Politics

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

Friday

8 Apr 2022

The Spectator’s 2022 internship scheme is now open: no CVs, please

2023 scheme is now live, click here The Spectator’s internship scheme for 2022 is now open. We don’t ask for your CV and anonymise all entries – making our scheme the most genuinely open (and competitive) in national journalism. In our game, all that matters is talent – and we put a lot of work into finding that talent. Our internship scheme pays (but not very much) and we even provide help with accommodation for those who need it. Our scheme is famously tough, so those who get a place often get job offers elsewhere. The Spectator will only ever be as good as the people we hire – and

Patrick O’Flynn

Sulky Sunak has scuppered himself

There is a scene in one of the Lord of the Rings films in which kindly Bilbo Baggins becomes contorted with fury as he glimpses the ring around the neck of his young cousin Frodo and tries to snatch it away. This shocking loss of emotional balance reminds us of the old saying that power corrupts. It also puts one in mind of the recent snappy and petulant public displays of the hitherto mild-mannered Rishi Sunak. In his latest interview, the Chancellor has even started referring to himself in the third person – always a psychologically revealing moment in the life of a celebrity. ‘She’s not her husband’s possession,’ he said

Steerpike

The Guardian goes for J.K. Rowling

It seems that taking gratuitous swipes at J.K. Rowling has become something of a competition for liberal broadsheets on both sides of the pond. First, the New York Times took a potshot at the Harry Potter creator for its new marketing campaign trumpeting ‘independent journalism.’ And now the Guardian – keen to prove that, it too, is achingly right on – has published a piece which implies that Rowling’s views on same-sex spaces are somehow more controversial than domestic abuse. Grim. The latest jibe at Britain’s greatest living writer came in a piece detailing the controversies around the production of the Fantastic Beasts film. Film critic Ryan Gilbey noted that ‘one of its stars, Johnny Depp’ left

Steerpike

The best and worst of Boris’s Chief Whip

What with partygate and Ukraine, it was easy to miss some of the movements in February’s mini-reshuffle. Among them was the bovine Mark Spencer being shuffled out of the Whips’ Office into a safer berth as Leader of the Commons, following accusations of Islamophobia. His replacement, Chris Heaton-Harris, is a man largely unknown outside SW1 but who, within the Westminster village, has developed something of a cult following. For Heaton-Harris has a weakness: the man can’t resist a truly awful dad joke. Since 2010, the Daventry MP has endeared himself by tweeting dozens of puns, quips and gags, earning himself a reputation as the human equivalent of a Penguin chocolate bar wrapper. In appointing

Jake Wallis Simons

Can Jews like me trust Keir Starmer’s Labour party?

When I sat down with Sir Keir Starmer this week we had unfinished business to discuss. Foremost in my mind was the central political question in Jewish circles these days, particularly on the left: is it safe to vote Labour again? To answer this, I had to ask him about Jeremy Corbyn. When it comes to his predecessor, Sir Keir has painted himself into a bit of a corner. As part of his attempt to ‘tear anti-Semitism out by the roots’ in his party, he has stripped Corbyn of the whip and apologised to the Jewish community. But the fact remains that between 2015 and 2019, he tried his best to put

Katy Balls

Pressure on Sunak grows over his wife’s non-dom status

Rishi Sunak goes into the weekend facing questions from the media, Labour and some Tories over the tax status of his wife Akshata Murthy. On Wednesday night, the Independent reported that Murthy has non-dom status, meaning she does not have to pay UK tax on income earned abroad. Her spokesperson has confirmed that she pays £30,000 a year to retain that status having suggested that it was assigned to her as she did not want to give up her Indian citizenship. Yet two days on and the story is not going away – if anything, it’s getting worse for the Chancellor. While no one disputes that Murthy’s tax arrangements are

Katy Balls

The Arlene Foster Edition

36 min listen

Arlene Foster is the former first minister of Northern Ireland and was leader of the Democratic Unionist Party from 2015 to 2021. She was the first woman to hold either position. Arlene moved into politics after joining the Ulster Unionist Party as a Law student at Queen’s University Belfast. Having grown up in conflict during the Troubles, she remembers an attempted murder of her father by the IRA. During her long career in politics, Arlene has consistently fought for the Union between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. She resigned from her positions in politics to become a broadcaster and campaigner where she host a weekly show on GB News. During

