Politics

Read about the latest political news, views and analysis

Friday

Kate Andrews

Biden’s legacy has been left in tatters

Joe Biden did not simply alter his chances at winning a second term last night. He altered his legacy. It will remain forever changed, regardless of the outcome in November. In 2020 Biden was chosen to be president – first by his party, then by the public – to take some toxicity and radicalism out of the debate. This centre-left Democrat (or centre-left compared to the rest of his party, at least) had a decades-long history of working with his Republican counterparts. He had the once common, now miraculous, ability to get along with (and even on occasion praise) politicians outside of his own party.  This was a dereliction of

Yascha Mounk

Democrats have led America to the brink of the abyss

Before Thursday’s debate, the leading contender to win the upcoming presidential election was already Donald Trump, a man whose first stint in the White House provided all the necessary evidence that he is spectacularly ill-suited for the job. During that term in office, Trump ruled rashly and selfishly. He lavished praise on his appointees before firing scores of them for incompetence or insubordination. He picked constant fights with the independent institutions that preserve the separation of powers. And when he lost a hard-fought race, he refused to concede defeat, inspiring a mob to assault Congress, and breaking the key norm that has sustained the American Republic for the past centuries.

Nick Cohen

Biden and Harris must go

For months US Democrats have been wondering why voters were not supporting Joe Biden. He has been a good president, and enacted many worthy reforms. Donald Trump, by contrast, is clearly a dictator in the making. The idea that American voters have elderly relatives and (love them though they do), know that an 81-year-old cannot take on a tough job, let alone stay in post until he is 86, did not seem to occur to them. You are in a fight to save your democracy. You can’t expect others to do your fighting for you Ah, Democrats were saying only this week, Trump is as rambling and senile as Biden. Maybe, but you need

Steerpike

Fact check: how many of Biden’s debate claims stack up?

Most presidential debates tend to be underwhelming but last night certainly was not one of them. Much of the subsequent coverage focused on Joe Biden’s hesitant, stumbling performance, prompting Donald Trump at one stage to remark that ‘I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don’t think he knows what he said either.’ But Mr S was more struck by the sheer number of times that Joe Biden seemed to make statements that were either misleading – or simply downright untrue. Below are eight of the worst instances… Trump ‘bleach’ comments on Covid Biden began the debate by accusing Trump of not taking the

Fraser Nelson

Will Biden survive his debate implosion?

13 min listen

The Democrats wanted and needed a compelling performance from Joe Biden last night: a rebuttal to the concerns about his age and ability. Instead, his performance was disastrous. Is there any way he can survive this performance? Katy Balls speaks to Fraser Nelson and Sarah Elliott, director of the UK-US special relationship unit at the Legatum Institute. 

Steerpike

Biden’s descent: the five worst debate moments

Can Joe Biden cling on? That’s the question being asked in Washington DC after a painful performance from the US President in the first debate of the contest. While there’s still plenty of time between now and the November election debate, even dedicated Democrats are struggling to shrug off Biden’s performance. There’s already talk that the upcoming Democrat convention in August could provide on opportunity to change course. So, how bad was it? To let readers decide for themselves, Mr S has compiled Biden’s five worse debate moments. Warning: painful viewing ahead. 1. Medicare JUST IN: Trump seizes the moment after Biden completely froze on stage. Biden: "What I've been

Matthew Lynn

Markets are readying for a Trump victory

If you didn’t have time to watch the presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden last night you could have just watched the share price of a little-known Chinese company called Wisesoft instead. Its Chinese name ‘Chuan Da Zhi Sheng’ sounds very like ‘Trump Wins Big’ in Mandarin, and local speculators piled in as it became clear just how catastrophically the incumbent had performed. In reality, that verdict is going to be repeated when Wall Street opens later today. Investors, though, have already made up their minds. Trump is going to win, and nothing can change that now.  The markets are already buying up all the assets that will

