Politics Archives

Thursday

6 Apr 2023

Is Elon Musk really a ‘free speech absolutist’?

Elon Musk, the Twitter owner, is in his own words a ‘free speech absolutist’. He promised to combat censorship and allow a broader range of voices on the social media platform as part of his pitch for acquiring the company last October. It is, then, hard to square his free speech bombast with recent events in India where the social media giant is playing corporate lackey to a government hooked on using censorship as a way of silencing political dissent and debate. Twitter is facing a growing backlash after bowing to the latest official demands by prime minister Narendra Modi’s government to block the accounts of government critics, including more than

Dalibor Rohac

Will the EU finally see sense over its Common Agricultural Policy?

What should be done about Ukraine’s grain exports? Ongoing controversy in Poland over the country’s imports into the EU, which currently face zero tariffs, gives a flavour of the fights to come if Ukraine becomes a fully-fledged member of the bloc. It also presents an opportunity to start a much-overdue conversation about the EU’s worst, most damaging policy programme: the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). In a striking move, Poland’s agriculture minister Henryk Kowalczyk announced his resignation yesterday – the day of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s official visit to Warsaw on his third trip outside Ukraine since Russia’s invasion last year. The reason for Kowalcyk’s departure was his failure, together with several

Iain Macwhirter

What next for the SNP?

With police surrounding the home of Nicola Sturgeon, and the arrest of her husband yesterday, the people of Scotland need answers – and fast. For once, Humza Yousaf was only telling it like it is. ‘This has been a difficult day for the party,’ he said, after the former Chief Executive of the SNP, Peter Murrell, the husband of the former SNP leader, Nicola Sturgeon, was arrested by police in Glasgow. He was released without charge almost 12 hours later pending further investigations. As for the Scottish National party, as it staggers from crisis to crisis, long suffering members must wonder if things will ever be the same again. It’s

Ysenda Maxtone Graham

Help! I’m trapped in a 15-minute city

It’s a nasty moment when you receive a letter informing you that a fortnight ago, at a specific number of minutes past an hour, your car was photographed turning into a side road which, at the time, you had no idea you weren’t allowed to turn into. You vaguely recall the junction. There was no ‘No entry’ sign: just a torrent of words (‘except’, ‘through’, ‘motor vehicles’, ‘access’) that you didn’t have time to read. That outing will now be forever sullied in your memory by the £65 fine. Protesting ‘but the sat-nav told me to do it!’ is as ineffectual, legally speaking, as Adam bleating to God that ‘the

Wednesday

5 Apr 2023

James Heale

The arrest of Peter Murrell

16 min listen

Nicola Sturgeon’s husband, Peter Murrell, has been arrested today in connection with an investigation into the SNP’s finances. James Heale talks to Fraser Nelson and Conservative Home editor Paul Goodman on the episode. They also discuss Trump’s arrest and ask whether Suella Braverman might need a new seat. Produced by Cindy Yu.

Rory Cormac

Can we brainwash our enemies?

Disinformation is on the rise, and Britain’s spies are on the back foot. Our intelligence leaders warn about election meddling, and our enemies are trying to undermine public trust in our national institutions. The United Kingdom needs to use covert means to disrupt anti-British activities at their source. That’s what Harold Macmillan said in the 1950s, shortly before becoming prime minister. Over half a century later, in 2017, the Chief of MI6 made the same point: adversaries should be ‘playing in their half of the pitch not ours.’ And half a decade on from that, here we are again. This week’s intriguing peek into the secretive work of the National

Fraser Nelson

The Spectator internship 2023: apply now!

