Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Monday

Alexander Horne

Starmer shouldn’t rush to copy Meloni’s Albania migrant plan

One of the first things Keir Starmer did on entering Downing Street in July was to abandon the previous government’s Rwanda asylum partnership. The Prime Minister said Rishi Sunak’s flagship scheme was a costly gimmick. But it now appears the PM is considering an asylum processing scheme of his own, which could see migrants removed to Albania. Speaking ahead of a visit to Rome today to meet with the Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni, Starmer said he was ‘interested’ to see how Italy’s own migrant processing scheme with Albania might work. He revealed he had already had some discussions with Meloni on how the two can ‘work together on irregular

Matthew Lynn

Electric vehicle targets are completely pointless

Labour might relax the ban on the sale of new petrol cars that is scheduled to come into force in six years’ time, according to reports today. The government will reportedly allow hybrids to still be sold until 2035, on the grounds that they are proving far more popular with consumers than the entirely battery driven cars. In truth, this tinkering doesn’t really matter: government targets for electric vehicles are completely meaningless anyway. By definition, it is impossible to know what technical breakthroughs may be made over the next few years The 2030 ban already looks ambitious. The European Union is only aiming for 2035, with the German auto-makers putting

Steerpike

Watch: Yvette Cooper’s awkward interview on Lady Starmer’s wardrobe

Sir Keir Starmer hasn’t been in office three months yet and already the Labour government is mired in cronyism controversies. One of the issues currently dogging the Prime Minister involves a rather wealthy donor Lord Alli and, er, Starmer’s wife. Last month, it emerged that Alli received a No. 10 pass after funding the PM’s wardrobe. On Sunday, it transpired that Lady Starmer had been a beneficiary of Alli’s donations too – but these had not been declared in line with parliamentary rules. Dear oh dear… While the PM may now face an investigation into the issue, the media skills of his ministers aren’t doing him any favours. As Mr

Ross Clark

Does Starmer have the gall to send asylum seekers to Albania?

Sending asylum-seekers to Rwanda would, of course, be a moral outrage. We know this because Labour shadow ministers kept telling us so when the previous government wanted to do just this. Fortunately, however, there is a far more ethical alternative: to send them to Albania instead – something which Keir Starmer is considering after meeting with Italian prime minister Georgia Meloni to learn how her government has successfully reduced small boat arrivals over the past year. Starmer said he was ‘interested’ to see how the Albania processing scheme developed by the Italian government would work. This is just one example of a schizophrenic government weighing up a policy which is almost

Katy Balls

Can Starmer’s border security commander ‘smash the gangs’?

Keir Starmer finally has a chair for the government’s Border Security Command. When the Prime Minister first entered government, the Home Office advertised for someone to head the new unit, which ministers hope will be their answer to ‘stopping the boats’. Overnight, Martin Hewitt has been named as the successful applicant. He is a senior police officer who previously served as chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council. Of all the jobs Starmer has to offer it may prove to be the hardest – and most thankless During that time Hewitt suggested that politicians ought to refrain from calling police ‘woke’ as ‘it is an easy one-liner that will get

Gavin Mortimer

Will Michel Barnier govern for the provinces or for Paris?

Michel Barnier will unveil his government in France this week, a fortnight after the 73-year-old was nominated by Emmanuel Macron as the fifth prime minister of his presidency. It will be a government composed overwhelmingly of people from Barnier’s own party, the centre-right Republicans, and Macron’s centrist coalition. Marine Le Pen’s National Rally have ruled themselves out of contention for any posts, as have most political figures from the left. They may be out of touch with the rest of France but they don’t care It is a curious state of affairs that the Republican party, which won just 47 of the 577 seats in July’s parliamentary election, is now

Sam Leith

Keir Starmer and his wife don’t need a personal shopper

Well, colour me disappointed. I was among those – mugs, the uncharitable will be quick to call them – who imagined that Sir Keir Starmer represented the arrival of a welcome period of dull, unshowy decency at the top of our politics. I thought that whatever else he did – disappointed the left; enraged the right; made ‘hard decisions’ that nobody liked – it would be a long time before he was caught making chiselling excuses for accepting freebies, or rewarding donors with favours. His background as a lawyer, his punctilious attention to detail, that whole stiff air of priggishness he brought with him from the campaign trail to Downing Street: these may not have been attractive qualities, may not have been qualities that enhanced his personal charisma (as Boris’s

Nigel Jones

Is Austria’s far-right Freedom Party heading for victory?

