Politics

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

Saturday

Ross Clark Ross Clark

We need to act now to block Britain’s social credit system

I have to admit that I didn’t quite get it right when, 12 days ago, I wrote: ‘There is a model for what will be coming our way if we do not resist vaccination passports and electronic ID cards: China’s social credit system, which blacklists people for numerous antisocial offences, from crossing the street on a red light to failing to sort their recycling, and uses the information to deny them the right, for example, to buy rail and airline tickets.’ I had in mind that it would take two to five years for a vaccination passport scheme to morph into a Chinese-style social credit system. In fact, it took

Robert Peston Robert Peston

Is Boris Johnson allowed to pick the next Archbishop of Canterbury?

A few weeks ago, Prime Minister Boris Johnson was shirty with me when I asked him whether he was now a practising Roman Catholic, having recently been married to Carrie Symonds at Westminster Cathedral. His answer was ‘I don’t discuss these deep issues. Certainly not with you.’   The question may be ‘deep’, as he says, but it is also – as a senior minister has reminded me – an intensely practical one and relevant to his duties as Prime Minister. Because under the British constitution:  1. The Prime Minister’s appointments secretary has an advisory role in the appointment of all bishops  2. The chair of the commission that nominates an

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Was the government right to delay ‘freedom day’?

23 min listen

It’s our first ‘freedom’ weekend, but it was only a few weeks ago when our own Fraser Nelson and Kate Andrews clashed heads over the most sensible way to open up. Kate thought we should stick to the 21st of June, Fraser argued that the later opening date made sense. Now it’s time to see who was right? This cage match was refereed by Katy Balls.

Patrick O’Flynn Patrick O'Flynn

Labour is picking the wrong fight with Priti Patel

The position of Home Secretary Priti Patel is clearly untenable. Presumably this means she must resign. Who says so? Why, only her Labour shadow Nick Thomas-Symonds. At least, he has said the first bit from which we can infer the second. And what has reduced Patel to this miserable status in his eyes? Could it be the fact that 18 months after she first promised to halt the cross-Channel boats that spill migrants onto our shores, there are more of them arriving than ever? No, not a bit of it. Thomas-Symonds is not interested in that. In fact, whenever he and the Home Secretary debate migration policy she runs enough

Friday

Jonathan Miller Jonathan Miller

No vax, no vote? Macron’s vaccine passport plan sparks fury

Will it be necessary to produce a passe sanitaire (vaccination passport) to be allowed to vote in France? With 221 days until the first round of the next presidential election, the mere rumour of such a sinister measure is provoking near hysteria. ‘Fake news’ shrieked the media aligned with president Emmanuel Macron (frankly, most of it) tonight. Perhaps. It’s true that the government’s vaccination passport law currently being rushed through the National Assembly does not specifically mandate proof of vaccination to vote. More than 175 demonstrations against the passe sanitaire are scheduled this weekend But neither does it specifically exclude it. And with Macron’s draconian new law demanding that those

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Could cases have peaked?

13 min listen

Daily cases have fallen again today, leading to cautious optimism that – perhaps – cases in this exit wave have peaked. Cindy Yu talks to Katy Balls and Kate Andrews.

John Jenkins

There’s nothing wrong with Macron’s war on Islamism

It’s always the French, isn’t it? Not content with having given the modern world existentialism, structuralism, deconstructionism (with some help from the Belgians) and Marxist psychoanalytic, they have also, it seems, produced something called Islamo-gauchisme — allegedly an unholy alliance between some on the left and Islamists. And a lot of people are very cross about this. Or rather, cross with President Macron and his ministers for daring to suggest first that Islamo-gauchisme is actually a thing, then that it might represent a threat to the cohesion of the Fifth Republic — indeed the western liberal order as a whole — and that it, therefore, needs to be resisted. It’s

Douglas Murray

Katy Balls, Douglas Murray and Nigel Farndale

22 min listen

This week we’ll hear Katy Balls on the government’s dwindling COVID optimism (00:41), Douglas Murray’s prediction of a dull decade of arrested development (04:26) and finally Nigel Farndale of why we owe so much of what we love about the Olympics to the Nazis (12:50).

Andrew Croxford

Will vaccine efficacy decline over time?

Data emerging from Israel suggests that booster vaccines may be more urgent than first thought. Immunity might be waning for those who got their jab in the winter months, according to figures from the Israeli Ministry of Health. The analysis shows that someone over 60 who received their second dose in January is three times more likely to be reinfected than an over-60 jabbed in May. On the surface, it sounds like bad news. Yet in reality, it is nothing that we wouldn’t expect. While we collectively gawped at the speed and efficiency of their rollout, the Israelis are the first global example of long-term Covid vaccine effect. We have

Steerpike Steerpike

Ministers snub Lloyd Webber’s bash

The SW1 party season is currently in full swing. Ahead of The Spectator’s own shindig last night, Mr S hopped in a cab over to the sumptuous surroundings of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, opening up for the first time after a two-year £60 million renovation. Laughter, music and the popping of champagne corks echoed around the Georgian building, which Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall toured last month. But while the stage itself was stunning, all is not well behind the scenes. The theatre industry is in crisis at the moment, with Andrew Lloyd Webber – Drury Lane’s owner – forced to cancel the opening of his long-awaited musical Cinderella this

John Ferry John Ferry

Are we dangerously addicted to Quantitative Easing?