Steerpike

Full list: every controversial Reform candidate

After storming out of the blocks at the beginning of this campaign, polls suggest that Reform’s support has now tailed off slightly in the past week. So what’s the reason for this? Nigel Farage himself suggested to ITV yesterday that he had been ‘wilfully misinterpreted’ over his Ukraine comments but added that: ‘I think the other thing that’s perhaps had a bigger impact is we’ve just had too many candidates who’ve said stupid things. I think that’s perhaps the reason that we’ve dropped off a little bit.’ So who are these candidates saying ‘stupid things’? Mr S has started pulling together a handy guide of Reform’s nominees across the party

Freddy Gray

After last night, nobody believes in Joe Biden

‘I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don’t think he knows what he said either.’  Donald Trump, for all his flaws, has always had a knack for expressing what everybody is thinking. With those words, delivered on the CNN debate stage last night after Joe Biden had stumbled and mumbled through yet another answer, he all but buried the 46th presidency.  ‘Joe you did such a great job,’ Jill Biden said, as if talking to a small child Biden might stagger on through the Democratic National Convention in August. But it’s hard to see how his presidency can last much longer. Either he

Steerpike

‘That was painful’: Democrat pundits mourn Biden implosion

Oh dear. The Democrats are reeling from Joe Biden’s disastrous performance in the first presidential debate of the election. After the US president stopped and started, looked puzzled and struggled to answer questions, commentators are out in force suggesting Biden is not fit for a second term. Yet this time something has changed. It’s not just the usual critics. For a sense of how this time, Biden is in real trouble take a look at what Democrat pundits are saying. The CNN debate panel was a case in point. The US broadcaster is known for being the channel for Democrats – and against Donald Trump at all costs. Yet during

Fraser Nelson

Will Biden survive his debate implosion?

The Democrats wanted and needed a compelling performance from Joe Biden last night: a rebuttal to the concerns about his age and ability. Instead, his performance was disastrous. His voice was hoarse, he rambled, frequently lost his chain of thought and sometimes couldn’t even get to the end of his sentences. Donald Trump was composed (not usual for him) and was as sharp as Biden was weak. When Trump went into his traditional hyperbole, Biden was unable to answer. It was perhaps the worst performance from any Democratic candidate in the television age and has led to panicked discussion about ditching him. Trump was heading for the White House before

Charles Lipson

Presidential debate: Joe Biden was painful to watch

These weren’t the Lincoln-Douglas debates. They weren’t Kennedy-Nixon. If those were graded ‘A’, then this was ‘C-minus’, at best. Both candidates filled the air with hyperbole. Trump led the way, as usual, calling everything he did ‘the best ever’, and everything Biden did ‘the worst’. He doesn’t favour shades of grey. The President looked dreadful and sounded hoarse. Biden responded in kind. He was right to emphasise Trump’s hours of silence during the 6 January attack on the Capitol. But he didn’t stop there. He went on to repeat what he surely knows is a lie about Trump’s comments after Charlottesville. And he kept going, trying to link Trump directly neo-Nazis.

Jawad Iqbal

Iran’s sham election will change nothing

Voting takes place in Iran’s snap presidential election today – a contest brought forward by the death last month in a helicopter crash of the former president Ebrahim Raisi. A few predictions can be made with absolute certainty. Firstly, the winner will be a man (there are no women taking part – Iran’s ruling clerics take a dim view of the idea of a woman being allowed near the presidency). Secondly, the new president will be someone who swears absolute loyalty to the system and ultimately the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. All of which prompts the question of why bother to have an election. The answer is that elections – the

Thursday

Katy Balls

Should we ban polls?

13 min listen

Some countries, like Canada and France, have bans on polling close to the election. Many figures on both sides of the campaign have been frustrated at how the media is consuming polling. What is a polling blackout, and why do some people want one? Megan McElroy speaks to Katy Balls and Chris Hopkins, polling expert and political research director at Savanta. Elsewhere, David Tennant has taken aim at Kemi Badenoch. She has, to little surprise, responded. With one week to go, does the electorate have any appetite for a culture war? 

