Politics

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

Friday

James Heale James Heale

Tory MPs split on Johnson’s absence

Boris Johnson has left the country – but that hasn’t stopped him from annoying his backbenchers. The Prime Minister is visiting Ukraine today to meet with President Zelensky. He’s announced that the UK will expand its training capacity for Ukrainian forces to process up to 10,000 soldiers every 120 days. That ought to be a visit that wins universal applause within the Tory party. Yet while there is near-unanimity across the Conservative parliamentary party at the need to support Kyiv’s struggle against Russia, some are unhappy with the timing of Johnson’s announcement and sudden trip abroad. The Prime Minister was due to speak today at the Northern Research Group of

Mary Wakefield Mary Wakefield

Mary Wakefield, John R. MacArthur and Daisy Dunn

24 min listen

On this week’s episode: Mary Wakefield asks why no one’s mentioning the cult Tom Cruise belongs to (00:54), John R. MacArthur asks if Macron should be scared by an ascendant Jean-Luc Mélenchon (06:58), and Daisy Dunn orients herself after listening to the Gucci Podcast (17:57).

John Keiger John Keiger

Why is Macron so desperate to bring Russia in from the cold?

Emmanuel Macron should get a new historical advisor. He continues to repeat – this time at his Kyiv press conference on Thursday – that Russia must not be humiliated following its invasion and war against Ukraine. Politicians indiscriminately pluck at historical examples to justify controversial policies. For Macron, the aftermath of the First World War serves as a warning against the dangers of humiliating adversaries. According to the French president, humiliation of Germany in the 1919 Versailles Peace treaty resulted in the allies losing the peace and Germany plotting revenge and renewed war twenty years later. He actually turned at this point to German chancellor Olaf Scholz, who had accompanied him (with Mario

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Biden’s upcoming Saudi Arabia visit has no guarantee of success

Joe Biden’s trip to Saudi Arabia next month is, arguably, as important as anything that the UK government is doing itself on cost of living. As I say in the magazine this week, only the Saudis deciding to pump substantially more is going to bring down the price of oil and, therefore, petrol. The West’s relationship with Saudi Arabia is deeply, morally problematic. The strains in the US-Saudi relationship – remember how Joe Biden said on the campaign trail that he wanted to turn Saudi Arabia into a pariah because of the murder of Jamal Khashoggi – meant that the Saudis have not stepped in to help in the way

Steerpike Steerpike

Boris pulls out of levelling up conference

To Doncaster, home of the horses and the Northern Research Group conference. But there was only one race on the lips of attendees at the Doncaster track today: the leadership race. To the disappointment of the assembled Tory MPs, Boris Johnson pulled out of a scheduled afternoon appearance to visit Kyiv. He was meant to be the star turn at the conference as part of a bid to win back wavering MPs since last week’s confidence vote. One disgruntled backbencher told Mr S: ‘I’m quite pissed off to be honest. Him coming was the whole point.’ Members of the NRG had planned to present the PM with a list of

Ross Clark Ross Clark

The truth about Britain’s ‘record-breaking’ heatwave

Will temperature records be broken today? You bet they will. By the end of the day you can be sure we’ll be bombarded with headlines along the lines of ‘Records tumble as Britain wilts’ – or, in the case of the Guardian, ‘Record-breaking heat heightens fears of climate crisis’. But don’t get too excited. Read on a little and you will find that the records which have been broken will seem just a little less dramatic than they at first appeared. The reason we keep having ‘record-breaking’ heat is not so much because of climate change – although rising global temperatures are slightly increasing the chances of records being broken

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Is it time to call Sturgeon’s Bluff?

8 min listen

The calls for Indyref2 are coming thick and fast from the SNP leader this week with a plan for a monthly speech to express the benefits of Scotland leaving the UK. But would allowing a referendum now be better than resisting one? Newer generations of Scots tend to be more nationalist than their elders. Should unionists push for Indyref2 now before more young people reach voting age? Katy Balls talks to Fraser Nelson and James Forsyth.

