Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Monday

Philip Patrick

The tragic cost of Japan’s floods

Yet another natural disaster has struck in Japan as floods and landslides in the Noto peninsula, precipitated by ‘unprecedented’ rainfall, have killed seven (according to the state broadcaster NHK) with 10 people missing. As usual, these numbers are expected to rise. The Ishikawa area was pounded on Saturday with the heaviest continuous rainfall (540 millimetres in 72 hours in the city of Wajima) since records began. One resident Akemi Yamashita described scenes as ‘heart-breaking’ with the floods, which she saw rising quickly to half the height of her car as she drove through town, like ‘something from a movie’. This latest tragedy is a reminder of how treacherous, climatically and

Katy Balls

Who was the real audience for Rachel Reeves’s speech?

Rachel Reeves had to deal with unexpected turbulence in her party conference speech, after anti-Israel protesters interrupted her. But that was the easy bit, since she just opted to go for the Labour line for stage disruption: ‘We are a changed Labour party that represent working people – not the party of protest’. That response received applause in the hall, where delegates regularly cheered on the first female chancellor. The harder task for Reeves today was finding a way to hold the line on difficult spending decisions, while also striking a more upbeat tone than the miserable-ism that has dominated the past few weeks. Reeves made it clear she would

Steerpike

Starmer’s biographer slams ‘office politics’ of freebie fiasco

It’s day two of Labour conference and Sir Keir Starmer’s freebie fiasco still hasn’t gone away. Over a week since it transpired that clothing donations to Lady Starmer hadn’t initially been declared properly, revelations that the Prime Minister has received over £107,000 in donations since 2019 have caused outrage among the party’s voter base – and its own MPs. Corbynista Diane Abbott slammed the party’s top team for being ‘in the pocket of millionaires’, while Labour parliamentarians have blasted Starmer’s ‘double standards’ over the issue. Talk about trouble in paradise… But not everyone believes the matter deserves media attention. At a Labour conference fringe event today, Sir Keir’s own biographer

Steerpike

Watch: Reeves’ heckled by Gaza activist

It’s Rachel Reeves’ big day at conference today. After 80 days of doom and gloom, the Starmer army have concluded that this might not be doing wonders for business confidence and party morale. So the Chancellor is seeking to strike a more optimistic note in her address to activists, declaring that her budget will have ‘real ambition’ and that there will ‘be no return to austerity.’ But with Reeves barely a third of the way through her speech this lunchtime, it seems not all in the audience were a fan of her style. The Chancellor was loudly interrupted by a pro-Palestine protester who shouted: ‘And we are still selling arms

Gavin Mortimer

Is Michel Barnier’s cabinet really conservative?

Emmanuel Macron’s new government marks, in the words of the BBC, ‘a decisive shift to the right’. That is also the view of Le Monde, the newspaper of the French left, which quotes Socialist party chairman Oliver Faure’s description of it as ‘a reactionary government that gives democracy the finger’. This government is not right wing. To quote Jordan Bardella, the president of the National Rally, ‘this “new” government marks the return of Macronism through a back door.’ Eighteen of the 39 ministers are Macronists including those responsible for education, finance, foreign affairs, Europe and defence. Another presidential loyalist is Agnès Pannier-Runacher, the minister for ecological transition, who hates Marine Le

Steerpike

Starmer sends Glittergate warning

To Liverpool, where Sir Keir Starmer is enjoying his first Labour conference in government, against the backdrop of rather stormy weather and an even worse week of press. On Sunday night, the Prime Minister attended the Scottish Labour reception to welcome new MPs north of the border and ramp up support for his Caledonian lot ahead of the 2026 Holyrood elections, enthusiastically endorsing the Scottish leader as speculation about the fortunes of the party grows. A jubilant PM told the crowd: We’ve got a Labour government with 37 Scottish Labour MPs who want and are willing to stand for election. Places like that in Scotland – they don’t fall from

Kate Andrews

Why has Rachel Reeves suddenly become cheery?

