Politics

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

Friday

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

Sex, trans rights and the Scottish census

It takes some doing to make a census interesting. So congratulations to the National Records of Scotland (NRS). NRS, which administers the decennial survey, is facing a judicial review over its guidance on the document. On the question of sex, it states that ‘if you are transgender the answer you give can be different from what is on your birth certificate’. That is, something other than your legal sex. Feminist group Fair Play For Women will challenge this guidance at the Court of Session on 2 February. If this sounds familiar, it’s because similar guidance for last year’s census in England and Wales was challenged at the High Court and found to

Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

How bad was President Biden’s first year?

34 min listen

Freddy Gray and Lionel Shriver discuss Joe Biden’s first year at the helm of the United States, and whether he is capable of tackling the challenges poised by Vladimir Putin, rampant inflation and his own capacity for gaffes.

Steerpike Steerpike

Sturgeon skews her stats (again)

The statistical shenanigans of the SNP have been highlighted by Mr S before but it’s always worth highlighting when the nationalist Holyrood government gets it wrong (again). At First Minister’s Questions yesterday, Nicola Sturgeon told colleagues that England’s infection rate is 20 per cent higher than that of Scotland, according to ONS figures. A surprising figure, given that the ONS estimated infection rate was 1 in 20 for both nations yesterday. The SNP leader said: In terms of the ONS figures this week, infection levels in England right now are over 20 per cent higher than in Scotland. I don’t think it’s a competition but if Douglas Ross wants to make these comparisons, then

Joanna Rossiter Joanna Rossiter

Putin won’t be fazed by Britain’s show of military support to Ukraine

Can the British army afford to take on Russia? That’s the burning question that has been left after Defence Secretary Ben Wallace announced this week – to surprisingly little fanfare – that the UK is sending 30 elite troops and 2,000 anti tank weapons to the Ukraine. Wallace clearly intended to send a message to Moscow on where Britain’s allegiance lies, but such political posturing can only be beneficial if it’s backed up by sustained support in the long term – something the British army is in no place to do. As Britain seeks to reduce the size of its army to just 72,500 regular soldiers, Russia has amassed over 106,000

James Kirkup James Kirkup

Why William Wragg’s whipping complaints matter

To an old Westminster lag like me, there is something slightly grating about MPs complaining about nasty whips and political intimidation. I’m thinking about William Wragg, who says the government is ‘blackmailing’ MPs to support Boris Johnson and suggested the police should get involved. Wragg says that MPs are facing threats over constituency funding and even their personal lives unless they fall into line. Some people are surprised and outraged to learn that governments threaten to do horrible things to their own MPs. Those people have not spent much time in Westminster, where such things are quite mundane. Indeed, the sort of things Wragg describes strike me as being at

Gavin Mortimer Gavin Mortimer

The fate of the French Socialists is a warning for Boris Johnson

The defection of Christian Wakeford to Labour has put a spring in the step of the left-wing party. Apparently it marks the start of their revival. Give it two years and Keir Starmer will be waving from the steps of Number 10. That’s one scenario. A more likely one is that the good people of Bury South will unseat Wakeford at the next general election as Labour suffer another humiliating defeat. What so many in the Westminster bubble don’t get is that for the average voter in Bury, Basildon or Blyth Valley, ‘partygate’ is not top of their grievances with Boris Johnson. It’s often immigration, tax rises and the nonsense

Steerpike Steerpike

Dehenna Davison and the Mean Girls of Downing Street

It’s all a bit of a soap opera over at No. 10. Tears, screams, tantrums, mess everywhere — and that’s just Boris’s children Wilf and Romy. The papers are full of talk of ‘the good king with bad advisers’ as various sources speculate that one or more of the whips’ office, special adviser team and the ministerial ranks could all be overhauled. Bertolt Brecht suggested dissolving the people and electing another – it appears Boris wants to do the same to the team he hand-picked. But while Johnson’s government has been accused of having a ‘women problem,’ it’s not just the men getting involved in the briefing wars. For tensions within

