Politics Archives

Sunday

7 Sep 2025

David Cohen

Is Jacinda Ardern hiding from Covid scrutiny?

During the five years Jacinda Ardern led New Zealand, much was made of her ‘transparent’ style of touchy-feely leadership and willingness to deal with thorny questions. Yet on the biggest issue of her record – her zero Covid policies – the former Prime Minister has gone missing. A planned week-long public hearing at an inquiry in New Zealand into the nation’s Covid response was abandoned last month, after Jacinda Ardern and other senior figures from her government unexpectedly refused to testify. Ardern’s no-show came as a surprise to many, including the country’s prime minister, Christopher Luxon, who said his predecessor’s decision was ‘not right’. Summarising her decision not to speak

James Heale

Starmer’s reshuffle has Morgan McSweeney’s fingerprints all over it

After 48 hours, the final appointments have been made to complete the government’s reshuffle. A raft of rising stars from the 2024 intake like Josh McAlister, Josh Simons and Kate Dearden have all been handed junior ministerial posts. Kanishka Narayan, a tech enthusiast and Labour’s only Old Etonian, has gone to the Department for Science. Blair McDougall, who ran the Better Together campaign in 2014, is now in Business and Trade. These have been balanced with appointments for more long-serving colleagues too. Chris Elmore joins Yvette Cooper in the new-look Foreign Office team, while Anna McMorrin has replaced Nia Griffith in the Welsh Office. It is instructive to look at

Lucy Dunn

Starmer clears out Home Office in reshuffle

On Friday, former Deputy Prime Minister and housing minister Angela Rayner resigned after an ethics probe into her tax affairs was published. The move prompted Prime Minister Keir Starmer to begin a mass reshuffle of his government, with his new cabinet appointments here. Starmer’s timing made it a rather coincidental coup, with the news overshadowing the first day of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK conference in Birmingham. And if Farage thought day two of his conference would pass uninterrupted, he was mistaken. Today the PM is reshuffling his junior ministers and the first set of appointments have just been published. The most significant changes are in the Home Office which is

Steerpike

Will Emily Thornberry be Starmer’s new deputy?

It is a plot line worthy of a Sopranos episode. A newly-elected Prime Minister, flushed with electoral success, triumphantly sacks his onetime rival – only to discover, a year later, that she is now in pole position to become his new deputy. That’s right folks, Emily Thornberry – the gin-loving, flag-bashing Islington Dame – has returned to haunt Keir Starmer once more. Trebles all round! With Angela Rayner gone, the question of who succeeds her as deputy leader is exercising much of the Labour party. Early opinion is that it has to be a woman and preferably one who can provide a bit of a foil to Starmer. Luckily, there

Joe Bedell-Brill

Sunday shows round-up: Farage insists Reform really will stop the boats

At the Reform UK conference, Nigel Farage claimed that he would stop small boats crossings in two weeks if elected prime minister. When Laura Kuenssberg asked him how he would manage that, Farage scaled back the promise, saying ‘as soon as the law’s in place, as soon as you have the ability to detain and deport, you’ll stop it in two weeks.’ Kuenssberg noted that it might take ‘many, many months’ to pass legislation, and accused Farage of making big, bold promises that ‘don’t quite stack up’. Farage responded, ‘the difference is we mean it’, and argued that it’s impossible to solve the issue without leaving the ECHR. He claimed

Joe Shalam

Can Farage prove that Reform is more than a protest?

The next election will not be won on immigration. Britain has already made up its mind. Voters want it controlled and reduced, full stop. That is why Nigel Farage’s party is head and shoulders clear in the polls. But if Reform’s pledge on immigration has been sold to the British public, the real question, as the party closes a boisterous conference this weekend, is what next? None of these ideas are extreme. Many voters when polled see them as simple common sense After all, while the party’s answer to long-ignored demands for border control is the right starting point, it cannot be the whole story. A credible party of government

