Politics

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

Tuesday

19 Mar 2024

How to fix the elites

Few things get the British quite as worked up as private schools. To the left, they are factories of inequality that turn scions of privilege into the elite of tomorrow. To the right, they are an expression of parental choice and part of Britain’s schooling heritage. To ambitious mothers and fathers, they are a way to boost the professional and social chances of their offspring. To many others, they are the source of every smarmy, over-confident midwit ever encountered in life. Their fees are also exempt from VAT, which is a sore point for a lot of people. Not because it means the exchequer loses out on a great deal

Freddy Gray

Are we suffering from ‘Trump outrage fatigue’?

Freddy Gray talks to political science lecturer Damon Linker about the latest developments in the Biden and Trump campaigns. Why did Biden’s fiery State of the Union Address provide him no uptick in the polls? In what ways does Trump fatigue affect each candidate’s chances? And does Trump’s greater popularity with non-white low propensity voters skew the polls in his favour?

Isabel Hardman

Rachel Reeves is making mischief for the Tories

Rachel Reeves has a busy day: the shadow chancellor is giving her big speech tonight, where she is expected to outline the broad brush of her economic policy and claim there is a ‘new chapter in Britain’s economic history’ just waiting to start under a Labour government. Reeves was in the Commons this morning for Treasury Questions, and her focus there was on whether the Tories had a sequel planned for their own National Insurance policy. Labour has decided that it’s worth exploiting the suggestion As I reported from the Commons yesterday, Labour has decided that it’s worth exploiting the suggestion from senior Conservative figures that they would like to

Cindy Yu

What should Labour do about the Rwanda bill?

14 min listen

All ten of the amendments to the Rwanda bill, put in by the House of Lords, were rejected by the House of Commons last night. The bill will head back to the Lords tomorrow, where they will decide whether to continue the process of ‘ping pong’ (putting more amendments in and sending the bill back to the Commons). Should Labour peers worry about being portrayed as foiling the Rwanda asylum plan? Cindy Yu talks to Katy Balls and Spectator contributor Patrick O’Flynn. Produced by Cindy Yu.

Steerpike

Simon Case’s five worst WhatsApp moments

At long last, Simon Case has received his hearing date for the UK Covid Inquiry. The most senior civil servant in the country was initially excluded from the Inquiry for health reasons, but now that he’s back and fighting fit, the top mandarin has been told to appear in front of Baroness Hallett on 23 May 2024. Incidentally, it’s the same day that Paula Vennells is due to give evidence to the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry. The phrase ‘dead cat’ comes to mind… Case became the youngest ever Cabinet Secretary when he was appointed by Boris Johnson in 2020, but perhaps his relative youth made him a little too

Nigel Jones

In defence of private members’ clubs

The members list of the men-only Garrick Club in London’s West End has remained a closely-guarded secret – until now. King Charles, Richard Moore, the head of MI6, and Simon Case, the cabinet secretary, have been named as members of the club after the Guardian revealed what it called ‘the roll call of (the) British establishment’. But is anyone surprised that the great and the good are signed-up members of the Garrick? The club’s critics condemn the Garrick for being exclusive, not least because it doesn’t allow women to join. But the endurance of the traditions of the private members’ club is something to celebrate, not condemn. London’s gentleman’s clubs

Rupert Darwall

The Tories are stuck in a Net Zero trap of their own making

The Prime Minister’s pronouncement that Britain needs investment in new gas-fired power stations to keep the lights on is a rare moment of realism in the fog of Net Zero delusion. The government’s analysis shows that ‘we will need gas generation in the immediate term to meet rising demand’, Rishi Sunak wrote in the Telegraph last week. With a general election due at some point in the next nine months, Sunak couldn’t resist playing politics too, accusing Labour of taking a ‘fantasy approach’ to energy security. This accusation was reinforced in a speech on the same day by the Energy Security and Net Zero Secretary Claire Coutinho. Without naming Labour, Coutinho argued that pretending ‘you

