Politics

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

Thursday

Steerpike Steerpike

Ex-Royal Marine charged over Liverpool crash

To Liverpool, where former Royal Marine Paul Doyle has been charged over the car crash that injured almost 80 people on Monday. Police announced they had taken a 53-year-old white British man into custody within hours of the attack and this afternoon, officers announced at a presser that Doyle had been charged with two counts of wounding with intent, two counts of causing grievous bodily harm with intent, two counts of attempted grievous bodily harm with intent and one count of dangerous driving. Reports note that 79 people – including four children – sustained injuries in the incident that took place during Monday’s Premier League victory celebrations. Two people, including

Charlotte Henry

Ed Davey should challenge Nigel Farage to a debate

On Tuesday, Nigel Farage challenged Keir Starmer to a head-to-head debate. More specifically, the Reform leader wants to take on the Prime Minister in a northern working men’s club.  Obviously, that is not going to happen. The PM might have declared in his speech today that ‘the choice at the moment is between the choice of a Labour government… or Nigel Farage and Reform,’ but there is zero chance of him risking all to take on Farage directly in a setting of the Reform leader’s choosing. There is, however, another man who should play Farage at his own game and challenge him to a debate: Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey.

Steerpike Steerpike

Revealed: which Tube lines have the most drugs?

They say that if you’re tired of London, you’re tired of life. But these days the capital’s commuters seem to certainly be tiring of the state of the public transport system. The ever-online Robert Jenrick has today released a new video, highlighting the impotence with which fare-dodgers can flagrantly get away without paying. And Mr S has done some of his own digging, to highlight the dire state of law abidance on the Tube. A Freedom of Information request to Transport for London (TfL) was submitted by The Spectator, requesting information on the number of drug offences committed on London Underground since 2020. It turns out a whopping 2,481 incidents

William Moore William Moore

End of the rainbow, rising illiteracy & swimming pool etiquette

50 min listen

End of the rainbow: Pride’s fall What ‘started half a century ago as an afternoon’s little march for lesbians and gay men’, argues Gareth Roberts, became ‘a jamboree not only of boring homosexuality’ but ‘anything else that its purveyors consider unconventional’. Yet now Reform-led councils are taking down Pride flags, Pride events are being cancelled due to lack of funds, and corporate sponsors are ‘withdrawing their cold tootsies from the rainbow sock’. Has Pride suffered from conflation with ‘genderism’? Gareth joined the podcast to discuss, alongside diversity consultant Simon Fanshawe, one of the six original co-founders of Stonewall. (0:59) Next: people are forgetting how to read Philip Womack ‘can hear

Owen Matthews

Has Russia changed its red lines?

Is the Kremlin on the verge of shifting its red lines on Ukraine? As Russian troops on the ground line up to launch a new summer offensive and more missiles rain down on Kyiv than any point since the beginning of the invasion, Putin’s diplomats are reportedly preparing to step back from some of their hardest-line positions. According to a set of Russian position papers seen by Reuters, the Kremlin appears to step back from its earlier demands for ‘de-militarization’ of Ukraine. Also apparently jettisoned are claims on the areas of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhiye regions still controlled by Ukraine but which Russia had formerly demanded as part of

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

The world that Elon Musk couldn’t conquer

Elon Musk understands astrophysics, yet he seems unable to grasp the strange laws of gravity which govern Washington politics. Last night, the world’s richest man confirmed what everybody in Washington already knew: his time as a ‘special employee’ in the White House is over and he’s leaving his formal role as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). ‘I would like to thank @realDonaldTrump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending,’ he said. ‘The DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.’ Musk’s public resignation may have been a necessary response to one of his many ongoing legal challenges. This

James Heale James Heale

This won’t be the last time Starmer attacks ‘fantasy’ Farage

Liz Truss’s short-lived premiership is remembered fondly by few in British politics. But one group who certainly never miss a chance to mention it are Labour MPs sent out on broadcast duty. Having successful used the ex-PM as a two-word stick to hammer the Tories, now Keir Starmer is trying to use the same trick on Nigel Farage. The Prime Minister used an engagement at a business manufacturer in the north-west of England to test his party’s latest attack lines on Reform UK. The striking thing about Starmer’s comments is how they echo the Tory critique of Farage His remarks focused on those industries affected by the tariffs Donald Trump

