Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Friday

John McTernan

The case against Andy Burnham

A New Statesman profile for the issue published in the week before Labour Party conference. A lengthy interview in the Daily Telegraph on the eve of a major international conference of global progressive leaders, including the newly-elected prime ministers of Canada, Australia and Norway. This is your standard press management for a party leader in the run up to the second meeting of the UK Labour family since its landslide victory in July 2024. Except it’s not Keir Starmer who is being profiled and interviewed, it’s Andy Burnham, the Labour mayor of Greater Manchester, who was already enjoying a good week as the Hillsborough Law was passed. This legislation –

Angela Epstein

What’s so bad about ID cards?

Back in 2009, when the Labour government piloted a voluntary biometric identity card, I signed up immediately. In fact – claim to fame – since the scheme was actually launched in my hometown of Greater Manchester, I was one of the first in the country to acquire this pioneering piece of ID. Mine for just 30 quid. Why the enthusiasm? It simply seemed a pragmatic thing to do. No rooting around for dog-eared gas bills to prove I wasn’t a phoney. Or living in fear of losing my passport when travelling across Europe. I didn’t for a moment consider whether the card could compromise my privacy or expose my darkest secrets. Apart

Yossi Melman

Do not dismiss Trump’s Gaza plan

The recent moves by Donald Trump to promote a plan to end the two-year war between Hamas and Israel in Gaza appear this time to be more serious and promising than in the past. The American administration, led by Steve Witkoff, the President’s special envoy for international conflicts, has been formulating for several weeks a detailed outline, whose main points are: The release of 47 remaining Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. Twenty are believed to be still alive – among them one woman – But Israeli intelligence and the families know that they are in bad health and starving and in miserable condition. Israel will release from its

Joanna Williams

Labour women must stop crying sexism

Does the Labour party have a problem with women? It’s not just Conservatives – who enjoy comparing their own three female prime ministers with Labour’s failure to get any woman into the top job – who seem to think so. It turns out many on the left think their side of the aisle is riddled with sexism. Women on the left need to wake up to the fact that not all criticism directed their way is ‘sexism’ As Labour members head to Liverpool for this weekend’s party conference, all eyes are on the battle between Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson and former Leader of the Commons, Lucy Powell, for the position

Anthony Browne

Why Brits are no good at learning foreign languages

The British media has got into one of its regular funks about Britons not learning foreign languages. As the only monoglot in a family of polyglots, it is an issue I have had a lifelong sensitivity about. But as always, the national hand-wringing displays more ignorance than insight. The wailing follows a regular pattern – we Brits are lazy, it damages our international reputation, and is bad for the economy. But given that our children are leading the Western world in reading, writing and arithmetic, it is unlikely that they are noticeably more lazy than those of other countries. A slightly more sophisticated argument points out that since our mother

Matthew Parris

Matthew Parris, Stephen J. Shaw, Henry Jeffreys, Tessa Dunlop and Angus Colwell

31 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Matthew Parris reflects on the gay rights movement in the UK; faced with Britain’s demographic declines, Stephen J. Shaw argues that Britain needs to recover a sense of ‘futurehood’; Henry Jeffreys makes the case for disposing of wine lists; Tessa Dunlop reviews Valentine Low’s Power and the Palace: The Inside Story of the Monarchy and 10 Downing Street; and, Angus Colwell reviews a new podcast on David Bowie from BBC Sounds.  Produced and presented by Patrick Gibbons.

