Politics

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

Wednesday

Terry Barnes

Has Scott Morrison become Australia’s Richard Nixon?

In May 1940, Winston Churchill was not only appointed Prime Minister but Minister for Defence. In doing so, Churchill ensured that he, and not the three traditional cabinet secretaries traditionally responsible for the armed services, had ultimate responsibility for Britain’s war effort. This was an open, and very public, move which was welcomed and praised at a time Hitler was on Britain’s doorstep. In March 2020, the then Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, found himself leading his own national battle – this time against the Covid-19 pandemic. And like Churchill, Morrison took on additional ministerial portfolios – Health, Treasury, Finance, Home Affairs and Resources, to give him greater personal control

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Finally, some justice for the infected blood scandal’s victims

Why has the greatest patient scandal in the history of the NHS rumbled on for so long before its victims even start to see justice? It shouldn’t have taken 40 years for there to be an answer Today the government awarded £100,000 in interim compensation to around 4,000 survivors of the contaminated blood scandal, as recommended by Sir Robert Francis, who published a report on the matter earlier this year. They have been fighting for 40 years for justice that, as yet, does not cover the bereaved parents and children of those who were infected with HIV and Hepatitis C when they were given dirty blood products for their haemophilia

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Inflation hits double digits: what next?

12 min listen

The UK inflation rate is now at 10.1 per cent according to the Office for National Statistics. Is there much that the government can do to relieve its effects? Also on the podcast, the leadership contenders are in Belfast for the next hustings: how will the audience respond to the candidate’s position on The Northern Ireland Protocol? Katy Balls is joined by Kate Andrews and Isabel Hardman. Produced by Natasha Feroze and Oscar Edmondson.

Steerpike Steerpike

Lords a leaping over declining standards

It’s not easy being a Lord. No, really, it isn’t, judging by the latest poll of the Upper House. Mr S has obtained a copy of the most recent Members’ Survey – conducted in March of this year – and it shows that dissatisfaction in the House of Lords is at record levels. Responses from 355 peers reveal concerns over internal governance, working spaces and catering, with just half of peers under-65 giving it a ‘positive’ satisfaction rating. Overall opinion of the facilities and services provided by the House of Lords Administration has slumped from 80 per cent reporting it as ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ in 2008 to just 63 per

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Why the NeverTrumper dream isn’t coming true

In perhaps the least surprising electoral result we’ll see in America this year, the Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney lost to her Trump-backed opponent in Wyoming last night. Harriet Hageman absolutely monstered Cheney in the end ­– beating her by some 30 percentage points, ten more than most experts predicted. Cheney knew long ago she was going to lose. She had become a pin-up for that strange and stubborn alliance of Bush-era Republicans and the pro-Democratic US media; another darling of the old NeverTrump front. These darlings don’t win Republican primaries. It is unfair to cast Cheney as a classic NeverTrumpist, of course: she voted with Trump 93 per cent of the

Katja Hoyer Katja Hoyer

Is Germany afraid of China?

The German air force has taken off for its first deployment in the Indo-Pacific region. It will take part in Australia’s biennial warfare exercise Pitch Black from Friday, side by side with other western nations as well as regional partners such as Japan, Singapore and South Korea. Berlin’s show of solidarity will be welcomed by Nato allies, but it will also draw pushback from China. It’s an opportunity for Germany to show that it can make a meaningful contribution to the deterrence of Chinese aggression in the Pacific. But in order to do so convincingly it will have to resist pressure from Beijing with more confidence than it has in

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Can inflation be brought under control?

That today’s inflation figures would come as an immense shock to anyone who has returned from a year in the wilderness goes without saying. A little over a year ago, in May 2021, the Bank of England was predicting that the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) would peak at no higher than its two percent target. CPI is now in double figures for the first time in 40 years, at 10.1 per cent – exceeding even the already-grim expectations of many economists. The Bank of England may yet again have to revise its forecast for the inflationary peak – which just two weeks ago it put at 13 per cent. The

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

Inflation hits double digits. Is it out of control?