Amidst all the focus on the triumph of Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in Thuringia’s local state elections earlier this month, less attention has been paid to another upcoming European election in which the far-right is expected to do well: the general elections in Austria on 29 September. Kickl has made opposition to immigration the main platform of his appeal to voters Just as the polls in Thuringia and neighbouring Saxony saw a dramatic rise in support for the hard right AfD – with the party also set to win in Brandenburg’s state elections later this month – the Austrian Freedom Party (FPO) is forecast to triumph and hoover up a quarter

Sunday

Freddy Gray

What doesn’t kill Trump makes him stronger

As if there hadn’t been enough drama in America in 2024, Donald Trump has survived another assassination attempt. The attempted killing of the 45th president at his golf course in Palm Beach, Florida yesterday afternoon was not nearly as threatening or deadly as the shooting nine weeks ago in Butler, Pennsylvania, which so nearly ended Trump’s life, killed a spectator and injured others. The Secret Service, who have faced so much criticism for their failings in Butler, found the would-be killer’s weapon before he was able to target Trump, shots were fired, and the suspect appears to have been arrested fleeing the scene. Nobody was seriously harmed. What took place

Oscar Edmondson

Man in custody after ‘assassination attempt’ on Donald Trump

Multiple shots were heard at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach where the former President was golfing on Sunday afternoon. In a press conference, the Secret Service confirmed that Donald Trump is ‘safe and well’ and a man has been taken into custody. No motive has been uncovered yet. The FBI have taken over investigating the incident which they say ‘appears to be an attempted assassination of former President Trump.’ Donald Trump has since released his own statement: There were gunshots in my vicinity, but before rumours start spiralling out of control, I wanted you to hear this first: I AM SAFE AND WELL! Nothing will slow me

Steerpike

Lib Dems take a swipe at JD Vance

Conference season has begun in earnest and the Lib Dems are having a whale of a time in Brighton. After their best results in a century, the party is in a bullish mood, with Sir Ed Davey even rocking up yesterday on a jet ski. The next James Bond perhaps? And it’s in that spirit that the party has unveiled its latest merchandise, four months after their triumphs across the Blue Wall. The unofficial mascot for the party is now a cuddly Liberal Democrat cat, with items selling out on the first day of the Brighton conference. It’s the latest anthropomorphism for a party leader after Paddy Ashdown’s parrot, Charles

Joe Bedell-Brill

David Lammy: Labour ‘won’t be bullied by Putin’s shameless grandstanding’

This week the prime minister and Foreign Secretary David Lammy flew to the US for discussions involving whether to allow Ukraine to fire long-range missiles into Russian territory. Putin responded by warning he would view that outcome as ‘direct participation’ of Nato in the conflict. Speaking to Trevor Phillips on Sky News, Lammy talked up the West’s increased support for Ukraine, but would not confirm any decision regarding the long-range missiles specifically, saying the UK’s allies were continuing to ‘discuss the detail’. Phillips pointed out that Zelensky keeps reminding the West that delays in support mean more Ukrainian lives are lost. Lammy said the UK has already repeatedly disregarded Putin’s

Steerpike

David Lammy’s lamentable media round

If there’s something bad and you’re in a jam, who you gonna call? David Lammy! That’s right, the flailing Foreign Secretary has been out this morning doing his damnedest to defend the indefensible. The Talleyrand of Tottenham had something of a sticky wicket, following the Sunday Times revelations about gifts for Keir Starmer’s wife. And it seems poor old Lammy only made things worse in an interview with Trevor Phillips on Sky as he spun with all the skill of a man who once claimed Henry VII succeeded Henry VIII. Phillips put it to Lammy that it ‘feels a bit odd’ for the Prime Minister to allow a wealthy peer

Michael Biggs

The ONS finally admits to flawed trans population statistics

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has finally admitted that the 2021 census figures on the transgender population of England and Wales are irredeemably flawed. They no longer count as ‘accredited official statistics’. This is the first time that data from the decennial census – the backbone of British statistics since 1801 – has been downgraded. This humiliating climb-down came just a week before the Office for Statistics Regulation published its final review on these statistics. This review had been provoked by my critique of the census transgender figures, publicized in the Spectator last year. Until now, the ONS has brushed aside criticism from sociologists such as myself and Alice

James Tidmarsh

Will France’s school uniform experiment foster égalité?

