Politics

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

Friday

Steerpike Steerpike

The Mash Report 2017-2021, greatest hits

So, farewell then, The Mash Report. This morning the Sun reports that the newly appointed BBC director general Tim Davie has ordered the axing of the notoriously unfunny BBC Two show after four series. The show’s creators were told at the time of the appointment to find a better balance of targets than ‘digs at the Tories’. Not that this seems to have been taken on board by the show’s hosts.  Sources close to the Beeb’s top man report reportedly thought it disproportionately critical of Brexit — perhaps unsurprising given its main star Nish Kumar declared to the Guardian in 2019 that he had ‘still not got over it’. With the programme canned to ‘make

Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

The UK economy is suffering worse than most

Last week The Spectator highlighted new data from the OECD that offers a weekly update comparing a country’s current GDP levels to the previous year. It continues to show the UK experiencing some of the highest levels of economic damage. If you factor in lockdown stringency, you can also make out a rough correlation between countries under the strictest lockdowns and countries taking the biggest hits to GDP. Just how reliable are these calculations? A cross-check between the OECD data and the Office for National Statistics’ monthly GDP update would suggest it’s pretty spot-on, if not slightly more positive. Today’s update from the ONS shows the economy to be 9.2

Tom Slater Tom Slater

No, Nish Kumar’s Mash Report hasn’t been ‘cancelled’

It’s not been a good year for any of us. But it certainly hasn’t been a good year for Nish Kumar, alleged comedian and voice of perma-smug Britain. Last year, sensing a gap in the market for anti-Trump material, Kumar tried to break America with a topical Daily Show-style show hosted on some weird new streaming service called Quibi, only for it to shut down six months later. Now The Mash Report, the primetime BBC Two Daily Show-style topical show he fronted four four series, has been axed. Even among the politically monochrome BBC comedy stable, The Mash Report broke new ground for liberal sanctimony and woke hectoring. It was

Steerpike Steerpike

Exclusive: Haberdashers’ Aske’s could change name over slavery links

In the wake of last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests, a number of leading British private schools announced plans to decolonise their syllabus. Winchester, Fettes, Ampleforth and St Paul’s Girls were all reported to be ‘formulating new approaches’ to teaching about Britain’s colonial past and whether subject curriculums were inclusive enough. Now Mr S can reveal that the Haberdashers’ Aske’s schools are the latest to join the list. The governing body of the Haberdashers’ Company has written to parents and guardians at its famous boys and girls schools in Elstree and its sister Federation in South London about its benefactor Robert Aske, a London merchant who died in 1689. In a letter seen by Steerpike, chairman Simon Cartmell

Lara King Lara King

The Sarah Everard case has shown how frightened women really are

Muggers don’t carry umbrellas. Murderers don’t carry briefcases. Kidnappers don’t carry Tesco bags. These are the sorts of utterly illogical things I have been known to tell myself on a ten-minute walk home from the Tube station in the dark (past well-lit houses, on familiar roads, in a ‘nice’ part of London) as I try to stop my heart pounding quite so violently when someone happens to be following me down an otherwise empty street. Once I shut my front door behind me, I let go of these thoughts, along with the breath I hadn’t realised I’d been holding. And I think no more of it, until the next time.

John Ferry John Ferry

The SNP’s foray into high finance has come at a big price

In a refreshing twist for Scotland’s party of government, the latest potential scandal facing the SNP administration does not involve allegations of sexual misconduct, but rather high finance. Earlier this week, finance company Greensill Capital filed for administration. Greensill specialised in supply-chain finance, which involves acting as an intermediary to raise money on the back of payment commitments between companies and their suppliers. Greensill’s innovative financing arrangements were instrumental in metals tycoon Sanjeev Gupta’s rapid expansion of his business empire, including his 2016 acquisition of an aluminium smelter at Lochaber in the Scottish Highlands, plus two nearby hydroelectric dams. Companies within Gupta’s GFG Alliance group bought the industrial assets from

