Politics Archives

Thursday

16 Oct 2025

Can anyone stop J.D. Vance becoming president?

As Donald J. Trump flew to the Holy Land on Sunday to declare peace, his Vice-President took to the airwaves to address the rumbling civil conflict on the home front. J.D. Vance did not rule out invoking the 1807 Insurrection Act in order to quell the violent protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in several American cities. ‘The problem is the fact that the entire media in this country, cheered on by a few far-left lunatics, have made it OK to tee off on American law enforcement,’ he told NBC News. ‘We cannot accept that in the United States of America.’ This is now Vance’s familiar role. He’s not

Matt Ridley

Labour's class war on moorland

This year has been a bad one for wildfires in Britain. In June, nearly 30,000 acres burned near Carrbridge in the Highlands. In August, a careless camper, I’m told, ignited 5,000 acres in the North York moors, setting off 18 unexploded shells, shrapnel from one of which narrowly missed a gamekeeper. The pollution from wildfires was ten times worse this year than in the wetter weather of last year. Yet Keir Starmer’s government has chosen this autumn to ban the one practice that has been preventing more such dangerous fires: the managed burning of heather on much of England’s moorland. In doing so, it has ridden roughshod over advice from

James Heale

Why Sheridan Westlake is the Tories' best weapon

Who is responsible for Labour’s recent woes? For some Conservatives, the answer is obvious – Sheridan Westlake. He is that rarest of beasts: an effective Tory operator who has served every leader since John Major. Flaxen-haired with an impish grin, he is spoken of by colleagues as part myth, part political mastermind. Yet ask him what he does, and the stock answer is modest: ‘I simply do the photocopying.’ ‘He just likes getting up in the morning and kicking socialists. He’s in it for the love of the game’ The resignation of Angela Rayner last month is widely attributed within Conservative Campaign Headquarters (CCHQ) to an effective campaign by the

The Spectator

Portrait of the week: Gaza ceasefire, unemployment increases and a Gen Z uprising

Home Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, praised President Donald Trump for the Gaza ceasefire agreement while in India accompanied by a trade delegation of 126. He then flew off to Egypt for the summit at which the peace declaration was signed. Sir Keir asserted that the dropping of a prosecution against two men for spying for Beijing (which they deny) was because China had not been a ‘threat to national security’ when they were accused of espionage between December 2021 and February 2023; Lord Case, the former cabinet secretary, said it definitely had been, and two former heads of MI6 agreed. Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, was seen to

Douglas Murray

The pathology of politics

Researchers from Imperial College London this week released an analysis of the health of voters in the UK. In a publication associated with British Medical Journal, the experts claimed to have found that people who vote for Reform are disproportionately sick. I am sure that the researchers in question could not possibly have enjoyed coming to their conclusions. But they reported that the conditions Reform voters are most likely to suffer from include obesity, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and epilepsy. The scientists did not go so far as to claim that voting Reform makes you epileptic. As every smart-aleck first-year at Imperial could tell you, correlation does not imply causation.

Wednesday

15 Oct 2025

Steerpike

Oxford Union president-elect's latest own goal

Something of a nightmare is gripping the city of dreaming spires. Over at the Oxford Union – the supposed nursery of our nation’s leaders – the new Union president-elect is making headlines for all the wrong reasons. Last month, George Abaraonye sparked outrage after appearing to celebrate the death of Charlie Kirk. Then, on Saturday he took the rather unusual step of triggering a no-confidence vote in his own leadership. An unorthodox move to say the least… Oxford alumni had planned to launch a no-confidence motion against Abaraonye on Tuesday, so this manoeuvre appears to be a way of beating them to the punch. Perhaps Abaraonye had been reading up

Madeline Grant

Keir Starmer is the king of porkies

Samworth Brothers are the biggest producers of pork pies in Britain. Or so they claim. I suspect they will find at the end of this financial year that they have very stiff competition from a new producer in the field, Sir Keir Rodney Starmer. Except it isn’t just porkies that Sir Keir indulges in. Today we saw the full gamut of his honesty allergy: evasion, obfuscation, straw-manning and gaslighting were all deployed as he wriggled and squealed like it was Melton Mowbray market day. The specific topic which gave us this show of Sir Keir at his worst was China. While he’s been busy in Egypt, being batted off by Donald

Tim Shipman

Are the Tories to blame for the China spy scandal?