As the new school year begins in France, pupils across the country are putting on school uniforms for the first time in decades. In a pilot program spearheaded by the government, approximately one hundred schools across the country are testing whether uniforms can reduce bullying, improve classroom tranquillity, and foster equality. While some see uniforms as common sense, others – particularly on the political left –dismiss them as a superficial fix to deep-rooted social issues. The schools participating in the experiment are primarily located in right-leaning towns, where support for the initiative has been strongest, while more left-leaning areas are resisting uniforms. Brigitte Macron, herself a former schoolteacher, is said

Graham Watts

Is it time to cancel Strictly?

The BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing returned this weekend, but rather than being met with the usual fanfare there is a growing feeling that the glitter ball may have been irreparably tarnished. Some former contestants have alleged that they were subject to bullying by their professional partners and – having already used almost 300 contestants in its now 20 year history – many think that the producers have been scraping the bottom of the celebrity barrel in recent years. Such criticisms have led to speculation that it might be time to cancel the show. Cancel culture won’t yet claim Strictly as another victim. There are signs of life, however. This year

Ian Williams

What’s behind China’s overseas policing drive?

So China wants to make the world more ‘safe, reasonable and efficient’ by training thousands of police officers from across the globe to ‘help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities’. The offer came this week from Wang Xiaohong, China’s minister for public security, at a police forum attended by officials from 122 countries in the eastern city of Lianyungang. There were few details, but then few are needed. Authoritarian countries will see China’s frequently brutal approach to law and order, coupled with its zero tolerance for dissent, as rather appealing – and many will already have invested in the technical side of China’s surveillance state. However, even

Laurie Wastell

Why the ‘two-tier Keir’ jibe isn’t going away

Popping champagne, skulking off to smoke a spliff and pledging to become a life-long Labour voter. Anyone concerned about criminal justice in Britain will find the well-documented glee of the 1,700 prisoners given early release around the country this week galling indeed. As domestic abusers and career criminals walk free, many will have been struck by the contrast with the government’s response to last month’s riots, bringing to mind that most irresistible of epithets: ‘two-tier Keir’. In the Commons, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage duly used his first ever question at PMQs to punch this bruise. Many of those leaving prison will be effectively swapping places with those arrested last month in the disturbances following

Saturday

Steerpike

Starmer facing ethics probe over undeclared gifts

Oh dear. It seems that the ‘passes for glasses’ row isn’t going away any time soon. A month after it was revealed that Lord Alli had received a Downing Street pass after bankrolling Keir Starmer’s wardrobe, today’s Sunday Times contains a fresh development. Not content with dressing up the Prime Minister, it seems that Alli has also been kitting out his wife Victoria too. Perhaps he bought the couple matching outfits? Unfortunately for Sir Keir, while his clothes were declared in line with parliamentary rules on donations, the same cannot be said for those worn by his wife. The Sunday Times reports that the clothes were given to Lady Starmer

Ian Williams

Are Hong Kong trade offices just Chinese propaganda machines?

China has reacted with anger at American threats to close Hong Kong’s trade offices in the United States, pledging to ‘take practical and effective measures to resolutely counteract it’, while the territory’s Commerce Secretary accused Washington of ‘slander’. In reality, Hong Kong Economic and Trade Offices (HKETOs), which were set up to oversee the territory’s external commercial relations and have some diplomatic privileges, are an anachronism. Now that Hong Kong has been stripped of its autonomy, they appear to have little purpose other than to parrot Beijing. There are three such offices in the US – in Washington DC, New York and San Francisco – and on Tuesday the US