Politics

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

Wednesday

Ross Clark Ross Clark

The real scandal of HS2

As if the saga of HS2 could not get any worse, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander will reportedly announce today that, actually, the railway line will not be open by its latest proposed date of 2033, and that 2035 is now more realistic. But I wouldn’t book your ticket just yet. Some analysts believe the line – which is a truncated version of the original proposal, only reaching Birmingham – will not be open for a couple of years or so after that. For some reason a Conservative government then decided the state should handle HS2, in spite of the lousy record of civil servants in managing such projects That will

Michael Simmons Michael Simmons

Why is the ONS saying inflation has gone down?

The rate of inflation remained flat at 3.4 per cent in May – still well above the Bank of England’s 2 per cent target. Bizarrely, the Office for National Statistics (ONS), in their figures released this morning, claims this is down from 3.5 per cent the month before, even though just a couple of weeks ago they admitted that figure was overstated due to an error. Because of a policy not to revise inflation figures, that error lives on – leading them to announce the fiction that inflation has fallen. The reality is it has not. The result of stubbornly sticking to this no-revisions policy is a slew of misreporting

Stephen Pollard

Why Britain needs Israel to win against Iran

It’s understandable that the focus of coverage of Israel’s strikes on Iran, and the Iranian regime’s response, has been entirely on the potential regional consequences of Israel’s mission to destroy Iran’s nuclear capability. But although this may seem more like a version of Neville Chamberlain’s infamous ‘quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing’ than an issue of immediate relevance to British national security, it is most definitely the latter. It is vital to our national security that Israel succeeds. For one thing, Iran operates hit squads in the UK with the explicit aim of assassinating British citizens it deems to be enemies. It’s said that

Nick Tyrone Nick Tyrone

Why liberals ignored the grooming gang scandal

For many years, liberals refused to talk about the grooming gangs scandal. The systematic sexual abuse and rape of hundreds, possibly thousands, of vulnerable children by offenders from ethnic minorities was a story that too many people were happy to ignore. There was an effective prohibition on discussing it in left and liberal circles. Grooming gangs was a subject guaranteed to silence a dinner party. So, we decided to pretend that it wasn’t happening. Finally, the so-called great and the good have woken up to a scandal that was happening in plain sight Finally, the so-called great and the good have woken up to a scandal that was happening in

Tuesday

Lucy Dunn

MPs vote to decriminalise abortion

MPs have voted to make the biggest change to abortion laws in 50 years this evening, backing the decriminalising of abortion for women at any point in their pregnancy. An amendment to the crime and policing bill was passed by 379 ayes to 137 noes after MPs were given a free vote on the issue this evening, with several cabinet ministers voting in favour of the change.  Now women who end their pregnancy after 24 weeks gestation – or without the sign-off from two doctors, as has been the usual practice – will no longer face the threat of arrest and imprisonment for late-term abortion. The new amendment will not,

Madeline Grant

Starmer looked out of place in the mountains with Sky’s Beth Rigby

Sir Keir Starmer was doing an interview with Beth Rigby in the lush mountain landscape of Canada. Hardly a man who evokes the sweeping grandeur of nature, seeing the Prime Minister surrounded by mountains and pines was odd. It looked a little like someone had mistakenly cast a chartered accountant in the Sound of Music. What percentage is his approval rating? Seventeen going on sixteen of course. Seeing the Prime Minister surrounded by mountains and pines was odd Rigby asked whether the Prime Minister had any idea what President Trump was doing about the Middle East that was so important that he had to leave the G7 early. ‘I actually

Steerpike Steerpike

Ex-Tory MP pleads guilty to harassment

To Cardiff, where a former Conservative politician has pleaded guilty to harassing their ex-wife. Katie Wallis, formerly Jamie Wallis who represented Bridgend from 2019-2024, today admitted to sending unwanted messages both over the phone and via voice note and will be sentenced next month. Wallis had been in a relationship with ex-wife Rebecca Lovell for over 15 years, before divorcing in 2024. The 41-year-old former politician – who became the UK’s first transgender MP in 2022 – had lawyer Narita Bahra KC agree an eleventh-hour deal with the prosecution for a guilty plea, after first applying for an adjournment for a psychiatric report to show Wallis had experienced a ‘psychotic