2024 scheme is now live, click here The Spectator’s no-CV internship scheme is now open. We don’t care how old you are, where (or even if) you went to university, whether you’re a refugee or a baronet. All that matters in journalism is whether you can do it: do you have good, original ideas, and care about good writing? We have doubled our circulation in a market that has fallen by two-thirds because we believe that nothing matters more than the quality of the people we hire. We’re mindful that good people come in all shapes, sizes and locations, which is why we put a lot of effort into finding

Steerpike

Teaching union’s new leader calls for strikes against ‘brutally racist state’

Slowly but surely striking public sector workers have agreed to sit down at the negotiating table with the government and hammer out pay deals for themselves. But there is one sector that might prove more of a headache than others for Rishi Sunak to deal with: teachers. In September, the National Education Union (NEU) will have a new leader. New term, new start and all that. But it seems that this general secretary-to-be, Daniel Kebede, has some pretty strong thoughts on the state of British schools. So far this year, the NEU has shut down schools with four days of teacher strikes, and has announced five more to come before

Alexander Larman

When will Prince Harry break his Coronation silence?

Two thousand among the great and the good from around the world will soon receive a letter from King Charles III and Queen Camilla. The invitation to the coronation on 6 May, which has been unveiled today, is not what people might have expected. Elizabeth II’s coronation invitation was formal, and, even by the standards of 1953, old-fashioned: it looked like the sort of thing that Victoria would have issued for her eventful, near-disastrous ceremony over a century before. The implication was clear, namely that her reign would be a formal, decorous one, firmly in keeping with the high ideals of her predecessors, and it proved an apt portent for

Sean Thomas

Hola, here’s the first Brexit Benefit

Whenever Brexit is discussed these days, you will nearly always find a splenetic or exultant Remainer asking, often in a weirdly high pitched voicetone: where are the Brexit Benefits then? Can you name any? Mm? Just one? Where is the £350 million for the NHS? And to be fair to these people, since the Brexit vote, obvious, tangible, yay-look-at-this Brexit Benefits have been pretty thin on the ground. Or, in fact, utterly non existent. The first Actual Brexit Benefit is the ability to go and work in lovely sunny parts of the EU and pay way less tax For those who voted Leave on the basis of sovereignty, this does not matter much. For these people, Brexit is itself the benefit. We brought democracy (however flawed) back to the

Steerpike

Watch: Jacinda Ardern’s final cringeworthy speech as PM

It’s a bad time for soporific narcissists in office. Just weeks after the self-indulgent grandstanding of Nicola Sturgeon’s farewell press conference, Jacinda Ardern has today followed suit. The New Zealand premier treated her long-suffering public to one last display of egotistical over-excitement. Swathed, bizarrely, in a traditional Maori cloak and fighting back tears, the world leader whose pronouns are me/me/me gave her final speech as Prime Minister in parliament. She told legislators in Wellington’s House of Representatives that: I do hope that I’ve demonstrated something else entirely. That you can be anxious, sensitive, kind, and wear your heart on your sleeve. You can be a mother or not. You can

Steerpike

A timeline of Police Scotland’s SNP investigation

Peter Murrell, the former chief executive of the SNP and the husband of Scotland’s former first minister Nicola Sturgeon, has today been arrested in connection with an investigation into the SNP’s finances. It is the latest development in Police Scotland’s 21-month-long probe into claims that Scotland’s governing party mismanaged funds. Below is a timeline of the events up to today… March 2021 – Policy Scotland receives a complaint from Sean Clerkin about £666,000 raised to fund a second independence campaign. It is alleged that the ‘ring-fenced’ money has vanished from the party’s accounts. Three members of the party’s finance and audit committee resign. May 2021 – Douglas Chapman resigns as SNP National Treasurer, saying he ‘had not received

Lucy Dunn

Nicola Sturgeon’s husband arrested in SNP finance investigation

Peter Murrell, the former chief executive of the SNP and the husband of Scotland’s former first minister Nicola Sturgeon, was arrested at 7.45am this morning in connection with an investigation into the SNP’s finances. Murrell was later released from police custody at 6.57pm without charge, pending further investigation. Police raided the SNP’s head office this morning. They cordoned off an area outside Sturgeon and Murrell’s home before Murrell was taken into police custody for questioning by detectives. Searches of the property are understood to be taking place as part of an investigation into a ‘missing’ £600,000. The police search is understood to have expanded outdoors, and detectives have been seen

