Politics

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

Saturday

12 Apr 2025

The steel debate was an unseemly blame game

In the end, it was David Davis who said it best. Today’s emergency debate on how to save British Steel’s Scunthorpe plant amounted to a ‘nationalisation in all but name Bill’, with new measures amounting to a ‘reprieve, not a rescue’. Jonathan Reynolds, the Business Secretary, did a decent job of affecting reluctance at the sweeping powers being handed to him to order Chinese owners Jingye to buy the raw materials to keep the plant’s two blast furnaces going. ‘I do not want these powers any minute longer than is necessary, but I do need these powers to rectify and save this situation’, he told the House. But, in the

Ian Williams

What is Xi Jinping planning?

Shanghai port is the busiest in the world. Activity there is closely monitored by financial analysts distrustful of official statistics and looking for clues as to what is really happening in the world’s second largest economy. For the past few days they will have been taken for a wild ride. First there was mayhem as ships rushed to load up with containers, half of them destined to the United States, in an effort to beat tariff deadlines. By this weekend the place is reportedly at a near standstill. ‘Containers that missed the narrow window now sit idle in stacks along the docks. Many shippers are either pulling cargo back or

Matthew Lynn

Nationalising British Steel won’t fix a thing

There will be some stirring speeches about saving jobs. There will be lots of grand rhetoric about securing a great British industry. Who knows, some of the more mischievous Labour backbenchers may even break out into a chorus on the Red Flag. Parliament will vote on Saturday in favour of an emergency bill that will effectively take British Steel back into public ownership, and pave the way for full-scale nationalisation. There is just one catch. It won’t actually solve anything. British Steel has been in bad shape for more than a decade. Its Chinese owners, Jingye Group have decided it is no longer worth the vast losses it is racking

Lisa Haseldine

Trump tells Russia to ‘get moving’

With just under a week to go until the supposed Easter deadline, it appears that Donald Trump is no closer to securing a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. The President’s special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff travelled to St Petersburg yesterday for talks on ‘aspects of a Ukraine settlement’ with Vladimir Putin. The fact that neither produced a read-out of the four and a half hour meeting afterwards implies that, yet again, Trump’s representative has come away without having achieved much meaningful progress. While the Americans may have hoped yesterday’s meeting would perhaps bring Putin closer to the negotiating table with Ukraine, the Russians were clearly under

Steerpike

Greens grab victory in Lammy’s backyard

Westminster has a new tradition on Friday mornings: analysing council by-election results. These days, such contests rarely make for good reading for Keir Starmer, with Labour now losing votes to every other parties across the country. Two council wards were of particular note this week. The first in Longdendale, Tameside in Greater Manchester saw Reform storm to victory with 47 per cent of the vote, with Labour’s share collapsing to just 25 per cent. Watch out Ange…. But it was another contest in the nation’s capital that caught Steerpike’s eye. For on the same night that Labour was shedding votes up north, they were losing a safe seat down south

Ross Clark

Farage is leading Labour’s policy

For Reform’s supporters drawn from the right of the Conservative party, Nigel Farage’s call to nationalise British Steel never made much sense. Why return Britain to the days of pre-Thatcherite Britain, when loss-making industries were propped up by the taxpayer as they gradually became less and less competitive globally? Yet the political value of Farage’s policy has now become plain. With the government recalling parliament to pass emergency legislation to take control of the ailing British Steel – said by its Chinese owners, Jingye, to be losing £700,000 a day – Farage can now be seen to be leading Labour party policy. He has given a huge kick to a

Michael Simmons

Tariff turmoil: the end of globalisation or a blip in history?

17 min listen

Globalisation’s obituary has been written many times before but, with the turmoil caused over the past few weeks with Donald Trump’s various announcements on tariffs, could this mark the beginning of the end for the economic order as we know it? Tej Parikh from the Financial Times and Kate Andrews, The Spectator‘s deputy US editor, join economics editor Michael Simmons to make the case for why globalisation will outlive Trump. Though, as the US becomes one of the most protectionist countries in the developed world, how much damage has been done to the reputation of the US? And to what extent do governments need to adapt? Produced by Patrick Gibbons.