James Chater

The curious censorship of Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland

Fortunes shift quickly in Chinese cyberspace. On March 1, Chloé Zhao, the Beijing-born film director, was the ‘pride of China’, according to the Chinese Communist Party’s The Global Times. Zhao had just won the best director Golden Globe for her film Nomadland, becoming the first Asian woman in history to win the award, and only the second woman full stop. As news of her victory emerged, Chinese social media was awash with congratulatory messages for the 38-year old director. But the tide soon turned after diligent Chinese netizens dug up comments made by Zhao in a 2013 interview, in which she said that China is a place ‘where there are

Thursday

Cindy Yu Cindy Yu

Battle royal: Harry and Meghan’s brand of revenge

36 min listen

Is it fair to blame Meghan for the Royal Family’s problems? (00:55) Why is China censoring a book of Dante’s poetry? (12:40) Would you go to moon? (24:50) With The Spectator‘s US editor Freddy Gray; The Spectator’s restaurant critic Tanya Gold; author Ian Thomson; Kerry Brown, professor of Chinese Studies at King’s College London; The Spectator’s commissioning editor Mary Wakefield; and Spectator columnist Matthew Parris. Presented by Cindy Yu. Produced by Max Jeffery, Natasha Feroze and Matthew Sawyer.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Scottish independence isn’t inevitable

Back in the autumn, every Scottish poll delivered bad news for Unionists. The ‘yes’ side was consistently ahead and the Nationalists began to argue that independence was becoming the ‘settled will’ of the Scottish people. But polling in the last seven days has, as I say in the magazine this week, disrupted this narrative.  There have now been several polls, including two more published just this morning, showing the Union side ahead. It is clear that there is nothing inevitable about Scottish independence. The Scotsman poll today also indicates that the SNP will fall just short of an overall majority in the Holyrood elections in May. Now, this shift in the

Kristina Murkett

Telling men to ‘educate themselves’ won’t make women safe

Sarah Everard’s disappearance has sent shockwaves throughout the capital. The case has led to women sharing stories of how they don’t feel safe walking the streets at night. One Green party peer has said men should face a curfew until things change. Others have called for men to ‘educate themselves’ about the fears women face in the wake of this tragic story. But is this really the right approach? I’m not convinced. What is clear is that Sarah Everard did nothing wrong. Returning from a friend’s house on that fateful night, she wore bright clothing, she walked down a main road, she called her boyfriend on her way back. For women, decisions about personal

Steerpike Steerpike

Kew Gardens asks: are plants problematic?

Statues toppled, buildings renamed — last summer’s BLM inspired iconoclasm changed the face of streets and landmarks across Britain. Surely though this reckoning with the past was merely restricted to the physical manifestation of our shameful past? Apparently not, according to the director of Kew Gardens. In an interview with the Evening Standard, Richard Deverell has today spoken of his concerns about the history of the plants based in the Royal Botanic Gardens in south west London.  The world heritage site plans to ‘completely change’ the display information on plants such as sugar cane to reflect their links to empire and slavery. Deverell, whose institute is currently trying to plug a £15 million Covid-related black

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Voters still aren’t listening to Labour

Sir Keir Starmer has launched Labour’s local elections campaign today, focusing on the need for a ‘proper pay rise’ for NHS staff. Of course, local government has nothing to do with the way NHS pay is set in England, but that’s by the by if you’re an opposition trying to turn every poll into a referendum on the government. Starmer’s call for Boris Johnson to give nurses and other health service workers a 2 per cent pay rise is in keeping with the approach he has taken over the past few months which is to look for a government problem and hitch a ride on that, rather than go on the

Giulia Crouch

ITV was right to let Piers Morgan go

As a young, millennial female, it’s probably unusual for me to like Piers Morgan. But as a journalist, who began her career in the tabloid press, I have always admired and respected him. While I haven’t always shared his views, I’ve thought him, for the most part, fair and on point. When it comes to holding power to account he is tenacious and single-minded. He is like a dog with a bone until a politician answers his questions. Lesser broadcasters let cabinet ministers obfuscate with endless hot-air; Piers is relentless in his drive to pin them down. His TV interviews are also undeniably entertaining. This not only makes him a brilliant broadcaster

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Is Sturgeon losing support for Scottish independence?

