Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Tuesday

Jamie McGuire

Why is the National so scandalised by my Spectator internship?

Last week, I had the privilege of interning with the broadcast team at The Spectator ­– a magazine that has been stirring up debate since 1828. True to form, my arrival seemed to do the same. A Scottish newspaper managed to spin my internship into something resembling a scandal because I’m currently a sitting councillor in Renfrewshire. The whole thing would be flattering if it wasn’t so confusing. I suspect the real issue is not the internship. It is my defection – and my decision to challenge the political orthodoxy of the mainstream parties According to the National, ‘a Scottish Reform defector has been called out for taking a new job with the London-based

Eliot Wilson

Why shouldn't Nato become a subscription service?

Today is the first day of Nato’s annual summit. Some have billed it as potentially the most important meeting in the alliance’s recent history, while others have played down any expectations of major announcements. One issue which will undoubtedly concern the 32 Nato heads of state and government is the level of defence spending. Nineteen years after it was first agreed by defence ministers and 11 years after it was reaffirmed in the Wales Summit Declaration, the target of spending 2 per cent of GDP on defence is expected to be met by all member states in 2025. It is clear, however, that 2 per cent is woefully inadequate. Rutte

Jonathan Sacerdoti

Will Iran seize this moment for revolution?

Last night began with dramatic news: the Islamic Republic of Iran had launched a volley of ballistic missiles at the US-run Al Udeid airbase in Qatar, a retaliatory gesture following the devastating American strikes on the Iranian regime’s nuclear facilities. In Washington, President Trump entered the National Security Council, according to some reports accompanied by the nuclear ‘football’. The world held its breath in what was turning into the highest-stakes game of chess. Soon it happened: Trump had indeed pressed the button and unleashed chaos and mayhem across the region. But it was not the one that launches missiles. Instead, it was the presidential CAPS LOCK. Trump took to social

Simon Hunt

Why is Starmer ignoring Britain's tech sector?

The government’s hotly-anticipated industrial strategy has at last arrived. In it are a handful of bold new announcements, and a lot of old recycled ones. There are some big shiny spending commitments – a couple of billion pledged here, a few hundred million spent there. But perhaps the most consequential element, especially for the tech sector, is a note right at the back of the document on page 152. It expresses an ambition for procurement rules to be consistent with the government’s wider industrial strategy to grow the economy – or as the document puts it in fluffy Whitehall-speak, contracts must ‘set at least one social value key performance indicator’.

Jawad Iqbal

Will Khamenei accept that it’s over?

It is a fair bet that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s ‘so-called supreme leader’ in the words of president Trump, didn’t expect it to end like this. Holed up in a bunker somewhere in Tehran, exchanging messages with a small and ever-diminishing group of allies, and impotently raging against the West, namely America and Israel. Khamenei is no longer master of his own destiny What can the 86-year-old Khamenei, plagued by ill-health in recent years, really be thinking? He has ruled Iran with an iron fist for more than three decades, but is now reduced to cowering for his life underground. Just as humiliating must be the realisation that he owes his life to

Alex Klaushofer

Brits don't want digital ID cards

The vexed issue of compulsory ID is, once again, on the cards. ‘BritCard’ is being billed as a ‘progressive digital identity for Britain’ by Labour Together, the think tank that put forward the scheme earlier this month. The digital ID card has been endorsed by dozens of Labour MPs, and No. 10 is said to be interested in the scheme, which is being touted as a way to crack down on illegal migration, rogue landlords and exploitative work. But concerns about privacy appear to have gone out the window. Tony Blair has been at the digital ID game a long time Perhaps it is no surprise that Keir Starmer’s government appears to

Monday

Madeline Grant

David Lammy has nothing to say

The day started badly for David Lammy. Well – we don’t know that for sure – it’s feasible that first thing this morning he won a great victory over his toothpaste tube, however his appearance on the Today programme wasn’t exactly a triumph. Asked by Justin Webb whether the US action was legal he told him that ‘we weren’t involved’. That’s the spirit: answer the question you want, not the question you were asked.  The Sage of Tottenham continued to manifest his dream interview rather than the one that was actually going on. We had a rather fun segue into the periodic table and percentages of uranium enrichment. ‘Oh Justin’,

Freddy Gray

Why did Trump strike Iran?

