Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Sunday

Ross Clark

The unintended consequence of Angela Rayner’s nature tax

Political office does odd things to parties which were in opposition. Angela Rayner and Steve Reed have written in the Sunday Times this morning complaining that environmental rules are threatening the government’s house-building targets. We’re in a situation, they say, ‘where bats and newts are getting in the way of people who desperately need housing.’ They are not wrong. One of the reasons why there are 1.2 million would-be homes which have been granted planning permission over the past decade but which have yet to be built is that pettifogging green rules are standing in their way. Three of those ghost homes are in my village. Nutrient neutrality rules and an overloaded

Ian Williams

China is getting ready to take on Trump

By one estimate, Chinese military exercises close to Taiwan this week were the largest since 1996, when Beijing attempted unsuccessfully to disrupt the island’s first fully democratic presidential election. Up to 100 warships were estimated to have taken part in what Taiwanese officials described as a ‘significant security challenge’, while Russian warships were also spotted close to Japan and South Korea. The danger for the CCP is that it stands to lose more than the US from any intensified trade war The drills were far more ambitious than those held earlier this year, which were focused on blockading Taiwan. They covered a vast swathe of sea north of the island

Robin Ashenden

Only another Bill Clinton can save the Democrats now

In the weeks since Donald Trump won the US election, Democrat supporters, amidst much gnashing of teeth, have offered up a range of post-mortems. While The View host Sunny Hostin and MSNBC presenter Joy Reid have blamed Kamala’ Harris’s defeat, predictably enough, on American ‘racism’ and ‘misogyny’, others have been more constructive. Last week, onetime Obama strategist Steve Schale said in an op-ed that the party – ‘a shell of itself’ – had turned off groups like Hispanics with ‘socialism talk’ and special-interest issues irrelevant to their lives. Democrat veteran Bernie Sanders echoed him, calling out his party for becoming one of ‘identity politics’ rather than trying to appeal to

Danny Shaw

Bobbies on the beat won’t stop the cyber crime wave

One morning last week, in the early hours, I received a puzzling text from my bank. ‘Did you use your debit card at 01.23 at Tenorshare.com?’ it said. I’d never heard of Tenorshare before – it’s a smartphone support service apparently – and had certainly never knowingly made any payments to them. But someone had attempted to, by using my bank card details. When I contacted my bank, I was asked about another payment, to Wetherspoons, at ten to midnight on a Saturday night. Once again: not me, I was asleep in bed.  The crimes that take place away from the streets deserve attention too ‘We’re blocking your card and sending you

David Christopher Kaufman

Will Vogue apologise for calling Asma al-Assad ‘A Rose in the Desert’?

Back in 2020, Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour issued a rare public mea culpa in which she apologised for the magazine not finding ‘enough ways to elevate and give space to Black editors, writers, photographers, designers and other creators’. The magazine, Wintour added, had ‘made mistakes…publishing images or stories that have been hurtful or intolerant. I take full responsibility for those mistakes’. More than four years on, the question must now be asked – will Wintour expressly apologise for the mistakes she made against the people of Syria, as well? In 2011, Vogue breathlessly celebrated the country’s former First Lady Asma al-Assad in a glossy profile. After all, while Black staffers were distinctly disadvantaged

Saturday

Edward Howell

Yoon’s impeachment won’t end South Korea’s political chaos

For those who loathed him, it was second time lucky – but only just. With South Korea’s national assembly passing the motion to impeach President Yoon Suk Yeol today (with 204 votes in favour and 85 against), the stage is set for the country’s constitutional court to determine the president’s fate: whether to oust him from office or restore his powers. The streets of Seoul are filled with scenes of jubilation accompanied by fireworks and K-pop songs. But these same streets are also occupied by pro-Yoon protesters, outraged at his impeachment. The road ahead is long. And whilst in the wake of the result, Yoon announced that he would be

Ross Clark

Who does Starmer think is going to build Britain’s houses?

