Politics Archives

Monday

9 March 2026

Will Gerry Adams let truth prevail?

Picture Gerry Adams in a dimly lit courtroom, one hand raised in statesmanlike denial, the other twitching like Dr. Strangelove’s infamous Nazi salute, struggling to contain the contradictions of his many roles. Peacemaker? Politician? Bearded bard? Or something darker, as my late father always insisted: the architect of republican violence, a figurehead for the IRA and Sinn Féin, like ‘two cheeks of the same arse’, to borrow George Galloway’s colourful phrase? Adams has always denied involvement with the IRA. Starting today, Adams will face a civil trial in London’s High Court accusing him of IRA membership and involvement in bombings that scarred innocents between the 1970s and 1990s. This could be Adams’s last

Patrick West

Who cares if Britain’s Eurovision entry has German lyrics?

What with the prospect of further resets with the European Union, and with British culture seemingly in a constant battle with those who would degrade and debase it, it’s easy to understand why some people are oversensitive to perceived threats to this country’s independence and integrity. Alas, sometimes this touchiness descends into out-and-out paranoia. Eurovision has long since descended into a tacky, hyper-camp circus act The flustered reaction to the news that this year’s UK Eurovision entry is partly sung in German is a case in point. Following the disclosure that the song, Eins, Zwei, Drei, by Look Mum No Computer, not only has a chorus in a foreign language, but has

Sunday

8 March 2026

James Kirkup

The graduate benefit is not what it was

Politicians are keen to fix what is seen as a mounting political problem with student loans. An increasing number of graduates are pointing out that the Plan 2 loan scheme in particular imposes some painful and unreasonable marginal burdens on their earnings. After all, paying another nine percentage points of student loan charges on top of your marginal tax rate is a miserable experience. So too is the absurd interest rate charged on those loans, which is based on the RPI measure of inflation that, in almost every other regard, the government has conceded is unrealistic and unviable. So we have a large number of graduates unhappy about their financial

Joe Bedell-Brill

Chris Philp: ‘The government showed no foresight whatsoever’

In the last few days, Keir Starmer has agreed to let the US military use UK bases to conduct specific defensive actions against Iran, and the aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales has been prepped to set sail from Portsmouth. Nevertheless, President Trump was scathing about Starmer, declaring, ‘This is not Winston Churchill we’re dealing with’, and yesterday telling the prime minister, ‘We don’t need people that join Wars after we’ve already won’. This morning on Sky News, Trevor Phillips asked Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp about former Defence Secretary Ben Wallace’s criticism of the government’s readiness to respond to the conflict in the Middle East. Phillips pointed out that

Geoffrey Cain

Geoffrey Cain, Justin Marozzi, Alex Diggins & Sam France

30 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Geoffrey Cain explains why Trump’s real target with Iran is China; Justin Marozzi argues ancient history might be on the side of Ayatollah Khamenei’s supporters; Alex Diggins warns about the catastrophic consequences that may befall the Palace of Westminster; and finally, Sam France celebrates the 50p coin. Produced and presented by Patrick Gibbons.

Geoffrey Cain, Justin Marozzi, Alex Diggins & Sam France

Charles Hecker

Russian oil is back

Donald Trump on Thursday allowed India to import more Russian oil. India recently did a deal with the US that reduced tariffs in exchange for it buying less crude from Moscow. That deal now seems to be on pause. The move might be seen as a version of the Trump tariff acronym ‘Taco’ (Trump Always Chickens Out), but really it is an acknowledgement of several uncomfortable truths. Scott Bessent, the US treasury secretary, has said that he’s considering lifting sanctions on other Russian oil. Trump knows that increased demand for Russian oil will create a windfall for Russia’s deeply stressed war budget and complicate already difficult peace talks. The Indian

Jonathan Sacerdoti

Trump says no thanks to Britain’s aircraft carriers

The war with Iran entered its second week on Saturday with intense fighting across multiple fronts, as Israeli forces struck deep inside Iran while Tehran retaliated with missiles and drones across the region. Political rhetoric in Washington and Jerusalem meanwhile suggested the conflict could widen further still. The day began with reports of renewed Israeli air operations across Iran. The Israeli military said more than 80 aircraft had taken part in a wave of strikes targeting infrastructure linked to Iran’s missile and military programmes. Israeli officials said the attacks hit a series of facilities including missile storage sites, weapons factories and command compounds used by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps

