Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Saturday

Ross Clark

The European Space Agency has just chosen Leicester to host its startup hub. Why has no one reported that?

Imagine if a European agency had just announced that it was to close a site in the Midlands, withdrawing from Britain and taking jobs of scientists with it. It isn’t hard to work out where that would feature on BBC news – up top. It would be presented as another cost of Brexit, another result of the foolish decision the country made in 2016 to leave the EU. Interviewees would be dredged up to tell us we had condemned ourselves us to become a deskilled economy. News outlets seem so obsessed with woke and culture war issues that we don’t get to learn about important pieces of investment Now imagine that a European agency had actually just announced that it is to open a new base in the Midlands.

Katy Balls

Has Keir Starmer upset Labour’s fragile unity?

13 min listen

Throughout the leadership contest, Keir Starmer was careful not to upset the delicate balance between the hard left and the moderates in the party. But with the sacking of Rebecca Long Bailey, he has risked the wrath of the Corbynites and unambiguously moved the party on from the era of Corbyn. Has he triggered a new Labour civil war? Katy Balls talks to James Forsyth and the New Statesman's Stephen Bush.

Bruce Anderson

Has Boris’s luck finally run out?

In the grand scheme of things, it is easy to overestimate the importance of Parliamentary performances. But they do influence the troops' morale. Over the past week or so, there have been widespread sighs of relief in Tory circles. BoJo seems to have regained his mojo. Could this be the beginning of a fight-back?  Six months really is a long time in politics. In December, in the pomp of his electoral glory, who would have thought that by summer, a fair number of his own MPs would have been speculating about his political mortality. At the New Year, Boris appeared to be the master of the battlefield. and the confident possessor of that vital political attribute, luck. Back then, no-one was talking about viruses. Labour was still troubled by Corbyn's leadership.

Friday

Melanie McDonagh

Why is the Conservative party backing ‘no fault divorces’?

One of the umpteen things people don’t elect a Tory government for is to make marriage more easily dissoluble. In the last year for which figures were available, 2017, the number of opposite-sex marriages was the lowest on record – just shy of 243,000 – and I’m not sure that’ll be boosted by making marriage even easier to get out of, which is what Boris Johnson’s government has just done. The Divorce, Dissolution and Separation bill which has just received royal assent means that a spouse can now start divorce proceedings by stating simply that the marriage has broken down – currently, one spouse has to allege that adultery, unreasonable behaviour or desertion has taken place.

Katy Balls

The difference in Starmer and Johnson’s approach to party discipline

Keir Starmer's approach to party discipline is being favourably contrasted with Boris Johnson's after the Labour leader sacked Rebecca Long-Bailey from his shadow cabinet for sharing an article that included an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory. The argument goes that Starmer has shown quick, clear and decisive action by letting Long-Bailey go whereas the Prime Minister has failed to do so by sticking with his Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick.  Starmer's decisive action on Thursday has seen him win praise from unlikely places. However, within his own party it has led to a backlash from those on the left.

John Connolly

The government’s dilemma on reopening

14 min listen

The government wants the country to head back out and boost the economy, but scenes at Bournemouth beach and elsewhere reflect the government's dilemma - how much reopening is enough to keep the economy afloat, but without triggering a second wave of infections? John Connolly speaks to Katy Balls and James Forsyth.

Thursday

Cindy Yu

The thin blue line: why are relations between police and black youths just so bad?

45 min listen

On the podcast this week, a former police officer gives his take on why black youths loathe the police (01:05); we discuss why Downing Street would prefer Joe Biden to win (17:25); and will anything really change after the pandemic? (30:50).With former Surrey Police and Crime Commissioner Kevin Hurley; campaigner Katrina Ffrench; the Spectator's Political Editor James Forsyth; the Spectator's Economics Correspondent Kate Andrews; and our columnists Matthew Parris and Rory Sutherland.Presented by Cindy Yu.

Cindy Yu

Will Long Bailey’s sacking trigger a Corbynite backlash?

11 min listen

After retweeting an interview with Maxine Peake in which the actress voiced an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory, Rebecca Long Bailey has been sacked as the shadow education secretary. On the podcast, Cindy Yu talks to James Forsyth and Katy Balls about whether or not this will trigger a Corbynite backlash.

Dominic Green

Does Israel train America’s police forces?

Show me who you lie about and I’ll tell you what you are. The big lie in this, our season of historical illiteracy and gratuitous destruction, is that the Jews are responsible for police killings of black Americans. How? The racist police of Amerikkka are trained by the Zionists. That’s right. America has no history of violence against blacks and no history of anti-black policing. In the new blood libel, America was one big interracial paradise before the Jews taught Derek Chauvin to put his knee on George Floyd’s neck. ‘Israel security forces are training American cops despite history of rights abuses,’ tweeted Charlotte Greensit in 2017.

Katy Balls

Rebecca Long-Bailey’s sacking risks reopening Labour’s civil war

Keir Starmer has today sacked his former leadership rival Rebecca Long-Bailey from the shadow cabinet. The Labour leader asked Long-Bailey to step down as shadow education secretary after she shared an interview which contained an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory. In the article in question, long-time Jeremy Corbyn supporter Maxine Peake – an actress – suggested the tactics used by police in America on George Floyd were 'learnt from seminars with Israeli secret services'. Announcing the decision, a spokesperson for Starmer said: 'This afternoon Keir Starmer asked Rebecca Long-Bailey to step down from the Shadow Cabinet. The article Rebecca shared earlier today contained an antisemitic conspiracy theory.