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Time to break the menopause taboo

32 min listen

Women of menopausal age make up a tenth of the UK workforce (and a quarter of all working women). The symptoms of menopause can make work much harder, they include both physical and mental, from hot flushes and brain fog to insomnia. But at a time when many may be reaching the peak of their career, these symptoms can halt years of career progression. What’s more, the condition is stigmatised and little discussed.Steps are being made to break this stigma. This year MPs introduced the first private member’s bill on menopause and the government established a menopause task force. Employers are becoming ever more aware of things they could do

Thursday

Steerpike Steerpike

Another Boris diplomatic blunder

Boris Johnson has never been one of nature’s diplomats. Unconventional, irreverent, Brexit-backing and norm-defying, the blonde bombshell’s two-year tenure at the Foreign Office is now remembered as one of the less happy periods of his political life. Still, even cynical veterans of the ambassadorial circuit were left unimpressed with the Prime Minister’s performance at the Trooping the Colour ceremony a fortnight ago. This occasion is treated by overseas plenipotentiaries as the closest thing that the UK has to a national day: the equivalent of Bastille Day in France or the Fourth of July in America – especially so in a Platinum Jubilee year. So the various high commissioners and ambassadors

Marcus Walker

Boris has Gordon Brown to thank for his bishop troubles

Bishops are in the news at the moment. They have outraged No. 10 with their opposition to the policy of deporting potential asylum seekers and other migrants to Rwanda. Government ministers are said to be muttering darkly about evicting the Bishops from the House of Lords, effectively disestablishing the Church of England in revenge. This has been a long time coming, with the Bench of Bishops developing a worrying uniformity of political and theological opinion – all of a soft-left, soft-evangelical manner. The most startling example of this is the way in which a significant majority of Anglicans supported Brexit while one – only one – bishop, out of 113,

William Moore William Moore

The death of political authority

37 min listen

In this week’s episode:Why is there a lack of faith in western leaders? Spectator deputy editor Freddy Gray, Callum Williams from the Economist & Harvard professor Barbara Kellerman discuss why the world feel so leaderless. (00:44) Also this week:How do you escape the Church of Scientology? Spectator Columnist Mary Wakefield talks with former scientologist Claire Headley about her life inside the organisation and how hard it was to leave. (15:07) And finally:Should we all give boxing a go?Anil Bhoyrul & James Amos organiser of Boodles Boxing Ball on the strange world of White Collar Boxing. (27:40) Hosted by Lara Prendergast & William Moore Produced by Sam Holmes Subscribe to The Spectator today

Steerpike Steerpike

Labour frontbencher backs Lisa Forbes

For the past two years Sir Keir Starmer has done his damnedest to distance Labour from the Jeremy Corbyn years. He’s stripped his predecessor of the whip, purged his party of many of his supporters and shifted Labour policy across a swathe of issues. Starmer even mocked Boris Johnson at the despatch box this week as the ‘Conservative Corbyn’; hardly the treatment you might expect of a ‘friend’ as Sir Keir once described Jezza. So there will no doubt be consternation at Labour HQ in Southside at news that Corbyn-era MP Lisa Forbes now intends to make a comeback. Mr S was the first to bring news last month that

Sam Ashworth-Hayes Sam Ashworth-Hayes

Asking for a pay rise won’t crash Britain’s economy

The Bank of England has just raised interest rates for the fifth time in the row, warning that inflation is expected to pass 11 per cent by the end of this year. If it had escaped your notice, everything is getting more expensive, and the government is powerless to help. The extent of the Bank’s assistance has been to tell you not to ask for a payrise. Boris Johnson, meanwhile, seems furious that taxes are so high, and will be having stern words with whoever raised them. Even Freddo bars aren’t exempt from the cost of living crisis, shooting up to a frankly outrageous 30p each. Inflation is essentially a problem of

Max Jeffery Max Jeffery

What caused Geidt’s flight?