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Jenrick confronts lawbreakers in dig at Khan

To shadow justice secretary, Robert Jenrick. The onetime Tory leadership contender has taken to Twitter to make a dig at Labour’s London mayor Sadiq Khan over TfL’s fee-dodgers. ‘Sadiq Khan is driving a proud city into the ground,’ Jenrick wrote furiously. ‘Lawbreaking is out of control. He’s not acting. So I did.’ What follows is a minute-long clip of the ex-Conservative Home Office minister approaching commuters who have attempted to use London’s public transport without paying. Jenrick has no qualms about going about travellers who have barged through the gates, asking one man: ‘Excuse me. Do you think it’s all right not to pay? Why do you go back through

Guy Dampier

How Britain can avoid becoming an island of strangers

There’s a street in Leicester where nearly half the residents don’t speak English to a decent level. Ben Leo of GB News recently went there to explore what that meant in practice. True to the statistics, almost nobody could speak English well enough to have a conversation, from a middle-aged Portuguese man to the Indian father who admitted to not being able to speak the language after a decade here. The only flag to be found flying there was Palestine’s, whilst the local advertising billboards were for One Nation, an Islamic charity from Batley in West Yorkshire. In the end, Leo had to, in his words, ‘scarper’ after a local

Sergey Maidukov

Who doesn’t stand to benefit from the war in Ukraine?

On the night of 26 May, Kyiv came under another large-scale Russian drone and missile attack, with explosions and machine gun fire rattling the city. I lay on the floor of my narrow hallway, listening to the furious cacophony outside the window. Two thin walls stood between me and the war, hardly an invitation to philosophical reflection. Nevertheless, I tried, because it helped me banish the more disturbing thoughts. We Ukrainians now rely on smartphone apps to warn us of incoming Russian drones and missile launches. They don’t tell you which building will be hit or where the wreckage of a downed Shahed might fall. This deprives you of sleep.

Lucy Dunn

Thomas Kerr: Reform will reform Holyrood

Thomas Kerr made headlines when he – as The Spectator exclusively revealed – defected from the Conservatives to Nigel Farage’s Reform in January. Kerr was seen as a rising star in the Scottish Conservative party and was selected in 2023 to contest the Rutherglen and Hamilton West Westminster by-election after the SNP’s Margaret Ferrier was suspended over breaking Covid rules. He was unsuccessful but rose through the ranks to become the Tory leader on Glasgow City Council before he left for more turquoise pastures at Reform. A week from the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election, in which his party is projected to do well, Kerr speaks to The Spectator about

James Heale James Heale

Rape investigation into Crispin Blunt dropped

An 18-month investigation into allegations of rape against former Justice Minister Crispin Blunt has now been dropped. In October 2023, the-then Tory MP was arrested by Surrey Police, prompting the removal of the party whip. He confirmed he was the subject of the probe at the time following reports of a Conservative parliamentarian being arrested. Blunt was subsequently bailed and stood down from parliament at the July 2024 election, with the investigation still ongoing. However, in a statement, Surrey Police today told The Spectator that: An investigation was launched following a report of rape in October 2023. Extensive enquiries have been carried out and a man in his 60s and a man

Steerpike Steerpike

NHS Fife refuse to reveal costs of trans tribunal

To NHS Fife, which is once again making headlines for all the wrong reasons. The Scottish health board has been slammed by the country’s information tsar for failing to publish its spend on an ongoing employment tribunal brought against it by nurse Sandie Peggie. Whatever happened to transparency, eh? After nurse Peggie questioned a transgender doctor for using the female changing rooms, she was suspended by the Scottish health board. The move pushed her to bring a landmark tribunal against NHS Fife and Dr Beth Upton for harassment and discrimination and prompting heated discussion about what the Equality Act says about the provision of single-sex spaces. But when investigators approached the

