Politics

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

Philip Patrick

Another grim reminder of Japan’s violent politics

Has Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida just survived an assassination attempt? Kishida was evacuated from the site of a stump speech in the fishing port of Sakizaki in Wakayama western Japan after what appeared to be a pipe bomb was thrown in his direction. No one was injured but people fled in terror after the attack, which occurred at around 11:25 AM shortly before the PM was due to speak. A man was wrestled to the ground clearly holding a cylindrical metal object identical to the one thrown at Kishida before being arrested and taken away.  That’s as much as we know for now. It is not clear yet whether the ‘explosive’ was capable of killing anyone. From dramatic footage of the incident a loud

Patrick O'Flynn

Rishi Sunak’s immigration delusion

Few observers of politics can by now be in much doubt about the defective nature of Keir Starmer’s antennae when it comes to picking up the concerns of the British public. The number of U-turns the Labour leader has made once it has been explained to him what most voters actually think – the latest being over trans issues – is quite striking. But we should keep in mind that Rishi Sunak’s antennae are not especially reliable either. He is neither an early period Thatcher with an innate understanding of the instincts of ‘our people’, nor an early period Blair with a natural popular touch. Sunak’s relaxed position could be interpreted

James Heale

James Heale, Mary Wakefield and Gus Carter

15 min listen

This week: James Heale says the gloves are off as Labour campaigning takes a bitter turn (00:54), Mary Wakefield worries that she’s raising a snowflake (17:47), and Gus Carter tells us about the colourful history of the green man (31:34).  Produced and presented by Oscar Edmondson. 

Kate Andrews

What junior doctors really earn

16 min listen

Striking junior doctors are demanding a 35 per cent pay rise. Is that realistic? And are junior doctors really underpaid? Lucy Dunn is joined by economics editor Kate Andrews and Spectator contributor James Kirkup.

Humza Yousaf’s incompetence will only help the SNP sink faster

Just don’t call him ‘Useless’. Humza Yousaf’s sister, Faiza, told STV last week of her shock and anger at hearing a hospital porter use the First Minister of Scotland’s ubiquitous soubriquet. Well, she’d better get used to it. Once an image is established in the public mind it’s hard to get rid of it. And it has to be said that his recent performance has been less than entirely useful.  It’s not entirely his fault, I accept that. Yousaf is burdened by the legacy of the nationalist duopoly, Nicola Sturgeon and Peter Murrell, which seems to have run the SNP with all the due diligence of a car boot sale.

Katy Balls

Unions split over NHS pay

There’s disappointment in Downing Street this evening after nurses at the Royal College of Nursing voted to reject the government’s offer of a 5 per cent pay rise for 2023-24, along with a one-off lump sum payment. It was a close result, with 54 per cent rejecting the offer and 46 per cent voting to accept it. Following the result, the union promised fresh strikes as they attempt to put pressure on the government to come up with a more generous offer. The first of these is a 48-hour walkout over the May Bank Holiday weekend. In response, a government spokesperson branded the move ‘hugely disappointing’ and blasted the escalation

Mark Galeotti

The US intelligence leak and the hypocrisy of the spy world

So what did everyone learn from the massive trove of more than a hundred top secret US documents a 21-year-old Air National Guardsman apparently put on a gaming server to wow some fellow God-fearing gun enthusiasts? Both little and a lot. Despite some clumsy cut-and-paste editing of casualty figures, as well as some carefully-worded claims that, as a British defence official put it, ‘a significant proportion of the content of these reports is untrue, manipulated, or both,’ the Americans are shamefacedly admitting that these are genuine documents. There will no doubt continue to be suspicions in some quarters that there is some baroque plot at work, whether a Russian long

When will Steve Barclay compromise with striking doctors and nurses?

Nurses in England have today rejected the government’s pay deal and have announced a fresh round of strike action. The next strikes will take place over 48 hours from 8.p.m on 30 April to 8.p.m. on 2 May, with no emergency cover. The Royal College of Nursing ballot showed that 61 per cent of eligible voters turned out. The vote was close: 54 per cent voted to reject the government’s offer – of a pay rise between 4.5 and 5 per cent – while 46 per cent voted to accept the deal. The staffing crisis only exacerbates the pressures felt by junior doctors. Many tell me how consultants and hospital

Biden can no longer afford to indulge Irish nationalism

For the British government, the Biden visit to Belfast posed one major exam question: would the pageantry of a pan-nationalist juggernaut rolling into town, led by the most tribally Irish-American President of all time, make it appreciably harder for the DUP to accept the Windsor Framework and so to re-establish the Stormont Executive as the cornerstone of the Good Friday Agreement? For as it stands, Rishi Sunak’s mission to stabilise the Union in all its constituent parts is not yet complete. Put simply, the UK is an infinitely more important partner for the US in maintaining world stability than the still neutral Republic of Ireland Every moment of the US President’s

Katy Balls

The Martha Lane Fox Edition

33 min listen

Baroness Martha Lane Fox is a dotcom pioneer having started lastminute.com in 1997. She sits on the board of some of the country’s most prominent brands, including Marks & Spencer and Channel 4, and has made significant contributions to the government’s digital agenda. On the podcast, Martha talks about the early years of the dotcom bubble; the car crash which led to her spending two years in hospital; and some of the campaigning work she has done to promote more accessibility for women in tech. Produced by Natasha Feroze.

