Politics Archives

Sunday

16 Jun 2024

Will Keir Starmer really hire 6,500 more teachers?

Perhaps Keir Starmer’s only solid election pledge is to use the money from VAT on private school fees to ‘hire 6,500 more teachers’ over five years. But how solid is this pledge? And what’s the context? There are 530,000 teachers, so if the 6,500 were to be hired tomorrow, it would increase the headcount by just 1.3 per cent. Hardly transformational. But the increase is to be spread over five years – which technically can be honoured by 1,300 a year, upping the headcount by just 0.3 per cent a year. This is so small as to be a rounding error. It’s a third of a teacher per school. But

Nick Cohen

How the liberal-left can fight woke ideology

There is a leftist case against woke ideology. It’s rare to hear it because it flies against many preconceptions and fears. Liberals and leftists are wary for two reasons. Conservatives love to highlight the first: the fear of being cancelled. And just because conservatives love to highlight it, does not mean it is not true. I was at one of London University’s colleges a few days ago. I had better not say which one. The private WhatsApp groups of women academics are full of complaints about the trans movement overturning the gains of feminism. There is a crying need for honesty in this debate Not one academic dared make her thoughts public.

Sean Thomas

AI will change everything – so why is the election ignoring it?

Imagine if you somehow knew a war was coming in the next few years. Imagine if you knew this war would change societies, transform economies, and possibly even endanger humanity. Now imagine Britain held a general election, with that certain knowledge of imminent turmoil, and no one mentioned it, and instead the politicians waffled on about stealth taxes, low traffic neighbourhoods, and making energy drinks harder to obtain for children aged 15 and 3/4. Not only is this raging silence insane, it is bizarrely, recklessly irresponsible That would be mad, right? And yet that is what we are doing in Britain today, in regards to the looming revolution that is Artificial

Julian Jessop

Rachel Reeves ‘£4,800’ mortgage claim is a house of cards

Labour’s Rachel Reeves has scored some political points this week by claiming that the Conservatives have made £71 billion of ‘unfunded policy pledges’, and that this will ‘mean £4,800 on your mortgage’. These calculations are simply absurd and easy to knock down. Let us start with the ‘£71 billion’. This figure first appeared in a Labour document, called ‘Conservatives Interest Rate Rise’, published in May. It was claimed then that annual borrowing would be £71 billion higher in the final year of the next parliament (2029-30), based on Labour’s costings of the Conservatives’ alleged plans. However, this analysis unravelled when the Conservatives actually published their manifesto. In particular, Labour’s original costings

Lucy Dunn

‘For the first time ever I might not vote’: East Renfrewshire’s voters are switching off

The SNP has dominated Scotland since 2015. In an election held just months after the independence referendum, the country turned almost entirely yellow – with the exception of just three seats. Subsequent national polls have resulted in nothing more than modest change. The question this time is whether the SNP’s hold over Scotland is about to break – and nowhere is this issue more pressing than in Scotland’s central belt. The bellwether constituency of East Renfrewshire is facing a unique three-horse race between Scotland’s main parties. But despite the abundance of choice on offer to constituents this time, there’s just one problem: they’ve fallen out of love with politics. ‘I

Saturday

15 Jun 2024

Andrew Tettenborn

Cosying up to the EU would do Britain more harm than good

If anyone thought our relations with the EU since the Brexit referendum would be a respectful dialogue of equals, they were quickly disabused. Relations remain, to use an understatement, strained. Three national opposition parties have all chosen to weaponise this unpleasantness, and call for re-engagement with at least some EU institutions. Before you follow them and cast an anti-Sunak vote two weeks on Thursday, you could do worse than read their manifestos. If you like the look of the Greens’ ‘real hope, real change’ motto, do note that they openly want the UK back in the EU as soon as possible. Meanwhile they would sign up immediately again to the

Ross Clark

David Cameron is driving voters into Farage’s arms

Who on earth at Tory campaign HQ thought it was a good idea to send Lord Cameron into battle to attack Nigel Farage and try to head off the gathering threat from Reform UK? In an interview with the Times today, the Foreign Secretary accused Farage of dog-whistling. He may well be right: it doesn’t take too much imagination to see how Farage’s assertion that Rishi Sunak ‘doesn’t understand our culture’ will have gone down with some voters. The trouble is, though, that Lord Cameron reminds many Reform-leaning voters of everything they dislike about the Tories. He represents the privileged, patrician wing of the Conservative party – the toffs and

Katy Balls

What could Starmer’s first year in power look like?

