Politics

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

Tuesday

The Spectator

The legacy of Nigel Lawson

Nigel Lawson was the most consequential chancellor in modern British history. He gave the world a case study in how to overturn a failed consensus. He was guided throughout his political career by the political principles articulated when he was editor of this magazine. His legacy is so rich that it offers a wide choice of lessons, three of which stand out for Rishi Sunak today. The first is one that the Prime Minister himself writes about in his article – the importance of preparing for battles. Lawson wanted lasting change and realised that radicalism is pointless without strategy. Tax can only ever be a reflection of the spending rate:

Katy Balls Katy Balls

It’s springtime for Rishi

Two years ago when the Tories won the Hartlepool by-election at the local elections, the political mood was summed up by a 30ft inflatable blow-up of the then prime minister Boris Johnson looming over the town. He was photographed in front of it as part of his victory lap. The message was clear: under his leadership, the Tories were insurmountable and no seat was safe for Labour in what used to be the party’s heartlands. There are no plans for similar photo ops for the local elections next month. In fact, according to one No. 10 staffer, photographers are actively being avoided. No national media were invited to the Tories’ campaign launch.

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Get ready for the Passion of The Donald

It won’t have escaped Donald Trump’s notice that his arrest has come during Holy Week, when our Lord and Saviour was sentenced by a cruel mob and crucified only to rise again. Trump — aka ‘the Tangerine Jesus’ — has long understood the religious power of politics in America. That’s why ‘I am your retribution’ is his campaign pitch in 2024. It’s why, recovering from Covid in the run up to the 2020 election, he described his recovery as ‘a blessing from God’ and behaved a bit like Lazarus brought back from the dead. It’s why he accuses the Democrats of stealing ‘our sacred elections.’ And it’s why Trump and

Steerpike Steerpike

Rishi revels in his ‘Stop the Boats’ message

Four weeks ago Rishi Sunak proudly unveiled the branding for his campaign to deter migrant Channel crossings. Standing at a lectern, the Prime Minister unveiled his new, stark slogan: ‘Stop the Boats’ – a message emblazoned on his backdrop and podium. And, in keeping with the Prime Minister’s other ‘five prioritises’ of reducing debt, Mr S has discovered that the fiscally-conscious Sunak is keeping the spirit of Cop26 alive in No. 10 by recycling his older lecterns, rather than buying a new one. According to a Freedom of Information request response from Downing Street, the expenditure on the snazzy new set up was a mere £1,575 – the cost of

Lionel Shriver Lionel Shriver

Why Democrats want Trump

Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg’s indictment of an even more prominent fat man seems a big win for Donald Trump, regardless of how the case is decided. If convicted, Trump is a martyr, managing to portray himself once more as a persecuted Washington outsider, a status that’s quite a feat for a politician to retain after setting up shop in the White House for four years. If found not guilty, Trump is exonerated, a contrived case likely to rely on tentative legal reasoning exposed as an overtly partisan manhunt. After all, in a Quinnipiac poll last week, a plurality of Americans (42 per cent) considered the charges in New York

Steerpike Steerpike

What’s going on with Carol Vorderman?

It seems that Labour have a secret weapon in their local election campaign. For months now, Carol Vorderman has been on a one-woman war against the Tories, taking to Twitter to decry the incumbent government. The former Countdown star is a devotee of the all caps tweet, railing against her onetime friend turned bête noire Michelle Mone with such understated gems as ‘the greed of the rich knows no limit ALWAYS remember that’. Her online crusade has also been conducted in the TV studios, including an earnest speech about Rishi Sunak’s financial investments on ITV’s This Morning, to the bemusement of fellow guests Alison Hammond and Dermot O’Leary. Her latest

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Nigel Lawson’s legacy is one of British transformation

The path from the editor’s chair at The Spectator to 11 Downing Street was not untrodden when Mrs Thatcher asked Nigel Lawson to replace Geoffrey Howe as Chancellor of the Exchequer after the 1983 general election. Iain Macleod had made the same journey in 1970. But whereas Macleod died 13 days into the job, Lawson went on to become Britain’s most significant post-war chancellor, and the architect of high Thatcherism. You have to be at least 50 now to remember the stupor in which the British economy lay when Lawson took office. The statist economy of the 1970s, with its wretched labour disputes and under-performing nationalised industries had still not

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

France’s Boomers have a lot to answer for

Paris has banned e-scooters after the people were asked to vote in a referendum. Not many of the capital’s 1.38 million registered citizens bothered to cast their ballot on Sunday, but of the 103,000 who did 90 per cent voted against.   The Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo hailed the referendum as a red letter day for ‘participative democracy’ over ‘democracy of public opinion and polls’. The city’s three e-scooter operators – Dott, Lime and Tier – quickly cried foul, citing what they described as ‘very restrictive voting methods’; only 21 voting stations were open, and there was no internet voting. Often derided as the ‘president of the rich’, Macron could

Monday

Nigel Lawson

Nigel Lawson: 1932-2023

Nigel Lawson has died at the age of 91. He was the editor of The Spectator from 1966 to 1970 and then a Conservative politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1983 until 1989. Below is an article written by Lawson in 1967 on the need for ‘An Alternative Economic Policy’, written some 16 years before he entered No. 11 under Margaret Thatcher and was able to realise that vision. So far as the short term is concerned, it is generally agreed, right across the political board, that the state should intervene at any rate to maintain full employment, to prevent undue inflation and generally to iron out

Max Jeffery Max Jeffery

Channel crossings have fallen. Why?