Thursday

William Moore William Moore

The collapse: how Red Wall MPs turned on Boris

39 min listen

In this week’s episode: Will the Red Wall crush Boris Johnson? In this week’s Spectator, our political editor James Forsyth and our deputy political editor Katy Balls report on the plot to oust the Prime Minister by Red Wall MPs, and No.10’s battle to save Boris. They join the podcast to give their up to date diagnosis. (00:43) Also this week: How to save the BBC? This week Nadine Dorries announced that she is planning a licence fee freeze. In the Spectator this week Paul Wood, a veteran journalist of the BBC writes about his love-hate relationship with the broadcaster. He joins the podcast now along with Domonic Minghella, writer,

Katy Balls Katy Balls

Did Tory whips blackmail Red Wall MPs?

9 min listen

As the Prime Minister has a stay of execution after the pork pie plot came to nothing, today allegations are flying that Tory whips have been using unsavoury methods to threaten wavering MPs into line. Christian Wakeford, the newly defected Labour MP to Bury South, says that whips threatened to withdraw funding from a local school; while William Wragg claims that MPs have been blackmailed with information about their private lives. But how much of this is true, and how much, as some in SW1 are saying today, is this just a part of being a whip? On the podcast, James Forsyth points out how some of this comes down

Matthew Lynn

Has Macron shot France’s energy industry in the foot?

Gas prices are soaring. Europe could be about to witness electricity shortages. Power companies are collapsing by the day, and, on top of all that, the government is set to phase out traditional energy to meet its net zero target.  So might think that a cable to ship in cheap, greener electricity from the other side of the Channel is something of a knight in shining armour. Yet the government blocked the proposal today, and it was absolutely right to do so. Britain may need all the electricity it can get its hands on right now — but the last thing it should do is increase its dependence on Macron and Putin. Britain

Damian Reilly Damian Reilly

Against Dominic Cummings

I’m no Westminster insider, but there comes a point when you have to consider that perhaps Carrie Johnson was right about Dominic Cummings. That point for me arrived in May last year when, without giving any indication he might be the one at fault, Cummings unblinkingly described to a parliamentary committee his relationship with his former boss, Carrie’s husband the British Prime Minister:  ‘The heart of the problem was, fundamentally, I regarded him as unfit for the job and I was trying to create a structure around him to try and stop what I thought were extremely bad decisions, and to push other things through against his wishes. And he

Steerpike Steerpike

Michael Fabricant’s hapless help

Oh dear. Tory loyalists have been out in force the past two days, desperate to save Boris Johnson’s flailing premiership. Mr S has heard of at least one boosterish Boris-backer quoting the words of Margaret Thatcher in November 1990: ‘I shall fight on, I fight to win!’ Unfortunately, as another MP muttered back: ‘Maggie resigned two days later.’ An excruciating interview by the Prime Minister on Tuesday backfired spectacularly, while the efforts of party whips to ‘encourage’ colleagues have resulted in Will Wragg denouncing them as ‘blackmail’ before his select committee today.  Still, cometh the hour, cometh the Fabricant. The honourable member for Lichfield has been doing his level best to dig

Steerpike Steerpike

The SNP’s bullying hypocrisy

The ‘baby-faced assassin’ has struck again. William Wragg, the backbench Boris-basher, lobbed another grenade at the door of No. 10 today with his comments at the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee about the tactics being used by the Johnson regime. Wragg, who possesses the name of a septuagenarian but the appearance of an adolescent, claimed that his party’s whips are trying to undermine colleagues opposed to the current leadership. He told an ashen-faced Steve Barclay that No. 10 staff, special advisers and government ministers had said there would be embarrassing stories released to the press if MPs did not support the Prime Minister. Wragg also claimed No. 10 had threatened to withdraw funding

Tristan Kirk

Boris’s excuse didn’t wash for these Covid lockdown rule breakers

As Boris Johnson battles to survive the Partygate scandal and faces widespread anger from the public and his own MPs, he is still hoping his apology over the Downing Street festivities will be enough. But the Prime Minister has to face up to the fact that, for thousands of people around the country, saying sorry or offering excuses for Covid lockdown rule breaking didn’t cut it. Many ordinary Brits were criminalised for breaking the law during the pandemic, sometimes in very sad and desperate circumstances. The case of a 23-year-old woman from Eltham, in south east London, draws a striking parallel with an accusation levelled against the Prime Minister over the Downing Street

