Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Monday

Gavin Mortimer

France’s political upheaval is bad news for Ukraine

It has been a bad few days for Volodymyr Zelensky. The president of Ukraine must have covered his face with his hands as he watched Joe Biden’s rambling performance against Donald Trump in last week’s televised debate. Trump’s view on Ukraine’s war with Russia are well-known: he wants an end to the conflict Then came the results from the first round of the parliamentary elections in France. There is still a second round to play but one thing is certain: the next government will not be one of Emmanuel Macron’s choice. His political project – what he described as ‘neither left nor right’ – is dead, and so to all

Sam Leith

Why is Putin really trying to interfere in the UK election?

Who says Britain is no longer a Great Power? To those of a declinist cast of mind, it must stand as a rebuke that, even with everything else on his plate, Vladimir Putin still regards our elections as worth interfering in. And, what’s more, those elections are so important that the Aussies are taking enough of an interest in them to consider that Russian interference newsworthy.   Russia may be trying to influence our elections, which as I say is flattering and all, but they aren’t trying very hard At the same time as it’s heartening that the Australian Broadcasting Corporation considers this a big deal it’s also, I suppose,

Ilya Somin

The (selfish) case for immigration

The 2024 general election ‘should be the immigration election’, Nigel Farage has said. The Reform leader’s wish has been granted: the topic of immigration is a major focus of debate. It’s also a big issue in the United States’ presidential election. Much of the debate in both countries depicts immigrants as a burden that receiving countries should accept (if at all) only out of altruism or a sense of obligation. But this is misleading, and ignores the many benefits of migration to Britain and other receiving countries. Open migration is not just charity for migrants Accepting migrants is the right thing to do, in part because it saves many thousands of

John Keiger

National Rally brings a political earthquake to France

There is one big winner from the first round of the French legislative elections – and several big losers. The winner is the Rassemblement National (National Rally) with 33 per cent of voters backing its candidates or their allies – on a turnout of 67 per cent, the highest in decades. The RN now has a fighting chance of forming a working government from 7 July.  Marine Le Pen has called on voters to give her party an ‘absolute majority’ in the National Assembly in the next round of elections on Sunday. ‘We need an absolute majority for Jordan Bardella to be named prime minister by Emmanuel Macron in eight

Steerpike

Harington endorses Labour – after in-law backed Brexit party

With the general election just three days away, the celebrity endorsements have started to roll in. Now Dragon’s Den judge Deborah Meaden, singer-songwriter Elton John and comedian Jason Manford have come out for Labour – all with snappy video messages gushing praise on the party. Steerpike has spotted one rather interesting addition to the celeb lineup however, in the form of one Kit Harington of hit TV series Game of Thrones. The Jon Snow actor was seen in a Twitter video shared by the party on Sunday telling viewers to back Sir Keir’s lefty lot. In his endorsement of Starmer’s army, a dressed-down Harington told the camera: One issue that

Sunday

Gavin Mortimer

Marine Le Pen’s National Rally is on course to take power

Emmanuel Macron suffered the biggest humiliation of his presidency on Sunday evening as his Renaissance party was beaten into third place in the first round of the parliamentary elections. Exit polls confirmed what the opinion polls predicted last week: that Marine Le Pen’s National Rally is now the dominant force in French politics. It surpassed the 31 per cent score in the European elections on June 9 – a victory that prompted Macron to call a snap election – winning 34 per cent of the vote. The left-wing Popular Front coalition was second with 29 per cent, and Macron’s centrist Renaissance party trailed in third on 22 per cent. The

Steerpike

Reform candidate ditches party over ‘racism and sexism’

Another day, another election campaign drama. Now it’s Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party in the limelight with more candidate controversy. Only this time it’s not the party defending contentious comments. Instead, one of the party’s candidates has turned on Reform. Oo er. Liam Booth-Isherwood, formerly a Reform candidate for Erewash, has today disowned the party over allegations of racism. The former Farage man has instead decided to endorse the Conservative party, backing the Tory contender – Maggie Throup – in the election. ‘Over the past few weeks, I have been increasingly disillusioned with the behaviour and conduct of Reform,’ Booth-Isherwood claimed in a statement, adding: Whilst I have campaigned alongside

