Politics

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

Tuesday

Matthew Lynn

Rachel Reeves’s ‘Big Bang’ is doomed

We probably won’t see the return of shoulder pads, big hair, or yuppies swilling champagne in the bars around Liverpool Street. Even so, the Chancellor Rachel Reeves will promise a return to the go-go spirit of the 1980s in her Mansion House speech this evening, with a pledge of ‘Big Bang’ style deregulation to boost growth and get the financial markets moving again. There is just one catch – and it’s a big one: Reeves is making the wrong reforms, and all Labour’s other policies are destroying confidence. The Chancellor’s shake-up is doomed to fail. There is no point in promising a ‘Big Bang’ for the City while also driving

Hugh Thomson

We’ve missed an important clue about The Salt Path fiasco

When the truth of Raynor Winn’s The Salt Path was called into question, many commentators jumped in with both feet; as Sam Leith astutely pointed out in The Spectator, there is nothing the English like so much as a good disappointment. ‘So, we twisted our story.’ It ties in with the phenomenon of confabulation Winn continues to contest the allegations which have cast doubt over the truth of the 2018 memoir. She also issued a statement talking of ‘the physical and spiritual journey Moth (her husband) and I shared, an experience that transformed us completely and altered the course of our lives. This is the true story of our journey’.

Steerpike Steerpike

Watchdog: most aid now spent on migrant hotels

Immigration is never off the news agenda these days, as Brits remain concerned about the influx of people to the country while the cost of living crisis and housing pressures only seem to worsen. Last week Sir Keir Starmer sealed a ‘one in, one out’ migrant returns deal with France’s President Emmanuel Macron which some number-crunching suggested is a little more akin to an, er, 17 in, one out set-up. The Labour lot have other borders-related problems on their plates too, however, as an independent watchdog has warned that the cost of supporting asylum seekers is set to absorb a whooping one-fifth of the gutted aid budget. Crikey! The surging

Theo Hobson Theo Hobson

What liberalism’s critics get wrong

Perhaps we are living in the early sixteenth century. Think of the ideology of the West as a sort of religion. It needs a reformation, a purging, a back to basics movement. In a sense this is well underway: for many years now, countless thinkers have attacked the flaws and complacency of the dominant Western ideology. Yet a positive vision has not really been articulated. We need something resembling the Protestant reformation. It did not chuck out the dominant religious tradition, it came up with a new account of its inner logic. To many thinkers, liberalism is a flawed ideology that must be comprehensively ditched To many thinkers, liberalism is

Monday

Steerpike Steerpike

Layla Moran’s nimbyism backfires

Oh dear. It seems that Layla Moran – the oracle of Oxfordshire – has been left with egg on her face once again. Since her election in 2017, the pansexual pioneer has distinguished herself in two ways. First, her consistent embrace of every passing progressive cause. And second, her determined commitment to oppose any new development in her constituency. No wonder Robert Jenrick has dubbed her ‘the greatest Nimby in the House of Commons’… Whether it is new homes or solar panels, Moran is always there to block anything which might offer a boost to Britain’s anaemic economy. One notable crusade was her 2022 attack on a new reservoir in

Daniel DePetris

Trump is turning ‘Biden’s war’ into his own

It’s official: President Trump is tired of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s bloody shenanigans. While he won’t admit it, it’s likely Trump feels strung along and publicly humiliated. Every time he ends a conversation with Putin that he’s relatively pleased with, he learns a few hours later that another batch of Russian drones and missiles have slammed into Kyiv and killed more civilians. Today’s meeting at the White House with Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte, during which Trump said yet again that he was ‘very unhappy’ with Russia over the war in Ukraine, came after weeks in which the US president was increasingly expressing his frustration, even anger, with how Putin

Svitlana Morenets Svitlana Morenets

Trump has given Ukraine a chance to stop Putin in his tracks

It took Donald Trump six months, at least six useless phone calls with Vladimir Putin and more than a thousand Ukrainian civilians killed since the start of his second term for the realisation to finally hit: Russia has no intention of ending the war. Today, the American President took a U-turn from praising Putin and unveiled a new plan to arm Ukraine. Nato allies will purchase ‘billions of dollars’ worth of US military equipment to send to Ukraine, with 17 Patriot air defence systems already being prepared for delivery. Trump will also impose 100 per cent tariffs on Russia and its trade partners if Putin doesn’t make a deal to