James Forsyth

Why Biden might be a better ally for Brexit Britain than Trump

Who should Brexit Britain want to win the US presidential election? Donald Trump has been rhetorically pro-Brexit. He has broken decisively with US foreign policy orthodoxy, which has long assumed that more European integration is inherently a good thing. But his words of support have delivered little in terms of practical assistance for Brexit Britain, I say in the magazine this week, Trump might have decried Barack Obama’s ‘back of the queue’ comment but his own trade representative admitted recently that no US-UK trade deal will be ready before the presidential election in November. Trump has been a difficult ally, alienating other democracies, undercutting America’s moral leadership in the world and generating considerable uncertainty.

Steerpike

Maxine Peake’s bizarre George Floyd claim

Is Israel to blame for the tragic killing of George Floyd by police in Minnesota this year? It’s not a question that has crossed many people’s minds as protests have swept across America in reaction to the unarmed man’s death. For certain sections of the left though, a connection with Israel can always be found. It certainly seems that way for the actress and full-on Corbynista Maxine Peake. Peake gave an interview with the Independent today, in which she claimed that: Systemic racism is a global issue… The tactics used by the police in America, kneeling on George Floyd’s neck, that was learnt from seminars with Israeli secret services.

Nick Tyrone

Labour’s phony lockdown war

Keir Starmer has welcomed the easing of the lockdown, saying he thinks ‘the government is trying to do the right thing and in that we will support them’. The Labour leader wants to scrutinise the details of the policy but recognises that keeping the economy in stasis for much longer will have serious consequences. Meanwhile, in another part of Labour land, Richard Burgon put forward his total opposition to easing. In the Commons, Corbyn’s former shadow justice secretary said the easing of lockdown restrictions was simply a way of ‘appeasing right-wingers on the Tory backbenches’ and that the prime minister was ‘gambling with people’s lives’. Many on the left-wing of the party seem to mostly support Burgon’s position.

Patrick O’Flynn

Keir Starmer is stuffed

The British political and media establishment had Remain winning the Brexit referendum at a canter, Hillary Clinton as US president by a landslide, Change UK actually changing the UK and a ‘Government of National Unity’ emerging in the Commons after Boris Johnson removed the whip from dozens of Tory grandees. All completely wrong. What does conventional wisdom tell us about British politics over the past three months? That Boris Johnson and the Conservatives are in huge trouble, of course. Boris has been seen to bungle the coronavirus pandemic, and so will be blamed for the looming economic meltdown. The Prime Minister’s personal ratings have slumped.

Charles Moore

Michelangelo’s David must fall

‘White Lives Matter Burnley’ said the plane’s banner as it circled the club’s stadium just after the teams had ‘taken the knee’ in support of Black Lives Matter. I must admit that my very first reaction on hearing the news was pleasure at the idea that the self-righteousness of Black Lives Matter was being guyed. My second, more considered response is that the banner was bad — and for precisely the same reason that BLM is bad. It takes a statement which any decent person would consider true and turns it into a weapon of race war. Of course black lives matter. Of course white lives matter. The question is: ‘Why are you saying it now?’ The answer, in both cases, is discreditable. It is to make one lot hate the other lot more.

Kevin Hurley

To save black lives, police top brass must face reality

I was a borough commander in west London and come from a long line of officers — and I can tell you that it’s fast becoming impossible to police the streets. The police are attacked on all sides. They’re told both that they’re too aggressive and too politically correct; too understanding and too intolerant. They’re required to reduce the level of violent crime on the street and yet told they’re racist if they stop and search young black men and ‘put hands in pockets’ to check for knives. As a society we can shout and scream at the police, regulate them, scrutinise them, sack a few, bring in external bosses from industry. We can try to ‘re-educate’ them and have an independent complaints system.

Rod Liddle

The police have become too politicised to function

Of the many admirable demands made by supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement, such as dismantling capitalism and making white people pay for centuries of vile oppression, none commended themselves to me more than the demand that we should defund the police. This is a hugely attractive proposition, I thought, as I watched the chief constable of Kent, Alan Pughsley, ‘take the knee’ in solidarity with people who want him abolished. I felt much the same upon hearing the words of Superintendent Andrew ‘Andy’ Bennett of Avon and Somerset Police, who watched as BLM protestors threw a statue of Edward Colston into the river.

James Forsyth

Why Biden might be better for Brexit Britain

At the best of times, US presidential elections require the British government to walk a tightrope. In 1992, a Tory prime minister got this very wrong. John Major’s excessive support for George Bush Sr’s unsuccessful re-election effort alienated Bill Clinton. The damage to the UK’s relationship with the country’s most important security partner was only fully repaired when Tony Blair became prime minister in 1997.

Steerpike

Want to talk to your MP? Go to a fundraiser, says minister

Business minister Nadhim Zahawi was sent out to bat for his colleague Robert Jenrick on the Today programme this morning and let's just say it didn't quite go to plan. The housing secretary faces a cash-for-favours row over allegations he gave preferential treatment to a Tory donor and his multi-million pound planning bid after the pair chatted at a Conservative fundraiser, an allegation Jenrick strongly denies. Zahawi, however, didn't help the matter. When asked why normal voters 'don't have this kind of access', the minister told listeners: If people go to a fundraiser in their local area, [for example] in Doncaster, for the Conservative party, they’d be sitting next to MPs and other people in their local authority.

Wednesday

Tom Goodenough

Revealed: What ‘Black Lives Matter’ really stands for

Anyone worth listening to agrees that black lives matter. But what does the organisation ‘Black Lives Matter’ stand for? Worryingly, for the 34,000 Brits who have topped up BLM UK’s coffers with over £1million in recent weeks, finding out is no easy task. Despite being inundated with donations, BLM UK does not appear to have its own website and is not a registered charity. What’s more, the group is resisting calls for it to become one. So why won’t it? ‘A charity structure would not allow us the freedom and flexibility to do our political work in the ways we wish to do them,’ according to BLM UK. What then is that political work?