Dan Storyev

The genius of the ‘Noon against Putin’ protest

On Sunday, the final day of voting in Russia’s presidential election, Russians came out in an unorthodox protest against the Kremlin. At midday, they showed up at polling stations within the country and at embassies across the globe to take part in the ‘Noon Against Putin’ movement. The strategy, assembled piece by piece by the motley Russian opposition, was simple. Come to your local polling station at noon local time on 17 May. Vote against Putin, for any other candidate you like, or simply spoil your ballot paper. The trajectory the Kremlin is plotting suggests that dark things lie ahead for Russia: more war, more repression Some opposition figures spent

Ross Clark

Ed Miliband’s dangerous net zero fantasy

Ed Miliband set Labour back a decade when he not only failed to win the 2015 general election but went backwards, losing a net 26 seats and helping to usher in the disastrous era of Jeremy Corbyn. But could he now be about to undermine a Keir Starmer government too? Miliband has a little fantasy that he is trying to sell the public: that net zero targets won’t just save the planet, they will cut our energy bills, too. ‘Families across the country are united in their desire for lower bills, cleaner water, and a green and pleasant home that we can leave our children,’ he is to tell the

Isabel Hardman

Could a fight over Rwanda get Sunak the poll boost he needs?

Downing Street has warned that peers will show a lack of ‘compassion’ if they do not pass the Rwanda Bill unamended. At this morning’s lobby briefing, the Prime Minister’s spokesman said: ‘Not acting is not an option and it certainly wouldn’t be a compassionate route.’ The government rejected all the amendments made by peers to the Bill last night in the first round of ‘ping pong’ between the two chambers, and the legislation will now go back to the Upper House for further consideration on Wednesday. Labour may try to reinsert around seven of the changes that were rejected by MPs last night. This could mean the Bill doesn’t become

Limor Simhony Philpott

Why Israel targeted Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital

Gaza’s largest hospital, al-Shifa, was once again turned into a battlefield yesterday. Five hours of fighting between Israel and Hamas at the hospital, viewed by Israel as a base used by terrorists, led to some 80 Palestinians being detained. Israel claimed to have killed about 20 terrorists in the precision raid, including Faiq Mabhouh, the head of Hamas’s internal security operations. The IDF (Israeli Defence Forces) also found a large cache of weapons, including rifles, grenades, rocket launchers and cash hidden inside al-Shifa. Mabhouh’s death follows that of Marwan Issa, deputy commander of Hamas’s military wing, last week. These killings will dramatically weaken Hamas, but Israel remains some way off the

Steerpike

BBC apologises for calling Reform ‘far-right’

Another day, another BBC blunder. This time the broadcaster admits that it was wrong to describe Richard Tice’s Reform UK party as ‘far-right’ in a recent news report: In an article about the Liberal Democrats’ spring conference we wrongly described the political party Reform UK as far-right when referring to polling. This sentence was subsequently removed from the article as it fell short of our usual editorial standards. The original article, which relays Sir Ed Davey’s plea to the Lib Dems to ‘make this a once-in-a-generation election’, has also been amended. The BBC attributes the error as being down to ‘news agency copy’, adding in its corrections page that ‘we

Matthew Lynn

Rachel Reeves will regret promising growth

Growth will be turbo-charged, animal spirits will be unleashed, and foreign investment will flood back into Britain. Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves is promising a Thatcher-style revival of the British economy if Labour wins power. But there’s a problem with the pitch that she will deliver in her keynote Mais lecture on the economy today: a Labour government isn’t going to deliver this promised growth. Reeves is setting herself up for failure. Labour’s proposals are painfully thin With at most only a few months left before she takes charge of the Treasury, as she inevitably will, Reeves is making it clear that she expects the UK to return to the 2.5

Gavin Mortimer

What the French left could learn from Keir Starmer

Last week on Spectator TV Fraser Nelson saluted the ‘intervention’ of the Labour party in the debate about whether the magazine he edits, as well as the Telegraph Media Group, should be sold to a UAE-backed consortium. In an interview, Thangam Debbonaire, the shadow culture secretary said that ‘ownership by a foreign power is incompatible with press freedom, which is essential in a democracy’. We shouldn’t have been surprised at Labour’s championing of press freedom, even for publications in the Conservative stable. The party’s leader, Keir Starmer, has written more than a dozen columns for the Telegraph. The most recent was last December when he accused the Tories of having betrayed voters