Can Rachel Reeves inject some optimism into the debate around Britain’s economy? That seems to be her ambition today, as she prepares to address Labour conference – and the country – this afternoon, where she will look forward to a ‘decade of national renewal’ and promise ‘no return to austerity.’ The change in language is striking. Having used this summer to prepare people for a ‘painful’ and ‘difficult’ Budget in October that will have to include tax hikes and spending cuts, Reeves is now talking about the fiscal event as ‘a Budget to rebuild Britain’, and pointing to a much more positive future: a economic ‘prize’ of a more stable

Constantin Eckner

Will AfD voters ever return to the mainstream?

For the second time in three weeks, the Alternative for Germany party (AfD) has received a significant percentage of the votes at a state election in eastern Germany. The far-right party won 29.5 per cent of the votes in Brandenburg, the state surrounding Berlin. Given the polls going into Sunday, the AfD might even be disappointed that it did not place first, rather than second behind the Social Democratic Party (SPD). Even though the SPD won by a slight margin, the pressure on the federal government led by Olaf Scholz and the Social Democrats may increase further in the coming weeks. In the lead-up to the elections, tensions within the

Lisa Haseldine

Olaf Scholz has won a hollow victory in Brandenburg’s state elections

In what will surely come as a relief to the German chancellor Olaf Scholz, his SPD party has won this weekend’s state elections in Brandenburg. Securing themselves another term in power, the party squeaked past the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) with 30.7 per cent of the vote. The AfD missed out by just 1.2 percentage points – less than 26,000 votes – with 29.5 per cent of the vote, denying them the chance of a second victory at state level in three weeks. While it will in all probability take officials a day or two to verify the final result, it appears Sunday’s vote has secured the SPD 32

Sam Leith

Why are you proud to be British?

Introducing a tub-thumping op-ed in the Mail yesterday, Robert Jenrick quoted Orwell: ‘England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality.’ Mr Jenrick’s thesis is a familiar one. It is that ‘England’s political and media elite’ (he didn’t get ‘metropolitan establishment’ in the text but it was supplied in the headline) ‘seem to actively disapprove’ of their nationality, and that this will not do. ‘I can’t stomach such lofty arrogance,’ he declared, calling instead for a willingness to ‘confront complex issues of identity’ while at the same time being unreservedly ‘proud to be British.’ In support of his call for complexity he reeled off

Gavin Mortimer

Naivety won’t solve Britain’s migrant crisis

Events of the last week have demonstrated the fierce determination of some migrants to reach their European destination of choice. Last Sunday, hundreds of migrants stormed the frontier dividing Morocco from Ceuta, a Spanish enclave on the African coast. The Moroccan police fired bullets into the air to ward off the intruders. ‘They do this deliberately to scare and keep us from trying again but it won’t stop us,’ said one of those migrants who had failed to reach Spain. ‘We’ll keep coming back as many times as needed’. A few hours earlier and many hundreds of miles north, a group of around sixty migrants encountered three local men hunting ducks in Tardinghen,

Sunday

Steerpike

Labour minister: we could be in power for 25 years

Party conferences are never short of hyperbole. Whether it’s on the conference floor or the late night bar, impromptu speeches and after dinner speeches are often peppered with the kind of comments which come back to haunt a political party as their fortunes change for the worse. And while this year’s Labour jamboree is only a few hours’ old, it seems we may already have our quote of the conference. Congratulations to Darren Jones, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, for issuing this challenge to fellow delegates when he addressed them earlier today: I want our Labour Party to become the natural party of government. A title the Conservative party claimed

Coffee House

Best events at Labour conference 2024

This weekend Labour ministers, MPs and delegates will arrive in Liverpool for their first conference in office since 2009. Following July’s thumping election victory, the official slogan for this week’s gathering is ‘Change Begins’. But after recent rows on winter fuel and No. 10 squabbles, is everyone in the party agreed on what that change looks like? Below is The Spectator’s guide to some of the highlights at Labour conference over the next four days: Saturday 19:00 – 22:00 London Labour reception at ACC, Hall 2H Of the 75 constituencies in Greater London, 59 of them are now represented by a Labour MP. Among their number include ministers like Stephen Timms, Wes

