Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Saturday

William Atkinson

Why does anyone still take Rory Stewart seriously?

As per J. M. Barrie, one either believes in fairies, or they don’t. I take a similar approach to Rory Stewart. To his legions of Rest is Politics listeners, the ex-Tory MP, bedroom-squatter, and Afghanistan-botherer is a sage – as right-wing a voice as their timid and tiny middle-class minds can handle, successfully neutralised by co-hosting with 45-minute enthusiast Alistair Campbell. But to me he is a charlatan: another over-educated Balliol boy with a far higher opinion of himself than his public record merits. The example of his Dominic Cummings comments is a case in point. He is a charlatan: another over-educated Balliol boy with a far higher opinion of

Mark Galeotti

Will Starmer go after more of Putin’s shadow oil tankers?

It seems to be criminal cosplay season for Donald Trump, as he successively takes on the roles first of kidnapper, then pirate. There is a case, albeit disputed, to be made under the laws of the sea for the legality of the seizure of the tanker Marinera. There is none under international law for the seizure of the admittedly odious Nicolás Maduro. But none of that matters in Trumpworld, where might makes right and American laws and interests override all else. Now, suddenly, commentators have woken up to the presence of more tankers from the ‘shadow fleet’ – which is both an inaccurate label and also an inadvertently cool way

Sahil Mahtani

What is migration really costing Britain?

The worst forecasting error in British government history may be unfolding as we speak. While much attention is given to grand projects, such as HS2, which end up costing tens of billions of pounds more than they were supposed to, these at least have a start and finish date – and something tangible emerges at the end. The same can’t be said for forecasting errors involving even more complex, politically contentious issues – such as what migration might actually be costing Britain. When the full accounting is done, the fiscal impact of migration may well prove to be one of the biggest misestimates of all The notoriously wobbly Covid epidemiological

Samantha Smith

X's AI bot must stop stripping women

I never imagined I would see myself nearly naked on screen. But after posting an innocent photograph of myself on X, that’s exactly what I saw when I opened my computer over the weekend. X’s artificially intelligent chatbot, Grok, had been used to digitally remove my clothing. My face and body were warped into pornographic material for the pleasure of men. My face and body were warped into porn My first reaction was disbelief. The second, anger. The third, a sinking, slightly nauseating realisation that this problem isn’t going away. I was raised in a generation that was frequently lectured on the importance of social media safety. A stark warning was often repeated

Sonia Sodha

Mums for Reform?

14 min listen

Britain’s mums are backing Nigel Farage. One in five Mumsnet users intend to vote for Reform at the next general election, the first time a party other than Labour has topped its poll. Having been more negative towards Farage and the right in the past, why are its politically engaged users changing their minds? Are they swayed by issues like single-sex spaces, or does it reflect a wider collapse of confidence in the establishment? James Heale speaks to Tim Shipman and Sonia Sodha. Produced by Megan McElroy. 

Justin Marozzi

Justin Marozzi, Lisa Haseldine, William Atkinson & Toby Young

32 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Justin Marozzi analyses what Trump’s coup in Venezuela means for Iran; Lisa Haseldine asks why Britain isn’t expanding its military capabilities, as European allies do so; William Atkinson argues that the MET’s attack on freemasonry is unjustified; and, Toby Young explains why the chickenpox vaccine is a positive health measure. Produced and presented by Patrick Gibbons.

Friday

Stephen Daisley

The Emiratis are right to keep their kids out of Britain

If you don’t want your kids joining the jihad, don’t send them to a British university. That is the view of the United Arab Emirates, which has removed the UK from its list of scholarship-eligible student destinations. The programme subsidises Emirati youngsters to attend university overseas, with favoured locations including the United States, Israel and France – and, until recently, Britain. The FT reports that the decision to drop the UK from the scholarship list is ‘linked to anxiety in the UAE over what it sees as the risk of Islamist radicalisation on UK campuses’, and quotes a source saying Emiratis ‘don’t want their kids to be radicalised on campus’.