Edward Howell

Never has North Korea felt more smug about its nuclear weapons

If there’s one thing that the ongoing Iran-US conflict is teaching North Korea, it is that nuclear weapons are an invaluable asset in the hermit kingdom’s toolbox. Nearly twenty years ago, Pyongyang conducted its first and far-from-successful nuclear test. Its capabilities have increased substantially since that moment and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003, that of Libya’s Gaddafi in 2011, and now, Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has shown Pyongyang that acquiring what the Kim regime has long-called its ‘treasured sword’ has been its most successful foreign policy decision to date. It is no surprise that only yesterday, Kim Jong-un oversaw cruise missile tests from a naval destroyer and pledged to

Robert Templer

Why Reza Pahlavi cannot lead Iran

There are many reasons why Reza Pahlavi should not be a future leader of Iran. He left as a teenager in 1978 to fly jets in Texas, and has not been back since. He lived a very sheltered life back then and he knows little of how Iranians live now. There is no suggestion he knows how to unite them. Since the revolution, he has spent too much time in the cushioned and sycophantic world of royalist exiles. That is no preparation for what may come in Iran: demands for retribution for nearly five decades of daily abuse and violence; a collapsing economy veined through with corruption; a potential split

Ben Timberlake

Don’t sacrifice the Kurds

The Kurdish region along the Iran-Iraq border is an imposing landscape of sublime beauty this time of year. The snow-capped Zagros Mountains tower above high valleys lush with cherry and almond blossom, budding walnut and pistachio trees. Spring lambs graze alpine meadows speckled with iris and fritillaries, thyme and sage. Rivers – gorged with the first snow-melt – carve deep canyons through which run spurs of the Silk Road. The area is studded with ancient Assyrian and Achaemenid sites. It is also a Jurassic Park of lost causes. Every valley seems to hold another Iranian-Kurdish separatist group; a couple of valleys hold several factions of the same group. Everyone speaks

Can Kasapoglu

Reflections on the first week of Operation Epic Fury

Operations Epic Fury and Roaring Lion, the joint US-Israeli campaign against the Islamic Republic of Iran, have begun to reduce Iran’s long-range strike tempo. Tehran’s missile and drone salvos have declined by roughly 70 to 85 per cent since the first day of strikes, largely thanks to an aggressive hunt for Iranian missile launchers and drone launch positions. Because the US controls the skies over Iran and has unprecedented information superiority, it can now strike Iranian Shahed loitering munitions on the ground. Yet no credible reports have thus far emerged of major defections within Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) or among the Islamic Republic of Iran Army, commonly known

Sebastian Milbank

Brutalism is beautiful

Is a concrete Brutalist complex as worthy of commemoration and preservation as a medieval cathedral or neoclassical stately home? The decision to grant London’s Southbank Centre Grade II listed status last month is an issue on which tweedy conservationists and iconoclastic modernists trade places for the day. Tories reach for the dynamite. Lefties plead that tradition must be protected. But who is right? And why is Brutalism so divisive? The best Brutalist architects were careful craftsmen Even those who hate Brutalist buildings must concede that it’s a form of architecture that is arresting and hard to ignore. The Southbank site has long been a cultural flashpoint. Its origins go back to

Saturday

7 March 2026

Kitty Thompson

Badenoch can show Polanski what a real green party looks like

Freed from the burden of choosing a prospective government, by-elections are an opportunity for voters to tell the political class how they really feel. It is therefore no great surprise that the people of Gorton and Denton, until now a solid Labour heartland, have called on the uber-left Greens to give the status quo a kicking, with Reform coming in second. For the Conservatives, the more interesting story is not the Greens’ success in outer Manchester, but what the Green surge at the national level says about the voters who have been drifting into Zack Polanski’s orbit. The Greens have previously benefited from the agreeable vagueness of their brand. Green

