Politics

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

Saturday

25 May 2024

Why Rishi Sunak wants to introduce national service

The first big new policy announcement of the election campaign is in from the Tories, and it’s likely to be a talker. Where Keir Starmer appears to be opting for a ‘Ming vase’ strategy – trying not to rock the boat ahead of polling day – the Tories are leaning towards the opposite. At 20 points behind in the polls, aides believe they need headline-grabbing, bold policies in order to get the public’s attention. The first of which is the return of mandatory national service. In what the Tories are billing as ‘a bold new model for national service for 18-year-olds’, they propose to make it mandatory for all 18-year-olds

Steerpike

Is Michael Gove set to become the next Strictly star?

As the exodus of Conservative MPs continues, Mr S is rather curious about what alternative careers retiring Tories have in their sights. The number of Conservative politicians stepping down at the general election is 78 and counting — and on Friday night, a resignation announcement from a high-profile Tory veteran stunned the nation. Michael Gove, currently Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, announced just days after Sunak called the snap election that he would not be contesting his Surrey Heath seat, despite having a rather impressive majority of over 18,000. The Tory Trot wrote that: I know the toll office can take, as do those closest to

Katy Balls

How many Tory big beasts will the Lib Dems oust?

It’s four days since Rishi Sunak surprised his colleagues and announced a summer election. So far a lot of the commentary has been on how Labour’s Keir Starmer could be the big winner from that call – with the party over 20 points ahead in the polls. Yet when it comes to the threat many of the cabinet are most worried about, it is actually the Liberal Democrats. There is much chatter among ministers today over Michael Gove’s shock decision to stand down. As Tim Shipman reports in the Sunday Times, Gove was long of the view that he would hold his constituency of Surrey Heath (majority: 18,349) so long

Ian Williams

A Chinese invasion of Taiwan remains unlikely

For a second day, yesterday, Chinese fighter jets and warships surrounded Taiwan for drills which the People’s Liberation Army said were designed to ‘test the ability to jointly seize power, launch joint attacks and occupy key areas’. They followed the inauguration earlier this week of Taiwan’s new and democratically elected president Lai Ching-te, who Beijing has characterised as a ‘dangerous separatist’. The exercises were a ‘strong punishment’, said the PLA, presumably for Taiwan’s audacity in electing a leader who wants to distance the island as far as possible from the thuggish leaders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). There has been an assumption that Russia’s bogged-down assault on Ukraine might

Katy Balls

What does a July election mean for the SNP?

12 min listen

We have spoken a lot on the podcast this week about how a July election could be disastrous for the Conservatives, but what about the SNP? With arrests, investigations, resignations and a recent leadership change, it looks as though a snap election couldn’t come at a worse time for the Scottish nationalists. Katy Balls speaks to Lucy Dunn and Fergus Mutch, former head of communications for the SNP.

Fraser Nelson

What’s behind the Tory exodus?

11 min listen

It’s day four of the election campaign, and Michael Gove has joined the growing Tory exodus and announced he’s standing down at the election. What’s behind his decision, and how will it affect Rishi Sunak? Megan McElroy speaks to Fraser Nelson and Katy Balls. Produced by Megan McElroy.

Alexander Horne

The ICJ’s Rafah ruling is unwelcome and unwise

Yesterday afternoon, in a striking move, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the UN’s top court, ordered Israel to stop military operations in Rafah and to immediately reopen the Rafah border crossing with Egypt for the unhindered provision of humanitarian aid. The ICJ also ordered Israel to allow the UN to investigate allegations of genocide. This dramatic step is the culmination of a bad month for the Israeli Government. Earlier in May, the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor said he was seeking the arrest of the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, for war crimes. This week, in a series of co-ordinated announcements, Ireland, Spain and Norway recognised a Palestinian state, arguing that this would somehow bolster

Michael Simmons

Quentin Letts, Owen Matthews, Michael Hann, Laura Gascoigne, and Michael Simmons

31 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Quentin Letts takes us through his diary for the week (1:12); Owen Matthews details the shadow fleet helping Russia to evade sanctions (7:15); Michael Hann reports on the country music revival (15:05); Laura Gascoigne reviews exhibitions at the Tate Britain and at Studio Voltaire (21:20); and, Michael Simmons provides his notes on the post-pub stable, the doner kebab (26:20). Produced by Patrick Gibbons and Oscar Edmondson.

