Politics

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

Friday

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

How worrying is the falling pound?

How are markets responding to Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-Budget? A sharp fall in the pound today has plenty of critics arguing that the tax-slashing announcements have already proved a failure. Sterling fell this afternoon to $1.09, bringing the currency to another 37-year low against the dollar. This is more than a 3 per cent dip in just one day. The euro took a hit too, but a smaller one at 1.5 per cent. It’s difficult to separate this new record low from today’s announcements – but also near impossible to draw direct correlation, as the pound and euro have both been in freefall against the dollar for weeks now. With the

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

The trouble with ‘bourgeois’ environmentalism

The left needs to shake off its ‘bourgeois environmentalism’. It needs to distance itself from the ‘bourgeois environmental lobby’ and make the case for fracking and the building of new nuclear power stations. Who do you think said this? Some contrarian commentator? A right-winger irritated by eco-loons? Nope, it was Gary Smith, the general secretary of the GMB trade union. In an explosive intervention in left-wing discourse, Smith has accused Labour of a ‘lack of honesty’ and of ‘not facing reality’ on the energy question. We are living through a severe energy crisis and yet still Labour is sniffy about fracking and down on nuclear power, he says. All because

Mary Dejevsky

Why Britain should welcome Russians fleeing Putin’s war

As if Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had not already presented quite enough dilemmas for other countries, suddenly there is another one. How sympathetic a reception should Russian men trying to avoid call-up in their home country be granted abroad, and specifically in the UK? This quandary has arisen following Vladimir Putin’s announcement of what he called a ‘partial mobilisation’ of reservists to serve in Ukraine. The predictable response to the announcement, made at 9 o’clock Moscow time on Wednesday, was a surge of younger Russians trying to leave the country by any means and to any country where they had a chance of being let in. Direct flights to a

James Kirkup James Kirkup

Can Labour take advantage of Truss’s mini-Budget?

I used to write about bond markets, so I speak with some authority when I say this: bonds are boring. Really, most normal people find talk of gilts and yields extremely tedious. Likewise, terms like debt and deficit are off-puttingly technical and easy to mix up. Basically, the public finances are hard to get excited about. But getting people excited about bonds and debt could well be a vital factor in deciding the next general election. Today, Tories are feeling chipper. They think the Truss-Kwarteng non-budget frames the next election as a stark choice between exciting Tory tax cuts and boring Labour managerialism and taxes. Missing from the debate today,

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Kwarteng’s audacious budget

17 min listen

Kwasi Kwarteng has today announced what has been dubbed as his mini-Budget, but looking at the scale of the package it is far from small. The Coffee House Shots team take us through what has been revealed. Who are the winners and who are the losers? Katy Balls speaks to Fraser Nelson, James Forsyth and Kate Andrews. Produced by Oscar Edmondson.

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Truss and Kwarteng borrow their way to tax cuts

Levelling Up secretary Simon Clarke described today’s fiscal event as a ‘game changer’ for Britain’s economy. Was he right? The announcement from Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng was not so much an ‘event’ as a major Budget, which ushered in £45 billion worth of tax cuts – the ‘biggest tax cutting event since 1972’, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. It’s a remarkable tax-cutting Budget, with praise coming in thick and fast from the free-market think tanks All that was expected was announced: the National Insurance levy brought in for health and social care – which came in back in April – will be scrapped from 6 November. The planned corporation tax

Steerpike Steerpike

Minister pays for his pound prediction

Oh dear. Liz Truss’s team were hoping for a welcome reaction from the markets as Kwasi Kwarteng unveiled a whopping £45 billion in tax cuts from the dispatch box this morning. The Chancellor is placing a bet on growth with this mini-Budget, and hopes that this will take the edge off increases in government borrowing. Mr S wonders though whether the Treasury’s keenness to find silver linings may have ended up backfiring. As the pound rallied against the dollar this morning while Kwarteng announced his tax cuts, Chief Secretary to the Treasury Chris Philp declared that it was ‘Great to see sterling strengthening on the back of the new UK Growth

