Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Thursday

Melanie McDonagh

Where the King went wrong on Maundy Thursday

It is an unfortunate truth that the picturesque Maundy Thursday service celebrated today in Durham, in which the King distributes Maundy money to deserving individuals, is a watered down version of the original. It started out in abbeys and churches when clerics would wash each others’ feet in imitation of Christ washing the feet of the Apostles before the Last Supper. Bad King John adopted the tradition in 1210 by washing the feet of poor men and it was maintained by monarchs until about the Glorious Revolution of 1688 – James II was the last to do it properly – until it was finally replaced with the hygienic but not very moving ceremony of distributing money by George II.  If the

The Spectator

Watch: Douglas Murray on Israel’s plight and the plague of western guilt

On Monday evening, The Spectator’s editor Michael Gove and Spectator columnist and associate editor Douglas Murray sat down for a live event at the Methodist Central Hall in Westminster.  In front of a packed auditorium with 1,500 guests, they discussed the October 7th massacre; Douglas’s latest book, On Democracies and Death Cults: Israel, Hamas and the Future of the West; and the best and the worst aspects of the MAGA movement. This is a video exclusively for Spectator subscribers.

Richard Dawkins

Will the Supreme Court gender case victors get the apologies they deserve?

Those who have won a great victory after years of struggle are entitled to enjoy a modest triumph, a single victory lap. But to crow too loudly is unseemly, and it is the mark of a small victor to pursue former opponents vindictively, taking vengeful advantage of new-found power to do so. An ugly object lesson is the small-minded man gleefully dominating American headlines today: a walking, talking, strutting, preening definition of how not to behave in victory. If there’s one thing you can count on a woman to quite clearly not have, it is a penis On 16 April, in London, the Supreme Court handed a stunning victory to

James Heale

UK-US trade deal ‘within three weeks’

It is the eternal question for UK policymakers: America or Europe? For the past nine months, Keir Starmer has sought to follow his 17 post-war predecessors in maintaining an uneasy balancing act between the two. But the Prime Minister’s tricky task has been made even more difficult by Donald Trump’s return to the White House. The President is a lifelong Eurosceptic, declaring in February that ‘the European Union was formed in order to screw the United States’. In his second term Trump is demonstrating even more hostility towards the EU than before. His administration has shown little interest in maintaining close Atlantic ties, citing grievances on trade and defence expenditure.

Kristina Murkett

The teachers’ union should be on the side of private schools

The National Education Union has accused private schools of exploiting staff to save money. ‘Staff working in the private education sector,’ said Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the NEU, ‘report that workload is being increased… in response to the cost-of-living crisis and increased cost of VAT and national insurance.’  It is of course true that private schools are under more financial pressure than ever, and are making cost-cutting decisions that may add to teachers’ workload: one in five private school teachers say they have had colleagues made redundant since VAT on school fees was introduced, while 26 per cent say that their school has frozen recruitment. Yet teachers’ workload is a problem across

Steerpike

Rupert Lowe to sue Reform leadership for defamation

Back to the Reform fallout, which has escalated this afternoon. Now the party’s former MP Rupert Lowe has said he will sue his old party for defamation over what he claims is a ‘concerted smear campaign’ against him. He was suspended in March after party chairman Zia Yusuf and the chief whip Lee Anderson released a joint statement in which said they had referred Rupert Lowe to the police, alleging their ex-colleague had made ‘threats of physical violence’ against Yusuf. The Metropolitan Police has since launched an investigation into the now-independent MP – and Lowe’s gun collection was seized at the start of the month. Crikey! Lowe has been taking

Katy Balls

How Wes Streeting will make or break Starmer

15 min listen

Michael Gove and Katy Balls join James Heale to discuss their interview with the Health Secretary Wes Streeting included in this week’s special Easter edition of The Spectator. Michael identifies three key reasons why Streeting’s fate is key to the success of the government: immigration, the cost-of-living crisis and faith in the NHS. Seen as the ‘golden child’ of Number 10, Streeting has as many supporters in the Labour party as he has detractors – but his Blairite-coded image could help him take the fight to Reform.  Also on the podcast, Michael, Katy and James discuss Nigel Farage’s progress in the local election campaign. Plus, as this is Katy’s last podcast