Michael Simmons Michael Simmons

Rachel Reeves’s non-dom crackdown has truly backfired

Rachel Reeves may finally have seen sense. A report in this morning’s Financial Times suggests she is ‘exploring’ performing a 180 on the changes to inheritance tax rules which meant non doms would have to pay the death tax on their global assets – even on wealth earned before they came to the UK. As I explained in our magazine cover piece last month, the fact that these changes – which came into force in April – would apply retroactively is what really sent non-doms over the edge and led them to flee the country in large numbers, taking their wealth and not insignificant tax revenues with them. Rachel Reeves has to deal

Steerpike Steerpike

Poll: just 3 per cent of women back Stella Creasy’s abortion amendment

It is a big week for big Commons moments. On Monday, we had the long-awaited announcement of an inquiry into grooming gangs; today it is the battle of the abortion amendments. This afternoon Lindsay Hoyle will choose whether to call Tonia Antoniazzi or Stella Creasy’s amendments to the Crime and Policing Bill. Antoniazzi’s measure would allow abortion for any reason up to birth while maintaining criminal sanctions for doctors performing late-term or sex-selective procedures. Creasy, however, has adopted the more hard-line position of full decriminalisation in all circumstances. Now, Mr S has got his hands on some polling – and it is bad news for Stella. More than 2,100 adults

James Heale James Heale

Kemi Badenoch defends the Tories’ record on grooming gangs

Kemi Badenoch said that ‘survivors and their families’ have been ‘ignored for far too long’ as she appeared alongside those affected by the grooming gangs’ scandal. ‘What this morning is about is not the politics, but giving…(victims) a platform to say what they want to see from a national inquiry,’ the Tory leader said at a press conference in Westminster. The Tory leader was on less safe turf when she claimed, slightly implausibly, that she wanted to ‘take the politics out of’ the issue Marlon West, the father of grooming gangs’ victim Scarlett, asked about local-led inquiries and whether ‘local authorities are going to be answering their own homework.’ Fiona

Tim Shipman

Can you ‘take the politics out’ of the grooming gangs scandal?

13 min listen

Yesterday Yvette Cooper announced a national inquiry into the grooming gangs scandal after the Casey Review found that a disproportionate number of Asian men were responsible and that governments and authorities had failed to step in over fears of racism. Anxious to press Labour on their U-turn – memorably, Starmer accused the Tories of ‘jumping on the far-right bandwagon’ – Kemi Badenoch held a press conference, joined by victims of the gangs. ‘I’m not doing politics now, when I’m in the Houses of Parliament, when I’m in the Commons, I will do politics’, she said. But can you really take the politics out of the grooming gangs scandal? Elsewhere, Donald

Charlie Gammell

Israel isn’t close to victory over Iran

Amongst a swirl of pronouncements from Tel Aviv, Washington and Tehran – and against the dramatic backdrop of an Iranian TV presenter’s rather tired fire and fury being interrupted by the sound of bombs – Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed that Israel is close to “victory.” Yet despite Ayatollah Khamenei being hidden in a bunker, experiencing regular panic attacks and now shielded from the worst news of his battered nation, any talk of “victory” by the Israeli prime minister feels hollow and premature. Talk of human rights, revolutions and the evils of the Islamic Republic have been cast aside as luxuries As this war thunders into its fifth day, Iranians across the country

Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

The establishment was more afraid of ‘the gammon’ than the groomers

‘When history is written as it ought to be written’, said the great Trinidadian Marxist CLR James, ‘it is the moderation and long patience of the masses at which men will wonder, not their ferocity’. On no historical calamity is this truer than the rape-gang scandal. When future scribes look back at this violent tear in the British social fabric, it is the forbearance of the public they will marvel over. It will dazzle them. These vile prejudices were the fuel of this scandal The spectre of public volatility has stalked this scandal from the start. The establishment’s irrational dread of the feral masses shaped its yellow-bellied decision-making. From the