For such a radical change to our monetary system, the lack of understanding of quantitative easing (QE) and its impacts is worrying. That is one of the conclusions drawn from this month’s House of Lords economic affairs committee report, ‘Quantitative easing: a dangerous addiction?’ QE involves central banks creating money and using it to buy financial assets (usually government bonds). It is known as an ‘unconventional’ monetary tool, as opposed to the conventional monetary policy of raising and lowering interest rates. But as this new report highlights, the practice has very much become a conventional part of monetary policy. The financial crisis in 2007-08 kicked off rounds of QE in

Steerpike Steerpike

The books which MPs recommend this summer

With recess in session and MPs packing bags, Steerpike was delighted to receive a list of what MPs are recommending for their summer hols. The guide – put together by the Publishers Association – contained some fairly predictable suggestions: vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi chose Matt Ridley’s How Innovation Works: And Why It Flourishes in Freedom while Nick Thomas Symonds plumped for a collection of essays by NHS founder Nye Bevan – a Labour hero about whom the shadow Home Secretary has written a book. Safe choice. Fortunately, other members provided more insightful preferences. Kicking us off is Rishi Sunak, who is evidently still smarting from England’s spot-kick performance in the European Championships final. His choice, Ben

Ben Southwood

Roger Scruton’s campaign for beautiful buildings is finally being won

Travelling around Britain, one is given the sense that built up areas are mostly ugly, while the countryside is mostly beautiful. As a lover of the urban, this is distressing. For new buildings to be ugly feels as inevitable as death and taxes. But it does not have to be. Over almost a decade, a small group of activists have brought beauty into the heart of development policy. The Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick’s speech at Policy Exchange this week signals that a revolution is well under way, even if there is still a long way to go. Given that almost everyone thinks that the appearance of the built environment matters,

Thursday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

How do the Tories stop the rise of an ever-bigger state?

When Gordon Brown raised National Insurance in 2002 to put more money into the health service, it was seen as a huge political gamble. The Tories — including one Boris Johnson — denounced the move in furious terms. In a sign of how far to the left the country has moved, the Tories are planning to do something very similar to cover the cost of a social care cap and dealing with the NHS backlog. If the Tories do this, it will put Labour in a tricky position. How do they respond when a Tory government raises taxes to put more money into the NHS? If the Tories do this,

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

What the NHS pay rise says about Boris Johnson’s priorities

Well, that didn’t take long. Two days ago, a leaked report revealed that the government was considering using a national insurance tax hike to pay for the NHS backlog and social care. Now it looks as though the money could be diverted elsewhere.  The anticipated increase of at least one per cent on national insurance would transfer an additional £6bn from taxpayers to the Treasury. But today, the Times reports that £1.5bn of that sum may not go to hip replacements or speeding up the timeline for cancer patients to access treatment. Instead it could help fund the three per cent NHS pay raise, which has been promised by health secretary Sajid Javid. This latest debacle also

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Can No. 10 stem the ‘pingdemic’?

13 min listen

Today the CBI gave a stern warning that the test and trace app is ‘closing down the economy’. Despite this, the government’s key workers list – promised on Monday – has still not been released. What’s the hold up, and what will this mean for Boris Johnson’s summer as MPs head home for recess? Cindy Yu talks to Katy Balls and James Forsyth.

Lara Prendergast Lara Prendergast

Party time: what is the cost of freedom?

34 min listen

How free are we after freedom day?(00:27) Also on the podcast: Why does it take hours to refuel your car in Lebanon?(10:19) and finally… Is British gardening wilting or blooming?(21:21) With The Spectator‘s economics editor Kate Andrews, Michael Kill, CEO of the Night Time Industries Association, journalists Paul Wood and Tala Ramadan, author James Bartholomew and gardener and writer Ursula Buchan. Presented by Lara Prendergast Produced by Sam Holmes

Steerpike Steerpike

Watch: Dawn Butler kicked out of the Commons

It’s final term day in the Commons as MPs prepare to break for summer recess. Traditionally the last day before recess sees a debate held in which MPs can speak on any subject they choose. A hapless minister has to field a huge range of subjects, and usually ends up promising that a ministerial colleague will write to a particular MP about a particular issue. But while most MPs were happy to raise issues about pet causes or their constituency, Labour MP Dawn Butler was determined to grab one last headline. The Brent Central MP seized her chance to accuse the Prime Minister Boris Johnson of lying in Parliament – an offence

Stephen Bayley

The disgraceful decision to remove Liverpool’s heritage status

Unesco has cancelled the ‘World Heritage Status’ of the Necropolis at Memphis and the Giza Pyramid because a Radisson Blu hotel has been built in neighbouring Cairo. That’s not true, but for a similarly absurd reason Liverpool has been de-listed from heritage Valhalla by word-mincing bureaucrats. Not many Liverpudlians will care about this imbecilic and ignorant decision – Liverpool is the capital of itself and does not look to London, still less to Paris or Brussels. The tragedy here is not Merseyside’s status, but Unesco’s blindness. In recent years, Liverpool has demonstrated exactly the mixture of respect for the past and optimism for the future that all great cities need.

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Boris could easily curb the ‘pingdemic’, so why won’t he act?

Was there ever a national crisis which was so easy to solve? There are reports of supermarket shelves emptying, petrol stations running out of fuel and panic-buying. This in not unprecedented. Yet on this occasion the government doesn’t have to deal with a bolshie trade union, enter difficult negotiations with an EU which is determined to punish us for Brexit or even handle the early, unknown stages of a pandemic. All the Prime Minister has to do is to announce that the changes to the Test and Trace system already earmarked for 16 August – when fully-vaccinated people will no longer be forced to self-isolate for ten days but could be