Lucy Dunn

Sunday shows round-up: Farage insists racism row canvasser an ‘actor’

Nigel Farage: racism row canvasser is an ‘actor’ It’s been a tricky few days for Reform UK’s leader Nigel Farage after one of his party’s canvassers was caught using a racial slur against the Prime Minister. Rishi Sunak hit back at the Reform man’s words, saying it ‘hurts and it makes me angry’. Yet today, Farage insisted that he was not linked to controversial members, saying to Sky’s Trevor Phillips that in this case he ‘knows it is’ a set up, calling the member in question an ‘actor’. He went on: If you want to support us, why not come as the person you really are. Why come using your

Jonathan Spyer

Will Hezbollah declare war on Israel?

In Israel currently, people are waiting for a possible escalation in the north. The United States, Canada, Germany, Ireland, Russia and the Netherlands have called on their citizens in Lebanon to leave the country. Western embassies in Lebanon are exploring the coastal area to locate possible points from where an evacuation by sea could be carried out. The German foreign ministry, in a message on its website, drily notes: ‘A further escalation could also lead to a complete suspension of air traffic from Rafiq Hariri Airport. Leaving Lebanon by air would then no longer be possible.’   The USS Wasp amphibious assault ship has arrived via the Strait of Gibraltar to the

Isabel Hardman

Why is Sunak proud of his defensive campaign?

Rishi Sunak isn’t lacking in energy as he goes into his final few days of election campaigning. He is, though, using that energy in some quite futile ways. He spent much of his interview with Laura Kuenssberg this morning arguing with the way she phrased questions and getting irritated that he wasn’t being given enough time to explain himself on key policy areas. That tetchy impatience – something Sunak never recognises in himself – has long been one of his visible flaws.  It isn’t necessarily the kind of visible flaw that puts voters off a prime minister. The problem for Sunak was not whether he had eaten enough breakfast and

Michael Taube

Trudeau must uncover the truth about what happened in Kabul

Barely a week has gone by before Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is back in the news again – and for all the wrong reasons. Trudeau and his Liberal government have been involved in a litany of mistakes, missteps and messes since they took power in 2015. These include previous allegations of the PM wearing blackface, ethics breaches, questionable spending history – and more. And now a new incident this week can be added to the list. This controversy, more than most, seems particularly egregious. The Globe and Mail’s blistering story alleged that then-National Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan instructed Canada’s Armed Forces to focus on rescuing about 225 Sikhs in Afghanistan during the 2021

Fraser Nelson

Coffee House Shots live: election special

58 min listen

Join Fraser Nelson, Katy Balls and Kate Andrews for this special edition of Coffee House Shots, recorded live ahead of the general election. As election day draws closer, Fraser talks through some myth-busting statistics and the team answer questions from the audience. Could this election increase support for proportional representation? What policy does the panel think has been the most interesting? And was there ever a probable path to victory for Rishi Sunak? Produced by Natasha Feroze and Patrick Gibbons. Check out The Spectator’s data hub for more graphs and statistics, updated daily. 

Gavin Mortimer

Will Marine Le Pen finish what her father started?

France votes today. If the opinion polls are correct Marine Le Pen’s National Rally will be the big winner in the first round of the parliamentary elections. A poll on Friday had the NR on 36.5 per cent – seven and a half per cent ahead of the left-wing Popular Front coalition, with Emmanuel Macron’s centrist union third on 20.5 per cent of the vote share. The polls were spot on at the start of the month, predicting a landslide victory for the NR in the European elections that duly transpired – so it seems probable that once again one in three voters will cast their ballot for a party

Lisa Haseldine

Inside the Lib Dems’ campaign to tear down the Blue Wall

‘We would not put in this effort if we weren’t the challengers, and we clearly are.’ Liberal Democrat candidate Paul Kohler is sitting on a park bench on a sunny Sunday afternoon in Wimbledon, South West London. In 2019, this was the tightest Tory-Lib Dem marginal seat in the country: Kohler lost out to the Conservative incumbent Stephen Hammond by a mere 628 votes.  Last time may have been painfully close (‘You’re telling me!’) but now Kohler fancies his chances – and the polls suggest he’s right to be confident. With just four days to go until polling day, the latest surveys suggest that he could win the seat with