14 min listen

Channel crossings were down 17 per cent in the first three months of 2023, compared with 2022. Why? And a new poll of Tory members from Conservative Home shows Rishi Sunak jump from being the sixth least popular member of the cabinet in November, to being the sixth most popular member member today. Does it matter?  Max Jeffery speaks to Fraser Nelson and Katy Balls.  Produced by Max Jeffery.

Ross Clark Ross Clark

By reducing oil production, Opec is only helping Russia

Just when we thought inflationary forces were softening, the price of crude oil has shot up sharply today in response to an announcement by Opec that it will try to reduce production. A barrel of Brent crude, which touched $120 last summer before falling back to $75 last month, reached $85 at one point today. Some analysts expect it to hit $100. Given that the benign forecasts for inflation which shaped Jeremy Hunt’s budget were predicated on a falling oil price, has the case for economic recovery now collapsed? Unfortunately, in spite of the US’s drive towards energy independence in recent years, the world remains depressingly reliant on Opec for

Ian Williams Ian Williams

What would be the real cost of defending Taiwan?

It’s 2026 and China begins its invasion of Taiwan with an intense missile bombardment that in a few hours destroys most of the island’s navy and air force. The Chinese navy begins ferrying its main invasion force of tens of thousands of soldiers and equipment across the Taiwan Strait. But all is not lost. US submarines, bombers, and fighter jets, reinforced by Japan’s Self-Defense Forces, rapidly cripple the Chinese fleet. The People’s Liberation Army is defeated, and communist party rule in China destabilised, but victory for the US and its allies comes at an enormous cost. Chinese missiles destroy US bases in Japan and Guam; the US loses dozens of

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Scotland is making education strikes in England worse

If anyone thought that the public sector strikes were fading out, this week marks a resurgence, with Passport Office staff striking for five weeks – apparently on behalf of other civil servants whose absence might be less noticed – along with the National Education Union (NEU). The education union voted by a margin of 98 to 2 per cent for two days’ strikes on 27 April and 2 May. Pleas to save children further disruption to their education following months of school closures during Covid-19 appear to have fallen on deaf ears. The NEU vote shows one thing which has been little commented upon during this round of strikes: the

Steerpike Steerpike

A brief history of Sir Keir Starmer’s trans flip-flopping

Where public opinion goes, Sir Keir follows. Tony Benn used to divide politicians into two categories: the Signposts and the Weathercocks, with the Labour leader falling decidedly into the latter group. As public attitudes on women-only spaces and elite sport have hardened in recent years, the Leader of the Opposition has slowly, painfully followed suit, often to the chagrin of Labour’s LGBT+ factions. Below is a timeline of Sir Keir’s shifting stance over the past three years of his leadership… November 2020 – Five months after being elected leader, Starmer posts on Facebook that ‘Trans rights are human rights, and your fight is our fight too. The Labour Party stands

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Jacinda Ardern’s successor struggles to define a woman

Is Labour’s state of confusion about sex and gender going global? Labour leader Keir Starmer was widely mocked this weekend when he was asked by the Sunday Times to define a woman, and claimed that 99.9 per cent of women don’t have a penis – which if nothing else, rather contradicted his previous assertion that it was wrong to say that only women have a cervix. Now though his gender vacillation appears to be causing problems all the way over in New Zealand for Jacinda Ardern’s successor as Prime Minister, the Labour politician Chris Hipkins. Asked in a press conference how he and his government would define a woman – in

Steerpike Steerpike

Now Humza’s henchman takes aim at Rod Liddle

There’s no shortage of problems in Humza Yousaf’s in-tray as he gets his feet under the desk at Bute House. Striking workers, anaemic growth, a crumbling NHS: there’s plenty to occupy Yousaf and his new cabinet of old faces. So Mr S was therefore surprised that one minister clearly has enough time to moonlight as a media critic too. Step forward, Paul McLennan MSP, the who occupies the housing brief – a job with no end of issues. But McLennan seems to not be fulfilled by his duties in parliament and government. For the East Lothian ex-councillor always finds time to criticise those journalists whose writings he feels are insufficiently

Patrick O’Flynn Patrick O'Flynn

Britain deserves better than Keir Starmer’s opportunism

A few weeks ago, Keir Starmer was told by his advisers that he would have to U-turn on his radical stance on trans rights or he would not win the next general election. One senior Labour source told the Times back then: ‘If Keir is still being asked by the time the election campaign begins what a woman is, then he’s lost on day one. Scotland is a warning to him… self-ID is not going to happen under a Labour government.’ So it was only a matter of time before Starmer’s support for gender self-ID went the way of many of his other principled stances such as support for free

Fredrik Erixon

Why Sanna Marin lost Finland’s election

A journalist and observer of Finnish politics once said there is one headline that works for every Finnish election: ‘Finland elects new government, nothing will change’. Few prime ministers have survived longer than one term in the Arctic nation. Just as day becomes night and that spring follows on winter, the rhythm of the country’s elections has been to hand victory to the main opposition party – depending on which of them that was outside the last ruling coalition. Finland’s major parties are all centrist and pragmatic, and the difference between the left and the right is hard to detect. Even the populist Finns party feels tidy and well-behaved. With

Sunday

Ian Williams Ian Williams

It’s time for a reckoning with Chinese big tech

It has been a bumpy week for China’s beleaguered technology giants. They are under increasing scrutiny overseas, and the communist party continues to tighten the screws on them at home. In many ways they are also their own worst enemies. The UK has become the latest government to ban the Chinese-owned TikTok from government devices over security concerns. Parliament has also banned the app from its network. This follows similar bans from the European Union and 11 countries, including France, New Zealand, Denmark and the US. Western lawmakers are unconvinced by TikTok’s often cack-handed attempts to distance itself from its Chinese parent, ByteDance, and that company’s obligations to the Chinese