budget, which reached parliament for rubber-stamping on Monday, outlines the Kremlin’s vision ahead of the war enterring its fifth year next February: the war will continue at the expense of the economy and people’s incomes. Higher taxes are expected to keep the budget deficit at 1.6 per cent of GDP next year. For three years, rising fiscal spending stimulated both economic growth and climbing incomes. The downside of this amphetamine-fuelled

Jonathan Sacerdoti

The Manchester synagogue attack didn’t come from nowhere

It is still early in the investigation, and key details remain unconfirmed. But what is already known about this morning’s attack in Manchester is horrifying. At least two people are dead, as well as the attacker. Three others are in a ‘serious condition’. The attack occurred outside Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue, shortly after 9.30 a.m., as members of the Jewish community gathered for prayers on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. Let no one pretend this came from nowhere. Let no one feign surprise According to Greater Manchester Police, the attacker used a vehicle to ram into pedestrians before stabbing at least one individual. Armed officers

Steerpike Steerpike

NHS Fife’s trans toilet U-turn

Well, well, well. It transpires that NHS Fife – the health board caught up in the Sandie Peggie trans tribunal case – has now U-turned on its toilet policy. After the nurse took NHS Fife to a tribunal over her suspension for complaining about having to share a changing room with a transwoman, it turns out that the health board has now instructed its staff to use facilities that align with their biological sex – not their stated gender. How times change, eh? The health board has said that both bathrooms and changing rooms should be used by those ‘whose sex at birth corresponds with the facility’. The move followed

Raymond Wacks

The ECHR cannot be fixed

The interminable, and largely bogus, debate about our continued commitment to the Convention normally concerns its abuse by migrants. This week, the Prime Minister announced that the interpretation by judges of the ECHR undermined the government’s attempts to deport illegal immigrants. He specifically mentioned Article 3 (the prohibition of torture) and Article 8 (the right to privacy and family life). He nevertheless defended the UK’s membership of the Convention, saying that ministers ‘need to look again at the interpretation of some of these provisions, not tear them down’.  Really? Rip van Starmer may have suddenly discovered that there are problems with the ECHR following the rise of Reform, but he

Jonathan Sacerdoti

Palestinians must regret rejecting Trump’s ‘Deal of the Century’

In December 2024, Bill Clinton spoke with a candour that history affords. Reflecting on Camp David in 2000, he lamented that ‘you walk away from these once in a lifetime peace opportunities, and you can’t complain twenty-five years later when the doors weren’t all still open, and all the possibilities weren’t still there. You can’t do it.’ His warning was not simply about past missteps but about the nature of political time. Opportunities do not remain static. They decay, they harden, they shrink. To reject an offer once is to ensure that the next will be less generous, more conditional, and more difficult to secure. It was rejected outright. The

Richard Ekins

The sorry record – and uncertain future – of the Human Rights Act

It is twenty-five years to the day since the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA) came into force. In that time, human rights law has not become a settled, accepted part of our constitution. To the chagrin and dismay of many lawyers, including no doubt Sir Keir Starmer and Lord Hermer, it remains stubbornly controversial. But the controversy is warranted – this body of law distorts parliamentary democracy, disables good government, and departs from the ideal of the rule of law. The HRA’s record over the last quarter century exposes the constitutional and practical problems that arise from open-ended rights litigation While the government came into office vowing never to leave the European Convention

Tim Shipman

Kemi’s fightback, the cult of Thatcher & debunking British myths

40 min listen

The Spectator’s cover story this week is an interview with Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch ahead of the Tory party conference. Reflecting on the criticism she received for being seen as slow on policy announcements, she says that the position the Conservatives were in was ‘more perilous than people realise’ and compares herself to the CEO of an ailing firm. Can Kemi turn it around for the Tories? Host William Moore is joined by the Spectator’s political editor Tim Shipman – who interviewed Kemi – alongside commissioning editor Lara Brown, and academic and author Philip Hensher. They discuss whether the ‘cult of Thatcher’ needs to die, Tim says he’s more Disraeli

Rachel Johnson

How not to be a spy

Like our former ambassador to the United States, Lord Mandelson, I was once vetted by the security services. My brush with the spooks started, as in a Cold War spy novel, with a meeting on a bench in St James’s Park after a distinguished foreign policy wonk of my acquaintance had suggested lunch. As the weather was fine, we decided to pick up sandwiches from the café and sit admiring the pelicans. The diplomat explained the Foreign Office was scouting for new blood for the Policy Planning Staff. I was at the Financial Times and had never knowingly had a blue-sky thought in my life but this sounded… different. The

James Heale James Heale

Starmer has bought himself time. Can he use it wisely?

The Labour conference in Liverpool was a curiously upbeat affair. Much of the good spirit came from schadenfreude at the misadventures of Andy Burnham. The Mayor of Greater Manchester scuttled out of Liverpool just before Keir Starmer’s speech, having united the party in mutual contempt at his posturing in recent days. ‘A fucking clown’ was the verdict of an ex-cabinet minister. ‘He did an Eric Heffer,’ remarked one Labour official – a reference to the cantankerous Liverpool MP who stormed out of Neil Kinnock’s conference speech 40 years ago. ‘It was the worst coup attempt since South Korea,’ says a former aide. Burnham, however, is merely a symptom, not a

William Atkinson

The Tories must free themselves from the cult of Thatcher

Like every Tory Boy, I had a Margaret Thatcher poster. I put it up when I was 15 and had just joined the party. Above my bed, resplendent in blue, the Iron Lady glowered down at my teddies. Naturally, it came down when I first brought home a girlfriend. For any young Tories lacking in Thatcher tat, this week’s Conservative party conference will provide plenty of opportunities for purchasing some. It (almost) coincides with the 100th anniversary of Thatcher’s birth on 13 October. The occasion has been heralded by a series of think-tank initiatives, dinners and conferences and the release of a one-volume edition of Charles Moore’s biography. The Iron