Andrew Tettenborn

Ukraine has exposed the EU for what it really is

Since the Ukraine conflict erupted, the EU has had a great deal to say about its sympathy for Ukraine as a brother European state. But if you look closely it has not actually done a great deal to derail Vladimir Putin’s war machine. Even the grisly discoveries at Bucha has wrought little change. Not surprisingly, the patience of some Europeans is now wearing thin. It’s true that after the grim findings in recent days in newly-liberated Ukrainian towns, the EU did announce further sanctions. But for all the fanfare they were small beer. A few more banks were boycotted; the ageing Russian merchant marine was excluded from EU ports; and bars were

Thursday

7 Apr 2022

William Moore

The politics of war crimes

42 min listen

In this week’s episode: Is Putin guilty of war crimes? For this week’s cover piece, The Spectator’s Editor Fraser Nelson looks at the risks and rewards of labelling Vladimir Putin and Russian soldiers war criminals. He joins the podcast, followed by Michael Bryant, the author of A World History of War Crimes, who writes in the Spectator this week about what the limits put on acts of war in the past can teach us about atrocities committed today. (00:52) Also this week: Is Europe facing a political stand-off between progressives and populists? This week Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban was elected for a fourth term in office with a large

Ross Clark

Will Britain’s new energy strategy keep the lights on?

Today’s Energy Security Strategy puts energy security at the heart of the debate over energy and environmental policy, where it always should have been. There is little question that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has brought about a big change to the tone of energy policy, but will today’s announcements really wean us off Russian oil and gas, and when? Moreover, will they ensure that we can keep the lights on as the government continues to commit itself to a policy of net zero carbon emissions by 2050? Here is a summary of the main points: 24 GW of installed nuclear power by 2050 The fact that the Prime Minister

Steerpike

Five ways for Rishi to bounce back

Four weeks ago, Rishi Sunak was riding high, Boris Johnson was on the slide and the Chancellor’s daughter was proudly telling the women’s lobby drinks that she too wants to be a reporter. Now, after a fortnight of damning media coverage, her ambition might have been changed. Lambasted over his spring statement, mocked over his PR stunts and hounded by questions about his wife’s business affairs, Sunak is facing a tougher political landscape. How can Rishi, the long-time favourite as next PM, come back from all this? Speak to ten different backbenchers and you’ll get ten different answers. With the Chancellor’s hands tied by his own fiscal rules, Mr S

Cindy Yu

Is the energy strategy a missed opportunity?

10 min listen

The government is publishing its long-awaited energy security strategy today, but Labour has criticised it for the strategy’s lack of action on onshore wind, among other concerns. Has Boris wrongly buckled to backbenchers on a policy that would have been efficient and popular? Cindy Yu speaks to Katy Balls and Isabel Hardman. Isabel argues that ‘the failure of the Conservative government over the past – it’s been more than a decade now – to address Britain’s supply needs has come home to roost now’. They also discuss the new revelations that Rishi Sunak’s wife, Akshata Murthy, holds non-domicile status, which means she doesn’t pay UK taxes. Katy points out that

Steerpike

George Galloway’s Twitter fury

The Ukraine crisis claims another victim. Step forward George Galloway, the mystic Myrtle who bet in February that the country would not be invaded by Moscow. The journeyman politician is in something of a strop at present, after Twitter took the step of labelling his account as ‘Russia state-affiliated media’ following a series of bizarre takes on the conflict. Addressing the social media giant publicly, Gorgeous George moaned that: Dear @TwitterSupport I am not “Russian State Affiliated media”. I work for NO #Russian media. I have 400,000 followers. I’m the leader of a British political party and spent nearly 30 years in the British parliament. If you do not remove this designation I

Douglas Murray

How to lose elections XXXX

I have remarked here before about our era’s tendency to accept election results if your side wins but to reject them if they lose. Happily in the UK there is no significant body of opinion which believes that Jeremy Corbyn won the 2019 election. True, there are a few Momentum loons who still think that Corbyn would have won had the Tories not somehow got more votes. But even among the most diehard Momentum-ites few actually come up with stories of ballot rigging, high-level corruption and more. Still, our country is not immune to the ‘I only accept the results if my side wins’ tendency. After all, we had Carole

The Spectator

What happened to Tory radicalism?