Thursday

Ross Clark

Digital IDs are a nightmare of Tony Blair’s making

Is Tony Blair pulling the strings of Keir Starmer’s government from beyond the political grave? Only two days ago the Tony Blair Institute released a report calling for digital ID cards. Now Starmer is expected to announce that the UK public will indeed have digital IDs forced upon them. The juxtaposition of these two things cannot have been an accident unless you believe firstly that Blair had no prior knowledge of what Starmer was going to announce, and secondly that Starmer decided to go ahead regardless of Blair’s intervention, knowing full well what it would look like. Has Starmer really thought through the practical consequences of digital ID cards? He

James Heale

Labour unveils its Reform fightback

After a summer of drift, Labour today launches a fresh fightback against the rise of Reform UK. Leading the charge is Steve Reed, the recently promoted Minister for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG). In an interview with Michael Gove for The Spectator’s YouTube channel, he explained the thinking behind his department’s new ‘Pride in Place’ programme. A reported £3.4 billion will be pumped into struggling communities over the next decade to try and to resurrect the British high street. You can watch the full interview below. Reed’s argument is simple: if communities are stronger, they are less likely to turn away from Labour and vote for Reform. ‘Nigel Farage weaponises

Max Jeffery

The cult of Obama is over

Everyone wanted to get close to the president. For three hours outside the O2 Arena in London, a queue of admirers pawed at and posed with a fifteen-foot-tall billboard of his face. All of the marketing for yesterday’s event, titled ‘An Evening with President Barack Obama’, had used his official presidential portrait from 2012 in the Oval Office. It was a reminder of the good old days – before Trump ever happened. ‘I’m just looking forward to being in the same room as him,’ said a woman called Fran who had taken a photo with the billboard, leaning on it for support. She started crying. ‘I’m looking for a little

Matthew Lynn

Reeves needs to save the London Stock Exchange

Flutter, the gambling giant that owns Paddy Power, has already London, and the British chip designer ARM decided to float in New York. There have been reports that AstraZeneca may move its listing too. Now we learn that even Goldman Sachs may be giving up on the City, as it delists Petershill, the majority-owned investment vehicle it launched almost 20 years ago, from the London Stock Exchange. The City is facing extinction, but there is still no sign that the Chancellor Rachel Reeves will do anything to rescue it. It is a slow-moving car crash Petershill was launched in 2007, and listed on the stock market in 2021, to offer

Lucy Dunn

Starmer's spin doctor quits in latest No. 10 departure

Another one bites the dust: Steph Driver, Keir Starmer’s head of communications, has announced she will leave No. 10 – making her the latest Starmer aide to quit. Driver was a loyal companion to the Prime Minister even before his election, spending five years as his chief of communications when he was in opposition. She became deputy director after Labour’s 2024 landslide victory before more recently being promoted to director of communications in Downing Street. Her resignation, which follows a period of bereavement leave, will come as a huge loss to the PM whom, it is understood, was one of many senior figures who tried to persuade her to stay

Michael Simmons

What is Andy Burnham talking about?

Andy Burnham is worried about becoming Liz Truss. In an interview deemed so important it currently appears on the New Statesman’s website three times, he said: ‘We’ve got to get beyond this thing of being in hock to the bond markets.’ His worry, it seems, is that the main economic policy he’d like to introduce, nationalisation of everything, would require so much borrowing that it would cause the markets to freak out á la Truss and collapse a nascent Mancunian ministry. Since the interview one or two people have pointed out that we can’t really just choose to ignore the bond markets – much as Burnham might like to. And so

Steerpike

Labour splits as cabinet minister slams Burnham

Dear oh dear. Labour conference is just days away but as the party prepares to come together it would appear its politicians are coming apart. Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham gave a rather revealing interview this week in which he called for ‘wholesale change’ to prevent an ‘existential’ crisis, set out his own brand of lefty politics – Manchesterism – and refused to rule out a return to Westminster. Now communities secretary Steve Reed has hit back in a defence of Prime Minister Keir Starmer – dismissing Burnham’s ‘potshots’. Ouch. Speaking to Sky News, Reed remarked: [Burnham] is entitled to his view, but we’ve heard these kinds of comments before.