Debbie Hayton

Kemi Badenoch is right to review the definition of sex

Kemi Badenoch is considering a change to the Equality Act 2010 that would restore the meaning of sex to what everybody once understood. I am a science teacher, so I know this. There are two sexes: male and female. Females produces large gametes called eggs while males produce small motile gametes called sperm. Science doesn’t care whether it happens in frogs, monkeys or people – sexual reproduction is a robust process that has been around for millions of years. Maybe – even as recently as 2010 – this was so obvious that it did not need to be stated when legislation was drafted. The Equality Act defines the protected characteristic

Matt Ridley

My unexpected lunch with Nigel Lawson – and Prince Philip

When I joined the House of Lords in 2013 I soon realised that, despite its poor reputation, the place contained plenty of wise, quick-witted and courageous minds. None more so than Nigel Lawson who died this week. An intellectual titan who had once almost become a philosophy professor, he was not content to rest on his considerable laurels as a politician and seemed unafraid to challenge any conventional wisdom to check if it deserved that status. But it was a lunch in 2017 with Lord Lawson and two ninety-somethings who are also now dead that remains probably the most sparkling memory of my nine years as a member of the

Peter Van Buren

Trump’s indictment is a tempest over bookkeeping

The American rule of law, which seems so precious to holier-than-thou Democrats these days, depends above all on one thing: a belief among the majority that while no one is above the law, it will be applied fairly to those it does affect. Whether you loathe Trump or love him, you know this: what is happening in Manhattan right now is unfair and inconsistent with a nation that once prided itself on believing in the rule of law. Who amongst Americans is still a believer today? The previously sealed indictment shows that Donald Trump was charged with 34 felony counts for falsification of business records. This crime is normally prosecuted in New

Tuesday

4 Apr 2023

Ben Domenech

The insanity of the anti-Trump ‘resistance’ led America to this point

They have come from far and wide today to see the elephant in New York City. The #Resistance that promised so much from its dawning days, which turned the fever dreams of millions of Donald Trump-hating Americans into a cash machine for books, non-profits and cable news, has come to its apex. They’re actually doing it! They’re indicting the Orange Man. And the people are coming to town to see it. The #Resistance has come a long way since Chuck Schumer told Rachel Maddow that then-President-elect Trump was ‘being really dumb’ to attack the intelligence community which has ‘six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.’ It has meandered

Lucy Dunn

Scotland’s cancer crisis has been laid bare

Scotland’s cancer wait times have hit the worst levels on record, as shown by a Public Health Scotland report that was released today. Under 72 per cent of eligible patients received their first cancer treatment within 62 days of being urgently referred in the quarter ending 31 December 2022, while the target is 95 per cent. This revelation comes less than a week after new health secretary Michael Matheson was appointed to Humza Yousaf’s cabinet, and will make for uncomfortable viewing. Of 4,262 eligible patients who were referred urgently for cancer treatment, over 1,200 were left waiting for more than 62 days after they had been referred before they received

Steerpike

Has Kate Forbes begun her comeback?

Kate Forbes may have lost the battle but will she win the war? Forbes narrowly missed out in the SNP leadership race last month but she has handled her defeat much more gracefully than Humza Yousaf has greeted victory. While the Farce Minister has purged anyone of any talent from his cabinet, Forbes has done the sensible thing: left office without a public fuss while her allies brief the press on her behalf. Following reports that a 15-strong SNP caucus is being set up to keep the Forbes flame alive, the lady herself is flexing her Highland muscles. She has today been announced as the new weekly columnist for the

Rishi Sunak

What I learned from Nigel Lawson

The memory of Nigel Lawson will always be a blessing. He was the embodiment of serious radicalism, a politician who changed Britain for the better – and for good. When I became chancellor, I hung a picture of Nigel behind my desk in No. 11. It was a large photograph of him holding up his red Budget box. It was an image which summed up the intellectual confidence that he brought to the job. But it was also a reminder of the sheer amount of preparation, hard work and attention to detail that he had put in to get the party and the government into a position where it could do