Politics Archives

Wednesday

24 Sep 2025

The United Nations is falling apart

As the world’s leaders and foreign ministers meet in New York for the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) this week, recognition of a Palestinian state is being paraded as progress towards peace. In reality, it is nothing of the sort. It only confirms what has become increasingly obvious to anyone watching the UN over the past eight years: that the organisation is in a state of malaise and its secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, the embodiment of its decline. The UN is no stranger to dysfunction, which I saw first-hand as a security council counter-terror coordinator for five years. Every secretary-general has faced allegations of irrelevance, hypocrisy or incompetence. But Guterres stands

Michael Gove

Where Blair is wrong, but Farage is right & why recognising Palestine is 'politics at its worst'

48 min listen

This week, Michael and Maddie lift the lid on the strange rituals of party conference season and why the ‘goldfish bowl’ reality of a week in Birmingham (or Manchester, or Liverpool) often leaves politicians with ‘PTSD’. They then turn to the government’s revived enthusiasm for digital ID cards. Is this a sensible fix for illegal immigration – or, as Michael puts it, ‘snake oil rubbed onto an already weak idea’? And why does Tony Blair always seem to be the ghost whispering ‘ID cards’ into Westminster’s ear? Next, Keir Starmer’s recognition of a Palestinian state: a principled step, or a political stunt designed to placate his backbenchers? Michael and Madeline

Tuesday

23 Sep 2025

Freddy Gray

Does paracetamol cause Autism?

15 min listen

Freddy Gray speaks to The Spectator’s economics editor Michael Simmons about Trump’s announcement at the Oval Office on Monday night that taking Tylenol, known as paracetamol, ‘is no good’ and that pregnant women should ‘fight like hell’ to only take it in cases of extreme fever. They discuss the data behind the claims, whether the President is right, and what else could explain the startling rise in children with autism.

Madeline Grant

Ed Davey is the perfect Lib Dem leader

Ed Davey’s speech at the Lib Dem conference began with a darkened stage on which you could just about make out outlines of people and quotes by and about him booming over the sound system. Like most things the Lib Dems do, it felt a bit like a self-consciously modern re-interpretation of Shakespeare by a group of earnest undergraduates. Two Gentlemen of Verona set in a Detroit smack den, Othello but everyone has feline HIV, that sort of thing. Davey is a very immodest man with a great deal to be immodest about Onto this stage Davey emerged. And there was light. It turned out that the amorphous shapes were

James Heale

Ed Davey pitches himself as the anti-Farage

11 min listen

The Liberal Democrat party conference in Bournemouth has concluded with a speech from leader Sir Ed Davey. While the current crop of Liberal Democrats are the most successful third-party in 100 years, they have faced questions about why they aren’t cutting through more while Reform is. It’s something Davey is aware of and – hoping to exploit how divisive the leader of Reform is – he sought to pitch himself as the anti-Farage. Will it work? Plus, more bad news for the Chancellor. Labour had pledged to aim for the highest growth in the G7. New figures from the OECD did upgrade their global growth forecast, including for Britain, but

Steerpike

Trump: Khan wants to put London under sharia law

Donald Trump’s trip to the UK has finished and it appears his love-in with London has ended too. In a speech at the UN headquarters in New York, the US President took a pop at London mayor Sadiq Khan – calling him a ‘terrible, terrible mayor’ – before claiming that the Labour politician wants to put the British capital under sharia law. He knows how to grab headlines, eh? In a scathing address to the UN’s general assembly, Trump fumed about Khan: I have to say, I look at London – where you have a terrible mayor, terrible, terrible mayor – it’s been so changed. Now they want to go

James Heale

Ed Davey savages Nigel Farage in his Lib Dem conference speech

Liberal Democrats have been looking forward all summer to Sir Ed Davey’s party conference speech. For months, Nigel Farage’s Cheshire cat grin has been a fixture of British politics, as his bunch of merry men have run rings around the Labour government. In No. 10, Keir Starmer and his aides appear baffled and bemused, unable to stop the boats or fix this country’s ails. Reform’s polling has soared to record levels as the public mood hardens on migration, asylum and security. Much of the Westminster elite have been in despair, enraged by what they see as Starmer’s cowardly unwillingness to check the rise of Reform UK. Today, it was a