Whatever advantages money may have brought Rishi Sunak as he rose to become Chancellor of the Exchequer, his wealth has now become a serious hindrance to his career. Whatever decisions he takes, everything is seen through the prism of his personal financial situation. If he rejects demands for greater public spending, he will be accused of throwing the poor to the lions. If he raises taxes, he will be accused of failing to understand how ordinary people are struggling. If he cuts them, he will be accused of pandering to his rich friends. Even acts of private generosity by Sunak seem to arouse suspicion when made public. This week it

Paul Wood

Europe’s last dictator: Lukashenko’s fate depends on Ukraine

A young man wearing combat fatigues and an extravagant moustache, and carrying a heavy machine-gun over his shoulder, nods towards some burned-out armoured vehicles. ‘We smashed the orcs today,’ he says, using the Ukrainian soldiers’ term for the invading Russians, a reference to the sub-human legion in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. He goes on: ‘Putin, you are a dickhead – your Greater Russia will die together with you.’ The soldier – his uniform has a badge saying ‘Ivanov’ in Cyrillic – is not, in fact, Ukrainian. He is one of a small number of volunteers from Belarus, next door, a country that is certainly part of the Greater

Gavin Mortimer

Progressives vs populists: Macron, Orban and Europe’s faultline

As soon as Emmanuel Macron was sure that Joe Biden had won the American election, he tweeted: ‘We have a lot to do to overcome today’s challenges. Let’s work together!’ There was no effusive tweet this week from the Élysée when 54 per cent of Hungarian voters re-elected Viktor Orban as Prime Minister for a fourth term. The silence from Macron was deafening. Not so his principal rival in France’s impending election. On Sunday evening Marine Le Pen tweeted an old photo of the happy couple shaking hands with the declaration: ‘When the people vote, the people win!’ Le Pen will hope that Orban’s victory is a good omen ahead

Fraser Nelson

Putin’s terror: the politics of war crimes

In early February, when Vladimir Putin’s troops were on the Ukrainian border and much of the world thought he was bluffing, the Russian military’s guidance on mass graves was changed. Bodies should be covered with chemicals, diagrams showed, and then rolled over by a bulldozer to flatten the ground. The advice seemed so grotesque as to be a decoy: surely a brutal invasion would not be so clearly signalled? The story of the mass grave found in Bucha shocked the world because it represents how fast things have deteriorated and that we are now seeing the kind of barbarism Europe thought it had left behind. The pictures of dead children

Ross Clark

Will the NHS ever give up the national insurance levy?

This week’s rise in National Insurance has caused the government enough trouble, but it faces potentially an even bigger problem next year – when it tries to prise the extra £12 billion raised in NI away from the NHS and use it to fund social care instead. The extra revenue from NI has been earmarked for the next 12 months for the NHS, to help it catch up with a backlog in routine treatments following the Covid-19 pandemic. But from April 2023 the intention is to rebrand the NI rise as the ‘Health and Social Care Levy’ – and to spend it instead on funding social care. Just how does

Katy Balls

The changing face of No. 10

David Canzini has made quite an impression since he joined No. 10 as the Prime Minister’s deputy chief of staff in February. He’s there not just to provide focus but to make the operation feel a bit more traditionally Tory. At a recent meeting with government aides, Canzini, a former Tory party campaign director from the Lynton Crosby school of bluntness, asked for a show of hands: who was a signed-up Conservative party member? More than half the room. For the uninitiated, Canzini pointed to membership forms in the corner. No. 10 plans to check on their progress in a few weeks. Canzini’s approach marks a wider shift in No.