14 min listen

Keir Starmer did not go into Prime Minister’s Questions with the intention of resolving the row over the collapse of the Chinese spying case: he merely wanted to avoid the pressure building too much. He announced in a long statement at the start of the session that the government would be publishing its three witness statements, and then spent the rest of his sparring with Kemi Badenoch arguing that this was all the fault of the previous government anyway. So who is to blame, the Tories or Labour? What does the inability to deal with this scandal say about the ineptitude of successive governments, and how they communicate with the

Isabel Hardman

Keir Starmer failed to put a lid on the China spy story at PMQs

Keir Starmer did not go into Prime Minister’s Questions with the intention of resolving the row over the collapse of the Chinese spying case: he merely wanted to avoid the pressure building too much. He announced in a long statement at the start of the session that the government would be publishing its three witness statements, and then spent the rest of his sparring with Kemi Badenoch arguing that this was all the fault of the previous government anyway. His sneer led to a claim that will ensure this row doesn’t quieten down That deferral of blame largely worked: there was a particularly good email that Starmer quoted, to roars

Steerpike

How close is Labour to 'kill Musk's Twitter' group?

When stories first emerged about a new tell-all book on Keir Starmer’s ruthless rise to power, Corbynites got predictably excited. The work by Paul Holden – titled The Fraud – has not quite proved to be the thing which finally does for this besieged No. 10 team. But it does, however, contain some interesting details on Morgan McSweeney’s role in Starmer’s rise. The all-powerful Downing Street chief of staff has enjoyed a 25-year career in progressive politics – including helping to set up the grandly-titled ‘Centre for Countering Digital Hate’ (CCDH) back in 2018. Last October, Steerpike covered how the CCDH had threatened to ‘kill Musk’s Twitter’, pointing out the extensive links between CCDH and the Labour

Ross Clark

It’s ridiculous for Labour to blame tax rises on Farage

It is day three of Labour’s latest strategy: to try to blame Nigel Farage for the forthcoming tax rises in the Budget. After Health Secretary Wes Streeting had a go on Monday, Rachel Reeves this morning has made a similar point. The reason she is looking to raise taxes in the Budget, the Chancellor says, is because of Brexit. ‘There is no doubting that the impact of Brexit is severe and long-lasting,’ she said. Next up, apparently, is Keir Starmer, who at one point is going to tell us that Farage is guilty of campaigning for Brexit and then walking away from its implementation. Given that he wasn’t, and never

Robert Colvile

Thatcherism shows where Britain went wrong – and how it can go right

It is a hundred years since Margaret Thatcher was born. Fifty years since she took over the Conservative Party. Thirty-four years since she was forced from office. Today’s voters are Thatcher’s grandchildren – even great-grandchildren. So why do we still care? Thatcher warned that the great temptation in politics was to ‘lose sight of the eternal truths and choose the popular, quick fix’ The last couple of weeks have seen a parade of Thatcher-philia. At Conservative Party Conference there were Thatcher portraits, a Thatcher mosaic, even an exhibition of her dresses. There have been cardboard cutouts, a gala dinner at the Guildhall in her honour, even an AI Thatcher-bot. No

Alexander Larman

No, Meghan: your Netflix deal isn't a sign of 'strength'

The Duchess of Sussex has been largely absent from the public eye since the release of the second series of With Love, Meghan, which came and went without anyone – save sarcastic journalists – bothering to pay it much attention. However, Meghan Markle is nothing if not indomitable. And so, shortly after she and her husband were honoured as the Humanitarians of the Year in New York last week, Meghan has argued that her new, reduced deal with Netflix is not a reflection of her waning commercial appeal, but instead represented a sign of strength. Really? Meghan argued that her new, reduced deal with Netflix is not a reflection of