Steerpike Steerpike

National Liberal Club distances itself from Farage

Egad! Uproar in clubland. The reason? Nigel Farage. Yes, it seems that the veteran Brexiteer is still capable of causing a fuss among t’great and t’good – even when he is pledging to, er, lift the two child benefit cap. The Reform UK leader gave a big speech on Tuesday in Whitehall, talking about his party’s plans for welfare reform. His choice of venue was the Royal Horseguards Hotel – the construction of which, in the 1880s, involved an elaborate pyramid scheme of fraud. Insert your own jokes here…. Unfortunately, the hotel’s site also encompasses the National Liberal Club, the haunt of choice for that rarest of all breeds: senior Liberal

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Reeves is right to slash funds for wealthy landowners

It is beginning to feel a bit like 1998 all over again. That was the year of the first countryside march when it – supposedly – rose up in anger at the Blair government over its plan to abolish hunting, introduce the right to roam and build some houses for people to live in. Landowning interests, already reeling from Rachel Reeves’ decision to partially remove the inheritance tax exemption on agricultural land, are now gearing up to bleat about a proposal to slash the £2.5 billion a year budget for Environmental Land Management (ELM) – the scheme which replaced the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) after Brexit.  It is reported that

Lucy Dunn

Can Reform conquer Scotland?

23 min listen

Dissatisfaction with the established political parties is driving a ‘tartan bounce’ in Scotland for Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. Far from being an English phenomenon, Reform is polling favourably with Scottish voters. There will be a by-election next week for the Scottish Parliament seat of Hamilton, in what will be Reform’s first big test inside the politics of devolved government.  For councillor Thomas Kerr, who defected from the Scottish Conservatives to Reform earlier this year, Reform’s appeal in Scotland is no surprise. He joins Lucy Dunn to explain why he thinks the ‘sky is the limit’ for Reform, why Farage is an asset to the party in Scotland and to explain

Ben Goldsmith

Labour has launched a galling attack on nature

During the last Conservative government, it was common to hear the refrain that the prime minister of the day was waging a ‘war on nature’. As someone who played a role in advising a string of environment ministers, I always thought that to be somewhat hyperbolic. I always admire the passion of campaigners, and I share with them a longing for our government to go further and do more for nature; but, at least until the last couple of years of Conservative government, I didn’t think many of the criticisms were fair. I’m starting to worry now, though, that we’re living in an altogether different world. The new Labour government was elected

Eliot Wilson

The problem with Trump’s Golden Dome project

Donald Trump did not get to where he is today by taking no for an answer. Mark Carney, the Prime Minister of Canada, could scarcely have been clearer when he visited the White House earlier this month that the President’s notion of Canada becoming America’s 51st state was not even being entertained. ‘Canada is not for sale,’ he said bluntly. When Trump chided him that he should never say never, he mouthed silently, ‘Never, never.’ Undaunted, President Trump has tried a new tack: the proposed Golden Dome, a missile defence system covering the United States which Trump initiated by executive order in January. He announced on his Truth Social platform

James Heale James Heale

The rise of the Red Queen

‘All Labour prime ministers go gaga for the Queen,’ sighed Cherie Blair, played by Helen McCrory, in the 2006 film about the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. Her words were fictitious but the sentiment is real. From Ramsay MacDonald to Harold Wilson, left-wing prime ministers invariably end up as royalists. The current cabinet is no exception: former republicans such as Lisa Nandy have been charmed by Charles III. Even Keir Starmer – who once boasted on camera that he ‘often used to propose the abolition of the monarchy’ – is said to have a warm relationship with the King. Yet geniality is only one reason why Labour loves the

Wednesday

John Power

Mike Tapp: ‘I’ll never insult or belittle someone who votes Reform’

“I’ll never insult or belittle someone who votes Reform,” Mike Tapp, the Labour MP for Dover and Deal, tells me. “We need to deliver.” It’s a message Labour is increasingly keen to project – but Tapp sound like he really means it. Where others Labour MPs prevaricate on immigration, Tapp supports “return hubs” (for failed asylum seekers). He finds merit in Denmark’s deportation model, arguably the most hardline in Europe. It includes the confiscation of asylum seeker’s cash or jewellery over a value of 10,000 Danish Kroner (around £1,100) to pay for their stay in the country. Tapp doesn’t want to leave the ECHR (European Convention on Human Rights), but he