Kate Andrews

The smoking ban won’t go away

Has Rishi Sunak’s surprise summer election spared Britain some nanny state interventions? At first glance it seemed so, as it was revealed yesterday that the Prime Minister’s legacy legislation – the Tobacco and Vapes Bill – did not make it into the pile of ‘wash-up’ legislation that Parliament will try to pass before its dissolution next week. The Tories abandoned the defence of liberty a long time ago Speaking to the BBC yesterday, Sunak expressed his ‘disappointment’ that he was ‘not able to get that through by the end of the session’ but still cited his crackdown on flavoured vapes and a proposed ban on tobacco sales for anyone born after January

Katja Hoyer

Germany was right to take the Reichsbürger threat seriously

Germany is in the grip of one of the most extensively covered courtroom dramas in recent memory. On trial is an alleged terrorist group of nine men and women centred around the 72-year-old aristocrat Heinrich XIII Prince Reuss. They stand accused of having plotted to violently overthrow the state before they were arrested in December 2022. The groups’ network is said to reach far into Germany’s armed forces, police and politics, making the case one of the most bizarre and troubling in modern German history. The case is so large that it had to be split into three parts. The first one began in Stuttgart in April. Another one is

Alexander Larman

The sad decline of Oxford

The cliché about Oxford – and as a resident of the city, I have skin in the game here – is that it’s the most beautiful city in Britain. Think of all the writers and poets who have rhapsodised about its glories, from Evelyn Waugh immortalising (some would say fossilising) it in Brideshead Revisited to Matthew Arnold’s famous description of it in his poem ‘Thyrsis’ as ‘that sweet city with her dreaming spires/She needs not June for beauty’s heightening’. It has more Grade I listed buildings in its centre than anywhere of a similar size and has innumerable architectural wonders. The incomparable Radcliffe Camera stands at its heart – often

Michael Evans

How Benjamin Netanyahu and Joe Biden fell out

After the atrocities committed by Hamas in southern Israel on 7 October, President Biden offered his total and unflinching support for retribution against the terrorist-designated rulers of the Gaza Strip. Benjamin ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu vowed to annihilate every member of Hamas and to gain the release of the 252 Israeli and foreign hostages abducted and taken into Gaza. Biden agreed that these objectives were right and proper. So, too, did the UK government and other like-minded nations, appalled by the images and reports of slaughter, rape and brutality by Hamas. Relations between Washington and Tel Aviv are not beyond repair Nearly eight months later, that policy of unflinching support for Israel

Friday

24 May 2024

Fraser Nelson

The glories and blunders of Michael Gove

On the way to work, I pass a Lidl supermarket that has a new school built on top of it. Parents gather with children in uniforms that didn’t exist a few years ago; teachers who didn’t have jobs a few years ago come together in what’s already one of the best primary schools in the country. And if it wasn’t for Michael Gove, personally, none of this would exist. I can’t think of many more important or meaningful legacies for the political career that, we now learn, will end at the July election. A few weeks ago, Katy and I were at an event that Gove chaired where he asked

Isabel Hardman

Who dares, wins? Not Michael Gove

Michael Gove has just announced he is standing down at the election. He spent the past few days agonising privately over the decision, and published a letter on Twitter paying tribute to the Conservative party’s legacy in government – mostly his legacy, in fact. He names education reform, funding for modernising prisons and rehabilitation, progressive environmental policies, levelling up, housing reform, Brexit and building safety. It is notable that he says he was ‘pleased to be able to introduce the most wide-ranging reforms to leasehold, social housing, and supported housing in a generation’. That is true, but the leasehold reforms did not go as far as Gove had wanted, and