Tim Shipman

Six things we learnt about Starmer’s government this week

Keir Starmer began the year saying that any ​minute he wasn’t focused on the cost of living would be a minute wasted. Then he spent the first week of the political year engaged in foreign affairs and yet another U-turn. While Downing Street wants to talk about ‘the year of proof’ for its reforms of the public services, it has less ability to control the news agenda than even recent Tory administrations. Here are six things we have learnt this week. This government is increasingly the victim of events, not their master Fair enough, you might think, when Donald Trump is on the scene, a president who is not only capable

Tom Slater

Starmer’s X crackdown is no joke

The internet suddenly went down in Iran last night, as courageous Iranians continued to rise up against the Ayatollah. The UK government was apparently inspired. Not by the rebels, whose plight the Prime Minister has remained remarkably quiet about – but by the mullahs’ digital crackdown. Call me a conspiracy loon, but I dare say Labour’s ire for X isn’t simply about the site’s supposedly insufficient safeguarding policies Labour has issued its most serious threat yet to social-media giant X – whose owner, Elon Musk, has become this rudderless government’s go-to bogeyman. The platform could be banned in Britain, Downing Street sources let it be known, if it failed to comply with demands to

Michael Simmons

Keir Starmer, pub harmer

11 min listen

Another year, another U-turn. We expect that the Labour government will be forced to climb down on forthcoming increases to the business rates bills faced by pubs in England. This comes after ferocious industry backlash, spearheaded by figures such as Tom Kerridge, who has been out in the media this week drawing attention to the more than 100 per cent increase in costs some of his establishments are facing. Some are pointing to the slow unravelling of Rachel Reeves’s Budget but – perhaps more damaging – is the optics of this: surely nothing mobilises deep England more than coming for our pubs. What impact will this have on Labour’s credibility?

Stephen Pollard

Why won’t Britain proscribe the Muslim Brotherhood?

What is it going to take for the British government – any British government, of any party – to proscribe the Muslim Brotherhood?  It was revealed today that the UAE is now limiting the number of students it will enrol at British universities because of the prevalence of Muslim Brotherhood (MB) influence on campuses. The UAE pays for most of the higher education of its citizens, and until now many UAE students have come to Britain. But having spent many years alerting the UK authorities to the ever-growing influence of the MB on campus, and having seen no evidence that anyone in a position to act is taking any serious

Ian Acheson

The terrible cost of the Met Police’s diversity drive

In the shadow of recent scandal, the Metropolitan Police’s tougher vetting regime promised a cultural renaissance. Yet the admission yesterday that thousands of recruits slipped through without proper vetting, breeding predators within, reveals a force still haunted by its own institutional rot. After the conviction of PC Wayne Couzens for the rape and murder of Sarah Everard while a serving officer five years ago, the Casey report into the force described an organisation that was culturally and operationally incapable of stopping very bad people from becoming warranted police officers. Tough new measures were introduced that doubled refusal rates for applicants and nearly 100 officers and staff were dismissed as a

Charlie Gammell

Unrest is spreading across Iran

‘If they shut down the internet, you know it’s serious,’ said a well-informed observer of Iran to me yesterday morning. The internet blackout came yesterday afternoon – along with over a million Iranians marching in streets across the country. Strikes are continuing in bazaars and the cries for the end of the Islamic Republic are becoming more brazen. A video was sent to me before the blackout from Iran’s upscale northern suburbs, home to the sons and daughters of the regime elites, in which the cries of ‘death to the dictator’ could be heard loud and clear. ‘We are excited,’ was the caption to the video. And this morning there

James Tidmarsh

France’s bistros are dying

Emmanuel Macron says France’s traditional bistros should be granted Unesco world heritage status. Speaking at the Élysée this week, the French president vowed to help save the country’s traditional cafes. ‘This is a fight that we want to take on, because our cafés and bistros aren’t just selling croissants, baguettes and traditional products – they’re also on the front lines of preserving French craftsmanship and know-how,’ Macron told a group of French bakers at the annual Epiphany cake ceremony. France doesn’t need to list its bistros. It needs to decide whether it still wants them Macron is right about what the bistro represents. For generations, it has been a shared meeting