Charlotte Henry

This report confirms what we knew: the BBC has an Israel problem

The BBC has not had a ‘good war’ since 7 October. Whether it is the smug anti-Israel tone of its reporters, or its use of casualty numbers and narratives dished out by a terror group, it has been pretty shameful stuff. And I say that as someone who generally has a lot of time for the corporation. After this latest fiasco, the BBC needs to take a good hard look at itself Today, things reached a new low. We finally got the full report into the documentary ‘Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone’. The show was broadcast on BBC Two and iPlayer in February before being pulled. It emerged that the 13-year-old narrator just happened to be the son of the deputy

Eliot Wilson

The Ministry of Defence has dropped the ball on fighter jets

If Defence Secretary John Healey didn’t have an anxious and unsettled weekend, he should have done. The Ministry of Defence once again has serious questions to answer over equipment, this time the F-35 strike aircraft programme, the cutting edge of the Royal Air Force’s offensive capabilities. It is a political commonplace that our executive faces inadequate parliamentary scrutiny, but there is one institution which can still cause ministerial pulses to quicken in panic: the National Audit Office (NAO). Established just over 40 years ago, the NAO carries out financial audits and value-for-money surveys on government departments. Essentially, it is the independent watchdog of public expenditure, and its head, the comptroller

Tim Shipman

Are you a ‘working person’?

10 min listen

Tomorrow Rachel Reeves will deliver her big speech in the City. The annual Mansion House address is a chance for the Chancellor to set out her vision for the British economy. But amid a gloomy set of economic indicators (including two consecutive monthly GDP contractions) it is difficult to see what good news she can offer. Westminster would be alive with speculation about what she might announce – initially, there was talk of reforms to cash ISAs; now, attention has turned to the prospect of Reeves promising a ‘new Big Bang’ by slashing regulation on financial services – however everyone is busy trying to work out who are the ‘working

Damian Thompson Damian Thompson

Recovering the Sacred: listen to our unique Spectator event celebrating the rediscovery of tradition by young Christians

75 min listen

Last week The Spectator held a live event entitled ‘Recovering the Sacred’ in the glorious surroundings of St Bartholomew the Great, the oldest parish church in the City of London. The speakers included two London parish priests – one Anglican, one Catholic – who have contributed much to the growing interest among young people in traditional liturgy and Christian theology, a development that the hierarchy of their respective churches certainly didn’t foresee. They were the Rev Marcus Walker, Rector of St Bart’s, whose Prayer Book Evensongs and Eucharists attract large numbers of young professionals to his ancient church; and Fr Julian Large, the Provost of the Brompton Oratory, where an

Steerpike Steerpike

Gaza documentary report finds BBC misled viewers

Back to the BBC, which is better at making the news than breaking it these days. This afternoon a report has found that the Beeb’s Gaza documentary that was narrated by the son of a Hamas official breached editorial guidelines and misled audiences. The review adds that viewers ‘should have been informed’ about the identity of the film’s narrator – which was known by three people at the production company but, however, not by anyone at the BBC ahead of the documentary’s release. The head of BBC News, Deborah Turness, apologised today over the BBC’s lack of oversight and admitted this afternoon that: ‘At BBC News, we are fully accountable.

Stephen Pollard

Will the new anti-Semitism report change anything?

For any Jew – or anyone who is alive to Jew hate – a report from the commission on anti-Semitism to be published tomorrow will make for uneventful reading. That is no slur on the report or its authors. The Board of Deputies of British Jews asked Lord Mann, the Labour peer who is the government’s anti-Semitism adviser (incongruously often described as the ‘anti-Semitism Tsar’) and Penny Mordaunt, the former Conservative cabinet minister, to look at the state of anti-Semitism in the UK today. John Mann and Penny Mordaunt have done Jews and those who care about Jew hate a great service Their findings have already made front page news, even

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Will Ed Miliband’s climate change speech be a ‘radical truth’?