Long gone are the days when politicians and experts dared to claim inflation was simply ‘transitory’. Now it’s hang-on-to-your-hats as prices spiral faster than anyone predicted. This morning the Office for National Statistics reveals that headline CPI inflation hit 10.1 per cent on the year in July. This double-digit figure takes inflation to a 40-year high, outpacing consensus yet again, which was 9.8 per cent. That figure means all those horrors that have been discussed for months have become more immediate: the instability that comes with spiralling prices, the risk of stagflation, increasing fears of recession as consumers grow more cautious, not to mention the very real fear that people

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Why the City made a mistake in writing off coal

For anyone tempted to believe warnings from Mark Carney and other City figures about ‘stranded assets’ in the fossil fuel industry, while simultaneously buying the idea that renewable energy is the investment which can’t go wrong, here is a cautionary tale. Just over a year ago the mining giant Anglo American demerged its thermal coal division into a new company, Thungela Resources. At the time it seemed to some a bit like Northern Rock being divided into a ‘good bank’ and a ‘bad bank’. Here was a chance for Anglo American to cleanse its image by disposing of the nasty, climate-unfriendly part of its operation – the bit which many

Steerpike Steerpike

The Guardian’s Truss attack falls flat

The sound of moralising was in the air this morning, as Steerpike emerged bleary-eyed from his hangover. Is it Sunday already? No, just the standard self-righteous squawking from the usual suspects of the left. Today’s topic of sanctimonious one-upmanship? Leaked comments made by Liz Truss on the need for British workers to show ‘more graft’. Grab the smelling salts! When were these comments made? Yesterday, in the face of the baying mob outside the Tory hustings? Last month when she unveiled her plan to get Britain out of the economic mire? No, er, back in the heady days of Theresa May’s government when Truss was Chief Secretary to the Treasury.

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

Is Keir Starmer a populist?

No one thinks of the careful, polite Keir Starmer as a populist hero. But his intervention in the fuel crisis is a classic example of a barnstorming populist intervention that pushes aside complexity and forces a complacent elite to think again. The fuel cap must be frozen at today’s level until March 2023, Labour says. Everyone’s fuel cap, that is, without exception. No clever pointy-headed schemes to target help at this group of energy consumers but not at that. Just a big, bold, simple policy that Labour politicians can explain in a sentence. Biff, Bash, Boff, the Starmster gets it sorted. Labour believes Liz Truss has walked into a trap

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

What exactly can the new PM do for Scotland?

Last night’s Tory leadership hustings in Perth saw Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak interrogated on their plans to tackle the energy crisis. As with other occasions on which they have fielded this question, neither of them gave particularly convincing answers. Both candidates have struggled to articulate an energetic government response to crippling increases in fuel bills for households and small businesses. At a time of acute anxiety for voters, when they are looking for reassurance, the message they are hearing from the Tories is that there’s only so much the state can do and it’s not very much at all. This pall of Whitehall impotence hangs even more heavily over

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Truss charms the Scottish audience, while Sunak struggles

Judging by the show of hands in the auditorium of the Perth Concert Hall tonight, both Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak had a fair bit of work to do to win over Scottish Tories. Many put their hands up to say they hadn’t yet decided who to back when asked by the host Colin Mackay. Mind you, many of them then went on to boo Mackay for asking questions of both candidates that they found annoying. Normally when an audience boos a journalist in Scotland, it’s blamed on the SNP and that party’s dislike of scrutiny. Tonight, though, it was the Conservative party.  Neither candidate has said that much about

Katy Balls Katy Balls

When will the inflation rate fall?

13 min listen

New figures released this week show that wages have fallen significantly behind the rising cost of living. Is there more trouble ahead? Also on the podcast, as Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss attend hustings in Scotland: which candidate is favoured the most north of the border? Katy Balls is joined by Kate Andrews and Isabel Hardman. Produced by Max Jeffery and Oscar Edmondson.