Katja Hoyer

Merz’s coalition treaty is an empty, promise-free shell

It took just over six weeks for the new German coalition to form. That is very quick: in the past it has often taken months for parties to come to an agreement after elections. So what has made this process so smooth? I would like to think it was a sense of urgency, but I suspect it’s more to do with the programme being easy to agree on. The coalition treaty put together by the CDU and SPD parties is decidedly non-committal and unimaginative – a far cry from the change voters were promised. The 146-page document had barely been released on Wednesday before one of its architects warned that

Dwayne Ryan Menezes

Orkney could be Britain’s gateway to the Arctic

Orkney is a charming archipelago of some 70 islands and skerries – 20 of which are inhabited – ten miles north of mainland Scotland. It’s closer to the Arctic Circle than it is to London. It is also at the heart of the wider geographic and cultural Nordic region, with Greenland, Iceland and the Faroe Islands to its west and Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland to its east. North Ronaldsay, its northernmost island, is nearer to Tórshavn than it is to Glasgow, and to Bergen than it is to Dumfries. As Arctic shipping routes become more navigable, Orkney’s strategic location between the North Sea and the Greenland-Iceland-UK gap may make

Friday

11 Apr 2025

Lucy Dunn

Parliament recalled to nationalise British Steel

MPs didn’t manage to enjoy even a week of recess before being ordered back to Westminster. The Speaker announced this afternoon that both houses of parliament will be recalled on Saturday for a vote to nationalise British Steel after talks with the company’s Chinese owner appear to have hit a dead end. The UK government has spent much of this week in discussions with the Jingye group in a bid to prevent the closure of the company’s steel plant in Scunthorpe – which would put as many as 3,000 jobs at risk. Sir Keir Starmer’s government had initially remained vague about the conversations taking place, with Whitehall insiders noting that

Steerpike

Full list: Sunak’s resignation honours

And here it is. Former prime minister Rishi Sunak’s resignation honours have been published this afternoon with a number of former and current parliamentarians featuring in the impressive list. Ex-Chancellor Jeremy Hunt joins his former colleagues James Cleverly and Grant Shapps in being awarded a knighthood, while the list of former Cabinet ministers receiving peerages includes Mark Harper, Alister Jack and the Spectator’s own Michael Gove. Read the full list here… Peerages The Rt Hon Michael Gove, former Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities The Rt Hon Mark Harper, former Secretary of State for Transport The Rt Hon Simon Hart, former Chief Whip of the House of

Michael Simmons

China is hitting back with even more tariffs

China has retaliated against Donald Trump by raising duties on all American imports to 125 per cent from 84 per cent, declaring that it has no interest in responding further to what it calls a ‘joke’ policy. The higher rate will come into force from tomorrow. The announcement comes after the White House’s clarification that tariffs on Chinese exports have climbed to 145 per cent this year – a move China’s commerce ministry described as ‘economically meaningless’ and a tool for ‘bullying and coercion’. The world’s two largest economies exchange goods worth around $700 billion annually. Beijing has made it clear that it considers American goods effectively unmarketable within its

Lucy Dunn

The economy is growing!

11 min listen

Finally, some good news for your Friday: the economy is growing! Just when everyone seems to be revising down expectations of growth, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimates that GDP grew by 0.5 per cent in February. It also revised January’s figures upwards to give growth for the last quarter of 0.6 per cent, and annual growth of 1.4 per cent. It looks – for now – that the Reeves recession has been put on hold and that Labour’s growth agenda could be working. That said, Labour cannot afford to celebrate just yet. There is reason to believe the figures could be overstated, and there are some trust issues

Steerpike

Scots charged over £150 to see Sturgeon live

You’d think if your political leadership had led to the fracturing of your party with key figures investigated as part of a finance probe, you’d keep your head down. Not Nicola Sturgeon. The SNP’s former Dear Leader seems to be rather enjoying her time in the spotlight – with the sitting MSP hosting a number of literary events across Scotland and endlessly promoting her soon-to-be-published memoir. Now it transpires that the politician is set to be interviewed in October at Edinburgh’s Usher Hall – with attendees charged a hefty sum of £150 if they want to meet the former first minister before nabbing a front row seat for her Q&A.