Over the weekend, the US conducted strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Iran is weighing a response, and Trump has raised the possibility of a change in leadership in Iran. To discuss what comes next and why this move seems to counter everything we know about ‘America First’, Freddy Gray is joined by editor of the National Interest Jacob Heilbrunn.

Dan Neidle

Reform’s ‘Britannia cards’ will cost £34 billion

Speaking today at Church House in Westminster, Nigel Farage announced that Reform will introduce a ‘Britannia card’ that will let wealthy foreigners pay a £250,000 fee to move to the UK, and live here exempt from all tax on their foreign assets. The move is an attempt to win over ‘non-doms’ alienated by Labour and Conservative governments and bring their wealth back into the country. Farage may think his policy will attract ‘talented people’ from around the world, in reality it is more likely to deter them. Farage forgot about the Laffer curve The party says the policy will raise between £1.5 and £2.5 billion annually. Our analysis of the

Charlie Gammell

Why the US will probably strike Iran again

It was bound to happen. Leaving aside, for the moment, the burning question of whether the US strikes on Iran will have set back Tehran’s nuclear programme by weeks, months or years, this moment feels in many ways like an apotheosis of sorts. The Omega (or perhaps Alpha depending on your sense of ontology) of US attempts at talking to the Islamic Republic, a culmination of decades of frustration at the Ayatollah’s unique ability to talk peace and negotiation while murdering and destabilising. The Islamic Republic now has few good options The history of the Islamic Republic, from its brazen assassinations to the long-drawn out nuclear saga, is one in which the public face of the regime – suave diplomats and

James Heale

Badenoch: Tories are ‘the adults in the room’

It is a year of two major anniversaries for the Tories. The first is the centenary of Margaret Thatcher’s birth; the second is the half-centenary since she was elected leader. To mark the occasion, the think-tank Policy Exchange is laying on a series of events to commemorate the Iron Lady. Today’s was a sit down interview between Thatcher’s biographer, Charles Moore, and Kemi Badenoch, one of Thatcher’s successors. The conversation between the pair was an engaging one, aimed at highlighting Badenoch’s ability to grasp the major issues of our time. Some of her remarks were punchy: like her suggestion that the UK ‘is being cut out of intelligence’ on the

Brendan O’Neill

How dare Sally Rooney 'admire' Palestine Action

I’m old enough to remember when it was neo-Nazis who smashed up Jewish-owned businesses. Now it’s so-called progressives. Not long ago, a Jewish business in Stamford Hill in London had its windows smashed and its doors kicked in and red paint sprayed all over its walls. Only it wasn’t Combat 18 or the oafish dregs of the National Front that carried out this mini-Kristallnacht – it was Palestine Action. Israelophobia is the safest, most celebrated political position in Britain Yes, the lobby group that is gushed over by Sally Rooney in today’s Guardian, and which is cheered by every bourgeois leftist with an X account, wielded its hammers against a

Andrew Tettenborn

Keir Starmer needs a new attorney general

A major plank in the Labour Party’s electoral platform last year was its policy of scrupulous obedience to international law. Attorney-General Lord Hermer has repeatedly pushed this view, swearing undying loyalty to everything from pyjama injunctions coming out of Strasbourg to arrest warrants from the Hague. Unfortunately this exercise in legal piety is now coming back to bite the government big-time. It is making it very difficult for Britain to play what cards it has in the new international game of thrones. Most recently think of Midnight Hammer, the US bunker-buster strike on Iran. Britain, normally a keen supporter of the US, was unceremoniously sidelined. We could have offered help

