Politics

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

Saturday

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

Vivian Silver and the collapse of the Israeli left

The well-lived life and foul murder of Vivian Silver encapsulate the hopelessness of Israel-Hamas war and the bad faith that drives the world’s reactions to it. You could see the bad faith on display in the hours after her death. It inspired a gruesome social media pile-on. Maybe it was just a mistake by an underpaid intern. Maybe, as conservatives were to claim, the liberal media was revealing its deep biases. But, intentionally or not, a tweet on X from the Canadian broadcaster CTV News appeared to be yet another example of the wilful refusal by progressives to condemn or even acknowledge the existence of theocratic terror. If something better

John Ferry John Ferry

The SNP’s independence dream is on life support

The SNP Scottish government has brought out its latest fantasy paper on secession. Never mind the party’s nosediving popularity that could see the Nationalists kicked out of office in 2026. Or that your average Scot’s enthusiasm for another referendum is on a par with their eagerness for another bout of Covid. The dream shall never die, as they say, so what choice do they have but to keep plugging away like a tiresome timeshare salesman? The new paper is titled An independent Scotland in the EU. It is presented as a realistic outline of how Scotland can remove itself from the UK and accede to the EU as an independent

Max Jeffery Max Jeffery

What will fix Britain’s prisons?

19 min listen

HMP Bedford was issued with an urgent notification yesterday, meaning it must immediately make reforms to improve. It’s the fifth prison to receive such a notification this year. What’s going wrong in Britain’s prisons, and what will fix them? Max Jeffery speaks to former prison governor Ian Acheson and former prisoner David Shipley.

Ian O’Doherty

The sinister push to expel the Israeli ambassador to Ireland

There have been diplomatic tensions between Ireland and Israel almost since the latter was founded. Ireland only established diplomatic relations with Israel in 1975, and it took until for 1996 for it to open an embassy in Tel Aviv. In recent years, the frosty relations between the two countries had been improving, largely thanks to mutual investment and cooperation between their tech industries. That uneasy truce was shattered by the Hamas pogrom on October 7 – and the subsequent Israeli invasion of Gaza in an attempt to eradicate Hamas once and for all.  Things escalated in Ireland this week, when there were several fractious debates in the Dail on the subject of

Patrick O’Flynn Patrick O'Flynn

Is Rishi Sunak preparing to throw Tory Red Wall MPs overboard?

Can the people around Rishi Sunak really be dim enough not to have anticipated that his reshuffle would go down like a lead balloon among social conservatives? It seems unlikely to me that Sunak’s Downing Street could be peopled by such clowns. Sacking Suella Braverman and bringing back David Cameron into a great office of state was an unmistakeable sign of Sunak’s true political complexion, amounting to two fingers up to the party’s winning 2019 coalition of voters. So as we move, Sherlock Holmes-like, through the range of explanations, that leaves us having to consider the rather conspiratorial possibility that the Sunakites want to lose. Or if they don’t exactly

Limor Simhony Philpott

How will Israel deal with the threat of Hezbollah?

From the very beginning, the war between Israel and Hamas has not been confined to just one front. The Iran-backed, Lebanon-based Islamist militant organisation Hezbollah started attacking Israel on 8 October – one day after Hamas’s deadly assault. In the weeks since, Iranian militias in Syria and Houthi rebels in Yemen have attacked Israel with missiles and drones, while Iranian-backed forces in Iraq have targeted American troops. For now, Gaza is at the heart of the war – but this may soon change. Israel has been fighting Hezbollah since the First Lebanon war ended in 1985. During the 15 years the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) controlled the ‘security zone’, extending

Norman Davies

Volhynia and the forgotten massacre of the Second World War

Completely innocent men, women and children have been slaughtered. ‘Terrorism’ hardly suffices to describe the savage rampage beyond the Gaza Wall undertaken by men from Hamas on 7 October. In the aftermath of the Second World War, when knowledge emerged of the crimes perpetrated by Nazi Germans and their collaborators, humanity vowed ‘Never Again’. Yet the world has descended once more into ever lower levels of depravity. What is more, thousands of innocents are now being killed as collateral in the on-going counterattacks. The kibbutz of Kfar Aza and kibbutz Be’eri, where some of the most barbaric crimes were carried out by Hamas, joins the long list of places of infamy where

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

Do we really need more diversity on Gardener’s World?

Boo. Monty Don is retiring in a couple of years as presenter of Gardener’s World, because it’s getting to be a slog and a treadmill. But he’s already doing his bit to influence the BBC’s choice of his successor. He told Times Radio that he thought the show needed more diversity – and that the BBC should think ‘ten times’ before picking an Oxbridge-educated middle-aged man again as its lead presenter: ‘In a truly just and fair society, we wouldn’t care what someone’s colour or race or creed or sex was. But the truth is that it’s much more delicate. And I think that I’m absolutely persuaded that in order to

Friday

Theo Hobson Theo Hobson

When will the CofE have an honest debate about homosexuality?

