All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
17 min listen
Marking the end of the conference, Boris Johnson gave what James Forsyth describes as ‘the most Boris speech possible’. The Prime Minister set out his ambition for ‘radical and optimistic conservativism’ and won over the crowd with his characteristic jokes. The Conservatives are in a strong position, but was the speech enough to retain support
The Supreme Court judgment striking down a couple of Acts of the Scottish parliament has been greeted with typical outrage from the SNP. Nicola Sturgeon has been busy fulminating that she is now ‘unable to fully protect children’s rights’. But the First Minister shouldn’t be surprised by this legal defeat: there was little chance of it going any
Until this morning, few people in Britain will have heard of the works of Wilfredo Pareto (1848-1923). Now, thanks to prime ministerial recommendation, his name is suddenly on everyone’s lips. Maybe he was even the inspiration for the name of Boris Johnson’s one-year-old son. Pareto, apparently, is the inspiration behind the whole idea of ‘levelling
It’s a strange reflection of our times that with so much else at stake, the leaders of both main parties have been asked, at their party conferences, whether they think that only women have cervixes. Both men prevaricated. Sir Keir Starmer declared this is ‘something that shouldn’t be said’. Boris Johnson avoided the question altogether.
Last week, Keir Starmer derided Boris Johnson as a ‘trivial man’ in his Labour conference speech. Today in his own address to his party in Manchester, the Prime Minister decided to lean into that description. He didn’t bother to give a serious speech He didn’t bother to give a serious speech groaning under the weight
If you were listening to the Prime Minister’s keynote address to party conference, you would not for a second have suspected that the country’s petrol stations were empty, its service industries hopelessly short of staff, its pigs being slaughtered on farms for want of abattoir workers and its Christmas turkeys on the line. You would
That was the most Boris Johnson speech imaginable. His supporters at party conference will have lapped it up, they certainly did in the hall — and his detractors will have been infuriated by it. It is clear that the biggest threat to Johnson is events, not Keir Starmer or some internal rival Johnson’s political aim was
So that’s it. The end. Tory conference wraps up today with Boris Johnson delivering a policy-light leader’s speech to close the four day Conservative jamboree in Manchester. Surrounded by campaign placards like a traditional electoral rally, Johnson made an hour long speech peppered with talk of ‘building back better.’ And in traditional Boris style, there
Isn’t it amazing to be here in person? The first time we have met since you defied the sceptics by winning councils and communities that Conservatives have never won in before – such as Hartlepool. In fact it’s the first time since the general election of 2019 when we finally sent the corduroyed communist cosmonaut
When Boris Johnson addressed his party in his first in-person conference leader’s speech since winning a majority of 80 seats, he did it in a different hall to the room his ministers have spoken in this week. The larger set not only helped make the Prime Minister’s speech stand out, it also meant that it
There are a few problems with Boris Johnson’s big idea, namely that the sharp fall in the supply of unskilled and semi-skilled workers in the UK – triggered by Brexit, reinforced by Covid – will automatically lead businesses to invest, such that the UK’s long history of low productivity and low incomes will end on
With all this talk of private parts, the political has now gotten very personal. Recently, I was having an argument with a male transgender rights activist over Labour MP Rosie Duffield’s claim that ‘only women have a cervix’. I huffed and puffed and pontificated about the ‘undeniable facts of biology and female anatomy’ when it
It’s the final day of Tory party conference today, with all eyes on Boris Johnson’s speech at midday. But will all the cabinet be there to watch it, bright-eyed and bushy tailed? Judging from last night’s antics, Mr S suspects that the answer may be: no. Truss, wearing a striking green number, stood out a
When empires crumble they slide slowly at first, then the temple walls come crashing down. Facebook is not quite at the latter stage yet, but you can hear the creaking in the pillars and lintels. This week, the social media giant suffered two blows: an outage which took down its platform, along with Instagram and
At some point, Rishi Sunak is going to need to pick a lane. There is only so long that the Chancellor can claim to believe that excessive borrowing is immoral while borrowing to such excess. His trick yesterday was to make all the right noises about restraint while unrolling a £500 million ‘plan for jobs’.