Alexander Horne

Why climate protestors lost the right to cause criminal damage

Yesterday, the Lady Chief Justice, Lady Carr, delivered a judgment on protest law which may close a remarkable loophole which had been exploited by climate change protestors who engage in direct action to promote their cause. Protestors who have damaged property with paint or smashed windows have been cleared in recent years after telling juries they ‘honestly believed’ that property owners would have consented to the damage if they had known about the impact of climate change. Now, the Court of Appeal judgment should ensure that this defence is removed from many of those seeking to rely on their philosophical and political beliefs when engaging in destructive direct action. The

Steerpike

Watch: Labour MP apologises for foul-mouthed Commons outburst

The Rwanda bill was back in the Commons on Monday night as the ping pong between the two chambers continues. The evening became a tad rowdier than expected, however, after one MP decided to exercise some rather vulgar language during the session… One politician shocked his colleagues after he was heard shouting ‘sh***’ during the debate. Deputy Speaker Sir Roger Gale was having none of it, fuming: ‘I’m informed that a Member swore at one of the doorkeepers this evening who on my instructions locked the doors’ and added that once the individual is identified, the ‘consequences will be very severe’. Oo er. Gale didn’t have to investigate for too

Gareth Roberts

Steve Harley was no one-hit wonder

Celebrity deaths range from the ‘tragically young’ (Amy Winehouse) to the ‘I thought they’d gone years ago’ (Peregrine Worsthorne) and the monumental (Michael Jackson). But there’s another type: a more low-key one that knocks you a bit, as much as the death of a stranger can. Steve Harley, whose death was announced this weekend by his family, was one of those. Everyone knows Harley and his Cockney Rebel band’s ‘Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me)’. But Harley was no one-hit wonder: dig a little deeper than that 1975 song and it’s clear to see what a brilliant and underappreciated musician he was. Vanishingly few endure in the pop music sphere. Steve Harley blazed through the decades, with five remarkable albums. He had a strange

James Kirkup

A pension crisis is brewing

Ten years ago, George Osborne blew up the British private pension system. Because pensions are boring and complicated and move slowly, a lot of people didn’t really notice. But the shrapnel from the blast continues to ricochet today and is starting to hit. Chancellor Osborne’s Budget on 19 March 2014 contained the surprise announcement of ‘pension freedoms’. Previously, people retiring with a Defined Contribution pension (a pot of money and very different to a Defined Benefit pension that is an entitlement to a certain income) effectively had to take their pension savings and use them to buy an annuity, a financial product delivering an income for life. Under the Osborne reforms, once

Monday

18 Mar 2024

Isabel Hardman

Has Labour spied an opportunity in the Tory National Insurance pledge?

A curious attack from Labour in the Commons this afternoon: shadow work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall used her slot at the regular departmental questions to ask how a policy that the government doesn’t yet have would work. She referred to the statements made by the Chancellor and the Prime Minister about their ambition over the long term to scrap National Insurance as a ‘double taxation’, pointing out: Labour obviously thinks that talk of abolishing national insurance is a way into the pensioner vote ‘Your NICs record helps determine your entitlement to the state pension. So if that’s scrapped, how will people know what pension they will get?’ Work and

Stephen Daisley

Israel’s ‘allies’ should reckon with reality

Everyone wants an end to the fighting in Gaza. The United States backs ‘an immediate and sustained ceasefire’. The European Commission urges ‘an agreement on a ceasefire rapidly’. The Brits demand ‘an immediate pause in fighting, then progress towards a sustainable ceasefire’. So eager is the Biden regime for a cessation in hostilities that the most senior Democrat in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, was sent out last week to advocate the removal of Israel’s democratically elected prime minister. The urgency is understandable. The Gaza death toll is, according to Hamas, just under 32,000. An NGO says starvation is ‘imminent’ in the northern parts of the enclave. Israel has launched a