At the Church of England’s General Synod on Wednesday morning, I had a good view of the sign-language person. In a bored moment (sorry for the puerility), I tried to see what the sign for ‘sex’ was. I failed to discover this, but happened to be watching him while an evangelical spoke of progressive teaching leading people to hell. He made a pleasing little one-handed goat-horn sign. The whole debate could have been summed up in a couple of gestures. Maybe a sad face and heart sign, for the progressives’ tireless emphasis on the pain and exclusion of homosexuals, and the need for loving acceptance. For the evangelicals, maybe a

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Jailhouse rot: The horrendous state of HMP Bedford

Charlie Taylor, the chief inspector of prisons, has issued an urgent notification to the justice secretary about HMP Bedford, a category B reception facility. It is the second such notification in five years. In his letter to Alex Chalk, Taylor – whose Spectator writings on prison conditions can be read here – outlines the findings of an unannounced inspection between 30 October and 9 November. The picture he paints is of conditions that are not merely shabby but sordid.  Safety: poor. Respect: poor. Purposeful activity: poor. Preparation for release: ‘not sufficiently good’. The use of force against prisoners was ‘very high’ and inspectors found ‘too many examples of excessive force’

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Why the Tories shouldn’t cut inheritance tax

‘We know it is painful, especially with inflation at what it is. But there really is no option other than to ask you low-paid workers to contribute a little more in tax so that Rishi Sunak and his wife, when the time comes, can pass on a bit more of their £730 million wealth to their daughters.’   That is, to put it bluntly what Jeremy Hunt will be telling the nation if he does what he is reported to be about to do in the Autumn Statement and cut inheritance tax (IHT). One of the suggestions is that he may halve the rate to 20 per cent.       Sorry, inheritance tax

Nadim Koteich

Victory over Hamas will be hard to achieve

‘If you want peace, destroy Hamas. If you want security, destroy Hamas. If you want a future for Israel, the Palestinians, the Middle East, destroy Hamas,’ Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this week. Given its formidable military capabilities and the considerable international support it receives, Israel holds the upper hand in the ongoing war. But if the Middle East has taught us anything, it is that the notion of ‘victory’ is an elusive endeavour.   The total defeat of Hamas will be a difficult, if not impossible, task for Israel. Following the devastating terror attack on 7 October, Israel has found itself ensnared in a brutal war. But as the

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Fuel for thought: how business can make use of hydrogen

40 min listen

How we achieve net zero is more than just a political or environmental decision. It is one that will have huge societal impacts. How we get our energy translates to how we move around, how we heat our homes. It’s a reminder that the energy transition has many trade-offs, as we navigate achieving net zero while protecting the wellbeing of people and industry, especially during a cost-of-living crisis.  Might hydrogen be part of the answer? In this special podcast, The Spectator’s economics editor Kate Andrews speaks with those working in government, NGOs, and industry about how to unlock this technology. She is joined by Chris Stark, Chief Executive of Climate

Oscar Edmondson

Can Sunak shift the dial?

13 min listen

The chancellor Jeremy Hunt will deliver his autumn statement next week and Rishi Sunak will be hoping to stamp his authority onto a fracturing party after a difficult few days. There are lots of rumours swirling around about what might be included, such as cuts to inheritance tax and to taxes for small businesses. What should we expect?  Oscar Edmondson speaks to James Heale and Isabel Hardman.  Produced by Oscar Edmondson. 

Steerpike Steerpike

Arise, Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

It turns out that theme of this week’s Rishuffle really was ‘Back to the Future’. For David Cameron, now returned from political exile, has opted for his title a place that recalls old scandals past. The former Tory leader will be introduced on Monday in the House of Lords as ‘Baron Cameron of Chipping Norton’, according to the Writ of Summons, which was published earlier today. Back in the early 2010s, Cameron’s close links to well-heeled members of the ‘Chipping Norton set’ like Elisabeth Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks came under scrutiny as part of the Leveson Inquiry. One commentator described members of the set as ‘an incestuous collection of louche,

Debbie Hayton

What Labour’s Lisa Nandy needs to know about trans rights

Lisa Nandy could not have been more wrong when she waded into the transgender debate this week. The Labour MP, who has been criticised by JK Rowling over her stance on trans rights, said that ‘when we look at the way we reduce the debate to things like bodily parts, I think when we look back in history we will be utterly ashamed of ourselves.’ Those of us who understand that human beings have bodies, and those bodies matter, have no need to feel ashamed of anything, now or in the future. Men and women have a sex and, in some contexts, we need separate services because of that sex.

Sean Thomas

Why is Suella Braverman doing so well on social media? 

As phrases go, ‘Twitter analytics’ is not the most exciting, especially now we are, apparently, meant to say ‘the social medium formerly known as Twitter analytics’. Nonetheless if you dig into Twitter’s user and viewer data, you can unearth some surprising, even mystifying anomalies. In this case, I’m talking about the Twitter account of the recently defenestrated former Home Secretary Suella Braverman. For example, barely 24 hours ago she posted a tweet about the Supreme Court’s judgment on the government’s Rwanda case. The rather dry, technical tweet about necessary new legislation got 2.5 million views. Pundits have suggested this could be Russian or Chinese bots deliberately sowing extra division If

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

Should Kyiv really ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church?

The war in Ukraine, which was until 7 October the only foreign news we could think about, is no longer centre stage but is continuing in an increasingly attritional way. And Ukrainian politics continue, inevitably, to be dominated by the war with the result that fundamental freedoms are now a casualty of the conflict. Specifically, there is a bill before the Ukrainian parliament, which has already passed its first reading, that would ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. This historically has been located within the Russian Orthodox Church, whose leader, Patriarch Kirill, is notoriously invested in the war, on the Russian side. He is, moreover, close to Vladimir Putin. The bill would