Steerpike

Holyrood's bizarre seagull obsession

After weeks of suspense, the big day has finally arrived. The Scottish government has arranged a meeting in Inverness with quango and industry bosses to discuss what is apparently one of the most pressing issues facing Scotland. Not the future of the oil and gas industry, not the failures in the country’s rural health service and not even the dualling of Scotland’s most dangerous road, which runs by the city. No – not content with bashing Westminster, the SNP government has declared a war on, er, seagulls. Ahead of today’s ‘serious’ meeting, the Scottish government dedicated £100,000 to controlling the increasingly mischievous bird population to cover gull deterrents – like lasers,

Druin Burch

The problem with Jess’s Rule

NHS England has today introduced Jess’s Rule, asking doctors to take a ‘three strikes and rethink approach’. The rule is named for Jessica Brady, who died in 2020 aged 27, having had more than 20 appointments with her GP surgery in the six months before her death. Mostly seen virtually – a fact attributed to Covid – she eventually went private. There, her terminal cancer was belatedly diagnosed. She died three weeks later. Discussions about Jess’s Rule began under the Conservatives and have come to fruition under Labour. Both parties have shown an unshakeable commitment to taking a serious problem, highlighted by a tragic death, and turning it into performative

Ross Clark

Britain's inflation woes aren't going away

The OECD expects the UK economy to outperform the eurozone and grow by 1.4 per cent over the year. But there is a downside to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s latest figures: the body expects the UK’s inflation problem to persist, ending this year at 3.5 per cent, down just a touch from the 3.8 per cent measured by the ONS (Office for National Statistics) in July and August. It predicts that inflation will be 2.7 per cent at the end of 2026 – still a long away from the Bank of England’s two per cent target. Inflation in Britain is due to be markedly higher than in the

Steerpike

Duchess of York's Epstein email spurred by 'chilling' call

Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York and former wife of Prince Andrew, has come under scrutiny this week after an email that saw her praising paedophile Jeffrey Epstein was unearthed. The Duchess’s spokesperson said that Ferguson had received a ‘chilling’ phone call from the criminal after she gave an interview in 2011 confessing to have made a ‘terrible, terrible error of judgement’ in accepting £15,000 from Epstein and insisting: ‘I abhor paedophilia.’ After the phone conversation, Ferguson emailed Epstein to say she ‘humbly apologised’ for criticising him publicly and described the convicted child sex abuser as a ‘steadfast, generous and supreme friend’. Good heavens… In light of that correspondence with

Matthew Lynn

Why Trump shouldn’t bail out Milei

At the OECD, the IMF, and at Davos, there will probably be a few wry smiles, and a sense of Schadenfreude. Javier Milei, the chainsaw-wielding libertarian President of Argentina who promised to destroy the economic establishment by cutting taxes and dramatically reducing the size of the state, is now facing a financial crisis of his own. The United States is offering to step in with a bailout, but why? Milei should sink or swim in the markets he champions. A rescue package from the Trump administration will prove a mistake. It is turning into the toughest week yet for the Milei experiment. After setbacks in local elections, the currency markets

Steerpike

Streeting: ignore Trump's autism claims

To the US, where President Donald Trump has suggested his administration has ‘found an answer to autism’. On Monday, Trump drew links between paracetamol and rising rates of autism across America. US health officials warned that acetaminophen (paracetamol) should be avoided in early pregnancy to avert the development of autism in later life, with Trump insisting at a press conference: ‘Taking Tylenol (paracetamol) is not good. I’ll say it. It’s not good.’ But the scientific evidence doesn’t back up the President’s position – and now in a break from the UK’s love-in with Trump, Health Secretary Wes Streeting has dismissed the controversial claim. Speaking on ITV, Streeting urged voters to

Ross Clark

Is Donald Trump right to link autism with paracetamol?