19 min listen

Picture the scene: it’s July 5th and a triumphant Keir Starmer arrives at Downing Street after achieving a supermajority and the Tories have only narrowly prevented the Lib Dems becoming official party of opposition. Whilst this may sound far fetched, it is the likely result when you take an average of the last week’s polls. What would those first 100 days of Labour look like? Katy Balls speaks to Fraser Nelson and John McTernan, former political secretary to Tony Blair. Produced by Oscar Edmondson. The Spectator will be hosting a special Live edition of Coffee House Shots in the aftermath of the election. Taking place on Thursday the 11th July

Natasha Feroze

Natasha Feroze, Robert Ades, Lucasta Miller, Sam McPhail, Toby Young and Catriona Olding

38 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Natasha Feroze reports on the return of ex-Labour MP Keith Vaz (1:10); Robert Ades presents the case against sociology A-level (7:39); Lucasta Miller reviews Katherine Bucknell’s book, Christopher Isherwood Inside Out (15:24); Sam McPhail provides his notes on the lager Madri (23:16); Toby Young explains why he will be voting Reform (26:23); and, Catriona Olding reflects on love and friendship (31:17). Presented by Patrick Gibbons.

Philip Patrick

Will Gary Lineker be able to keep his election thoughts quiet during the Euros?

It is hard to imagine the European football championship, which kicked off last night, was a big factor in Rishi Sunak’s decision to call a snap general election. But whether the footie was a consideration or not, the possibility that events in Germany might have some bearing on the result on 4 July is something he, and we, might now wish to consider. We may have no choice if the BBC’s X-addicted Gary Lineker, who will have a huge platform during the tournament, chooses to spout off about politics. Footballers, unless they’re called Gary (Neville, Lineker), tend to keep tight-lipped about their politics There is limited data to support a

Friday

14 Jun 2024

Isabel Hardman

Starmer will keep shtum til 5 July

Tonight Keir Starmer took another look at Labour’s poll lead, threw caution to the wind, and revealed his radical plans for the government he hopes to lead in a few weeks time. Only kidding. The Labour leader’s interview with the BBC’s Nick Robinson didn’t reveal anything we didn’t know and Starmer won’t be obliging with any more details between now and 5 July. But Robinson did try to give voters as much of an impression as possible of how Starmer as prime minister might behave. He pressed him repeatedly on how he was going to fund the plans in the Labour manifesto: would there be spending cuts or could Starmer

Stephen Daisley

The incoherence of Labour’s Palestine stance

The Labour manifesto commits the party to recognising a Palestinian state. It frames this as ‘a contribution to a renewed peace process’. This rationale is as dishonest as the commitment is foolhardy. It is a reminder that progressives will not learn from history if the lesson offends their political sensibilities. The manifesto claims that statehood is ‘the inalienable right of the Palestinian people’. Is this true? An international law scholar would tell you that oppressed peoples or those living under military occupation have a right to self-determination. But does self-determination necessarily equal statehood? Could it be achieved by a different model, such as political autonomy in confederation with an Arab

Freddy Gray

Is anti-white racism tearing America apart?

53 min listen

Freddy Gray speaks to Jeremy Carl, Senior Fellow at the Claremont Institute. They discuss his book, The Unprotected Class: how anti-white racism is tearing America apart. They also cover affirmative action, and where America goes from here. Watch this episode on Spectator TV.

