Politics Archives

Tuesday

6 May 2025

The India trade deal is a triumph for Keir Starmer

Britain and India have struck a landmark free trade deal, the biggest agreement of its kind since Brexit. It will see tariffs slashed on cosmetics and medical devices and could potentially boost growth by up to £5 billion a year. This deal has been three years in the making and follows intensive negotiations in recent days between Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, and Piyush Goyal, India’s trade minister. The agreement was formally signed off during a call between the leaders of both countries today. The two sides were keen to get the negotiations over the line in the wake of President Trump’s ‘liberation day’ tariffs that imposed 26 per cent

Michael Simmons

Starmer can’t afford a winter fuel U-turn

Keir Starmer has ruled out a U-turn on the government’s decision to cut the winter fuel payment, with the Prime Minister’s spokesman insisting there ‘will not be a change to the government’s policy’. This came after a report in the Guardian suggesting No.10 was considering softening the £1.4 billion cut, possibly by raising the threshold that defines who qualifies as poor enough to receive it. We can’t keep living in a state totally consumed by propping up its welfare system That a U-turn was even floated reflects two pressures: disquiet among Labour’s backbenchers, and the electoral warning shot fired by Reform UK in last Thursday’s local elections and by-election. In Runcorn, where

Ido Vock

Merz’s chaotic election is a win for the AfD

Friedrich Merz has been elected German chancellor at the second time of trying – the first time someone in his position has failed to be elected on the first attempt. The centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) leader received 325 votes, nine more than the 316 that constitute an absolute majority in the Bundestag. In the first vote this morning, Merz received just 310 votes. That was despite his coalition with the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) holding some 328 seats in parliament. Like many recent political developments in Germany, it was a first for the Federal Republic. Merz already faces one of the toughest intrays of any recent chancellor Because the

Steerpike

Watch: Reform MP gets sworn in

It’s been a whirlwind few days for Sarah Pochin who has become Reform’s newest MP after winning the Runcorn and Helsby by-election by just six votes. It was only on Friday morning that Pochin discovered she had clinched the victory in the Labour safe seat – and today, Runcorn’s new representative has been sworn in as a Member of Parliament in the Commons. In an excruciatingly close contest, Pochin overturned a 15,000 Labour majority to beat Sir Keir Starmer’s candidate to the Cheshire seat. The count took a dramatic turn after ‘doubtful’ votes led to a recount that saw Nigel Farage’s party swoop to victory early on Friday morning. Pochin

Eliot Wilson

Why Britain must prepare for war with Russia

I’m old enough to remember the last years of the Cold War. There were definite signs of a thaw by the time of my childhood – there were weary sighs when I wrote about the Reykjavík Summit for my prep school magazine – but the threat of genuine conflict still hovered over West and East, and we all understood that such a conflict could be existential. If nothing else, it currently provides a tinge of nostalgia to the strategic frostiness with Vladimir Putin’s Russia. The Telegraph reports that officials have been instructed to update contingency plans for a direct attack on the United Kingdom by a foreign power. Given that

Steerpike

Watch: Sturgeon refuses to apologise to women over gender ruling

Well, well, well. Nicola Sturgeon has finally broken her silence over the Supreme Court judgment that backed the biological definition of a woman. Speaking to journalists in Holyrood today, Sturgeon insisted that while she accepts the ruling from the highest court in the land, she remains concerned about the impact on the lives of transgender people. And when she was asked whether she would now apologise to women’s rights campaigners – who she has previously criticised while pushing through her gender reforms – Scotland’s former first minister declined. How curious… Former SNP MP Joanna Cherry previously called for an apology from the party’s former Dear Leader in the Spectator, writing

Lisa Haseldine

Merz’s bungled bid to become chancellor plunges Germany into crisis

Just when he thought he was home and dry, Friedrich Merz has fallen at the final hurdle to become Germany’s next chancellor. At a vote in the Bundestag this morning that many thought would be a formality, the CDU leader fell short of the votes needed to confirm him as the country’s new leader by six ballots, plunging Berlin into fresh political crisis. Never before in Germany’s post-war history has a chancellor-in-waiting failed to get through the first round of Bundestag voting to elect a new leader. While 310 MPs voted in favour of Merz becoming chancellor, 307 voted against him. Damningly, this means that of the 328 MPs who form the ‘grand coalition’ Merz