Patrick Gibbons

The Akrotiri attack has weakened Britain’s position in Cyprus

When RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus was targeted in an attempted drone attack on Monday, it didn’t just leave the British government open to accusations that it was slow to respond to events in the Middle East. It also led to criticism from those who would like to see the British overseas territory returned to the Republic of Cyprus. The drone attack caused minor damage and no one was injured, but in the initial aftermath it was unclear whether it had been shot down by British forces on Cyprus, by Cypriot air defences or by an American warship in the area. The attack has led the UK government to send the warship

Stephen Daisley

We shouldn’t celebrate Ian Huntley’s death

Ian Huntley’s graveside will be a lonely one. Few will mourn a man who lurked in the darkest shadows of every parent’s imagination, occupying the same space that Ian Brady did for an earlier generation. You could raise your children in loving, stable homes; in quiet, leafy villages; teach them about stranger danger, give them mobile phones, tell them to walk in pairs – and none of it was enough, because the Devil always finds a way. There will be little sympathy for this particular devil and some will take satisfaction in his death and the suffering that preceded it There will be little sympathy for this particular devil and

Matthew Gould

Why the Ayatollahs might be harder to remove than Trump thinks

According to the old Farsi proverb, if you want a peacock, you must suffer the hardships of travelling to India. In other words, be careful what you wish for. This is good Persian wisdom that Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu should remember before they declare job done and crown themselves the liberators of Iran. Most Western military action since World War Two has involved hubris followed by nemesis This might end up a fabulously judged operation, a clinical set of strikes that decapitated the regime, allowed the Iranian people to rise up, and ushered in a new era of peace and democracy. This would be a fabulous result, and if it

Mark Nayler

Spanish border guards won’t make Gibraltar less British

Almost a decade after Brexit, Gibraltar is entering a new era. As stipulated in a thousand-page treaty published on 26 February, which sets out the terms agreed by the UK and EU, Spanish guards will check the passports of travellers entering the Rock, as the British Overseas Territory (BOT) is known, and the 0.7-mile chain-link fence separating it from Spain will be dismantled. Though the treaty requires ratification by the European and British parliaments, it is expected to be provisionally in place from early next month. It is the long-awaited result of an agreement made last year between Spain, Gibraltar, the UK and the EU. According to Fabian Picardo, the

Tom Bennett

MrBeast needs an education in schooling

You may never have heard of Jimmy Donaldson, but if you have unsupervised children they almost certainly have. He’s a billionaire YouTuber who specialises in inane viral challenge videos with eye-popping prizes. He has 468 million subscribers. Easily-pleased children love him like they love cans of Monster. His alias is MrBeast which, if Dan Brown were writing an eschatological thriller, would seem a little too on the nose. But Donaldson has drawn fire from a constituency normally unbothered by his risible online capering: teachers. Easily-pleased children love MrBeast like they love cans of Monster Ironically it happened because of a recent viral interview clip where he railed against modern schooling

Ben Judah

Why we left the Foreign Office | Ben Judah & Ameer Kotecha

35 min listen

Does Britain still have a coherent foreign policy? James Heale and Tim Shipman are joined by Ben Judah, former special adviser to David Lammy, and Ameer Kotecha, who recently resigned from the Foreign Office. Together they discuss why Britain’s diplomatic establishment is under growing criticism – from accusations that the department has become bloated and distracted by DEI, to Chagos and deeper concerns that Whitehall no longer has the expertise or strategic clarity needed in an increasingly unstable world. With wars raging from Ukraine to the Middle East and tensions rising with China, they ask whether Britain has adapted to a more chaotic global order – or whether the country

Freddy Gray

Iran: is Trump's ultimate target in this war China?

30 min listen

As the crisis in the Middle East has escalated, Donald Trump’s posturing has led many to question his strategy – and if he even has one. Geoffrey Cain, former foreign correspondent, expert on authoritarian regimes – and the author of this week’s cover piece in the Spectator, joins Freddy Gray to explain why Trump’s ultimate target in the war is China. From the Belt and Road development initiative to more tacit bilateral support, President Xi has been playing a game of chess, to try to check America’s power. With Nicolas Maduro arrested and Ayatollah Khamenei assassinated, President Trump is showing his willingness to project American power, at whatever cost –