Andrew Tettenborn

Human rights busybodies should keep out of the trans toilet row

The problems with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the bureaucracy behind it aren’t limited to the spanners they push into the wheels of immigration enforcement. They also now appear to be meddling over hard-won sex-based rights. A letter from the Council of Europe’s Human Rights Commissioner, Michael O’Flaherty, is likely to be seized upon by the trans lobby to further their cause. An urgent ECHR exit just became a great deal more plausible – and rightly so The missive suggests that any serious government effort to implement the landmark ‘For Women Scotland’ Supreme Court ruling – which held that the legal definition of ‘woman’ in the Equality

Chas Newkey-Burden

Strava is ruining running

When I first started running 25 years ago, it was the simplicity that captured my heart. There were no complicated techniques to master, no ghastly membership fees or extortionate equipment to shell out on. You just needed to buy a pair of shoes, get out there in the fresh air and put one foot in front of another, more swiftly than usual. Strava is basically a cult In return for this modest outlay and effort, you were treated to an avalanche of physical and emotional health benefits. As you ran, you could truly live in the moment, bask in the solitude and enjoy the connection with nature. It felt like

Max Jeffery

Inside Britain’s socialist dogfight

For a few days in Manchester last weekend, there was a utopia. The World Transformed conference of British socialists had taken over Hulme – the once rough but now bohemian part of the city – and in the middle of it all, at the Community Garden Centre, a collectivist’s dream was established. All day comrades sat there in the sun on the edges of flower beds and on picnic benches, having doctrinal debates, eating vegan food, reading homemade pamphlets. The garden centre was the conference’s locus, where attendees mixed joyfully between workshops and discussions away from the horrors of the real world. ‘Comrades have done an awful lot of work

Limor Simhony Philpott

Hamas unchecked is as brutal as ever

As the dust settles on Israel’s phased withdrawal from Gaza under Donald Trump’s hard-won ceasefire deal, Hamas has slithered straight back into the void. Barely hours after the ink dried on ‘phase one’ of Trump’s plan, the Islamist rulers of Gaza unleashed a wave of reprisals against rival Palestinian clans. Accusations of ‘collaboration’ with Israel, or simple refusal to bow to Hamas’s rule, have triggered executions, abductions and what survivors are calling outright massacres. Instead of rebuilding, Gaza is now witnessing a purge. The message is clear: anyone who worked against Hamas during the war will pay for it now. In Gaza City, fierce clashes have erupted between Hamas and

Michael Gove

Lab leaks & spy scandals: was Cameron wrong about China?

48 min listen

This week on Quite right! Michael and Maddie turn their sights to Westminster’s latest espionage scandal – and the collapse of the case to prosecute two men accused of spying for China. Was the case dropped out of incompetence, or out of fear of offending Beijing? As Michael puts it, ‘Either we’re not being told the truth, or this is a government of staggering incompetence.’ They also unpick the growing row over Jonathan Powell, Keir Starmer’s National Security Adviser, and his alleged role in shelving the case. What does his re-emergence, along with Peter Mandelson and other ‘Sith Lords of Blairism’, tell us about the return of New Labour’s old

Tuesday

14 Oct 2025

Steerpike

Rayner set to miss I'm a Celebrity

They say that politics is showbiz for ugly people. But that has not stopped some of parliament’s finest swapping the Westminster jungle for the real thing. Over the years, a series of politicians have braved the Australian climate of ITV’s reality series I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! Among them are the ex-Scottish Labour MP Kezia Dugdale, former Tory MP Nadine Dorries and Reform’s own Nigel Farage. It is fair to say that some coped better than others… And now Mr S hears word that TV bosses are hoping to tempt another politico ahead of the upcoming new series. One name doing the round has been Angela Rayner,

Stephen Daisley

Middle East experts got Trump all wrong

Whenever Donald Trump proposes a policy that runs counter to the progressive consensus, there are three stages of response: it’ll never work, it’s a disaster, it was our idea all along. We are at stage three on Trump’s truce in Gaza. Antony Blinken, Secretary of State in Joe Biden’s administration, says: ‘It’s good that President Trump adopted and built on the plan the Biden administration developed after months of discussion with Arab partners, Israel and the Palestinian Authority.’ It’s true that Joe Biden secured a two-month ceasefire at the start of the year and with it the release of a sizeable contingent of hostages. It’s true also that Trump’s truce