Steerpike Steerpike

Kent Tory Burns Sturgeon

It’s Burns night on Tuesday and after two years of pandemic politics, what better time to celebrate the Union? Yesterday evening Tory unionists piled into the opulent splendour of the the Cavalry and Guards Club for the London branch of the Scottish Conservatives’ annual celebration of the national poet. Steerpike’s spies were in attendance to enjoy the traditional bagpipes and whisky, with Dame Eleanor Laing delivering a magisterial toast to the haggis in her wonderful Paisley accent — a job for which her stints in the Speaker’s chair have certainly proved good training. Scottish leader Douglas Ross was the star turn, having found himself caught between a Holyrood/Westminster tug-of-war in recent days after

Steerpike Steerpike

Harry and Meghan’s tax wheeze

Money is very important to Harry and Meghan – as evidenced by their multi-million dollar deals with a string of top companies. Not for them, ‘go woke, go broke’: their philanthropic vehicle Archewell raised less than £37,000 for their charities up until June last year, with more being spent on legal fees to dissolve their previous UK effort, Sussex Royal.  Still, this hasn’t stopped their website gushing about the couple’s ‘shared purpose, global action’ and ‘leading the way with compassion.’ Its mission statement proclaims passionately that ‘our core purpose is to uplift and unite communities — local and global, online and offline — one act of compassion at a time.’ Talk about

Steerpike Steerpike

Devi Sridhar concedes defeat

Amid all yesterday’s defection drama, it was easy to miss that Boris Johnson announced the scrapping of his ‘Plan B’ Covid measures. Such a move has not gone down well among the more hysterical elements of Covid Twitter who appear to see the restoration of civil liberties as a dastardly Tory plot to privatise the NHS. The SNP MP for Central Ayrshire Dr Philippa Whitford spoke for such elements when she called the announcement ‘crazy’, asking ‘Would you slash your seatbelt or airbag in the middle of a car crash?’ Not all of Whitford’s nationalist fellow travellers agree though. For Professor Devi Sridhar, an ardent supporter of ‘Zero Covid’ and lockdowns appears to

Lionel Shriver Lionel Shriver

Joe Biden’s Civil War re-enactment

We can’t blame American progressives for yearning to relive the civil rights movement. Those were heady days. Opposition to segregation — real ‘structural racism’ — placed you conspicuously on the proverbial right side of history. Joining the cause was like shooting up moral heroin. So maybe it’s predictable that when talking up his two voting rights bills in Atlanta last week, Joe Biden evoked the 1963 bombing of a black church in Alabama and MLK’s storied march in Selma two years later. Yet it’s one thing to wax nostalgic, quite another to insist that it’s still 1965 — much less 1865. Biden’s speech recalled a Civil War re-enactment, with polyester

Andrew Tettenborn

A Covid amnesty won’t save Boris Johnson now

Timing is everything in politics. Partygate showed the usually sure-footed Boris at his most careless and inept, dwarfing even his run-in with the Commissioner for Standards that cost him North Shropshire last month and (one suspects) helped lose him Bury South on Wednesday. But the British electorate can be very forgiving. When it elected Boris it did not mind too much about his tendency to get things wrong on points of detail, seeing him instead as the man who saw what had to be done, was honest about it and got on with the important part of the job. At the time the scandal broke about the ‘drinks cabinet’ at

Wednesday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Is Boris safe for now?

14 min listen

Last night rumours were flying around Westminster that letters of no confidence from Tory MPs were pouring in and Boris might be leaving sooner rather than later. But with the surprising crossing of the aisle by MP for Bury South, Christian Wakeford, it appears that old party tribalism may have stayed some hands. ‘While a coup against a leader is one thing defecting is quite another.’ – James Forsyth Katy Balls talks with James Forsyth and Isabel Hardman about all of today’s political drama, from Keir Starmer’s ‘very good‘ jokes to David Davis’s public call for Johnson to ‘in the name of God go!’ Subscribe to The Spectator‘s Evening Blend