Freddy Gray

Stormy seas, Trump’s revolution & Gen Z’s sex recession

43 min listen

Can Farage plot a route to Number 10, asks Tim Shipman in our cover article this week. He might be flanked by heavyweights – such as his head of policy Zia Yusuf and Conservative Party defector Danny Kruger MP – but he will need a lot more people to pull off his biggest upset for British politics yet. Where will they come from? And what’s the balance he needs to strike between being radical enough to win power but also without alienating significant chunks of the electorate? Plus, as former UK ambassador to the US Peter Mandelson breaks his silence – in this week’s Spectator – to argue that Europe

Nicholas Hopton

Why the Iran protests feel different this time

The most recent spate of protests in Iran have escalated since 28 December and raised hopes once again that the end of the Islamic Republic may be imminent. As the security forces ignore the government’s offer of dialogue and the death toll rises, how realistic is that? Iranians – much like the French – are healthily predisposed to taking to the streets to voice grievances Protests in Iran are nothing new. In fact, Iranians – much like the French – are healthily predisposed to taking to the streets to voice grievances. In France, marches tend to focus on the Champs-Élysées and Place de la Concorde; in Tehran, protestors habitually march along

Mani Basharzad

The end is drawing near for Iran’s mullahs

As a wave of protests swept across Iran last night, the internet was completely shut down. I have no idea what is happening to my friends, my family, or anyone else. My best friend Champ was at the demonstration. I desperately hope he is safe. Iran is a nation wanting its soul back. Protesters burn the Islamic Republic flag and replace it with Iran’s real flag Overnight, there were protests throughout Iran. From Qom and Mashhad, the most religious cities, to Rasht and Anzali, the most secular, people took to the streets. In Tehran, there were protests in the poorest parts to the richest parts of the city. I couldn’t believe

Alexander Larman

Channel 5’s Huw Edwards drama should never have been made

You’d be forgiven for thinking that the disgraced Huw Edwards would never again appear on our TV screens. But Channel 5 has announced that the ex-BBC newsreader and convicted paedophile will be the subject of a drama, Power: The Downfall of Huw Edwards. This shameless show should never be broadcast. The ex-BBC newsreader and convicted paedophile will be the subject of a drama, Power: The Downfall of Huw Edwards Edwards will be played by Martin Clunes in the production that has been a year in the making and is expected to be released later this year. Going from Men Behaving Badly to another behaving very badly indeed seems something of

Ross Clark

Is Cambridge’s state school diversity obsession over?

Shock horror. A Cambridge college has realised that to recruit the brightest students sometimes you have to encourage students from private schools as well as state comprehensives in poor neighbourhoods. You can almost feel the foundations of higher education quivering at Trinity Hall’s decision to write to private schools to encourage pupils to apply for certain subjects, such as languages and classics where there is presumably a dearth of applications. Trinity Hall’s ‘targeted recruitment strategy’ has sparked fury Predictably, Trinity Hall’s ‘targeted recruitment strategy’ has sparked fury. One college staff member said it was a ‘slap in the face’ for state-educated undergraduates. Lee Elliot Major, not the bionic man from the

Michael Gove

Q&A: A Labour rebellion is coming – can Starmer survive?

30 min listen

This week: Michael and Maddie look ahead to a turbulent political year, asking who will rise, who will fall – and whether Keir Starmer can survive the mounting unrest within his own parliamentary party. With Labour backbenchers showing an increasing willingness to defy the leadership, is a full-blown rebellion inevitable? They also discuss the government’s controversial decision to welcome Alaa Abdel-Fattah back to Britain, and ask what the episode reveals about two-tier politics, herd mentality in Westminster, and a Prime Minister more comfortable in the role of human rights lawyer than national leader. And finally: should Britain bring back national service? Michael makes the case for a far tougher, more