Lana Hempsall

Welfare dependency begins at school

Over the past five years, Britain has seen a dramatic rise in the number of people claiming disability benefits. There are now 2.8 million working-age adults who are economically inactive due to long-term sickness, a figure that has risen by over 700,000 since 2019. Personal Independence Payments (PIP) are also increasing rapidly, with over 50,000 new applications every month. Personal Independence Payments (PIP) are increasing rapidly, with over 50,000 new applications every month It is certainly true that the pandemic contributed to these figures, but the UK is the only G7 country that has not seen economic inactivity fall back toward pre-Covid levels. The UK is now a stark outlier. What appears to be

Michael Gove

Reform’s Zia Yusuf in conversation with Michael Gove

70 min listen

At the Reform conference in Birmingham, the Spectator’s editor Michael Gove sat down with Reform UK’s head of their department of government efficiency Zia Yusuf. They discussed Labour’s track record in government, Zia’s faith and his tech background, why leader Nigel Farage is his political hero and how AI could change Britain.

Saturday

6 Sep 2025

Steerpike

Mark Thatcher savages Starmer

In Tory world, it is a year for big anniversaries. One hundred years ago, Margaret Thatcher was born; fifty years after that, she won the Conservative leadership. To mark the occasion, various shindigs are planned, with the party conference next month expected to pay tribute to the Iron Lady’s legacy. A week after that there is a gala dinner for the eponymous centre, named in her honour. Heading up the guests alongside the likes of Julian Fellowes, ‘Beefy’ Botham and Joan Collins is none other than Sir Mark Thatcher, son of Margaret and Denis. It is the first time he has given a public speech about his mother’s life and

John McTernan

Starmer has played this reshuffle well

Keir Starmer knows not to waste a crisis. The loss of Angela Rayner has been a huge blow to his government. She was the most charismatic politician on the front bench of the Labour government. Her ability to go toe to toe with populist politicians was a huge asset, particularly as the relentless rise of Reform continues. And on the backbench she will still be one of the most charismatic politicians in the country. Yet the waters close swiftly over former politicians as Keir Starmer’s ruthless reshuffle shows. There was an elegance in the moves that reflected deep thought about the shape of the cabinet that the Prime Minister wanted.

Nigel Jones

Reform needs ex-Labour people too

Back in July I wrote in these pages that if too many Tories joined Reform, Nigel Farage’s party would risk looking like a rescue raft for rats leaving the sinking Conservative ship. Since then, the trend for repentant or redundant Tories to desert their old party – so comprehensively rejected by the voters – and flee to the rising Reform rebels has only accelerated. Recent Reform recruits include the former Conservative party chairman Jake Berry, former Tory Welsh secretary David Jones, and senior former Tory MP Adam Holloway. Ex-Tory minister Dame Andrea Jenkyns is now Reform’s mayor of Greater Lincolnshire, and Reform’s latest MP, Sarah Pochin, who won the Runcorn

Paul Goodman

The problem with Reform’s Lords plan

Not so long ago, an MP was free to earn whatever he liked however he liked, push off without impediment to work for businesses that he’d been responsible for regulating, and could hold his seat comfortably for the best part of 50 years. No longer. One might have thought that the stock of MPs would therefore have risen. But it hasn’t: the more ethically we compel them to behave, the more unpopular they seem to become. So congratulations to Zia Yusuf, Reform’s former party chairman – and one of Nigel Farage’s closest colleagues – for taking our detestation of MPs to its logical conclusion: namely, stopping them governing us altogether.

Freddy Gray

How worried are Americans about Britain?

20 min listen

In Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, Britain has a double-edged sword: one of the most anglophile U.S. administrations of all time – but a greater awareness of UK domestic politics. From Lucy Connolly to the recent arrest of Graham Linehan at Heathrow airport, there is much chatter in America about free speech in Britain and whether it is under threat, especially from the American right. Author Ed West and Spectator World contributor Lee Cohen join Freddy Gray to discuss how much this is cutting through with Americans, what this means for UK-US relations and the new dynamic caused by Reform UK’s success. Produced by Megan McElroy and Patrick Gibbons.