Limor Simhony Philpott

Why Israeli politicians will ignore the ICJ’s ruling

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling that Israel has to immediately stop the Rafah operation wouldn’t have surprised anyone who knows how deeply biased the ICJ is against Israel. In response to a request by South Africa, the court ruled that Israel must ‘immediately halt its military offensive, and any other action in the Rafah Governorate, which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.’ It stopped short of granting South Africa’s request for the war to stop altogether. The wording could imply, however, that as long as Israel’s actions in Rafah don’t amount

Steerpike

Reform branch urges its voters to turn out on a Saturday

Richard Tice was out yesterday at Reform’s big election launch, proudly declaring that his party is ready for the upcoming election. ‘We are going to win seats’ he promised, as he revealed that Reform will be standing candidates in all 630 seats in England, Wales and Scotland. One of those areas is Gravesham in Kent, currently represented by Tory Adam Holloway. The local Reform branch is excitedly tweeting graphics about Tice’s plans to ‘freeze immigration, scrap Net Zero’ and deliver ‘high growth’. So it was so somewhat unfortunate then that in their haste to hail the forthcoming election they, er, get the date wrong. On their Twitter/X account, Reform Gravesham

Jonathan Miller

Macron’s empire is falling apart

‘Maoré na Farantsa paka tcho!’, Emmanuel Macron declared five years ago campaigning in Mamoudzou, speaking the local language of Shimaoré in the capital city of Mayotte, a French-ruled archipelago-commune in the Indian Ocean. Translation: Mayotte and France, for ever, in life until death. The French president returned to the islands this week to play emperor but his empire looks like it’s falling apart. Even by the standard of Macron’s habitual wishful thinking, Mayotte is a disaster. Like much of the French empire – an empire that pretends not to be one – Macron indulges a fantasy that its remote colonies are really just part of France itself. Racked with riots, crime

Stephen Daisley

John Swinney is making a mess of the SNP’s election campaign

Humza Yousaf lasted just over 400 days as SNP leader. Will his replacement John Swinney get that far? The question arises so soon into his tenure because of Swinney’s decision to oppose the suspension of a former cabinet colleague. Michael Matheson resigned as health secretary in February after the taxpayer was left with an £11,000 bill for iPad data usage incurred while he was on a family holiday in Morocco. After initially claiming ignorance as to how the bill was run up, Matheson later claimed that his sons had hotspotted the data to watch football matches. Yousaf stood by Matheson, calling him a ‘man of integrity’, a locution the opposition

Steerpike

JK Rowling takes aim at Starmer over Duffield snub

Oh dear. It’s not yet 48 hours since Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called a general election and already tensions are running high. Now it transpires that Labour backbencher and vocal women’s rights campaigner Rosie Duffield was not invited to her own party’s election launch in Kent despite being an, er, Kent MP. Making a rather public show of party infighting is hardly a good start to election season… A rather unimpressed Duffield took to Twitter — after she found out about the launch event on the social media platform — to write: ‘Well, day one has gone well then..! Strong women can’t be broken that easily, lads. And I have

Marcel Plichta

The problem with Britain’s cheap military lasers

Unveiling fancy new technology is one of the strategies the government can use to show Brits that they take defence seriously. In recent months, UK officials have made a big deal of Dragonfire, the UK’s new laser system that promises to blast a drone out of the sky for the same price as a takeaway. Defence Secretary Grant Shapps even suggested that prototype versions could be sent to Ukraine help them fight Russian forces, though it is not included in recent aid packages. However, the shortcomings of Dragonfire demonstrate how hard it is to completely remove the threat of drones, and the need for the UK to look beyond niche weapons systems. It’s important to understand