All the latest analysis of the day's news and stories
In contrast to prophets of doom, who get invited to Davos, asked to address the UN and are able to build entire careers around their scaremongering, there are few rewards for those who play down fears – even if they turn out to be correct. If there were, then perhaps I wouldn’t have to draw
More criticism of the infamous HS2 high-speed rail project emerged today, as the National Audit Office published their findings of serious mismanagement and rocketing costs, implicating both HS2 limited and the Department for Transport. From the NAO watchdog: ‘The Department, HS2 Ltd and government more widely underestimated the task, leading to optimistic estimates being used
‘You can’t change sex – biologically, that is impossible.’ That, by most people’s standards, is a simple observable truth. But by the standards of campus activists, it is tantamount to hate speech, deserving of merciless retribution. The quote above is from Selina Todd, a professor of modern history at the University of Oxford. And for
Is Jeremy Corbyn attempting to foment the abolition of the House of Lords? His recent peerage nominations suggest so. Corbyn has put forward a former Speaker mired in bullying allegations who facilitated a parliamentary revolution. A failed apparatchik under investigation for her handling of anti-Semitism. And Tom Watson. The former Labour deputy leader is perhaps
Roger Scruton’s funeral takes place in London today, and he’ll be in the thoughts and prayers of his admirers worldwide – many of them in Poland. We Poles owe him an unusual debt, one he mentioned in his Spectator diary last month when he wrote about his journey to Warsaw. Andrzej Duda, the Polish president,
Now that the Withdrawal Agreement Bill has received royal assent and become law, the UK will leave the EU at the end of the month. Attention in Westminster has turned to the next stage of the Brexit negotiations. In No. 10 there is a desire to de-dramatise the upcoming trade talks and avoid a day-to-day
Can Boris Johnson really cut violent crime by 20 per cent? James reported recently that the Prime Minister has set his Cabinet this target, and is demanding that every department get involved in realising it. Most people have focused on the most salient political problem, which is knife crime. But if the Prime Minister is
Love him or hate him, you can’t deny that John Bercow had an outsized political impact in 2019. The former Speaker was instrumental in the battles to block Brexit through legislation and parliamentary procedure, and his decision to delay his departure probably changed the course of British history. So it was perhaps unsurprising that Bercow
Brandon Lewis, the security minister, is something of a genius at winsomely saying next to nothing. Even so I emerged from my interview with him on my show last night persuaded that the National Security Council and the Prime Minister would next week give the go ahead to the controversial use of Huawei kit in
Even by recent standards, 2019 was an eventful year in Westminster. It began with deadlock in Parliament and it was unclear whether we would ever leave the EU, and ended with a Brexit breakthrough, a new prime minister, and even a general election – with mass defections, serial resignations and all the usual machinations along the
Prime Minister Boris Johnson won The Spectator’s much-coveted Parliamentarian of the Year award at a ceremony in London last night. The former Spectator editor was sadly unable to attend the event but sent a pre-recorded message in which he thanked the publication, calling it ‘the greatest magazine in the English language’. The video also featured
Last night Penny Mordaunt was the guest of honour at the Spectator Parliamentarian of the Year awards. Below is an edited transcript of her speech. When Fraser first contacted me about presenting tonight, I have to say I wasn’t convinced. I said, ‘who, with a glittering Cabinet career ahead of them would ever be so
Boris Johnson is a big fan of Mohammed bin Salman. But why? Back in 2018, the then-foreign secretary was keen to sing the praises of the Saudi Crown prince. In an article for the Times, Boris was clear that MBS was good news: ‘I believe that the crown prince, who is only 32, has demonstrated
Emmanuel Macron lost his cool during a walkabout in Jerusalem’s Old City on Tuesday and television cameras captured the moment for posterity. “Everybody knows the rules,” shouted the president of France, directing his wrath at Israeli security officials. “I don’t like what you did in front of me. Go outside!” The confrontation took place outside
The Spectator’s annual Parliamentarian of the Year awards took place at the Rosewood Hotel in London this evening. The awards were presented by the guest of honour, former defence secretary Penny Mordaunt. Here are the winners: Parliamentarian of the year – Boris Johnson Comeback of the year – Priti Patel Minister to watch – Michael
Emily Thornberry is the straggler in the Labour leadership contest. Unlike Keir Starmer and Lisa Nandy, she’s not going to get on the ballot with trade union nominations. She currently only has two nominations from constituency Labour parties, and doesn’t poll well with members. She needs a breakthrough moment – or at least an explanation
