Kate Andrews is deputy editor of The Spectator’s World edition.
Any remaining question about who NHS strikes are supposed to benefit has been put to rest this week. Industrial action is needed, the British Medical Association’s website reads, ‘For the benefit of all junior doctors and for the benefit of all patients’ – and also, of course, to ‘protect the NHS’. Yet the union has selected the
15 min listen
As junior doctors begin the longest strike in history, Lucy Dunn speaks to Isabel Hardman and Kate Andrews about whether public support for industrial action is starting to wane, and how talks might be different under Labour.
Has the immigration U-turn already begun? When Home Secretary James Cleverly announced his overhaul of the legal migration system at the start of the month, it included a big crackdown on the family visa route into the UK. The Minimum Income Requirement (MIR) for a British citizen wanting to bring their foreign spouse to the UK was
10 min listen
The big economic news of the week was that the Bank of England has held interest rates at 5.25 per cent for the third consecutive time. This was the expected outcome of the Monetary Policy Committee’s latest vote, but it wasn’t unanimous. There were six MPC votes to hold rates but three to raise it to 5.5
When I go home to America next week for Christmas, I’ll go to church – the one my family and I used to attend every Sunday, a few towns over. I visit intermittently throughout the year when I’m back home, but I always go on Christmas Eve. The routine is the same: I sit quietly
The Bank of England has held interest rates at 5.25 per cent for the third consecutive time. This was the expected outcome of the Monetary Policy Committee’s latest vote, but it wasn’t unanimous. There were six MPC votes to hold rates but three to raise it to 5.5 per cent. No one voted to cut. This speaks to
13 min listen
The Tories are reeling from a week of painful infighting over Rwanda. Who are the ‘five families’ of Conservative dissenters? James Heale speaks to Katy Balls and Kate Andrews.
Has the UK economy come to a standstill? This morning we learn that the economy contracted by 0.3 per cent in October, far worse than the zero per cent change to GDP that was expected by economists. Furthermore, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reveals there was no overall growth in the three months to
Climate change minister Graham Stuart is flying back to Britain from the UAE for a matter of hours so he can cast his vote tonight for the Safety of Rwanda Bill. It’s not a great look from the green perspective, and even worse from the political one. The government is so concerned about the numbers
14 min listen
It was Rishi Sunak’s turn at the Covid Inquiry today. The Prime Minister faced questions on Eat Out to Help Out, his relationship with No.10, tiers and PPE procurement. How did the former Chancellor come across? And how has his tone changed because he is now Prime Minister? Natasha Feroze speaks to Fraser Nelson and
17 min listen
Kate Andrews speaks to James Heale and Katy Balls about Robert Jenrick’s resignation last night and whether this is another sign of Tory party implosion.
The UK’s immigration system must be ‘fair, consistent, legal and sustainable’, proclaimed the new Home Secretary as he presented his ‘five-point plan’ to reduce legal migration in parliament. James Cleverly billed these changes as ‘more robust action than any government’ has taken before to reduce the headline net migration figure. They involve increasing the skilled
Keir Starmer wants to set expectations early. Speaking at the Resolution Foundation’s economy conference later today, the opposition leader used his speech to emphasise just how little scope he’d have at the start of any Labour government to splash the cash. His party will not ‘turn on the spending taps’, he told an audience of
When Jeremy Hunt announced his ‘Autumn Statement for Growth’ last week, there was a slight problem: the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) had actually revised down its growth forecasts. Apart from this year and the last year for the forecast, GDP gains are expected to be smaller than were predicted back in March. Yes, the
23 min listen
Figures out this week put net migration at 672,000 in the year to June 2023. Should the government cut the number of work visas, to immediately reduce this figure, or should it accept that high levels of immigration are needed to sustain the economy? Natasha Feroze speaks to Fraser Nelson and Kate Andrews.
New Zealand’s new coalition government has announced that it will scrap Jacinda Ardern’s plan to usher in a generational smoking ban. The scheme would have steadily lifted the legal age for buying cigarettes from 2027, effectively stopping anyone born after 2008 from purchasing them. The right-leaning parties now in power – the National party, the
The debate over migration figures released today seems to be whether or not we’ve reached a new ‘record high’. The Office for National Statistics reports net migration rose 672,000 in the year to June. This would have been a record high if the ONS hadn’t also revised last year’s figures up by a staggering 140,000 to 745,000.
12 min listen
After much Whitehall spin, the official figures are now in. Net migration in the year to June hit 672,000, down from 745,000 in 2022. A total of 1.2 million people arrived to live in the UK, whilst 508,000 moved overseas. The ONS says it’s too early to call this a downward trend, but has migration
18 min listen
The Chancellor today delivered his fiscal update, branding it as an ‘Autumn Statement for Growth’. In it, he announced a series of tax cuts for both businesses and workers including the decision to make ‘full expensing’ permanent and a surprise announcement on National Insurance, which has been cut by two percentage points for workers and
Jeremy Hunt’s March Budget was an exercise in Big State Toryism. It lacked meaningful tax cuts, was full of new spending promises, and was estimated by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) to take the ratio of public spending to GDP to ‘43.4 per cent, its highest sustained level since the 1970s’. But today’s Autumn Statement, the