Labour has a near-impossible job to do in Scotland

Every leader of Scottish Labour has, since 2007, felt they were turning the corner to recovery – only to discover they were actually on a roundabout. Every new dawn has proven itself to be sometimes agonisingly, and always painfully, false. But now, as the SNP is mired by scandal after scandal, Labour’s odds in Scotland are looking better, even if Labour cannot quite relax yet. Keir Starmer must not only persuade soft-SNP voters to return to the party but simultaneously those who left Labour for the Conservatives in 2019.  There are signs that at the next general election things could actually change – for real this time. Nicola Sturgeon has

Steerpike

SNP ‘power couple’ face dissent from within

There’s more trouble in Scotland’s nationalist paradise. A storm is brewing amongst members of the SNP’s innermost ruling group as it is revealed that party secrets have been kept from its very own National Executive Committee. The resignation of the party’s auditors, details on finances and the exodus of party members all came as much as a surprise to the party’s ruling group as they had to the rest of the nation.  But it doesn’t stop there. Fresh allegations have sprung from a source deep within the party: an NEC whistleblower described how a group of senior figures including ‘power couple’ Sturgeon and Murrell demanded that the NEC be ‘disbanded’

Lara Prendergast

The new elite: the rise of the progressive aristocracy

40 min listen

On the podcast this week:  In his cover piece for The Spectator, Adrian Wooldridge argues that meritocracy is under attack. He says that the traditional societal pyramid – with the upper class at the top and the lower class at the base – has been inverted by a new culture which prizes virtue over meritocracy. He joins the podcast alongside journalist and author of Chums: How a tiny caste of Oxford Tories took over the UK, Simon Kuper, to debate (01:04).  Also this week:  In the magazine, ad-man Paul Burke suggests how the Tories should respond to Labour’s attack adverts. Released last week, the adverts have caused a stir for attacking the

Mary Quant 1930–2023

The fashion designer and icon Mary Quant has died at the age of 93. Brigid Keenan wrote the following piece in 2019. It is almost impossible to explain to today’s readers why Mary Quant (and the other Young Designers, as they became known) had such a huge impact. Over the half-century since, there have been so many ‘new’ ideas in fashion that her and their initial shock value has been diluted. Luckily, though, the Christian Dior exhibition is also showing at the V&A, and a quick visit there — look particularly at the fashions of the 1950s — will give you a clue. Pre-Quant, clothes were constricted: fussy, fitted, buttoned,

Steerpike

Watch: Humza flails on motorhome seizure

Even the most skilled politician would struggle with the legacy left by Nicola Sturgeon – and Humza Yousaf is very far from being skilled. The new First Minister has been forced to do an awkward interview today, outlining what he knew about the recent raid on his predecessor’s home. Yousaf has now admitted that a luxury motorhome seized by police during an investigation into SNP finances is owned by the party. He also confirmed that he had seen the warrant listing other items confiscated as part of the probe, saying: Of course the police have done the responsible thing in terms of giving us, and I as leader have seen

Ross Clark

Gove’s war on buy-to-lets will kill the holiday economy

The term ‘hostile environment’ was dreamt up by the Home Office to describe a policy of making migrants lives’ so difficult that they would be minded to pack up and leave the country. But it could equally well have been coined to apply to the government’s policies towards buy-to-let investors. For years, governments of all colours sat back and did nothing as rampant house price inflation priced many young people out of the market. Then something clicked and George Osborne, together with his successors at No. 11, decided that it was not a good idea to have investors and speculators scoop up properties by the armful, outbidding aspirant owner-occupiers. Without

France won’t be able to escape conflict in Taiwan

The last month or so has been an active time in Chinese-western relations. Early March saw President Xi threaten the US with conflict unless Washington stopped trying to ‘suppress’ his country; shortly afterwards he flew to Moscow to reaffirm his ‘no-limits’ friendship with President Putin. Next, Taiwan’s President Tsai travelled to the US to meet with lawmakers there. In response, Beijing ordered massive military incursions into Taiwan’s sovereign waters, announced that it would be able to inspect Taiwanese shipping, and briefly cut off the island using ships and aircraft in what many took to be a dress-rehearsal for a blockade. Whether Macron likes it or not, both the EU and