The ugly attack on Iain Duncan Smith by five protestors at the Tory conference in Manchester has been widely seen as another illustration of how dangerously embittered British politics has become. We now live, it is often said, in a world of deepening friction, hate and intolerance. Angela Rayner’s now notorious rant about Tory ‘scum’
Rishi Sunak didn’t give too much away tonight when he spoke in the ‘ThinkTent’ at Conservative Party Conference. The Chancellor is known for being cautious with his words, and has been increasingly tight-lipped in the weeks leading up to his October Budget. But his presence at the fringe event was telling in itself. Sunak was only billed
It’s hard for tabloid journalists to engage in mad hyperbole when politicians seem all too willing to do it for them. Clément Beaume, France’s Secretary of State for European Affairs, has just desperately threatened to turn off the power supply to Britain. Or as Bloomberg so delicately puts it, ‘to leverage [France’s] electricity supplies to
10 min listen
It is day three at the Conservative party conference and, as Isabel says on the podcast, Boris Johnson started the day a ‘little tetchy’ on his morning media round-up. After being told by Nick Robinson to ‘stop talking’ on Radio 4, the Prime Minister clashed with the host when asked about rising wages and inflation.
It’s the final night here at Conservative party conference. The booze is flowing and events are coming thick and fast. But the one reception which was guaranteed to pack out tonight was the LGBT+ Conservatives night with Carrie Johnson – the only event at which the Prime Minister’s spouse was scheduled to speak. Watched on
The theme of Priti Patel’s party conference speech this afternoon was very much ‘large and in charge’. She devoted much of her address to talking about the immigration system, as you’d expect, promising stronger crackdowns on people being smuggled across the Channel in boats. Patel focused on the Vote Leave favourite: taking back control Whereas
It is hard not to feel sorry for Priti Patel. She would surely have been a Tory conference darling at the gathering that never happened back in autumn 2020 at the height of the pandemic. Back then she always came towards the top of cabinet ministers’ popularity in the monthly survey conducted by the Conservative Home
Have the Conservatives lost their nerve on planning reform? Not quite, but a couple of small interventions at the Conservative party conference in Manchester point in a new direction. If anything, they suggest more ambition, not less, on the part of the ministerial team involved – though less opportunity for a falling out with southern
The Tories are ahead in the polls, the pandemic is easing, and the Prime Minister’s position is secure. And yet, for all the thronging crowds and warm white wine being guzzled at this year’s Conservative party conference, a strange gloom fills the air – and it has something to do with the dear leader, Boris
How do you solve a problem like Britain’s creaking criminal justice system? To the newly appointed Secretary of State, the answer involves ripping up the Human Rights Act, rolling out more electronic tags for convicts and pumping cash into preventative projects. At a Spectator event this morning, held at Tory Party Conference, Dominic Raab explained
Why have ministers become so obsessed with where people are doing their work? The war on working from home has become one of the key themes of this Conservative party conference. Senior figures and backbenchers alike have launched attacks on those who are continuing to work remotely rather than returning to the traditional office set-up.
Selling books through Amazon is now part and parcel of a working author’s life. It would be a brave writer who decided to refuse to allow their work to be sold through earth’s biggest retailer. But that is exactly what Dave Eggers has done with his new book, The Every, which he has decreed can
Dominic Raab already has rather a lot on his plate. The new Justice Secretary is planning to re-write the UK’s human rights laws as well as nearly doubling the number of convicts on electronic tags. But undoubtedly the biggest challenge facing Raab is the lockdown backlog in the number of people waiting for trials. At a Spectator event
Tory conference is so stage-managed these days that the main hall has long felt like a bit of a sideshow compared to the lively debate on the fringes and the packed bars. That’s been true so far this week, and not just because the ‘main hall’ is just a small area of the convention centre,
Boris Johnson hadn’t been on the Today programme for two years. His interview this morning was, as so many of his interviews are, a testy affair. Johnson gave typically long answers, much to Nick Robinson’s frustration – at one point, he simply said ‘stop talking, Prime Minister’, a phrase that is bound to cause a
In One Thousand and One Nights, Scheherazade must begin a new story every evening. She must make sure that the sultan is so eager to hear its conclusion he postpones his plans to execute her. On they go, month after month, year after year, a different story every day. I want you to imagine Boris Johnson as
Boris Johnson made a rare appearance on the Today programme this morning to drum up support for his agenda ahead of his conference speech tomorrow. But while listeners may have been hoping to hear a serious discussion about the state of the country, petrol pumps and supply chain woes, the interview quickly became a scrap
It was party time last night at Tory conference. As ministers Ben Wallace and Liz Truss supped Roland Rudd’s champagne at the Finsbury reception, Australian High Commissioner George Brandis mingled with Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey at the inHouse Politico party. But elsewhere at the Conservative jamboree, the night did not end so well
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