Read about the latest UK political news, views and analysis.
11 min listen
Over the weekend things between Ukraine and Russia seem to have gone from bad to worse. After a call between Biden and Putin failed to yield any meaningful results, the US warned that a Russian invasion of Ukraine could being as soon as Wednesday. Cindy Yu sits down with Katy Balls and James Forsyth to discuss whether war is truly just days away.
Love is in the air – and no it’s not just Matt and Gina. Various MPs have taken to marking Valentine’s day today with images on social media of their loved ones. Health secretary Sajid Javid was early out of the blocks with a rather sweet image of himself with wife Laura, with whom he is marking his silver wedding anniversary this year. No-nonsense Red Wall Tory Marco Longhi declared on Instagram that: ‘I’ve definitely punched above my weight with this incredible woman’ as he hugged his partner. Curiously, Tory MPs seemed keener than their opposition counterparts this year to show off amorous affections for their significant others. New girl Alicia
Lobbying was a persistent theme of 2021 as first David Cameron and then Owen Paterson found themselves embroiled in various scandals over their paid activities. So it was with some trepidation that Mr S examined the first register of All Party Parliamentary Groups (APPGs) of 2022. These informal cross-party organisations have been involved in all sorts of shenanigans over the years. What have they been up to in recent months? A close inspection revealed some interesting gems. Theresa May’s office is bankrolling the ‘First Do No Harm’ campaign, being the sole donor of some £20,000 towards the APPG’s efforts on securing safer medical devices for women in pregnancy. British American Tobacco is
Jeremy Corbyn’s fans were never the sharpest tools in the box. But even by Corbynista standards, the egg-heads over at Skwawkbox do a disservice to the Magic Grandpa with their constant half-baked witterings. Since Labour was crushed at the 2019 election, Mr S hasn’t had to care much about what the left-wing websites says about anything, given Sir Keir Starmer’s preference for briefing newspapers, not disreputable blogs. But even he couldn’t resist writing about the latest conspiracy which the slavish socialists have now fallen for, hook, line and sinker. For Netflix series The Crown is currently shooting in Westminster, with season five expected to cover the monarchy in the 1990s, with the Queen’s annus
Oh dear. Britain’s onetime favourite ‘liberal’ is at it again. Mr S has chartered the sad decline of Vince Cable in recent months from household name to Beijing’s useful idiot. The onetime Lib Dem leader is one of the few mainstream politicians to claim China’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang does not amount to genocide, as part of his bid for the UK to develop closer ties with the country. This is despite reports that the Uyghur persecution there meets all five UN criteria for genocide. Indeed Layla Moran, the party’s foreign affairs spokesman, issued a very public slapdown last June when Cable first made these claims. Now though, an unchastened Cable has gone
The situation on Ukraine’s borders now appears to many as though it is the calm before the inevitable storm. In the Sunday Times, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has even criticised some western actors for creating ‘a whiff of Munich in the air’, referencing Neville Chamberlain’s infamous 1938 negotiations with Nazi Germany. Trevor Phillips interviewed the Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis, who said in no uncertain terms that Ukraine would have to brace itself for the worst: Boris Johnson will ‘successfully fight the next general election’ Ukraine’s turmoil has been the only story of the year so far that has been able to rival partygate’s rigid grip on the political scene.
This week the fracking company Cuadrilla announced that it was permanently closing its two shale mines in Lancashire, after the Oil and Gas Authority (OGA) declared that shale gas companies must seal up the wells they had drilled and return the land to nature. It is, on the face of it, a very strange step to take at this time. The wells have not been producing any gas for some years, of course, ever since environmentalists launched their scare campaign against the industry. It was a campaign that was astonishing in its brazenness. Tiny earth tremors recorded near the wells, of a scale that is entirely normal in, say, the
Cressida Dick may be gone but will her replacement be even worse? The under-fire Metropolitan police commissioner quit the job on Thursday after five years in the role, meaning that three of the last four Met bosses have now been forced out in disgrace. Dick’s departure has prompted an immediate search for her successor. Unfortunately, one of the very reasons for her survival at the top for so long, was a lack of a viable alternative, with many top cops preferring quieter pastures than London or opting for greater riches in the private security sector. Perhaps that dearth of talent can be shown in one of the early favourites for the
The dead in the ground and those who put them there in the name of ideology do not rest easily in Ireland. The Glasnevin cemetery in Dublin was recently forced to close its wall of remembrance to those who died in the Easter rising of 1916 because of relentless vandalism. In previous attacks the wall had been smashed with sledgehammers and in 2017 paint was thrown over it. What drove this constant destruction? It seems it was targeted because the attackers could not tolerate the presence of the names of British soldiers on the wall. These soldiers had died alongside republican rebels and civilians in the five days of insurrection
14 min listen
During the Cold War, the US saw Russia as global threat number one. But with China looming large on the world stage its focus is shifting. This leaves Europe to take the lead in dealing with Putin’s desires on Ukraine. Katy Balls talks to James Forsyth and Sophia Gaston the director of the British Foreign Policy Group about the growing tensions on the continent.