10 min listen

Lord Geidt became the second ethics advisor to leave Boris Johnson’s government last night. It seems like Chinese steel tariffs was the straw that broke the camel’s back, but it is clear that he hasn’t been happy in the position for sometime. Will the Prime Minister be able to find anyone to pick up this poisoned chalice?  Max Jeffery speaks with James Forsyth and Katy Balls. 

Lisa Haseldine Lisa Haseldine

Is Lithuania next on Putin’s hitlist?

For countries bordering Russia, Putin’s war on Ukraine raises a disturbing question: might they be next? A bill put forward to the Duma’s lower house on June 8 suggests Lithuania is in the country’s sights. If passed, the proposal by MP Evgeniy Fedorov could see Russia potentially try to lay claim to Lithuania’s territory. Bonkers and alarming in equal measure, it seems that, not content with focussing on the war it started in Ukraine, some factions of the Russian government are already setting their sights further afield. Harking back to the dying days of the USSR, Fedorov’s bill argues that the decision to recognise Lithuania’s independence in 1991 was made

Ross Clark Ross Clark

How high might interest rates go?

To nobody’s surprise, the Bank of England has hiked its base rate, and, equally unsurprisingly, it has chosen to do so by a relatively modest 0.25 per cent, bringing rates to 1.25 per cent. In 25 years of its existence, the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) has never raised rates by more than 0.25 per cent at a time. That stands in contrast to the Fed’s decision to raise rates by 0.75 per cent on Wednesday. If the modesty of the rise was supposed to calm markets, however, it doesn’t seem to have worked. The FTSE100, already down nearly 2 per cent on the day, plunged further on the announcement. The

Steerpike Steerpike

Which MP’s time is worth the most?

The explosion in new TV channels hasn’t been good news for all broadcasters but it’s certainly benefited one group of people: media-loving MPs. The register of MPs’ interests has today been published and the contrast in hourly pay between different right honourable members makes for fascinating reading. David Lammy, for instance, has made more than £100,000 from LBC since returning to the Labour frontbench – despite his leader’s tough talk on second jobs. Yet Lammy’s most recent entry lists him as receiving £8,172 for just shy of 50 hours of work, which works out as £165 per hour. By contrast, Tory backbencher Philip Davies received £3,000 for 30 hours of

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Lord Geidt reveals what pushed him over the edge

Over twelve hours after Lord Geidt resigned from government, Downing Street has published his resignation letter. In his letter tendering his resignation as the Prime Minister’s independent adviser on minister’s interests, Geidt raises his concerns over partygate – noting how he ‘alluded’ to his ‘frustration’ previously – namely over Johnson’s failure to make any public reference to how his conduct related to the ministerial code. However, he says that despite his misgivings over Johnson’s handling of the episode and whether the fixed penalty notice counted as a breach, he had ultimately concluded that ‘it was possible to continue credibly as Independent Adviser, albeit by a very small margin’. What pushed

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

The death of political authority

Are we living in the age of the strongman – or the weak man? Politics in the 21st century has so far been defined by a global drift away from liberalism, whatever that was, and towards authoritarianism – Xi in China, Putin in Russia, Erdogan in Turkey, Modi in India, Orban in Hungary, Bolsonaro in Brazil and that delightful Mr Duterte in the Philippines. In the 2020s, however, in our supposedly more advanced democracies, the political leitmotif has been one of feeble and failing leadership. Look around the world. Boris Johnson is often accused of being a wannabe dictator – an egomaniac desperate to achieve his childhood ‘world king’ fantasy.

Douglas Murray

The January 6 hearings are partisan political theatre

Is it possible to hold two ideas in our heads at once? If so, I should like to put forward a case study. That Donald J. Trump did something that makes him ill-suited for public office, and that the current January 6 hearings in Washington are partisan political theatre. For anybody who was in outer space at the time, it is worth recalling that 6 January 2021 was the day Trump urged his supporters to join him in Washington to ‘Stop the steal’. The outgoing president could not accept that he was outgoing. He did not agree that he had lost the election two months earlier, and though it is