For once, Ed Miliband is right about something: the British way of life is under threat. But it is not for the reasons he claims. Our way of life is under threat because high energy prices are leading to Britain’s rapid deindustrialisation. Once a proud and wealthy industrial nation, we are becoming an impoverished country ever more reliant on importing stuff that we used to make ourselves. Miliband, by contrast, claims that our way of life is being ruined by a changing climate. Today he will make a statement to the House of Commons revealing the contents of the latest annual ‘State of the Climate’ report by the Met Office

James Kirkup James Kirkup

The populist case for fixing the pension system

Pensions rarely top the Westminster agenda or get politicians excited. Too boring, too distant. But maybe, just maybe, pensions will soon become political.    There is a growing consensus among pensions policymakers and industry insiders: if we want future generations to retire with a bit of security and comfort, contributions into defined contribution (DC) pensions must rise. That means workers will need to put in more – and so will their employers.  So soon the government will take the next sensible steps on this sensible journey, with its ongoing Pensions Review starting to focus on ‘adequacy’, technocrat-speak for saving enough to retire on.   The world of pensions policy is

Steerpike Steerpike

Who are working people? All Labour’s definitions

The Labour party has long been dubbed the party of working people – but despite the term being integral to the group’s existence, Sir Keir Starmer’s army have so far demonstrated an extraordinary degree of ineptness when pushed on its definition. After new transport minister Heidi Alexander caused a flurry of excitement at the weekend when she gave her own description of ‘working people’ – only those on ‘modest incomes’, apparently – Mr S decided to compile a list of all the, er, contradictory accounts of how exactly the phrase has been interpreted by the Labour lot. 18 June 2024: Sir Keir Starmer suggested ahead of the 2024 general election

Steerpike Steerpike

Wallace’s BBC return ‘untenable’ after complaints upheld

Another week, another bit of bad news for ex-Beeb star Gregg Wallace. A report into the former MasterChef presenter has substantiated a whopping 45 complaints against the TV personality – making any return to the public service broadcaster ‘untenable’. A seven-month inquiry by legal firm Lewis Silkin was carried out on behalf of the programme’s production company. Speaking to 78 witnesses, it probed a staggering 83 complaints against the star – and upheld more than half. Crikey. The ex-MasterChef presenter faced more than 14 hours of interviews with the investigating team. Almost all of the allegations related to incidents occurring between 2005 and 2018, with most of these concerning inappropriate

James Heale James Heale

Who exactly is a working person?

Tomorrow is Rachel Reeves’s big speech in the City. The annual Mansion House address is a chance for the chancellor to set out their big vision for the British economy. But amid a gloomy set of economic indicators – including two monthly GDP contractions in a row – it is difficult to see what good news message she can deliver. Initially, there was talk about reforms to cash ISAs, with Reeves planning to cut the £20,000 annual tax-free allowance. However, following a backlash, the Financial Times reports those plans have now been dropped. There is talk instead of Reeves promising a ‘new Big Bang’ by slashing regulation on financial services. That will

Sam Leith Sam Leith

Banning disposable vapes was a waste of time

When we’re debating the introduction of a new law – ban this, ban that, crack down on the other – most of the energy in the public conversation goes into the question of whether this, that, or the other is something that deserves to be cracked down on. It seems to be after the event, usually, and with the sound and fury at last subsided, that we discover whether the law in question will achieve its stated purpose.  A corker of a recent example, I think, was the Blair government’s foxhunting ban. It sucked in hundreds of hours of parliamentary time. It generated thousands of headlines. It brought hundreds of

Sunday

Joe Bedell-Brill

Sunday shows round-up: Labour defends its ‘one in, one out’ migrant scheme

The government is piloting a ‘one in, one out’ migrant scheme with France. As part of the deal, the UK will return some migrants to France, and in exchange others with a strong case for asylum in the UK will come the other way. On Sky News, Trevor Phillips noted that France could refuse to take back certain individuals, and asked Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander why they would accept ‘violent offenders and rapists’. Alexander said there is a lot of ‘operational detail’ that the Home Secretary and Prime Minister are working on, but claimed the deal was ‘robust’ and ‘workable’, and could ultimately ‘break the model’ of the international people