Steerpike

Brussels chief gushes over Starmer

Sir Keir Starmer may not be polling all that well with the British public but he’s managed to garner some overseas admiration. It transpires that the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen has penned an enthusiastic piece in Time magazine on the UK Prime Minister, lauding his previous work in the courts and heaping praise on his diplomatic talents. How very interesting… Von der Leyen gushes that ‘as a young human rights lawyer, Keir Starmer fought against the death penalty in courts across the world’, going on to rave: Throughout his career, he worked to safeguard the values of justice and democracy – even taking on Vladimir

Steerpike

Labour’s gender debate hypocrisy

The ink had barely dried on the Supreme Court justices’ unanimous judgment on Wednesday – confirming that ‘woman’ in the Equality Act refers to biological sex – before Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour lot were out there touting their long-term advocacy of that very position. Education Secretary Bridge Phillipson even claimed in response to the ruling that: ‘We have always supported the protection of single sex spaces based on biological sex.’ But if Mr S’s memory serves correctly, that isn’t an entirely accurate reflection of history. How times change… After all it was Phillipson herself who, when asked on Times Radio last June which bathroom a transwoman should use, replied: ‘You

Matthew Lynn

Can Starmer sell a US trade deal to UK business?

The White House reportedly expects that a trade deal between the United States and the UK could be signed within the next few weeks. This should be a big deal, at least for the small island if not for the world’s biggest economy. There could be a grand signing ceremony at Buckingham Palace. Or at a state visit to parliament by President Donald Trump. Or, if nothing else, perhaps Paddington Bear could put in an appearance to boost marmalade exports. But there is just one catch. It will have to be sold to the public and business alike – and that will be very hard for the bitterly anti-Trump Starmer

Steerpike

Jenrick embroiled in UK ‘Signalgate’

It’s official: Robert Jenrick is running. Rarely a week now goes by without the Shadow Justice Secretary causing some sort of stir. Whether it is his impressive weight loss or his triumph over the Sentencing Council, the Newark MP is an ever-present in the headlines of the Tory press. But, in their latest initiative, it seems that the tech-savvy team behind Robert Jenrick have now come somewhat unstuck… For this morning, in a bid to plug their man’s forthcoming London Marathon bid, team Jenrick created a WhatsApp group of friends and admirers. Unfortunately, more than 500 names were added including the cream of HM Parliamentary Press Gallery and one of

Ross Clark

Why is Starmer not fighting the EU’s new carbon tariff?

Why do so many people rail against the trade barriers erected by Donald Trump and yet have so little to say about similar barriers erected by the EU? Where is the liberal outrage against the EU’s carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) which from next January will add tariffs to imports of ferrous metals, aluminium, cement and fertiliser, and which in future is intended to be expanded to other goods with significant carbon footprints? While remainer opinion has condemned Keir Starmer and his government for ‘appeasing’ Trump by considering lowering the Digital Services Tax and easing online safety laws in order to please US tech giants, there is a remarkable lack

Gavin Mortimer

Britain and France are too scared to tackle the migrant crisis

France has overtaken Germany as Europe’s top destination for asylum seekers. During the first quarter of 2025, France registered more than 40,000 applications, just above Spain (39,318) and Germany (37,387). This is a 41 per cent drop in German applications for the same period in 2024; Interior Minister Nancy Faeser attributed the fall to a ‘strong package of measures, Germany’s own actions and close European cooperation’. Germany has been Europe’s destination of choice for asylum seekers since 2011. The country was considered the most welcoming, in part because of the impression cultivated by the former chancellor Angela Merkel, who issued an open invitation to migrants and refugees in 2015. Successive

Steerpike

Wes Streeting and Kemi Badenoch’s Game of Thrones’ connection

Labour’s Health Secretary Wes Streeting and Conservative party leader Kemi Badenoch have clashed on many things – from Chagos to the NHS. But it transpires that they do have at least one thing in common: a love for Game of Thrones’ House Targaryen. When The Spectator’s Katy Balls interviewed the Leader of the Opposition at Christmas, the newly elected Tory leader was quick to state her admiration for the series. ‘I’m also a Game of Thrones fan. The White Walkers are out there!’ she warned – referring to the zombie army threatening mankind in the George R.R. Martin books. On her favourite character, Badenoch didn’t hesitate. ‘I strongly associated with

Nicholas Farrell

Can Giorgia Meloni sweet-talk Trump on EU tariffs?