Keir Starmer is the master of all he surveys. Thanks to partygate, Labour now enjoys a consistent poll lead over the Conservatives and his personal ratings are significantly ahead of those of the beleaguered Boris Johnson. This has given him more confidence to take on some of Corbynism’s sacred cows. But can he persuade Labour members he is the change the party needs to win power? Starmer has firmly rejected attempts by Unite, Britain’s largest trade union and a key Corbyn backer, to shape party policy. Amidst the build up of Russian troops on the border of Ukraine, Starmer has also been quick to emphasise his support for Nato. For good measure,
It is tempting to view Vladimir Putin as a Cold War relic: a former KGB officer who hasn’t got over the fall of the Soviet Union, which he called the ‘greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.’ But, as I say in the Times today, what is happening on Ukraine’s border isn’t a throwback to the Cold War. Rather, it is a preview of Europe’s future. Since Nato’s creation, European security has rested on America’s involvement. But Europe is now a secondary concern for the US; Asia and competition with China is the most important challenge facing Washington now. The horribly messy US withdrawal from Afghanistan was justified on the basis that it would
As yesterday’s attack showed, there’s no love lost between Boris Johnson and John Major. Mr S has previously chronicled the many times Major has criticised his successor, with whom he so publicly disagreed over Brexit. The enmity between the two men stretches back to the early 1990s when Johnson was the Telegraph’s main man in Brussels and subsequently the paper’s chief political commentator in Westminster. The-then journalist had great fun lampooning Europhile excesses at the time of the Maastricht debate, something which naturally didn’t make him popular with the pro-EEC Major as he tried to ram the treaty through Parliament. As Johnson later recalled: I was just chucking these rocks over the garden
28 min listen
Freddy sits down with Lauren Southern a former YouTube personality and now a documentary filmmaker. Lauren has been described as one of the leaders of the Alt-Right movement. Which is a label Lauren herself thinks doesn’t actually mean anything. On the podcast, Lauren and Freddy get into what direction the online right will go next, what feminism looks like in modern conservative circles, and how hypocrites can sometimes be right.
John Bercow may be gone but his legacy still lives on. The former Speaker of the House of Commons quit the role back in November 2019 but new costs from his tenure at the helm are still being uncovered more than two years on. Steerpike has done some digging and it seems the scandal-hit Speaker felt the need to call in the services of an expert PR adviser, despite him having access to both his own press secretary and the Commons media team. A Freedom of Information request has found that Bercow spent between £65,000 to £70,000 on the services of former journalist Tim Hames between 2015 and 2019. Who he,
With prices soaring, interest rates rising and the cost of living crisis growing more acute by the day, we could do with some more positive news: and this morning’s GDP update has played a small part in providing it. Despite suffering the largest economic contraction in 300 years in 2020 – and taking the biggest economic hit in the G7 – Britain had the fastest growing economy in the G7 last year, boosting its GDP by 7.5 per cent. It’s still a mixed story: looking at where the UK economy is now compared with pre-pandemic levels, it ranks average within the G7. But with one of the steepest hills to
8 min listen
Cressida Dick announced yesterday evening that she is stepping down as head of the Metropolitan Police. In a statement, Dick said she had been left with ‘no choice’ but to resign, after it was made clear to her that London mayor Sadiq Khan did not have confidence in her leadership. Who will replace her? And what does her resignation mean for the investigation into parties in No. 10? Katy Balls speaks to James Forsyth.
21 min listen
On this week’s episode, we’ll hear from Kate Andrews on the NHS’s waiting list crisis. (00:52) Next, Kevin Hurley on the impact of demonising the police force. (07:04) And finally, Lawrence Bernstein on the secretive world of speech writing. (12:41) Produced and presented by Sam Holmes Subscribe to The Spectator today and get a £20 Amazon gift voucher:www.spectator.co.uk/voucher
After a difficult few weeks, Boris Johnson has made it to parliamentary recess. Given few expect a no confidence vote to be held during recess, time away from parliament gives the Prime Minister much-needed breathing space. After the seemingly never-ending parade of partygate stories, there have been times when MPs were sceptical he would make it this far. Instead, the Prime Minister has succeeded in buying himself time — talking down would-be plotters and rushing out a string of red meat announcements to keep the right of his party on side. The announcement this week that all Covid restrictions could end a month early is a prime example of this. When MPs return from
26 min listen
Carolyn Harris is a Welsh Labour Party politician serving as the Deputy Leader of Welsh Labour since 2018, and has been the Member of Parliament for Swansea East since 2015. On the podcast she talks to Katy about her three successful campaigns, menopause, and the time she accidentally turned on the No.10 Christmas lights.