Every politician likes to say that they don’t pay attention to opinion polls. In my experience, this is almost universally untrue. Those who sail in an ocean of public opinion want to know which way the wind is blowing. The most recent polls show the wind is in the Tories’ sails at the moment: the YouGov post-Budget survey indicated a 13-point Tory lead. But in Scotland for the past year, polls have consistently shown majority support for independence. That’s now changing. Nicola Sturgeon can’t claim she doesn’t pay attention to the polls; she has too often commented on ones showing independence ahead. After roughly 20 polls in a row put

Francis Elliott

The dangers of televising lobby briefings

Like a tongue searching for an absent tooth, I keep wondering if I’m missing anything from my two decades as a lobby hack. Friends, of course, and perhaps the vast, grey field of sloping slate as seen from the Times’s parliamentary office. That empty and silent space, the roof of Westminster Hall, seemed austere and indifferent, a mental refuge from the babble beneath and within. The opposite aspect, towards the crumbling guts of the Palace of Westminster, elicits more complicated memories. I arrived in the press gallery aged 30 to take a job as Westminster correspondent for a clutch of provincial papers. On my first day my new colleagues took

Constantin Eckner

The mask scandal threatening to destroy Merkel’s legacy

In Germany, masks have been one of the least controversial elements of this pandemic. Most people have accepted that they have to be worn in the supermarket or on public transportation. But now these items of PPE are at the centre of a full-throttle political scandal that risks badly damaging Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats in this important election year. The Christian Democrats Georg Nüßlein and Nikolas Löbel are accused of profiting from government deals to purchase face masks. Löbel is alleged to have received £200,000 in payments as part of a state purchase of masks, while Nüßlein is accused of making £500,000 through a consultancy firm. Both politicians have denied

Steerpike Steerpike

The NYT’s royal blunder

Trebles all round at the New York Times after another dose of anti-British bile. Mr S last week noted that the Gray Lady’s news reporting of Covid in the UK mixed misrepresentation with outdated figures. This week the newspaper has followed this up with the inevitable crowing comment piece to follow Harry and Meghan’s Oprah interview. Titled ‘Down with the British Monarchy’ it mocks the Queen as ‘some utterly random rich wastrel’ and claims her own ‘claim to legitimacy’ is being ‘the child of the child of the child of someone who was, centuries ago, the nation’s biggest gangster.’   Leaving aside the question of whether Sophia of Hanover qualifies for such a title and indeed

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

The SNP cares more about power than principles

Defeats in politics sometimes appear to be victories at first, and victories to be defeats. The SNP has survived a vote of no confidence (VONC) at Holyrood, as it was always going to. The Nationalists were home and dry before the debate was even called thanks to the backing of the Greens. The Conservatives tabled the motion against John Swinney, Nicola Sturgeon’s deputy, after he ignored two votes in parliament requesting that he hand over the Scottish government’s legal advice to the Alex Salmond inquiry. Only when the possibility of a VONC was raised did he hastily release some of the documents. Obstruction has been a hallmark of the SNP

Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

Are Switzerland and France really ‘Islamophobic’?

Is Switzerland ‘Islamophobic’? Critics of the country’s decision to outlaw face coverings think so. The ‘Burqa ban’, which passed into law this week as a result of a narrow vote in a referendum, applies to any form of face covering in a public gathering, unless worn for health reasons, at religious congregations, or carnivals. The legislation is not, at least directly, aimed at Muslims. And, what’s more, very few Swiss Muslims wear a burqa or niqab: almost no-one in Switzerland wears a burka and only around 30 women wear the niqab, according to research by the University of Lucerne. But the condemnation has nonetheless been swift. It was ‘a dark day’ for Muslims, the Central Council of