Donald Trump’s apparent suggestion that people could protect themselves against Covid by injecting themselves with bleach marked a low point in his first administration. It provided his critics with evidence that he was an erratic president trying to ride roughshod over scientific evidence as well as common sense. It is easy, therefore, to dismiss the American President’s announcement that government health warnings will henceforth be printed on packets of Tylenol – a brand name for paracetamol – telling pregnant women to avoid the painkiller for fear it will cause autism in their unborn children as yet another anti-scientific diatribe. The involvement of health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr – a

Theo Hobson

Is Charlie Kirk a Christian martyr?

This feels deeply inappropriate, I thought, as I started watching Erika Kirk’s hagiographic eulogy. I am watching a grieving widow in order to analyse her performance, and pass judgement on her message. Her husband was brutally murdered just ten days ago – let her grieve. Don’t use her as journalistic material. But anyone who chooses to speak of the most serious matters, in whatever circumstances, is subject to criticism. Being a victim of some terrible act of violence is no exemption. Victim status does not authorise one to tell a nation what the essence of Christianity is, for example, and expect one’s account to be unchallenged. Her forgiveness of her

James Heale

The secret behind Ed Davey’s stunts

Each new day at Liberal Democrat conference means one thing: another stunt with the party’s MPs. Flower-arranging, morning swims and a marching band have all featured thus far. Most have gone down well with the party’s MPs. They gamely play along whenever Ed Davey’s apparatchiks press-gang them into another photo opportunity. ‘More Orange Order than Orange Book’ was the verdict of one on Davey’s baton-twirling arrival in Bournemouth. Another compared it to a scene from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Such appreciation is not shared by all though. In the run-up to conference, one MP told the i newspaper that the time for such ‘bullshit stunts’ was over. Similar sentiments are

Michael Simmons

Rachel Reeves has only ugly choices

Rachel Reeves should shift the tax burden away from workers and on to those who take most from the state: our pensioners. That’s the view of the influential Resolution Foundation think-tank, at least. This morning it recommended increasing income tax by 2p on the pound while cutting employee national insurance (NI) contributions by the same amount. Because no one (above the tax-free allowance) is immune from income tax, this would mean £6 billion is raised without an increase in the tax bill for those whose sole income comes from salaried employment. Pensioners who don’t pay NI would end up footing the bill. It’s a suggestion worth listening to because Torsten

Gareth Roberts

Private Eye's shameful Charlie Kirk article

In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, a peculiar phenomenon has re-emerged: the casket caveat. Instead of simply condemning the dreadful murder of a young man, many eulogies to Kirk are laced with qualifications. Clods of faint praise scattered over a fresh grave. ‘It’s regrettable that he was shot, no matter how much of a bastard he was,’ is the sentiment – or ‘We gather in solemn remembrance of a man who, though admired by many, really had it coming.’ A piece on Kirk’s murder, under the pseudonym ‘Lady Liberty’, drips with insinuations Such weasel words have proliferated since Kirk’s murder, often tarted up as balanced commentary, but reeking of

Monday

22 Sep 2025

Madeline Grant

Has Farage managed to put Boris to bed?

How do you solve a problem like B Johnson? It has troubled the Conservative party since his departure, not least as they presumably do not relish the idea of him going down in history as the last person ever to win them a majority. Interestingly, Labour rarely mentions him, preferring to resurrect Liz Truss again and again. Ironically it has since become clear that they are guilty of many of the things they once criticised Boris for doing; the same love of freebies, a certain economy with the truth, and, inevitably, not knowing that the best time to go was yesterday and the second-best time is today. Zia Yusuf spoke of

Matthew Lynn

Rachel Reeves's 'taxi tax' plans show how desperate she is

It will at least give the cabbies something to genuinely complain about. Amid all the wheezes that Chancellor Rachel Reeves is plotting to fix the ‘black hole’ in the public finances, she is now considering a ‘taxi tax’. Ahead of November’s Budget, it has been floated that VAT may well be applied on all cab rides. But this plan is likely to end up backfiring badly on Reeves – and the government more broadly. According to reports this week, the Chancellor is likely to impose a blanket 20 per cent rate of VAT on all taxi rides. Right now, taxi firms outside of London do not have to charge VAT