Politics

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

Wednesday

Steerpike Steerpike

Is Scotland going off Humza Yousaf already?

If it wasn’t for bad luck, Humza Yousaf would have no luck. After hobbling over the line in a brutal SNP leadership election, his tenure was instantly plunged into chaos by a police probe into the party’s finances. Raids on Nicola Sturgeon’s home and SNP HQ were followed by the arrests of Peter Murrell, Sturgeon’s husband and former party chief executive, and Colin Beattie, the now-resigned treasurer. Both men were released without charge.  Since then, Yousaf has been plagued by rumours of a leadership challenge from erstwhile rival Kate Forbes, faced a Westminster crackdown on using devolved institutions to promote independence, and was forced to U-turn on a pledge to join a

Steerpike Steerpike

Wanted: a Tory candidate for London mayor

‘Men wanted for hazardous journey… Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in event of success.’ Ernest Shackleton’s supposed plea for explorers on his Antarctic expedition would nicely double up as the job advert for the Tory London mayoral candidate. CCHQ formally opened applications yesterday but there seems to be a lack of early frontrunners. Indeed, Labour’s 40-point poll lead in the capital means that there appears to be more people who have ruled themselves out than ruled themselves in, including Karren Brady, Tom Tugendhat, Iain Dale, George Osborne and Ed Vaizey. So far the only declared contenders are Samuel Kasumu, a former adviser to Boris Johnson, and the Assembly trio

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

Macron remains in denial over Europe’s migrant crisis

Tuesday was ‘Europe Day’, or as the European Union proclaimed on its website, the occasion to ‘celebrate peace and unity’ and give thanks to Robert Schuman. It was the French statesman’s declaration on 9 May 1950 that put in place the framework ‘for a new form of political cooperation in Europe’.  No leader in Europe marked the day quite as enthusiastically as Emmanuel Macron. His Renaissance party tabled a bill on Tuesday in the National Assembly demanding that every village and town hall throughout France be made to fly the EU flag alongside the French tricolour.  One wonders what they made of Macron’s ‘Together, united’ declaration in Rome The President

Lara Prendergast Lara Prendergast

Meet Millennial Millie, the new swing voter

An election looms and political parties are already talking ‘voter demographics’. Every few years, the wonks of Westminster pick a social stereotype and decide it represents a crucial group of swing voters. We’ve had Mondeo Man, Waitrose Woman and Pebbledash Person. Who will it be in 2024? It could be Deano, a snooty term used to describe aspirational lower-middle class blokes. Deano is proud to own a new-build house, a car bought on finance and a perfect set of pearly whites. He has had a bit of a tricky time recently, watching interest rates shoot up. Deano might have once voted Tory from his Red Wall seat, although after that

Francis Pike

The troubling arrest of Imran Khan

The saga of Imran Khan’s political career rumbles on. While on his way to the High Court in Islamabad yesterday to defend himself against trumped-up charges of political corruption, Khan was ambushed inside the judicial compound by enforcement paramilitaries known as the Pakistani Rangers. After Khan and his lawyers were allegedly beaten up, he was then driven away. The Pakistan government, the military or its agents, have seemingly been trying to either arrest or kill the immensely popular Khan since he was deposed by an army-backed constitutional coup in April 2022. Finally, this week they got their man. In November last year, Khan had been fortunate to survive a gun

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Does anyone think the sex abuse verdict will stop Donald Trump?

Can a man who has been found ‘civilly liable’ for sexual abuse in court be elected president of the United States? In a normal world, such a verdict might reasonably be expected to torpedo any candidate’s ambitions. But American politics today is the opposite of normal. A Manhattan jury yesterday ordered Donald Trump to pay the writer E. Jean Carroll $5 million (£4 million) in damages — $2 million for her injuries for being molested by him and nearly $3 million for his defamation of her for denying her claims. Four years ago, in print, 79-year-old Carroll accused Trump of raping her in a New York department store in late

Harvey Woolfe

What’s the real reason police disrupted our anti-monarchy protest?