Steerpike

Kim Leadbeater’s office blunders again

Oh dear. It seems that the office of the Hon. Member for Spen Valley has put their foot in it again. Kim Leadbeater might have hoped for a quieter life now that her much-criticised Assisted Dying Private Members’ Bill narrowly scraped through the Commons by 23 votes on Friday. But Leadbeater has started the new week off in the worst possible way in her capacity as the Parliamentary Private Secretary to Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy. Leadbeater’s office gaily sent around an email to her Labour comrades this afternoon, giving them their lines to take at this week’s oral questions on Thursday. ‘Dear colleagues’, it began, ‘we’re writing ahead… to share

Isabel Hardman

The NHS isn’t being honest about the maternity crisis

Wes Streeting has announced yet another inquiry into NHS maternity safety: this time a national investigation which the Health Secretary wants to address ‘systemic problems dating back over 15 years.’ This rapid review, modelled on the Darzi review of the NHS, will report in December 2025 and will work across the entire maternity system, using the findings of previous reviews and urgently examining the ten worst-performing maternity services in the country. The resistance within the NHS to being honest about what’s really driving this maternity crisis would make it difficult for any review, inquiry or other format to promise real change In a speech to the Royal College of Obstetricians

Steerpike

Home Secretary will proscribe Palestine Action

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has announced in the Commons this afternoon that the UK government will proscribe Palestine Action. The move comes after members of the activist group broke into RAF Brize Norton and graffitied two military planes. In a statement, Cooper said: ‘A draft proscription order will be laid in Parliament on Monday 30 June. If passed, it will make it illegal to be a member of, or invite support for, Palestine Action.’ And the Metropolitan police have taken no chances with them in London. The force has banned protests planned for today from taking place outside parliament, imposing an exclusion zone around Westminster. Meanwhile police have said that

James Heale

Farage makes his pitch to non-doms

Reform UK are on the rise – quite literally. The party is planning to move one floor up in their headquarters at Millbank Tower, giving its 40-odd staff a commanding view of Westminster from their office. That change in circumstance was reflected in Nigel Farage’s speech this morning, when he strolled in to Westminster’s Church House to set out his party’s pitch to non-doms. The Clacton MP told journalists that ‘tens of thousands’ of people would be tempted to the UK by the offer of the card The party’s headline announcement today was the launch of a new ‘Britannia card’. This would be a one-off £250,000 fee which would allow

Steerpike

Watch: JK Rowling's favourite BBC presenter

To the Beeb, which is once again making the news rather than breaking it. BBC presenter Martine Croxall caught the attention of viewers on Sunday as she read out a news report about a heart health study from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Reading the autocue, the presenter hesitated as she got to a sentence about protecting vulnerable people from extreme weather. It transpires that her script had described those at risk as those with pre-existing health conditions, the elderly and, er, ‘pregnant people’. Rolling her eyes, Croxall corrected the description on air – ‘women’ – before continuing on. Good to see some accuracy on BBC News,

Jonathan Sacerdoti

Israel is right to strike Evin prison

Israel announced today that it has launched an unprecedented strike against regime targets in central Tehran, including the notorious Evin prison. Evin is infamous for holding foreign hostages and dual nationals, many of whom are detained by the regime as part of what human rights groups call ‘hostage diplomacy’. It has long been associated with arbitrary detention, torture, forced confessions and inhumane conditions, especially for political prisoners and those accused of spying or threatening national security. The facility is run by the Islamic Republic’s Ministry of Intelligence and the Revolutionary Guards, serving as the central site for imprisoning those accused of anti-regime activity. Foreign and dual nationals are often arrested

Danny Kruger

Abortion, assisted dying and Britain's dangerous new politics

‘Now, splendidly, everything had become clear. The enemy at last was plain in view, huge and hateful, all disguise cast off. It was the Modern Age in arms.’ After last week, I feel like Evelyn Waugh at the time of the Nazi-Soviet Pact in 1939. The politics of ‘progress’ has found its fulfilment in the union of two total malignancies: the campaigns to abort babies at full term and to kill old people before their time. Here is our enemy, all disguise cast off. It’s the revenge of the middle-aged against their dependents I’ve been accused of disguising something myself: my Christian faith. And it’s true that while I’ve never hidden