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

Labour’s debt binge dilemma

Labour has a populist argument against Liz Truss’s spendaholic plans to borrow money from the international money markets and direct it into the bank accounts of the privileged. ‘What do you get?’ Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer will ask the public. ‘And who picks up the bill?’ For the overwhelming majority of the population the answer to ‘what do you get?’ is ‘not much’. And to ‘who picks up the bill?’ is ‘me, people like me, and our children and grandchildren’. The Conservative class interest in rewarding its supporters looks like a gift to the opposition. But the gift is not as generous as it appears. For two months now,

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The audacity of Kwarteng’s tax cut for the rich

George Osborne dreamed about it and Rishi Sunak told friends that he’d like to do it if everything went well and he was feeling brave. But this morning Kwasi Kwarteng has gone ahead and done it.  The ‘additional rate of tax’ – set up by Gordon Brown as a trap for the Tories in 2009 – has just been abolished. Right now, those earning more than £150,000 per year will pay 48.25 per cent on every pound they earn (45 per cent income tax plus 3.25 per cent National Insurance). From April next year, it will fall to 42 per cent (40 per cent income tax plus 2 per cent NI).

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Not all Tory MPs are happy about Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini Budget

Rachel Reeves’ response to the not-a-budget was one of the best Budget responses a shadow chancellor has produced in Labour’s 12 long years of opposition. It helps that the ‘Plan for Growth’ was so striking and ideological: not only does it create a clear dividing line with Labour, it also creates a division with the Conservative governments that preceded it. Reeves got to her feet remarking on a ‘comprehensive demolition of the last 12 years’, something Kwasi Kwarteng himself signalled repeatedly, including in his announcements that he would repeal legislation introduced in 2017 and 2021.  Labour will have to compete with that backbench Tory opposition in order to be heard

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Truss and Kwarteng’s mini-Budget is a big gamble

Kwasi Kwarteng and Liz Truss are a Chancellor and a Prime Minister in a hurry, they know they have only got 18 months to get the economy growing if they are to win-re-election. So, they went all out in today’s non-budget Budget. Not only did they cancel the corporation tax rise and reverse the National Insurance increase but they abolished the higher rate of tax and brought forward the cut in the basic rate of income tax. This is all against the backdrop of an energy price guarantee that the Chancellor said would cost £60 billion over the next six months. This and the tens of billions of tax cuts

John Connolly John Connolly

Kwasi Kwarteng’s £45 billion tax cuts

Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng has just announced a surprise 5p cut to the top rate of income tax and a 1p cut to the basic rate of tax. Together with stamp duty cuts and others, it will reduce tax by £45 billion by 2026-27 according to the Treasury’s analysis. The IFS says this is the biggest tax cutting event in half a century. Kwarteng confirmed that the National Insurance rise will be reversed, with the tax going down from November. Stamp duty will also be cut. Kwarteng argues that this will put money back into the economy and kick start growth, but without an OBR forecast there is no formal assessment of the actual

John Lloyd

The real story of the Putin emigres

‘Russians are fleeing their country in droves’. That’s how Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan, partners in life and journalism, sum up in seven words one of the many tragedies of Russia, from which they too have fled – further than most, to Britain. Had they stayed, Soldatov at least would be in jail, charged with spreading ‘fake news’ – or, as he puts it, ‘contradicting the state narrative’. An arrest warrant was issued against him in April, and in May, he was put on an international wanted list. A trial – in absentia – is expected in October. Soldatov and Borogan are part of an exodus larger than any since

Katy Balls Katy Balls

The Louise Perry Edition

30 min listen

Louise Perry is a journalist, campaigner and author of The Case Against the Sexual Revolution. It offers a new guide to sex in the 21st century – rather than herald sex positivity as a good thing for women, she argues it has had negative consequences. Her work has been published in multiple news outlets including The Spectator, Daily Mail and the New Statesman. As a campaigner, Louise began her career working in a rape crisis centre and most recently, co-founded the think tank, The Other Half, a non-partisan organisation that champions the voices of women and families not heard in Westminster. On the podcast, Louise talks to Katy about her

Thursday

Katy Balls Katy Balls

NI rise scrapped: how much further will Kwasi go?