An extraordinary row between Russia and Poland over the second world war is refusing to die down and threatens to overshadow commemorations for the 75th anniversary of Auschwitz’s liberation. Russia’s president Vladimir Putin has suggested Poland is partly to blame for the war’s outbreak. Poland’s president Andrzej Duda has hit back, accusing Putin of an
Speaker Lindsay Hoyle is very keen that Prime Minister’s Questions last its allotted half an hour, rather than turning it into the hour-long drone-fest that John Bercow indulged in during his tenure. Today he had to cut off one MP who was asking a question that wasn’t just pointless (the Speaker doesn’t adjudicate on the
A student midwife was in the news last week after her involvement with a pro-life student society led to her fitness to practise being investigated. After being suspended from her hospital placements for almost four months, Julia Rynkiewicz was cleared of any wrongdoing and has now lodged a formal complaint with the University of Nottingham
With Lisa Nandy making it onto the ballot paper in the Labour leadership contest, the competition has just got rather less predictable. It had previously been assumed that the final fight before the membership would consist of a battle between Corbynism and not-Corbynism in the form of Rebecca Long-Bailey vs Keir Starmer. Now, presuming Long-Bailey
PMQs began with a tussle over Universal Credit. Jeremy Corbyn’s team of wordsmiths and brainstormers had spent the morning ransacking a thesaurus for words meaning ‘destructive’. They found ‘broken, damaging, dangerous, callous, cruel, punitive and vicious.’ They added ‘very cruel’ for good measure. These were the labels Corbyn applied to Universal Credit. ‘It should go,’
In case you were in any doubt, the Prime Minister and his chief aide, Dominic Cummings, more than give a damn about who runs the BBC and intend to have a significant influence over the appointment of a new director-general. The current chairman of the BBC board, David Clementi, showed acute political sensitivity in persuading
Until Labour gets a new leader, PMQs will be a rather predictable affair. Whatever topic Jeremy Corbyn goes on, Boris Johnson has an ace up his sleeve: Labour’s defeat in the election. In today’s session, Boris Johnson trumpeted, ‘I refer the honourable gentleman to the answer that the British people gave some moments ago’. It
*According to Labour party members. Research carried out by the polling company YouGov reveals the surprising fact that party members rank the absolute boy as the absolute best Labour leader of the last hundred years. When asked whether members had a favourable or unfavourable view of each of the last 13 leaders, JC came out
I write a lot about transgenderism. I do so for several reasons. Among them: because politicians still aren’t doing their job and assessing policies and representing concerns properly. Because politics fails if groups of people are silenced and ignored. Because the way some women are abused, threatened and silenced on this topic makes me angry.
One of the great myths of Scottish higher education is that it’s free. Outside observers can be forgiven for making this error because Nicola Sturgeon asserts it so very often. She has boasted that ‘one of this government’s proudest achievements is the restoration of free higher education’, claimed to ‘stand for universal services, such as…
Rebecca Long-Bailey denies she is the ‘Continuity Cobynism’ candidate in Labour’s leadership election. Her public statements suggest otherwise. Having given Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership a remarkable 10/10, Long-Bailey proposes to double down on the party’s 2019 manifesto commitments and simply present them in a new way. At least members know what they’re getting with a Long-Bailey
Given that Labour has just faced its worst electoral defeat, arguably since 1935, it always looked odd – and dangerous for the Opposition – that the final run-off might have been between two candidates, Sir Keir Starmer and Rebecca Long-Bailey, whose hands were well and truly in the blood of that disaster, as part of
The proposal to relocate the House of Lords to York is harmless enough, though residents of York might disagree. The idea of an upper chamber of philosopher kings to check democratic excitability is sound in principle but when your definition of a philosopher king extends to John Prescott, you begin to question the merits of
The Japanese are fond of poeticising the fleeting beauty of the cherry blossom season, which no sooner reaches its full glory than is gone, leaving behind nothing but bare branches, scattered petals, and a sense of wistful regret and nostalgic yearning. It’s the theme of countless haikus and mournful folk ballads. But if the cherry
It was pretty inevitable that once rain finally started to fall in South Eastern Australia, extinguishing some of the bushfires which have been raging for weeks, the wet weather, too, would be blamed on climate change. ‘Climate apocalypse starts in Australia,’ a human rights lawyer tweeted in response to golf ball sized hailstones falling in
Lisa Nandy has won the endorsement of GMB and is one step away from reaching the final stage of the Labour leadership contest. Announcing the decision, the union’s general secretary Tim Roache said: ‘Lisa Nandy is a breath of fresh air in the debate over Labour’s future. The more members see of Lisa in this