Steerpike

Reform councillor attacks Farage as she quits party

Reform UK enjoyed success in last week’s local elections, but it hasn’t all been plain sailing for Nigel Farage’s party. It transpires that one of his new councillors Donna Edmunds has quit the party just days after winning her Shropshire seat – following her suspension from the group for posting on Twitter that she had plans to defect from Reform after the local elections. Good heavens! Edmunds, who was elected in Hodnet in Shropshire, had taken to Twitter on Sunday to announce she had been suspended from Farage’s party ‘pending an investigation’ – after she had made previous posts about waiting for ex-Reform man Rupert Lowe to set up a

Benedict Rogers

The new pope must stop bending the knee to Beijing

As 133 cardinal electors gather in the Sistine Chapel tomorrow to begin the process of choosing a new Pope, there will be many considerations in their minds. They will be weighing up whether to build on or reject Francis’ legacy of progressive reform, whether to move in a more liberal or conservative direction, and whether to return the papacy to its Italian roots, opt for another European, or build on the precedent of the Latin American Francis and branch out to the wider world. Could this be the moment for an Asian or African pope? Persecution of Catholics – and Christians more broadly – has intensified in China over the

Ross Clark

Wes Streeting won’t end the 8am GP appointment scramble

You can say it for Wes Streeting: he doesn’t hang about. Reacting to the heavy loss of council seats in last week’s elections, he is proffering £102 million of money for extra GPs’ appointments – hopefully to end what has been termed the “8am scramble”: a kind of Hunger Games which NHS patients have to go through in order to be seen. The Health Secretary has been pointed in trying to attribute this funding boost to the unpopular rise in employers’ national insurance contributions The Health Secretary has been pointed in trying to attribute this funding boost to the very unpopular rise in employers’ national insurance contributions in last autumn’s

Steerpike

Mike Amesbury urges Labour MPs to rebel

You’d have thought ex-Labour MP Mike Amesbury would have tired of making headlines by now, but the former politician can’t seem to keep his head below the parapet. Now the former Runcorn and Helsby parliamentarian – who prompted last week’s by-election after he punched a constituent – has called on Labour backbenchers to rebel against the leadership’s ‘big political mistakes’. And Amesbury knows all about mistakes, eh? Amesbury lamented that while he was ‘really disappointed’ at Labour’s loss in his former seat On the BBC’s Today programme, the ex-Labour man spoke to presenters about the future of Labour. Taking no responsibility for the part he played in handing Runcorn over

Limor Simhony Philpott

‘Capturing’ Gaza could backfire spectacularly

Israel’s cabinet has given a green light an audacious plan to retake Gaza, signalling a serious shift in its approach to the war on the Hamas-controlled enclave. Approved on 5 May, the operation aims to seize the entire Strip, hold key territories, and maintain a long-term military presence – a stark departure from the hit-and-retreat tactics of the past. With a timeline pegged to begin after Donald Trump’s regional visit from 13-16 May, the IDF are mobilising tens of thousands of reservists for what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calls an ‘intensive’ campaign. But this high-stakes strategy, driven by the twin goals of crushing Hamas and freeing hostages, is fraught with

Monday

5 May 2025

Lucy Dunn

Ash Regan: Scottish politicians have been gaslighting the public for years

Ash Regan quit Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP government almost three years ago in protest at the former first minister’s controversial gender reform bill. Regan rose to prominence after she left her role as community safety minister over the legislation and then stood, unsuccessfully, to be leader of the party in 2023 after Sturgeon stepped down. Fast forward about six months and Regan ditched the SNP altogether, defecting to the late Alex Salmond’s Alba party. Now, the pro-independence party’s Holyrood leader speaks to The Spectator about the changing state of politics north of the border, the first in a series of special Coffee House Shots episodes in the run-up to the 2026