Gavin Mortimer

Will the EU crumble under Trump’s tariffs?

In the escalating trade war between America and China, the European Union risks being stranded in no man’s land. Donald Trump has raised tariffs on Chinese imports to 145 per cent with Beijing imposing their own tariffs of 84 per cent. The American President remains bullish that America and China can thrash out a deal, saying: ‘I’m sure that we’ll be able to get along very well…I think that we’ll end up working out something that’s very good for both countries.’ The EU will hope so because the trade war threatens to create dangerous fault lines within the bloc of 27 nations. On Thursday, Ursula von der Leyen postponed the

Gray Sergeant

Europe must resist China’s advances

Since Trump’s inauguration in January, not a day has gone by when supporters of a liberal international order have not sunk their heads deep into their hands. The global trade war that has erupted between the US and the rest of the world is just the latest episode in the American President’s mission to overturn the old order (despite the unexpected 90-day pause announced on Wednesday for everyone but China). If this was not disturbing enough, liberal internationalists also need to contend with what will replace it. What rules and norms will prevail, or rather whose? Disconcertingly, some Europeans appear to be buying the charm offensive The People’s Republic of China

Sam Dumitriu

Is Britain finally going nuclear?

As late as 1965, Britain had more operational nuclear reactors than the rest of the world combined. Yet, Britain hasn’t built a new nuclear reactor in almost 30 years. France and South Korea now standout as the world leaders in building nuclear power stations. Indeed, when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining, we rely on France to send us some of their excess nuclear power to keep the lights on. Nuclear power is vital for our energy security. It runs whatever the weather. It makes us less reliant on the volatile gas market. It’s clean too – producing power without CO2 emissions. And unlike renewables, nuclear has

Nigel Jones

The case for uniting the right

In just three weeks, voters in some 20 local council areas and in the Runcorn and Helsby parliamentary by-election go to the polls. It’s the first major test of voter opinion since the election of the Labour government in July, yet despite Labour’s increasing unpopularity, the official Tory opposition is braced for yet another thumping defeat. Far from anticipating victory, party leader Kemi Badenoch has warned of ‘difficult’ results ahead – code for ‘defeats’ and the loss of Tory controlled councils and seats to Labour, the Lib Dems and the insurgent Reform UK party. The latter is fielding many former Tory defectors as its candidates, including at Runcorn and in Lincolnshire where

Nicholas Farrell

How Italian communists tried to indoctrinate King Charles

Dante’s Beach, Ravenna On the final day of their state visit to Italy the King and Queen were in Ravenna to mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the area in 1945 by the British Eighth Army. What they probably did not realise is that Ravenna is a left-wing stronghold in a region – the Romagna – which was the birthplace of Italian revolutionary socialism at the end of the 19th century. Mussolini, a revolutionary socialist before he invented fascism, was born elsewhere in the region. From 1945, Ravenna, like everywhere else in red Romagna, was run by the Italian communist party – the PCI – until the fall

Ross Clark

Rachel Reeves has managed to grow the economy

Just when everyone seems to be revising down expectations of growth, real world data starts pointing in the opposite direction. The Office for National Statistics estimates this morning that GDP grew by 0.5 per cent in February. It also revised January’s figures upwards to give growth for the last quarter of 0.6 per cent, and annual growth of 1.4 per cent. That is almost looking healthy – although less so when you consider the growth in the population is thanks to high migration. What’s more, growth was reasonably balanced, with the production sector growing by 1.5 per cent in February and construction by 0.3 per cent. Even car manufacturing had