Lara Brown

A grooming gang inquiry will expose Labour’s guilty men

Sir Keir Starmer claimed in January that those who were concerned about the systematic rape and abuse of little girls were ‘calling for inquiries because they want to jump on a bandwagon of the far right’. Yesterday, Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, promised that victims would finally get the full national inquiry which campaigners have been demanding for so many years. If Starmer has any sense, he will bring out his party’s bodies willingly before he is forced to Cooper’s statement in the Commons was relatively encouraging. She conceded that much of the (admittedly shoddy) data around child grooming points to ‘clear evidence of overrepresentation amongst suspects of Asian and Pakistani

Jacob Heilbrunn

Will the Maga isolationists forgive Trump for Iran?

That was fast. In the space of a few weeks, President Donald J. Trump has gone from being the idol of the Republican isolationists to the hero of the hawks. Only a few days ago, the Wall Street Journal editorial page was complaining that ‘Maga isolationists want the President to pressure Israel to stop the war before Iran’s nuclear sites are destroyed’. Now, as Israel pounds Iran, Trump increasingly appears to be embracing the role, not of peacemaker, but of a war president – one ready and willing to unleash, or at the very least abet, fire and fury against the mullahs. The hawks are rejoicing, and they have plenty to rejoice about. ‘Bombs

Michael Simmons Michael Simmons

The good and bad news about the UK-US trade deal

Donald Trump and Keir Starmer’s transatlantic trade deal has finally been signed. Before making an early exit from the G7, the US president approved an executive order giving legal effect to parts of the US-UK deal. The outline of the agreement was settled weeks earlier during a conference call, with Trump in the White House and Peter Mandelson, the UK ambassador in Washington, standing, slightly creepily, over his shoulder, as Starmer dialled in from 4,000 miles away. If the deal is to progress further, an almighty row could be brewing The delay in any further announcement left conservatives, and businesses, wondering whether the deal outline a month ago was turning

Steerpike Steerpike

Casey hits out at ‘politicisation’ of grooming gang report

As Westminster continues to dissect the truly troubling findings laid out by Baroness Casey’s report into Britain’s grooming gang scandal, the crossbench peer has now given her thoughts on the political reaction to the review. Speaking to the BBC’s Newsnight programme on Monday, Casey hit out at parliamentarians for how they’d responded to the project, saying she was ‘disappointed’ with the way it had been used for political point-scoring. Ouch. When quizzed on the ‘politicisation’ of her review, Baroness Casey remarked: I’m disappointed by it, to put it mildly. I really hoped – and hope still – that the report is so clear, it’s so straightforward. We need to change

Steerpike Steerpike

Is this the worst Labour MP in parliament?

The publication of Louise Casey’s report into rape gangs was a sobering affair. But not, apparently, for Shaun Davies, Labour MP for Telford since July 2024. He previously served as the Shropshire town’s council leader from 2016 to 2024. More than 1,000 children in Telford were sexually exploited over decades, according to the Independent Inquiry for Child Sexual Abuse in 2022. Davies decided that yesterday was the perfect time to stand up in the House of Commons and criticise the Conservative government for not themselves investigating grooming gangs. He told the House that: ‘We did a local-based review because the then Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, and the then local government Minister,

Nadine Dorries

With Nadine Dorries

15 min listen

Nadine Dorries is one of the most recognisable Conservative politicians from the past two decades. Elected as the MP for Mid Bedfordshire in 2005, she notably clashed with David Cameron and George Osborne (who she called ‘two arrogant posh boys’) and lost the whip in 2012 when she took part in the reality show I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here. Loyal to Boris Johnson, she served in his government and rose to be Culture Secretary. She stood down in 2023 and went on to write about politics in the bestselling books The Plot and Downfall. On the podcast, Nadine tells the Spectator’s executive editor Lara Prendergast about her