Rod Liddle

My apology to Reform

I have read countless commentaries explaining why we shouldn’t take Reform’s victories last Thursday too seriously. They are all wrong. I have the distinct impression that these were the most significant election results for a good few decades. Up here in the north, everyone I know voted Reform. More importantly, when I used to ask people how they voted, they would beckon me to one side and, through a cupped hand, whisper ‘Reform’. Now they say it out loud and proud. And the apology is because I had doubted Reform’s ability to climb above 30 per cent – the crucial figure. I also doubted that they were serious enough about

Lucy Dunn

Ash Regan on the rise of Reform in Scotland, what is a woman and why ‘no-one resigns anymore’

21 min listen

In this special edition of Coffee House Shots, Lucy Dunn speaks to the Holyrood leader of the pro-independence Alba party, Ash Regan. Regan was formerly a member of the SNP and even ran to be the party’s leader after Nicola Sturgeon resigned in 2023. She defected to the late Alex Salmond’s Alba party 18 months ago and ran for party leader after his death. On the podcast, she talks to Lucy about the difference between Alba and the SNP, the threat of Reform in Scotland, the ‘performative’ nature of Scottish politics, the Supreme Court ruling over what is a woman, and why she was right to resign over the Gender Recognition

Lana Hempsall

The Motability scheme needs to be put into reverse

Keir Starmer’s government has taken some important first steps to bring the welfare budget under control. But expenditure on disability and incapacity benefits is still set to increase to almost £100 billion by the end of the decade, so more changes are needed. Every aspect of the welfare system must be examined to see if it is actually helping those it was designed to assist. The Motability scheme should be Starmer’s next target. Britain cannot afford a gold-plated scheme providing a subsidised car to many who simply do not need one Introduced in 1977, Motability was set up with admirable intentions: to provide vehicles, scooters and powered wheelchairs to disabled

Samuel Rubinstein

Cambridge can do better than Gina Miller

Oxford, said Matthew Arnold, was “the home of lost causes and forsaken beliefs”. Now Cambridge is giving it a run for its money. Oxford’s chancellor election last year was widely billed as a two-horse race between the elder statesmen Lords Mandelson and Hague; the latter in the end won handily. They both had their hang-ups and lost causes too, of course, but they were also men who matter. Fortunately for Gina Miller it is customary for Cambridge chancellors to be lacking in political acumen Does Gina Miller – who in her latest attention-seeking stunt wants to be the next chancellor of Cambridge University – matter? She did once. “I was

John Foreman

Don’t forget Bomber Command

There were many tributes when John ‘Paddy’ Hemingway, the last surviving fighter pilot of the Battle of Britain, died in March. Prince William said he was saddened about the death of the ‘last of The Few’ while the prime minister saluted Hemingway’s ‘extraordinary life’. There were no such statements in February on the death of Jack Harris, believed to have been the last surviving Lancaster bomber pilot. Official indifference to those who served in Bomber Command is not new. Churchill said little about the bomber offensive in his war memoirs, seeking to distance himself politically from the widespread destruction wrought by his own decision to focus on bombing as a way

Sunday

4 May 2025

Jonathan Sacerdoti

Tehran’s cruelty is closer than we think

The arrest of eight men – seven of them Iranian nationals – across the United Kingdom in two separate counter-terrorism operations is a chilling reminder that the Islamic Republic of Iran is not a distant threat. It is here, embedded within our cities, probing the limits of our law, our patience and our willingness to defend our democratic integrity. Scotland Yard has revealed only sparse details: a suspected plot to target a ‘specific premises’, and a parallel but unrelated investigation into national security threats. But while the particulars remain classified, the pattern is anything but new. The Islamic Republic has waged a campaign of covert hostility against the UK, Europe and

Katja Hoyer

Merz’s plan to reclaim Germany’s place on the world stage

‘Germany is back,’ said Friedrich Merz, the man likely to be elected as the new German Chancellor this coming week. What sounds like a promise to some and a threat to others is certainly a sign that the new German leadership will aim to take a more assertive role in European and world politics. Merz isn’t even chancellor yet, but he’s already keen to signal that he will take a more active interest in foreign policy than his predecessor. The outgoing chancellor Olaf Scholz has gained a bit of a reputation for his reluctance to respond to international events, particularly the war in Ukraine. Shortly after the invasion began in