Why does the government keep setting itself up for failure? It did it with the target for decarbonising electricity by 2030 – which virtually no one outside Ed Miliband’s department and its attached agency, the National Energy Systems Operator (NESO), thinks is possible and which has already been watered down to a 95 per cent reduction in emissions. And it has done it again with its target of building 1.5 million homes across the lifetime of this Parliament. Angela Rayner seems to think it is just a case of trampling over Nimbys and the houses will magically appear. But today the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) has scotched that notion,

James Heale

Would Brexit voters really accept the return of freedom of movement?

19 min listen

New research this week suggested that a majority of Brexit voters would accept the return of freedom of movement in exchange for access to the EU single market. The poll, conducted by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), found that 54% of Brexit voters – and 68% of all respondents – would accept this. Facing their own changing domestic concerns, how close can the UK and EU governments really get? Could Defence hold the key for collaboration? And how much is this driven by a more volatile geopolitical landscape ahead of Trump’s return as US president? James Heale speaks to Anand Menon, director of the think-tank UK in a

Katy Balls

Christmas I: Katy Balls, Craig Brown, Kate Weinberg, Craig Raine, Lisa Haseldine and Melissa Kite

37 min listen

On this week’s Christmas Out Loud – part one: Katy Balls runs through the Westminster wishlists for 2025 (1:26); Craig Brown reads his satirist’s notebook (7:06); Kate Weinberg explains the healing power of a father’s bedtime reading (13:47); Craig Raine reviews a new four volume edition of the prose of T.S. Eliot (19:10); Lisa Haseldine provides her notes on hymnals (28:15); and Melissa Kite explains why she shouldn’t be allowed to go to church (31:19).  Produced and presented by Patrick Gibbons.

Jawad Iqbal

We’ll learn nothing from the murder of Sara Sharif

What exactly do the authorities hope to learn that they do not already know from the safeguarding review now underway into the violent death of 10-year old Sara Sharif? The omens are not good. Her father, Urfan Sharif, and her step-mother, Beinash Batool, subjected Sara to years of abuse Sharif, whose father and stepmother were found guilty of her murder and have been jailed for life, is not the first child living in Britain to lose her life at the hands of those who should have been looking after her. But previous investigations into tragic child deaths – launched to a chorus of “never again” and “lessons will be learnt” – have

Patrick O’Flynn

Don’t blame Nimbys for Britain’s housing crisis

It would be an exaggeration to say that in politics conventional wisdom is always wrong – but equally it’s not a bad rule of thumb. The prime mid-wittery of the moment concerns housing policy. We’re told that we’ve been building far too few houses. The way to help frustrated young adults escape the repressive confines of their childhood homes is, according to various newspaper columnists, to expand the general housing stock rapidly. Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner’s mission to build 1.5 million new homes, riding roughshod over local objectors – the hated ‘Nimbys’ – is routinely praised as bold and overdue. One Tory former housing secretary told Fraser Nelson: ‘I

James Bessant Davies

The Syrians who can’t go home

In a waiting room in Beirut’s Adlieh district, with harsh fluorescent lighting glaring down on us, the handcuffed prisoners, we took turns to rotate between the floor and the splintered wood of a short bench. On the wall, someone had scrawled a life-sized drawing of an AK-47, its muzzle inscribed with the words ‘Pew! Pew!’ Royal blue fingerprints, remnants of the admission process, smudged the plasterboard. Names and dates were scratched into the walls, a record of how long people had been held – days, weeks or months. This was my introduction to Lebanon’s detention centres. In August, I was bundled into the back of a pickup while working with a charity supporting Syrian

Friday

James Heale

Is Rachel Reeves turning into George Osborne?

18 min listen

Labour is supposed to be going for growth, so Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves will be disappointed with the news today that the economy unexpectedly shrank in October, and for the second month in a row. Rachel Reeves’s mood seems to have visibly changed in the last month or so, is she having her George Osborne moment? And can she turn things around, or have the dynamics of the Labour–UK plc relationship changed irreversibly?  James Heale speaks to Katy Balls and Isabel Hardman. Produced by Patrick Gibbons and Oscar Edmondson.