We are about to see how significant a politician Giorgia Meloni really is after she arrived in Washington yesterday evening for bilateral talks today with Donald Trump. Tariffs will be top of the agenda but they are also expected to talk about Ukraine. She then flies immediately back to Rome to meet Vice President J.D. Vance – a Catholic – on Friday, who is in Rome for Easter hoping to meet the Pope as well. Certainly, Meloni is the one leader of a major EU country Trump enjoys seeing Italy’s first female prime minister travels to Washington bearing the cross of the EU on her small but sturdy shoulders. For

Lucy Dunn

How well are Wes Streeting’s health reforms going?

Health Secretary Wes Streeting has made a lot of promises about the NHS. Before he got into power, he talked about slashing bureaucracy, introducing AI and improving patient autonomy. While he claims to have made progress in the last nine months, is it enough?  As Katy Balls and Michael Gove say in their interview with the Health Secretary for this week’s issue, Streeting is keen for more ‘responsive and entrepreneurial’ healthcare. He wants a devolved approach that means healthcare services across the country could better deal with local problems in a personalised way. In many ways, this aligns with the ‘personalised medicine’ approach that most healthcare services look towards, incorporating

Mark Galeotti

Putin’s cronies are enjoying needling the West

Sergei Naryshkin, director of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), is in many ways an uncomfortable and ephemeral spy chief, but an enthusiastic information warrior. In recent talks with the Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko, he accused Nato of threatening Moscow and Minsk by increasing the size and activity of its forces on the border – or rather, certain nations within the alliance: We feel and see that European countries, especially France, Britain and Germany, are increasing the level of escalation around the Ukrainian conflict, so we need to act pre-emptively. We are ready for this. Playing up a supposed ‘threat’ to Belarus is a way of threatening Poland and the Baltic

James Hanson

The case for chlorinated chicken

As a UK-US trade deal moves closer, an age-old fear is rearing its head once more: that Britain will be forced to accept imports of American chlorinated chicken. Ever since Brexit, politicians of all parties have decried the prospect. The Labour manifesto ruled it out and even Rishi Sunak promised farmers in 2023 that there would ‘be no chlorine-washed chicken… on the UK market. Not now, not ever.’ But here’s the thing: isn’t chlorinated chicken a small price to pay for a deal with our biggest trading partner? I have never understood the scaremongering that surrounds chlorinated chicken. First of all, washing poultry in chlorine-based solutions poses no harm to

Dan Hitchens

Easter special: assisted dying, ‘bunny ebola’ & how do you eat your creme egg?

34 min listen

This week: should the assisted dying bill be killed off? Six months after Kim Leadbeater MP launched the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, a group of Labour MPs have pronounced it ‘irredeemably flawed and not fit to become law’. They say the most basic aspects of the bill – having gone through its committee stage – do not hold up to scrutiny. Dan Hitchens agrees, writing in the magazine this week that ‘it’s hard to summarise the committee’s proceedings except with a kind of Homeric catalogue of rejected amendments’ accompanied by a ‘series of disconcerting public statements’.  With a third reading vote approaching, what could it tell us

Douglas Murray

Why were the Abedis here in the first place?

In recent days parliament has been recalled on a Saturday to debate the renationalisation of the British steel industry. Then, after a month-long strike by binmen in Birmingham, army planners have been called in to help address the issue of large amounts of refuse piling up in the city. Absent a major ideological split on the right, it is hard to see how much more reminiscent of the 1970s Britain could become. I don’t however want to join the legions of people who are carping. Rather, I should like to suggest an answer to some of these things. The news at the weekend that Hashem Abedi, the brother of the