16 min listen

With hours to go till the Chancellor’s fiscal statement, we’ve heard today that the National Insurance hike will be scrapped, as promised during Liz Truss’s leadership campaign. This comes as the Bank of England increases the base rate to 2.25 per cent. How much further will Kwasi Kwarteng go, and just how willing is the Truss government to be unpopular? Katy Balls talks to James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman. Produced by Cindy Yu.

Andrey Piontkovsky

The truth about Putin’s nuclear threats

Putin has been preparing for this war for a long time. I first began writing about Putin and Nikolai Patrushev’s [head of the Russian security council] doctrine in 2009. It was based on the fact that these two, these scoundrels, thought that they had come up with a way to beat the West using blackmail – audacious, cynical blackmail – by threatening the use of tactical nuclear weapons. This was despite being inferior to the West in every way: economically, in terms or civility or conventional warfare. The scenario they envisaged for war, not only with Ukraine but with the whole of the West, with Nato, was spoken about and analysed repeatedly

Owen Matthews

Europe should welcome fleeing Russians

In the wake of Vladimir Putin’s surprise announcement of partial mobilisation on Wednesday, thousands of young Russian men decided that the time had come to flee. Google searches for ways to leave Russia (as well as for ‘how to break your own arm’, another way out of military service) spiked. Flights sold out, and long lines of cars formed at usually-sleepy border crossings into Georgia, Mongolia and Kazakhstan – as well as the more conventional transit point to Finland.   But for most would-be refugees, escape from Putin’s Russia and possible involuntary service in Ukraine remains an impossible dream. Just a handful of countries – among them Turkey, Georgia and

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Therese Coffey’s NHS plan won’t avert the winter crisis

How much of a difference will the ‘Plan for Patients’ unveiled by Therese Coffey really make to the NHS crisis? The health service is already operating in winter mode (which generally means not really working and under extreme pressure) and the temperatures have scarcely dropped. The Health Secretary’s opening big announcement today was what she described as ‘the first step’ in the government’s ‘journey’ of addressing the challenges facing the health service. It followed her priories of ABCDD – ambulances, backlog, care, doctors and dentists – with new measures on each. That’s something voters won’t thank the Tories for Some of the most significant policies included changing the pension rules

Lara Prendergast Lara Prendergast

Cornered: what will Putin do now?

41 min listen

In this week’s episode: For the cover of the magazine, Paul Wood asks whether Putin could actually push the nuclear button in order to save himself? He is joined by The Spectator’s assistant online editor Lisa Haseldine, to discuss (01:03). Also this week: Why is there violence on the streets of Leicester? Douglas Murray writes about this in his column this week and we speak to journalist Sunny Hundal and research analyst Dr Rakib Ehsan about what’s caused the disorder (13:44). And finally: Is three – or more – a crowd? Mary Wakefield discusses the poly-problems or polyamory in her column in The Spectator and is joined by comedian Elf Lyons, who has written

Katy Balls Katy Balls

‘The strategy is do everything now’: Truss’s big mini-Budget

Liz Truss is in a race against time. It’s not just the prospect of an election in two years. It’s the political problems – from party management to events outside of one’s control – that quickly clog up a prime minister’s in-tray. It’s why for all the efforts to play down Friday’s fiscal event as a mini-Budget, it is likely to be anything but small. Truss and her Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng plan to push through as much as possible while their stock is highest. The official budget – complete with a long-awaited OBR forecast – will come later this winter, but, inside government, Friday is viewed as the bigger event.