The Met Police has expressed ‘regret’ over the arrests of six anti-monarchy protesters on coronation day. Officers even apologised in person to Graham Smith, the leader of the anti-Monarchy group Republic. But so far, no-one has said sorry to me. I’m a middle-aged dad, and not much of a rebel, but feel strongly about wanting an elected head of state. So, at 7.45am last Saturday, on the day of the coronation, I was part of a dozen-strong Republic sub-group, stationed on the Mall just opposite the Duke of York steps. The plan was simple. Nine of us, wearing yellow Republic T-shirts, would hold metre-square placards, each containing a letter of

Steerpike Steerpike

James O’Brien’s spinning for Starmer backfires

Oh dear. It seems that James O’Brien has slipped up again in his ceaseless quest for truth. The hard-of-thinking LBC star is always able to spot a winner and now, having so spectacularly lost the arguments on Brexit and Covid classroom closures, he has turned his attentions to Labour, riding high in the polls after last week’s election win. O’Brien seems to have become something of a Keirleader – unsurprising perhaps given both men’s shared enthusiasm for a second referendum. And it was in that spirit that O’Brien fearlessly tackled one of his own callers who complained about David Lammy telling LBC that Labour will not repeal the Public Order

Robin Ashenden

The barbarity of Russia’s white phosphorus attack on Bakhmut

There is something oddly Christmassy about the scene: a night-time city bathed, festooned in twinkling white lights, the smoke around them almost luminous. A shower of brilliant sparks falls calmly from the air, lighting up the dark sky – the town below seeming to celebrate something, over and over, with a spectacular firework display: flares, starbursts, dry-ice and Roman Candles. But the visual beauty is a sick joke, the town is Bakhmut at the end of a nine-month siege, and the illuminations appear to be an attack by Russian forces with white phosphorus – so the Ukrainian government claim – one of the most lethal incendiary chemicals in use today.

Matt McDonald

Jury finds Donald Trump sexually abused author

A New York federal jury has found Donald Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation against the author E. Jean Carroll. The jury ordered the former president to pay Carroll $5 million (£4 million) in compensatory and punitive damages. Trump was not found liable for the more serious charge of rape leveled against him by Carroll. ‘We are very happy,’ Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan told the press as she left the courthouse with her client. Carroll did not address reporters. In her suit, Carroll had alleged that Trump had raped her in the dressing room of a Bergdorf Goodman store in New York in the mid-1990s. Judge Lewis A. Kaplan

Euan McColm

Why the SNP is unlikely to be the kingmaker at the next election

The SNP has spent a lot of time and energy in recent years telling voters in Scotland there’s no difference between the Labour and Conservative parties. Arrant nonsense, of course, but there’s a market for that sort of thing among the nationalists’ more excitable supporters, many of whom happily buy into the idea of Labour as ‘red Tories’. There is, however, an inconsistency to the SNP’s line of attack. Each time a General Election rumbles into view, the nationalists may be depended upon to recognise differences between its Unionist opponents. Generally, this manifests itself as talk about which party it would be willing to support in the event the election

Gareth Roberts Gareth Roberts

Could AI save the human race?

Two things are buzzing about in the air at the moment: decline and artificial intelligence. Douglas Murray and Louise Perry have written recently in these pages about social desuetude: Murray on the five million or so Britons who seem to have opted out altogether of economic activity; Perry on the worrying lack of new humans being born. Could AI get us out of these holes?  It’s tempting to scoff at new tech and the alternating warnings and promises about what’s coming down the line. Many of us in the demographic bulge of older citizens will recall the heated clamour of the early 80s. We remember how the auguries about the

Andrew Finkel

Erdogan is desperate

There is such a thing as governing for too long. After about ten years in post, politicians’ once natural feel for the nation’s pulse instead starts to rub the electorate the wrong way. Thatcher, Blair and de Gaulle all saw their time run out.  What about Recep Tayyip Erdoğan? He has led Turkey since 2003 as prime minister and since 2014 as president. This Sunday, he will try to defy political gravity.  Opinion polls don’t suggest a clear outcome in the Turkish election. They suggest that no presidential candidate will get 50 per cent of the vote in the first round on Sunday, and that Erdoğan’s principal and not overly