Luke Tryl

Starmer's make-or-break conference

13 min listen

Labour conference kicks off this weekend in Liverpool – but the mood going in is far from triumphant. On today’s Coffee House Shots, Lucy Dunn is joined by Tim Shipman and More in Common’s Luke Tryl to take the temperature ahead of Labour’s big set-piece. They discuss why some voters already see Starmer as ‘just as bad as the lot that came before’, and whether Labour can turn things around with new policies aimed at revitalising local communities – from saving libraries and pubs to giving residents more power over development. There is also a fascinating hypothetical poll in which an Andy Burnham-led Labour party outpaces Reform UK, turning a

Michael Simmons

The problem with removing the child benefit cap

Despite having a £30 billion fiscal hole to fill Rachel Reeves might be about to splash the cash. If reports are to be believed, in the coming weeks the lifting of the two-child benefit cap will be announced. The cost is £3bn every year.  The cap was introduced under George Osborne to stop families claiming the child element of UC for three or more children. A committee of ministers and officials are due to make a series of recommendations to tackle child poverty before the November Budget, and it’s now widely expected that this will include scrapping the cap.  But will lifting it do anything to improve child poverty? There

Steerpike

Watch: Boris defends the Boriswave

Reform continues to top the polls as Brits remain concerned about migration to the UK. At the start of the week, Nigel Farage held yet another London press conference in which he announced his plans to abolish indefinite leave to remain, make foreign nationals ineligible to claim benefits and introduce an English standards test – which would be retaken every five years. Crikey! Former prime minister Boris Johnson was in the firing line too, despite the defection to Reform of his onetime ally Nadine Dorries. Farage’s party took aim at the ‘Boriswave’ – slamming the rise of immigration to the UK seen under Johnson’s premiership and accusing the ex-PM of

Piotr Wilczek

No, Nigel Farage: Eastern Europeans like me aren't eating swans

The Royal Parks have spoken: no, London’s swans are not being roasted for supper. Their cygnets are intact, their lakes tranquil, their wildlife officers alert. Yet for a moment this week the nation was asked to imagine Eastern Europeans stalking Hyde Park by moonlight, stuffing swans into shopping bags. Nigel Farage, on LBC, suggested as much. It is a fine fantasy. One can picture Henry VIII applauding from the bank of the Serpentine, fork in hand, as the birds are borne aloft like Tudor delicacies. But times have changed. The swan has slipped the spit and become untouchable: a symbol, a ballet, a subject for poetry rather than pies. The

Steerpike

Afghan granted asylum returned home for holiday

New Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is settling into the job: laying out her firm no-nonsense approach to migration and ruffling feathers just days into the job after she suggested that some people were abusing the justice system in order to avoid deportation from Britain. Now she has a new challenge on her hands: it transpires that an Afghan refugee is being investigated by the Home Office after he was granted asylum but appeared to go back to his home country on, er, holiday. You couldn’t make it up… DG Usama came to the UK in April 2022 after crossing the English Channel on a dingy. On arrival, he claimed asylum,

Ross Clark

Let Jaguar crash

‘Copy nothing,’ implored Jaguar’s weird advert featuring multicoloured changelings swivelling their heads on a car-free planet. That includes, it seems, copying other large multinationals in taking out insurance to cover themselves against cyber attacks. Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), it turns out, had none. Now, following such an attack, it finds itself in the soup. It has had to close its factories and send its workers home as it tries to repair the damage. The government is now reported to be thinking of stepping in with state aid to ensure that the company and its suppliers do not go bust. Why should our taxes be used to bail out a woke

Patrick West

Starmer's ‘reclaim the flag’ mission is doomed

Does Sir Keir Starmer love his country or not? It’s been hard to tell this year. His infamous ‘island of strangers’ speech in May seemed to suggest that he did, only for him to recant the following month after a backlash from the left in his party, saying that he regretted using those words. But now Sir Keir wants us to believe once more that he really is a flag-waving patriot. Literally. Can you imagine a burgher of an affluent part of North London draping the St George Flag from the window of their house? Later this week the Prime Minister will announce an outline to ‘reclaim the flag’ from