Tim Shipman

Kemi Badenoch: how I plan to save the Tories

Kemi Badenoch is in ebullient form. She promises the Conservative party conference, which begins this weekend in Manchester, will be ‘more fun than usual’. But that does not mean the Tory leader plans to sweep on stage like Reform’s Andrea Jenkyns. ‘I won’t be wearing any jumpsuits with sequins on,’ Badenoch says. ‘I won’t be singing “Insomniac”.’ The state of the opinion polls, with the Tories at well below 20 per cent, ought to give her sleepless nights, but she is upbeat. What, I wonder, is her karaoke song? Her three children ‘are the DJs’ in the Badenoch household and ‘all they sing are Taylor Swift songs’. I push my

The Spectator

ID cards are Labour’s alibi for its failure

Questions of identity permeate our politics. What is it to be English, to be British? The Prime Minister sought to reclaim patriotism for the left in his conference speech, but his invocation of football stadium flag-waving and Oasis swagger was a remix of Britpop themes which were tinnily jarring two decades ago and beyond tired today. It was karaoke Cool Britannia. A much more thoughtful consideration of what modern patriotism requires, and where the dangers in an exclusively ethnic approach to national loyalty lie, came from the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood. In both her conference speech and her comments at a fringe meeting with The Spectator, Mahmood navigated questions of

Wednesday

Lucy Dunn

PPE firm linked to Baroness Mone ordered to pay £122 million

Today the High Court ordered a company linked to ex-Tory peer Baroness Mone to pay £122 million to the Department of Health for breaching an NHS contract during the pandemic. The company – PPE Medpro – was set up by a group led by the peer’s husband Doug Barrowman. During the pandemic, Mone recommended the company to the government through the ‘VIP lane’ on the same day it was incorporated – fast-tracking it to the top of a priority list for personal protective equipment (PPE) contracts. While the then-Conservative government had flagged concerns with the company at the time – namely over its recent incorporation in 2020 and the conflict

Patrick Gibbons

Labour’s deputy divisions: insider vs outsider?

14 min listen

Tim Shipman and Claire Ainsley from the Progressive Policy Institute join Patrick Gibbons to reflect on Labour’s party conference as it draws to a close in Liverpool. This conference has been received positively for Labour but, on the final day, a hustings for the deputy leadership demonstrated that divides remain under the surface. Is Lucy Powell versus Bridget Phillipson a case of left versus right in the party, or is it more about the outsider versus the insider? And, as a leading political commentator declares Labour to now be the ‘party of the professional middle class’, what does the contest tell us about who Labour needs to appeal to? Produced

The Spectator

Speaker Series: An evening with Jeffrey Archer

Watch Spectator editor Michael Gove in conversation with international bestselling author Jeffrey Archer, in a livestream exclusively for Spectator subscribers. From politics to a publishing career in which he has sold more than 300 million books worldwide, Lord Archer will reflect on the stories that have captivated millions. We will also celebrate the launch of his latest thriller, End Game, and offer audiences an exclusive glimpse into the gripping finale of the William Warwick series. *Please note this is a subscriber-only exclusive. If you would like to sign up and get your first 3 months for just £3, subscribe today.

Sam Richards

Ed Miliband is condemning us to high energy prices

Ed Miliband is wrong. The greatest threat to climate action is not right wing billionaires buying up TV stations, as he said ahead of his conference speech today. It is expensive electricity.  Instead of tackling Britain’s world beating energy costs, Miliband used his speech to announce a ban on fracking – an empty gesture to block himself from something he had no intention of doing in the first place. Britain does need more clean energy, but not at any price The unfortunate reality is that Miliband’s sprint to get fossil fuels off the grid by 2030 will lock us into higher electricity prices and make it harder to decarbonise. Underpinning our future

Matthew Lynn

Ed Miliband can’t ban fracking forever

He wasn’t able to announce the £300 off household energy bills that was promised during the election campaign. Nor could he unveil any massive new solar farms or wind turbines. Still, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband did have one message to cheer the party faithful in his conference speech today: he is going to ban shale oil and gas for all time. ‘Let’s ban fracking and send the frackers packing,’ he thundered. But can Miliband really do that and outlaw fracking forever? Only a fool would pretend that he can. Right now, there is a moratorium on extracting shale oil and gas in the UK, which could,

Stephen Pollard

Is Keir Starmer calling Reform voters racist?

Back in the day – in 1992 – the think tank I worked for commissioned a series of focus groups of swing voters in marginal seats. They had all voted Conservative in that year’s election, having toyed with and then deciding not to vote Labour. I thought of those voters yesterday, when the Prime Minister decided to tell potential Reform voters that they’re a bunch of racists. (I know he didn’t put it like that, and that he says he doesn’t think that, but bear with me.) One constant of those 1992 focus groups was the popularity of the Lib Dems’ manifesto idea of ‘a penny on income tax for

Steerpike Steerpike

Every time Farage was brought up at Labour conference

Whisper it, but there’s a name on everyone’s lips at Labour conference. A man who clearly seems to be going places – if we look at the sheer number of times he’s been cited in Liverpool. Who is this whippersnapper? A young socialist exciting the grassroots? A rising cabinet star? Errr, not exactly: it’s Nigel Farage, aged 61 and a half. The Reform leader may not be in Liverpool but it’s been impossible to escape his name in recent days, with Starmer setting the hares running by labelling Farage’s polices ‘racist’ and questioning his patriotism. Which is why Mr S was so surprised to hear David Lammy explain yesterday that he