Steerpike Steerpike

The New York Times’ strange silence on Rushdie

The New York Times has never been shy about sharing its opinion – especially when it comes to bashing Britain. In recent years, Mr S has greatly enjoyed reading the London dispatches from America’s least reliable news source, in which Brexit Britain is re-imagined as an autocratic archipelago where plague-riddled, rain-drenched, swamp-dwelling subjects devour legs of mutton and fascistic propaganda. But now, Steerpike has rare cause to bemoan the ‘Gray Lady’s’ absence. For the NYT, whose staff proudly consider it to be the world’s leading liberal newspaper, has been strangely quiet on an area of intense local concern. The stabbing of Sir Salman Rushdie shocked the world last Friday, with expression

Mark Galeotti Mark Galeotti

Ukraine has found Russia’s Achilles’ heel in Crimea

Another day, another Russian arms depot up in smoke. The latest attack, this time on an ammunition storage site near Mayskoye on the Crimean peninsula, highlights three particular aspects of this phase of the war, and the degree to which Kyiv is adapting quicker and more effectively than Moscow. The first is that the long-heralded Ukrainian counter-attack is, so far, less about a melee on the ground and more about a methodical attempt to target Russian supply lines. Until now, this has been through missile and rocket strikes, although Moscow’s claim that the Mayskoye attack was carried out by ‘saboteurs’ would – if true – represent an interesting new approach.

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Is Chinese espionage a threat to US democracy?

26 min listen

Freddy Gray speaks to Spectator contributor, Ian Williams, author of Every Breath You Take: China’s New Tyranny and Nicholas Eftimiades, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and professor of Homeland Security. On the podcast, they discuss the scale of Chinese espionage infiltrating Western society. Has the problem been ignored for decades? What kind of a threat is it to America’s democracy?

Patrick O’Flynn Patrick O'Flynn

The Channel migrant crisis will make or break Liz Truss

Liz Truss has been clear about her key selling point throughout her leadership campaign. At its launch she boasted: ‘I can lead, I can make tough decisions and get things done.’ And her whole campaign has amounted to variations upon that theme – ‘I do what I say I will do’, ‘I’m somebody who gets things done’ – in TV debates, hustings with members and personal appearances. So Liz Truss – not the slickest communicator but gets things done: that’s the offer which Conservative members are buying into in droves. Of course, Boris Johnson was once the ‘getting things done’ go-to guy. Or at least the ‘Get Brexit Done’ candidate.

Steerpike Steerpike

Sunak and Truss turn their guns on Sturgeon

Nicola Sturgeon has a target painted on her back. Sadly for her, it’s the size of Ben Nevis. Failing public bodies, collapsing school grades and a census as poorly received as Jerry Sadowitz’s Edinburgh Fringe show means taking aim at the SNP is a popular and easy win. The Tory leadership bandwagon rattles its way into Scotland tonight, for its first and only hustings there. The debate in Perth provides the perfect opportunity for the most dangerous drinking game ever concocted: imbibe every time someone bashes Sturgeon and her barmy army. Paisley-raised Liz Truss, who brands herself as ‘a child of the union’, said she would ‘never let anyone talk

Stephen L. Miller

Donald Trump deserves the Hillary Clinton treatment

Should Donald Trump escape any legal consequences for removing and storing classified information at his home in Florida, the fever-swamped, blue-check resistance members of the media will have only James Comey to thank for it. When a search warrant for Mar-a-Lago was executed and then unsealed last Monday, we learned one of the criminal statutes under which it was executed was the Espionage Act (18 US Code § 793), which makes it illegal to gather, transmit or lose defence information. Should a person actually be prosecuted on that charge, he or she could face up to ten years in prison. The political problem Joe Biden’s Justice Department has with such