Tim Shipman

The red reshuffle overshadows Reform

14 min listen

Lucy Dunn catches up with Tim Shipman at Reform’s party conference, taking place in Birmingham, to get his reaction to Labour’s reshuffle. The reshuffle took place following Angela Rayner’s resignation from government. Tim argues that it’s clear the reshuffle centred around getting Shabana Mahmood into the Home Office, where she can tackle some of the biggest issues for Labour – small boats and asylum hotels. They also round up the goings on at Reform including leader Nigel Farage’s speech, who claimed Labour’s reshuffle proved an election could be sooner than we think… Produced by Patrick Gibbons and Megan McElroy.

Alex Klaushofer

Solar farms are taking over Britain’s countryside

This summer I spent an afternoon, as I do every year, sitting with old friends in their garden a few miles from the Gloucestershire village where we grew up. Their garden adjoins fields, affording a clear view of the Malvern Hills. But this year, the view was different. We watched as trucks crawled across the land three fields ahead, shunting between concrete blocks. Little constructions had appeared between the trees and hedges. I was witnessing the construction of the UK’s largest solar farm in a rural residential area. Some 26 fields, comprising 271 acres of farmland near the village of Highleadon are being turned into a photovoltaic power station with

Gareth Roberts

Why Gay Times hit the buffers

Gay Times, the longstanding monthly magazine formerly aimed at gay men – but now repurposed as an ‘LGBTQ+’ title – is in trouble: it has lost 80 per cent of its advertisers in the last year, and £5 million in advertising revenue as a result. ‘Good old-fashioned discrimination’ is to blame, according to its chief executive Tag Warner. The real reason is rather more straightforward: Gay Times‘s troubles show, once again, that if you go woke, you risk going broke. Gay Times‘s troubles show, once again, that if you go woke, you risk going broke. The Guardian suggests instead that Donald Trump might be to blame. ‘There has been a

Iram Ramzan

Do Druze Lives Matter?

It’s not even 10am, but already the Galilee sun is prickling the back of my neck. I’m standing outside a war room set up in the community centre of the village of Julis, watching a delegation of 200 Druze men arrive. One by one, they make their way up the steep path – most dressed in their trademark black robes, baggy trousers, and white hats. They’ve come from across northern Israel to plead for their people on the other side of the border, where a quiet massacre has been unfolding in southern Syria. ‘Tomorrow it could be Europe or the US. These extremists will get stronger, and they will murder each and

Friday

5 Sep 2025

Madeline Grant

Nadine Dorries was a low point in Reform’s Campest Show On Earth

Reform had clearly planned the Campest Show On Earth for their conference this year. Sparklers, club anthems and strobe lights: imagine Sir Keith Joseph was in charge of your primary school disco and you get a sense of the vibe. Unfortunately for the budding impresarios of Reform, they were upstaged. Just as their conference was starting, the inevitable happened and Big Ange called it a day. In many ways, the Deputy Prime Minister and Reform have a lot in common: a working-class support base, an obvious contempt for the smoking ban and finances which are best left, er, unscrutinised. Still there was room for only one headline and the reshuffle

Lucy Dunn

Starmer completes post-Rayner cabinet reshuffle

Keir Starmer is carrying out a far-reaching reshuffle this afternoon after Angela Rayner resigned from her three roles (Deputy Prime Minister, Housing Minister and deputy Labour leader) following a probe into her tax affairs by Sir Laurie Magnus, the Prime Minister’s ethics adviser. The writing was on the wall for Starmer’s former second-in-command after her own lawyers put out a statement on Thursday in which they claimed to have been scapegoated over the whole ordeal. Now Rayner will move to the backbenches while Starmer galvanises his premiership with a cabinet reshuffle. There have been significant moves among the most senior ranks of the cabinet. David Lammy is now Deputy Prime

Steerpike

Zia Yusuf awarded yet another Reform role

Senior Reform figure Zia Yusuf has been on quite the journey within the party. The businessman first came to prominence as party chairman after taking over from now-deputy Richard Tice MP, promising to professionalise the growing party. Then, three months ago to the day, Yusuf shocked party colleagues and members by announcing his resignation from the role, posting on X that: ‘I no longer believe working to get a Reform government elected is a good use of my time, and hereby resign the office.’ He returned less than 48 hours later, however, to take on an Elon Musk-style role as Reform UK’s Head of DOGE. And now, during Nigel Farage’s