Kate Andrews

Paul Johnson: Tory and Labour attacks are ‘broadly fictional’

We’re five weeks into the election campaign – and just days away from polling day – and voters have plenty of parties, and numbers, to consider. Labour will raise everyone’s tax bill by £2,000, claim the Conservatives. Mortgages will rise by £4,800 under another Tory government, insist Labour. Is any of it true? ‘I would suggest that voters entirely ignore all of those sorts of numbers and calculations’, says Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, in The Spectator’s office. ‘I think they’re broadly fictional.’ They are impossible claims to make, partly because ‘we don’t know what would happen under these different governments, because they really haven’t told

Robin Ashenden

The Tories have much to learn from their 1997 wipeout

If polls are anything to go by, Labour’s historic 1997 election win – 418 seats to the Tories’ 165 – is about to be dwarfed by this week’s vote. An exclusive survey for the Daily Telegraph recently predicted Labour would win 516 seats to the Tories’ 53. A political wipeout, in other words, seems to await Rishi Sunak and his government – their worst result ever. Hanging on to 165 seats in parliament, however woeful it seemed three decades ago, would put smiles of relief on most Conservative faces. Hanging on to 165 seats, however woeful it seemed three decades ago, would put smiles of relief on most Conservative faces

Saturday

Jawad Iqbal

Why is Starmer starting rows before the election?

The Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has insisted he didn’t mean to cause ‘concern or offence’ when he called for more Bangladeshi asylum seekers to be deported. His comments – singling out Bangladesh as a place where more people could be returned to from the UK – have sparked uproar in the British-Bangladeshi community (traditionally Labour-supporting), as well as strong criticism from some of Starmer’s own MPs, councillors and activists. What exactly did the Labour leader say that has landed him in such hot water? Speaking specifically about people who come to the UK illegally, Starmer told the Sun newspaper: ‘I’ll make sure we get planes going off… back to the countries

Margaret Mitchell

Biden’s social media needs a refresh

Joe Biden has a cold. That was the desperate message sent out by sources close to the president halfway through Thursday night’s painful debate. Biden’s sick-note recalls the first televised debate in 1960, when the incumbent vice president and Republican nominee Richard Nixon, recently hospitalised and still recovering from a staph infection, appeared pale and sickly beside the tanned, waspy Democrat John F. Kennedy who had the advantage of makeup on his side. Trump and Biden campaigns have been courting ‘content creators’ Six-and-a-half decades on, the presidential debates remain little more than a beauty pageant, this time apparently with morticians staffing the makeup team. The televised format changed the presidency forever,

Peter Wood

Newsom is better than Biden

I have on the desk two yo-yos. One is from the brand Duncan – the ‘Imperial’ model. The other is from the brand Yomega – the ‘Fireball’. Which is better?  The Imperial is the top-of-the-line Duncan model, a classic, that gave warrant to company’s 1960s slogan: ‘If it isn’t a Duncan, it isn’t a yo-yo’. The Imperial is the vintage Rolls Royce of yo-yos. It’s elegant but not for the racecourse. The Fireball, introduced in the 1990s, was part of the new generation of ‘transaxle’ yoyos, which allow for sustained spin and complex tricks. It is a sports car – though since superseded by much higher performance models. While you weigh that choice, let’s

Iain Macwhirter

SNP attempts to legislate against inequality failed. Labour’s will too

The road to hell, as we all know, is paved with good intentions. It is also lined with reams of paper policies which inhibit action, increase bureaucracy and achieve contradictory results. The ones who generally benefit are the high priests of the bureaucratic order: lawyers, consultants, academics and NGOs. So no prizes for guessing who will mainly benefit from Labour’s promise to achieve the dream of every far-left activist since Proudhon: make economic inequality illegal.  The Labour manifesto commits Keir Starmer to implement the ‘socio-economic duty’ (SED) of the 2010 Equality Act, which potentially criminalises ‘inequalities that result from differences in occupation, education, place of residence or social class’. This extraordinary law