Alexander Larman

The Princess of Wales is making a welcome recovery

I have recently had the bad fortune to read a forthcoming biography of the Princess of Wales. Its greatest fault isn’t just that it’s poorly written, incurious or unrevealing, but that it came out at exactly the wrong time. What would, under normal circumstances, have been a harmless enough puff book now becomes irrelevant the date it’s published. Ever since the Princess made her heartbreakingly vulnerable and deeply sad announcement that she was suffering from cancer, the whole existential stability of the Royal Family has been shaken. Catherine was always meant to be the one who was able to convey an air of normality and stability in a way that

James Heale

Farage: I am now the ‘Leader of the Opposition’

After the first poll was published showing Reform ahead of the Tories, there was only one thing for Nigel Farage to do: hold an emergency press conference at the heart of Westminster. This afternoon journalists scrambled over to the Wellington Hotel to hear what Farage had to say after reaching the long-awaited ‘crossover’ moment when his party overtook the Conservatives. The Reform leader was on punchy form, branding himself the new ‘Leader of the Opposition’ and suggesting that ‘some of the polling industry were acting entirely dishonestly’ by not prompting for his party in surveys. He said that: ‘I’m pleased to say, as a result of my letter to the

Katy Balls

Who is the real opposition to Labour?

14 min listen

Nigel Farage tried to claim at the start of Thursday’s TV debate that Reform was the real threat to Keir Starmer, given it has just passed the Conservatives in the polls (more on that here). Are they the new party of opposition? And what sort of tactics will the Tories use to try and claw back voters they are haemorrhaging to Reform? Katy Balls speaks to Isabel Hardman and Chris Hopkins, director of Savanta.

Sam Meadows

Javier Milei is popular, despite Argentina’s protests

A glimpse into the mindset of Javier Milei was given by his decision this week to retweet a picture on social media depicting himself, prophet-like, gazing down from the clouds. As his flight to Italy for the G7 summit took off he would have been feeling rather smug – he had finally secured a long-awaited win back home in Argentina. Given the protests on the streets, it is maybe surprising that Milei’s approval ratings remain so high. His monumental ‘Bases Law’ – which has been the subject of months of fevered debate and frantic toing and froing – has been passed ‘in general’, a major step towards its safe passage into the statutes’ book. It will give him

Steerpike

Boris backs Sunak sceptic

At long last, Boris Johnson has joined the campaign trail. With less than three weeks to go until polling day, the former prime minister has today urged voters to back Rishi Sunak’s wounded party – just hours after a YouGov poll revealed that support for Reform has overtaken the Tories for the first time. And no stranger to internal party politics, Johnson raised eyebrows this morning when he publicly backed Sir Simon Clarke in a short video. This is, after all, the MP who was so disillusioned by Sunak’s leadership that at the start of the year he took to the pages of the Telegraph to urge the PM to

Andrew Tettenborn

Why the EU is cracking down on Hungary’s migrant policy

We are set for another high-profile tussle between Budapest and Brussels. Yesterday the EU Court of Justice chose to impose a whopping €200 million fine on the Hungarian government for failing to apply EU asylum laws, a fine that increases by €1 million for every day the infringement continues. Politics is never very far from the surface with the EU court The legalities as ever were murky, but essentially Brussels’s complaint was this. EU law requires that asylum seekers be allowed into a member state to seek protection and to stay there until their claim is handled. Originally Hungary had prevented this by corralling applicants in border reception centres, until the Court decided in

Steerpike

Watch: Starmer slams audience for ‘disrespect’ over ‘toolmaker’ jibes

There’s less than three weeks to go until polling day and the TV debates are continuing to roll in. This week, we’ve seen party leaders Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer quizzed by Sky’s political editor Beth Rigby before being turned on by the audience. And while the Prime Minister had a rather more gruelling time in the hands of the crowd, it’s Sir Keir who’s still moaning about it. In an interview with GB News’s political editor Christopher Hope, the Labour leader hit out at audience member who laughed at him when he spoke of his parents’ jobs. The first groan of the night rang through the hall when