Steerpike

Sue Gray’s Labour conference no-show

As well as being paid more than the Prime Minister, it seems Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff is getting more press attention these days too. It now transpires that Sue Gray will not be attending Labour’s conference this week, following bad briefings over her pay packet. Rather than attend the Liverpool love-in, Gray will stay away from the party faithful and, instead, apparently prepare for a United Nations conference next week. The latest round of malicious leaks aimed at Gray revealed Starmer’s top staffer is on a £170,000 salary – £3,000 more than the Prime Minister himself and higher still than the pay packet of her Tory predecessor. The

Ezekiel T. Reynolds

Why JD Vance ‘created’ the pet-eating immigrants

Last week, Republican vice-presidential candidate JD Vance appeared on CNN’s State of the Union where he was interviewed by Dana Bash. During what could best be described as a testy exchange, Vance said he had ‘created’ the story of Haitian immigrants eating pets. Explaining that statement, he said he ‘created’ the story with memes and tweets, not that he created the substance of the story.  Still, no one listened. In America’s media ecosystem, which has little regard for nuance and context, the proverbial die was already cast. Left-leaning media were quick to point to his statement as proof of the story being completely fabricated. Right-leaning media viewed their reactions as another attempt

Steerpike

Mick Lynch mocks Labour’s outfit freebies

Poor Keir Starmer. One of the first things he did after becoming prime minister was to stuff the unions’ mouths with gold – with his government signing off bumper pay rises for striking train drivers, teachers and junior doctors. Still, as he should probably have known at this Labour conference in Liverpool: money can’t buy you love.  It certainly didn’t stop the RMT’s Mick Lynch from sticking the knife in over the growing controversy over wardrobe-gate this weekend.  On Friday, Starmer, Rachel Reeves and Angela Rayner were all forced to announce that they would no longer accept clothes as gifts, after receiving thousands of pounds worth of freebies from the

Joe Bedell-Brill

Angela Rayner: ‘I don’t believe I broke any rules… in fact I think I was overly transparent’

Angela Rayner: ‘I don’t believe I broke any rules… in fact I think I was overly transparent’ The Labour conference has got off to an awkward start, as senior figures continue to battle controversy around donations, Starmer’s approval rating plummets, and anger persists over the winter fuel allowance. Speaking to Laura Kuenssberg in Liverpool, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner defended her holiday stay in a New York apartment gifted to her by Lord Alli. Rayner argued that ‘MPs have accepted gifts for years… all MPs do it’, and said that the important point was that the government was being ‘open and transparent’ about it. Kuenssberg pointed out that it wasn’t

Steerpike

Richard Burgon fails to draw a crowd at Labour conference

Oh for the days of ‘Oh Jeremy Corbyn’. It only seems like yesterday that the likes of John McDonnell and Richard Burgon were commanding impressive crowds at Labour conference. Even last year, with the Starmerites in the ascendant, Labour left events were standing room only. Now though it seems like the fire has gone out of the revolution… At a Morning Star event entitled, ‘What’s in it for the workers? Pushing a Labour government left’, it was slim pickings this morning, with stalwart of the barricades John McDonnell sending his solidarity from home after catching Covid.  It was therefore left to Richard Burgon to be the red star of the show. But

Steerpike

Starmer approval rating hits record low

Sir Keir Starmer is having a tough time of it, what with his ongoing freebie fiasco, the cronyism row and bad briefings about his chief of staff. Now his fortunes have got even worse — literally. It turns out that the PM’s approval rating is at its lowest level yet, dropping a whopping 45 points since Sir Keir’s lot won the general election. It’s hardly the news Starmer would have hoped for as his Labour conference kicks off today…  New polling by Opinium reveals that the Prime Minister’s approval rating has dropped down to -26 since Sir Keir became the country’s leader. It now makes him — by a point

Patrick O’Flynn

Keir Starmer’s problems are of his own making

That nobody in Keir Starmer’s inner circle worked out that trashing his personal reputation for a hundred grand’s worth of free stuff was a bad deal tells us a lot. Worse still, nobody seems even to have clocked that accepting so many freebies, especially from the ambitious Labour peer Lord Alli, could prove politically toxic – even though Starmer in opposition had frequently lambasted the likes of Boris Johnson for filling his own boots. On top of that, apparently no one had an issue with giving the right-wing media a free hit on the Prime Minister’s wife for the sake of £5,000 worth of clothes and personal shopping advice. The