Lara Prendergast

Downfall: how Nigel Farage became the left’s greatest weapon

44 min listen

This week: Downfall. Our cover piece examines Nigel Farage’s role in the UK general election. Spectator editor Fraser Nelson argues that Farage has become the left’s greatest weapon, but why? How has becoming leader of Reform UK impacted the campaign and could this lead to a fundamental realignment of British politics? Fraser joined the podcast to talk through his theory, with former UKIP MEP Patrick O’Flynn (02:10). Next: Spectator writer Svitlana Morenets has returned to Ukraine to report on the war, which is now well into its third year. How are Ukrainians coping and what is daily life like? Svitlana joined the podcast from Kyiv with Ukrainian author Andrey Kurkov (21:53). And finally: has

Michael Evans

Sending US contractors to Ukraine could provoke Moscow

Call it ‘slippery slope’ or ‘mission creep’, America’s strategy for helping Ukraine defend itself against the Russian invasion has adapted and expanded many times in the last 28 months. However, there was a golden rule laid down by President Biden almost on the first day of Russia’s aggression against its neighbour. There would be no ‘boots on the ground’, he said. No US troops would be deployed to fight the Russians. Civil contractors have played a significant role in the field in every US war in modern times. But the US is not at war in Ukraine That Biden doctrine has not changed. And yet now there is serious consideration

Professor Gordon Wishart

Politicians aren’t discussing Britain’s woeful cancer survival rates

Last week, amid a flurry of election policies and debates, a striking report found that cancer survival in England currently lags up to 25 years behind European countries like Sweden, Norway and Denmark. From bowel cancer to breast diagnoses, England is firmly lagging behind our Scandinavian neighbours. What’s to blame? Why aren’t major parties discussing how this decline could be reversed in their manifestos? The revelation by Macmillan Cancer Support is the legacy of many years of underfunding, resulting in delays to diagnosis and treatment. England has less scanners, beds, cancer specialists & nurses per head of population than comparable countries. An NHS spokesperson quite rightly pointed out that more

Nigel Jones

Why the Bolivia coup failed

Latin America has long been the traditional home of the military coup – or ‘golpe’ in Spanish – so the sight yesterday of soldiers rushing the presidential palace in La Paz, capital of Bolivia, and ramming its doors open with an armoured vehicle, may not have seemed surprising. The abortive coup attempt was aimed at toppling Bolivia’s left-wing president, Luis Arce After hours of confusion, the leader of the coup, General Juan Jose Zuniga, was led away under arrest, with his attempt to ‘restructure democracy’ having clearly failed. Earlier, crowds had taken to the streets in response to presidential appeals to defend democracy and oppose the coup. The abortive coup

Mark Galeotti

Why the plot to kill Putin would be a mistake

Is the assassination of Vladimir Putin the answer to ending the war in Ukraine? A collection of émigré Russians who have declared themselves the ‘Congress of People’s Deputies’ and a Russian parliament in opposition have called for the West not only to support them in a campaign to overthrow Vladimir Putin, but actively to play a role. This would be a serious mistake. At a recent gathering in Warsaw, these émigrés, all of whom at some point or another had previously been elected as parliamentarians in Russia, agreed their ‘victory plan,’ a seven-point programme, due to be presented during Nato’s forthcoming Washington summit. Their fundamental view is that the war

Isabel Hardman

The pointlessness of the junior doctors’ strike

Junior doctors are back out on strike in England today, walking out this morning for five days. The timing of this particular strike is highly political, given medics will return to work just before polling day – but it is also highly pointless: something NHS leaders have been quick to highlight. The election campaign is the one period when no politician can resolve the dispute over doctors’ pay. Rishi Sunak is not going to change his mind and award the doctors the 35 per cent raise they have been demanding, but neither could he if he wanted to because of the election purdah rules. Labour, on the other hand, aren’t