Tuesday

James Heale James Heale

Starmer struggles on the coalition question

With gains of 643 councillors and 22 authorities, Labour clearly had a good result in Thursday’s local elections. Yet with the BBC and Sky both publishing vote share projections which show the party falling short of an overall majority – winning just shy of 300 seats rather than the necessary 326 – the spectre of a hung parliament looms large over British politics once more. It was that subject which dominated Sir Keir Starmer’s broadcast round this afternoon. The Labour leader refused seven times in an interview with Sky to rule out a deal with the Liberal Democrats if his party found themselves short of a majority, insisting that he

Steerpike Steerpike

Humza Yousaf’s right royal U-turn

Humza Yousaf has already stoked a right royal row with his party’s hardliners by ditching a pro-independence rally to attend the coronation. And now he’s really gone and done it by leading the Scottish Parliament in a celebration of the event. The SNP leader tabled a motion showering praise on the King and Queen: That the Parliament congratulates Their Majesties The King and The Queen on the occasion of Their Coronation; expresses its gratitude for Their Majesties’ public service to Scotland, and affirms the deep respect that is held for Their Majesties in Scotland. Speaking to the motion this afternoon, Yousaf hailed ‘an important constitutional milestone’ and praised the multi-faith nature of

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Wanted: researcher for The Spectator’s lunchtime newsletter

The Spectator is looking for a freelance newsletter assistant for early-morning morning shifts (which can be done at home) for our Lunchtime Espresso newsletter. The lunchtime email goes out to more than 120,000 people: one of our most-read, and one of the most influential newsletters in Britain. It should reflect the same ethos as the magazine, our website, and our broadcast offerings. We’re looking for someone with curiosity, who can separate wheat from chaff, who can work out what’s happening that matters – and summarise it all in a sentence. You provide the first draft: a team then pick up, add, enhance. But the first draft matters a lot. Sounds

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Joanna Cherry and the fight for women’s rights

I would like to go back to disagreeing with Joanna Cherry, thank you very much. Not so long ago, it was easy enough. She was an SNP MP, beloved by the party’s grassroots, and one of the most articulate advocates for Scottish independence. She was also a lawyer, and I really don’t think that sort of thing should be encouraged.   Then something happened: she started to talk out of turn about transgender ideology and its impact on women’s rights. In doing so, this left-leaning lesbian has been vilified as a bigot, shunned within her party, and subjected to appalling online abuse. Her latest punishment has been the cancellation of her ‘In conversation

Lucy Dunn

Can pharmacies help solve the NHS crisis?

High street pharmacists in England will, for the first time, be able to prescribe medication, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced today. Minor conditions that require simple treatments may no longer involve prolonged waits at the GP – and patients requiring routine checks, like blood pressure measurements, will also be able to access these at their local pharmacies.  This simple shift will help ease the pressure on local health services: it is predicted to free up 15 million appointments and ensure that GPs have more time to deal with complex patients. It will also have a knock-on effect on hospital waiting times and, hopefully, the numbers on waiting lists – which have hit highs

Lisa Haseldine Lisa Haseldine

Victory Day threatens Putin’s alternative reality

As Vladimir Putin rounded off his Victory Day speech with a resounding ‘Hurrah!’ to Russia, the contrast between the celebrations of this year and last could not be starker. Putin was a president in a hurry: he spoke for just nine minutes, the parade was wrapped up in under 25 minutes. ‘A real war has once again broken out against our motherland,’ he began. Perpetuating the lies upon which he has sought to justify the invasion of Ukraine, Putin continued with the trademark bellicose ranting that we have come to expect from his speeches over the past year: ‘We have resisted international terrorism, we will defend the citizens of the Donbas, and we will guarantee our own safety’.