Freddy Gray

Has Trump already become President?

34 min listen

Freddy Gray is joined by an Americano favourite, Jacob Heilbrunn to reflect on 2024 in American politics. They discuss why Trump appears to be the de facto President, whether a good Democratic candidate could have beaten Trump and what the future cabinet could bring in 2025.

Svitlana Morenets

Why there will be no Christmas truce in Ukraine

On Christmas Eve 1914, British and German soldiers laid down their arms and crossed trenches to exchange gifts, bury the fallen and even play football – a brief, poignant truce amid the horrors of the first world war. This week, Hungary’s Viktor Orban has tried to emulate that spirit of goodwill by proposing a symbolic Christmas ceasefire and a prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine. He called Vladimir Putin, talked to him for an hour, and then teamed up with the Kremlin to pin the blame on Volodymyr Zelensky for rejecting a Christmas truce. So, what really happened? A ceasefire is the last thing Putin wants right now A heated

Michael Evans

Bombing Syria in 2013 would not have toppled Assad

In hindsight, did the US, UK and France fail to seize the chance to topple President Bashar al-Assad in 2013? This is the question that convinced Wes Streeting, the health secretary, to attack his colleague, Ed Miliband, the energy secretary and former Labour leader. Miliband orchestrated the vote that threw out the proposal by David Cameron’s government to join the US and France in airstrikes against Damascus in retaliation for chemical atrocities on the Syrian people. Streeting concluded that if Labour in opposition had supported the vote for airstrikes, Assad’s regime would have fallen, thus bringing relief and liberation for the Syrian population. Speaking on BBC’s Question Time on Thursday,

Gavin Mortimer

How long will Macron’s latest prime minister last?

Emmanuel Macron has appointed the veteran centrist Francois Bayrou as his fourth prime minister of the year. First elected as an MP in 1986, Bayrou served as the Minister for Education in the 1990s under both the Socialist government of president Francois Mitterrand and the centre-right Jacques Chirac. In 2007 he launched a Centrist party, Mouvement démocrate (MoDem), which rallied to Macron’s support in the 2017 presidential election, even though early on in the campaign Bayrou described Macron as the candidate of the ‘forces of wealth’. Bayrou already has the left against him and Le Pen is prowling in the background The 73-year-old Bayrou was announced at lunchtime on Friday after a

Steerpike

The Spectator’s Christmas reception, in pictures

The festive season is well and truly upon us and The Spectator celebrated with a Christmas reception that took place this week. From Labour cabinet ministers to Reform’s Nigel Farage, the great and the good of Westminster descended upon Old Queen Street. After a pretty eventful year in politics, parliamentarians, pundits and professionals were able to let off some steam and enjoy the festivities. Have a look at the photos here…

Steerpike

Graham Linehan: I’m leaving Britain

To the world of comedy, where it transpires that renowned gender critical activist Graham Linehan is looking for pastures new. The Irish comedian – who worked on Father Ted and The IT Crowd – took to X/Twitter this week to announce he is leaving Britain to move to America after claiming ‘freedom of speech is in bad shape at the moment’ in the UK. In a video released on Elon Musk’s social media site, Linehan discussed his attempts to dismantle gender ideology and how he received ‘no support’ from his colleagues in the industry in the process. ‘As a result,’ he admitted, ‘I haven’t worked in five years.’ But it’s

Melanie McDonagh

What Ed Miliband got right on Syria

It’s not every day I spring to the defence of Ed Miliband, Secretary for Environment, Net Zero and all the rest of it. But for him to be taken to task for not backing the bombing of Syria back in 2013, as Wes Streeting cautiously does today, is actually to criticise him for his most statesmanlike act during his entire period as Leader of the Opposition. Miliband was given a rough ride by Nick Robinson on the BBC Today programme about it: would he be able to look the relatives of the unfortunate people murdered in the dictator’s prison in the eye and say that he does not regret not bombing